The Ambassador of Athena

Rachel led me outside and past the table with the two demigods, the full god and the satyr still playing.
“I’ll show Florian around and give him one of the new houses, I think the one next to Jason and Piper is free.” she told them when we passed. Dionysus just waved off and said: “Whatever, Ramona, show this Florence everything, and he can have a house too. Why don’t you also give him a car?” I decided to keep any sarcastic comment I had at the tip of my tongue where it was and just followed Rachel.
“Is Dionysus always that… grumpy?” I asked her when we walked down a paved path downhill to some volleyball courts. Rachel laughed.
“Actually he has a pretty good day; normally he would have called you by your last name and would even have messed up that.” She looked over to the volleyball courts where some teenagers were playing at the moment. They were pretty good, and just when we walked past the court one player did a 3 meter high jump and slammed the ball so hard it stuck in the sand on the other side. I stopped in awe, and Rachel laughed.
“Jason, don’t show off! You don’t have to impress anyone here!” The guy came over to us, a grin on his face. He was almost as tall as me, though I still was 2 meters straight, and that was pretty high. He had blonde hair and blue eyes that sparkled, and when he gave me his hands I got electrocuted. “Jason Grace, son of Jupiter slash Zeus, nice to meet you.” He said with a smile “And sorry for the spark, happens all the time to me, ask my girlfriend.” I laughed.
“Florian, nice to meet you too” I answered. “You know that that was very ambiguous?”
Jason laughed too. “Not many get that joke that way, but I tell you something: I mean it that way” He winked at me.
Rachel boxed him in the shoulder. “Jason, too much information. Be nice to your new neighbour.” Jason looked offended.
“I am nice, just a little bit joking.” He looked at me “Moving in next to us, huh? That means we have to close the curtains in the future…” He just moved out of the way when she tried to box him again.
“Jason, stop it! Go and play with your little friends.” He laughed and waved goodbye when Rachel dragged me along with her further downhill.

The next thing she showed me was arts and crafts, a flat building where a few kids at any age between 11 and around college age were painting, making statues out of marble or pottering. Rachel spotted someone and called for her: “Hazel! Come over, I have someone you definitely want to meet!”
A small girl with cinnamon brown hair and golden eyes came over to us, her hands covered with clay, and splashes of clay were even in her hair and all over her face. “Hey, I am Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto, or Hades, pick what you prefer.” She said and greeted me. “Nice to meet you, but I will not give you my hand.” She held up her dirty hand and smiled apologizing.
“Oh, no problem. I am Florian.” I said and smiled. “What are you working on?” I added curiously. She smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you” She led me to a workbench where a clay pot was just finished. She picked it up and laid it on the ground. I had no idea what came now, but I didn’t expected gold and gems flowing out of the ground and wrapping around the bowl till it was fully covered. Hazel picked it up and looked at it. “I have a hand for precious stuff” she told me while she polished the bowl. “Obviously…” I whispered. Rachel smiled. “Come on, there are lots of other cool things to see, cooler than gold flowing out of the ground” Hazel played offended, but she smiled and waved us off. We returned to the path outside and continued the sightseeing tour.
We walked past a lake where some kids were paddling with canoes, disturbed by some nymphs that tried to push them out of the boats. We approached a climbing wall, but not a regular I used to climb back at home when the weather was too bad to climb outside. This climbing wall had special features like lava flowing down, for ‘extra challenge’ Rachel said.
“Oh, and when you are not fast enough the wall slams together.” I just glared at it and whispered: “I want to climb it”
“What?” Rachel said
“I want to climb it” I repeated louder this time.
“Normally the first thing newbies say when they see the wall is ‘seriously?’ or ‘You want me to do what?’ not ‘I want to climb it’” Rachel said with a laughter in her voice.
“May I?” I asked her and set up my best puppy face. Rachel laughed.
“Go ahead; get burned if you want to. I’ll get a paramedic in the meantime”
I took off my shoes and my socks and looked up the wall. I flexed as I always did when I was about to climb and started to climb up. It was not that difficult. I just had to imagine the lava flows being handles not to use and the slamming being just a time-climb. I made it to the top without a problem, and there I stood, 25 meters above ground, sitting bare foot on top of the climbing wall enjoying the great view over the camp and the nearby ocean.
“How are you doing up there?” Rachel called up to me.
“Oh, just enjoying the view, you know?” I called back, and after a while I asked her: “How am I supposed to get down again?”
“There must be a rope on the other side, just slide down.”
And so I did. When I touched the ground and went back to Rachel she looked impressed.
“You know how impressive that was? I have never seen anyone climbing up the wall that fast on his first try, and even most campers are not so fast. How did you…?”
“Oh, I have been climbing nearly all my life, I even won some contest. I did it professionally when I was at University. Must have to do something with growing up in the mountains I assume.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Well, you are an all-rounder, a sailor, and a climber, what comes next?”
“Oh, I play the violin too, just besides, and I am also pretty good at sarcasm and irony.”
Rachel snorted and said: “Just keep on moving, I’ll show you the cabins next.”

The cabins were, well, I thought they were pretty awesome. Each of the 20 buildings looked different, and I could easily identify every one of them. The one of Demeter had a roof made of grass tiles, the Hephaestus one looked as if it would stand up and pop out a head and arms any moment, and the one of Tyche looked like a huge wheel of fortune place on a funfair. In the middle a fire pit was surrounded by columns and a roof, with the inscription ‘Ἑστία’, which meant Hestia in ancient Greek, on it. The fire inside was burning, though it was a hot summer day. Rachel walked me down the row of the Cabins and some campers came outside and greeted me. They were from 11 up to my age, and they all stared at me curiously. Rachel first explained who I was and where I came from, but after the 7th time she gave up and simply said: “Chiron will explain it tonight at the sing-along.”

Our next stop was the Arena, a typical building I have seen on my visits in Italy and Greece before. It was simply a round building with arches as the outer wall, and the inside was just a round sand pit with ranks around it. In the sand bit a warrior like in one of those you would see in the old movies with a breastplate, war skirt and high sandals with a helmet and a huge plume was fighting against at least 5 campers at once with a long javelin. They all looked around 15; each wore a breastplate over their orange camp shirts and wielded swords. We watched a bit how the campers tried to bring down the warrior, but with no luck. He always dodged the attacks, ducked under high strikes and jumped over those aimed at his legs. When he recognised us standing at the entrance he just did a simple strike with his javelin and brought down every camper fighting him. While they came back to their feet he came over to us and pulled off his helmet. The helmet revealed the face of an Asian boy around my age, with black military style cut hair and brown eyes. He looked like a born warrior that could fight a whole army alone, tall and with broad shoulders, and most important, he radiated self-confidence.
“Hey, I am Frank Zhang, son of Mars” he said and shook my hand.
“Florian, great to the power of 200 grandson of Odysseus, pleased to meet you.” I replied.
He raised an eyebrow, a move I have seen often that day, and said: “Cool, your ancestor is really famous. Mine was only blamed for destroying San Francisco.”
Rachel looked sceptical. “Frank, your ancestor could turn into any animal he wanted to, and you can too, so don’t look on the bad side. And he didn’t destroy Frisco if you remember.”
Frank laughed. “Yeah, sorry, old habits.”
I was confused. “Wait, are you telling me you are a descendant of Periclymenus, the Prince of Pylos, the only one of the 11 sons that survived? The one with the bee-complex?”
Frank nodded and laughed. “Yeah, the one with the bee-complex, though I would not describe it that way.”
I looked at him in awe, and he sighed theatrically.
“Ok, I will show you.” He said and leaned his javelin against the rank next to us. The next moment an elephant stood in front of us.”
“Whoa!” I exclaimed and took a step back. Frank changed into a lion, then a huge dog and finally a cat with black and white fur. “Aww!” Rachel screeched and picked the cat up. “What a sweet cat you are, Frank” The Frank-Cat hissed and tried to escape Rachel’s grip, but she was too strong for him. So Frank changed into a… well, some kind of lizard I don’t know the name of. The lizard dropped to the floor and a second later Frank stood in front of us again.
Rachel looked offended, but she smiled. “Obviously your number one escape strategy is turning into an iguana.” she said. Frank laughed.
“It works, doesn’t it?”

Next Rachel showed me the forges, a building that looked exactly how I would picture a forge run by a bunch of children of Hephaestus, lots of chimneys and moving wheels and gears outside. The inside was lit only by the fire of the forges, a few campers working at anvils and workbenches. I could see Leo and Calypso working side by side at a workbench and went over to them. When they saw me they both smiled and turned around.
“Hey, there you are.” Calypso said. “We were worried what happened to you after your breakdown.”
“Well, Calypso did.” Leo said, his face black from oil and dust. “I assumed you were ok, and you are.” Calypso looked at him unbelieving. Leo glanced at her and quickly said. “But I was a little bit worried too.”
Rachel came over to us. “You already know Leo and Calypso I see.” She said with a smile.
Leo nodded “Jeah, we kind of picked him up in Europe and brought him here, you know?”
Rachel laughed “Jeah, I know. But I brought him here because he needs a sword. He has his great vembraces that can transform into a bow, but if the enemy is closer than 5 feet the bow is kind of useless.”
Calypso looked interested. “Magical Weapon? Can I see it?” When she saw my confused look she explained: “We were trying to remake the shape-changing weapons, but except Thalia’s shield and Percy’s sword, Riptide. We haven’t quite figured out how they work, but if you lend us your bow…”
I understood and handed her the vertebras “Here you are.” I said “But under one condition: If you figure out how to make shape-changing weapons, make me a sword that changes into a necklace; that would be cool.”
Leo laughed and took the vertebras. “Deal.” He said, and added after a second: “How do you do the change-thing?”
“Oh, just touch the Ο with two fingers” Leo did, but nothing happened. Calypso looked excited. “Ohhh, a genetically coded activator! This is awesome”
Leo nodded. “Yeah, awesome. Florian, would you be so kind…?” he said and handed me the vembraces.
I activated the bow with a simple touch and handed it back together with the quiver.
“Thanks” Leo said and turned back to the workbench. Calypso smiled.
“I guess your appointment with the grandmaster Leo is over now.” she said “He now is in the zone.” She gave us one last smile and turned back to Leo. Just before we left Leo called us back, and when I turned around he handed me a sword, a regular Greek leaf-shaped sword. Into the bronze a few Greek letters were engraved that read, translated of course, my name, Florian. “Wow, thank you” I said while Leo searched for a hilt under the desk. “No problem bud.” He answered when he found one and handed it over to me. I strapped the sword to my belt and thanked him one more time. Leo smiled and turned around, examining my bow carefully.

The stables were our next stop. You could hear the horses from outside already, but when we entered the dim building I saw that these were not normal horses. The horses standing in the boxes on both sides of the corridor had wings. “You have Pegasoi here?” I asked Rachel astonished.
“Not many know the correct plural form of the word Pegasus.” Another voice said behind us. When we turned around I saw a girl around my age coming out of a box behind us. She had chocolate brown hair and looked in general awesome, even though she wore overalls and had horse poop all over her clothes, but her eyes were the best about her. They seemed to shift colour, from green to blue to brown, all in a constant flow. I was brought back to reality when Rachel laughed.
“Obviously our latest guest is a smartass” she said and boxed me gently in the side.
“Oh, you are the mysterious guy from Europe that everyone is talking about.” The girl said. She wiped her hand and stretched it out to me. “Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite, nice to meet you.” I took her hand and introduced myself. “Florian form Austria. I have heard of you before, weren’t you in that movie, the one about Troy? And this Jason guy form before, I wasn’t sure about him, but wasn’t he playing Paris?”
She smiled uncomfortably. “Yeah, you know, my father was offered the part of Achilles in the movie, and he thought about introducing me into the family business by offering me the part of Helena. I only agreed if my Jason was my Paris too.”
I smiled back. “I loved the movie. Your dad is a great actor, I think there is a reason he attracted the attention of the goddess of beauty.”
She blushed, and behind me some girls giggled. When I turned around I saw some really beautiful girls in overalls quickly hiding in a box.
Piper sighed. “Excuse my sisters; they are always a bit strange when a handsome new camper arrives.”
Now it was my turn to blush. “Oh, I am not handsome, not at all.”
Piper smiled. “You only think that because of bad things that happened in the past.” She said.
I flinched, but she seemed sorry at the moment.
“Sorry, it’s an Aphrodite-thing; I can sense everything concerning relationships and love.”
Rachel saved me when she said.
“Come on Flo, there is only one thing left to show you.”
“What?”
“Oh, just your free home in the greatest town in America east of New York, New Athens!”

Notes