Melancholy Kaleidescope | PJO

Ch. 2: New Guy's First Offering

It didn't take long for the news of what had happened at the bathroom to spread through the camp. Jinora couldn't stop thinking about Clarisse's face. Normally, she would feel bad for someone when they got drenched in toilet water. But there was no denying that Clarisse got what she deserved.

Annabeth continued to lead the three of them around while finishing up the tour of the camp for Percy. Jinora's shoes sloshed against the ground. She couldn't wait to take another shower.

"Jinora," Percy said. She looked over at him. Despite the lack of anger on her face, he felt the need to apologize. "I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Are you kidding," she exclaimed excitedly. "That was awesome! Though, I could have done without the sewer water. I've never seen that happen before, even at camp. How did you do that?"

There was that question again. In her jittery ecstaticism, she had forgotten that she'd already asked him that. So he just repeated the answer he'd given her before.

"I don't know. It just happened."

"Just happened," Annabeth questioned. Jinora nearly missed the tone as she turned and waved at the naiads in the lake.

"It wasn't my fault," Percy claimed, though neither he nor Annabeth believed what he was saying. Jinora was too distracted to give her input.

"You'll need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth told him.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron," Annabeth said.

The naiads looked to Jinora's right and waved. Percy smiled and waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

Jinora looked over and shot her friend an offended expression. "Um, how dare you. I happen to like the naiads very much."

Annabeth just rolled her eyes and shook her head at her friend. Percy took a deep breath. "That's it. I want to go home now."

The joking and jittery energy that had been racing through Jinora since the bathroom incident was zapped out of her body at that comment. Her grin turned into a frown as she turned back to face the boy.

"Percy," she said to him. "This is your home now. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"Mentally disturbed?"

"No," Annabeth responded immediately. Her tone was a little more annoyed. "I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

Percy glanced between the two girls before asking his next question. "Half-human and half...what?"

"I think you know."

Jinora watched as the nervousness set back in. He knew what Annabeth was talking about, he was just scared to admit it. She couldn't blame him. If she had been a little bit older when she made it to camp she would have felt the same way. But she was so young when she arrived that it didn't take much to convince her of the truth.

"God," he finally answered his own question. "Half-god."

Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."

They gave a moment for reality to set in. It was clear he was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea that all those stories and myths about the Greek gods weren't just stories or myths. They were true.

"That's..." he paused. "Crazy."

"Is it," Annabeth questioned. Jinora winced at how much like an interrogation this was beginning to feel. She knew that wasn't how the older girl was intending it to be, but that's how it came off. There was a reason Athena's children had a relatively harder time making friends at camp. "What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories/ They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"