@tsukune

Valarie jogged out of her cabin, it was Morpheus' cabin, she had been given a choice of either Athena's cabin or Morpheus' cabin so she chose her mother's side. Not because she liked her mother better, it was actually the other way around, it was because Morpheus' cabin was way less crowded with only two other people who happened to both be male. The outside of the cabin was stone grey with a couple of black flower boxes, each holding many black and purple lotus flowers.On the inside of the cabin of Morpheus there two bunkbeds, each with black, seemingly charred wood and varieties of purples for the blankets and pillows. All of the beds were decorated like this but one which was covered in dark blue instead of purple, this was Val's bed.As Valarie was running to the dining area she said hi to everyone that she knew along the way, which was a lot of people. She had been at Camp Half-Blood as long as anyone could remember as she was brought there when she was only eight years old, being sixteen she already had eight beads on her worn leather necklace. She was nearly there when she accidentally ran straight into a boy who looked around her age," I only turned my head for a second and this is what happens!" she thought to herself as she mumbled," Sorry," to the boy she had bumped into and headed for the dining area again.

Lance Shaw had been hopping from cabins to cabins ever since he arrived at Camp Half-Blood when he was about eleven - those of his godly ancestors were the least he wanted to stay in: every inch of the wall in the Chrono's cabin was covered with an extensive collection of antique clocks (which were pretty unnerving to look at, especially when he was going to sleep or when he just woke up), while the Ananke's cabin was choked with heavy dark fumes from the various phials lined up on the small ledges set into the stone walls (which were equally unnerving when they started to glow at night and fill his ears with disembodied whispers). He finally begged Chiron to let him borrow the Poseidon's cabin - it was now empty after Percy Jackson and his girlfriend-turned-wife Annabeth Chase left the camp to start a new life together - and the latter agreed reluctantly on the condition that Lance would have to stop trying to escape from and at least go for one quest this year.

At least having seashells for wallpapers is way better than clock faces.

The six beads on his leather necklace - which he wore it around his mechanic wristwatch - jiggled against the metallic strap as he jogged towards the dining area. It was already past ten in the morning, but the hall was still packed with famished demigods scrambling after leftover breakfast. He got himself some toasts and left the din behind him when he bumped into a girl around his age.

"Sorry."

It took him a while to recognize her, a demigod from the Morpheus cabin - there were too many new kids popping up at the camp each year, and it was becoming quite a challenge to tell who's who. He had never spoken to her at all, but the words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "Hey," he called after her. "I have extra toasts, so...if you want we can have a late but quiet breakfast together?" He let his voice trail off lamely.

@tsukune

Valarie stopped short, she hadn't expected him to call after her, she didn't hear the rest of the sentence and so wondered why he would do that. After all, it wasn't like they knew each other, frankly, she hadn't even recognised him but once she turned back around she remembered seeing him around. He was the guy that didn't want to be in his parent's cabin so he took the Poseidon cabin, no doubt Poseidon would be pissed off about it. She wondered why he had been so against the cabins and this burning curiosity was what made her back up and stand in front of him saying," You said something?"

Lance waved the box of toasts before her eyes and shrugged. "Uh, breakfast? Together?" He began to regret calling after this girl, a stranger he should have just left alone. He gave her a small smile, trying to cover up his awkwardness. "It's quite crowded and noisy in there.

"By the way, I'm Lance." He paused for a moment before he continued, "Grandchild of Chronos. What about you?" He decided to keep quiet about his mother's side - he felt that it wasn't necessary to publicize that piece of information, and nobody would know about his connection with someone whom even the god of the sky was fearful of.

@tsukune

Valarie raised her eyebrows at he first question, she thought that it was a bit peculiar that he would just ask a random stranger to have breakfast with him but she figured she might as well give it a shot, especially according that she wasn't exactly the most popular person ever. "Okay, sure. I'm Valarie, grandchild of Athena on my father's side and Morpheus on my mother's side. Why didn't you like the Chronos cabin? I hear that it's totally decked out with clocks, anyway, I stay in the Morpheus cabin. You know, the one that's that boring grey colour and has those beautiful, edible flowers at the front, which I suggest you don't eat. One, because it makes my cousin angry thanks to him looking after them so carefully and two, because they will make you sleep for a very long time."

Lance blinked at the sudden chattiness this stranger girl - who introduced herself as Valerie - directed towards him. He tried to digest her torrent of words: he vaguely remembered seeing her from the Morpheus cabin, but it was news to him that she's also the granddaughter of the goddess of wisdom. Her description of the cabin for the god of dreams sounded far more livable compared to the queer cabins of his godly grandparents.

"You wouldn't want to stay in the Chronos cabin," he replied slowly, his soft tone layered with a hint of distaste. "Not with all the loud ticking noise echoing around you in the middle of the night when you're trying to sleep. It's enough to drive anyone insane." He took another bite off his toast and sighed. "I think I'll need to visit Rachel after this." Partly was because of the oath he made with Chiron, but another part of him was telling him that it was the right thing to do. It was a necessity.

But why? he couldn't help wondering that something bad was about to happen...

@tsukune

"I don't sleep at night anyway, not very often, plus, I like the ticking of clocks," she said honestly and it was the truth, she barely ever slept. Her cousins were never able to sleep either, the three of them called it the 'Dream Maker's Curse' out of humour. She thought a little bit before asking him curiously," Why do you need to see Rachel, generally only kids that are going on... oh, are you going to go on a quest?" At this thought she went quiet, she didn't like talking about quest's as she would never be allowed to go on one, not since last time at least.

Lance raised his eyebrows at Valerie's rather surprising reply. That sounds handy, but she'll definitely change her mind if I tell her the clocks are always chiming at odd hours, then suddenly you sink through the bed into the rift of time and catch glimpses of things you wished you knew nothing about before coming back to reality with lapses of nasty heart attacks. He couldn't help shuddering at the memory of his first experience with an unexpected time-travel, when his grandfather visited him years ago.

"Yeah, a quest." He lowered his head and fixed his eyes on the worn-out sneakers he was wearing today. "I...promised Chiron." From the corner of his eye he noticed that the dream demigoddess went silent. "Bad memories from previous quests?"

@tsukune

Valarie was jealous that Chiron wanted him to go on a quest so badly when he refused to let her out of Camp Half-Blood let alone on a quest. She thought that he was nice enough so she decided against judging him based on Chiron, she replied sadly," I was ten years old, it was my first quest, but also my last. There had been some activity near one of the entrances and Chiron had sent myself and one of my cousins to find out what. He sent us because we're related to Morpheus and Morpheus hangs out around the Underworld a lot so we could just make the excuse that we were visiting him if we got caught. We weren't meant to get caught, we wouldn't have if it hadn't been for me," she sighed, they were getting to the nasty part and then continued,"something they said about my father pissed me off, back then I barely knew how my powers worked let alone how to control them. I power wasn't powerful so it only knocked out one of them, the other was just made notified that we were there. If it hadn't been for my grandfather telling them to back off and threatening the creature my cousin and I wouldn't of lived." Valarie looked down at her feet, she was utterly ashamed, she wasn't sure why she told him about it but she had felt like it was the right thing to do.

Lance listened to Valerie's recount quietly, sympathizing the bad experience she had been through; he almost raised a hand to give her a pat on the shoulder but he decided against it. He let the silence hung in the air for a minute before he spoke, "I guess I'm just a bit like you - it was my first and last quest." As he recalled that bad memory from the back of his mind, he could feel his heart aching in his chest. He tried to ignore the pain. "It was a year after I came to the Camp. There was an abandoned well that was tampered with dark magic, so Mr. D sent me and a satyr Bill to go investigate it. The well originally belonged to Iris, but Hecate turned it into one of those secret passageways leading to the Underworld. Hades was furious when we showed up on his turf - he thought that Zeus sent someone to spy on him again - so he set the Furies on us." Now it was his turn to get to the nasty part. "We tried to get back to the mortal world via the well, but only one of us could go through - Bill pushed me over and I was safe, in exchange I had to watch him being ripped to pieces by Hades' monster bats. I just watched him die - like deep down I know that it's inevitable, that there's nothing I could do to change his fate." He closed his eyes and swallowed, forcing down the mixture of sadness and horror rising up in his throat. "Ever since then I tried to avoid taking up any quests at all costs. It's my fault that Bill died - he was the one who brought me here to Camp Half-Blood, and I killed him."

Lance stuffed the remaining of his toast into his mouth, to force all his attention on chewing his food and pushing his emotions off his mind. "Chiron said that I need to stop running away and grow up, and I think he's right." He stopped - they had arrived at the cabin where Rachel was staying at - and he turned to look at the demigoddess. "This is it. I'm going to see the Oracle. What about you?"

Valarie looked at Lance sadly, she thought that his story was horrific," Yeesh, compared to your story mine was a fairytale." Then she watched him for a moment and decided against asking more about what had happened although it went against her natural instincts of being the granddaughter of Athena. "Chiron will never let me on a quest again after what happened, after all, I nearly got not only myself killed but also my cousin. I wish that he would give me another chance, I've begged him but he always refuses. That's funny actually, you don't want a quest and a quest yet you're getting one and I want a quest yet I'm not ever going to get one." She looked around to see how far Rachel's cabin was even though she already knew and asked," Would you like some company for the road?"

Lance stared at her, not quite believing his ears. His conscious was warning him to reject her offer, but the words that came out of his mouth were the opposite. "I don't mind...but are you sure about this?" He couldn't understand why, but somewhere deep inside him he knew that he would need her this time for the quest, which was similar to the gut feeling he had when Bill died before his cowardly self. He shook his head - he was probably thinking too much again.

"Lance?" A female voice from behind pulled him out of his inner torment. He turned - and looked straight into the bright green eyes of Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the current host for the Oracle of Delphi. "Chiron told me to expect just you, so I wasn't expecting you to bring your girlfriend too."

"Rachel, please."

She laughed at the rising color on the Chinese boy's face. "Joking. C'mon in."

@tsukune

"Yes I am, positively sure," Valarie said with certainty in her voice. She laughed at Rachel's joke and replied to her," We only met today so that would be the worst assumption ever, but then it wouldn't neccessarily be according that you may not of known that but then being who you are you could of, it really depends on the cirumstances." There was her father's side coming out, this was actually her favourite part of herself as her mother had always been a bit too proud. She looked at Lance and immediately saw that he was seriously blushing, this made her start laughing, she knew that she probably shouldn't but she couldn't help it.

With Valerie's conviction to join him in his quest and laughing at his embarrassed state, it took all of Lance's willpower not to snap back at the two girls (then making the matter worse with messy apologies and whatnot later on) as the two demigods were ushered into the Oracle cabin by the tomboyish redhead.

He met Rachel on countless occasions around the Camp, but this was his first time to be in her cabin, waiting to hear a prophecy about his upcoming quest. Rachel had obviously taken the liberty to brighten up the dull interior: though he saw a few spots of algae lurking on the grey stone walls, it seemed that she had scrubbed down the whole place as much as she could alone, covering the walls with posters of her artwork - sketches of the Greek gods and goddesses.

Rachel led them to the round table in the middle of the room, pouring tea for everyone. "Well, just relax, will you?" she said to Lance as she settled back down on her chair. "My bad drawings of your godly ancestors aren't supposed to frighten you this much."

Lance slowly let go of his tense shoulders and unclenched his fist - he didn't realize that he had been all stuck up ever since he stepped into the Oracle's cabin. "S-Sorry. Are you going to tell me - tell us our quest now?"

"It doesn't work that way---" the cheery Oracle began but she suddenly stopped short, her eyes became unfocused. She sat bolt upright, and in a harsh tone she recited the prophecy:

"Ye shall cross over the rift of space,
For love, for war, ye will face.
The chain of curse is set ablaze,
And the land lies in the wake of faze."

With that, Rachel collapsed onto the table. Alarmed, Lance went forward worriedly, only to see that she was simply fast asleep. He turned his attention to Valerie. "Okay... What's that supposed to mean?"

@tsukune

"I have no idea, when people get quests they usually figure it out as they go along in the actual quest itself. I think the third line may have something to do with a bracelet or maybe it's just a picture of a chain, you can never really know unfortunately. Love and war being together makes a lot of sense, they literally go hand in hand. I remember the prophecy that I got for my first quest:

Ye shall travel far and wide
But never pass the other side
This time the toll will not be paid
Family to keep or to raid

Prophecies are creepy stuff, oh and don't worry about Rachel, all she needs is some rest." Valarie told him, adding an oracle sounding voice to the prophecy as she said it. Then she looked at him cautiously before saying apologetically," Sorry about laughing by the way, I realise that it probably wasn't very nice,"

Lance nodded in agreement. "Prophecies are usually predictions of the bad and rarely the good, I guess." He glanced at the sleeping Oracle sadly. "I wonder how Rachel feels having to make apocalyptic premonitions all these times..." He shrugged at Valerie's apology. "It's alright - I think the thought of going on a suicidal quest with someone makes me paranoid about having to watch him or her die in front of my helpless self again."

He pondered about the prophecy that Rachel told them not long ago. "Love and war - so Aphrodite and Ares huh?" He frowned at the thought of meeting those two after returning to a quest from a long hiatus of self-blame - he secretly admitted that they were his least favorite Greek gods (scratch that - god and goddess, he rolled his eyes). "Blaze...that should be Hephaestus - wait, please don't tell me this prophecy is referring to their godly love triangle."

@tsukune

Valarie nodded sadly, she could easily understand what he meant," That's not going to happen Lance, trust me, I won't let it. Anyway, now that I think of it, the first line could have something to do with the Underworld, if so, I'll have a chance to visit my grandfather." She fist pumped the air before going deadly serious and whispering to Lance," If I have to go anywhere near Aphrodite then I will punch someone, I mean, her children are bad enough with their clothing obsession and continuous flirting with stupidity." She laughed at the thought and asked him in her normal voice," What powers do you have? I can make anyone with a brain fall asleep, manipulate dreams and wake anyone who I put to sleep in the first place."

Valarie hoped that they wouldn't get stuck in some pathetic war of love because she just couldn't put up with such things. She was extremely logical and had very little emotion when it came to it. She wondered who would win if Hepheastus and Ares had some huge battle over Aphrodite. "I sure hope that we don't get stuck in that three sided shape because that really isn't my style at all but I think that is what the prophecy is relating to," this was starting to be her worst nightmare, not that she had nightmares," oh no, please let ablaze be something to do with Hades, not Hepheastus, not their pathetic romance novel."

At Valerie's determined promise, Lance permitted himself a small smile. He was slightly amused when she fist-pumped the air. She must have loved her grandfather a lot. There was no way he could expect anything from Chronos - trying to make sense of his grandfather would give him a major headache for weeks.

At the mention of Aphrodite's children, he grimaced, recalling some unpleasant memories when he crossed paths with them - the horrible days when the girls tried to force him to crossplay, and the boys dumping a bucket of Rafflesia perfume over his head when he was spotted talking to the prettiest girl in their cabin (he was simply returning her lost eyeliner). "I won't go as far as punching them in broad daylight, but I'll honestly admit that I hate them." Love and war go hand in hand indeed, he thought - the demigods of Aphrodite could be equally mean like those of Ares, especially if anyone dared to contest their unparalleled vanity.

"I have limited power over time manipulation," he said slowly. "You know, stopping time of anyone and anything within a certain radius I set, except for myself. I can't travel back and forth time for now like my grandfather, though." There were times he wondered if his ability would make him age faster than most others - a question that Chronos had so far failed to give him a proper answer to. His only reassurance was that he couldn't feel his bones going old yet; or maybe now it's too early to tell.

He laughed at Valerie's frantic sarcasm. "Yeah, who wants to get stuck in the middle of their two-timing, cheating marriage anyway? Besides, that problem of theirs had lasted for eons and it still goes on even today." Lance was never a romantic person - he found love rather superficial, especially in the current world of materialism. "Sometimes I feel Aphrodite is almost like a female version of Zeus - like father, like child?"

@tsukune

"I wouldn't unless I had to, I meant it metaphorically but it's nice to imagine," Valarie told Lance happily. She listened to everything that he said with great interest as she thought that it might just come in handy later on. "That's cool, you probably will be able to travel through time eventually. I am pretty sure that most demigods get all of their parent's or grandparents' powers except for the fact that they are never as powerful," she stated.

"Believe it or not basically all of Zeus' children, including Athena, have many similar traits to their father. If so then if I'm like my father, and he is like his mother, and she is like her father then that would make me like Zeus. I don't think that my father is very much like Athena though so if I'm like my father then I'm not like Zeus but if I'm like my grandmother than I would be like Zeus. I'm over complicating this, aren't I? Sorry, I do that sometimes," she babbled nonchalantly.

@RavenTLark

Lance shook his head. "That would probably take quite a long time before I can truly control the power of time-traveling. After one generation gap I think our abilities are less intimidating compared to our parents?" He listened to Valerie, and he felt easy to talk to her - he didn't realize that he had been surprisingly chatty today, for normally he's a quiet person. "You can say that we all share some similar traits with our parents, godly or not - like proofs of the bond between ourselves and our ancestors?"

Their long conversation had to come to an end as the Big House - the central cabin where Chiron and Mr. D, who was better known as the god of wine Dionysus - loomed into Lance's view. This is it, he thought. He sucked in a deep breath and regarded the demigoddess beside him with a hard look. "There's no turning back now. Let's go." He mentally threw out the idea of a beaming Chiron from his head - he doubt that anyone should be happy about sending someone to their death.