~•♡•~

leo was named head counselor almost immediately. already, his family had accepted him, and he got to work. i waved goodbye as i made my way out with piper, but i didn't miss leo's dejected look.

"so." i huffed as we split into our own at the main camp. "you and jason, huh?"

piper blushed. "oh. that."

"that sucks. you would've been a good hunter." i smirked. piper laughed and shook her head.

"no, i don't think that's for me. but all that silvery clothing, and hating all boys? you'd fit right in." piper said as she lightly nudged my shoulder.

i shrugged. "dunno. that's a lot of hard work."

piper smirked. "well... you're also into leo, so-"

"no!" i laughed. "gods, he's way too annoying. besides, right now i'm more focused on sleeping arrangements than romance."

"we have extra space at the aphrodite cabin." piper offered. "it's smells like perfume and roses in there, but-"

"would drew like that?" i snorted.

"it's not her choice anymore."

i stared at piper with wide eyes and she simply smiled. "no way!" i gasped. "you're head counselor!"

"yup."

piper and i laughed. it felt so much better to have some sense of normalcy after everything that had happened in the past few days. hand in hand, we skipped- literally skipped- around camp, almost like we were normal teenage girls.

"aruna!"

we stopped dead in our tracks as ryan from the hermes cabin ran up to his. he bit his lip nervously and dug his hands in his pockets as i glared at him.

"listen, i-i'm so sorry. really. i tried to make them stop, but they wouldn't listen!" he ranted. "and-and it was wrong, and if you still need a place to stay, we have a bunk for you at the hermes cabin."

i stared at him. he looked at me, his eyes wide and he began tapping his foot.

"y'know, funny thing about being titan-spawn," i spat. "is my mother gave me an ability to read emotions. and ryan?"

"huh?"

i slapped him across the face. bystanders gasped and stared as ryan fell on his bottom, his heart racing with shock as he held his cheek.

"try lying to me again, and see what happens."

piper and i linked arms, and skipped away again.

~•♡•~

"hi?" i asked annabeth as she walked over to me. piper had left to do some things with her cabinmates, leo was building a warship, and jason was training, so i was now weaving flower crowns (i asked the dryads before i did it) by myself at the edge of the woods.

"hey. how are you?" she asked as she sat next to me.

"good for someone who died yesterday and came back." i nodded. annabeth sighed, seemingly understanding that frankly, i probably wouldn't be fine unless i got some serious drugs.

"so, i wanted to run some ideas by you."

i stared at her as she pulled a massive binder out of her backpack. in it was a teal pencil pouch, several papers filled with mathematical equations (none of it made sense to me) and blueprints, and sticky notes all over the place.

"yeah, i'm not good at the whole building thin-"

annabeth flipped to the last page in the book. a neon green sticky note slapped the top of the sketch, with greek letters on them. easily, i read what it said.

Selene, Cabin 21.

i stared as annabeth handed me the sketch. i stared at it, my eyes wide with shock as i eyed down the pillars, the intricate rooftop designs, and the interior annabeth had planned out.

"i'm not sure how big it should be." annabeth admitted. "do you know if there are any other children of selene out there?"

i nodded. "she told me i'm the only one."

"oh. wow. i didn't-" annabeth huffed as i handed the binder to her. she said some nasty things in greek as she made a note on the sticky note:

one bed.

"so, how does it look to you? i did all the reading on selene that i could, and tried to get the structure of the building to mirror her as best i could." annabeth went on. "see, the roof will go dark during the day, and show the night sky at night. i was also thinking we'd have a statue of her, only nobody really knows what she looks like."

"well, she has long hair." i said. "her nose is kind of small, and her lips are really plump. her eyes are silver, and she wears a sort of crown. like, it's a crescent moon on it's side, so it... it kinda looks like bull horns?"

"the bull is her sacred animal." annabeth explained.

"ah. okay then. she's about seven feet tall, and her skin is even paler than mine, and she glows. her robes kinda hang loosely on her, and she has a silver cloak that sort of drapes on her arms like stevie nicks's shawl."

annabeth made a note of that.

"you can't see her feet. she wears a lot of rings in her fingers, but no jewelery anywhere else. her face is long and her eyes are smallish, and she looks really mature- maybe like a mortal woman in her late 30s after she's had a kid or two."

"got it." annabeth nodded. "we'll also need you to be there throughout construction, so we get it all right, but i think that's all for now."

annabeth closed the binder and put it away.

"alright. even though it doesn't exist yet, you're now senior counselor of cabin 21. now, let's go to the council."

~•♡•~

the council was everything i expected. it was in the big house rec room, around a ping-pong table, with a satyr serving nachos and sodas (i got two of each) and seymour the living leopard head eating a snausage every once in a while.

i had no idea who these kids were, but i had a pretty good guess. there was a big girl, built like a linebacker, with her boots on the table- probably an ares child. a curly haired boy was snoring- hypnos. butch from iris was trying to see how many pencils he could get in the hypnos boy's nose. another boy was trying to light a ping-pong ball on fire, so he was probably hermes spawn. will solace from apollo was absentmindedly wrapping and unwrapping an ace bandage around his wrist. a girl had somehow disconnected another girl's nose, so i assumed hecate. i figured the other girl was a daughter of demeter- she had a naturey look to her.

jason, leo, and piper sat in a group. leo waved at me eagerly and patted the seat between him and piper, which i gladly took. i sat awkwardly as i began scarfing down my nachos, and leo occasionally snagged one from me.

"so, you look weird." he blurted. "i guess annabeth mentioned they're building you a cabin?"

"you knew?"

"duh. we all wanted it to be a surprise."

i smiled and looked away. the oracle, rachel dare, sat next to chiron at the head of the table. she was wearing a schoolgirl dress, which seemed odd, but after seeing a girl magically disconnect another girl's nose, i shrugged it off.

annabeth took a seat, her face uneasy. she fixed jason with an expected look like he had something she wanted.

"let's come to order." chiron said. "lou ellen, please give miranda her nose back. travis, if you'd kindly extinguish the flaming ping-pong ball. butch, i think twenty pencils is really too much for any human nostril. thank you. now, as you can see, piper, jason, leo, and aruna have returned successfully... more or less."

i froze as cheese dripped down my chin. all of the other kids looked at us expectantly.

"some of you have heard parts of their story, but i will let them fill you in."

literally everyone looked at jason. he cleared his throat and retold the story, with piper and leo providing details he forgot, and me occasionally explaining how much it all sucked. it only took a few minutes, but it followed with a heavy silence that could put anyone off. that many ADHD demigods to sit still for that long was a miracle.

he ended with hera's visit right before the meeting, and then looked at me.

"what?" i asked as i sucked some cheese off my thumb.

"erm, we didn't talk about the thing." piper said.

"what thing? you just told them about my death!"

"no, not that thing." jason huffed. i paused, made a small 'o' with my mouth and sat forward.

"yeah, so i got a prophecy." i blurted.

at that moment, upon the word prophecy, rachel dare slumped back. green smoke billowed from her mouth, and several kids leaned in to listen.

"her ghost to come forth,
a choice made; evening embers
or promise of peace?"

she closed her eyes for a few seconds. the smoke retracted, and she sat up again.

all eyes were on me.

"yeah, that's it." i said, snapping my fingers. "yeah, i dunno what it means, but if you could kindly stop staring at me and we move on to the bigger issues, that'd be lit."

"bigger issues?" leo scoffed. "you got your own personal prophecy!"

"and hera- er, juno- whatever! cow goddess visited jason again." i said. "and right now, i'm more focused on that. the prophecy of the stars is not the issue at hand- that's a later deal."

"i like her." the linebacker girl said. "she's got guts."

"thank you, girl-who-can-probably-throw-me."

"it's clarisse."

"that is all too gentle a name for someone built like shaq, but moving on."

"so hera was here." annabeth said. "talking to you."

jason nodded. "look, i'm not saying i trust her-"

"that's smart." annabeth said.

"-but she isn't making this up about another group of demigods. that's where i came from." jason finished.

"romans." clarisse tossed seymour a snausage. "you expect us to believe there's another camp with demigods, but they follow the roman forms of the gods. and we've never even heard of them."

piper frowned. "the gods have kept the two groups apart, because every time they see each other, they try to kill each other."

"i can respect that." clarisse said.

"which part? the killing or keeping them apart?" i asked.

"yes. anyways,"

understandable.

"why haven't we ever run across each other on quests?" clarisse asked.

"oh, yes." chiron said sadly. "you have, many times. it's always a tragedy, and always the gods do their best to wipe clean the memories of those involved. the rivalry goes all the way back to the trojan war, clarisse. the greeks invaded troy and burned it to the ground. the trojan hero aeneas escaped, and eventually made his way to italy, where he founded the race that would someday become rome."

i nervously sipped my soda.

"the romans grew more and more powerful, worshipping the same gods but under different names, with slightly different personalities."

"more warlike." jason said. "more united. more about expansion, conquest, and discipline."

"yuck." travis put in.

several people very uncomfortable. clarisse only shrugged, not really bothered by the idea, which i guess makes some sense. ares, from what i know, isn't too different under his roman persona.

annabeth twirled her knife on the table. "and the romans hated the greeks. they took revenge when they conquered the greek isles, and made them part of the roman empire."

"not exactly hated them." jason said. "the romans admired greek culture, and were a little jealous. in return, the greeks thought the romans were barbarians, but they respected their military power. so during roman times, demigods started to divide- either greek or roman."

"and it's been that way ever since." annabeth guessed. "but this is crazy. chiron, where were the romans during the titan war? didn't they want to help?"

chiron tugged at his beard. "they did help, annabeth. while you and percy were leading the battle to save manhattan, who do you think conquered mount othrys, the titan base in california?"

"hold on." travis said. "you told us mount othrys just crumbled when we beat kronos."

"no." jason said. "it didn't just fall. we destroyed their palace. i defeated the titan krios myself."

"the bay area." annabeth solved. "we demigods were always told to stay away because mount othrys was there. but that wasn't the only reason, was it? the roman camp- it's got to be somewhere near san francisco. i bet it was put there to keep watch on titan territory. where is it?"

chiron shifted. "i cannot say. honestly, even i have never been trusted with that information. my counterpart, lupa, is not exactly the sharing type. jason's memory, too, has been burned away."

"the camp's heavily veiled with magic." jason said. "and heavily guarded. we could search for years and never find it."

rachel laced her fingers, not nervous in the slightest. "but you'll try, won't you? you'll build leo's boat, the argo II, and before you make for greece, you'll sail for the roman camp. you'll need their help to confront those giants."

"bad plan." clarisse warned. "if the romans see a warship coming, they'll assume we're attacking."

"you're probably right." jason admitted.

i stared at him. "if i ran up to you holding a shotgun, what would you think?"

"that you- okay, i get it." jason huffed. "but we have to try. i was sent here to learn about camp half-blood, to try to convince you the two camps don't have to be enemies. a peace offering."

"i, too, offer teenage boys for peace." i muttered. leo covered his smile with his hand.

"hm." rachel said. "because hera is convinced we need both camps to win the war with the giants. eight heroes of olympus- some greek, some roman."

annabeth nodded. "your great prophecy- what's the last line?"

"and foes bear arms to the doors of death."

"gaea has opened the doors of death." annabeth said. "she's letting the worst villains out of the underworld to fight us. medea, midas, there'll be more, i'm sure."

hopefully with a name that starts with a different letter.

"maybe the line means that the roman and greek demigods will unite, and find the doors, and close them." annabeth said.

"or it could mean they fight each other at the doors of death." clarisse pointed out. "it doesn't say we'll cooperate."

"you must be fun at parties." i blurted.

there was a heavy silence.

"i'm going." annabeth said. "jason, when you get this ship built, let me go with you."

"i was hoping you'd offer." jason said, his shoulders slumping with relief. "you of all people- we'll need you."

"wait." leo frowned. "i mean that's cool with me and all-"

"you say that like you're the leader."

"shut up, aru. but, why annabeth of all people?" leo finished.

annabeth and jason stared at each other, coming to a heavy sort of understanding. i grimaced and looked down at the table.

"hera said my coming here was an exchange of leaders." jason said. "a way for the two camps to learn of each other's existence."

"yeah, so?" leo asked.

"how does an exchange work?" i beckoned. "with two sides."

"when i got here, my memory was wiped." jason said. "i didn't know who i was or where i belonged. fortunately, you guys took me in and i found a new home. i know you're not my enemy. the roman camp- they're not so friendly. you prove your worth quickly, or you don't survive. they may not be so nice to him, and if they learn where he comes from, he's going to be in serious trouble."

"him? who are you talking about?"

i facepalmed.

"my boyfriend." annabeth said grimly. "he disappeared around the same time jason appeared. if jason came to camp half-blood-"

"exactly." jason agreed. "percy jackson is at the other camp, and he probably doesn't even remember who he is."

~•♡•~

boom! that's the end of 'the lost hero'! this book will be stretching from tlo-boo, so it will be long. also, it may go into toa but im not sure yet. i literally have another fifty drafted chapters and im only into the first 200 pages of 'house of hades'.

also, do yall like aruna as a character? she's kinda meant to be a sarcastic bitch with awkward tendencies and stuff but also kind of cool idk

she gets a lot cooler by 'mark of athena' btw.