We Capture A Flag
The next few days I setted into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.
"Did it take long to get used to it, right?" Nico asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Actually, it was only in my second year that I got used to it," Ariel said shyly.
"Oh, that's true," Annabeth says, laughing.
Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird.
I discovered Annabeth was right about my dylexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read.After a couple of mornings, I could stamble through a few lines of Homer without toon much headache.
The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activites looking for something I was good at. Chiron tired to teach me archery, but we found out pretty quickly I wasn't any good with a bow and arrows. He didn't complain even when he had to design a stray arrow out of his tail.
Everyone in the room bursts into laughter.
"You hit Chiron with a bow?" Hermes asks, his eyes wide.
"It wasn't intentional," Ariel says defensively.
"I can teach you how to use a bow if you want," Apollo says to Ariel.
"You already did. Actually, you and Artemis," Ariel says gratefully.
Apollo smiles, happy to have helped his soulmate. Artemis also smiles, hoping that she and Ariel can become good friends.
Foot racing? Not good either.
The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.
"They're faster than most demigods," Will says charmingly.
"But not faster than us," Hermes' sons say mischievously.
And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me. - There's more where that came punk. - she'd mumble in my ear.
"This actually hurts," Ariel says, pretending to be in pain.
"Dramatic," Clarisse says, rolling her eyes, but a small smile appears at the corner of her mouth.
The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't kind of heroic skill people expect to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.
I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time.
"I don't understand why they didn't figure it out right away; it's pretty obvious," Athena says.
"Well, not everyone can be as smart as you, can they?" Ares asks mockingly.
"We mostly just denied it," says Annabeth, as the campers who were there nod knowingly.
"Why?" Zeus asks, not understanding why it's a problem that Ariel is her brother's daughter.
"They'll explain it slowly; it'll be in this part," Ariel says uncomfortably.
I wasn't strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as Apollo kids. I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metal work-or-gods forbid- Dionysus's way with vine plants. Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of all-trades, master of none. But I got feeling he was just trying me make of me either.
