Chapter Text
Annabeth had been bothering Amara since she woke up. Apparently she overheard an Apollo kid mention something about a newcomer soon and now she was antsy with excitement that she’d finally get to go on a quest.
“I’m not getting my hopes up.”
Amara ducked as Annabeth swung her dagger at her head. She’d brought her out to the arena to train an hour ago, silently praying to Hypnos that it would tire Annabeth out and she would just decide to take a nap, but she’d had no such luck.
Amara rolled forward as Annabeth aimed at her head again, shoving her elbow into the back of Annabeth’s knee as she bounced back onto her feet. Annabeth stumbled, but she didn’t fall.
“You say that every time,” Amara huffed. She gave Annabeth time to turn back toward her before she continued. “You always get excited and then they’re not a child of the big three and then you spend a week moping about it.”
She lunged at Annabeth, narrowly missing the front of her chest plate as she threw herself back to avoid the hit. Annabeth swung down. Her blade smashed into Amara’s, sending a tingling feeling up her arm.
Desperately, Amara reached forward, grabbing Annabeth’s shoulder and locking her foot around her ankle before tripping her. She didn’t account for Annabeth grabbing her arm and not letting go, taking Amara down with her.
The pair landed with a thump. Amara grabbed Annabeth’s dagger at the same time she’d reached for Amara’s, each of them now holding the others weapon. Amara brought her new blade to Annabeth’s throat at the same time Annabeth got hers pointed to Amara’s ribs.
Amara grinned, climbing off Annabeth and holding her hand down to her. The girl took it and was pulled off the dusty ground.
The pair swapped back weapons with an unspoken agreement that they were done in the arena.
Amara helped Annabeth fix her braids neatly back into the low ponytail she’d had before they started sparring, two pieces left out to frame her face. Annabeth always went to fix her hair every time they ran into Luke, so it was now a part of girl code that one wasn’t allowed to let the other walk around looking like a disaster.
Annabeth thanked her, her eyes drawn toward Amara’s hairline.
“Your face is bleeding.”
Amara’s left hand went to her forehead where she assumed Annabeth was looking. She winced when she found the blood and the cut that it was coming from.
“Gee, thanks. If only someone wasn’t trying to take my head off.”
Amara tried to keep a straight face, but the corner of her lips kept twitching up, giving her away. Annabeth had swiped her with her blade when she failed to move out of the way fast enough. She forgot that she’d been hit, focusing on trying to win instead.
“Shut up. I did not try to take off your head.”
Amara scoffed, all attempts to school her face gone as her eyebrows shot up.
“You totally were. In case your brain’s broke, wise girl, when half of your attacks are above chest height, that normally means you’re going for the head.”
“I know that!” Annabeth retorted, shoving Amara forward on the path. “My brain is not broken.”
The two were now pushing each other back and forth as they made their way back to their cabins, laughing as they went.
From an outside perspective the two could almost be confused as siblings, both with stormy gray eyes and deep brown hair. Their only glaring difference was their skin tone, Amara’s a freckled tan and Annabeth’s a golden brown, but skin tone rarely mattered in relation to gods and demigods.
Annabeth even thought they might have been related when Amara first got to Camp Half-Blood, but after she failed to solve any of the riddles Annabeth gave her, she knew there was no way Amara was a child of Athena.
The closer they got to the center of camp the more Amara tensed up, her giggles quieting down. Annabeth stopped hitting her shoulder against Amara’s, returning to the collected image that most people knew her by.
It was getting close to dinner time. Most of the campers were heading back toward their cabins to clean up. They’d probably start the campfire earlier today, they normally did on weekends to give everyone something to do. Plus the Apollo kids loved being able to show off their singing.
“I’ll see you after dinner.” Amara turned, walking backwards toward cabin eleven and facing Annabeth as she spoke. “I’ll save you a spot at the campfire if you remember—“
“—Amara, look—”
Annabeth didn’t even have time to warn her before someone’s shoulder hit her back, nearly knocking her over. Connor, who’d been chasing his brother Travis back to the cabin, was now on the ground.
“Ow, what are you made of?” Connor groaned. He seemed to realize what had just come out of him mouth because he followed it up with a quick, “Sorry! I didn’t mean to. Didn’t see you.”
By now Travis saw that he wasn’t being chased and circled back to the group, Annabeth also joining to make sure Amara was okay.
“It’s alright. Are you okay?”
Connor just gave her a thumbs up, mumbling something about being peachy as he stood back up.
Travis gave a quick hello to both of the girls before grabbing some of the hair above Connor’s ear and yanking his head sideways. He’d let go and was already on his way back to cabin eleven when Connor began chasing him again.
“Travis, I’m gonna kill you!”
It wasn’t entirely uncommon to see the two messing with each other. Normally they liked playing pranks on others, but when they were bored or couldn’t come up with anything particularly clever to do to someone else, they’d just resort to picking on one another.
The two disappeared inside before anything interesting happened, Amara now turning her attention back to Annabeth.
“As I was saying, I’ll save you a spot if you remember to bring one of your architecture books. I wanna look at some more of the statues.”
It wasn’t just the statues that Amara liked, but that had been a current obsession. Where Annabeth like the math and the physics on how famous architecture was built, Amara liked the aesthetics of it. They’d flip through books together and Annabeth would go on a tangent about mathematical marvels and Amara would always comment about how exceptionally crafted pieces were.
Annabeth would believe that Amara was a child of Apollo if she didn’t know how much the girl despised the sun.
The two parted ways, Annabeth promising to bring a book with her, and settled into their cabins.
The rest of the night went relatively smooth. Amara got to listen to the Stoll brothers argue during dinner until Luke told them to knock it off. The pair just took turns grumbling under their breath about Luke until they were released from the pavilion.
Then Annabeth and Amara talked the whole time they sat around the campfire. They took turns flipping through the book until they found something they liked, spinning it around to share with the other while they spoke.
When it was finally time for lights out, Amara was exhausted. It wasn’t long after her head hit her pillow that she fell asleep, blanket half balled up in her arms.
That night Amara was welcomed into her dreams by a row of torches lining a dark forest path. She swore she could hear the ocean somewhere, waves crashing down angrily against the shoreline. Thunder boomed overhead, loud enough that her ears rung and the ground shook, but she never saw any lightning and she didn’t feel any rain.
Suddenly a voice echoed through the woods.
You must protect the boy.
It was distorted, but it sounded like it was a woman. Amara wasn’t sure who the boy she was talking about was though. She couldn’t think of any of the boys in camp that she’d need to protect.
The voice was getting louder and it was now coming from all directions. Different sentences overlapped each other, but they all had the same sentiment.
Protect the boy. Save the boy. See him through it. Make sure he succeeds.
Eventually Amara couldn’t hear the sea anymore or the thunder overhead. All she could hear was the voice. Where it once echoed through the forest it now echoed in her head.
She covered her ears, but it didn’t help. She could hear the words rattling around inside her skull instead.
There was one final shout, leagues louder than the rest.
Save him!
And Amara shot out of bed, crying out as she did.
“The boy!”
She quickly glanced around the cabin, making sure her outburst hadn’t woken anybody else up. Several snores filled the room and not a single person budged.
Relieved that she was the only one awake she shoved her blanket off, it was only covering one of her legs anyway, and stood up.
Before she had a chance to do anything, thunder abruptly cracked through the cabin, immediately sending Amara into survival mode. She couldn’t shake the panic she’d felt in her dream, anxiety swirling in her chest.
What boy could the voice possibly have been talking about?
She needed to get to Chiron. Surely he’d have some sort of insight about it. Maybe the Oracle had told him something that would tie to her dream. She didn’t know.
She did know there was no way she was going back to sleep tonight.
She slipped on her white tennis shoes and looked out the window. Despite the thunder that wouldn’t stop rumbling, camp looked completely fine, like it was any other average summer—sorry, spring—night.
She looked down at her cotton shorts and oversized camp hoodie and figured she’d be just fine.
She closed the door to the cabin behind her as quietly as she could. She could hear the storm a lot better now that she was outside, rain hammering against the ground and wind howling through the trees.
She’d never been happier for the camp’s protective perimeter. She loved a good rainstorm, but just the thought of walking to the big house through that made her shiver.
Camp was a lot more relaxing in the middle of the night than it was during the day. It was a little odd how quiet the forge was, but the strawberry fields suddenly looked like the most enticing place in the world without a ton of blathering teenagers milling around it.
The wooden porch steps creaked under her weight as Amara made her way to the front door. It was at this point that she realized she wasn’t sure if Chiron would even be awake.
She made her way inside as she shooed the thought of Chiron asleep out of her mind. She didn’t want to think of the logistics of how a centaur sleeps right now.
She nosed around the hallway. Most rooms were dark and quiet. She continued through the house until she heard hushed voices coming from Chiron’s study.
She glanced through the half open doorway and found Annabeth standing there, chatting with Chiron in her camp t-shirt and pajama pants.
Apparently this was an eventful night for everyone.
“I know you can’t tell me everything, but maybe if you just shared, just a tiny, little bit, I could help you figure out how to fix—“
“—Annabeth,” Chiron interrupted. “I’ve already told you all that I can. You can’t fix everything no matter how much you’d like to.”
The girl crossed her arms, her right hand coming back up as she went to make another point.
Amara knocked on the door before Annabeth could speak. She’d eavesdropped enough, she didn’t want to get stuck standing by the door while the two went back and forth all night.
Amara swore she heard Chiron let out a sigh when she entered the room.
Annabeth just smiled at her. Maybe with two people asking Chiron about what was going on he’d crack and share something with them.
“Amara, what can I do for you tonight?”
The air seemed a lot heavier now that she had to actually spill the inner workings of her brain out loud. She sucked in a breath, exhaling slowly as she made her way to Annabeth’s side, now standing across from Chiron.
“I was hoping you’d be able to help me understand a dream I just had.”
Thunder rolled through the room, almost like it was trying to help her set the scene before she explained everything to Chiron. The rain was so heavy now that it sounded like it was beating against the roof instead of the protective barrier.
Annabeth’s eyes lit up when Amara revealed she’d had a dream. Most demigod dreams have a meaning, either a god trying to contact them or a vision about the future. If Chiron wasn’t going to let her help with whatever was going on with the gods then maybe she could help Amara decipher her dream.
“Well I can certainly try. Why don’t you—“
Chiron stopped as a panicked yell echoed through the house. The trio was silent as another cry filled the air, this one filled with despair. They made their way to the front door, Chiron swinging it open as Grover collapsed on the porch with a drenched, blonde haired boy.
Annabeth grabbed onto Amara’s hand, dragging her to stand over the poor boy with her. He barely looked responsive, his eyes faintly looking up at them as she whispered to herself in realization.
“The boy.”
“He’s the one,” Annabeth blurted out. “He must be.”
“Silence, Annabeth,” Chiron instructed. “He’s still conscious. Bring him inside.”
Amara went to grab one arm of the boy while Annabeth grabbed the other, Chiron checking on Grover. As they pulled him inside and toward an infirmary bed, Amara thought about the fact that she no longer needed Chiron’s help figuring out her dream.
All she could concentrate on was the boy she was carrying.