The Apple of Hesperides

Chapter 1: Getting Claimed

He was sided with the gods of course but he had known many of the demigods who went to the other side. They were all from the Hermes cabin. After we won the war most of them pleaded to come back to Camp Halfblood and be accepted. A small percentage of them were since they had actually helped send information back to the gods side and fought Kronos' forces from the inside. But there were also those who went into hiding or were forced into exile by the gods for there crimes. No one knew what happened to them. The gods refused to say anything about them.

"Hey Jay," a voice called from the doorway of the Hermes cabin. "You coming to work on the new cabins?"

"Oh, yea sorry I was lost in thought."

"You're always 'lost in thought.'" she said using air quotes as she walked and sat down cross-legged like he was.

"Yeah, sure Lemelia."

"I'm serious I'm getting worried about you," Lemelia told him with concern in her voice.

Lemelia was always nice to him, even before the second titan war when they were both stuck in the Hermes cabin together. Then a few days after the war we started building the new cabins demigods started getting claimed by their godly parents every night at the campfire, at least three every night. Lemelia was one of the first to be claimed as a daughter of Tyche, the goddess of luck and chance.

Lemelia was five feet, five inches. She had caramel skin tone, brown hair that glistened like celestial bronze, and her pale green eyes were always focused on what would happen next. She was his best friend at camp. The daughter of Tyche was always playfully teasing him about how she would eventually grow to be the same height as him instead of him being a full 2 inches taller, his eyes that were as dark brown as they could get, nest of black curls, and the dark complexion of his skin.

As Tyche's first and only so far claimed child she is currently head counselor by default, and is generally in charge of what her cabin would look like designing it to resemble her mother and what she represents.

"So what's up this time" she asked

"It's just," Jay sighed. "I can't stop thinking about all those demigods that were banished. I wonder what happened to them.

A clap of thunder was then heard after I said that, despite the perfectly clear sky.

"Hey, we can't dwell too much on that. Zeus had forbidden any talk about them, and I would prefer it if my best friend didn't get struck by lightning."

"So you do care about me then," he phrased with a lopsided grin.

"Whatever Jay. You gonna come and help build the cabins or not. We're almost done constructing the Iris cabin. Chiron says if we finish by noon we get the rest of the day off."

"Well why didn't you say that sooner!" Jay exclaimed jumping up and nearly trampling Lemelia on his way out the door.

As Jay went through the door he looked at the Iris cabin and saw it really was almost done, all they had to do was paint rainbows on the outside of the cabin.

At 11 a.m. the campers that helped paint the cabin, Jay, Lemelia, Percy, Annabeth, and Butch the first claimed child of Iris, were drenched in sweat and paint.

"I knew it wasn't a good idea to start a paint war," Annabeth muttered under her breath.

"But guess what, we still finished before noon and we get the rest of the day off!" Percy exclaimed with excitement.

"Yea and the first thing I'll do is shower," Annabeth muttered.

Then they all went their separate ways to do whatever they felt like doing for the rest of the day.

Jay started walking towards the arena with Lemelia by his side. They did a lot of things together. Lots of the campers started making rumors about them going out and being the next big thing like Annabeth and Percy.

For hours on end the two sparred with each other. All Jay really wanted right now was to excell at something. Whether it be sword fighting, strategy, revenge, or gardening. Well, maybe not gardening but he would take almost any sign for who his godly mother was.

They skipped lunch, as usual, and didn't even notice when the dinner horn was blown until Lemelia insisted they should probably go to dinner. It was probably for Jay's sake since she had much better luck in bringing him down in sword fighting than vice versa.

At dinner, Lemelia ate with a few of her siblings at the dining pavilion. Since Jay was still unclaimed he was still stuck eating with the Hermes cabin. He was one of the only 10 unclaimed demigods yet. They were talking about who might get claimed tonight at the campfire tonight. It was all they ever talked about.

Jay stayed out of the conversation, and just ate a cheeseburger which he was trying for the first time. It was truly an amazing delicacy. He wished he could have learned of it sooner so he could eat this every night.

After burning sacrifices to the gods, we went over to amphitheater for a campfire. It was just the usual sing-alongs that we did every once in awhile but, this time we roasted marshmallows and ate s'mores. It was a very harmonious night. Then Chiron announced that the Capture the Flag game will be taking place tomorrow.

Some people started talking about what allies they were going to make such as the Athena and Ares cabin.

Then there was a collective gasp as people looked at a glowing symbol above a girl's, whose name was Melody, head. Over her head was a symbol of a multi-colored rainbow.

"Hail Melody, daughter of Iris, the messenger and rainbow goddess." Chiron proclaimed

Then there was a purple light somewhere behind Jay. As he looked back though there was no symbol there. Than he looked up and saw a new symbol no one's ever seen before. The symbol was of a pair of torches crossed. Apparently Chiron, being thousands of years old, knew what the symbol meant.

"Hail Jay, son of Hecate, Goddess of magic, crossroads, and The Mist.