DAWN HAWTHRONE'S FIRST THOUGHT WHEN SHE SAW THE DOLPHIN PIRATES was 'Gods, I love dolphins!'. Her second: 'all this kidnapping does not seem very conducive to a relaxing summer at home.'

She had been on her way home when the boat showed up. She'd said her goodbye's at Camp Half-Blood, given Percy a hug and a kiss on the cheek (he was two years older than her and technically her uncle, but Dawn had long since learned not to question the weirdness of godly relations and just insisted on obnoxiously calling him 'Uncle Percy' everytime she saw him), and wolf-whistled with the others as Percy and Annabeth kissed in the lake. She had stayed even longer after that, too. Long enough to help get Camp back into working order and to help some of the new campers find their feet. She kept meaning to leave, but then something new would come up - like a missing pegasus, or a nervous satyr, or an argument among the dryads - and Dawn would end up staying for "just a couple more weeks" every time.

Finally, she had found the perfect excuse. It was quickly coming to the end of October, and back at home, they had an annual celebration for the beginning of the winter months on the first day of November. She had insisted that she must go home, she really must be there for the celebration, and the demigods and Chiron had begrudgingly agreed to let her go (not without a number of goodbye presents, all of which she loved dearly). Camp-Half blood was all well and good, but Dawn had been ready for a long time to go home.

Unfortunately, things are almost never as easy as they sound.

She had borrowed a sturdy boat from Chiron - as the daughter of a sea god, however minor, it didn't need to be anything special - and began her travel in the fresh spring air. She had been so homesick it made her ache; she loved the home she had grown up in, the underwater city of Atlantis. She loved the sea, loved the peace, loved the chatter and the gossip that sea-people were prone to, loved the creatures. Most of all she loved the many faces Atlantis wore. It was loud and quiet and soft and harsh and welcoming and terrifying all at once; she was far more comfortable underwater than on land, at any rate.

She'd been travelling for not even an hour when the dolphin-pirates had shown up. At first, she was excited to see them. Cool! An epic warship shows up, with gorgons painted on the black sails and manned by dolphin pirates! But then, they'd started kidnapping her and that was considerably less cool.

"Boys, boys, boys," She'd said while trying to push the dolphin-human hybrid who was currently lugging her over his shoulder like a sack of flour away. "Why don't we talk about this? An adventure sounds real fun, but I've really got places to be today!"

The dolphin-men (sadly) either didn't understand or didn't listen, because they had continued to swarm around her like flies to honey. She'd been good-natured at first, but that had quickly turned to annoyance when she had realized they had no plans on letting her go. She had tried to fight back, but there's only so much you can do when you're being completely attacked by dolphin-men.

She had felt uneasy; a sickness in her stomach that said that danger was nearby. She'd had enough time to register the feeling before everything had turned black and the world had stilled.

•••

When she came to, the first thing she registered was blackness and the overwhelming smell of fish. Her hands and feet were tied, she quickly realised, and she was in a small, dark room filled with tens of wooden cargo boxes. She was cramped in the corner, and her feet had already gone numb and tingly from the strange position she was sitting in. One of the boxes was open, and blinking a few times as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she peered inside. Hundreds of little sardines, packed into the box as unceremoniously as she had been shoved into the room.

"That explains the smell," she said aloud. She blinked some more, trying to adjust her eyes to the faint light that she now realised was coming through a crack in the door. She tried to call on the ocean, tried to feel it's hum beneath her and it's power surrounding her and terrifyingly, she felt nothing. She was starting to stress now. As the daughter of a sea god, the sea was her home territory! She assumed she was still on the boat - could feel it rocking slightly and hear the sloshing of waves up the sides - but when she tried to reach for the familiar tug of power, she felt nothing. Dawn frowned.

"Hello!" She called out into the darkness in the general direction of the door. "Mr. Dolphin Men? I'm not sure I speak your dialect, but I'm sure we can find some way to communicate!"

Silence.

"Um." Dawn cringed. "That was pretty awkward, but we're gonna move past that! I'm not sure if you know, but I'm actually pretty important! You should probably let me out right now! I'm - um - I'm really cool! And - um - I'm the patron demigod of jellyfish! No one said I was, but no one said I wasn't either, so I'm just going out in a limb here! I'm also fifteen, not going to hurt you! You should definitely let me out right now! I can make a mean friendship bracelet, I could definitely teach you if you were to let me out! It has, like, coral, um, and-"

The opening of the door cut her off, and she was almost relieved that she didn't have to keep talking. She wasn't really quite sure where she was going with the friendship bracelet thing, anyway.

The figure who entered, however, almost made her wish she was still unconscious. Dawn was not a judgemental person and not a superficial one either - being surrounded by merpeople and fish all of her life, it wasn't exactly in her nature to judge based on appearance. But this guy was terrifying. He wasn't exactly tall - but taller than her, had she been standing up - and was relatively well built but nothing out of the ordinary. He was wearing exclusively gold. Maybe he had a taste for it, but it was everywhere; his breastplate, lining his shoes. Dawn wondered if he had a special set of gold pyjamas somewhere. She almost giggled until she looked up at him again. His face - or, more accurately, his mask - made her stomach drop. It was gold and in the likeness of something ancient, something cruel and threatening and vicious, curled up into a disfigured snarl.

Dawn let out a nervous laugh.

"Woah, woah, woah! Are those your dolphin guys out there?"

"Little niece," His voice was taunting, velvety and smooth with a rich accent she couldn't quite place. She registered his words and squinted up into his golden mask.

"Wait a second..." She scrunched up her face in concentration. 'Keep him busy', she thought to herself. 'At least then he's not killing you'. Besides, if he really was family maybe this would be a wholesome reunion! "Oh, I give up! Are you family on mom's side or dad's?"

"Little niece," He restarted, though he sounded a little thrown off his rhythm. Dawn snapped her fingers (or, the best she could, considering her hands were still tied).

"Wait! Don't tell me! Uncle... Hmm. I'm assuming your on Dad's side, so I'm gonna take a wild shot in the dark and-"

Quicker than she could blink, he'd brought out his golden sword and now had it at her throat. She didn't dare speak, could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She'd been in a lot of sticky situations before, but never had she felt this alone in one of them. She still couldn't feel the tug of the water in her gut the way she would normally, but now at least she assumed it was because he was a son of Poseidon.  To be her uncle, he'd have to be. She wondered what he'd say if she politely asked for her water control back.

"Little niece I won't repeat myself once more."

The man took a deep breath, ready to speak, and Dawn made herself as comfortable as she could with her hands and feet tied. If there was one thing that she'd learned from her year above ground, it's that there always was some kind of evil villain monologue, and when it happened it was best to be in some kind of a comfortable position to make it a bit more bearable.

a/n hello! first chapter is up! obviously super rough and needs a bit of editing, but i wanted to get it out there just so i could feel accomplished (: also, i promise this will get more intense/mature! obviously not too much so, but i'm trying to stick to a similar tone to the series, and since it's the first chapter i wanted to go for something nice n light