Annabeth's pov:

"Annabeth and Leo are at the top of the leader board!" Chiron showed a long display, filled with names.

Leo and I were first, the rest of the names blank.

"Why are the rest of the names blank?" I asked Chiron.

"The last competition only had one winner," Chiron said. "So naturally, the rest of the names are blank."

I nodded, thinking about how this benefited us. If we became third or fourth, we still had a slight chance of first, or at least in the top three. I smiled to Leo, and he understood.

"What's the next event?" Piper asked, that was odd. Even she didn't know what it was.

"You will find out when it's time," he turned to a wood nymph, whispering something. She nodded and walked out hurriedly, probably looking to find something. "The golden egg, please."

He glanced down at my foot, where the prized possession was being held. I picked it up and gave it to him, still staring at its beauty. Another wood nymph came and took it off him, trudging to the forest.

The competitiveness in me had died out, and the only thing that I could deal right now were the ache and cramps of my muscle joints. My eyes were starting to strain too, probably from how quickly I had to adjust to the light from the egg and Leo.

I stood up, gesturing for Leo to follow. He obliged, and we waited till we were out of reach of the few campers.

"Any plans?" I asked, and Leo shrugged in follow.

He furrowed his eyebrows, planting a seat on the marshy ground. "You?" He tilted his head up.

I followed his actions, sitting adjacent to him. "Guess we're just going to wing it." I scrunched my nose. "Becoming third will still make us top, so there's really nothing to worry."

Leo nodded his head. "Right."

A ladybug (bird for British) flew around my face, landing softly on my arm. I peered closely at it, a beautiful dark red ladybug with seven spots marked neatly on its back. The analysing didn't last long though, for the ladybug must've been bored from standing in one area for so long that it quickly fluttered out of sight, and I sighed longingly.

It was a beautiful day today, the sun's rays beating down on my face, though the cool wind's breeze satisfied me. There were a lot of bugs today though, those miniature green flies nearly finding its way to my mouth. They were annoying really, the kind of bugs that all came swarming down on you in the summer.

Shaking my head from those thoughts, I turned to Leo who was fiddling with a screwdriver. "How do you do that?" I asked.

Leo looked up at me questionably, his hands now resting on his lap. "My toolbelt, I can grab any tool I want from it."

"Really?" I asked.

Leo laughed nervously. "Annabeth, you know that."

I sucked in a breath. Leo didn't know about my sudden 'change', and with the sunny atmosphere and calming mood, I had forgotten about it. I cursed inwardly, knowing that this would be a grave mistake.

"Right," I shook my head as if trying to regain those forgotten thoughts.

It didn't work.

Leo quickly changed the subject, and I thanked him inwardly. "You know those days where you're just thinking about life?"

"Yeah?" I asked quizzically.

"I'm having one of those days." Leo laughed, sending me to laugh with him.

"So am I." I replied thoughtfully.

It was true though, to be honest, most of my days were me thinking about past decisions and what I could've done to stop it. Like if I had decided not to run from the dance, would I still be here, or if I didn't become friends with the others, how would I be now? I usually thought this at midnight, when we were supposed to be dozing off, but my brain managed to keep me up all night with some depressing thoughts.

"What do you think about when you're having those days?" I blurted out.

Leo didn't seem to mind though, sitting up and answering my question. "I think about our past quests, about future quests," he scratched his neck nervously. "About Calypso."

My heart stopped for a brief moment. Calypso? Calypso was here? I hoped she was different, then shook my head out of those thoughts. Calypso didn't do anything wrong, no one did actually, it was just my stupid brain.

"Calypso, huh?" He nodded. "Is she at camp?"

Leo gave me another quizzical look, but quickly brushed it off.

"Yeah," he replied. "Usually hangs out with Katie Gardner. Sometimes I come and talk to them, but all they do is talk about what fertiliser they should use for their new plants. I mostly steer clear of that." He laughed.

I nodded, smiling a little, though I couldn't keep my mind off her name. If Calypso was here, surely Drew would be here too, but maybe she would be a changed woman, just like everyone here.

"Is Drew here?" I asked.

Leo didn't answer my question. "Why do you want to know if Drew is here?" He scrunched his nose.

I sighed, thinking the worst. "I just want to know."

Leo nodded. "Yeah, she's here, and she's still the same."

"Still snobby and rude?" I prayed that I was correct.

Leo laughed, allowing me to breathe. "Ain't that the truth."

. . .

"Today's event will have something to do with the sky." Chiron announced, a certain Poseidon kid groaning in response.

"We'll be using pegasi, so there will be no problems or cheating." He looked pointedly at the Ares campers, who were looking down at the ground pretending not to hear. I laughed at that, although those kids loved to fight, they weren't really a stickler for the rules.

"Can we use our own pegasi?" Percy asked.

Chiron shook his head. "You'll be given a random one, just to increase the difficulty."

I groaned at that, I'd only rode a pegasus once, and it wasn't really easy. I wasn't scared of heights- no, just that steering that animal was hard, and I vowed never to ride another one again after I landed on a pile of their poop.

Leo wasn't that scared though, just nodding along as Chiron carried on talking.

"There will be a set of courses in the race, all of which has to be done with you and your pegasi." He added. "At the end, there will be three banners. Gold, silver and bronze. Gold is the highest, silver middle, and bronze lowest. First person to bring back the highest banner gets the most points, and so forth."

He left after that, leaving very confused campers to go plan with their teammates.

"Who do you think will be our biggest contender?" I asked Leo.

Leo turned to have a good look at the crowd. "Probably Piper and Percy, Piper can charmspeak if her pegasus doesn't want to go up, and Percy can speak horse so they'll probably be in the top three."

There really was no plan for this, the only thing we could do was pray that we did not get fatally injured. Leo said that he could 'fart his way through with his fire powers', which I greatly disagreed on, not wanting to know further.

I didn't understand why they were doing all this trouble for a stupid event, sure it made you more competitive, but it wasn't necessarily a good thing. The event was taking my mind off of things, stuff that I needed to focus on, concentrate on.

Leo got up, holding his hand for me. I obliged and we both walked back.

"What do we do now?" I asked, though it felt weird. I was the one who made the plans, not Leo.

"Are you seriously asking me that?" Leo seemed to be voicing my thoughts.

I laughed, though the heat was starting to get to me. "Must be the sun, I can't think straight when the sun's beating down on me."

Leo laughed. "I've never had that problem."

I pushed him playfully, he was lucky, really. Since he was a Haphaestus kid, he could easily adjust to the heat. I, on the other hand, was dying from the golden rays.

We stopped laughing, and I carried on, though after a few seconds of walking, I felt my arm hairs singing, and I looked up to see what had caused it.

The sight was beautiful, a large ring of fire was being produced, only being half made so it looked more like a crescent. The fire curled around each other, and I shuddered at the thought of getting burnt in that.

"You're doing that part." I said to Leo, pointing at the rings.

Leo turned whilst nodding, "which means you'll be up there." He pointed at a large wall, towering above the camp.

I had to be standing at a massive block, waiting for my partner to come. If Leo and his pegasus went too fast, I could be thrown off the block and be flattened on the ground. I groaned, my head hurting as my pessimistic thoughts bombarded me.

"You know how to ride a pegasus right ?" I asked Leo, and he nodded nervously.

"Yeah," he said. "But I've only ridden them like once, so I might not be up to date."

I shrugged. "It's okay, I'm not amazing at it either."

. . .

The campers stood on their spots determinedly, each of their pegasus standing adjacent to them. The rings of fire first started near the ground, and ascended up over time. This would be the hard bit, for you had to make sure you didn't burn as well as the pegasus.

I jogged over to Leo, who was standing in his place. "Just make sure the pegasus doesn't get burnt, okay?"

He nodded and I waved as I left, getting ready to climb up the wall. I climbed up there easily, going on the spot directly in front of Leo. He couldn't really see me, but it was the opposite for me so finding the right spot was easy.

The width of this towering wall was quite small, one step away from falling down. There were nets down below, so as not to insure injury, but they were still quite far, so hurtling down on them would cause serious burns.

"Go!" Chiron shouted, and a wood nymph banged on a gong, sending loud calming vibrations across the camp. This signalled to us that we could start, and I watched as Leo sprang up on to his pegasus, and quickly flew by.

The crowd next to me were shouting at their teammate, yelling at them encouragingly. I was skeptical of that, thinking that it would throw then off board so I kept my mouth shut.

Leo was doing okay, he was third and the other two pegasi were right by his heels. Percy- no suprise there, and his pegasi were first, Clarisse and hers second. The rest of the pegasi were too far to catch up now, the wall would be their only chance.

I craned my neck as Leo ascended up, careful of the edge. There were no problems ahead, except for the two very annoying campers. Piper was charmspeaking Percy, saying 'come on! Try and go faster!", though I doubted that that actually worked.

Leo and his pegasus landed adjacent to me, and I nearly fell off the edge, Leo managing to grab me before I plummeted.

"Be careful," he said as he pulled me back up.

I didn't say a word, only quickly getting up the pegasus, careful to steer clear of their wings. They hated being touched there, it was really sensitive to them. The pegasus stomped on the wall, and I arched up, the pegasus following my movements.

Piper was already ahead, but we were catching up. It seemed that she wasn't really amazing at flying, but neither was I. The trees were starting to be more wide, the space for us to go through turning more narrow.

I cursed loudly as I ducked under a tree, if I didn't see it I would be been knocked unconscious from the force. I knew I didn't have enough time to catch up to Piper, she was too far ahead.

Katie was close, though it looked like she was having a hard time with the pegasus, constantly having to shout at it. Piper was trying to charmspeak the pegasus, and I realised I had nothing to do here.

My pegasus didn't really need my approval, and I watched as Piper grabbed the gold banner, taking her win by the hand. I reluctantly ducked low as I took the silver banner, and Katie grabbed the bronze.

Piper was busy celebrating with Percy, who managed to come down from the wall and go a safer route to the finishing line. Leo was there too, beaming with pride.

"Woohoo!" He shouted. "We're second!"

I scrunched my nose. "We're not first, there's nothing to be celebrating."

Leo pointed at the leader board. Leo and I were still at the top, Percy and Piper's names still below us.

I still kept my frown evident on my face. "If we won, we could've been ahead by a mile."

"Come on, Annabeth." He drawled, with a smile on his face. "I nearly fell off that pegasus, so I'm taking any win I can get." He paused. "Even if it's still second."

I laughed, though my head hurt. "Gods, imagine if we don't win."

We were just talking now, not bothering to get up and move as the trees above us were shading us from the intense sun.

"Let's not think about that." Leo was making a daisy chain, and I raised my eyebrow at his childishness.

"What? They're fun to make." He insisted.

He plucked a daisy from the ground. "Daisy?"

"You really think I'm going to make a daisy chain?" I asked, Leo didn't answer only going back to making them.

Right now, he was failing and I was trying hard not to laugh at his attempts. After five minutes of him cursing at his now decapitated flowers, I chose that time to help him.

"Leo?" I asked, pointing at the flower he was using. "Give me some daisies."

He laughed. "But I though you didn't want -"

"I'm only saying this once." I cut him off.

He reluctantly gave some to me, and we spent the last thirty minutes making daisy chains, and Leo finally got the hang of it. With his crafting and engineering skills he managed to wrap a rock around the end of one of my finished chains, so it looked more like a necklace than a chain.

I laughed. "Give that to Calypso, she'd probably like it."

Leo shook his head, laughing in the process. "She'd probably be mad that we plucked daisies from the ground."

I noticed the sun was starting to set, and I pointed it out to Leo.

"Come on, people will start looking for us soon."

Leo nodded, and we got up, wiping the grass stuck to our trousers. "Did we miss dinner?" He asked, as the smell of honey wafted around us.

"I think it just started."

We jogged over to the pavilion, my stomach rumbling at the sight of food. I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and the last event had really drained me.

"Hey," I said as I sat down next to Malcolm.

Malcolm looked up from his bowl of porridge, smiling a little. "What took you so long?"

"I was just talking with Leo," I lied, I didn't want to say I was making daisy chains, that sounded weird.

Malcolm nodded. "Finally found some friends, huh?"

"Friend." I corrected, and Malcolm sighed. He turned to me, ignoring his unfinished bowl.

"When are you going to tell everyone?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, I'm too busy caught up in the competition."

Malcolm scrunched his nose. "You need to tell someone, you know."

I shook my head. "If I tell someone, said person is going to tell the whole camp, and I'll be the latest gossip again."

"You're over thinking this." He stated.

"You're stressing about it too much, if I forget about it I might not even have to tell anyone."

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "No way, you're going to tell someone." He said. "And if you don't, Chiron most definitely will."

I groaned. "Either way, they're going to know."

Malcolm smiled, knowing that he won this argument. "Good, now let's talk about the competition."

"What place are you in?" I asked.

Malcolm shook his head. "I'm seventh, all because of a stupid Ares camper."

"What did they do?"

"They didn't understand what patience is, I told him to wait, he didn't, and he fell into the net."

"That's got to hurt."

Malcolm shrugged. "He deserved it."

I went up and grabbed some food, getting the same as Malcolm with an added glass of milk.

"What do you think the next competition is going to be?" I asked him.

"If it's harder than this one, than I guarantee you there will be injuries."

"There were injuries before." I noted.

Malcolm sighed. "I'm talking about serious injuries, the kind that sends you to the infirmary and you stay there for a while."

I winced, not wanting to know specific examples. From then on, I just ate my food, finishing before Malcolm.

"Wait. Where are you going?" Malcolm asked.

"Can't you tell? I'm going to read."

Malcolm laughed at my comment, and I left to grab a certain type of book. Lately, I had been engrossed with Greek tales, wanting to know everything there was about them.

I climbed up the top of my bunk bed, settling in to read and go to sleep. Reading the contents, I gasped quietly.

'Potions and magic' was a topic in this book, and I prayed to the Gods that there was something to do with memory loss.