The sun was pretty much gone now. The fires around camp started burning, and the smell of smoke filled the air. Soon enough it would be dinner. Apollo realized this as the sky started slowly filling with Artemis's stars. Still the daughter of Dionysus talked with him.
Lydia talked about anything on earth she could think of. She had no idea where this random burst of energy came from. But some part of her was just wanting to let all her thoughts out, and right now Apollo was the nearest person to talk to. The sun god finally sat up after almost two hours.
"Well, I have to get going now." Apollo said softly. "It was nice talking with you again."
Lydia mumbled "Yeah, you too. Glow bug."
She wasn't that good at nicknames, but she liked the sound of calling Apollo that. It made her think of the fireflies she would stay up late to catch. Yet Apollo wasn't like those bugs in that scenario.
He was more like the stubbornness when the bugs were caught. Random and angry until he got the peace of being free again.
"Glow bug?" Apollo asked, laughing "I've surprisingly haven't heard that one before. It's always Sunny or sunshine. Ares likes to annoy me with that."
Lydia shrugged "I mean, I'm not good at nicknames. I just don't want to say Apollo all the time. Wouldn't that be boring?"
"So if saying someone's name every time you talk to them is boring." Apollo prompted "What should I call you?"
She thought about it for a moment. She didn't have many nicknames for herself, only because it was hard to call someone when they didn't come around. Lydia never used to come around. Yet here she was now with Apollo.
The sun god had saved her from fight Ares. Lydia was already losing strength, and Apollo had just previously learned of the prophecy about him and Lydia. So as she collapsed onto the sand, Apollo took her to Olympus in a flash of light. That's when their strange friendship started.
The fates promised they were both destined for love. But for now, they were friends. It was strange for her at first when Apollo spoke to her. He was a powerful god and was known for his many failed attempts at love. Even with his demigod children with countless mortals. The fates seem to push him with a demigod daughter of Dionysus.
Why? None of them knew.
✸
The dinner lights blazed in the night sky. Dionysus and Tantalus stood in the shadow of a marble column and watched all the cabins file in. Lydia had been here early. She had spent so much time talking with Apollo that she imagined she was late, but it was completely the opposite.
Annabeth was still pretty shaken up when she arrived, but she promised she'd talk to Lydia later. Then she went off to join her siblings from the Athena cabin—a dozen boys and girls with blond hair and gray eyes like hers. Annabeth wasn't the oldest, but she'd been at camp more summers than just about anybody. You could tell that by looking at her camp necklaceone bead for every summer, and Annabeth had six. No one questioned her right to lead the line.
Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin. She had one arm in a sling and a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but otherwise her encounter with the bronze bulls didn't seem to have fazed her. Someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it.
After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin-six guys led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen-year-old African American kid. He had hands the size of catchers' mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmiths forge all day.
The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus. Which only consisted of Castor and Pollux. Naiads came up from the canoe lake. Dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs, who reminded Lydia painfully of Grover.
After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Hermes cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. Connor and Travis waved to Lydia on the other side of the hall. She was still on good terms with them.
Then after Percy and Tyson joined, Conversations faltered. Heads turned. "Who invited that?" somebody at the Apollo table murmured.
Lydia glared at the kid who talked, and his eyes widened before turning back away. She didn't care whether this was Apollo's son or not. She wasn't going to let anyone talk shit about the people she cares for.
From the head table Dionysus's voice drawled towards Lydia, "Now, we haven't even ate yet. Why are you already threatening the campers my child?"
"I wasn't threatening him." Lydia put one of her throwing knives away "I was just letting him know to keep his mouth shut."
Dionysus stared at her. Lydia recognized that familiar look in his eyes. He always looked like that when he spoke about Lydia's mother. She had no idea what her mom was thinking when she hooked up with this guy. Yet..
"He doesn't seem to be talking anymore, does he?" He sighed "Please sit down."
Lydia rolled her eyes, and her father turned his attention to Percy Jackson. Dionysus didn't enjoy the fact that she went on a quest with Percy last year. Especially now that they were friends.
Dionysus sipped his Diet Coke. "Yes. Well, as you young people say these days. Whatever."
He was wearing his usual leopard-pattern Hawaiian shirt, walking shorts, and tennis shoes with black socks. With his pudgy belly and his blotchy red face, he looked like a Las Vegas tourist who'd stayed up too late in the casi-nos. Behind him, a nervous-looking satyr was peeling the skins off grapes and handing them to Dionysus one at a time.
He offered Lydia one "I hate grapes."
"Since when?" He blinked "Wasn't it just yesterday that you were eating handfuls of them in cups?"
"No. That was nine years ago, when I was four." She responded lazily.
Dionysus nodded, and he turned back to Tantalus sitting beside him. A pale, horribly thin man in a threadbare orange prisoner's jump-suit. The number over his pocket read 0001. He had blue shadows under his eyes, dirty fingernails, and badly cut gray hair, like his last haircut had been done with a weed whacker. He stared.
"This boy," Dionysus told him about Percy , "you need to watch. Poseidon's child, you know."
"Ah!" the prisoner said. "That one."
His tone made it obvious that he and Dionysus had already discussed Percy at length. Lydia tried to keep her focus on something else so she wouldn't be so mad. So she scanned over the old writings on the table. From previous campers, or just young ancient Greeks.