Chapter 1: How We Met

Clarisse's POV

It was raining outside, but Chiron had dragged me out to Half-Blood Hill so we could meet a new camper.

"She's around your age, so maybe she'll feel more comfortable with you around than an old centaur like me." He'd said.

I doubted it. Even as a nine year-old, I was mean. Then a car pulled up at the bottom of the hill. A girl who really did look my age climbed out. She dragged a big pink suit case out, and a pink makeup container. I'd seen the other Aphrodite girls carrying those before.

"You brought a child of Ares to meet a child of Aphrodite? You know I hate people, right? And I especially hate girly people." I scowled.

"Come on, she at least has smaller suit cases than the other Aphrodite girls. Drew brought ten suit cases, remember?" Chiron reasoned.

Just her name made me want to hit something. She was worse than most of the Aphrodite girls, and that's saying something. The girl tried to drag her suit case up the hill, but it was too heavy, and whoever had driven her already left.

"Go help her." Chiron ordered.

"Why don't you do it? You should have more strength than me, and you can give her a ride on a magic pony." I rolled my eyes.

Chiron prodded me forward until I started walking of my own free will. I grabbed the suit case, which just left her with the makeup box.

She smiled at me. "Thanks. I'm Silena."

"Clarisse." I lugged her suit case up the hill. "What's in this thing?"

"Bricks." She smirked. "Seriously though, it's just some personal stuff."

"Like perhaps a million outfits forced into one poor suit case?" I shoved it at Chiron.

He stared at me in an annoyed way.

"I agreed to show her around Camp, not be her bellhop." I rolled my eyes.

Chiron sighed and started carrying the suit case to the Aphrodite Cabin. I started walking towards the Big House and Silena followed me.

"It's not just clothes." She finally said as we stopped in front of the Big House.

"Extra makeup that didn't fit in your box?" I snorted.

"No, it's..." She cut herself off. "Nevermind. The point is, it's not more makeup, and it's not just clothes."

"That's a first." I scoffed. "Anyway, this is the Big House. It's where you'll find Chiron and Dionysus when Chiron's not overseeing activities, and Dionysus isn't sleeping."

"Why would he be sleeping?" She asked.

"Since he's not allowed to get drunk, he's either attempting to beat Chiron at pinochle or sleeping. I'm almost jealous." I rolled my eyes.

We had gone through the strawberry fields, stopped by the lake, and I'd pointed out the woods when we finally stopped at the lava wall. Silena's eyes filled with desire as I explained the lava wall.

"Why do you look so happy?" I stared at her in confusion.

"This sounds fun." She continued to stare at the lava wall.

It almost made me like her. Almost. We stopped by the arena and I pointed to the dummies as we stood under an arch to keep us dry.

"So we can use weapons against each other while we're in here?" She smiled at the dummies.

"Chiron prefers that we hurt the dummies. But as long as you don't maim or murder, you could fight people in here." I confirmed.

It scared me when I saw how her innocent blue eyes lit up with vicious excitement. And it's hard to scare me. I took her to the stables to look at the pegasi.

"We can ride these?! And not just on the ground, but in the air?!" She grinned.

"Yeah, that's the point." I sighed.

A couple of pegasi seemed to like her already. I finally took her to the cabins and pointed them all out to her.

"And the pink one's the Aphrodite Cabin. That's where you'll be staying." I pointed to it.

"It looks like somewhere Barbies go to die. And I can smell it from here." She pinched her nose.

She had a pink suit case and makeup box, and she's criticizing the pink Aphrodite cabin? It was getting harder to hate her.

"Come on, we have one more stop before I let you go." I stated.

We stopped in front of the public bathrooms.

"Do we have to use these?" Silena pinched her nose again.

It did smell pretty bad. "Unfortunately, we don't have enough money to build huge bathrooms in every cabin. I think Hera and Zeus have some in theirs, but we can't use those."

"I know the cabins are honorary, but what's the point of installing bathrooms that no one uses?" She sighed.

I couldn't do what I was supposed to do. I tried to tell myself I was too tired and cold, but I secretly knew why I really couldn't.

"Silena, can you do something for me?" I asked.

"What?" She looked confused.

"I'm supposed to dunk the heads of new campers in the toilet, but I'm too tired. So wil you walk in with me, stay a few minutes, and walk back out pretending to hate me? And if my siblings ask, I dunked your head in." I leaned against the wall to the bathrooms.

She looked confused for a second, then she walked inside with me. We stood inside for a few minutes. She started to shiver and hold herself. I realized that she had on a very thin fabric jacket. It wouldn't keep her warm. I didn't see any point in letting her die of hypothermia, so I took off my heavy duty jacket.

"Here. There's no point in me letting you get hypothermia. Chiron would probably kill me." I handed her the jacket.

"What about you?" She didn't put on the jacket.

"I'll wear yours. I'm used to severe weather anyway." I sighed.

She looked skeptical, but she finally switched me jackets. At least her jacket was blue instead of pink.

"And if your cabin mates ask why you're wearing an ugly army jacket, just say I stole yours and Chiron forced me to give you mine." I led her to her cabin.

"It's not that ugly, but okay." She shrugged.

I walked her up to her cabin as she pretended to glare at me. My siblings were laughing and pointing from inside my cabin.

"Looks like your plan worked. I guess I'll see you tomorrow." Silena smiled.

"Hopefully not." I turned to leave.

If I would've looked behind me, I would've realized she was staring at me, and then she smiled as if she knew why I was really being mean.

"Why are you wearing her jacket?" Mark asked.

"No, the better question is, why's she wearing yours?" Sherman snorted.

"I stole her jacket, so Chiron made me give her mine." I lied.

They shrugged and went back to what they were doing. I sighed with relief.