The Shadow Archer Twins

I have to admit, after having just gone through a war, fighting against my boyfriend and watching my brother die and then come back to life, and then having the attacking side offer us a chance at peace, I was ready for a party. Every Roman that wasn’t in a stretcher or…well, killed, was invited over to celebrate our new friendship between the camps. Barbecue was served to everyone, and Chiron gave a toast to the victorious dead on both sides. Nico di Angelo heartily concurred, raising his glass in support. Everyone raised their glasses, and there was a solemn moment of silence for all of our friends who had died in the needless fighting. Then, Chiron asked for any comments from the Romans. Octavian, who was sitting across from me, jumped at the chance.

Oh, great, I thought, Here we go again.

The weird thing was, he looked nervous. He never looked nervous when he was speaking. But, he continued on, stepping up onto a low platform so that he could be seen by everyone.

“Greeks, Romans! My, how it is…great to finally be able to have peace between our two camps. There has been a rift between the children of the gods for far too long. I hope, along with my praetor, that the return of the Athena Parthenos to Greek hands could heal this rift. And, thanks to gracious campers here, it has.”

Some clapping arose at that, and a few cheers of ‘hurray!’

“Yes, yes. But now, onto personal matters.” He said this while turning an unappealing shade of green.

“To my Romans, I…have not been as…faithful…as I have said. I admit, while the officers were meeting the officers of this camp, and I had my own personal meetings, I wasn’t actually discussing the topic of war. Well, not primarily. Primarily, I was meeting with this girl.”

He pointed to me, and I blushed harder than I had ever before.

“This girl, Katie Holmes, has made me see life in an entirely different way, and she has made me get my priorities straight. I have now realized that war and revenge should never have been my main objectives. My main objective should have been to make friends, and hopefully a little more, with the people around me. And that’s what I did. Romans, while you were meeting separately, I…fell in love with this Greek girl.”

A few surprised looks arose from the eyebrows of the Roman campers, but nobody said anything.

“And so,” Octavian continued, returning to a normal color, “Since we are at peace with our neighbors, Katie, I would like to ask you…on a date.”

I was smiling so much, the only thing I could think to say was, “Took you long enough!”

Cheers arose from the Roman campers as Octavian stepped down from his podium. I ran to him, and he reached his hands for my face. We kissed, and for that moment, life was just us. Anything could have happened, and all I would have felt was his lips against mine. The cheers got a lot louder after that.

The raucous noise died down as we walked down towards the lake from the dining pavilion, holding hands. As I looked into his eyes, I could see that his entire energy had calmed down a considerable level. He was different.

When we reached the lake, we both took our shoes off and walked on the little beach that the lake had created over the years. It was peaceful. The night stars were out, shining brighter than they had in a while. After a couple of minutes, Octavian asked,

“Katie, do you still like me, after all that I’ve done?”

The question struck me by surprise. I mean, after the war that he had started, I was supposed to hate him, supposed to reject everything he stood for. But I couldn’t. So, I said what my heart told me to.

“Octavian, of course I still like you. In fact, I…I like you a lot.”

Something stopped me from dropping the L-bomb just yet. He didn’t seem to notice, as he continued,

“Good, because I don’t think I could take it if—”

I cut him off by grabbing his face gently and pulling him into another kiss. He tried to finish his sentence, but then he gave up and pressed back onto me, kissing me with a passion I hadn’t felt from him before. I guess he had changed in that aspect as well. When we finally did pull away, his eyes sparkled like gems in the moonlight.

“I might as well admit it, Octavian,” I said, as a leading statement.

“Admit what?” He asked.

I looked deep into his light-blue eyes, and said what I had been wanting to say for so long. “I love you, Octavian.”

“I love you, Katie Holmes.”

We leaned in to kiss again, but then a huge riot came storming out from the bushes that populated the far side of the beach. The entire Hermes cabin, plus a few Roman extras, had been watching us the entire time.

“Three cheers for the lovebirds!” One of the Hermes guys said.

Then, another one corrected him, saying, “No, not three cheers…one dunk in the lake!”

They all cheered loudly at that idea, and picked us up off of the ground, still keeping us close enough to hold hands. The dumping into the lake was pretty unceremonious, and as we hit the water, an Iris-Message shined into existence over the lake. Octavian and I coughed and spluttered as we made our way back to the shore, completely soaked. But, to my surprise, Octavian was laughing.

But, the kids on the beach didn’t look so excited. They looked up at the Iris-Message, which was still blank, until finally, a boy’s face, around seventeen, shot into view. He was ruggedly handsome, with jet-black hair like Tox’s, but with sea-green eyes and a mischievous grin that made him look like a troublemaker.

“Hey, dumping a couple into the canoe lake was so our move! Where’s Malcolm?” The boy complained. Everyone looked a bit confused until Malcolm stepped up from the back of the crowd and looked up at the huge Iris-Message.

“I’m here, Percy! We just wrapped up a war and were celebrating the victorious couple!”

From where Octavian and I were standing, getting dried off by some wind sprits, Percy, the kid in the IM, couldn’t see us. But, by some magic, he maneuvered the IM so that he could see us, and his face took on an expression of disproving astonishment.

“Octavian?” He asked incredulously, “What in Hades are you doing at my camp?”

Being the orator that he was, Octavian was quick to respond. “I guess you could say I’m part of the victorious couple, with Katie here.”

“Oh,” the kid said as Octavian put an arm around me. Percy seemed a bit disappointed that Octavian hade made it through the war. These two had obviously had some history.

“Well,” Percy continued, “Back to Malcolm. Buddy, Annabeth would kill me if she knew I sent this message without her, so we gotta keep this on the down-low. But, everything is fine aboard the Argo II. We’re heading to Greece right now, and it’s great news to see that almost everything at Camp is not in mortal peril anymore.”

There was a loud knocking sound from the background of the IM, like someone banging on a door. Percy looked behind him, and said, in a whisper,

“Well, crap, that’s her right now. She wants a full report, so it would be good to Iris-Message either one of us, preferably me, in about 15 minutes, okay?”

“No prob,” Malcolm said. He looked amused, like watching Percy try to be stealthy was a comical sight. Which it was.

Malcolm then made sure Octavian and I were okay, and called everyone in the pranking group back to the Cabins for evening curfew and lights out, and then went to the Hermes cabin, picked up Izzy and headed over to the Big House. We were all smiling as we opened the baby blue painted door, ready to recap our own little Odyssey.

Notes