Work Text:
Annabeth made her way to the Aphrodite cabin with Silena’s sweater in hand.
The older girl had accidentally left it in Athena cabin when she was hanging out with Annabeth and her brother, Malcolm. Annabeth figured she’d return it, even though curfew was a few minutes ago.
After seven years of sneaking out and dodging harpies, she’d managed to master the art, so it wasn’t like she was going to get eaten or anything. If Chiron found out, he’d probably understand, too.
It was a nice night; the end of spring, right before the summer campers (including Percy) returned. The Aphrodite kids came to camp a few days earlier, for whatever reason, so she’d have to be discreet about returning the sweater.
Since it was already after curfew (and the Aphrodite kids loved their beauty sleep), she figured that everyone was probably in bed. She would just sneak in, leave the sweater on Silena’s bed, and leave. Easy.
Walking up to the door, Annabeth prepared to move quickly and quietly to avoid waking anyone up. Only when she opened it, she was left standing frozen in shock.
There was a ring of Aphrodite kids holding hands, circling a ring of rose petals and cheap scented candles. Another ring of four Aphrodite kids was inside all of that, surrounding what looked like an offering: four more candles and a giant pile of rose petals with a stack of papers to top it all off.
They were all wearing identical pink cloaks, hoods obscuring their faces in shadow. The only light was from the candles, all of which made the whole place smell strongly of artificial vanilla and cinnamon.
That wasn't the strange part though (gods know Annabeth has seen weirder). The strange part was the ancient Greek chanting. The ancient Greek chanting about her and her very embarrassing crush, Percy, making out. Coming from Silena.
“Silena. What the fuck are you doing?” Annabeth blurted out before thinking.
All fourteen kids whipped their heads around to look at Annabeth. Their wide eyes seemed to bore into her soul worse than the Ares kids’ right before capture the flag.
“Shut the door behind you,” someone said.
“Wha–”
“Shut the door!”
Annabeth shut the door.
Immediately chatter broke out among cabin 10. Annabeth couldn’t make out anything except a very concerning “Should we sacrifice her?” asked by one of the younger kids.
“Should you what?!” Annabeth choked.
Silena stood up from her spot in the inner ring and put her hands in the air like a godsdamn Greek Moses. “Everyone quiet!” Silence. And then, almost like an afterthought, she added, “And nobody’s getting sacrificed, Lucile.”
The kid had the nerve to look disappointed.
“Silena.”
“Yes?”
“What the fuck is going on?”
Silena put her hands up in a sad attempt at a soothing gesture. “The important thing is not to freak out.”
“I’m kinda freaking out, Silena.”
“It's not what it looks like…” she glanced at the candles and rose petals. “Ok, maybe it is what it looks like– but we have a good reason!”
Annabeth stared at her incredulously. “And that reason is…?”
“You and Percy were taking so long to get together, we decided you two need divine intervention,” Mitchel called out from somewhere in the sea of bright pink cloaks.
Annabeth was too shocked to even deny her feelings for Percy. “And you decided to get that divine intervention by writing out and sacrificing fanfiction?”
Silena shrugged. “It's cabin tradition.”
…
“Does it, like… work?”
“Oh yeah. Mom loves it. Works every time.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
“Show me the damn papers.”
Silena turned to her siblings. “Lacy, Mitchel. Get this girl a cloak!”
The two children stood up like some kind of sleeper agents. “Yes, ma’am!”
“Come on, Annie, you need to be part of this now that you’ve been enlightened.” She waved Annabeth into the inner ring of the circle and gently shooed away Drew, who moved to the outer ring with a huff of annoyance.
By the time Annabeth made her way into the middle (narrowly avoiding knocking over the ridiculous amount of open flames), Lacy and Mitchel were back with another pink cloak and draping it over her shoulders. They took the sweater from her hands, and threw it in the general direction of Silena’s bed. (“Careful around the fire! That’s mohair!”)
“Now,” Silena said with a clap of her hands and a deceptively sweet smile. “Swear on the Styx that you won’t tell anyone about our rituals. Ever.”
“Wait, what?”
“You heard me.”
Annabeth glanced down at the completely impassive faces of the Aphrodite kids before conceding. “I swear on the Styx I'll never tell anyone about cabin 10’s creepy ass rituals.”
Once a flash of lightning and the sharp crack of thunder resounded through the cabin, Silena sat back down, across from where Annabeth now was. “Let’s restart,” she said as Annabeth covered her hair with the hood of her cloak. The Aphrodite kids on either side of Annabeth grabbed her hands, and Silena flipped back to the first page of the long, handwritten fic. “Dear Mother, chapter one–”
“–And then they made out. The end.”
Silena, Annabeth, and two Aphrodite kids grabbed the candles in front of them and lit the rose petals (and, by extension, the fic) on fire.
“Kudos,” the cabin intoned when it all went up in hot pink smoke.
Annabeth pulled the hood of her cloak back down. “You think that’ll work?”
“If Mom liked it,” Silena shrugged.
“Right.”
As everyone else busied themselves with blowing out the candles, Silena said, “Next meeting is on the first day of the summer session at 11pm sharp. Don’t be late. Now shoo.”
And with that, Annabeth was shoved out the door in a bright pink cloak and left to walk back to cabin 6 alone. Three hours after curfew.
“Next meeting?!” she shouted at the now-closed door.
No response.
With a defeated sigh, Annabeth began the trek back to Athena cabin.
(Somewhere up on Olympus, Aphrodite was giggling and kicking her feet.)