I sit among other campers at the Amphitheater where a large fire pit was set up with climbing flames that reached high to the sky, as if it wants to reach for the stars. The Hecate cabin requested the funeral service take place when it is dark. I rub my arms to heat myself up as the chill of the dead of winter bites at them through my jacket. In the air I smell the Christmas season but it mingles with the putrid smells of mourning. I look down at my lap and my jeans are providing some warmth and comfort but no more than usual.


Today I wear my Camp Half -Blood T-shirt, and my jacket (from out of habit); This tradition has been like this ever since Darren and I have returned.


Speaking of which here he comes now; tall, blonde , and handsome in his Apollo nature, but like everyone else tonight, he is downcast. He sits himself next to me and hands me a blanket to wrap myself in, I take it, and try to warm myself. We say nothing to each other and we don't have to, that's what I like about our relationship: We can talk for hours about anything but when we don't it's just as meaningful.


The other campers talk quietly amongst themselves before the ceremony begins. Darren told me before that this is how the Greeks have a funeral, they have the siblings of the heroes commemorate them and toss a symbol of their cabin into the fire. Simple.


To me this is a much better way to have a funeral than what the Romans did; they had a Celebration Banquet and what they did basically is that they had a party, a few words for each fallen member, and gave the family a medal to keep. The party is what distresses me the most. Consider this: Somebody just died and you are having somewhat of a Prom in their memory, to me that just doesn’t make sense, funerals are meant to be sad and should remain that way so that perhaps the dead will know that we are saddened by their loss rather than we are partying because they are gone. It just doesn’t feel right.


But since she had no other family present at the funeral, Darren and I were presented with her medal and I kept it. When we came home I refused to tell anyone I had this artifact since technically speaking this medal belongs to the Hecate cabin but I was her family: and the medal belongs to me. Call it selfishness, but I call it the truth.


I hear Chiron's voice call for everyone's attention and I look up from my lap and see Chiron's standing in his full centaur form and across from him are three people standing somehow in a shrewd of fog, which is weird considering that any fog would be snow now, all in hooded black cloaks with hoods up so you can't see their faces really well. But I know who these people are; Two daughters and one son of the goddess Hecate.


Even though I can't see their faces, I can figure out who is who; The one with electric blue hair peaking from her hood (and under several different crazy colors) is Amorette: She's the leader of the trio and usually the speaker of them all if words need to be spoken at all.


The one with neon pinkish purple hair is Eternity; I hardly know her as to that Amorette usually talks and the Hecate children stay together when they are not in their cabin doing whatever they do. But I know that she has a piercing on her nose and several in each ear.


Dragos is the only living son of Hecate in exsistance that we know of, and the oldest out of the three and the most normal looking one out of his sisters. He just strangely reminds me of the one that the funeral is for; insanely black hair and violet eyes.


Amorette steps forward as do Eternity and Dragos and stand behind Amorette. Dragos and Eternity both simultaneously pull back their hoods and their faces are seen in the fire light.


I hold my breath as the service starts: Amorette looks up and begins to speak to us, "Our fallen, newly discovered sister Lilly is why we are here tonight."


"We're here to freeze to death, that's why we are here." The boy in front of me continues to complain until Darren thumps him in the head and tells him quietly to shut up and listen. I silently thank him as the service continues, "Lilly's voice has become a..."


My mind drifts through my limited memories of Lilly: First was when she was staring at me when awoke up in the Hermes Cabin from a nightmare and I accidently turned prank that was set against me, back onto my perpetrators which in turn gave made somewhat of a popular status here other than being The First Daughter of Artemis. Then again when Apollo told me to meet him in a small town in Louisiana with two other campers that I trust. Well there was only one camper I really knew and that was Darren, and Lilly overheard me talking to Darren and asked with big violet eyes if I could come. I couldn't say no to her so I let her come.


Also a bad thing Artemis was taken presumably by Hades because Mom had me and broke her oath to be a maiden. By the way I think its crazy because Athena has a LOT of kids and she doesn't get in trouble but the situation is different for Athena than for my Mother. Mom fell in love with my Dad and you know the middle part and literally gave birth to me and kept me hidden by moving me around boarding schools. Another weird thing is that I knew my mother sort of well before I knew she was a Greek goddess, I even knew my uncle Apollo too, who my Mother charged to make sure I was ok. Their system worked until a couple of Cyclops were sent to kill me and all that could be done was to rescue me with a satyr that kept calling me cupcake and several heroes that were apparently popular with the gods.


Yea me!


Not really. On top of that the Heroes of Olympus were kidnapped by two of their own, which both happened to be children of Hades that were possessed by these ghosts to kidnap their friends. Including the head Hunter Thalia. The Hunters is like the girl version of Robin Hood and his merry men, so Thalia is like Little John to my Mom who is like Robin Hood. So in saying this when the Hunters found out that Thalia was taken on top of Artemis they blamed me and beat me up to find out the answer. That's when Lilly saved me the first time she manipulated magic to make the Hunters fall asleep.


From then and the point of her death she changed from the little shy girl with no answers or identity for her to claim for herself to a stubborn kick butt girl that hated her mother because she had to prove herself worthy to be claimed. Which was and is a bunch of crap in my opinion.


But I refocus when I hear Amonette making her closing statement, “We will miss you Lilly. You are the greatest of all of us.”
“You have no idea.” I think.
Amonette turned with Eternity and Dragos mimicking her and ending up still standing behind their blue headed leader. Amonette, from where I am sitting, pulls out a little, maybe a canvas, pouch tied up with a leather cord and tossed it into the fire as the symbol of Hecate.


We all jump when a loud popping sound is made and purple and green sparks fly into the air as a cloud rises, billowing above us. I tilt my head to follow the cloud and I watch as the green cloud forms into a definite picture and smaller purple clouds race to the top to be with the green clouds and took different positions and form into three stars, like the ones you see handing over the baby Jesus in the manger at Christmas, each with their own size.


The campers clap and cheer at the show forgetting why we are here. I swallow and stand up keeping the blanket wrapped around me. I didn’t ask Darren to stand but he stands up anyway and I pass by him and he follows behind me.


At the moment I do not want to be messed with or talk to anyone but someone calls my name and I comply and turn around facing Amonette, Destiny, and Dragos. Amonette takes off her hood, “Thank you for taking care of our sister.” She says sternly.
“You guys certainly weren’t” I decide not to say that out loud.
“But trust me as I say this; that we will avenge our sister. Whoever and whatever killed her we will make him or her suffer and they will pay.”


In my head I slightly panicked, as far as I knew these people, as long as Amonette leads them they will kill anyone who had a hand in Lilly’s death. I didn’t report the full story of how Lilly died.
This is what really happened:
Nico Di Angelo and I had followed a possessed Lilly across the city trying to stop the ghost that had been possessing Hazel all this time. At that point Lilly had gone missing several times and this time I wasn’t going to lose her again. We cornered her and I was scoping out the situation from above while Nico was going to try and coax the little demon out of her. But everything went wrong when the shadow went back over to Nico and possessed Nico and killed Lilly. I got the ghost out of Nico in time but it was too late to save Lilly.


The story I went with was that the ghost by itself killed Lilly by grabbing Nico’s sword cutting his hair and pushed him out of the way and stabbed Lilly.
Nico and I haven’t spoken since, he’s the only one that knows what happened other than me.


So Amonette must know that it was the eldion that killed Lilly. But if she knew if Nico played a hand in her death-


I smile to Amonette and offer a hand to shake, “She was a good friend.” I was hoping maybe Amonette and I could be at least allies for Lilly but Amonette denies the handshake and only replies, “She was the best of all of us.”


Nico is in danger.

Notes

Whew I'm back guys!
Eliza