Elara's PoV:
So, how is she going to get kicked out of this school...?
That is all Elara was thinking about while Argus drove her, Annabeth, Piper, Leo and Jason to their new school. It wasn't a long journey, really -thirty minutes- but it felt like forever.
The boys were sat in the front while the girls were in the back, Elara in the middle as there seemed to be some tension still between the other two, though it was slowly wearing away. She wondered what had happened or if it was just that -in many ways- they were so different. Although, they're so similar at the same time.
"Who've we gotta look out for?" Elara questioned the daughter of Athena to break the silence.
Annabeth was wearing a simple, plain light blue T-shirt, matching her blue Yankees cap (which had rudely lost its invisibility magic) and white jeans paired with trainers.
"No one, really." She shrugged, absentmindedly flicking through the pages of a Geography text book. "There are a ton of people who'll down-talk you no matter what you do. Just don't let it get to you. There's so much drama in that group, you can't even imagine."
"Alright." Elara reclined in her seat, feeling a little better about that.
She looked to Piper who was wearing flattering dark blue jeans with a fitted white top and there was her favourite fleece snowboarding jacket stuffed into her bag.
Elara had come to know what the colour of her friend's eyes meant regarding her mood: her happy colour was light green mixed with a sunny gold, her bored colour was grey with blue geometric shapes, and so on, and so on.
Right now, Piper's eyes were dark green with a light brown around the edges of her iris: scared/nervous.
She reached out and squeezed her friend's fidgeting hands reassuringly, giving her a supportive smile when she looked up.
"It's going to be alright, okay?"
Piper nodded slightly. "Ok." She whispered, clearly not convinced, but thankful for the comfort.
"Besides, Dove," Elara continued. "You need to help me decide how I'm going to get kicked out."
Her signature troublemaker grin was plastered across her face once more as Annabeth slapped the daughter of Hermes's arm with a tsk sound.
Laughing, the daughter of Aphrodite queried. "What are the options?"
"Don't encourage her!" Wise Girl exclaimed in frustration, but they were all laughing now.
"Oh, I have so many ideas." Elara's eyes glittered as her mother's once did, before... before...
Annabeth sighed. "You're lucky that I love you, Lara." She decided, putting her book away and smiling at her.
"I know I am." Was all she said in response.
≻─────⋆✩⋆ ─────≺
When they pulled into the driveway, Elara was relieved to find that it just looked like a regular old school. Nothing fancy: there were your standard high walls, flat roofs, metal lockers with the paint peeling on some and, overall, a pretty normal school vibe.
"Great, school." Elara grumbled, gazing up at the building. "How long do you think it'll take before they get tired of me?"
"Oh, don't be like that!" Annabeth exclaimed, trying to be comforting, but looking up that the building with dread.
"It's hard not to after you've been kicked out of almost all of the schools in the country and more." She countered, reaching down to her bag which was by her feet to check that everything she was going to need was in there:
Water bottle, check.
Money for the canteen, check.
Ambrosia and nectar (just in case), check.
Text books, check (only two though, oh well, she's new! How can you blame the new girl?)
Pens and ruler, check.
Celestial bronze, extra sharp knife, check.
Great; that's everything!
"What am I going to do with you?" Piper wondered, shaking her head slowly when she saw her dagger.
"Hey!" She protested, zipping it up. "You have no idea how many monster attacks happen at schools. Your nasty teacher could easily be one in disguise."
"Or your favourite one." Jason shrugged from the front, staring out at the building and the daughter of Hermes nodded her head in agreement.
Swinging open the doors, the five clamoured out and Argus drove off without a word. He doesn't talk much: campers say that's because he has and eye on his tongue and Elara desperately wants to prove that theory right.
"Who's safe to flirt with, Annabeth?" Leo queried while they were walking up to the large, prison-like building.
The daughter of Athena gave him a stony glare, before answering with. "Anyone who's single. The worst that could happen is them saying: back off."
Sure...
Anyways, moving on from that.
The daughter of Hermes glanced over to Dove to check her eye colour, just to make sure she was feeling more relaxed now. Thank the Gods she was; her eyes were a light blue mixed with sunny gold: excited.
Entering the building, they made a beeline for the office where three women in professional clothing were busying themselves: one on the phone while looking through a stack of paper, another on the phone while looking through her computer and the third was -seemingly- entering data from a stack of papers into a computer while talking to a student's parent who was complaining loudly about his son's report.
Honestly, receptionists don't get enough credit.
Her blonde friend walked up to the front desk confidently and waited for one of the women to be free.
"But he studied every night for that subject!" The man complained. "It's not fair if this wretched school aren't going to give out appropriate feedback to the students!"
"Sir, I can understand your frustration, but, please- " The lady talking to him tried, but was rudely cut off by him expressing more anger.
"You can understand my frustration?!" Elara couldn't understand why he couldn't control his temper and just listen to the poor, overworked receptionist. "Then demand that my son's report is better!"
"I'm terribly sorry, sir, but- "
And it continued like that, with him cutting her off once more and shouting at the top of his lungs.
Elara turned to the others and rolled her eyes, Piper grimaced in response, Leo nodded while frowning and Jason flashed his middle finger at the man's back.
Wow, what a rebel. (Please note the sarcasm.)
"Hi, yes... mmhmm... yes... yes, I understand... alright... could you give me your name please?... thank you... okay... I see..." The lady at the computer was saying into the phone.
Another phone was ringing loudly for attention, but the receptionists couldn't answer it. It was driving Elara insane.
The guys, Piper and Elara hung back while Annabeth remained patiently waiting for someone to be free to talk to her, though she doubted that any of them would ever be available at this rate.
"How do they do it?" Dove whispered to the daughter of Hermes in amazement.
"I don't know, but they deserve a raise." Was the response she received.
"Definitely." She agreed.
"Let's hope there're no monsters here." She overheard Jason mutter to the fire-summoner.
"Yeah." He answered, the elaborated with: "I hate monsters. They suck."
"Too true." Piper piped (get it? Okay, bad joke...).
After a while, the man left and the receptionist he was yelling at sighed in relief. Then, ignoring the ringing phone, looked up at the daughter of Athena.
"Hello, Annabeth, is it?" She smiled fondly.
"Yes." Wise Girl confirmed. "My friends are new here, could we get their time tables?"
"Of course." The lady started scrolling through the computer, through endless lists of students. "What are your names?" She directed her question at us.
"Piper McLean." The daughter of Aphrodite started. "And this is Leo Valdez, Jason Grace and Elara..."
She turned to the other girl and furrowed her eyebrows. Her eyes took on their confused colour of coffee bean brown with flecks of silvery grey. Elara doesn't tell anyone her surname anymore; not after the battle of Manhattan, not after it was rubbed in the dirt.
It's like she will never, ever let anyone call her "El" because that was Luke's name for her and no one else is allowed to use it. Not even Annabeth.
Call me El if you have a death wish. She had told someone once and watched as their brows furrowed in confusion, then realisation took over and they just nodded their head.
"Castellan." Annabeth finished, shooting her an apologetic look. "Elara Castellan."
That's right: she's Luke's sister on both Godly and mortal sides. May's daughter. She looks just like her, too.
The Hermes cabin already has a bad rep because of what her older brother did to them -you know, talking Cronos's side, betraying the entire camp and Olympus, starting the war, killing so many people...
Gods, she still misses them so much.
Also, he went down into Tartarus to retrieve the pieces of his master, and in doing so...
No.
She doesn't think about that anymore.
She can't.
She won't.
But, yeah. She doesn't like associating herself with him anymore. It used to be great: Hey, I'm Elara Castellan. Yes, as in Luke's sister. Yes, his is great, isn't he? No, I won't let you get together with him. Yes, he is the best swordsman at camp. Yes, he will probably be teaching you how to use one. No, I still won't let you flirt with him.
Those were the days.
The three newer campers shared a look. Annabeth had probably told them a lot about the camp's history in the month after their quest and before Elara had gotten back to camp.
She refused to meet any of their eyes and instead stared straight ahead to the back of daughter of Athena's head where her honey blond hair was falling in perfect princess curls in a cap-ponytail.
She pretended to be focusing on the words being exchanged between her friend and the receptionist, but was lost in thought about Luke. She didn't want to think about what happened when he went down into Tartarus, but she couldn't stop herself.
No!
She screamed inside of her head. Gods, she's going insane!
Deep breaths. Okay, good, that's it.
Just don't think about it. Don't talk about it. Don't think about it.
So...... school and terrible memories! Fun!
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and comment how you think Elara's gonna get kicked out :)