Who is this guy?

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{Camp Half-Blood, June 6th 2006}

Thalia POV

The early morning sunlight filtered through the cabin windows, casting a warm glow across the room. I stirred, slowly coming to consciousness, my mind still foggy from sleep.

"Oahgh," I yawned, stretching my stiff arms. The sensation of waking up felt oddly novel, despite the fact that I had technically been "asleep" for years. But being a tree and actually sleeping were two very different experiences, as you could probably guess.

As I sat up in bed, the events of yesterday came rushing back to me. With a reluctant sigh, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The cool wooden floor beneath my feet the lightning sparking on the ceiling.

I made my way to the wardrobe, my movements still a bit clumsy as I adjusted to having a body again. Opening it up, I was greeted by a sea of orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirts. A small smile tugged at my lips as I ran my fingers over the familiar fabric. It felt like coming home.

However, my smile quickly turned to a frown as I tried to put one on. The shirt clung uncomfortably to my body, the fabric straining across my chest and shoulders. I tried another, and another, but each one felt like it was trying to suffocate me. With growing frustration, I realized that none of my old clothes fit anymore.

"Great," I muttered to myself, "As if I didn't have enough to deal with." I finally settled on the least uncomfortable shirt I could find, paired with a pair of jeans that were definitely too short. At least my trusty leather jacket still fit, providing a small comfort as I shrugged it on.

As I turned to leave, something caught my eye. Mounted on the wall was a weapon rack I hadn't noticed before. My heart skipped a beat as I approached it, my hand reaching out almost of its own accord.

The moment my fingers closed around the shaft of the spear, I felt a surge of energy course through me. It even looked like someone had been polishing it, I didn't know who could have done it but I had a few possibilities.

"Well," I said, a genuine smile spreading across my face, "at least the important stuff still fits."

With my spear in hand and my too-tight clothes doing their best to contain me, I stepped out of the cabin and into the morning sun. Immediately, I felt the weight of dozens of eyes upon me. Campers who were leaving their own cabins turned to stare, their eyes widening in a mixture of surprise and curiosity.

One boy in particular caught my attention. He looked to be about twelve, with messy black hair that fell to his shoulders and the most striking sea-green eyes I'd ever seen. He was emerging from the Hermes cabin, which meant he was either a son of Hermes or, more likely, unclaimed.

The stares were starting to make me uncomfortable, a feeling I wasn't used to. I was Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus. I didn't get uncomfortable. But being the center of attention after spending years as an inanimate object was a bit much, even for me.

Squaring my shoulders and gripping my spear tightly, I strode forward with as much confidence as I could muster. I hadn't received any sort of schedule or itinerary for my return to camp life, so I decided the safest bet would be to follow Annabeth's routine. At least then I'd have a friendly face around.

As I made my way towards the Athena cabin, I could finally see it clearly, it hadn't changed a bit. The stone building, with its blue and gold paint and the carved owl above the door, looked exactly as I remembered it.

Though it didn't really stand out compared to the other cabins, the cool things at least according to the Athena kids, were inside, though I honestly didn't get how a super large library was cool, but hey all power to them.

I spotted Annabeth almost immediately. She was standing just outside her cabin, absently twiddling her thumbs – a nervous habit I didn't remember her having before. Next to her was the green-eyed boy I'd noticed earlier. They seemed to be deep in conversation, but both looked up as I approached.

"Good morning, Annabeth," I called out, raising a hand in greeting.

"Good morning, Thalia," she replied, a mix of emotions flickering across her face.

I turned my attention to the boy, raising an eyebrow. "And this is...?"

"Oh, right!" Annabeth said, smacking her forehead. "This is Percy, the newest camper. I've been showing him around camp for the past five days."

I extended my hand towards Percy, offering a friendly smile. "Nice to meet you, Percy."

Before he could take my hand, however, he blurted out, "Are you the Thalia that was turned into a tree?"

I blinked, taken aback by his directness. But I supposed I couldn't blame him for being curious. It wasn't every day you met someone who'd spent years as a plant.

"The one and only," I confirmed, my smile turning a bit wry. "Nice to meet you, Percy."

He reached out to shake my hand, but as soon as our fingers touched, something strange happened. My powers seemed to act on their own, as a spark of electricity jumped between us, far stronger than a normal static shock. Percy yelped, yanking his hand back.

"AAuww!" he cried, shaking his hand as if trying to dispel the pain.

Guilt and confusion washed over me. "I'm so sorry," I said immediately, the apology feeling weird on my tongue, after all I wasn't used to apologizing to people especially on our first meeting. "It must be because I just... got out, or something. I didn't mean to shock you."

I couldn't understand why my powers had suddenly gone haywire. Was it a side effect of becoming human again? But that didn't make sense – I hadn't shocked anyone else I'd interacted with, and I felt completely in control of my abilities.

"Don't worry about it," Percy said, but I could hear the slight resentment in his voice. Not that I could blame him – I'd just fried the poor kid with my freaky lightning powers.

Annabeth, ever the peacemaker, quickly interjected. "Well, how about we move on and go to our first class?" She glanced between Percy and me, clearly trying to diffuse the tension. "Our first class is going to be pegasi riding."

At those words, I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Oh, no," I said quickly, probably a bit too quickly. "You go on ahead. I'm gonna go to the climbing wall, you know, to work out these muscles." I gestured vaguely at my body, as if that explained everything. "But you and Percy have a nice time.

Percy POV

I didn't like her.

It wasn't because she shocked me, well maybe it was but it wasn't only that. I felt weird around her, I mean aside from the fact that Ozzy hadn't greeted me like he did every morning and now she had miraculously turned back into a human. I don't know everything just felt weird, heck even Annabeth was acting weird today, you know how weirded I was when she was standing there just twiddling her thumbs instead of her assertive demeanor, I was freaking out.

I heard someone sigh from my side cutting my train of thought, "Come one Percy, I'll teach you how to ride pegasi today."

She started to walk away without facing me, now this was the Annabeth I knew. But then she just had to make it weird, she turned around and said "Sorry for what Thalia did."

Yep, I was in an alternate reality no other way about it.

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And the weird just kept on getting weirder, I was in the middle of a valley filled with horses with wings. Pretty cool I know, the weird part wasn't that if you can imagine it was the fact that said horses were talking to me.

"What do you call a pegasus that lives next door?"

I just stayed quiet not knowing what to respond.

"A neighboooor."

I thought about the fact that Ozzy had told me when I first got to camp, he told me that I was a son of Poseidon and that was a forbidden child. He also told me some of the powers I would probably have, like controling water, causing tremors, breathing underwater... he also told me that I wouldn't be able to move into the cabin until I was claimed, even if I knew who my godly parent was.

At first, I didn't believe him, but two days ago I had dumped Clarisse and her groupies in a pile of floating toilet water, I started to think it would be pretty cool to be a son of Poseidon but now...

"Why did the pegasus eat with its mouth open?"

But now I wasn't so sure.

"Because it had bad stable manners."