be.

ii - valdez cousins have a heart to heart.

II.      DAKOTA   !
⋆ ★
valdez cousins have a heart to heart.

                  Dakota's memory of Leo was so faded, she had completely forgotten how ecstatic and ADHD he was. Most all campers were ( excluding Dakota and a few others ) but she had never seen a case like Leo's in her five years at camp. He was almost jumping off the trees at every little thing Dakota explained to him. Real Greek warships moored at the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts & crafts sessions where you could make sculptures with chain saws and blowtorches? Leo told her, Sign me up! The woods were stocked with dangerous monsters, and no one should ever go in there alone except Demeter kids? Nice! Let's have a trip!

She showed him the cabins, the dining pavilion, and the sword arena.

"Do I get a sword? Or a sick crossbow like you?" Leo asked.

Dakota scrunched up her nose thinking of the idea. She didn't exactly see it was good to let Leo handle a weapon. "You're in Cabin Nine, so you'll probably make your own."

"Yeah, what's up with that? Vulcan?"

"Hephaestus, actually. Usually we don't call the gods by their Roman names," Dakota said.

"Festus?" Leo repeated wrongly. "Sounds like the god of cowboys."

"He-phaestus," Dakota corrected. "God of blacksmiths and . . . fire."

The god of fire . . . seriously? After everything that happened to their family with her aunt's workshop and these past years, he was the son of the god of fire. Considering what had happened to his mom, that seemed like a sick joke people used to make Leo upset.

"So the flaming hammer over my head," Leo said. "Good thing, or bad thing?"

Dakota took a while to answer. She recalled back to what Annabeth said moments before she took Leo for his tour. "You were claimed almost immediately. That's usually good."

"But that blonde girl, Annabeth— he mentioned a curse."

"Ah right, she said that . . . look, it's nothing. Since Cabin Nine's last head counselor died—"

"Died? Like, painfully?"

"It's not my cabin, Leo. I should let them explain it."

"Yeah, where are my home dawgs? Shouldn't their counselor be giving me the VIP tour?"

"He, um, is a little occupied. You'll see why." Dakota forged ahead before Leo could ask anything else. They were already halfway across the green, where Dakota was explaining her own cabin, when he froze in his tracks. She turned around to see him looking at a big white cabin — Cabin Two — a cabin she knew and hated.

"What's wrong?" Dakota asked.

"Dude, it's Tia Callida," Leo said. "What's she doing here?"

Dakota tried to follow his gaze. She couldn't see who he was talking about. "Quién?"

"Dude, Tia Callida. The one in black over there. How many of our aunts do you see over here?"

"Leo," Dakota frowned. "We've never had a Tia Callida. I think you've had a long day — let alone years. The Mist could still be playing tricks on your mind. How about we head straight to your cabin now?"

"What are you talking about, Kota?" Leo furrowed his eyebrows. "Our crazy Tia Callida! My mom would curse about her all the time. She did all these crazy things like throw hot coal on me and—"