Luke's POV

"Dad?" I asked. He was getting the twins(4) into their pajamas when Ariana and I found him later that day. 

"Hm?" He hummed, distracted. "Were we named after people you knew?" I asked and he froze before turning to look at me. 

"Yes..." he said slowly. 

"Can you tell us about them? I mean, we want to know who you and mom named us after."

He sighed. "I supposed you deserve to know. And it was be a disgrace to their honor if we didn't tell you their stories. Just let me finish up here and I'll meet you in the living room. Make sure gold fish and juice boxes are set up."

I nodded and grabbed Ariana's hand and we dashed down to the kitchen to supply snacks for our talk.

I poured gold fish into a bowl(I spilled some on the floor but no one needs to know that) and Ariana selected five juice boxes from the fridge. We went to the living room and Dad was sitting there, Bianca and Ethan sitting beside him on the couch, each with pajamas on.

"Alright," Dad said, already looking a bit sentimental, "I guess we'll start with the oldest."

I sat up a little straighter and sipped my juice, eager to hear about my namesakes. 

"I guess you could say our family has a thing for naming kids after important people. Grandma named me after Perseus, the Greek hero who--"

"Killed Medusa," Ariana finished. Dad nodded. "She gave me that name because he was one of the few demigods who got a happy ending. She was hoping that maybe I'd get one too."

"And did you?" She asked. I elbowed her. You don't just ask those kinds of questions. Especially not to Dad. Even if he didn't tell us about it often, I knew he had a pretty terrible life. And then with Mom dying...I wouldn't call this a happy ending.

"Of course I did. I've got you four," he said, surprising me.

"But--" I started.

"I've lost a lot, yes. But I've gained a lot too. And I love you kiddos to the ends of the Earth. End of story."

"Okay, okay. Now tell us about our names!"

He sighed. "Luke. How do I start. Luke had a very complicated story. I'll be honest with you, he wasn't a very good person. He didn't make good choices. But he was a hero in the end."

I didn't really know what to think about that. I was named after a bad person? Why?

"When your mom was seven years old, Ariana's age, she ran away from home. She was living in the streets and then one day Luke and Thalia found her. Thalia was twelve and Luke was fourteen. Luke was tall and tan and he had blond hair and this big scar that ran down one cheek that he got from fighting a dragon."

I no longer cared about why I was named after this guy, I was fully interested in hearing this story. And about learning more about my mom. She died four years ago, when I was seven and her memory was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges.

"Anyway, they found her and took her in and they ran from monsters for awhile until Uncle Grover found them and tried to bring them to Camp Half-Blood. Did you know your Auntie Thalia used to be a Pine Tree?"

"Huh?" I asked, in total disbelief. "Yep," Dad said, nodding. "An army of Hellhounds and Furies caught up to them and Thalia sacrificed herself so Annabeth, Luke, and Grover could get to Camp safely. As she was dying on the hill, her father, Zeus, turned her into the big pine tree so it would protect Camp.

"Luke grew up at Camp and came to resent the gods. He thought that the age of the gods should come to an end and that it was up to him to destroy them. Then I came along to Camp and he was friendly to me and I thought I could trust him. But you see this?"

He showed us his palm where there was a little scar. "He sent a scorpion on me." He said.

My eyes widened. I was named after someone who tried to kill my dad?

Dad cringed, seeing that I wasn't taking the story well.

"Okay, I'll skip on some of the details. Anyway, he was hosting Kronos in his body, the King of the Titans, and it was up to me to fight him and-and kill him. So it was the final battle and it was just him against me, Annabeth, and Grover. Annabeth called him out on an old promise and he came back to himself. 

"He told me that I couldn't kill him, that if I tried, Kronos would come back kill everyone and he wouldn't be able to stop him. He asked for Annabeth's dagger."

"But you didn't give it to him right? He was evil, he could've killed you with it!" Ariana said.

"I did give him the dagger. I made the choice to trust him. The choice that would determine the fate of Olympus. He used the dagger to kill Kronos, and he died because of it. The point is, he was a hero in the end. That's why we named you after him. Yes, he made a lot of bad choices, but he made the ultimate sacrifice in the end."

I nodded slowly. "And what about Charles?" I asked. Dad smiled. "Everyone called him Beckendorf. He was a son of Hephaestus, just like Leo, and anything you could think of, he could make. Everyone loved him, he was brave, clever, strong. Tall, muscular, dark skin. One time we were in the woods and he got captured by some Myrmekes--"

"How'd he die?" I interrupted and Dad's smile vanished. "Luke..." he warned.

"I want to know," I insisted.

He signed resignedly. "We were on a mission, the two of us. This was before the Battle of Manhattan. We flew pegasi to the Princess Andromeda, Luke's ship full of monsters. We were supposed to blow it up so his army couldn't get to New York.

"We were discovered prematurely and while Beckendorf set up the Greek Fire, I went to cause a distraction. But we got caught."

Dad winced at this. "He told me to run. I didn't want to, but I knew there was no changing his mind. He had the detonator in his watch. I dove and got as far away as I could as he blew up the ship, himself along with it. He saved my life and sacrificed his own for a very noble cause. He was so, so brave."

So I was named after two guys who sacrificed themselves.

"What about me?" Ariana asked eagerly.

"Your first name, Ariana, means 'most holy' in Greek. Your mom picked it out."

She beamed at that. Ariana loved everything about Mom.

"Silena, on the other hand, was someone we knew from Camp. She was a daughter of Aphrodite, like Piper. Her name was Silena Beauregard. During the war, the Ares cabin refused to fight with us, and Kronos sent a drakon that could only be killed by a child of Ares. So Silena went back to Camp, disguised herself as Clarisse, the current head-counselor, and led the Ares cabin to battle."

Ariana nodded eagerly. "She fought the monster bravely, but she wasn't a daughter of Ares, so she couldn't kill it. She died fighting it. But Clarisse came to fight and we found out that Silena had been a spy, but she died a hero. She was also very brave. She stood up to Kronos."

"She died a hero," he repeated.

Ariana was in awe. "You all have power in your names," Dad said.

"Tell us about Bianca and Ethan."

The two of them turned away from the TV at the mention of their names. 

"What 'bout us?" Bianca asked.

"Yeah," Ethan added.

Dad gave them a smile. "We're just talking about your names," he said.

"Okay," Bianca said,  turning back to the TV, apparently uninterested. Ethan continued to watch us until Bianca grabbed his face in her tiny hands and forced him to watch TV again.

"Well you both probably know already that Bianca was named after Nico's sister, who died when she was twelve." We both nodded. We did already know this.

"Well when I was fourteen, I sneaked on a quest with Thalia, Grover, Bianca, and another Hunter named Zoe. Thalia wasn't a Hunter back then. 

"Anyway, on this quest we were at one of Hephaestus's junkyards and Bianca took something to give to Nico, who was ten at the time." It was weird to think of Nico ever being my age. 

"This big giant automaton came to life and tried to squash us but Bianca saved us all by climbing up the maintenance hatch on his foot and shutting him down. She sacrificed herself so we could continue on the quest."

"And Zoe? Did she die on that quest too?" I asked. There was a familiar theme of death here.

Dad nodded. "She was the lieutenant of Artemis back then. That's what Auntie Thalia is now. There was a prophecy for the quest telling that two would die, one by a parent's hand. Zoe knew she was going to die, but she went on the quest anyway to save Artemis. Her father, Atlas, killed her when we were rescuing Artemis and Annabeth. Her last words were "I can see the stars again my lady. 

"Artemis made her a constellation when she died, so she's forever in the stars. I'll show you where she is someday. So whenever you're lost, you'll know where to look for help. She'll always point you home."

He then went on to tell about Ethan. "So Ethan Nakamura was a son of Nemesis and he was on Luke's side in the war. I saved his life once, so I guess you could say he owed me a favor. Anyway, in the final battle, he realized that balance was what his mother wanted and he was not helping to achieve it. He stood up to Luke and tried to kill him, but he was invincible and a shard of his sword struck him instead."

Ariana and I gasped. "He told me to not let it happen again. So when the gods tried to offer me immortality I told them no. Instead I had them claim their children so they wouldn't be neglected anymore. Ethan's was a big part in how things turned out."

"And finally Iapetus."

"But isn't Iapetus a titan?" Ariana asked. "Aren't they the bad guys?"

"Most often, yes." Dad agreed. "But Iapetus was the exception. You see, I kind of pushed him into the River Lethe when we were fighting. He forgot who he was completely and I convinced him I was a friend and I named him Bob."

We giggled at that.

"Then when your mom and I...well when we fell into a very bad place, Bob came to our rescue and he helped us. And then when we were getting out, he stayed behind to close the doors and fend off the monsters for us. Him and Damasen, a friendly giant, saved us from the bad place. We owe them our lives as well. And I couldn't very well name Ethan Bob, so I went with Iapetus instead."

"Whoa," Ariana and I said at the same time. 

"Alright," Dad said. "Enough stories for tonight. It's bed time." And he hoisted the twins up, one on each hip, and headed for the stairs, Ariana and I following at a slower pace, exchanging looks.

The next day we called for another Secret Society meeting. Once everyone was gathered, Ariana excitedly told everyone to shut up. Milo was equally excited to know what we'd learned.

"Okay, you'll never believe what we found out," I said.