Daughter of Zeus

Chapter 7

Avery's POV

"Clarisse?" I asked shocked. Clarisse runs over and picked me up, then swirls me around.

"Hey Aves," tears were gently falling down her cheeks, "I missed you."

"I missed you, too." I whispered

"Soooo no one's going to explain what's going on?" Percy asked, stupidly.

"Shut up, seaweed brain. You're ruining the moment." Annabeth said through gritted teeth.

"It's alright," Clarisse said, "it looks like we'll have a lot of time to catch up." 

"But really," Nico was completely confused, "how do you know Avery, and why didn't you ever mention her before now?"

"I didn't know where she went." 

"What do you mean you didn't know where she went?" Asked Will

"Well, Avery and I used to be in the same foster home." I could clearly tell Clarisse wasn't too happy about having to share this side of her history.

"Foster home? Avery, you never told us about a foster home." Thalia added.

I mumbled, "You never asked."

"Either way," Clarisse continued, "we lived with this man named George and this woman named Anne. It was just us two, they didn't have any other kids. They weren't the nicest and later Avery's step-father came to claim her about six years after her mother's disappearance. Now I guess it's obvious why her father wasn't there in her life."

"Why were you in a foster home?" Asked Percy

"You're pushing it bird brain."

Percy rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, after she left I never thought I was going to see her again. But the fates had something else to say about that, huh?" She asked, looking at me. 

I nodded.

"When did y'all get here?" 

Will checked his watch, "about ten minutes ago."

Clarisse nodded. 

A bell rung, I jumped in surprise. Everyone else just laughed.

"Looks like it's time for dinner!" Thalia cheered.

We all walked down this HUGE hill and went to an outdoor area that kinda looked like a parks outdoor set up. There were long tables with benches on either side of them. There was a fire in the middle of the room and there was a large tent made of wood covering it all, in case it rained, I assumed. There were tables with cups, white plates and silverware lined all up the same distance apart. It was so orderly. Then everyone came running in. I sat down at a table with Nico, Percy, Will, Annabeth, and Thalia. A few minutes later a girl with choppy dark brown hair and eyes I could not determine the colors of sat down next to Thalia, and was then followed by a boy with short blonde hair and sky blue eyes. He had a scar right above his lip. The boy went up to Percy and they clasped hands and chest bumped. Both Annabeth and the girl smiled and rolled their eyes. Then, the boy went and sat down, too.

"Who's this?" The pretty girl asked, indicating to me. 

"Oh," started Annabeth, "This is Avery. She's the one we found today on our adventure."

"Well hello, Avery," she said, "I'm Piper, and this," she points to the boy, "is Jason."

"Hi," I barely whispered

"Shy, is she?" Piper asked. Annabeth nodded.

"How were things at camp while we were gone? Did it fall apart without my presence?" Percy asked dramatically. He pushed his curly black hair out of his face.

"It went pretty smooth," Jason said, "no deaths or major incidents."

"Good."

Food started appearing on people's plates and I was confused. Why wasn't any on mine? And why were people scraping some of their food into the fire? The girl who called herself Piper laughed, "Think of whatever you want to eat and drink and it will show up on your plate. People are scraping food into the fire to give it to the gods. Since you don't know your godly parent, yet, just say to the gods. Other people will say their godly parents name."

"Okay," I said. I thought of pizza, I've had it a few times and really enjoyed it. Also, I wanted some strawberries and broccoli. They all appeared on my plate. I scraped one piece of pizza and a few fruits and vegetables into the fire, then went back to my seat. I thought of water, and water appeared. All the bigs kids talked throughout the meal, occasionally asking me a question or two, to keep me entertained. 

"Attention campers!" A booming voice came. I looked and saw it was Chiron, I think was his name, "we have a new camper! Her name is Avery, make her feel at home." 

I hope they didn't. Home isn't a good place for me. 

"Also," he added, "we have capture the flag tonight. The teams will be as follows:

Blue team: Poseidon, Hermes, Undetermined, Ares, Aphrodite, and Hades.

Red team: Athena, Dionysus, Zeus, Hephaestus, Demeter, and Apollo.

Any other children of gods/goddesses, A-J will be team blue, k-z will be with team red."

I've always wanted to play capture the flag. Oh boy!

"Avery, you don't have to play if you don't want to," Percy said

"I want to!" I said a little too excited.

He laughed, "Well come on, let's go get you some weapons."

"Weapons?" 

"We play it very seriously here, you can hurt people, but you can't kill or severely injure them."

"Oh boy," I said unenthusiasticly

"You don't have to play—"

"No! I want to."

"Okay, Fine. Try out this sword." He handed me a sword, but it was far to light because when I swung it, it flew and hit the wall.

"NOT that one," he said.

We tried a lot of other swords until he handed me a sword, καταιγίδα και Σκιά, which I recognized as storm and shadow. Weird it's plural when it's only one sword. It felt perfect. Next we got armor that was much too big for me. I think I'm finally ready. Bring on the game!