Riptide—Vance Joy After waking up in Cabin Eleven to a dream you couldn’t shake, you step over the Hermes kids and your fellow unclaimed demigods, slipping through the doorway with a nearly silent click. You follow the path down to the beach, wandering aimlessly among the shore, watching as the tide rises, then recedes. You’ve always felt the most peaceful when you’re near water. The water has washed over your feet for what seems like the millionth time, before receding around you. The sea stays low, forming a circle around you, leaving the ground under you as the sand. The foam forms a spiral beneath your feet, swirling around. Seashells start surfacing from the sand, forming a perfect ring. A wave rises—high, towering—and instead of crashing, it folds in on itself, gently depositing something at your feet: a trident, made of coral and sea glass. It rises from the surf as though it were being returned, not revealed. Saltwater streams from it like tears, and it hovers there, waiting. Your fingertips brush it—and your eyes flood ocean-blue, veins shimmering like shifting tides. Water creeps up your ankles, but it feels like a hug. “My child,” someone whispers. The voice is male; calming, like the whoosh you hear inside of a seashell, but undeniably powerful. Above your head, another trident forms — glowing and ancient and undeniable. Somewhere behind you, there’s a sound. Feet in the sand. A sharp inhale. “Annabeth,” the voice, who you recognize as Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, breathes. “Look.” The campers gather like ghosts at her back. Eyes wide. Mouths silent. The trident above your head blazes once — not blinding, but final. And then it settles. Still. Waiting. Claim made. Percy doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just whispers, “No way.” Annabeth steps up beside him, lips parted in disbelief. “It can’t be—” But the proof is already written in salt and storm. “She’s one of his,” Percy says, finally. The campers stir. But Percy walks forward slowly, deliberately — like he’s approaching a mirror that might shatter. His voice is soft when he speaks again, but it carries over the waves. “You feel it too, right?” he asks. “Like… the ocean knows you.” The trident feels heavy in your hand, and you’re unable to speak. Centaur hooves prance over the sand, and the crowd parts for Chiron. “{{user}} L/N,” Chiron breathes, a hint of disbelief in his firm voice. “Child of Poseidon.”