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Chapter 16: (PIPER XV)- HEARTBREAKS ARE RATED E FOR EVERYONE

Thalia eyed Piper’s name at the top with a bit of trepidation. She was not looking forward to hearing anymore nightmares from the poor girl and wished she knew how a phone worked to give her a call.

PIPER XV

PIPER WOKE UP AND IMMEDIATELY GRABBED a mirror.

“Awww, no dragon reaction?” Leo groaned, though he did realize the book was clearly rewinding on the timeline. Now he’d have to wait for Piper to catch up!

Nobody seemed to have much sympathy for him except Jason also grumbling at this book taking forever.

“Less than twelve hours and she’s already been converted?” Thalia sighed. “At least it took Nico some terror in the Labyrinth to die on that aesthetic.”

“Hey!” Nico scowled, “watch where you gutter stomp in your own puddle! And if you must know, it helps me move through the shadows better!”*

“Right, and I should get a nose ring to help me be a better conductor,” Thalia grinned as she snapped, fully prepared to continue he was actually stealing her look and that she’d need proof of that claim, when-

“You would too if Aprhoidte cursed you,” Percy reminded, derailing the both of them.

Thalia huffed in agreement to keep reading.

Everyone else sat in awed silence the children of the big three just had a lovely quarrel and then managed to break it off without world war three happening.

What were the gods so worried about again?

There were plenty of those in the Aphrodite cabin. She sat on her bunk, looked at her reflection and groaned.

She was still gorgeous.

“An honest horror. Did she even try rubbing mud on her face- no wait, that’s a beauty thing too,” Annabeth frowned.

“This is one of those unique experiences I can’t even pray I’ll never get or Aphrodite will curse me next,” Percy shivered at the idea. Yeah it might be cool to not wake up looking like a train wreck once, but the oddity of it wouldn’t last past the broken mirror for him.

Last night after the campfire, she’d tried everything. She messed up her hair, washed the makeup off her face, cried to make her eyes red. Nothing worked. Her hair popped back to perfection.

“Did she try hacking it off more?” Leo asked in complete sorrow for her. “She’s never minded it before.” He was suddenly miserable at the idea of Piper all alone, freaking out her body had been hijacked by her mom, and he’d just waltzed off without a care. Some friend he was.

“Not sure who I’d trust in this camp with scissors to be honest,” Jason winced at where she’d go to get them. He couldn’t even hope he’d offered her any comfort, it would just stay labeled in the awkward category from now until forever with his stupid mouth.

“More than half of us run around with swords,” Percy looked at him strangely.

“Exactly! Ask for some trimmers and you pull out Riptide! It wouldn’t go well,” Jason huffed.

The magic makeup reapplied itself. Her eyes refused to get puffy or bloodshot.

“That is easily one of the rudest thing I’ve heard these gods do to someone,” Percy frowned.

“That’s because you don’t read the rest of the myths you're supposed to,” but Annabeth agreed this was pretty dang rude. She really couldn’t even guess how long the curse was going to last for the poor girl, she’d never paid attention to their traditions. She’d never had much to do with them, though in later years that had been on purpose as she avoided the lot, less her brain wander to people it shouldn’t. Silena had been the exception, because she never brought up Luke or Percy unless invited.

She would’ve changed clothes, but she had nothing to change into. The other Aphrodite campers offered her some (laughing behind her back, she was sure), but each outfit was even more fashionable and ridiculous than what she had on.

“Seriously?” Leo scowled. “Not one of them had an old pair of comfy PJ’s? They all sleep in designer lace and chiffon!?”

“I’m grateful for the first time poor Piper didn’t come with us,” Jason agreed. He’d offer her all of his built up camp shirts to sleep in at minimum.

Now, after a horrible night’s sleep, still no change. Piper normally looked like a zombie in the morning, but her hair was styled like a supermodel’s and her skin was perfect. Even that horrible zit at the base of her nose, which she’d had for so many days she’d started to call it Bob, had disappeared.

“What is wrong with this mess when we can’t even be grateful a zit’s been vanquished?” Will sighed.

“Just like every gift from the gods,” Nico agreed. He found it personally amusing that Piper had chosen that particular name as he glanced at Percy, but he was just chuckling without a care in the world…and then he was left to his own devices wondering at the strange habits of naming zits instead of just making them vanish from your face with enough concentration and very careful shadow manipulation?

She growled in frustration and raked her fingers through her hair. No use. The do just popped back into place. She looked like Cherokee Barbie.

Thalia’s laugh managed to sound wounded and amused all at once for her long standing joke in this cabin having a horrible sting on Piper. She wished she’d make a visit to camp soon, just to update Annabeth, and maybe kidnap this girl out of pity.

From across the cabin, Drew called, “Oh, honey, it won’t go away.” Her voice dripped with false sympathy. “Mom’s blessing will last at least another day. Maybe a week if you’re lucky.”

Piper gritted her teeth. “A week?”

The other Aphrodite kids—about a dozen girls and five guys —smirked and snickered at her discomfort.

“Really feeling the comradery,” Hazel muttered, tucking her hands into Nico’s jacket in relief.

“They’re not all bad,” Will said instantly, but they could tell it was a practiced reflex as he winced at how bad this was coming off. **“Melanie Martinez hangs out with one of my brothers a lot and she seems nice.” It wasn’t the greatest defense, since he hadn’t really spent any time around her, but Melanie was a great singer and offered free piano lessons to anyone who asked which was how she and Jerry started hanging out.

Where the piano had come from, he had a feeling Chiron didn’t know and hadn’t wanted to ask as it took up residence in the amphitheater and would probably be harder to get rid of now than was worth it.

Piper knew she should play cool, not let them get under her skin. She’d dealt with shallow, popular kids plenty of times. But this was different. These were her brothers and sisters, even if she had nothing in common with them, and how Aphrodite had managed to have so many kids so close in age … Never mind. She didn’t want to know.

“I swear she has a stopwatch or something,” Thalia rolled her eyes and prattled off with an old smirk. “Oops, been more than a year, better pop back down to Earth and make sure my cabin’s flooded with more kids!”

“We really should find a way to separate you from your sisters from time to time,” Jason sighed. “They’re a bad influence.”

Thalia scoffed. “You think I need Phoebe to come up with that idea!” She was the one with the book, this could turn into a full on thing before Annabeth intervened, “quest? Saving the world and other vaguely important things? Lets see if Piper lives through this before we worry about how her siblings take her in?” It wasn’t even a problem she knew how to handle going forward, and that frustrated her to no end. The rest of them could hardly make Drew act better towards any new Aphrodite kids coming in.

“Don’t worry, hon.” Drew blotted her fluorescent lipstick. “You’re thinking you don’t belong here? We couldn’t agree more. Isn’t that right, Mitchell ?”

One of the guys flinched. “Um, yeah. Sure.”

Thalia’s scowl deepened past frustration as she imagined Drew waking up with gum in her hair, in her makeup, and all her clothes for the foreseeable future until she decided to act like a human being with a heart. Maybe she’d even get creative and transport some worms in too.

“Mmm-hmm.” Drew took out her mascara and checked her lashes. Everyone else watched, not daring to speak.

“Is it too soon to offer beheading as a solution?” Thalia asked.

“Little bit,” Percy said, but not as if he really meant it.

“So anyways, people, fifteen minutes until breakfast. The cabin’s not going to clean itself! And Mitchell, I think you’ve learned your lesson. Right, sweetie? So you’re on garbage patrol just for today, mm-kay? Show Piper how it’s done, ’cause I have a feeling she’ll have that job soon—if she survives her quest. Now, get to work, everybody! It’s my bathroom time!”

Everybody started rushing around, making beds and folding clothes, while Drew scooped up her makeup kit, hair dryer, and brush and marched into the bathroom.

Someone inside yelped, and a girl about eleven was kicked out, hastily wrapped in towels with shampoo still in her hair.

Thalia was seething with anger, but she kept reading through gritted teeth among the growing grumbles and snide comments.

The door slammed shut, and the girl started to cry. A couple of older campers comforted her and wiped the bubbles out of her hair.

Thalia sighed in relief as she focused her anger on not launching a missile arrow into that cabin right now. That’s all she’d wanted to see, just a few decent ones in there.

“Seriously?” Piper said to no one in particular. “You let Drew treat you like this?”

A few kids shot Piper nervous looks, like they might actually agree, but they said nothing.

The campers kept working, though Piper couldn’t see why the cabin needed much cleaning. It was a life-size dollhouse, with pink walls and white window trim. The lace curtains were pastel blue and green, which of course matched the sheets and feather comforters on all the beds.

The guys had one row of bunks separated by a curtain, but their section of the cabin was just as neat and orderly as the girls’. Something was definitely unnatural about that.

“Can’t believe Drew doesn't have sheep painted into the wall, she’s not subtle enough to explain it any other way,” Annabeth grumbled.

Every camper had a wooden camp chest at the foot of their bunk with their name painted on it, and Piper guessed that the clothes in each chest were neatly folded and color coordinated. The only bit of individualism was how the campers decorated their private bunk spaces. Each had slightly different pictures tacked up of whatever celebrities they thought were hot. A few had personal photos, too, but most were actors or singers or whatever.

Piper hoped she might not see The Poster.

“Oh, no,” but at least now Thalia sounded indulgent and a little sorry. Piper was clearly no more fond of her dads infamy than she was of her own.

It had been almost a year since the movie, and she thought by now surely everyone had torn down those old tattered advertisements and tacked up something newer. But no such luck. She spotted one on the wall by the storage closet, in the middle of a collage of famous heartthrobs.

The title was lurid red: King of Sparta. Under that, the poster showed the leading man—a three-quarters shot of bare-chested bronze flesh, with ripped pectorals and six-pack abs. He was clad in only a Greek war kilt and a purple cape, sword in hand. He looked like he’d just been rubbed in oil, his short black hair gleaming and rivulets of sweat pouring off his rugged face, those dark sad eyes facing the camera as if to say, I will kill your men and steal your women! Ha-ha!

“A role he played quite well,” Annabeth chuckled.

“We need to have a movie night to watch it,” Thalia grinned.

“I’d, wait, until Piper’s there to throw popcorn at the screen with you,” Leo said hastily. She would have been thrilled to come in here and meet a whole group of people who were too out of touch to care about her famous dad. Now that was still mostly true, but Leo knew she’d still rather be in on that particular narrative.

It was the most ridiculous poster of all time. Piper and her dad had had a good laugh over it the first time they saw it.

Then the movie made a bajillion dollars. The poster graphic popped up everywhere. Piper couldn’t get away from it at school, walking down the street, even online. It became The Poster, the most embarrassing thing in her life. And yeah, it was a picture of her dad.

She turned away so no one would think she was staring at it. Maybe when everyone went to breakfast she could tear it down and they wouldn’t notice.

She tried to look busy, but she didn’t have any extra clothes to fold. She straightened her bed, then realized the top blanket was the one Jason had wrapped around her shoulders last night. She picked it up and pressed it to her face. It smelled of wood smoke, but unfortunately not of Jason. He was the only person who’d been genuinely nice to her after the claiming, like he cared about how she felt, not just about her stupid new clothes. God, she’d wanted to kiss him, but he’d seemed so uncomfortable, almost scared of her. She couldn’t really blame him. She’d been glowing pink.

Jason’s ratcheting unease at her fondness quickly fell off into his own affectionate laughter. “Let’s hope her mom doesn't make a habit of making her glow like a rainbow.”

“I don’t know, can’t say I wouldn’t at least enjoy that power for personal entertainment if I had to pick,” Hazel chuckled. Piper’s curse sounded dreadful to her, but even calling it a curse felt laughably under-selling what a real curse was like.

“I’d kiss you no matter what color you glowed,” Percy grinned at Annabeth.

“You’re such a dork,” she chuckled as she kissed his cheek.

“’Scuse me,” said a voice by her feet. The garbage patrol guy, Mitchell, was crawling around on all fours, picking up chocolate wrappers and crumpled notes from under the bunk beds. Apparently the Aphrodite kids weren’t one hundred percent neat freaks after all.

She moved out of his way. “What’d you do to make Drew mad?”

He glanced over at the bathroom door to make sure it was still closed. “Last night, after you were claimed, I said you might not be so bad.”

“I say we pitch Drew into the fire and put Mitchell in charge,” Percy sighed.

“He does mean the magical fire that only burns marshmallows,” Annabeth promised.

“He does?” Percy asked in surprise. Drew was starting to remind him of Kelly and it was hard to keep his monsters straight sometimes.

“Let’s hold off on immolation to see if someone else wants to volunteer and dethrone Drew,” Nico offered peaceably.

Percy rolled his eyes and muttered something that vaguely sounded like agreement.

It wasn’t much of a compliment, but Piper was stunned. An Aphrodite kid had actually stood up for her?

“Thanks,” she said.

Mitchell shrugged. “Yeah, well. See where it got me. But for what it’s worth, welcome to Cabin Ten.”

A girl with blond pigtails and braces raced up with a pile of clothes in her arms. She looked around furtively like she was delivering nuclear materials.

“I brought you these,” she whispered.

“Piper, meet Lacy,” Mitchell said, still crawling around on the floor.

“I didn’t even know Lacy could be a name, who would curse their child like that?” Thalia said crosseyed.***

“I’ve heard kids mispronounce your name three different ways, don’t even start Thals,” Percy rolled his eyes.

“I wasn’t mocking her, I was honestly surprised,” she insisted.

“You’re also just as stunned she didn’t just go by her middle name when she grew the slightest bit of independence,” Annabeth rolled her eyes too.

“Fair,” she acknowledged.

“Hi,” Lacy said breathlessly. “You can change clothes. The blessing won’t stop you. This is just, you know, a backpack, some rations, ambrosia and nectar for emergencies, some jeans, a few extra shirts, and a warm jacket. The boots might be a little snug. But—well—we took up a collection. Good luck on your quest!”

Thalia sounded genuinely touched, nobody had ever done something like that for her before…not since Luke. The Hunters looked out for each other, but they were very independent too in Camp. They were always happy to help each other out, but being the Lieutenant left her with the often uneasy task of being in charge and offering support more often than she was comfortable giving it, rather than just handling things on her own. She was honestly happy Piper was getting this kind of sibling experience.

Lacy dumped the things on the bed and started to hurry away, but Piper caught her arm. “Hold on. At least let me thank you! Why are you rushing off?”

Lacy looked like she might shake apart from nervousness. “Oh, well—”

“Drew might find out,” Mitchell explained.

“I might have to wear the shoes of shame!” Lacy gulped.

“The what?” Piper asked.

Lacy and Mitchell both pointed to a black shelf mounted in the corner of the room, like an altar. Displayed on it were a hideous pair of orthopedic nurse’s shoes, bright white with thick soles.

“Errr, are the shoes hiding, in them, or?” Percy asked.

“My first thought was giant clown shoes. Plain white seems mild in comparison?” Annabeth agreed, studying the book.

“Bet it's hell to get monster dust out of those things?” Thalia shrugged.

“Pffft, like those kids get monster dust on them on a regular basis,” Nico scoffed.

“None of you guys are funny,” but Will sighed and sounded more exhausted than like he was really reprimanding them. They really did seem confused.

“I had to wear them for a week once,” Lacy whimpered. “They don’t go with anything!”

“Doesn’t white, go with, everything?” Leo asked.

“You couldn't own a piece of white clothing for an hour,” Jason smirked as he looked up from his own drawing.

“Guilty,” Leo agreed, turning back to the smudge marks and stains on his paper he was somehow insisting were improvements on Festus’s power core.

Jason smiled in triumph and turned back to doodle a few more lines onto his paper. They’d just been a lot of stick figures at first, ruler straight and oddly placed, but once he started shading in the back work and etched a few curves, he realized he’d been drawing columns. Rows and rows of supports, holding nothing but the edges of the pages, but he liked it all the same.

“And there’re worse punishments,” Mitchell warned. “Drew can charmspeak, see? Not many Aphrodite kids have that power; but if she tries hard enough, she can get you to do some pretty embarrassing things.

“Okay, now that’s got to be against the rules! No way Chiron lets her get away with that, personal cabin blah blah whatever aside,” Hazel frowned.

“It is,” Annabeth agreed. “But good luck getting anyone to prove it.” She was already coming up blank on how to bring Drew’s reign to a halt without basically just grounding her in the basement of the Big House. People, aside from Percy, were really hard to factor into strategies.

Piper, you’re the first person I’ve seen in a long time who is able to resist her.”

“Charmspeak …” Piper remembered last night, the way the crowd at the campfire had swayed back and forth between Drew’s opinion and hers. “You mean, like, you could talk someone into doing things. Or … giving you things. Like a car?”

“Oh, don’t give Drew any ideas!” Lacy gasped.

“But yeah,” Mitchell said. “She could do that.”

“So that’s why she’s head counselor,” Piper said. “She convinced you all?”

Mitchell picked a nasty wad of gum from under Piper’s bed. “Nah, she inherited the post when Silena Beauregard died in the war. Drew was second oldest. Oldest camper automatically gets the post, unless somebody with more years or more completed quests wants to challenge, in which case there’s a duel, but that hardly ever happens. Anyway, we’ve been stuck with Drew in charge since August. She decided to make some, ah, changes in the way the cabin is run.”

“Yes, I did!” Suddenly Drew was there, leaning against the bunk. Lacy squeaked like a guinea pig and tried to run, but Drew put an arm out to stop her. She looked down at Mitchell.

“I think you missed some trash, sweetie. You’d better make another pass.”

“Yeah, he clearly forgot to throw out Drew’s wardrobe,” Nico rolled his eyes.

Piper glanced toward the bathroom and saw that Drew had dumped everything from the bathroom waste bin—some pretty nasty things—all over the floor.

“A hat!” Thalia popped the side of her head. “Her outfit is clearly missing a hat!”

“With the trash as like, a rim, or just plaster that over her clothes?” Percy asked conversationally.

Annabeth really wanted to take the book away to distract these two, but she was kind of worried that would just leave them with more free time as she cleared her throat and vaguely mentioned saving the world again. Thalia was clearly only mildly convinced to keep going.

Mitchell sat up on his haunches. He glared at Drew like he was about to attack (which Piper would’ve paid money to see), but finally he snapped, “Fine.”

“She should have offered him the money,” Percy sighed.

“I don’t think she kept her wallet on her,” Thalia said in regret.

Drew smiled. “See, Piper, hon, we’re a good cabin here. A good family!

“Maybe if you're comparing it to Hera’s version,” Will said snidely.

Silena Beauregard, though … you could take a warning from her. She was secretly passing information to Kronos in the Titan War, helping the enemy.”

Thalia froze with a gobsmacked look on her face. It hadn’t really registered until this moment that was in fact true. Yet another child of Aphrodite was already being manipulated, being forced to spy, playing as a pawn. It wasn’t a line of succession she thought Silena would be proud to brag about.

But Silena had been wrong to trust in Luke, to keep spying for him instead of forcing some other path. There had been no easy options regardless. Drew was a tyrannical little shit who should have all the souls of her shoes ripped out for being like this, but that didn’t make her wholly wrong…these situations were uncomfortably similar…

And Drew didn’t even know it! She was tormenting this poor girl completely blind!

The subdued way she kept reading surprised them. She was still angry, but nine times less so. Now she was just, sad.

Drew smiled all sweet and innocent, with her glittery pink makeup and her blow-dried hair lush and smelling like nutmeg. She looked like any popular teenage girl from any high school. But her eyes were as cold as steel. Piper got the feeling Drew was looking straight into her soul, pulling out her secrets.

Helping the enemy.

“Oh, none of the other cabins talk about it,” Drew confided. “They act like Silena Beauregard was a hero.”

Drew was lucky she wasn’t up here now, or Percy would have punted her to the lake from where she was from that alone. “I know the perfect punishment,” Percy smirked in a way that really should have scared Drew senseless. “Let’s sick Clarisse on her.”

“You wouldn’t live without your dessert privileges Perce, let’s set aside drastic measures for now,” Annabeth placated.

“She sacrificed her life to make things right,” Mitchell grumbled. “She was a hero.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Drew said. “Another day on garbage patrol, Mitchell.

Percy’s jaw was aching with the urge to spit acid in this girl's face, maybe not as literally as had once been done to Silena, but he had a few choice words about what being a hero meant and who got to say what about it!

But anyways, Silena lost track of what this cabin is about. We match up cute couples at camp! Then we break them apart and start over!

Annabeth was stunned into silence, her face flushed with such a deep anger Percy scooted away a bit in terror. She vividly remembered Drew always making jokes about winning Percy over and hating her for it, but the sudden realization she may not have even liked him at all, but was treating him as part of this sick game!? Oh, Drew had better watch that fat head of hers when Annabeth could bother to spare her a thought again!

It’s the best fun ever.

“Is ripping someone’s tongue out one of those things ambrosia and nectar can heal? Thought just popped into my mind for no reason, new here,” Leo asked almost casually. Jason felt eyes on him though and looked up from his drawing to see Leo watching the book and him alternatively, and he felt a warm flash at clearly having taken that as a threat against him and Piper, when he didn’t particularly have any strong feelings on the matter. He’d even play along with the act if it helped Piper to cope with her siblings better.

“Yes, nectar actually has fixed that,” Will sounded a little too enthusiastic explaining this. “It’s a pretty complicated process stitching the tongue back in, depending on the kind of damage that removed it, but swish a bit around in their mouth after and it can heal if you manage to apply it fast enough.”

“How many people-” Percy began in concern.

“Oh I only heard Chiron managed to do it once,” Will sighed. “It would be so cool to see in person though and study how the nerves mend themselves back together, in what order, how quickly speech can be accomplished after the procedure!”

Nico was looking at him with interest, and then said something that might have been in English if they understood nerd words about whatever Mythomagic card that reminded him of. Will grinned in delight and said he hadn’t found that one yet and they were all seriously concerned this was about to spiral out of control. ****

It was moments like this where Percy kind of understood his odd friendship with Nico as he turned away to Thalia before that escalated into other gross procedures he wanted to know nothing about.

We don’t have any business getting involved in other stuff like wars and quests. I certainly haven’t been on any quests. They’re a waste of time!”

“I finally figured out how to spell hypocrite! It’s only got four letters!” Percy grinned.

“Do me a favor and let me check your next English assignment you hand in,” Annabeth said, more as if she’d read that chaos and hand it back than go at it with a red marker.

“I feel like next time I see Piper I should hug her and thank her just for existing,” Jason sighed.

Lacy raised her hand nervously. “But last night you said you wanted to go on a—”

Drew glared at her, and Lacy’s voice died.

“Awwww,” Thalia said again, laughing right through her pity for the poor girl. She’d teach Lacy a few basic skills with a throwing knife and hopefully help boost her confidence.

“Most of all,” Drew continued, “we certainly don’t need our image tarnished by spies, do we, Piper?”

Piper tried to answer, but she couldn’t. There was no way Drew could know about her dreams or her dad’s kidnapping, was there?

It didn’t seem likely, but Annabeth grimaced it could be a possibility. She might not be acting like it right now, but Drew was a demigod same as any of them. Anyone in this camp could have dreams that connected them all together. Drew very well could have seen Piper’s dad being kidnapped, heard that awful voice threatening Piper, or even this Mistress herself could be whispering to her to sow dissent among the place.

“It’s too bad you won’t be around,” Drew sighed. “But if you survive your little quest, don’t worry, I’ll find somebody to match up with you. Maybe one of those gross Hephaestus guys.

“Hey?” Leo frowned. “We’ve got the best showers in the whole camp!”

“I knew it,” Annabeth frowned.

Or Clovis? He’s pretty repulsive.”

“Rude,” Jason frowned, oddly defensive of the guy who had made an effort to get out of bed and made an attempt to sort out his memories.

“Jace, buddy, hope you’ve been keeping up better than that,” Percy rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t make Drew date Drew right now.”

Drew looked her over with a mix of pity and disgust. “Honestly, I didn’t think it was possible for Aphrodite to have an ugly child, but … who was your father? Was he some sort of mutant, or—”

“Tristan McLean,” Piper snapped.

As soon as she said it, she hated herself. She never, ever played the “famous dad” card. But Drew had driven her over the edge. “My dad’s Tristan McLean.”

“Well that ought to shut her up for a minute,” Thalia said in relief, wondering if she’d be lucky enough to finish her whole chapter without that nags voice.

“I’ve never seen Piper mad enough to use the famous dad card,” Leo said in a bit of awe.

“How long were you two at the Wilderness School together?” Jason asked with interest.

“Pushing six months,” Leo said, it was getting close to the longest time he’d been anywhere. Piper had been a big reason as to why, they’d instantly clicked. Though a part of him now suspected his court mandated sentence there, and Piper just so happening to get this place in the vast options available to Jane The Witch might have had some godly nudging.

The stunned silence was gratifying for a few seconds, but Piper felt ashamed of herself. Everybody turned and looked at The Poster, her dad flexing his muscles for the whole world to see.

“Oh my god!” half the girls screamed at once.

“Sweet!” a guy said. “The dude with the sword who killed that other dude in that movie?”

“He is so hot for an old guy,” a girl said, and then she blushed. “I mean I’m sorry. I know he’s your dad. That’s so weird!”

“It’s weird, all right,” Piper agreed.

“Can you imagine hearing that every day, for any length of time?” Annabeth rubbed her ear in disgust, and Thalia really wasn't reading that obnoxiously.

“Yes,” Will muttered with a wince.

Thalia gave him a vaguely apologetic smile for once saying the same about his dad.

“It gets old, we actually spent some fun times making up names for each other at one point,” Leo grinned. “If she ever introduces herself as Shania Twang, just know you’re being had.”

“And what was yours?” Jason asked.

“I, erm, never settled on one I liked,” Leo said quickly. He’d never want to change the name his mom gave him, even as a joke.

“Do you think you could get me his autograph?” another girl asked.

Piper forced a smile. She couldn’t say, If my dad survives....

“Sure she could, it would just be awkward as hell,” Percy grinned, that kind of way that was hoping Piper would laugh along for knowing that wasn’t funny but he was trying to make her laugh anyways.

“That girl didn’t even offer anything for that! Piper shouldn’t promise something for nothing anyways,” Leo sniffed.

“Sure she can, if she’s being nice,” Will frowned.

“Or an idiot,” Thalia smirked at the potential way to get Piper into being head of this cabin was just some easy bribery.

“Knock it off Thals,” Jason sighed. Which made her keep reading rather quickly, Annabeth noted.

“Yeah, no problem,” she managed.

The girl squealed in excitement, and more kids surged forward, asking a dozen questions at once.

“Have you ever been on the set?”

“Do you live in a mansion?”

“Do you have lunch with movie stars?”

“That’s actually a good question,” Percy admitted. There were at least a few it might be cool to meet just to ask how some certain scenes had worked.

“Had to happen eventually, probability and all that,” Annabeth grinned.

“She has,” Leo agreed, “but she won’t tell me which ones, which means they must have been super lame.”

“Have you had your rite of passage?”

That one caught Piper off guard. “Rite of what?” she asked.

The girls and guys giggled and shoved each other around like this was an embarrassing topic.

“The rite of passage for an Aphrodite child,” one explained. “You get someone to fall in love with you. Then you break their heart. Dump them. Once you do that, you’ve proven yourself worthy of Aphrodite.”

Thalia looked like a vole had just tried to burrow into her mouth. “That was foul! What did I just say?”

“Wow these guys are the worst. This is a, thing around here?” Nico asked in concern.

“Not one they announce to the world, but,” Will sighed. He’d heard about it in passing and hoped they were just baseless rumors.

“Can we please bail Piper out of this place before she has to move in?” Leo frowned.

“Can we please build Hestia a cabin for kids who don’t want to sleep in their parents cabin?” Jason sighed.

Annabeth looked at him like he’d just switched to Latin, and she’d understood all of it. “That’s, actually not the worst idea.”

“Thanks,” Jason said, she really knew how to say a compliment like an insult.

Annabeth shook herself and really smiled at him. “No, seriously, we’ve got it all built, but it’s just honorary. We’ll have to talk to Chiron about circumstances though and how it would work around the rest of camp.”

Piper stared at the crowd to see if they were joking. “Break someone’s heart on purpose? That’s terrible!”

The others looked confused.

“Why?” a guy asked.

“I’m going to break his nose and ask him if that hurt. That’s how stupid that sounded,” Percy rolled his eyes.

“I mean, I guess, when you grew up in that environment, some things are just normal to you and not to others,” Hazel offered half-heartedly.

Percy just frowned at her but didn’t argue the point. Her horse picture was really good, even upside down.

“Oh my god!” a girl said. “I bet Aphrodite broke your dad’s heart! I bet he never loved anyone again, did he? That’s so romantic!

They all vividly remembered that was actually exactly true, the sadness lingering in Tristan McLean’s eyes. Did all of Aphrodite's mortal lovers go through the same? How did her own kids seem so unphased by this? It really was one of those mysteries none of them had a clue about in their own backyard.

When you have your rite of passage, you can be just like Mom!”

“Forget it!” Piper yelled, a little louder than she’d intended. The other kids backed away. “I’m not breaking somebody’s heart just for a stupid rite of passage!”

Which of course gave Drew a chance to take back control.

“Ugh,” Thalia groaned, smashing the book against her forehead. Her choice was now to go back hoping they’d keep interrogating the poor girl and loading Artemis with extra ammunition or Drew talking again, and they were pretty equally bad choices! How was Piper’s chapters somehow worse than Leo and Jason’s combined?!

“Well, there you go!” she cut in. “Silena said the same thing. She broke the tradition, fell in love with that Beckendorf boy, and stayed in love. If you ask me, that’s why things ended tragically for her.”

“She can’t honestly be claiming no other Aphrodite kid has refused to play along with that tradition and started a curse?” Will frowned.

“You know Will, add it to the list of things we need to discuss with her,” Thalia said in a violently pleasant tone of voice. It made him want to cringe behind Nico, but he resisted.

“That’s not true!” Lacy squeaked, but Drew glared at her, and she immediately melted back into the crowd.

“Hardly matters,” Drew continued, “because, Piper, hon, you couldn’t break anyone’s heart anyway.

“She can break something much more important with that knife,” but Percy had a strange expression on his face. He’d accidentally broken Annabeth’s heart more than once, and that wasn’t the kind of thing you could heal with godly food and drink.

Drew had apparently never learned one of the most important things Silena or Aphrodite had never had to teach him. Love was the strongest thing a demigod could use to get where you needed to go. Breaking it apart was never something to brag about.

And this nonsense about your dad being Tristan McLean—that’s so begging for attention.”

Several of the kids blinked uncertainly.

“She really does just sound desperate right there,” Thalia sneered.

“I want to see someone shove those nurse shoes into her mouth so bad right now,” Leo huffed.

“That’s not, what, that saying, means,” but Annabeth was clearly only reluctantly correcting him.

“What saying?” Leo asked, and she couldn't tell if he was being serious.

“You mean he’s not her dad?” one asked.

Drew rolled her eyes. “Please. Now, it’s time for breakfast, people, and Piper here has to start that little quest. So let’s get her packed and get her out of here!”

“I think she’s afraid of Piper,” Jason smirked. Drew seemed oddly eager to end this conversation all of a sudden, and he doubted it was to get to her eggs and bacon.

“I’m not sure she’s smart enough for that,” Nico rolled his eyes.

Drew broke up the crowd and got everyone moving. She called them “hon” and “dear,” but her tone made it clear she expected to be obeyed.

“Ugh,” Leo made a face. He’d been around a lot of people like that. There had been one disturbing dude who called all the foster kids in the house baby no matter their age. He hadn’t stuck around long enough to figure out if it was some kind of recurring demeaning insult or if the guy was just a weirdo.

Mitchell and Lacy helped Piper pack. They even guarded the bathroom while Piper went in and changed into a better traveling outfit. The hand-me-downs weren’t fancy—thank god—just well-worn jeans, a T-shirt, a comfortable winter coat, and hiking boots that fit perfectly. She strapped her dagger, Katoptris, to her belt.

When Piper came out, she felt almost normal again. The other campers were standing at their bunks while Drew came around and inspected. Piper turned to Mitchell and Lacy and mouthed, Thank you. Mitchell nodded grimly. Lacy flashed a full-braces smile. Piper doubted Drew had ever thanked them for anything.

Will frowned if anyone ever thanked the Aphrodite cabin for anything around here. They weren’t exactly the cabin anyone ran to for, anything. Except maybe the odd desperate kid for relationship advice, and they learned fast why that wasn’t the best idea.

She also noticed that the King of Sparta poster had been wadded up and thrown in the trash. Drew’s orders, no doubt. Even though Piper had wanted to take the poster down herself, now she was totally steamed.

Leo grinned at the idea of asking Piper for a few dozen signed ones. The horrified look on her face would be worth a laugh until he showed her the gorilla glue and offered a few fun suggestions of where Drew could find them for the rest of her life.

When Drew spotted her, she clapped in mock applause.

“Very nice! Our little quest girl all dressed in Dumpster clothes again. Now, off you go! No need to eat breakfast with us. Good luck with … whatever. Bye!”

Piper shouldered her bag. She could feel everyone else’s eyes on her as she walked to the door. She could just leave and forget about it. That would’ve been the easy thing. What did she care about this cabin, these shallow kids?

Except that some of them had tried to help her. Some of them had even stood up to Drew for her.

She turned at the door.

Thalia smiled, a little surprised but mostly relieved. If she went in there and ever tried to have words with these kids, it would never end well, too much inherited bad blood. Artemis didn’t usually go around advocating not to join her group though, so it was really vitalizing to see a child of Aphrodite doing it!

“You know, you all don’t have to follow Drew’s orders.”

The other kids shifted. Several glanced at Drew, but she looked too stunned to respond.

“Umm,” one managed, “she’s our head counselor.”

“And that’s what they invented anarchy for,” Percy grinned.

“Percy, no,” Annabeth sighed.

“Percy yes!” Thalia cackled.

“I really should find a way to separate them,” Jason groaned.

“Mmm, maybe save that for when we don’t need all the help we can get saving the world,” Leo shrugged.

Hazel was on Jason’s side, those two together scared her.

“She’s a tyrant,” Piper corrected. “You can think for yourselves. There’s got to be more to Aphrodite than this.”

“More than this,” one kid echoed.

“Think for ourselves,” a second muttered.

“People!” Drew screeched. “Don’t be stupid! She’s charm-speaking you.”

Thalia grimaced that made sense with them echoing her.

“Poor thing is being shipped off before she even has an idea of how to get a handle on that,” Will frowned.

“It’s not like it works on everyone all the time,” Leo protested, these guys just sounded dense to him. “She asks me to go get her extra ketchup packets and I throw them down her shirt, it’s not what she asked me to do at all.”

“Not sure about that defense man, but I see your point,” Jason chuckled.

“No,” Piper said. “I’m just telling the truth.”

At least, Piper thought that was the case. She didn’t understand exactly how this charmspeaking business worked, but she didn’t feel like she was putting any special power into her words. She didn’t want to win an argument by tricking people. That would make her no better than Drew. Piper simply meant what she said. Besides, even if she tried charmspeaking, she had a feeling it wouldn’t work very well on another charmspeaker like Drew.

“She learns fast,” Thalia already knew this but was nodding in approval again anyways. Even not here to hear it, Piper deserved the praise.

Drew sneered at her. “You may have a little power, Miss Movie Star. But you don’t know the first thing about Aphrodite. You have such great ideas? What do you think this cabin is about, then? Tell them. Then maybe I’ll tell them a few things about you, huh?”

Piper wanted to make a withering retort, but her anger turned to panic. She was a spy for the enemy, just like Silena Beauregard. An Aphrodite traitor. Did Drew know about that, or was she bluffing? Under Drew’s glare, her confidence began to crumble.

They all sighed and slumped in their seats, but really, none of them could have stood behind Piper and rooted for her in that moment either, not really. Whether Drew was just going to keep spitting nasty retorts around, really had some inkling about the fate of this quest and was choosing not to warn Jason, or just the general dislikable nature of this entire scene, they were more than happy it seemed to be coming to a close more than anything.

“Not this,” Piper managed. “Aphrodite is not about this.”

Then she turned and stormed out before the others could see her blushing.

Behind her, Drew started laughing. “Not this? Hear that, people? She doesn’t have a clue!”

Piper promised herself she would never ever go back to that cabin. She blinked away her tears and stormed across the green, not sure where she was going—until she saw the dragon swooping down from the sky.

“Festus really does know how to cut into a mood, doesn't he?” Thalia said in appreciation.

“My boy takes after me! I’m so proud!” Leo beamed, giving Hazel a moment to laugh as she wriggled out of her spot to get up and take the book again.

HOOPJOHOOPJOHOOPJO

*Head cannon shared by SpringScrollFairy, and I ask you, how can you not love this?

** The song Doll House by Melanie Martinez was too appropriate not to make a reference to, but I, unlike RR, don’t like making random references that don’t make sense to the specific date/era of this story. Song recommended to me by marivictal. It’s not just my beta and bestie’s on here guys, do please offer your own suggestions of fun to come!

***This is not shade on anyone named Lacy. This is actually a hysterical personal moment because my mom has confided in me she considered naming me Lacy-Dawn before settling on my name. Like, that’s the equivalent of naming Percy, Lucky. I would have cut out any and all evidence of my life to the word before that hyphen and gone by Dawn, but this is beside the point and just personal contention.

****Inspired by a conversation I once had with SpringScrollFairy and has been living rent free in my head and I’ve been looking for an excuse to use it ever since.