Alistaire Barnes's Story

---

Rowan was busy with the garden. He always was. He made sure that everything in the garden would grow and blossom, and they had different plants for different seasons. Weeds needed to be plucked and some items required lattices, while others needed to be trimmed. It was an entire process and he loved every moment of it. His sister usually helped him out in the mornings before wandering over to the training grounds and sword fighting for a bit. It was past lunch time though, so he worked alone. Gladly he was almost done for the day and would be able to run around the track a few times before dinner. The twins had a rather predictable schedule, which he loved. It was nice to have something so normal. They had never been so predictable and it was alright with him. He loved knowing exactly where his sister was all the time, and he enjoyed doing the same thing every day. It made him feel more human.

He trimmed up the last of the leaves from the bushes in the back of the Hades cabin and stood to brush himself off. Not that it mattered much, his hands still had dirt and his jeans were just permanently stained with grass. It was more out of habit. He spotted a flower though, out of the corner of his eye that wasn't quite the same as the rest of the other Summer flowers. He leaned down and examined it. "I'm fairly certain I didn't plant anything like you and I definitely would have remembered seeing something like you yesterday," He muttered to the flower. He gently moved the flower to get a better look at its petals finding the middles to be a very vibrant pink while the ends were red. He was curious where such a flower had come from, and what exactly it was. He wasn't sure he had ever run into such a thing before. He did what he always did when he came across a new flower and plucked it out of the ground.

Being done with his work for the day, he went into the cabin and changed into his running gear and brought the flower with him. He hoped to run into one of the campers from the Demeter cabin who might have more of an idea of what the flower might be, but unfortunately, he had not. He just found his sister sitting in the shade of a tree just outside of the arena. Rowan had never seen her do such a thing and walked over to her to see what could possibly be wrong. "What's up, Ivy? I thought you'd still be in the arena, fighting."

---

---

Ivy wasn't having a particularly good day. She had been smart enough to wear lighter clothes with a lighter color due to the summer heat, but she was still warm and just felt bad. She had managed to cut herself while helping out with the gardening, then went to go train at the arena only to lose every practice battle, and then nearly had a win only to have to stop to eat lunch. She decided that trying to do anything more with a sword would make her angry, so she decided to just sit down in the shade. Something she hadn't done in years, but it had felt like a time to do it. Nothing else was going her way and cooling down seemed like the best thing she could do. She had found that the quiet was actually kind of nice and just thinking about things that were going on around her was a nice change of pace.

Her mind had wandered to the thought of their new cabin mate, who had recently been claimed. It was weird. Rowan and her had been the last to be claimed since the war had started and the gods went into their sleep. Somehow, everyone in camp half-blood had stayed safe, and time was still going on without the gods. Still, then came along Alistaire, who had somehow managed to be claimed by Hades. It was strange and Ivy wasn't a fan of however that came about. That either meant that Hades had awoken, or only awoke long enough to claim the child, or maybe Hades hadn't woken up at all and somehow Alistaire was claimed by a sleeping god. It just didn't sit well with her, but she bottled up those feelings, knowing it was not her place to talk. Besides, the last thing she wanted to do was anger Hades, she knew quite well that he was probably already upset with her for just existing.

Ivy snapped out of her thoughts when she found her brother in front of her questioning what she could possibly be doing outside of the arena. "Oh, I wasn't having any luck with the sword fighting practice, so I gave up," Ivy shrugged in response to her brother's questioning. "What's that flower in your hand?"

Rowan looked at his hand as if he had forgotten even picking the thing up and smiled, "Oh, this little guy just happened to grow out of nowhere in our garden. Do you-" Rowan was about to offer the flower to Ivy when the conversation was cut short by the presence of another camper. One of Ivy's friends from the Demeter cabin.

"Did you guys hear? Your little cabin friend got a quest," The camper sat down beside Ivy, handing her a bottle of water. "I heard that he got it because he managed to wake Hades up to claim him. So, he gets to go out and find out how to wake up the other gods."

"Wow, that must be a lot of pressure on one person," Ivy sighed as she took a sip from the bottle of water and leaned against the tree.

"We...should see if he wants our help," Rowan muttered, "He shouldn't take on that quest alone. He could get really hurt."

Ivy stared at her brother. The two of them had come to the conclusion that they should just always stay in camp half-blood, where things were safe. That way their parents would never find them again and they at least had a chance that the gods would just leave them alone. Hades was an intimidating force and one they were sure did not like them. Especially since they were evidence that his wife, Persephone, had cheated on him. That was something that he had never even heard of. Persephone was supposed to be faithful and was never to cheat on Hades, yet she did and had chosen Rowan and Ivy's father to do that with. The two were sure that he must not care for the two. That's how their human parents thought at the very least. Either way, leaving the camp would be dangerous and something that neither of them would want to do.

"You don't have to offer your help if you don't want to," Rowan spoke after a long silence.

"No! No, of course I'll offer to help out. I wouldn't want you to go on anything dangerous without me," Ivy stood. "I guess we could check to see if he's packing up in the cabin."

So the two went off back to their cabin to see if Alistaire might be inside packing his things for the quest.

---

---

Rowan paused at the doorway, he had been hoping the rumors weren't true. While, it was true that he rarely talked to their new roommate, as he was rather quiet and reserved, he had liked Alistaire. Such a mission would be seen as extremely dangerous and giving it to someone who had come into the situation after the entire war. It was true that Alistaire was a son of Hades which meant that he'd be more powerful when it came to whatever abilities were passed down to him from Hades himself, but that didn't mean anything when it came to the monsters out there in the world. He didn't want to hear about someone he knew being killed on a quest, he just couldn't handle such a thing.

Of course, he was more stunned when the other boy spoke up and said he was coming with. To his knowledge, he hadn't seen Castor at any of the practices for any sort of weapon training, so he assumed that either he wasn't too good at fighting or didn't know how to at all. That wouldn't be of much help when it came to venturing outside of the camp. There would be many monsters waiting to hurt the son of Hades. Not only is he the son of a major god, which would attract more than a few kindly ones his way, but he'd also now have to defend himself and a friend. That just wasn't going to end well.

These surprises had left Rowan silent. he wasn't quite sure what to say to Alistaire, everything that was happening just didn't seem like it should be. He didn't want to be rude and point out the big mistakes he was already making or tell him that he couldn't bring his friend. Plus, there was the whole rule of three thing that meant he would either have to go without Ivy or Ivy would have to go without him. Otherwise, things could just get even more dangerous or cause more difficulties rather than help them out. He wasn't quite sure if Alistaire might have already had thoughts on another person, but even then that worried Rowan. If this guy had already picked a friend that didn't have much skill in fighting, or at the very least didn't go to practice for anything in fighting, that could possibly mean that he had picked another not so good companion.

By the time Rowan finally tried to speak up, his sister had gotten a little irritated waiting for the boy to say something, so she just decided she'd take over. Which was kind of a relief for the twin, as he had run out of ways in his head to say what he wanted to say and the words that wanted to come out would have probably sounded rude. He really wanted to point out how dangerous a quest could be and how picking companions shouldn't be taken so lightly, but that made it sound like he was judging the two harshly for their decisions. Which, maybe he actually was, maybe he just missed all the times Castor actually did try to fight, but it still just gave him a bad feeling in his stomach.

---

---

"Actually, we came here to offer our help," Ivy muttered as she started pulling her long dark hair into a pony tail. She walked over to her bunk which had been neatly made in the morning, but there were piles of books on the floor next to hers. Some were books about flowers and identifying them and treating them for diseases. Some where simply on gardening, best practices and when to plant specific plants. Other books were on Greek mythology, and still there were more that were just thick text books that seemed out of place for Ivy. Actually, most books seemed out of place for Ivy, she was rarely caught reading any of the books that were strewn about.

"It was Rowan's idea," Ivy sighed as she pulled out a backpack from under her bed that looked old and worn.

"I...thought we could be useful, since Ivy's really good with a sword and I've got pretty good accuracy with a bow," Rowan spoke up, "Of course it's up to you, with the whole rule of three thing, it might just be a bad idea for us to tag along."

Ivy rolled her eyes when her brother's explanation became an attempt at giving Alistaire an excuse not to bring them. But, she didn't say anything, she just grabbed one of the Greek Mythology books from the ground and shoved it into her backpack. It seemed like she already had quite a bit of stuff in the bag. The thing had come from when she had ran away from home and had her possessions in it when they had ended up in the Hermes cabin. While they stayed in that cabin, she had the backpack on every day and wouldn't let it go even for a second. Probably due to the first time she actually left her things behind in the cabin and came back to a lot of her things missing from her bag. She eventually got her things back, but never trusted that cabin again.

She hadn't really used it much since those days, but for some reason always updated the supplies that were in there. As she grew older, the clothes were switched as she outgrew them and medical supplies were switched out for fresh stuff. "We also happen to know a few things about herbal remedies. Nothing too crazy, just how to identify and use Aloe for burns, and flowers that can be used for healing salves."

---

---

"Well, it's just an offer. If you would rather go on your quest alone, you don't have to accept our help," Rowan shrugged. He wasn't quite sure what to tell Alistaire at this point, he would have been fine not telling him at all about helping him after finding out that Castor was already joining him. Ivy was a lot more blunt as that was her usual nature, so of course when he hadn't spoken fast enough she just spoke for him. All he could do was mend the situation best he could by giving Alistaire a way out if he decided he'd rather go alone.

Then Chiron came in and both twins froze. They didn't expect the camp councilor to visit their cabin and had managed to stun both of them. Of course, his words of advice to Alistaire calling the both of them one entity felt much more like an insult. They knew better than to say anything out loud, but Rowan definitely showed signs of discomfort and Ivy didn't look too amused. It was still Alistaire's choice on whether or not he wanted to bring them and they didn't really plan on going anywhere outside the camp without the other twin, so they were sort of a package deal. So, it was better not to speak out against it, especially if it meant that Alistaire would be getting much more protection on this quest.

Rowan didn't want to be in the way of this decision or look like he was part of a conversation that really wasn't his business, he moved further inside the cabin and sat on Ivy's bunk as Ivy continued packing her things. His attention finally going back to the weird mysterious flower in his hand. He examined it closely and tried his best not to get in the way. He started looking a lot more closely at the flower and tried to figure out what exactly it could possibly be. It didn't look like any of the flowers they had grown before in their garden and he was sure that he'd never come across one of these flowers in his books. It was strange and he was really drawn to figuring out what this flower could possibly be.

---

---

Ivy put all that she thought she'd need into her bag as Chiron spoke to Alistaire. She'd rather be completely packed up and ready for the quest soon. They'd have their last meal and then be on their way to where ever this quest would lead them. Hopefully not to the underworld. She would rather not find out how Hades and Persephone felt about her existence. She knew they'd eventually have to go to the underworld to wake the god and goddess of the underworld up, but hopefully that would be towards the end of their long quest and not right at the beginning.

When Rowan sat down on her bunk, she looked at him and gave a small smile. She knew her brother was just trying to be a good person and help someone in need. She knew well that he'd go without her if she'd let him. But, she wouldn't. He was her only family and she'd sacrifice everything to make sure that he was alright. She looked down at the flower in his hands that he was thoughtfully staring at. There was something about that flower that seemed just slightly off. Something that made her feel drawn to it, as if it were meaningful in some way. Though, the only one that she'd imagine planting such a thing in their garden was asleep for an unknown amount of time. There was no way it was as special as she thought it was.

"Hey, do you want me to press that flower? I'll keep it in one of my books through our journey, that way we'll have it with us the whole time," Ivy offered, her voice low so that the others weren't interrupted by her own conversation. Her voice was always so much softer when she spoke to her brother, it was so evident that she cared about him. Rowan looked almost startled by her speaking, but nodded and handed over the flower. With that Ivy pulled out one of her books from her backpack and pressed the flower between the pages. She then shoved the book back in and put the backpack on.

"Well, guys, get packed already so that we can head out soon," Ivy muttered, her voice going back to its normal attitude of not caring about anyone or anything. "I'm picking up a sword and some other supplies, you two might want think about doing the same." Ivy looked at Castor and Alistaire as she passed them on her way out of the cabin.

---