Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sunlight dances on the lake making it nearly seethrough, as Percy Jackson takes a stroll around camp grounds. He isn’t used to being so alone, especially not here. The only few people he regularly sees walking around are Annabeth, Grover & Nico, and those are here all year long.

He slowly walks over to the Hephaestus cabin, a brick house with a smokestack sticking out of its roof, looking through one of the small windows. Even if there is no one inside, Percy can hear machines clatter and rattle.

From here it’s only a short walk to the lake, one of his favorite spots. When the water surrounds his body, he feels so calm, and it’s like the fishes want to tell him stories everytime he goes for a swim (which they do want, yes, but he often just ignores them).

Right next to the waters stands his cabin. Low, long and solid, with pieces of seashell and coral hanging everywhere. Ever since Tyson left, he’s been alone. Although they sometimes send eachother Iris messages, which helps at least a bit.

Suddenly he can hear hooves trampling the ground behind him, it’s Chiron, the centaur at camp. „Come with me to the big house. We have some news to tell you and the few other people here.“

Percy immediately jumps up from his spot, following Chiron. Must be important… he thinks to himself. Hopefully no one’s hurt…

When they arrive, Annabeth and Grover are already there.

„Where’s Nico?“ Percy asks with slight caution in his voice, because you never know who this conversation’ll be about.

„He is safe. Don’t worry.“ Chiron reassures him. „Just a bit late, as it seems… Well, let’s just start without him, I am going to guess he wouldn’t understand anyway.“

Mr. D, sitting in a comfortable leather chair, speaks up too now: „Lovely to see, yes yes. So… we’ve got quite a big political discussion going on in the US right now. And we’ve decided it would be the best to share with you. Knowledge is afterall the goal to victory, or something like that.“

Politcal discussion? That’s new, we usually never talk about those…

Dionysus continues to talk. „There’s been a new mayoral election. I am guessing you know absolutely nothing about politics, so I’ll quickly show you a short film about it…“