I hummed around the ice cream, "This is good."
"It's the best ice cream joint in the city," Drew said with a smirk. "Has the best flavors."
"They have cool flavors," I added, licking my mermaid ice cream. It tasted like key lime pie and was delicious.
"Big Gay Ice Cream is fabulous," she agreed. "I love the Rufus, but the short berry straw cake is great too."
"The Rufus kinda looks like a sundae," I said, grinning a bit at the name of the ice cream place we were at.
"It basically is, but it's fancier, and delicious."
I laughed, "I've only had McDonalds ice cream before, and that machine is broken half the time."
She looked horrified, "Oh honey, no. Absolutely not. That machine ice cream is so bad, they almost never clean it and-" she shudders "-I'm taking you to all the ice cream places, you will have good food."
I flushed, "That isn't necessary-"
"It'll be fun. You can judge them too!"
I smiled nervously, chewing on the plastic spoon.
"Well anyways, now that we've got the ice cream," she grinned. "Present time!"
"Presents?" I said in confusion, vaguely remembering her mentioning them before she'd signed off our call in the sea. "But I thought that the ice cream was the present?"
"Nope!"
She grabbed the bag by her side and started digging through it. I just thought she'd been going to a friend's house after and had stuff in the bag, but apparently not.
"Okay, so mine first of course."
I blinked at the slightly smushed present bag set in front of me and quickly balanced the ice cream in the bowl I was given.
"Um, okay."
I dug through the tissue paper and pulled out the box on the top.
It was… a fancy bag/box. Blue with sea shells on it. I opened the top and did a double take at the layered sections for makeup.
"Oh," I said as I picked up the foundation.
"I told you I was buying you makeup," she said primly. "I'll show you how to use it later."
I nodded, it was a full thing… I thought at least. I didn't know much about makeup beyond what I learned from the rants at the Aphrodite cabin.
"Cool," I said. "Think I can pull off the blue eye shadow?"
She snorted, grinning at me, "Let's start with natural looks. There's more in the bag."
I hummed and shut the makeup kit, setting it to the side as I dug through the bag and pulled out a book.
"On the Festivals of Dionysus, by Pherecydes of Leros. I've never heard of this?"
She nodded, "Yeah, it's from Khiron's private collection. You have to be sixteen, a counselor, and have another counselor vouching for you to get access. It's one of the lost works, he transcribed them into books and preserved them. The Athena and Apollo cabins constantly try to break in."
I blinked, staring at the apparently lost book, "Then how did you gift me a copy?" because that was… crazy.
"Oh, I asked Castor and Pollux to ask Mr. D for a copy for your birthday. It was in my room the next morning."
I gaped, "Oh…" I didn't realize that they liked me enough for that.
"Anyways," she grinned. "There's one more thing in there."
I huffed, grinning at her, "You didn't have to get me all of this."
"I wanted to, so get the last thing so I can shove the rest of the presents on you."
I dug through the bag again and felt something soft at the bottom. I pulled it out and gasped at the pretty fabric.
It was a veil, a shimmery deep turquoise with curling deeper green wave patterns on it.
"Oh wow," I whispered.
She beamed, "I'm glad you like it. Ava from the Athena cabin made it at my request."
"It's amazing," I said earnestly. "Havu- er, thank you."
"You can open the rest later," she said cheerfully. "But I wanted to see you open mine."
I nodded, accepting the bag when she passed it over. "Thank you, I really love them."
"Oh yeah, Giovanni wants you to IM him later for his present for you. Fair warning, he always goes overboard. He's done incredibly ridiculous gifts for every single Aphrodite kid so don't be surprised if he like… buys you a car or something."
I did a double take, "A car!?"
"He did that once."
"Oh dear."
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
Triton came with to see me off to school!
It had been less than a week, but I already missed him, I got too used to seeing him every day when I was in the sea.
"I managed to trick the others into thinking I was off for Godly stuff," Triton muttered. "Otherwise they would've followed me."
I blinked, "Why?"
He snorted, "They adore you. Or they want to annoy me. It's a mix, don't go with Khrysaôr anywhere, he will likely take you either someplace horribly dangerous, or someplace you're far too young for."
I nodded solemnly.
"Your school looks… interesting," Triton said as we arrived.
I nodded, staring up at it, Meriwether College Prep School.
The school was a large brick building with big red doors. I wasn't sure why they were bright red like that.
"Why are the doors red though?" Triton asked, echoing my thoughts.
I giggled, "They like Ares a bunch?"
He snorted, "That's not a good sign for a school, you're supposed to be at peace there."
"Have you ever been to a school?" I asked. Everyone knew that schools are not peaceful.
He looked worried, "No… I had tutors… Persi-"
I hugged him, then mom, "Love you guys bye!"
"Wait, Persi what does that mean? Are schools not peaceful?"
"Love you!"
"Persi!"
I heard mom laughing behind me as I hurried into the school.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
School was interesting, kinda fun. We found our homerooms, got our schedules, and were left to chat alone for a bit.
I studied the students for a minute. There were a lot of them, talking over each other as they introduced themselves.
The ones on my right had turned to talk to the kid on… her? His? Their? Right, while the ones in front of me were all leaning together.
The kid on my left was big, easily taller than me (though every kid in the room was , why was I doomed to be short) by like three heads.
Not that he had three heads mind you.
"Hi," I said.
He turned to me, and I did a double take, he only had one eye. Kyklopes.
"Hi," he mumbled.
Well, he didn't seem murderous. I could work with this until I saw Triton again.
"I'm Percy, what's your name?"
He peered at me, his one eye big and sad and scared. "I'm Tyson."
He was afraid and adorable. I was keeping him.
"Nice to meet you!" I beamed at him.
He blinked, "Nice to meet you too."
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
The school day went well in my opinion.
We went through all of our classes, I shared four of my seven classes with Tyson, though we didn't sit next to each other in all of them. There were a few other students I got to know too.
Klara was nice, really bubbly and fun to talk to. I was in History with her.
My group in Portuguese was a lot of fun, though I wasn't with Tyson. Kai seemed smart and had a nice accent that reminded me of Fetu, Zoey offered us bubblegum and informed me my blue hair was "amazing and who did it? I want that shade of blue", and Nikola looked ready to fall asleep but said hi and he liked my necklaces.
In science we were in groups of two and I was with Tyson again, but Klara (from history!) was at the table behind me with some kid named Matt. He wasn't very nice, apparently wearing pretty jewelry and having blue hair made someone gay.
In band we were put in groups based on our instrument, the band instructor was interested in my ocarina, but it also meant I was alone. He told me he'd put me with the wind instruments later.
English was a small class with the seats put along the walls. I had Kai right in front of me with a girl on one side and a boy to the other. The teacher had us go through the syllabus and reminded us to get it signed (which made me realize I probably needed to get the others signed) then started a lesson on symbolism in stories.
Math was painful, but I shared the class with Tyson, even if we were on opposite sides of the room. I was in the back, and beside me was Acantha, she was fun but was confused on what "Algebra" was. Apparently, she just moved here and they didn't have Algebra where she was from. I couldn't decide if that was lucky or unlucky for her.
PE was my least favorite class though.
We had an "baseline physical exam" which I thought I'd be good for. I spent all summer training after all.
I was not good for it.
I also hated being on land.
I tripped a dozen times doing the running portion, falling on my face half the time, dropped three of the weights, and accidentally punched one kid (Derek I learned when his friend panicked) in the nose when I lost grip on the band. I could do the chin lift though.
Acantha and Kai were doing nearly as bad as me though. I wasn't sure why they were doing so badly, did their old school not have physical education? Whatever the reason it was a wreck for them as well.
At least the day was over so I could go home and rest.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
"How was your day at school, Perseus?"
I blinked at Kymopoleia, who was standing in my living room (looking mostly human) with a grin. Her long blue hair was pulled up in a high ponytail and I realized underneath it was red.
Wait that was super cool I wanted dual toned hair.
"Um… good? I… wasn't expecting you…"
"I thought I'd pop in! Triton tried to sneak away this morning but anyone with sense knew that he was visiting you."
"Oh… well uh, it's nice to see you again, Kymopoleia."
"Always a pleasure, tiny brother of mine. What was your day at mortal school like?"
"Oh," I sat where she motioned. "We had syllabuses today, and a few small lessons."
She snapped her fingers and snacks appeared on the low table as she dropped dramatically onto the other couch.
"What's a syllabus?"
I peaked at her, then took one of the snacks when she motioned towards them with a grin.
"It's like an outline of the semester, what we'll do and the rules of the classroom."
"Sounds boring," she drawled as she popped a piece of fish in her mouth.
I shrugged, "I have to get mom to sign it, so I can turn it in."
She frowned, "You turn in your guidelines and rules?"
"Yeah," I said as I munched on some crab leg.
"That's so weird. What lessons did you guys have today?"
I paused, trying to remember. We uh… did syllabuses and… something in English? Oh yeah!
"We started on symbolism in English, in, like, books and stuff. Everyone will be turning in their summer work tomorrow, but since I transferred I don't have to."
"Huh, sounds incredibly boring," she said with a nod. "Do you guys just sit in a classroom all day?"
"No," I shifted as I realized I was bouncing my leg. "We also have PE and band."
"What's PE?" She wondered as she snagged some berries.
"Physical Education, it was horrible. I'm not used to moving on land again yet."
"Well," she swallowed. "The ocean is far superior to the sea anyways so moving on land isn't super important."
I smiled, "Yeah, but I need to work on that since I live on land."
"You wouldn't need to if you moved to the sea."
I squinted at her, but she just smiled.
"Anyways," I said. "I don't have any homework besides the syllabus today."
"Awesome! Then I'll take you someplace cool."
I blinked, "What?"
"What's it you call it on land? Plain Trip? Well, Plain Trip time!"
"Field Trip-" I was cut off as I yelped when, with a coiling spiral, we were someplace else.
What.
"Time for your first storm making lesson!" Kymopoleia chirped
Oh.
Oh. Wait, that was cool.
"Really!"
"Yep! I grabbed your storm guide for you already."
She passed me the spinning top thing she gave me for my birthday (apparently called a storm guide).
"So, let's get to work on your storms."
She held out her hand and almost instantly a spiral of wind and water curled until she was holding a mini storm cloud, lightning crackled through it and rain fell. Just… mini.
"Oh Pontus," I whispered. "How-"
I leaned closer staring in awe at the tiny storm.
She preened as I poked it, watching me with a wicked grin.
"You'll start with trying to make the clouds, then move on to rain, then friction, then lightning. If you seem to lean towards a specific kind of storm, we'll work on those first."
She paused here, studying me with a gleam in her eye. "Triton did mention you were good with ice, which is odd seeing how that isn't really something Metu specializes in, nor any of us."
I shrugged, I didn't know why it was so easy for me.
"Well, it might mean you can make hail storms which are usually harder for me to make, so we'll see. Anyways!"
She motioned towards me, dispersing her storm.
"What do I do first?" I asked excitedly as I clutched my storm guide.
"We'll start by having you make mini storms first. They'll be small, fitting in the palm of your hand."
I stared down at my hands. I was gonna make a small storm like the one she did? That was so cool.
"Once you've got that down we'll slowly make them larger, over both hands, then large enough to hold, eventually we'll get you up to small personal storms. One day you might be able to make one's big enough to cover a city!"
"Wow," I whispered.
"Your storm guide will help you at the beginning, it gathers the wind for you since most in the sea have very minimal control of winds, mostly revolving around storms. But that takes training."
It was like air bending, but limited.
I held the storm guide curiously, "What do I do with it?"
She pulled a second one out and held it in the palm of her hand.
"First you spin it," she said as she spun the storm guide. "It's got ivuisav on it that gather wind and channel it."
Runes, sea runes. Okay, that was cool. They were hard to learn and I still only knew a few.
"Is it hard to learn those ivuisav?" I wanted to know how to make something that could control winds like Aang. Maybe I could make his glider!
She paused, tilting her head.
"Are you trying to add ivuisav to your list of magics?"
"I know a few," I said earnestly.
She laughed, "Most of us know a few, but being skilled with them is something else entirely, and I don't think that'll be something that you're naturally good at."
I frowned, staring down at the storm guide in my hand. "Why not?"
She stopped her guide, letting the winds calm.
Something seemed to change in her attitude, her gaze intent as she studied me.
"Hmm, that's right, you didn't have tutors. I'm sure your tutor will cover this at some point now that you have one-"
"Please tell me now?" I pleaded with wide eyes. "I want to know why I'm good at some magics and not others. And why I wouldn't be good at ivuisav."
She leaned back, "Oh you've got amazing baby seal eyes. Do you use those on Triton? Use those on Triton."
I blinked in confusion.
She groaned, "Oh fine. Okay so basically, you're best at Thermomancy, it's your niche. Most people of the sea have something they just… fit with. That doesn't mean they're going to be great at it, but it will come easier than other things."
I nodded, Triton told me about that.
"And then you're also good at Purification, very good at it even. That doesn't always… hmm, match. Yeah, it doesn't always match with Thermomancy. Skilled Thermomancers have no need for pure water as they can just manipulate it anyways. So really it's not super common for skilled Thermomancers to also be good at Purification, usually they work in teams."
I frowned, I didn't realize that. It wasn't much harder for me to control the polluted water than it was the clean water.
"It's not like, never happening," she added. "Just not common. Several of Okeanus and Tethys' kids have that skill, and a variety from many other seas. It's just a bit strange with a child of Poseidon."
I nodded. So not super rare, just odd. I was fine with that. Katara was also super good at a lot of areas and that didn't seem common.
"Then you also have a bit of a knack for the Siren's Song. All those of the Greek bloodline tend to have some skill with it, in some fashion, and many of other bloodlines have skills in it or something similar."
What did the other seas do with it? That was really interesting, I'd have to see if I couldn't learn about that.
"You've been doing really well at it though, and that's surprising. Benthesikyme is probably the best amongst us at Siren's Song, and Triton and Herophile behind her, but it isn't very common for Poseidon kids."
"It isn't?"
"Nope. Most of his kids are best at Paipave, Yavailu, like me, Onaipep, Vapaloa, or Halaineo.
I didn't recognize two of those terms.
"Paipave is hydromancy, Vapaloa is purification, and Halaineo is prophecy but what are the other terms?"
She blinked, "Oh right. Uh, Yavailu is cyclomancy, or calling storms. Onaipep is geomancy which is controlling the earth."
"Like Lara!"
She stared at me, "How do you know about her? She died… forever ago, and isn't even on the list of Metuno kids that people know about."
"I… had a dream…"
She hummed, "Now that's fun. Please bring her up to Metu sometime, I wanna see his face."
Her gaze dropped to my neck, "Though I see you're wearing the necklace he gives to his kids."
I touched the necklace, just like Lara's, "Yeah… Though it keeps getting tangled with my camp one. Wearing multiple necklaces is hard."
"Remind me to show you some tricks when we're done with the storms," she said with a wink. "Anyways, back on topic."
"What was the topic again?" I asked as I tried to remember what we were talking about last.
"Uh…"
We both stood silently for a moment.
"Siren's Song!" She nodded. "That was it."
"Oh yeah," I mumbled. "Then we started talking about the other stuff Poseidon kids are good at…"
"Yep, well anyways. It's a bit surprising that you're good at all three, while they all require strong will, concentration, and instincts, they're otherwise not commonly matched up… or well, Thermomancy and Purification or Siren's Song aren't, Siren's Song and Purification aren't that uncommon to be paired."
"Yeah, I know a few mers are learning the Song to support their Purification."
"Yep, those who weaponize the Song alone are few and far between."
"Fetu is gonna do that," I mused.
"Fetu is going to be a force of nature and you did well to befriend him now," Kymopoleia said firmly. "Also, you two are adorable together and it makes Triton have an aneurysm."
I blinked in confusion.
"Anyways, your combo of skills are all very omteot based. Ivuisav are very much not, they're all about small details, lots of studying, and an instinctive knowledge of the language, at least for true masters. It's things that you don't have a natural leaning towards."
"Oh," I frowned.
"That doesn't mean you couldn't learn it," she added. "Plenty do learn things they're not naturals at. But it's usually better to work towards what you're good at, and it will take you a lot more work to master ivuisav then it would any of the skills you've been working on so far. And those skills would likely suffer for it as you wouldn't have the time to devote to them."
"Oh… that makes sense… I just-" I bit my lip. "I want to learn everything I can…"
She hummed, a gleam in her eye, "Well, you can certainly study ivuisav, I know some fun ones."
She grinned, sharp teeth flashing.
"We'll talk about that another time. For now, you're gonna get your top working."
I grinned, "You just spin it?"
"Nope, try it."
I studied the top in my hand but shrugged and spun it.
It did maybe one turn before flopping.
"What-"
"The top requires your power still," she said. "Now try to channel your power in it."
I nodded, focusing on the top as I tried to push my power into it like with the water.
It flopped again.
I glared at it.
This was gonna take a while.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
Mom and I were making dinner and preparing dessert.
I spent two whole hours trying to make the top spin earlier and Kymopoleia didn't give me much more advice than what she said at the beginning.
Maybe I was putting my power in it wrong? Maybe I could ask her to show me again without my necklace on, so I could sense what she did.
I carefully didn't touch my necklaces, my hands were covered in the whip cream from making the trifle (a new desert mom wanted to try out, we were making a chocolate version). Mom already had the cakes done for it by the time Kymopoleia and I got back.
Kymopoleia stayed long enough to help me move the bead from the camp necklace to the shell necklace Metua gave me, making it only two necklaces now (and it was cool).
The unevenness bugged me a bit, but Kymopoleia said she'd fix it.
She was a lot of fun, even if she was mean and wouldn't explain how to make the top work right.
She refused to stay for dinner though, just ruffled my hair and told me to not create any cool storms without her.
"Percy, did you finish putting the trifles together?"
I studied the treat in the dish in front of me. The chocolate sauce and whip cream layers alternated, with layers of chocolate pieces breaking it up.
"I think so?"
Mom leaned over my shoulder, "Those look good. Let's stick them in fridge and we'll have them after dinner."
Mom set the table nicely, with the lamb she'd cooked in the center and mac-n-cheese in a dish to the side.
She poured me some sparkling grape juice to have with it.
"Alright, let's have dinner."
I swung my legs and happily got a lot of the mac-n-cheese while mom cut a slice of lamb for me.
"The Lotus card really is wonderful," mom said. "I'm seeing about pulling cash out with it, since we're not sure if it'll be cancelled at some point."
I nodded, that sounded smart.
Oh the lamb was really good!
"I was wondering if you wanted an allowance?"
I blinked, "Allowance?"
Like, get money… without doing things?
"You're going to be working a lot this year, between school, and the undersea camp, and your tutor… If you keep up with all your work, I'll do an allowance."
I brightened, that would be nice.
"Really?"
"Yep. If you manage to get all your grades as C's or above this semester we'll do something extra, maybe a small vacation."
I beamed, "I can do that!"
Maybe, possibly… I could at least try.
She smiled, "I know you can. How was your first day of school?"
I hummed, swinging my legs as I considered it.
"It wasn't bad. There are some nice people in my class… oh yeah! I forgot to tell Kymopoleia. One of my classmates is a Cyclops, his name is Tyson and he's really nice."
She pursed her lips, "He doesn't seem dangerous?"
"No, but I can go to school without my necklace tomorrow if you want… to check and all…"
"No, no, I don't want you to be uncomfortable."
I nodded, chewing my lip.
"If he seems safe then maybe you can make friends with him."
"I hope so," I mumbled. "He seemed scared."
She smiled, "Well, you'll make sure he's safe, won't you?"
I nodded, smiling brightly.
"Yeah, we'll be great friends."
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
I didn't have any tutoring sessions for a week. They said they wanted me to have time to adjust to land school before adding on more work.
It was interesting. Some classes were fun, especially Portuguese. I struggled to pronounce some words right but it was interesting to learn. I hated the word homem with a burning passion though, it took me forever to pronounce it right.
Kai was great at helping with that. His pronunciation was perfect every time.
Zoey had taken to braiding my hair in class while we did the beginners exercises, she found it fun. Kai always twitched when she did though, which was strange.
I thought it was relaxing. Between the braiding, Kai's helpful explanations, and Nikola's constant sarcastic quips, the class was a lot of fun.
PE continued to be miserable though, it was only one week but I still hadn't adjusted to land right, at least not when running.
I could do the push-ups, and pull ups, and all the exercises that didn't require… moving my feet… but running? Jumping jacks? Lunges? Ugh.
Kai was equally hateful of them, and Acantha had started listing the reasons for why the class was utterly unnecessary.
Of course, everyone knew we sucked in that class at this point, especially Matt (who I had the misfortune of sharing the class with) so they took great delight in teasing us over it.
There were only so many times one could fall on their face trying to run across a flat surface before they hated the ground.
I was definitely gonna need to get better on land though, I lived on land, I couldn't be so bad at moving around!
It was horribly embarrassing.
Band was enjoyable though which was great because I loved playing the ocarina.
At the moment we were all being placed in terms of experience and the songs we knew. Some of the kids were actually amazing, a good amount were mediocre, and like half were straight up beginners.
I was put with the mediocre group and given some songs to learn while she tried to get the beginners up to par.
Africa by Toto was a fun tune, but it was hard to translate to ocarina without sheet notes. Ms. Bell (the director) said that she was trying to find good music for me.
Math was boring, and English a struggle, Science was mostly going over the basics.
It was a chemistry class, so we were covering the periodic table and stuff.
It would be boring except Matt kept trying to start fights. Klara did not like him at all, which was fair 'cause he keeps saying stuff to her that was… less than nice. And he kept trying to yank my hair! Just 'cause it was loose did not mean he could just yank it.
Anyways, I was very glad that the first week was done. Tyson and I were going to hang out this weekend!
How did one tell their friend that they knew the friend is a Cyclops without scaring the already nervous friend?
Was it really necessary? Could I just go along with it without saying anything?