Chaewon woke up without any dreams, which was both a relief and a disappointment for her. On one hand, it was nice to get a good night of sleep, but on the other, she kind of wished her father would’ve shown himself after claiming her. It was like Hades flashed a big “do not interact” sign over her head and left. The events from last night reminded her too much of her days in grade school where people would shy away from her like she was a cursed child.

There was one bright spot, though, among the new people she’d met- Minju. After Yena pulled her away from Wooseok, Minju had followed and watched with concern over the whole ordeal. She’d even walked her back to her cabin. Today, Chaewon was kind of looking forward to seeing her again for when the child of Athena would show her more around camp.

Chaewon stretched her arms and got out of her coffin-like bed. Without any windows (which she was going to ask the camp to add), she couldn’t tell what time it was, but she was sure it couldn’t have been that late already. She then walked over towards the bathroom to freshen up, nearly stumbling over a carpet due to the darkness. About fifteen minutes later, she was ready to go.

~~~~

Just like the day before, Minju was already waiting for her when she stepped out.

“Hey, Chaewon-unnie! How was your first night?” Minju asked.

Chaewon squinted as she looked towards the sky, her eyes still readjusting to the sudden presence of light. “Felt like a vampire. Is it still morning?”

“Yes, really sorry again. I’ll work with the other Athena kids to renovate this place,” Minju said apologetically.

“Where’s Yujin by the way? Is she already on her little quest?”

Minju nodded. “Mhm, she left with Yuri and Yena-unnie about an hour ago. They wanted to let you sleep in.”

Though she appreciated the sentiment from her two friends, something about the gesture made her feel conflicted. They usually did things as a trio most of the time, after all.

Chaewon decided to shake it off and just ask her friends how the trip to the geysers went later. “Thanks, so what’s on the agenda today?”

“Well, since it’s capture-the-flag tomorrow, we need to get you some gear,” Minju replied before glancing back at a cabin that looked more like a small factory with smoke coming out its chimneys and furnaces lining the perimeter.

~~~~

“Hey, Minju, what can I do for you today?” an older woman with short hair greeted when she saw her approaching. She was in the middle of welding a couple pieces of bronze metal together, but diverted her attention to them without stopping as if she wasn’t doing anything dangerous.

“Ah, nothing for me today. It’s for her,” Minju then stepped aside to reveal Chaewon who was trying to hide behind Minju to not attract attention.

“Oh, Chaewon, right? You’re the one Mr. D was talking about last night. My name is Kwon Eunbi, daughter of Hephaestus,” the woman said before bowing respectfully.

Chaewon returned the greeting, slightly surprised how this woman was more welcoming to her compared to the other campers she’d met.

“So, Hephaestus? God of blacksmiths?” Chaewon said after racking her brain to recall her Greek mythology.

“Yeahp, we can make you anything you can think of, which is what I’m assuming Minju brought you here for.”

Chaewon didn’t doubt that. As she took a look around the cabin, all she could see were campers of varying ages working at their bedside forges or workbenches scattered around. She could’ve sworn some of them couldn’t be older than sixteen, yet they were working with some heavy equipment.

“As you know capture-the-flag is tomorrow, and because you’re on our team, I was hoping you'd have something she could use for weaponry,” Minju explained.

Eunbi thought for a couple seconds, and it was as if Chaewon could just see the gears turning in the older girl's head thinking of the perfect item for her.

“I think I might have just the right material,” she finally said before telling them to follow her deeper into the cabin.

~~~~

“Please watch your step,” Eunbi warned as they made their way through. Every once in a while, a loose spark or bolt would fly through the air and narrowly miss Chaewon’s head.

“Is it always this… chaotic?” Chaewon whispered to Minju. It seemed as though Eunbi overheard this because she responded instead.

“Yes, we Hephaestus children are always on the go in search of the next big invention. I’d say we’re as, if not, more innovative than some of the Athena kids,” she said, shooting a teasing smirk at Minju who appeared to take offense to that statement.

As if on cue, a machine one of the kids was working on to their right blew up, smoke billowing from its exhaust pipes.

“Nice try Wonhak, just make sure to tighten the screws and keep track of the fluid levels inside next time,” Eunbi advised the camper whose face was now covered in soot.

“What was he even trying to make?” Chaewon asked curiously after they’d continued moving.

“An oven-cooler. So he wouldn’t have to switch between a microwave and a freezer depending on the type of food he wanted,” Eunbi replied.

Eventually, the trio reached the other side of the cabin where a huge cabinet filled with drawers was covering the entire wall. Eunbi pointed her finger upwards, reading the labels of all the compartments until she landed on the one she was looking for.

“There it is!” she said before reaching over to a drawer labeled ‘Stygian Iron’.

“Uh, is there a reason there’s so many more locks on this one compared to the others?” Minju asked cautiously.

“It’s a material that was mined and forged in the underworld and cooled in the River Styx. Of course we don’t want it getting in the wrong hands,” Eunbi replied, casually taking a large ring of keys from her cargo shorts and unlocking each lock.

Chaewon felt the heat in the room rise with that statement, but she couldn’t tell if it was because of the ominous words or the forges being heated behind them. “And we think this is safe for a newbie to use because…?”

“It’s a weapon material only the children of Hades can use. It took me a long time to find it, so you should be thanking me.”

Eunbi finally finished unlocking all the latches just to take out another box that was covered in chains. Chaewon’s anxiety only rose.

“And where exactly did you get this?” Minju asked.

“A master never reveals her secrets,” Eunbi said with a wink. “Let’s just say I ran into someone who had an extra piece one day.”

Minju and Chaewon decided it wasn’t worth digging into the story any further for now.

After Eunbi finished unlocking this new set of locks, she opened the box, and Chaewon was relieved that it didn’t contain another locked box like those Russian dolls. The item that was taken out was wrapped in a black cloth, but Chaewon could already see the faint glow of it emitting through.

“Can you see that?” Chaewon asked, but Minju and Eunbi looked at her confusedly.

“What do you mean?” Eunbi asked back as she unwrapped the cloth to reveal a black slab of metal.

“The glow… it’s like there’s wisps of smoke coming off it.” Again, Eunbi and Minju shared a confused look. Was Chaewon the only one seeing this?

“Maybe it’s some Hades connection. This is the first item from the underworld you’ve ever encountered. It could be drawing you in.” Minju theorized.

Chaewon reached out gingerly to feel the metal. It was surprisingly smooth to the touch. What caught her attention, though, were the unintelligible whispers she began hearing. It was like the metal was speaking to her, countless voices all trying to tell her something in unison.

“What are they saying…” Chaewon murmured absentmindedly.

“Since it was cooled in the Styx, I can only assume it’s some ghost residue. Try not to focus too hard on them if you don’t want to go crazy,” Eunbi said before covering it up again.

“Okay… maybe we could just let Chaewon try a regular celestial bronze sword instead?” Minju suggested worriedly, looking to Chaewon to see if she could back out of it, but the older girl had other ideas.

“No, Minju. I think I’ll be fine. This could be like a symbol my father left behind for me,” Chaewon said. Minju looked like she wanted to protest, but it appeared Chaewon’s determination ultimately deterred her. Eunbi said somebody had left her this material, and if only children of Hades could wield it, maybe Chaewon’s father did think about her from time to time.

“Alright, if you say so,” Eunbi said, already grinning from the new project she was about to undertake. “I can finish molding this into a sword by tomorrow morning if that’s alright with you.”

“That’d be great, unnie. We really appreciate it,” said Minju.

Eunbi shook her head though. “It’s no problem. I’ve never had a reason to work with Stygian iron before, so I think this will be pretty fun to do.”

~~~~

“Eunbi-unnie was really nice,” Chaewon commented once they were out of the Hephaestus cabin.

“Yeah, she’s been at camp longer than most. Eunbi-unnie acts as a mother to all of us rather than just the Hephaestus cabin counselor,” Minju replied while wiping off some soot from her face. Somehow, the black spots she missed made her look a bit cuter. The random thought caused Chaewon to blush, and she hoped that Minju didn’t notice.

“Speaking of longevity, the necklaces you all wear, I noticed Eunbi-unnie had seven beads. Does that mean she’s been here for seven years?” Chaewon asked to get her brain to think of something else.

Minju nodded and took off hers to show. On the single bead attached to it was a small but detailed drawing of a s’more on fire. “You get these at the end of each summer, and each bead represents a signature event that happened during that season. I just got here last year, so I’ve only got the one.”

“So, what’s with the s’more?”

Minju chuckled at this as if reliving the event in her head. “You know the food fight last night? It wasn’t the first or the worst. Last year, there was a s’more making competition between the cabins and it got really messy. No one wanted to admit any submission was better than theirs. It only got worse when we found out some of the Ares kids snuck some ambrosia into their recipe to make it better. We all knew it was fishy how a burnt chunk of marshmallows could have tasted that good.”

“That’s such a trivial thing to fight over,” Chaewon replied with a laugh. She realized in that second that she hadn’t had a laugh with someone outside of her two best friends and her mother in a long time.

Minju shrugged. “One thing demigods have a lot of is pride. Competitions with subjective scoring will always lead to arguments.”

“I don’t sense that from you though,” said Chaewon. Out of all the people she’d met so far, Minju’s had the most contrasting personality.

“Yah, I still have pride too,” Minju playfully complained. “I’ll let you know that contrary to what Eunbi-unnie says, me and my siblings are the smartest at camp.”

“Heh, maybe if you organize a quiz bee, you can prove it,” Chaewon joked back.

“Actually, we already have, and we’ve won gold every year,” Minju said smugly.

“And how many points did you contribute, wise girl?”

At this, Minju’s face reddens. “Okay, maybe it was Saerom who carried us, but I contributed to a couple of answers!”

Chaewon wished this moment would’ve lasted longer, but as they approached cabin central, they began hearing a commotion coming from the forest.

“What’s everyone gathering around there for?” Chaewon asked.

“That’s the direction of the geysers. Maybe something happened to Yujin and the others.” Minju replied, moving towards the crowd.

“The dryads said there was a claiming!” One of the campers whispered. Others were also sharing amongst themselves, and Chaewon caught on to the phrase being repeated the most- big three.

A few seconds later, members of the crowd began to gasp. Chaewon couldn’t see too far ahead because of all the people in the way, but she couldn’t miss the giant floating hologram of a green trident that suddenly appeared.

“No way…” Minju, who was taller than Chaewon, muttered.

As the crowd parted, Chaewon slowly realized that the person under the hologram… was Yujin.

“Really? Why won’t this thing go away?” she complained as she tried to wave the hologram away from her. It was probably the first time Chaewon had seen Yujin trying to shy away from attention.

“Ahn Yujin is a child of Poseidon, god of the sea.” Minju said just as Seunggi arrived at the scene.

“What are the gods planning…” he mumbled with an unreadable expression.

Chaewon realized now what he meant. The big three gods made a pact to have no more children, and now, two just suddenly popped up. Chaewon’s gaze then ended up meeting with Yena, and a silent understanding seemed to pass between them.

Yena might be the next to be claimed, and a whole chain of events could be set off when it happens.

 

A/N: Hi everyone, and welcome back to another chapter! This was a parallel chapter to what was going on in the previous one so that's why the ending seemed a bit similar. Hope you enjoyed the 2kim fluff, and meeting Eunbi! She finally has abilities haha, I felt like making her a child of Hephaestus because she's pretty good with her hands. She even had the nickname "golden hands" in IZCHU.

Anyways, we will be back with Yujin in the next chapter and how she's going to take being a child of Poseidon. There will be backstory!

Thank you again for all the support and patience. I appreciate everything!

Have a nice day, and I'll see y'all in the next one!