Crossroads of Two Worlds

42- Tonight, Tomorrow, and After

We were building an arsenal.

After a few days, I'd decided that Raegan Alvaro could, in fact, be trusted. She was a relatively kind person, if a bit serious, and she was the hardest worker I'd ever known. She was in the forge before I was out of bed in the morning and worked until she was shaking. Our mutual understanding, to be able to get out of this mess I was in, involved me working with her. So that's exactly what I did. She taught me how to clean and use tools on certain types of metal and though I wasn't nearly as good as her, I became good enough pretty fast.

Why were we making a ton of weapons, you ask? A few years ago, a fire in the forges burned hot enough that all of the weapons were ruined. The only ones left were the few they kept stored in the shed. Basically, if I was going to rally the force I hoped to, I'd need more weapons and fast. After the first few days at camp, I sent an Iris message to Maya. She had said that even though she wasn't able to predict the future, she had a horrible feeling about something, and when I'd messaged her, she finally admitted it because she'd been trying to ignore it. I sent both Rose and Kaley letters by owl and explained what was going on in my world and that I might not be back to school on time. They both offered their help without a second thought, but I figured that if all three of us were missing from school, people would go searching for answers and I really didn't need that. The last thing I needed was for a bunch of wizards to be involved in a demigod battle.

There were about thirty five kids at camp at the moment and about twenty more had been notified to come back to camp as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Typhon had an army.

By the time we'd made enough weapons for an army of our own, the rest of the kids had shown up to camp, including a handful of Apollo campers, Maya and Adrian, and a smattering of campers from other cabins. We'd set the travel date for December 26th, as I'd been informed via owl by Kaley that she'd had another vision, and knew that Typhon's army was waiting in the Florida Keys, or would be around that time. No one asked how I knew, they assumed it was from a prophecy. I wasn't about to tell them that the prophecy had come from my spacey best friend, not the oracle in the attic. I was less than thrilled that we were going to the Keys not to relax on vacation, but to fight a greek legend and his cronies. How we were going to get to the Keys, this was yet to be determined.

When the weapon-making was over, we trained. The campers that had been summoned to come were fighters, warriors, and quite tough. We worked together on battle strategies that we could use when push came to shove, strategies that used every strength in every fighter we had available to us.

Maya, Adrian, Raegan, Noah, Marin Grace(Helena's younger and equally as beautifully fierce sister), and Brenden Indigo. Brenden was quite a surprise to me. He was a 16 year old son of Ares, and was extremely gifted at fighting, but defied the Ares stereotype by also being a considerate person and a deep thinker. Most Ares campers that I'd met had the tendency to rush right into battle without considering many of the possible outcomes, but Brenden thought of every possible outcome before launching into action.

We used every second of every day up until the 26th to our advantage.

But now, on Christmas Day, we all sat around the camp fire outside, no one speaking, all of us no doubt thinking similar thoughts. We all knew that this battle would be brutal, and we didn't know, despite all of our planning, if we would all make it out alive. Whether we would make it out unscathed was a no-brainer, battles had consequences. So here we sat, trying to enjoy our potential last night at home. Adrian and Maya were still in their cabin.

Suddenly, one of the Apollo campers, a 17 year old boy named Seth, started singing. His voice was deep and clear as he sung an Ancient Greek song. A good portion of the Apollo campers had musical talent, but none of us had known that about Seth. His was mostly known for his skill with a bow and arrows.

He sang it in the original Ancient Greek, which we could all understand, but when he stopped singing, I began, and translated the song into English.

As long as you live,

shine forth do not at all grieve,

Life exists for a short while,

Time takes its course.

My friends stared at me with what I assumed was a mixture of confusion, awe, and respect. I didn't sing in front of people if I could help it, usually. But this could be any of our last nights at home, as grim as that thought was, and I didn't want to waste it. I glanced up to find them all staring at me in, yes, the same mixture of emotion that I'd assumed. I knew I had a singing voice better than the average, my grandmother had claimed that it was a gift from the gods. I guess now I knew exactly how true that was.

From then on, I kept my eyes on the flames of the fire as to not have to meet anyone's eyes as I sang.

Soon enough, two or three more voices joined my own, and then there was sixty demigods singing this ancient song around a campfire. It was just as magical as anything I'd experienced at Hogwarts, but a hundred times more haunting.

Tomorrow, we left.

Tonight, we sang.

(All credits go to the Ancient Greeks for the Seikilos Song, a real song from Ancient Greece, the oldest song known to mankind.)