Chapter 4

               This Friday morning, I am going to be joining the Hermes cabin to help capture the flag.  Hermes’ Cabin was siding with Athena’s Cabin this time during the game.  I decided to take everyone’s very strong advice that I should go to the armory and suit up.  Actually, rather than saying it was advice, it was more like saying that everyone gave me the “are you stupid” and “do you have a death wish” looks when they heard I didn’t have any weapons or armor.  Luke decided that I needed help (or considered me too dumb to live) and came with me.

               It turns out that the armory is just a big metal shed that’s located on the side of the Athena cabin.  When I went inside, there was this girl going through the weapons, like a professional.   She had long, curly blond hair and was pretty.  The only thing that threw it off was her stormy gray eyes.  I have no idea why, but I thought the word “stormy”, but it just fit.  Maybe it’s a demigod thing. 

It might be weird of me to think this, but when she looked at me, it was like she was analyzing me and storing away all that information for later in case she needed it.  She looked at me, and then dismissed me as a non-threat, just like that.  I didn’t like that.  If you want to think that, at least wait a few minutes to figure out how pathetic I am, just like everyone else, thank you very much.  Damn demigods and their toned abs…

               “He doesn’t look like big three material.”  The girl talked straight to Luke.  “I guess he isn’t the one either…”

               “Don’t be rude Annabeth.  Krishna, this is Annabeth.  She’s a daughter of Athena.  Annabeth, meet Krishna.”

               “Nice to meet you.”  It really wasn’t nice to meet her, but I was being polite.  Yeah, I’m holding a grudge because she looked at me like that.  So sue me.

               “Likewise.  Hey Luke!  Make sure everyone brings their A-game to capture the flag!”  She gave Luke a smile.  Then she turned to me.  “I know you’ve only been here for a day, but I hope you do your best too.  Not that I’m expecting anything, of course.  I heard through the grapevine that you have zero training.  At this point, you’re more likely to hurt yourself with a weapon than hurt one of us.  Capture the flag is every week.  No point in getting injured for something without real stakes.”

               “Thanks,” I said dryly.  “I’ll probably just try to keep out of the way.”

               She just nodded to me.  “Well, if you need help picking your weapon, let me know.  I’ll give you any advice I can.”

               Luke also assented.  “Annabeth definitely knows her stuff, so don’t worry about anything.”

               I started looking through all of the different weapons and armors on the shelves, but I had no idea where to start.  I think my head was going to burst going through the armory.

               “So…I don’t know what I’m doing…so do it for me?”  I pleaded the two them for help.

               “Let’s start with your armor.  Annabeth, help me out.”  Luke took charge.

               Annabeth looked at me a bit critically, then started rummaging around.  She pulled out a bunch of different pieces of armor.

               “Here, try out this breastplate and helmet.”  She handed them over and I put them on.  I didn’t realize how heavy all of this stuff was.  I don’t think I’ll be able to move fast…scratch that, I don’t think I’ll be able to move at all.  It’s so freaking heavy!

               “Well, it fits…”  Annabeth sighed while Luke just snickered.  I guess it was obvious how difficult this was for me. 

               “This is going to be a long day, isn’t it?”  Luke just nodded in affirmation while enjoying my plight.

               “Yes, well, some training will make it easier.  Now to the fun part.  It’s time to pick your weapon!”  Annabeth was really excited.  “We have an assortment of just about any weapon you can think of in here, with the exceptions of guns and their sort.  They waste too much materials, and we can’t cover the entire cost.  Even bow and arrows are really costly.  Anyone who wants to wield those weapons has to be really good at it, and has to recover those celestial bronze tipped arrows.”

               “Celestial Bronze?”

               “It’s a metal mined from Olympus.  Weapons made by normal people can’t harm monsters.  The monster would easily recover from all damage, if they happened to do any in the first place.  The only weapons that work on monsters are weapons made of celestial bronze.  They are far stronger, and prevent monsters from healing their wounds immediately.”

               “That’s…actually something really important to know.  Why didn’t they put that in the orientation video?”  No wonder Quinn didn’t expect me to help out with fighting monsters.  I just wouldn’t have been able to hurt them in the first place.

               “Who knows?  Don’t ask me what the Hermes Cabin was thinking.”  Annabeth just shrugged. 

               Luke sighed.  “That was made way before I came to camp.  Don’t ask me what past Hermes cabin was thinking.”

               We didn’t really see any weapons that I was particularly suited to, so in the end, we randomly picked up a short sword and shield.  It wasn’t like I was going to be able to effectively use them anyways.  As we were walking out with the equipment, I decided to ask her about something she mentioned earlier.

               “Hey Annabeth, what did you mean when you said “big three material”?”

               “I meant that you didn’t seem like the child of one of the three most powerful gods, Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades.”

               Luke snorted.  “What the likelihood that any demigod of the big three will show up?  They all swore to the River Styx that they wouldn’t have any more demigod children.”

               “That didn’t stop Thalia from happening,” Annabeth said quietly.

               A flash of pain went through Luke’s eyes.  I wonder who that is.  I’m not going to ask.  I feel like that’s a can of worms I don’t want to open at the moment.

               “Excuse me, I’m going to head back to the cabin.  I got some Head counselor stuff to do.  See you back at the cabin later.” Luke flashed a grin and headed out.

               There was a nice awkward silence.

               “Sorry, stuff happened, don’t want to talk about it.”  Annabeth looked away.

               “I get it.”

“You don’t.  Not yet.  But you will.  We are children of the Greek Gods.  Lots of stuff happens to each and every single one of us.  Everyone here has a tragic back story of some kind.  You will too, if you don’t have one already.  We were born to be Greek heroes, so we usually have tragic ends as well.”

I just shrugged.  I was abandoned at birth.  I’ve lived through some of the worst foster care has to offer.  As a demigod, I am cursed to have monsters chasing us for the rest of our lives.  I’m not sure how my life can get worse.  Oh crap.  I just thought the unforgivable, didn’t I?

Annabeth and I went our separate ways, because, well, she totally made things awkward.  What?  Don’t look at me like that!  Here we were, checking out some cool weapons, and then Annabeth totally kills the mood with Luke and me.  I’m guessing all children of Athena are party-poopers. 

Suffice it to say, capture the flag was a bust.  I’d like to say I was super awesome and went to take down all of my enemies, and brought the flag back home, but that would be a lie.  Somehow, I can’t even tell you, I was knocked out in less than 2 minutes into the game.  It’s like one moment I was “running” through the forest with my super heavy sword, shield and armor, and then next thing I know, I’m waking up on the ground.  Like what the heck happened?  I’m guessing ninjas were on the other side.  Super stealthy demigod ninjas with awesome knockout techniques.

“I heard you got knocked out by the Aries cabin in less than two minutes.  Apparently, you didn’t even see or hear them coming.”  Luke was grinning at me as he pulled me off the ground.  “Dude, you suck so bad at fighting it hurts.”

“Thanks Luke.  I totally appreciate the snark.”  I just sighed at him.  “Are you guys sure I’m a demigod?  It feels like everyone else is good at something, except for me.  I just suck at everything.”

“You wouldn’t be able to step onto Camp Half-Blood territory if you weren’t a demigod.  Don’t worry about it.  You’re new.  I’m sure you’ll find your own talents sooner or later.  For now, you need to exercise and join combat training, tubby.  Apparently, just walking with the armor and weapons was enough to tire you out really fast.  You’ll need to be physically fit if you want to fight, and you need to learn how to fight if you want to stay alive.  Even Aphrodite’s kids can protect themselves if they need to.”

“Yeah okay, I guess.”  I grumbled back.  “Losing weight and looking like one of you guys seems highly unlikely.”

“I know it’ll happen in no time at all.  With all of the combat training, our amazingly healthy food, and your divine genes, you’re going to go from that tub of lard—“

“HEY!” 

“—to the peak of physical fitness, if you work hard.  Don’t worry, everyone will help.  No one holds out on training here.  We’re stuck here in the camp, unable to leave, even if we want to.  Nobody has anything better to do anyways once chores are done.”

“I swear I’m not that fat!  I mean, if you put me in comparison to all of you abnormal freaks, then yes, but still!”

Luke looked at me like I was delusional.  “Knocked out in 2 minutes, Krishna! 2 minutes!  Even if nobody knocked you out, you would have given up on the game at 3 minutes.  Just accept that you’re morbidly obese and work on it.”

“Whatever…” I grumbled.  Then something he said caught my attention.  I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.  “What do you mean, there’s nothing better to do?  Don’t you guys have TV or internet?”

               Luke looks at me with pity.  “Sorry Krishna.  Cell phones and the internet are like flare telling all monsters our locations.  Once a demigod starts to release that scent, you never really get a chance to use those things again, unless you want to die a painful death.”

               “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  WHY?  WHY HAS GOD FORSAKEN MEEEEEEEEEEEE?”  The horror!  THE HORROR!!!  I should have just let Kenny eat me!

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

               “You’re so over dramatic!  It’s not a big deal.  While we don’t have the internet, we do have other fun things like a normal camp would, plus a lot of cool demigod stuff.  You’ll always be busy here, and once you find your niche, you’ll always be having fun.” Luke was pretty confident.  I’m sure you can say stuff like that, if you’re a sword wielding badass.  I’m just a fat—ahem, I mean big boned kid.

               “That sounds like information that should also be in the orientation video.”  Really?  Did no one check that video before making it official?

               “Probably.”  Luke laughed.  “By the way, I have something that’ll probably cheer you up a lot.”

               He handed me a newspaper.  The headline was “Foster Kid Missing after Brutal Attack by Local High School Football Team“.  I read on.

               “The Dales East High School football team was caught on video attacking 10 year old Krishna Khanna on his way to the library on the last day of school.  According to bystanders and video evidence (posted on our site), Krishna was beaten to an inch of his life by the ringleader, Brent Cammings, and fellow football team members after they claimed the victim was a terrorist.  The hate crime victim is known to have sustained at least multiple broken bones and suspected fractured skull.  Video footage ends here.  The football team and all bystanders state that they ran when large bears came on the scene in a frenzy.  When people returned, nothing was there except bloodstains.  

I looked further into the story and discovered from sources at the school that Krishna has been a victim of bullying at the school for the entire year.  It seems there are numerous cases when the school has purposely covered up incidents because athletes receiving college sports scholarships.  It also appears that these cases may have been simultaneously covered up by the police.  It turns out, some of the people on the team, such as Brent Cammings, are children of current police officers.  These officers are currently now under investigation from Internal Affairs for possible tampering.  I have been also assured that school faculty and administration will be investigated and charged by the authorities in the future.  Making sure our children are safe in schools is extremely important.

At this time, the culprits are being charged with assault, attempted murder, hate crimes, and if Krishna isn’t found, possible manslaughter.  No matter how the cards fall, none of them will be receiving any sort of college scholarship, and have already been denied entry to numerous colleges across the country.

The search for young Krishna Khanna continues, but as each hour passes, hope grows dimmer.  If anyone has any information, please contact the authorities immediately.”

I didn’t know what to think, except all of those people deserve what’s coming to them.  “Bears?  Where did they get bears from?”

“The mist is a powerful thing.” Lake was solemn.  “People can’t accept what they see of our world, so they think of other things that might be true, and the mist fills in the dots.  Eventually, what they are saying becomes the truth.”

“Huh.  Cool.”  I was feeling pretty good.  “I hope they all suffer for the rest of their lives.  But wait, what about me?  I’m okay.  Shouldn’t we tell people?”

“It’ll be fine.  The mist will make it so everyone knows you’re okay, and not declared dead.”  Luke seemed pretty confident.  I guess they’ve been through this before.

“That’s great.  I wouldn’t want to be dead to the world.”  I don’t know how I’d fix everything if I was declared dead.

               We went back to grab lunch.  The food here always improves my mood.  It’s just tastes so good and clean.  Apparently, eating food that has not gone through all of that processing makes it better.  Add in the fact that divine intervention helped grow and raise everything, the food could only be described as heavenly.  I think I would be a demigod just for the food here.  Seriously.  I’m ok with living with the threat of monsters over my head if I get to eat like this all the time.  Well, if we’re being real, my time in the camp is heaven compared to before.  Even the crowded cabin eleven doesn’t feel so bad.

               As the days passed along, I learned new things about the camp every day.  I thought that we wouldn’t have school, but it turns out we do.  It’s just considered homeschooling.  We take a couple of hours each day to learn material to prep for our high school diplomas.  Other time was spent on combat training, daily chores to keep the camp running, and free time.  I got to do all sorts of things, like combat training to swimming peacefully in the lake.  I was having some good times.  Sure, some of the chores sucked, like cleaning up the camp, or mucking the stables.  It was better to do that though, than to tick off the various camp inhabitants.  Also, I couldn’t really be trusted to do anything, because, although I didn’t completely suck at all things demigod, it was pretty close.  They could only put me down for some manual labor jobs that didn’t require any special talents.

               Today, I saw that my task for the day was to work in the strawberry fields.  Apparently, they decided that I needed to be in a nice and beautiful environment.  Also, protecting the camp borders from monsters was not going to be my thing anytime soon.  Oh no, I don’t get to keep lookout at the border with other warriors in camp.  What will I ever do?  I guess I’ll just have to live with picking and eating delicious strawberries.  Poor me.  I rolled my eyes. 

               While I was in the grove, I was surprised to see that there were quite a few people who were assigned to the area.  Turns out, there’s a lot of work that goes on in the background of the camp.  We are fairly self-sufficient in terms of food and water, but we still have to pay the government taxes on property and other random things that we buy from outside.  Apparently, even the gods have to pay taxes to keep up appearances.  It wouldn’t do for people to actually come here and check out the place, not that they would be able to find it.  Still, we wouldn’t want all of the surrounding land we own to be bought out, and then people wondering why there’s a region that exists that no one can enter.  That would be really awkward.

               Anyways, it turns out that I wasn’t going to be picking strawberries like I thought.  It’s mainly Demeter’s and Dionysus’s kids who do that.  I guess kids of the Goddess of Agriculture would know the perfect time to pick berries for maximal profits.  It turns out, the fields need to have fresh fertilizer placed every other day throughout the fields.  The strawberries grow back really fast after we pick them, and they require plenty of nutrients.  Guess where I get the fertilizer from?  It’s the Pegasus herd pens.  Great. I guess now I know why people like guard duty.

               Although the pegasi are fun to watch, I have to shovel and wheel over all of the manure to the fields where others will take over.  I think the Demeter kids can even make that process spreading manure go way faster with their demigod powers.  I don’t know whether I should feel impressed or not.  On one hand, you have powers, but on the other hand, its farming powers.  Part of which might allow you to use poop faster…I just don’t know. 

On the bright side, the satyrs promised to teach me how to play their magic music after I finish today.  That seems useful to get rid of the bugs.  What?  We live outdoors, in a camp.  There are a lot of bugs.  After I finished my chore for the day, I went to find the satyrs, who pointed me to a guy named Jonny.

“I don’t know why you’re wasting my time!  I know you won’t be able to learn how to do this.  Humans aren’t in tune with nature.”  Jonny, my temporary satyr teacher, was pretty condescending. 

“It doesn’t hurt to try.” I tried to persuade him politely. “You never know.”

“Of course, I know!  All Satyrs know!  You humans are always cutting down forests and polluting nature.  You don’t even deserve to learn how to do this!  I’m just doing this because I lost a bet.  I lost the insect repelling competition today, so I have to be the one to teach you!”  Yes Jonny, I get it, you are a jerk.  I know.  Clearly, we all know why you’re stuck in a random corner of the strawberry fields, instead of doing anything that requires human interaction.

“What, am I supposed to apologize for all of humanity?”  If he’s going to be difficult, I’m going to be difficult right back.

“Maybe you should try to recycle for a change!  I can tell you don’t!  It’s written all up in your aura.  I can’t believe I have to spend my time teaching an unrepentant nature wreaker!” 

“Don’t take it personally Krishna.  He hates all humans.”  One of the passing satyrs decided to explain “helpfully” as the group watched us from afar giggling.  Clearly, they felt watching this would lead to some entertainment.

“I’m sorry I don’t recycle.  We don’t have that where I live.”  Let’s get this thing moving.  I don’t want to be preached to all day.

He rolled his eyes and huffed at me.  “Whatever, I don’t have all day for this.  Watch my fingers and play this tune.”  As I listened, I got annoyed really fast.

“That’s Mary had a little lamb!  Teach me something cooler!  I heard you playing the imperial march from star wars earlier!  Don’t think I didn’t see you!”

“Shut up!!!  This isn’t a musical lesson!  Go learn how to play instruments from someone else!  This is an easy tune, so you can focus more on the magic.  Even if in the unlikely scenario you have some talent performing magic, that isn’t enough for you to learn nature magic.  Not only do you have to be able to use magic, but you have to commune with nature!  Hmph!  Even experienced satyrs have problems doing this and we’re already in tune with nature!   You don’t look like you have talent, and you’re definitely not in tune with nature.”  He sighed.  “Just be quiet, and do what I say.  Play that song 10 times in a row, or until you know you won’t mess up.”

I spent the next 20 minutes playing the tune over and over again.  I really was not good at this, but I managed to get a hang of things.  I’m glad that he didn’t actually teach me the imperial march now.  I might take a few weeks before I could get that song down.

“Good.  Now concentrate on the music, and nothing but the music.  Then, as you play, slowly but gradually shift your concentration from the music to placing a message into the music.  Ask the ants to gather.  Ask, don’t command.  Make sure your emotions are completely clear.  There can be no intent to harm in your message.  I don’t expect you to succeed, but I hope you will try your hardest.”

I did try hard.  I played the song quietly on my recorder over and over again, focusing on the song, and then trying to send a message.  I don’t know how many times I failed.  I think Jonny tried to stop me a couple of times, but I refused and kept going.  This was about learning some magic.  I was going to try until I couldn’t do it anymore.  I took some short rests in between, and kept playing.  It wasn’t working.

Maybe I was missing something.  Maybe it wasn’t just enough to think about the message, but I had to send it into the music too.  I started thinking about sending out the message into the magic, and something just clicked.  I kept playing until someone shook me.

Jonny had an amazed look on his face.  “Look!”

In front of me was a small swarm of ants, lined up in rows like a mini army.  There weren’t that many, but there were a couple hundred ants!  I did it!

“You’re doing it!  Oh my god, you are doing it!  This is flippin’ unbelievable!  Everyone!  He’s doing it!”  He turned to me.  “Quick!  Keep playing before the epiphany leaves you!  Now is the best time to learn!”  Jonny urged me on excitedly.  “Dear Pan!  I’ve taught a human nature magic!”

So I sat back down and I play some more, and soon I felt like a dam broke open.  All of a sudden, it was like I could suddenly see and hear more around me.  As I played my music, I could feel myself slowly becoming more in tune with nature.  The chirping of the birds, rustle of the leaves, earthworms in the dirt.  I could feel everything around me.  It was amazing!  My entire perception of nature had completely changed, and with it, the song I was playing changed.  I allowed the feelings to move my fingers however they wanted to go.  I felt free.

As I sat there, I sensed it.  I don’t know how to describe it, but you could say it was like the heartbeat of nature.  I slowly but surely felt my own heart beat in tune with it, and it was amazing.  I felt like my soul had been purified.  All of my worries just melted away.  The song I was playing changed once again.  I felt like I could do anything—even talk to the trees.  I called some birds, squirrels, ducks, and even a few deer over to play for a little while.  I tried to talk to some trees, but they were busy in their own meetings.  Something about some wood nymph playing some practical joke that hurt another one’s feelings.  Anyways, it felt like I should stop. I probably made those poor satyrs sit and watch me for hours!

I came out of my trance to see the entire camp surrounding me from a distance.  What the heck was everyone doing here?  There was a large group of satyrs keeping them at a distance.  I was surrounded by a bunch of nymphs I had never seen before in camp.  Where the heck did they all come from?  Apparently all of the campers were here too.  Many of them had happy and content looks on their faces, like they had experienced one of the happiest moments of their lives.  On the other hand, many of the satyrs were crying. 

“Uhhh…Jonny, what’s going on?  Why is everyone here?  Why are you crying?”

Jonny looked at me with surprise.  He had tear streaks running down his face clearly been crying for a while.  “You don’t know what happened?  You don’t know what you did?”

“What did I do?  Oh crap!  Did I accidentally summon an army of animals that ended up destroying the camp?  No, they wouldn’t have those goofy looks on their faces then.  But the satyrs are crying and all of these nymphs are here…NO!  Oh no!  Did I destroy the forest?  I swear I was just summoning some ants…well, some birds too…and squirrels…and rabbits…and other stuff.  I thought they just played around me a little and then left.”

“No Krishna, nothing was destroyed.  It was they song you started playing.  It drew everyone over and made us remember what true peace was again.  The only way you could do that is if you…you …you comprehended the heart of nature!”

“….Yeah…so?”  That was anticlimactic.  I felt like he was going to say something shocking.  Clearly, I felt the heartbeat.  So what?  Isn’t that what he was trying to teach me?

Jonny looked like he was going to explode.  He pointed his shaking finger at me.  “You!  You…you…imbecile!  This is why I can’t stand humans!”  He ended up storming off.  I heard him yelling things like “Heart of nature”, “why him”, “stupid humans”, “doesn’t know anything”, and “he’s going to give me a stroke”.  If I wasn’t surround by the entire camp, I would have broken down laughing.  Instead, I’m just really confused.

Chiron cantered over and looked at me strangely.  “How did you comprehend the heart of nature?”

“I just did what Jonny told me to do.  Why is that such a big deal?”

Chiron just rolled his eyes. “Of course is it.  Even feeling the heart of nature is rare for a satyr, forget a demigod.  You went a step further.  You matched your heartbeat to nature!  That happens only once every few centuries to a satyr.  Never to a demigod…or at least, it has only ever happened to Demigods of Pan, the god of the wild, back in the day.”

I felt a bit of shock.  “Are you saying my Godly parent is Pan?  That sounds kind of cool.  Yeah!  I can live with that!”  Thank god I’m not a demigod of Hades or Aphrodite or something.  That would suck.

“No Krishna, you aren’t his son.  Pan is also the god of satyrs.  If you were his son, every satyr in the world would have found you much earlier, because you would smell like nature.  Your scent would have drawn the searchers like a ship to a lighthouse.  No, I’m afraid your godly parent is someone else…someone like—“

Suddenly, they was a bright light that appeared over my head.  There were a pair of torches surrounded by a silver glow.

“All hail Krishna Khanna, Son of Hecate, Goddess of Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery, the Mist, and Crossroads.”  Chiron intoned.