*DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS. THEY ARE THE PROPERTY OF RICK RIORDAN. I AM NOT STEALING HIS WORK, JUST WRITING A FAN FICTION.*
"C'mon, Luke! Are you going to let me win?" The ten-year-old's grin lingers on her face. Annabeth takes another swipe at me with her dagger, the one I'd given her on our journey three years before. I block it easily and my sword clanks into hers.
"That's more like it!" Her curls dance in the breeze, her gray eyes glittering with a giddy energy.
"Can you handle this?" I flick my wrist and send her dagger cartwheeling through the air. My eyes are trained on the short blade as I watch it fall. A tan hand catches it easily and stabs at me.
I wasn't not paying attention; I jumped when I felt the cool celestial bronze blade pressed against my exposed throat. I let out a low whistle as Annabeth removed the weapon from my neck.
"That was great!" I clapped her on the shoulder. She was only a foot shorter than my height of 6' 2".
"Thanks, Luke," She hugged me and pulled away quickly, her cheeks flushed crimson.
A conch shell sounded in the distance and Annabeth ran forward. "Are you coming, Luke?"
"I'm going to put my sword in my cabin. Under lock and key, of course," I winked at her. "I'll join you later, okay?"
"Kay," She darted off to join her siblings.
If you're new to our way of life, and you're just learning about everything, let me introduce myself.
I'm Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, not that he's involved with me or anything. Yeah, you read that right. Hermes, Greek god of thieves, travelers, and the god of messengers, is my dad. Allow me to say, being a child of Hermes isn't some sort of extravagant gift; it sucks. It's not the "being a demigod" in general that stinks. It's the part where my dad can't seem to pay a lick of attention to me. Actually, being a demigod is pretty awesome. A demigod is what they call kids like us; half mortal and half god. We're also called half-bloods. Imagine a video game where all of the Greek gods, monsters, titans, you know, everything that has to do with Greek mythology, is real. Okay, so a few of the myths were made up, but most of them are true to life experiences people like Jason and Perseus lived through. You're the main character and you live at a magical camp, fight monsters, and train with the millennium old centaur Chiron. This life is real for me and a few others, including you, if you're reading this, since it's in ancient Greek and, unless you're an extremely smart mortal Greek professor, (yeah, right), you wouldn't be able to understand a bit of it. Let me guess, you've had trouble in school; you've been diagnosed with dyslexia, and ADHD? All demigods have. It's because we don't recognize present languages like mortals, our brains are meant for reading ancient Greek. And ADHD makes you a much better fighter, it speeds up reactions; you were destined to fight monsters.
I didn't know what I was until we reached Camp Half-Blood. I traveled at first alone, then I ran into Thalia, a girl who would later save my life, and Annabeth, a mere seven year old child back then. After fighting monsters for a while, we reached camp. At the time, Thalia, Annabeth, our protector Grover, a satyr (half goat, half human), who was sent from Camp Half-Blood to bring us safely there, and I were being chased by a Cyclopes. Thalia...gave up her life to save me and Annabeth. She was only twelve at the time, and the bravest, strongest person I'd ever met and will ever meet, with Annabeth as first runner-up. I was fourteen. I should have been the one to save us...I should be the one in the pine tree. Just before she could die, her immortal father, Zeus, god of the sky, turned her into a pine tree and that's where she is today. Guilt still nearly makes me double over at the thought of what she did for Annabeth and Grover. For me.
