5- Claimed

Waking a few hours later, Aster felt confused before an overwhelming sense of excitement came over him.

"Haha! I can create ice!" He threw his hands up in the air, a great big smile spreading across his face.

His excitement was curbed when he heard the baritone laugh of Chiron. "Well I'm glad that you're elated, but you seem to have now missed breakfast."

Aster froze in his position, arms still hanging up above his head. Then he deflated, his shoulders slumping.

"Haha don't worry, I didn't bring it up to taunt you." The centaur said, producing a plate of pancakes from a nearby table. Placing it on Aster's lap, he let the boy dig in. And dig in he did.

With the syrup the centaur also provided, Aster dealt with his hunger as he listened to his mentor speak.

"Though I only arrived towards the end of the altercation, I have to say that you fought well." He complimented Aster, making him glance up at him before returning to his meal. "Of course, there are still flaws throughout, but you're a natural fighter so they can easily be ironed out."

Aster seemed to adopt a small smile as he heard what Chiron was telling him, but it faded at what he said next. "To do that, Clarisse will be mentoring you in scythe arts."

Looking up at the old man with an astonished face, Chiron could see that Aster was confused. "But she started the fight in the first place!"

The youth only received a small smile in response, then a correction. "Actually she was going to give you a swirly, as I believe it's called, but you seemed determined on 'making her work for it."

Aster opened his mouth to say something and raised a digit as if to make a point, then silently lowered it and stuffed his mouth with pancakes, a smile playing at his lips. Seeing this display, Chiron chuckled before letting the boy finish his plate.

It didn't take long before he could get to the point of his visit. Taking on a serious face, Chrion didn't mince his words.

"You have been claimed." He said, taking on a grave tone. "But it was a sigil that has never been seen before."

Nevertheless, Aster was filled with child-like glee even though he knew who his mom was. "What was it?"

"A scythe with its hilt pointed up and a snowflake resting on its blade. Both things that you have shown already: Your weapon and ability to produce ice and snow."

His smile only seemed to grow, giving Chiron a realization. "You know who she is then?"

Aster nodded his head. "Mhm! My Mom's Demeter!"

Aster's words confused the hell out of Chiron. "What? But her symbol is of a sickle and wheat."

"Yes, but Mom is the Goddess of all seasons, not just the harvest and spring." Aster reminded the centaur.

This gave Chiron pause, running the possibility through his mind. But before he could say anything, Aster continued, producing the notes from Demeter.

"She even left me this note and asked me to find my siblings." He said, handing Chiron the notecards.

The centaur became silent for a few minutes as he read the notes over, seeing the signature at the end. Then he read it again. And again. And once more as he realized multiple things with varying magnitudes of consequences.

The first and smallest matter is that Demeter could have children with different aspects, depending on what season they were born in. The next being that Demeter had told her child of the other camp.

Though she had only mentioned it regarding her other son, she did it nonetheless. And there was absolutely no way that Zeus would have allowed her to send Aster's gifts without his approval, so he must have also approved it for some reason.

'But why? He was the one to order the separation in the first place.' The centaur wondered.

But his contemplation was interrupted when he realized that he was still in a conversation. "Ah, I seem to have gotten lost in thought. My apologies, Aster."

"In other news, it seems Cabin 4 will require renovations soon." He smiled at Aster, who genuinely looked happy.

"After your training with Clarisse is completed, I'll do my best to talk Mr D into allowing you and two others to fetch this young Zoe. In the meantime, I'll post a few satyrs for her protection."

Aster nodded, happy enough with the situation. "As long as I can go and get her before summer starts."

Chiron gave Aster a small smile. "That will be just fine, as long as you're okay with a busy schedule."

Aster stood up from the cot, giving Chiron a confident smile. "I'm willing to do whatever I need to."

"Good, but for now you should meet someone." The old centaur said, leading Aster outside.

There, waiting on the porch, was a young woman with long blond hair and stormy gray eyes. 'Annabeth.' Aster muttered in his head, excited about having the chance to meet her.

"Meet Annabeth Chase, counselor to Cabin 6 and daughter of Athena." Chiron introduced her.

Aster smiled at her, holding out his hand for a handshake. "Hi, I'm Aster, Son of Demeter."

Annabeth eyed his hand for a moment before smiling and shaking his hand. "Hey, Frosty."

---

Aster was, indeed, not ready for the next few months of his life.

After meeting Annabeth, Aster moved into Cabin 4 and met his half-siblings there. Katie Gardener, the head counselor seemed both confused and elated that she had a new sibling. Confused at the fact that Aster's domain lay in winter instead of spring like the rest of Cabin 4.

That aside, his training was awful. Right after breakfast in the morning, he reported to the arena to train with Clarisse for three hours of weapon training.

Every time she would beat him silly with her wooden scythe, using it in order for him to learn the weapon better, and he did. With every day he improved by leaps and bounds.

They started with the basics: a sweeping strike that pierced and a lacerating strike that slashed. This stage only lasted a week before Aster was able to move on to more 'advanced' moves.

See using the scythe as a weapon was both incredibly simple and complicated. There weren't many possible moves, but there was a lot of range and different angles of attack.

This resulted in a dance-like fighting style, constantly shifting around and adjusting your position. Aster went through learning how to chain parries into attacks, knowing when to step back, and even incorporating the dance he had learned from Demeter.

It wasn't anything like some divine attack art like in some light novels he had read, but it was more about footwork. It went from taking even steps between attacks to the sweeping slash that he had used to injure a hellhound.

Aside from getting better at fighting, he began studying Greek legends with Annabeth. He learned all sorts of creatures that he would have to look out for when outside of camp, as well as different hideouts left behind by previous campers in all kinds of different cities.

Annabeth, accepting nothing but perfection from him, quizzed him daily. She constantly questioned him about different scenarios and how he would react to them, grading his assessment and then pointing out the flaws he had left in them.

Aster also spent some time with his siblings, both in Cabin 4 and in the strawberry field during his free time. There were 15 children of Demeter besides him, 7 boys and 8 girls. All of their abilities centered around plant growth and anything agriculture-related. Though it seemed that no matter the season, all children of Demeter had a sweet tooth. Aster even picked one up, stealing candies from his sibling's stashes.

It really was a wonder watching them grow strawberries up and out from the snow, but spring quickly flew into motion. Aster helped out in setting up the feild with all kinds of different seeds for spring time, even though he only had a minor boon when it came to plants.

He couldn't feel or comunicate with them as his half-siblings could, leaving him to feel a little bit left out, but he still tried to help where he could.

Aster, in whatever remaining free time that he had, went into the woods and tempered his ability. At first he had almost no control whatsoever, but he slowly got the hang of it.

First he managed to seperate the different aspects of it: the ice and the snow. It took him a few weeks to do it, but he successfully summoned the jce without the subsequent blizzard.

After that was precise use of the ability, like creating objects with his ice. When he first made an attempt at making a dagger made of ice he managed to summon a blob that looked vaguely like an icicle.

But as spring rolled around, he suceeded at creating the general shape of objects and that was the important part: gaining controll over it.

Anyway to make use of his abilities, he began to sell large quantities of ice cubes for drachmas. As in 1 coin for 10 pounds of the stuff. By the time that his training with Clarisse had come to a close, he had managed to rack up nearly 200 coins for doing some basic training.

But as he sat in the pavilion on one particularly hot day, one thought was on his mind as he eyed the rain clouds on the horizon. 'We should be having a newcomer soon.'