𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐖𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆, luke castellan

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

Keira Blackwell despised formalities, and the meeting that camp counselors usually insisted on having at the beginning of summer at Camp Half-Blood was no exception.

The only reason she attended in previous years was that Jon used to organize them. Her best friend, the former counselor of the Hermes cabin, always believed it was opportune to have a meeting at the start of summer to better organize activities and communicate any important happenings.

Keira couldn't comprehend how anything could be so crucial as to warrant being discussed in such a gathering, given the ease with which rumors spread in the camp. However, in past years, she attended because she knew her friend valued her presence as one of the eldest campers who had spent the most time there.

Now, Jon was gone.

Jon was dead.

Keira honestly didn't know why she was in the Rec Room of the Big House, not finding the only reason she used to attend. Yet there she was, seated in one of the plastic chairs around the ping pong table. Jolene, the Aphrodite counselor, and Sonia, Apollo's daughter, flanked her on each side.

The three friends were catching up on everything that had happened in the past months. Keira intervened little in the conversation, instead reminiscing in her mind about how Jon used to open the meetings with a season-opening speech while Chiron looked expectantly at him. Occasionally, the son of Hermes would ask Keira to say a few words, and she, with little enthusiasm, would mumble something about the goal that year being not to die.

Jon had failed.

Jon was dead.

"Hey, Kei," a voice interrupted her thoughts. It was a sweet tone, too sweet, and Keira couldn't help but feel irritated upon hearing it. Lifting her head slowly, she met George's tender gaze, with his blue eyes and brown hair.

George was incredibly handsome. Honestly, Keira considered him too good-looking to be a son of Hephaestus. But what he had in looks, he had in being annoying, especially for Keira's tastes. He had been enamored with her for years, and while the blonde had given him some attention because he was attractive, lately, their relationship revolved around her manipulating him into doing things for her that she didn't want to do, like chores.

Now that Nik, another of her former friends, had turned out to be a traitor and consequently had abandoned Camp Half-Blood, pursuing the goal of eliminating all the forbidden children, the position of the Hephaestus counselor was vacant. Keira assumed, quite obviously, that George would take it since he had been at camp for several years as well.

"Hello, Geor—," she began without much enthusiasm, but her greeting was cut short.

Through the door leading to the hallway, entered Marcus Greenwood, an unclaimed from Cabin 11. But that wasn't what caught Keira's attention. It was the fact that next to him, casually with his hands in the pockets of his shorts and wearing an orange camp T-shirt, stood Luke Castellan.

His sandy hair was disheveled, so Keira assumed he had just woken up. His blue eyes wandered around the room curiously, and she even noticed he was slightly taller than a few months ago. That was saying something, as Luke was tall.

Luke wasn't a counselor. Marcus should be the one from Cabin 11 after Jon's death, as he had been at camp for four years. What was Luke doing there? She couldn't help but feel a surge of annoyance, sensing his presence as an intrusion.

Marcus approached and greeted those already present. Luke followed suit, and when he reached the last person, Keira, she looked at him with a furrowed brow as he leaned in to kiss her cheek, his cologne wafting toward her nostrils.

"This is a counselor meeting," she stated coldly, unable to refrain from being curt in her words.

Surprisingly, he just chuckled as he whispered in her ear, "Nice to see you again too, Kei."

His casual and arrogant attitude, displayed when he should have been bothered by her unfriendly comment, the nickname he had used when returning the greeting, and the smirk that he shot before turning away, gave Keira an uneasy feeling. She tried to recall when he had started behaving this way, with that more commonplace expression of her, but failed in the attempt. She couldn't help but feel notably frustrated as she watched him walk with his hands in his pockets, as if he belonged in that room.

While Luke went to sit at the other end of the room with Marcus, she couldn't help but wonder what he was doing there. The only answer that occurred to her is that they might have changed his cabin while she was away, leaving him as the sole occupant and consequently making him a counselor. Another more likely option was that he had gotten into trouble for some idiotic reason, and that led him to explain his problems in front of all the camp's most important campers.

Keira leaned towards Jolene to sarcastically ask, "Remember me, when has kiddo been claimed as a fucking son of Poseidon and became a counselor?"

"Kei," started the daughter of Aphrodite, looking at her amused while adjusting her brown hair. "That kiddo thing you have is so last season. Nobody at camp has a clue who you're talking about when you drop that."

"And what's everyone else calling him?" inquired Keira, her jaw slightly tense, raising an eyebrow.

Jolene smiled mischievously, "Oh, I'm sure you don't want to know."

The blonde was about to insist when Chiron, the centaur, entered the room, marking the beginning of the meeting. Nevertheless, she didn't hear his initial words as she was too focused on looking at the ping pong paddle. Her ADHD prevented her from concentrating on speeches for too long, even when she knew Chiron had only spoken for about five minutes.

When she returned her attention to the meeting, George was standing, and the other captains in the room, along with Chiron and Luke, were applauding him. Keira assumed they had announced that he would be the new counselor of the Hephaestus cabin, so without paying much more attention, she clapped halfheartedly.

George sat down, and almost immediately, Marcus stood up. Keira shifted her gaze to the boy, intrigued to discover if he would shed light on why someone like Luke, a regular camper, was present at the meeting.

Despite her initial curiosity, when she heard the boy's words, she wished she had kept her attention on the ping pong paddles instead.

"I, Marcus Greenwood, unclaimed from Cabin 11, step down from my position as a counselor for Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, to take it."