‘‘It will taste a lot more than okay next if you can get past the trauma,’‘ he mused, before firmly shaking Dakota’s hand. ‘‘Hestia, huh? I think you’re the first one of you kind,’‘ hopefully the last, but he wasn’t going to sound so pessimistic right off the bat. ‘‘You’re lucky we can’t compare you to the last guy,’‘ Phillip mused, watching the other male raised an eyebrow when he offered him snacks. ‘‘We all have different taste in food, I’ll watch you test it out and will probably laugh under my breath a few times. Who said we were here to make it easy for you?’‘ He smirked to himself but raised his hands in an innocent fashion. 

As stupid as it may sound, he couldn’t help to add: ‘’love the long hair.’’

“Yeah, I think I read that she was a virgin goddess, so I’m really curious how I was born,” Dakota said with a laugh. He really didn’t care, he hadn’t asked too many questions about his mother growing up. It wasn’t that he didn’t care he just had other things keeping him busy. School, work, the Reservation, friends, life just slipped away from him and he didn’t get the chance to ask his father. He gave a nod and grinned towards the male. “I think we all would be boring if we had the same taste in food. But I asked what your favorite was,” he explained.

When the comment about his hair came he chuckled and looked over at the male. “Thanks. Love the curls,” he said with a wink of his own.

silas had seen plenty of demigods suffer from their first night on ambrosia, but this one took the cake, by far. he’s watching from a distance, a bit amused all things considered, how the stranger seems more like he’s waking up from a long night of partying versus taking an ambrosia trip. “sick hangover, bro.” he teases, attempting to help the demigod to his feet. “we haven’t had a drowning yet, but we’re counting on it.” the son of hypnos laughs softly, giving the newbie a once over.

“it’s a little late, but we can get you some good eats.” he nods toward a path leading to the banquet hall. “what’s your name, dude? feel like we’ve got a load of newbies rolling in.”

Dakota’s entire body felt like it had been run over by a train or something. Sick hangover was right, he really would go off of drinking if this was how it felt afterwards. He grinned over at the male, knowing that if it was all over then he could start picking up the pieces of his bruised body. Figuratively. He took the hand and stood up, groaning loudly as he did, everything hurt. “Fuck, this is the worst body-ache I’ve ever had,” he told the male as he stood up and sighed.

“i’m Dakota, son of Hestia,” he said as he looked over at the male. “You wouldn’t happen to have any ibuprofen would you?” he asked, hopeful that maybe the other had something that would take the pain from his body.

“Yeah, and judging by the way some of these guys are talking, what we’re going to fight is no joke,” he remembered hearing something about manticores, grffiins, and dragons. “I guess all we can do at this point is prepare for the worst, and hope we don’t get torn apart by it,” he shrugged. It wasn’t a lighthearted matter, despite how much Asher tried to pretend it was all a joke. “Do you ever just have to stop and wonder – this has got to be a mistake. They’ve got the wrong person,” he turned to the look at the other demigod, “I guess it all just feels a little surreal.”

“Goddess of hearth and home, that’s cool,” he forced. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but there wasn’t necissarily anything badass or intimidating by a demigod of family and home life. “Yeah, maybe. I haven’t really gotten a chance to explore them yet. What about you? Do you have any idea what kind of powers your mom passed down to you?”

He hadn’t noticed until now, but he actually hadn’t even eaten anything since he’d come to camp. He’d been so preoccupied with becoming a demigod and all, it had completely slipped his mind. “Yeah, you know, I could definitely eat. I just… don’t know exactly where to go. Is there a cafeteria here? Or do we just fend for ourselves?”

Dakota was very worried about most of those things. It wasn’t like he had spent all of his life training to be a fighter or anything. In fact he had spent a lot of time just learning how to navigate his home. Being a person. “I mean, part of me has wondered why now? If they could have why not have given us the ambrosia at a younger age and start training us up to fight before now? I had a life back home,” he said as he scratched the back of his head.

When the male said his godly parent was cool he looked at him and then narrowed his eyes. “You’re such a liar,” he chuckled before nudging the male with his shoulder. He knew that it might not seem like a good parent to have but he knew he would be able to do good things as Hestia’s son. He reached out and took Asher’s hand in his own and tugged him towards where he recalled smelling like food.

“Come on, let’s go this way. I think they call it banquet hall or something,” he said leading the male by the hand as they walked through the camp. It was something he had done since a kid, lead by holding people’s hand. “I guess we will have to find out soon what our powers are, huh? I haven’t a clue yet. But I have noticed the bonfire I woke up next to wasn’t burning me. So maybe I’m fireproof or something.”

Phillip has been watching the new guy from a comfortable distance during his ambrosia-fueled night. The only way for the demigods to stop the pain was to drown themselves, so he thought it was his responsibility to make sure everything was happening as smoothly as possible. Knowing the other male was safe and sound, in his cabin, at the end of the day was enough to make him stop acting like a worried mom.

He was glad to see Dakota walked to the bonfire, later on, a steady pace, looking like he was slowly getting rid of the bad side effect of the liquid. ‘’You have no idea how good Ambrosia is going to taste now,’’ he simply told the other male with a small smile. The liquid of the Gods. It was like fancy wine, now. If he wasn’t too scarred by the experience. ‘’There’s a place where you can get food, you can also sneak whatever taste better than our cafeteria into your luggage when we leave for the trials,’’ he mused, standing still in front of the bonfire, his hands in front of him getting himself warmed up after patrolling the camp. 

‘‘I’m Lip, by the way. Son of Poseidon and… I might have snacks in my cabin if you want.’‘

“It tasted okay the first time. Just hated what happened to me,” Dakota said as he popped his neck and stretched his arms over his head. He grinned towards the male as he spoke, stepping closer to him. He figured the food here might be mostly whatever they got from the towns near the camp, which wouldn’t include some of the snacks that he was used to back home. He sighed and then there was the mention of the trials. Gods, he hadn’t even thought about the trials since last night. He was too busy fighting off skinwalkers that he was taught as a kid were the boogey man.

When the male introduced himself he straightened up his back and held out a hand for the other to shake. “I’m Dakota, son of Hestia,” he said with a nod. He grinned at the idea of having snacks. “What kind of snacks might you have in your cabin?” he asked raising an eyebrow. “Also, you’ll have to show me which food around here is your favorite cause I’m sure its nothing I’m going to be very familiar with.”

“That’s not foreboding at all,” he quipped with a sigh. This place was just getting creepier and creepier. His head was still reeling from the ambrosia hallucinations earlier, and now? Now he had come discover he really was cut off from life as he knew it. “They take out to the middle of nowhere, give us strange powers, cut off our connection with the outside world. What’s next? Have us battle each other to the death?” Perhaps he was getting a little overdramatic, it wasn’t like Hermes actually gave him reason to distrust him. He’d come here on his own after all.

“Hey Dakota,” he smiled and hopped down from his rock, reaching over to shake the other man’s hand. “Hestia… what was she the goddess of again?” his ancient greek pantheon trivia was a bit rusty, even after all of the information that had been dumped on him. “I’m son of Cronus, Time god.” Truthfully, he’d had no idea who that was until Hermes explained it to him. Ever since coming to the camp, he realized just how much he had to catch up on. “So how long have you been here? Are you about as new as I am?”

Dakota couldn’t help but laugh a little at the male being overdramatic. He didn’t think being without cell service was funny, nor was the situation they were in, however the way the male acted about the whole was a little amusement in what seemed like a long bad dream. “I don’t think they will make us fight each other, but I am pretty sure we are going to have to fight something,” he said after his laughter died down. he licked his lips as he shook the male’s hand. He wasn’t too familiar with mythology either. Growing up he knew more about Native American lore than anything.

“She is the goddess of hearth, home, and family, I believe. I’ve seen people say she is the fireplace goddess or something,” he said with a shrug. “Pretty cool your father is the god of time though. Must give you some cool powers,” he said with a grin. Giving a nod he crossed his arms over his chest and looked around at the camp grounds. “I think I arrived just after you. I still feel the ringing in my head from the ambrosia. Wanna find something to eat?”

Hearing a sound behind him he turned his head quickly and spotted someone standing nearby. He sighed and got up from the ground. “Is everyone’s night after drinking ambrosia as great as mine must have been?” he asked, brushing some dirt away from his body before shaking his hair out too. “I feel like I got ran over by a bus and that I could throw one across a field too,” he chuckled, twisting his hair into a bun on top of his head. “So, where can a guy get some food around here?”