Author's Note: Hey! This is my first story in the wonderful world of Percy Jackson fanfiction! Everything's so new and shiny!

Okay. I'm over it :)

I wrote this ages ago but I was proud of it so I'll post it. Thanks for reading.

P.S. If my OC shows symptoms of Mary Sue-ness tell me!

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or any related characters. I do not own Who I Am Hates Who I've Been by Relient K.

The answer was Clio.

The boy beside me shifted in his seat as he tried to remember the Muse of history. Really, you're taking eighth grade Ancient Greek history and you don't know which goddess you're praying to to help you pass the exam?

"It was... Tyche, right?" he finally said. Mr. Kinner shook his head.

"She was the goddess of luck. Which you're going to need to pass this quarters exam." he added. A collective groan went up from the class but I was happy. Greek wasn't Greek to me.

Excuse me lame attempt at humor. Maybe I should ask Thalia for help with that. Pardon my second lame joke. I meant Thalia the Muse of comedy, not my best friend at this awful boarding school.

Where should I start? I'm a Greek mythology buff, a strange thing for a fourteen year old girl to say. I love it: the strange names, the heroic tales, the air about it that makes you a bit sure it's all true. This was the only class I could pass at Darkwoud Institute: 'making model citizens out of the youth since 1790'. In better words, torturing troubled kids who can't afford a better school for over 200 years! Then there was Thalia. Even though she was fifteen, pretty,and cool enough to be either extremely popular or those rebels that everyone still likes, she hung out with me, who was frequently forgotten.

"We match," she'd said, gesturing to my combat boots and dark, strange clothes. Nothing I wore was spared when I got bored and had Sharpies at hand. And indeed we did match. When she got mad at someone and reached toward her back as if going for a weapon I didn't see, I calmed her down and steered her away. I wasn't always fast enough though, and it was a wonder she hadn't gotten expelled yet.

Should I continue? Mr. Kinner rolled his wheel chair to the board and wrote 'Oral Presentation due Friday (yes, in Greek)' in chalk. The class groaned again and I almost did, too. Just because I could read it didn't mean I spoke it. The bell rang, a tinny, irritating sound like a high G sharp that wouldn't come out right.

Before dinner, we had thirty minutes to change. I walked down the wallpapered hallways, they tried to make Darkwoud feel like 'home', and entered the living quarters. In my dorm I found Thalia lying on her bed conveniently listening to my iPod. I plunked down next to her and pulled out my earphones. Her blue eyes widened in surprise and I stuck out my tongue,

"You could ask before taking my stuff!"

She nodded, solemn. "I could. I just chose not to." She broke out a grin, "How was Mr. Killer?" Lots of students called the history teacher that because of how demanding he was and how much work he assigned.

"Okay I guess, usual examinations but I've got an oral report due. It's pronounced 'ah-oo-lezz', right?"

"Nope it's 'ee'-oh-luhs'." Thalia corrected. I sighed.

"Great I get to fail my favorite class on my birthday."

Thalia furrowed her eyebrows and frowned. "It's your birthday? How old are you going to be?"

"Fifteen."

Her expression changed for a second, a flash of anger, but back to concerned. She muttered something that sound eerily like, 'should have been claimed'. She looked out our window to the sky and the storm clouds rumbled. I could have sworn, I saw the flash of lightning that was outside in her eyes as well.

"Yeah, yeah I know its not you," she said. She didn't say it to me, but to the sky. That was normal, times when she would forget that the sky couldn't answer her back.

She shook her head, as if returning to the real world, and said, "Let's skip dinner. I'm going to sneak to McDonald's. Want anything?" I shook my head and she shrugged, walking out the door. I turned on my iPod and placed it shuffle. The cool thing about music and me was, whenever I heard a song it fit my mood. Say I was really mad at a student, an angry rock song would come on the radio, even if it was like, the country music station. This tune fit my mood perfectly.

"I watched the proverbial sunrise, coming up over the Pacific and,
you might think I'm losing my mind, but I will shy away from the specifics..."

I wouldn't be seeing a sunrise over the Pacific anytime soon, proverbial or not. Not since my single mom moved us out here to New York and exiled- I mean enrolled, me at the Institute. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom. But my first couple of months here I hated her. Who would ever think of choosing big city life, mental kids, even more mental teachers, gray uniforms, and smoggy air over a tiny surf town on the coast of California, nice, close-knit people, clean air and water, and a place were 'clothing optional' actually applied?

My mom would.

"It's for the best." she'd told me when I finally came out of my room after a three day hunger strike. So I said goodbye to Tanner and the red headed twins Griffin and Alec and headed north.

While I waited for Thalia to return (knowing she'd have bought me fries anyway) I retrieved my Greek textbook and let the words take over. First, I re-re-read read the tragic tale of Echo and how Hera cursed her. Whenever I said Hera was kind of rhymes-with-witch-y, Thalia would get nod and finger her 'bad' leg. I memorized every gods and heroes mother, which was a feat, considering how much Zeus 'liked' mortals. I made notes because my report was on the minor gods, like Nemesis, Eos, and Triton who deserved more respect than they got. People just didn't take time to appreciate the little things in life.

It was getting late and my eyes glazed over. Suddenly, and I was sure I hadn't done it myself, the pages turned to a chapter way at the end.

'Greek Monsters'. Something compelled me to read about them. They were both fascinating and terrifying. I read some of there names out loud: 'empousa', 'gorgon', 'laistrygonians', 'stymphalian birds'. As I read off the names, I felt... something. You know the expression 'like someone's walking on your grave'? That's what it felt like, a cold chill at the base of my spine, a shadow spreading and getting stronger as I said the names.

The door slammed open and the cold retreated. Thalia looked at me, my textbook, and my mouth half forming the word 'echinda'. I saw her face was scratched up and her Green Day tour shirt ripped. There was also a disappointing lack of greasy fried food, making me think she wasn't where she said she would be.

"Do not use them lightly, for names have power." she said in an authoritative tone, a silver silhouette around her, neither of which I thought were hers. The glow faded, her voice returned to the norm. "Besides. Don't you know only geeks read ahead?"

So? Chapters are fairly short but updates are often. (Update 11/27/10: that turned out to be a lie lol :))