Crossroads of Two Worlds

30- Hurry Up And Wait

Ok, so the show didn't go exactly how I thought it would. The fireworks went off as planned and they were beautiful, but when a lesser known but still powerful former demigod shows up in the campfire smoke... well, the camp kind of exploded, and not with land mines this time.  

Me and my friends, seated right next to the campfire, stayed calm. But everyone around us started freaking out, a few even screamed and ran towards their cabins. It was general chaos.

When a deceased daughter of Hades appears, rumors spread like wildfire. 

That's Bianca Di Angelo!

People here sure knew how to gossip, the few people that remained by the fire at least.

She's the one who died on a quest with Percy!

I heard some possible facts that I hadn't ever heard before, even from Maya or her brother.
But before I could even contemplate whether or not Maya even knew about this, Bianca started speaking. When her voice came out, it didn't seem human. It didn't seem monstrous either, more like a haunting whisper. 

But if I hadn't been sitting when she spoke, I'd have definitely fallen over and probably hurt myself.

"One will die and three survive. On gold and silver and lightning thrive. A leader old, heroes new, choose to fight or choose to die, choose to shout or choose to cry."

I let out an audible gasp but before I could explain myself (they all looked at me like I was crazy), Bianca spoke again, more of a continuance of her former words.

"Daughter of lighting, children of legends, search for answers so dead can be risen. Only time will tell how far they fall. Suffering has struck them all."

Before the last word even exited her mouth, her image was fading and just in a few moments she was gone and the fire was out, leaving us in darkness with only the moon for light. 

I paused for a second before I spoke, planning to explain myself. But Chiron stopped me.

"Alana, I would like to see you, Adrian and Maya in the Big House please."

I opened my mouth to try and tell him that I'd heard this prophecy before but he shook his head, "Not here."

The Big House

"You heard it before coming to camp last summer? Why did you say nothing then?"

I shrugged, "At the time I thought it was just the nonsense babbling of a mad man. I honestly had forgotten about it until now. What's it mean?"

"Especially if it wasn't given by the oracle," Adrian piped in, his face serious, "It almost feels like a special delivery, a little too personal for my taste."

Chiron looked thoughtful, rubbing his beard and gazing at the three of us, "Well it's clear I must send you on a quest, but I'm not sure why just yet, so let's give it a few days to see if anything unfolds for us to see a bit clearer."

"Is that wise? A personal message from a dead demigod and we're waiting?" I asked. 

"We have no other choice."

I hesitated, having forgotten to mention one thing, "But Chiron, the prophecy..."

"What about it?"

"The last part wasn't there last time. The part about daughter of lightning, search for answers, and suffering... that wasn't part of it when the janitor spoke it."

Every person in the room looked shocked, and I was too but I wished Chiron would tell me why even he was startled. 

"Prophecies never change. Not in the entire history of demigods... what does it mean?"

Adrian was one of the most intelligent demigods at camp, and if even he was stumped... well crap. 

Chiron shook his head as if shaking away the subject, "We must wait a few days, we cannot send you blindly."

...............

The next few days were filled with tension and stressful. I trained and trained. Harder and longer than I ever did before. I had to admit that I was scared. Adrian and Maya were scared for me and themselves and each other, obviously being the "children of legends" mentioned in the prophecy. 

Noah could sense I was stressed but didn't bring it up until I did. As much of a joker as he was, he also happened to be a very good listener. When I told him what the deal was and what I might be expected to do, he told me that he'd do anything, everything he could to get me back here safe. Which apparently included archery lessons. 

Apparently I had enough of Apollo's blood and power that it came to me fairly easily. My technique was very bad, but my accuracy was generally solid. Who knew when I'd for some reason be without my swords? The skill might come in handy, and I wasn't fool enough to pass up anything that might give me a leg up. 

But it had been three days. 

And nothing had happened to point us in the right direction. 

It worried me, but what could I possibly do about it?

So I kept training.

July 8th

I was about to have a meeting with Chiron when a young girl, maybe eight years old with dark red hair, burst into the Big House. She was panting and it seemed she'd run all the way across camp. Her eyes were wild and she looked rather desperate. 

"Chiron! Anna- She... she, we were working, and then! And then she was-"

Chiron held out a hand, "Take a few breaths Delilah, were you working on your project? In the forges?"

The girl, a daughter of Hephaestus no doubt, nodded, the grey bandana not quite holding back the strands of her sweaty hair escaping and sticking to her round face.

Chiron gestured for her to continue once she caught her breath.

"We were working and when I turned to ask her something it looked like she was frozen! She was just stuck there, staring at me. But then her skin turned grey and cracked. Then she exploded into black dust! Anna! Where'd she go?"

Chiron smiled and pulled the girl into his arms, "Shh child-"

He spoke next looking at us over the girl's head, "We'll get Anna back."

Exploded and turned to dust?

It sounded quite a lot like when a monster was killed, or rather, sent to Tartarus. Of course it couldn't be, our campers weren't monsters. But even since Delilah had come running, another camper, a fourteen year old son of Hermès had gone... in the same fashion. 

This had to be my quest. Our quest. Adrian and Maya agreed, it couldn't have been anything different, and we felt called to solve this mystery. 

And a mystery it was. 

There were no records of anything like this happening before, even to creatures or humans. We had tried to consult the oracle with no success. And the only thing we had was the prophecy to decipher, though I figured that it would unfold as our quest did. It had been explained to me that prophecies usually made little to no sense until the actual events occurred. That, at least, had been proven to stay true. 

But the two campers had no connections. They were in fact so unlike each other it was odd that they lived in the same place. So had they been chosen at random? Or were they chosen at all? Did it just happen, without anyone's control? No one here could have done this, not in the wizarding world either. Magic didn't look like that.

It was like a puzzle to piece together. Or like a scavenger hunt to find all of the missing pieces and then put it together. 

Was I wrong to be excited about my quest?

This was a milestone for a demigod. A generally awful milestone from what I'd heard, but I needed to experience it for myself before I could make that opinion for myself. And I would. In two days time.