Nico

I had really bad anxiety when I had to go back to my cabin that night. I tried to stay away for the rest of the day because Jason ok me they knew now. Which meant Hazel knew. And he said she didn't freak. But at these time, she didn't say anything supportive. She was just in shock.

She didn't even look at me when I got back. Hazel had been in the living room, just reading. Normally she'll look up and say hi or talk to me for a minute.

Didn't move an inch.

That kind of hurt.

Because over the next few days, that's how it was. She never yelled at me or lectured me. She just ignored me. Acted like I didn't exist. And had I not had Percy there to help me with that, it would've been ten times worse and I would've had a meltdown. But he kept me level headed and insisted that she's just going through shock. His mom did the same thing. That's why he's not home right now. He came out to them and he's giving them time to get through the shock before going home so he doesn't have to deal with being ignored. So it's normal, I guess.

Which, that helped a little. Not much. The others didn't really say much, either. Leo did, he was about it. Everyone else just distance themselves from me. Which kind of hurt.

Because suddenly I went from having a lot of friends back to having like one friend in a day. Jason didn't choose to be distant, but he was trying to reason with Piper and yeah.

It sucks.

After about four days, I stopped sleeping in my cabin because it was hopeless. I just moved in with Percy and yeah. I was happier that way. Hung out with Grover and Thalia. They were chill about it. Somehow, I guess they just figured out I was gay a long time ago like Percy did. So it was the five of us. Grover, Thalia, Leo, Percy, and myself.

It was like that for a long time. And I don't mean a week weeks.

I'm talking six months until from that group said anything to us. And it was literally just them saying happy six months. That's a long time.

It was weird. Because like we just stopped hanging out and even Leo stopped hanging out with them. Camp just started to suck.

I missed my friends. I missed my sister. And of course, I still had a few friends. I have my boyfriend that I love to death.

But I can feel their glares and it kills me. How they don't approve.

And I just don't get it. Why am I any different than Leo? I don't hit on every guy I see, I just so happen to like men. I'm gay, not a stripper.

It just sucked sometimes.

Leo

Normally, I don't talk to them anymore. But there's an occasion here and there where we do talk. I was doing arts and crafts. Frank and Jason we're in there. I still don't get why Jason stopped talking to us. He helped Nico until he got a boyfriend. After that, he said fuck you. Frank has yet to actually say anything he's just trying to make sure Hazel won't kill Nico, I think.

Either way, they started to talk about it. Not knowing I was there at first.

"I don't know what to think about it anymore." Frank remarked, shrugging as he continued his pot. "There's so many stories I don't know which one is the real one, either. It's just weird when they're not around, you know?"

"Oh, totally, yeah," Jason agreed with Frank and stopped whatever he was doing. "I mean, one, I felt really bad for Nico because I always told him it would be fine because I'd you went by Leo, it should've been fine.  But they started treating them like freaks and then because of that, Leo left and like... Yeah, I get it."

"What?" I asked, asking because I heard my name.

Frank

We had yet to attend a campfire. We never saw the appeal. But we were curious and Leo invited us. So we talked l the others. Mainly because Nico and Percy would be there. And nobody cared. Aside you know, Hazel. Which is why the entire group cut them off. She couldn't handle them.

"Oh, come on," Piper remarked, trying to work with her because she doesn't listen to me anymore when it comes to Nico. "what's the worst that could really happen? He's happy with his life?"

"He's—"

"Gay, we know," Jason's girlfriend finished her sentence, because that's constantly her argument. "Leo's bi, and you never had a problem with him. Percy was, too. You can't pretend you didn't see him check out any guys. Why is it any different? If he's happy, what's the fucking difference? At least he found someone that made him happy instead of dragging him down."

It was a fight, but we got her there. And everyone just started talking again, and it was really nice.

And we ended up talking past campfire. Hanging out in Jason's cabin. Grover and Thalia couldn't make it, but whatever. And we started talking about our childhood. Or at least when we were younger.

Jason finished this story from camp when we looked at Percy.

"Do you have any like pre-camp stories?" We asked the son of Poseidon, and he thought about that for a minute.

"No," he told us, shaking his head. "I mean, stories. But not good ones. I got expelled from school a lot for a lot of dumb shit. Step dad was an asshole, Mom always worked, and I had no friends. I have a lot of camp stories, though."

"Seems legit," Jason remarked and asked the question all of us had thought of but none of us actually thought anything of. "Why does Thalia have a tree named her? Is there a story behind that or...?"

Percy opened his mouth for a second, words failed him.

"There is a story behind it, yeah." He told us, nodding his head. "I wasn't around when it happened. Grover was the first person to tell me about it. After that, Annabeth told me about Thalia and so did Luke. Because I mean, Thalia's supposed to be... 20... No, like 21 or 22."

"But she joined the Hunt." I responded. "So her aging process stopped."

"So," Percy corrected me, "yes, that did happen. But even when she joined the Hunt, she should've been like 17 or 18, my age. Technically she's like 12."

"Okay?" Jason asked. "So what happened?"

"So if you guys don't know already," he started off. "And this might be different for Romans, I don't know. But after World War II, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades made a pact that they weren't going to have any more kids because they feared if they did, it's like end Olympus. Do you know the prophecy, Jason?"

"Yeah, the whole Seven half bloods shall answer the call..."

"No," Percy stopped him. "The one before that. The Great Prophecy."

Jason looked confused and shook his head.

"I've heard of it?" He told his friend, trying to remember. "But I never actually heard it for some reason. I don't know. One day they just said it was gone. How did it go?"

"The Great Prophecy?" Jason nodded his head, yes. "A half blood of the eldest gods, shall reach 16 against all odds, to see the world in endless sleep, the heroes soul, cursed blade shall reap, Olympus to preserve or raze."

"Isn't that good for Olympus either way?" Leo suggested.

"Raze with a z," Nico was suddenly the smart one here. "As in to tear down."

"So what happened?"

Percy sighed.

"Well obviously," Percy motioned at himself and at Jason," they didn't keep their promise. Hades did. But when Thalia was around 9 or 10, she kind of got fed up with Beryl, your guy's mom. You had been gone for a number of years by then and I guess she just wasn't a good mom. I never got to meet her personally. But Thalia ran away, and on the way here, because she knew her dad, she met Luke."

Knowing we didn't know Luke, he paused.

"Luke was another older demigod, a couple years older than Thalia. Like 2 years, I think," he explained. "He was the son of Hermes, his mom tried becoming the Oracle and she went crazy so he ran away. He was like 11, 12ish. But they decide to work together for some reason, and I don't really know the story there. Eventually they find Annabeth who also ran away, she had just turned 7, and they basically took her in and took care of her.  Until Grover found them."

"Grover was sent to escort them, or really he offered because he was trying to get his searcher license which is a whole different deal." Percy told us as he twisted one of the heads on his necklace. "And I guess they got lost and by the time they got to camp, they were followed. And back then, camp didn't have borders. And I'm not sure how it worked. I didn't go at the time. But I guess they almost made it, and three of them got into camp while Thalia insisted she stay back and fight. And that went as well as you can imagine. She was like stabbed or something by a monster and help was too far out. Zeus showed up and instead of saving her, he turned her into a pine tree that held a barrier to keep camp safe so that would never happen again."

Percy let out another breath.

"And that's why it Thalia's Tree," he summed it up. "She literally died and was turned into a tree to protect Annabeth, Luke, and Grover. And now, the rest of camp. That's why we call her Pine Cone."

And I was just thinking about that. And Nico was the one who asked.

"So how the hell did she get out of the tree?"

"You kn—" and Percy stopped. "Nope, nevermind. That was the summer before we round you and Bianca."

Story 1.2.

"So Luke left camp after my first summer," he summed it up for us. "He was angry at the gods for a lot of reasons and it was a mess. And in a way to attack both us and th gods because it would be like a personal attack on Zeus, even though Zeus didn't give a shit, Kronos convinced Luke to poison Thalia's Tree."

He stopped for a second.

"Well, we didn't know who it was." Percy explained. "So the gods blamed it on Chiron and he was kicked out of camp for a while. We had this asshole take his spot and he fucking hated me. But with the tree poisoned and us not having a cure, the border was down and it was hell. But the Golden Fleece was a thing and we were insane and suggested that hey, let's go get it. At the time, Grover was missing and I kind of needed an excuse to go get him. The dude didn't give me the quest, he gave it to Clarisse. Annabeth, Tyson, and myself snuck out anyways and went on our own damn quest."

"And they still let you back?" Leo questioned.

"Shhh, that's not important." Percy insisted, shrugging it off. "Point is, between the four of us we found Luke, he confessed, we found the Fleece and because camp didn't know what he was doing at the time we sent in an IM to Mr. D and got a video of Luke basically trying to kill me, which was pretty standard, and then saying a lot of shit. Had we never got that IM, I would've been expelled from camp. All three of us would've been."

"But we got the fleece to camp and on the tree. And Annabeth took first shift to guard because we didn't know how well it would work or whatever. And uh she fainted in the middle of the night and when I woke up everyone surrounded the tree because that fucking thing worked well enough that it actually brought Thalia back to life at the age in which she died. In perfect health, too. About six months later we recruited Nico and she joined the Hunt. The prophecy unraveled two years after Thalia came back roughly. Two summers later. And yeah. That was last Summer that it happened."

After that, we kind of realized the time and figured we should get to bed. There was a huge meeting tomorrow. For Percy, at least. He was meeting with the gods. Jason would meet with them, too. Later.

Percy

I walked in there with a level head. With an open mind. I had a list of things I wanted to talk about and just discuss like we did last time. Two and a half years ago.

I wasn't allowed to point out anything for the first ten minutes. All they did was comment on how the mortality rate has gone up since our last meeting. How we aren't growing in number not beside of how many kids they have, but because of how many are dying. And they're saying it like it's my fault.

"Well no shit," it felt so good to say it, too. "Are you dumb? We just go out of our second war in two years! Of course mortality rates are higher than hell, that's what happens in a war!"

But I'm the leader. So it's my fault we went to war in the first place. And it wasn't. It was the gods. They were the ones that told us we had to deal with it. They couldn't do it.

They didn't want to do it.

And they started trying to play innocent, and it just pissed me off. I know it's bad, but I've seen a lot of Luke in myself lately and it takes a lot to not do what he did. I understand it now.

"No, you know what?" I snapped at them, slamming my mug down and breaking it on the table as I stood up. It burned my hand, the coffee did. But I was so pissed off that I didn't even feel it. "fuck you. Fuck all of you. I've been trying to work with you guys for a year to improve life at camp, but you've done nothing. You haven't tried. So fuck you guys. You can go run to the Roman camp or deal with your problems, I don't care which one. Because from here on out, and until somebody else takes over the camp, we retreat from Olympian rule and governing. You think I can't do it? Look in the book that you guys wrote, it's perfectly legal. We are done fighting your battles. Have a shitty day. I hope you treat your kids better in the future."

And that was it. I walked off of Olympus, knowing I'd probably never be allowed back on it again.

•••

"Mr. D told me what happened at the meeting," Chiron said as he approached me from behind. I was standing on my porch, looking out at the ocean. I've been thinking a lot lately. Maybe too much. But the anger is starting to show and this place just wasn't going anywhere. "You're the first demigod to actually do it. Why?"

"Why shouldn't I?" I responded, shrugging. "As a group, they're self absorbed assholes who don't care about their kids. They made a deal a year ago to put an effort towards their kids and they haven't even remotely tried to care. If they can't even bother to tell their kid that they're their parent, why the hell should we have to bother to solve their problems for them, Chiron?"

"Where's your proof?"

"My proof?" I asked as I noticed Mr. D walked towards us. I knew he would want to talk eventually. "My fucking proof is that Luke left and was ready to wipe out the gods because Hermes neglected him. Most Demigods here have never met their godly parent. A quarter of them don't even know who their parent is. We didn't have cabins or thrones for minors gods until a year ago! On top of that, we have a minimum of four kids a week trying to kill themselves, Chiron. Because they feel like they don't matter. They come here with hope. The hope that they get to meet their lost parent and maybe get cool powers or friends or something. But what happens? Take what happened to me. I show up, Zeus wants me dead, my dad claimed me for the sole reason of pissing Zeus off, and I'm sent to the underworld at 12 years old with no expierence expected to be able to survive? Just to meet my dad and find out he doesn't care about me? The only gods that I'm pretty genuinely care about their kids sometimes are Mr. D and Hades. When kids, anywhere from 6 years old to 26 years old are wanting to die and kill themselves because they feel neglected and victimized by the gods, it's a problem. One that was brought to their attention a year ago. I told them they had one year. And life just got shittier here. So I withdrew camp. It's not like we can't be redrafted. But that's not my problem. My problem is trying to make this place enjoyable. Trying to make sure not everyone wants to kill themselves. Luke should've been a red flag to them."

"Luke was psychotic."

"Luke was desperate!" I snapped at Chiron, which was something I never pictured myself doing. Because I often forgot that this was his job. He was still a part of the Olympians. He was on their side with all of this. "He was desperate for attention, and for something stable in his life! Do you not remember that he killed himself! Because I sure fucking do! He knew what he did was wrong. He knew it was too late. But he just wanted something that would stay. And I don't fucking blame him."

"Perseus Jackson, what are you—"

"You can find a new fucking leader," I was on the verge of tears because everything was just coming out so fast. "I'm done with your bullshit. I'll be out by morning."

I went in my cabin, locked the door, and broke down crying.