𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐒, apollo

𝐱. i have a tour around camp half-blood

I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT to think. What I was supposed to do in this situation? I don't think that there's a handbook for finding out your father is a fucking greek god. Hades, nevertheless.

So, instead of realising my situation, I decided to focus on our tour around the territory and the thought that this might be my home for how knows how long swarmed my mind.

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn Percy was carrying, saying "That's him."

Another looked at me, whispering to his friend, "That's the girl who almost killed Grover!"

"That's his daughter? Yeah, I could have guessed," The other said.

Most of the campers were around the same age as us. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare, shaggy hindquarters.

I wasn't normally shy, I wasn't afraid to call out others for looking at me weirdly, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to make a gigantic hole to the underworld or something. Wait, could I do that? I shook my head, trying to ignore the stares. They looked at me as if I was evil.

I turned to look at Percy, whose expression was similar, but the campers didn't look at him like they did at me. People looked at him with slight interest sparkling in their eyes. But to me? They looked at me with slight disgust and... fear, I realised. I saw maybe a nine-year-old look at me with wide eyes as she slightly took a step closer to her friends.

It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. For the rest of our tour, I kept my head down.

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune... on a reed pipe? Chiron told us the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus.

"It pays our expenses," He explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort." He said that Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was apparently restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.

"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" Percy asked Chiron. "I mean... he was a good protector. Really."

I snorted and Cy quickly elbowed me. Chiron glanced at me for a second before saying, "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than is reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that!"

"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate... fate of your mother.

And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

"But it wasn't his fault!" I argued.

"Maybe." Chiron winced, "But, I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Bridget. The council was anxious to give him another, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."