Chapter 5

Eliana’s POV:

Percy and I got settled into the Hermes cabin as soon as Chiron dropped us off, our sleeping bag were pushed up close to each other in the back of the crowded cabin.

Percy and I knelt near our stuff, opening our bags, we found blue candy that our mom packed for us.

“Do I still call her my mom?” I ask Percy softly, my voice filled with hurt. He watched me with sad eyes.

“Hey, she’s still your mom, and I’m still your brother.” He tells me, but water wells up in my eyes anyway.

“But we’re not twins.” I tell him, and he tilts head to the side as he watches me.

“I don’t care what anyone says, you’re still my twin sister no matter what.” I chuckle sadly.” Like, soul twins or something.” I giggle with a nod.

“Soul twins.” I hold out my pinky towards him.” Forever?” I ask, and he links his pinky with mine, a small smile on his lips.

“Obviously.” I smile a sad smile, happy that I still had him at the end of the day.

I tensed when I noticed a guy with a scar walk over, some of his friends or siblings following behind him.

“Percy.” I whisper, eyeing the man, Percy stands up, pulling me with him as he watches the possible threat walk closer to us. He holds my hand in his tightly, hiding me behind him as much as he could.

“Look, if you want to give me a hard time, just do it tomorrow and leave my sister alone.” Percy prewarns before anyone could say anything. I look over Percy’s shoulder at the group, glaring.

“I heard what happened to you on the hill, I just…” The man with the scar trails off, glancing at me.” wanted to say I’m really sorry.” My glare falls, and my grip on Percy loosens.” I know what you’re going through. Believe me.” The man smiles between us and holds out his hand.” I’m Luke.”

Percy shakes his hand, and Im shocked when Luke turns to me. Usually, people will treat us as one person, greeting Percy and not bothering to greet me or vice versa. I move to stand next to Percy instead of behind and slide my smaller hand into Luke’s. He smiles at me softly, holding my hand almost delicately.

Percy, in shock that Luke wasn’t being an ass to us, stayed quiet, so I introduced us.” Im Eliana, but you can call me Ellie. This is my tw-” I cut myself off, turning to look at Percy, not knowing if I should still tell people that we were twins or if he was just my brother.

“Im her twin, Percy.” I sigh in relief, and Luke nods, smiling between us.

“Well, welcome to camp, and the Hermes cabin.” I nod, fidgeting with my fingers as we look around.” You guys should get comfortable, you both’ll have a busy day tomorrow.” I nod.

“Thanks, Luke.” I tell him and send him a small smile as he waves at us, turning back to his group. I pull Percy back to our sleeping bags. We unroll them before we went off to find the bathrooms to change into our camp clothes, into an orange shirt that said Camp Half-Blood.

When the moon came up and the sun came down, Percy and I had trouble sleeping.

But when we finally did, my sleep was filled with nightmares of monsters coming after my family.

I woke before Percy and got ready for the day, brushing my teeth and my hair. By the time I got back to the cabin, Percy was awake.

“Welcome back.” Luke greets me with a smile, and I hum with a stretch.” I was just telling your brother a little bit about how life is here at camp.”

I listen intently to his words.” Like I was saying, Hermes is my father, but that doesn’t matter; we’re all on the same team here.”

“Why is that okay? Why do they get to bring us here to just ignore some of us?” Percy asks and I hold in my giggle at his bedhead.

“Spend too much time trying to figure out why the gods do whatever it is they do, you’ll drive yourself crazy. The sooner you stop worrying about that, the sooner you can enjoy what this place actually has to offer.” Luke says, giving me an idea of how the god’s work.

“And what’s that?” Percy asks.

Luke looks between us with a grin.” Glory.” I frown at the word. “Get ready, there’s a lot to show you both.” Percy moves quickly, brushing his hair and running off to brush his teeth, we head out of the cabin when he gets back to us.

“Demigods have always fought for glory. They used to call it kleos.” Luke tells us. I looked up at Luke as he spoke, standing between Percy and me. ” It’s like this stuff that attaches itself to your name. Makes it bigger, scarier, more important. People listen closer when you talk, they work harder to be your friend, and they think twice about messing with you.”

“Hey!” Percy shouts as a girl bumps into him. I frown and step around Luke to stand next to my brother.

“Watch it!” I snap at the girl.

She was tall, well, taller than my 5’3 frame. She was lithe, but I could see she had muscle to her. Her hair was down and curly, framing her face, and damn, her face… she was beautiful.

When the girl turned, it was almost in slow motion. She sneered at my brother, and when our eyes met, I blushed.

“Holy daughter of Aphrodite.” I didn’t realize I spoke outloud, but when the girl smirked, and the people around us laughed, I had an idea. Percy shoved his elbow into my arm, and I winced turning to him with a guilty look.

He stares down at me with wide eyes that were telling me to get it together.

“She is not a daughter of Aphrodite.” Luke says, emphasizing the word not.

“But I’ll take it as a compliment that you think so, Sunshine.” The girl says, and I giggle as she gives me a nickname, her voice soothing me.

“Sorry, your just-god your really pretty.” I fawn over her, and her smile widens.

“Okay! Let’s go before you start drooling.” Chris drops his hands on my shoulders and pushes me to walk away.

“But Percy!” I shout, looking back, totally ignoring my brother, my eyes still on the girl who was staring me up and down as I was pushed to walk away.

“He’ll be fine, he has Luke.” Chris assures me, catching me as I trip over a root, he forces me to look straight.” God, I can’t believe you like Clarisse.” Chris says, shaking his head.

“Thats her name?” I ask excitedly, and he rolls his eyes.” Who’s her parent? Is she single? Is she gay? Please tell me she’s gay.” I beg, and Chris chuckles, resting his arm over my shoulder.

“She’s a child of Ares, she is single, and I think she is, as she was caught doing stuff in the girls’ showers with an Aphrodite kid.” Chris says, and I hum.

Soon, Luke and Percy catch up to us, and the first task to test what we were good at was archery.

I was given a bow and arrow, my eyes widened when the girl sat in the wheel chair lights the end of the arrow.

“Take a deep breath and aim for the centre.” The girl says with a smile, and I give her a shaky one back. I stand to the side, feet shoulder-width apart, back straight, and I take a deep breath. I aim and release the breath as I release the arrow, and I squeal as it hits the centre of the target.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! I did it!” I jump up and down excitedly. Chris shakes his head, but his eyes widen along with the others around us as they all look above my head.

I look up to see a golden light, and my eyes widen. A symbol of a golden sun with arrows as rays sits above my head. I look between Luke and Chris.

“What does that mean?” I asked them, but it was the girl in the wheelchair who spoke up.

“Apollo’s claimed you, you’re my sister.” She says with a smile. I smile back in excitement.

“Sister?” I ask, and she nods happily. I look back at Luke, Chris, and lastly Percy, my smile dropping.

“Percy.” I say sadly, he shakes his head with a sad smile.

“Its okay… we knew this was gonna happen. We don’t have the same parents.” Percy says, and my lip quivers. Luke speaks up with a frown.

“I thought you said you were twins.” He says, and I look down, disappointed that we were going to be separated.

“Our whole lives, we were as far as we knew.” Percy admits, sadness heavy in his voice.

“I’ll show you to our cabin.” My new sister says softly, not wanting to disrupt the moment,” Introduce you to our siblings.” I look to Percy for guidence and he nods scrathching his brow.

“You should go, I still gotta figure out what Im good at.” I nod and swallow the lump in my throat. I walk away shoulders slumped.

(Edited)