The meeting with the Council of Cloven Elders (which Kia still snickered at by the way) went terribly. Percy had tried to remain optimistic, but it seemed he hadn't properly grasped just how little Grover could scrape by with to find a god that had been missing for years in the span of one week. Not exactly a walk in the park. Kia greeted him with a hug first, seeing as how they hadn't seen each other ever since after their quest last summer Grover has announced he'd heard the wild god Pan's voice, and then she had half-heartedly tried to assure him that he was the greatest saytr alive and that if anyone could find him, it'd be him, but the unspoken statement was up in the air: centuries of 'greatest saytrs alive' had lived, and not one of them had managed to bring Pan back.

Afterwards, the next day had seemed to go by more or less uneventfully, bar the event that had transpired between Travis from Hermes and Katie from Demeter to have finally resulted in Katie breaking out of her polite confines and returning one of Travis' pranks with a crude gesture that involved her middle finger being raised, earning dozens of whistles and shocked expressions from nearby campers who were there to witness the once-in-a-lifetime situation. Travis had grinned, and Kia, who was passing by, might've even said he looked a little lovesick.

In the morning, Annabeth had tugged her by the belt loops of her jeans, essentially dragging her to the Poseidon table. She released her in front of Percy, next to Grover while she herself plopped down into a spot next to Percy.

Grumbling sourly at being treated like a rag-doll, she huffed like a child, puffing out her cheeks and sitting passive-aggressively next to Grover. Grover patted her back sympathetically. If there was anyone who knew how strong Annabeth could be when it came to pulling someone, it'd be him.

"I'll tell you what's about," Annabeth said randomly. How did she know what they were talking about earlier? Was she not paying attention to the perfectly-made scrambled eggs in front of her? The wonderfully heavily caffeinated drink set on her tray? Had Annabeth finally lost her marbles? "The Labyrinth."

Ah. It was about that. Closely following her strenuous attempt at not detesting Kia (for reasons Kia could not reveal until the fifth book because people claimed it was 'spoilers!'), Annabeth had spilled to her completely about the entire situation with the Labyrinth she and a few others had been conducting without the knowledge of most of the other campers. She had also told her about why a camper named 'Clarisse' had been away last winter when she usually stayed year-round. Kia had actually talked to her once or twice after that ('talked' was used very loosely here; mostly it compromised of Kia offhandedly making a remark about the weather and Clarisse grunting back, not seeming to completely hate her guts for existing, so she took that as a green light to make conversation more often).

Anyway, Annabeth said a bunch of other stuff that she had already told Kia about weeks ago, so she busied herself with finding amusement in the pale shade of pink Percy's face would take to whenever he'd glance down at how close Annabeth's knee was to touching his, only occasionally meeting her eyes while she told him about the Labyrinth. The dude was so whipped.

"What do you mean he just appeared?" Percy had been asking Annabeth when she finally decided to pay attention to what they were talking about.

"He was wandering around the desert, in a hundred and twenty degrees, in full Greek armor, babbling about string."

"String."

"He'd been driven completely insane. Clarisse brought him back to her mom's house so the mortals wouldn't institutionalize him. She tried to nurse him back to health. Chiron came out and interviewed him, but it wasn't much good. The only thing they got out of him: Luke's men have been exploring the Labyrinth."

Kia suppressed an involuntary shiver when Annabeth said Luke's name. Her last nightmare didn't make her all too keen on seeing him anytime soon. We'll see each other soon, he had said.

Kia was becoming more and more convinced that it was a deadline.

She chugged down the rest of her coffee, and her friends stared at her in concern, but she waved them off. She could tell by the glances they shot at each other they'd be discussing the dark rings beneath her eyes soon.

"Okay," Percy asked after a brief silence, "why were they exploring the Labyrinth?"

Here it comes.

Here's the thing: Kia absolutely adored when Annabeth went off on one of her little tangents; that was when she was the most passionate and bright—speaking about topic she was well-learned on and confidently forming opinions that most couldn't disagree with unless they were just that thickheaded, but Kia's poor, poor attention-deficit brain could not handle when Annabeth repeated the same stuff she'd said before. Before long, she found her mind wandering off again, zeroing in on a spot on her toast that looked to be buttered more thoroughly than the rest. Internally, she debated taking the risk of ruining the slice of toast entirely by accidentally being too rash and having her knife go through the bread to have her toast buttered unevenly.

Impulsively, she grabbed her butter knife and braced herself to just do it thoughtlessly, but she stopped when Annabeth had chimed in, "I wouldn't do that. The butter is definitely too soaked into the toast now. Your moment of perfect toast is gone now, Kia."

Grover, again, patted her back sympathetically. Kia sulked in her thoughts. Was this what her life would be now? Deprived of mouth-watering, evenly-buttered toast for all her coming years? The essence of toast was for it to be the same all throughout each bite. Was she to live the rest of her life without anymore experiences of perfect toast? When would this curse be broken?

Not saying anything, Percy sighed and dropped his toast onto her plate. She practically lit up. It was evenly and perfectly buttered (Percy prided himself on his exceptional toast-buttering skills) and just warm for the little bit of butter to melt on her tongue.

"Thank you," she said messily. Annabeth scolded her for talking with food in her mouth.

Annabeth then looked to Grover, continuing, "As I was saying, if you can make the Labyrinth work for you—"

"It could lead you to the wild god," Percy said.

Kia decided not to mention how they were already finishing each other's sentences.

"I can't do it." Grover hugged his stomach. "Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up my silverware."

"Grover, it may be your last chance," Annabeth said. "The council is serious. One week or you learn to tap dance!"

Over at the head table, Quintus cleared his throat, more theatrically than practically. Kia guessed it was a signal of sorts that they'd been sitting at Percy's table for too long. Annabeth muttered a few other words to Percy, and then swept Kia and herself up, dragging her away just as she was about to grab her plate. Kia watched helplessly as her breakfast and warm, warm coffee became smaller and smaller in front of her eyes.

She glared at Annabeth as she dropped Kia off at the Hermes table. "My toast!" she said indignantly, as of that would magically transport the toast back into her palm.

Annabeth sighed like a tired mother. She wordlessly put her own toast onto the empty plate in front of Kia where she'd sat her down. Kia's mood changed immediately. "Love you, Betts."

Annabeth waved at her tiredly as she strides back to her own table, ignoring the looks from other campers that still hadn't ceased.

Just like that, breakfast was over. Kia decided to rest up a bit before the games after dinner—rest in any way other than sleep. Her optimism meter wasn't up in the clouds just yet or enough to make her delusional enough to believe that maybe just this once she would be spared of dreams. It'd come soon, though, and Kia was dreading it.

Her sat with her legs laid on the head of the bed, her torso and head lying on the mattress. The position was slightly uncomfortable, with the edge of the headboard poking the fat of her shins repeatedly every time she moved, but she couldn't convince herself to actually move into a different position. The indent of her warmth had already been printed on the mattress in the shape she was sitting in currently—it'd be a waste to not take advantage of that warmth as long as she could.

Her eyelids instinctively weighed down, and she had to keep forcing them open again and again. She began to think about the dream she had had the night before last night. Had Luke entered her dream on purpose? Was it something else? Was it purely a coincidence? Was it actually just a thing made up of the insecurities and dark thoughts interwoven deep into her subconscious? The possibilities were way too spread out for her to make a proper conclusion out of. She would just have to wait until she met Luke.

For a brief moment, Kia thought about it, about telling Percy. Perhaps he'd be able to convince her how her inner conflict was stupid. But was it? On one hand, the gods were better than the Titans. They didn't eat their offspring, they didn't engulf the world in flames as they so easily could have, and not all the gods were completely bad. Apollo was a prime example of this; he had saved Kia and delivered her to camp purely out of some feeling in his heart. Whether she was meant to do something important or not, he had cared for her, so it had to mean they couldn't be all bad, right? And there was Zeus, too. He could have let Thalia die, one of Kia's closest friends, but he hadn't.

Then again, all her points seemed to keep narrowing down to the gods not letting a few demigods die. Who knew how many they had allowed to die? They weren't alive to have been counted anyway. Were the gods really that great? They didn't eat their young, but they neglected them, made them feel unimportant. They were the starters of this explosive relationship, the one between gods and demigods, and they hadn't even bothered to make sure it was stable. There had to be a reason Luke went this far. Why did it take an entire war to be declared for them to finally pay attention to their children? This should have happened off their own accord.

And again, it didn't. That was why Luke revolted.

Her thoughts went back and forth, and before Percy barged into her room, she hadn't even considered that it was already time for dinner. Her legs bounded off the wall and she almost slipped over the side of her bed.

"Percy! Don't just come in like that without knocking! What if I was—"

"Why didn't you come to the pavilion for lunch?" Percy interrupted, uncharacteristically anxious and breathless. "I haven't seen you since breakfast! You had me worried sick! I had to slip past Chiron to get here."

Kia's eyes softened. She said quietly, "I'm sorry. I... I didn't mean to worry you. Honest. I was just... thinking."

Percy sighed like he was tired of her always thinking. She could imagine how annoying it was, after all, she lived in this mind. He slowly took a seat beside her on her bed, where she sat cross-crossed, silently picking at a loose thread on the fabric of her pillow.

"Ki."

Apprehensively, she looked up. Percy was smiling. His left dimple was slightly deeper than his right, just as it was last winter. "It's okay. Do you want to talk about it?"

She thought about it for a second. "What... what do you think about this? The war."

"What do you mean?"

"Like..." Kia gulped, swallowing down any thoughts that he'd judge her. "Don't you ever wonder if... if we're—you know... fighting for—fighting for the right side?"

Percy's eyes widened in understanding. He placed a hand on her knee. It was very warm. "Kia, you can always tell me about this stuff. I'll never think anything lesser of you."

Kia wasn't convinced, until he admitted softly, "Plus... I also sometimes have these thoughts. Either way, please believe me. It hurts that you won't trust me enough to believe that I won't judge you."

Suddenly, she felt breathless. She hadn't even realised how much it must have felt like she was pushing him away.

"I'm so sorry, Percy. I didn't—I didn't—"

"Hey," he said, shifting closer. He wrapped his arms around her, and his head hung low enough to reach her upper back. It was a very awkward hug, but she could feel the warmth of his skin nonetheless. She appreciated that the most. "I understand. But please trust me, Kia. You don't have to hide this stuff from me."

She shrugged her shoulder a bit to bring his head up a little. She pressed her cheek against his as she returned the warm embrace, although she was probably freezing compared to him. His cheek was also very warm. That was something she really loved about Percy; he was always so warm. Even last winter, his skin emanated a sort of glow, like one of heat, and when he wiped away her tears and the pads of his fingers touched her cheek, she found out it was as warm as it looked.

"We'll get through this together, okay?" Percy whispered.

"We will."

After a few more moments, Percy pulled away and studied her face. She wondered what he was thinking.

Turns out, he was thinking of dinner. Of course he was.

Dinner passed by quickly, the mood among campers somber and serious. No one seemed to be talking and conversing very much as usual, and the regular underlying chatter couldn't be heard. Everyone seemed to be held by some sort of reverie; quietness was not a common occurrence in a camp filled with about a hundred teenagers with noisy weapons and slippery silverware, but now, it seemed like silence was all the camp knew.

They were told to get dressed in armour and fetch their weapons. Kia hadn't used the bow and arrows (from Apollo or from the Hunters, she still didn't know) since last winter. Ever since then, she'd been practicing with the dagger Ethan had lent her before he and Nico disappeared. She had pestered Annabeth for a long time, before the child of Athena eventually broke and relented to teaching her how to wield the knife. She was no Annabeth when it came to fighting with a dagger, but she wasn't a rookie anymore either.

"Right," Quintus said, standing on the head dining table. "Gather 'round. You will be in teams of two." When everybody started talking and trying to grab their friends, he yelled: "Which have already been chosen!"

"AWWWWW!" drew out an enormous clamour from everyone.

"Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And, of course... you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive."

This seemed to get the campers in higher spirits, excited to slay monsters. That was what they had trained for all their lives, after all. An opportunity to be great was often what most campers wanted.

"I will now announce your partners," Quintus said. "There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining."

"Aroooof!" Mrs. O'Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza. Kia really wanted to stroke her fur now. It looked incredibly soft. She could literally drown in it.

Quintus produced a big scroll and started reading off names. Vidya ended up with Ngozi, a boy from Demeter; Annabeth had gotten paired with Cameron from Hermes, which Percy looked mildly irritated about. Travis and Connor would be a pair, which was no surprise considering they might as well be attached at the hip. The most formidable pairing so far had been Clarisse and Lee Fletcher from the Apollo cabin—their individual talents complimented the other's faultlessly, which made them a hard combo to beat. Quintus kept rattling off the names until he said, "Percy Jackson with Kia Mitsuho."

As it was, they stood right next to each other. They grinned widely at each other.

Oh, yeah, they were gonna raise some hell.

Enjoy the chapter and some Perkia bonding time (+jealous Percy moping over Annabeth's getting paired with another guy).