This is a winding track though the forest which many people stroll along or maybe go for a cross country run. 

Araseli wanders down the forest path, eyeing the trees nervously. She feels at home amongst nature, but these were not her woods. These were the woods of the gods, of a camp she had been forbidden to come to by her mother for years, of a home she had never known. While she is glad to finally be here, Araseli can not help but wonder if maybe there was a reason her mother kept her away from here. Did Zeus even remember she exists; does he even want her here at camp after being, basically, raised by the titans who plotted his downfall? Araseli sighs in disappointment and flops down at the base of a tree. With her mind running a mile a minute in excitement and nervousness over being here, her body barely has any energy to move - So I'll stay right here to relax, if I can.

Zeus appeared on a stump across from Araseli holding Kayci, who was sleeping peacefully in his arms, he was so excited he hadn't ever met Araseli, and had been looking in on her but Cassila wouldn't allow him to have any contact with his daughter and he disliked her for that. "Are you okay?" He asked Araseli, rocking Kayci as she started to fuss, glad he had something to do as he waited for Araseli to reply he was so nervious he didn't know what Cassila had told her about him and if she hated him or not but he had to try he didn't want to not try and regret it.

Araseli's hand flies to the knife concealed in her hiking boots before she can think to react a different way. She stops as her fingers curled around the hilt, taking a moment to calm down and shooting a dark glare at the guy - god, if she was right since she knew of no demigod who could appear like that - in front of her. "No, I'm not okay, and you just made it worse but scaring me!" she says, the harsh tone only half-hearted. "It's already bad enough I'm afraid of being unwelcome here without attacking a god my first day on the premises."

"I apologize for scaring you I didn't mean too, Why would you be unwelcome here?" He asked, his hands tightening around Kayci as she went for her knife, but relaxed when she didn't do anything else. He tried to calm Kayci but she started to bawl at the sudden movements, he used his powers to summon her favorite teddy bear in the hopes that it would calm her and luckily it did the trick, he waited for Araseli's answer wondering why she would be worried about unwelcome here, it was a safe place for all Demi-god so why would we be unwelcome?

"Considering," Araseli begins as she pulls her hand away from the knife, "I was pro-Titan the last time I was here? Anti-god and all that?" She quirks a brow, though not really expecting him to know anything about her. Cassila had made it clear whilst growing up that the gods were good, some even great, but unless they had a personal connection to you they will not care or even remember you. On the flip side, her mother also taught her that some gods will remember only the bad you did or were caught up in and hold it against you for your entire life. "I highly doubt that attacking a god would be beneficial to any rep I may have." she says, her hand moving to play with the frayed hems of her jean shorts. "My mother said to not wander off alone and to be careful while here because apparently she still gets the odd threat in the mail from people who know who I am."

"Well that's stupid." He says with a scowl, how dare people treat his child like that, he would find them and make them wish that they never did so. "None of that was your fault, if anything it was my fault." He said with a scowl standing and pacing back and forth, jiggling Kayci so that she didn't start screaming. "If I had gotten to you both faster none of this would have happened," He muttered to himself, scowling again, it probably wasn't the best way to introduce himself to his daughter but he couldn't help it, he couldn't help but think that if Cassila had stayed here with Araseli he would have been able to protect them, not that it seemed that Cassila had done a bad job raising their daughter.

Araseli snorts in derision and tosses her black hair across her shoulder, "Yeah, well, apparently there are some people who don't think that way, and my mother got tons of hate mail, curses and other dangerous items over the years as proof of..." she trails off as his words actually register. Her green eyes widen as she slowly lifts her head to stare at him, disbelief and uncertainty flashing across her face before her mental barriers fly back up to keep her expression neutral. "What do you mean," she asks nervously, "that it was your fault and you weren't fast enough?"

"I tried to protect you, then find you both when Cassila was taken, but I couldn't, I couldn't!" He growled to himself, he still blamed himself for what had happened to Araseli and Cassila, she took it extra hard when Araseli was taken. "If I had protected your mother better maybe this wouldn't have happened, your mother was so stubborn, I told her, told her not to go on the rescue mission, I had a bad feeling about it but she didn't listen and got herself captured and I didn't get her out in time and they took you, you have to believe me Ara, I really did try to save you."

Slowly pushing herself up off the ground, Araseli eyes the god warily, hopefully. "My mother was apparently very stubborn back then; even Aunt Sakarra and Thys say so." she replies, pushing for more from him. Araseli's gut is telling her who this man is, but she wants to hear it from him rather than assume. "But are you not a god? If you really knew my mother and wanted her to stay behind from this mission, I'm sure you had every way to make her. And why was it my mother who finally got to me if you tried so hard? I remember the last battle ending and not knowing what to do with myself for quite a bit before she even showed up..." Her voice cracks slightly as she speaks the questions she never dared ask her mother or aunt growing up; Araseli can feel her bottom lip tremble - quivering in a way that always reminds people that though she wears the face of a fifteen year old, she is still only ten - as she finally forces out a broken, "Where were you?"

Zeus' face creases into a frown looking down at his other daughter wondering how to answer the question to not hurt her feelings. "You have to understand though I did look for you as hard as I could when I had time, I had to defeat Cronus in the last battle after getting Tartarus and Chaos onto our side, I was injured greatly after the battle though I defeated him he almost killed me, I had to rest after the last battle if I had known you where there I would have come and got you, you have to believe me Araseli, I am your father of course I wanted to save you, and protect you, but everyone was counting on me to end the war, and I know it sound selfish and horrible but I did what I had to do to save you all, I wish I could have been there for you after the last battle, but I was in a healing sleep for 2 weeks after the battle, and by the time I was better you mother had taken you from Camp and I didn't want to force her to give you too me, or make you feel like an outsider again so I stayed away but I did look in on you, you have to believe me, your my daughter and I love you even if you hate me, I love you." 

"A healing sleep for two weeks?" she repeats out loud. "I have been scarred for life. That may not be a very long time for you, but for me that's kinda forever." Araseli turns away and wraps her arms around herself. Here she was, finally able to meet the one god she's wanted to meet for half her life... and she does not know what to even say considering, yes, she is hurt beyond belief that he didn't save her, didn't show his face in her life, yet appears holding another of his children. Araseli's voice softens as she remembers the day in question, not wanting to be mad at him but wanting him to understand. "I wasn't even a year old yet, in a five year old's body, on a battle field. I was trained, harshly and cruelly to their ideal perfection, to kill my cousins, aunts, uncles - my own mother and father, who I was told abandoned me. I saw death and blood, still see it in my sleep to this day each night as I relive the titans' fall and Rhea carrying me, being chased by your army. You didn't even come see me in the last ten years... Do you even realize that at least half of those birthday wishes, as I blew out the candles each each year, were for you to show up?"

"You don't think that I don't know that?" He asked, tears welling in his eyes. "You mother asked me not, she said I would just make things worse and I believed her, But I did visit every birthday I was there in the shadows watching you, I wished that I could show myself but your mother asked me not too, I know you had nightmares because I was there every night in the shadows, and I woke you, you might not have seen me but I was there, there was also the matter of my decree which stated that gods could not be overly involved in their children's lives which I have changed so that what happened with me not being allowed to see you didn't happen again." He tells her placing Kayci down in a cot that appeared and walked closer to her. "I would give anything to take those memories from you, you have to believe me Araseli, but you mother being the headstrong woman she is told me that she didn't want me messing with those memories, that she didn't trust me not to mess with you head as well."

"Obviously, you could've revoked that decree at any time and you could've seen me the way you see her." she tells him as tears of her own slip from her eyes, a hand motioning to the child in the cot. "You weren't there. I didn't have a dad to take to father day at school or to help train me, read me bedtime stories or actually comfort me from the nightmares. Sure, Thys was there but he wasn't my dad, and maybe it was just me, but I don't think he was quite ready to take that role for you in the beginning."

Moving to sit back down by the tree from earlier, she continues, "I didn't have anyone to even start my training with lightning; I had to learn that one on my own. I didn't even have an idea if you remembered I existed! The Tribe was forbidden to even talk about this world around me." Shaking her head, Araseli looks back up at him, "I know what kind of woman my mother is; I know the choices she made. I never agreed with all of them, but the memories are needed. They made me who I am; they push me to be the kind of warrior I want to be. That doesn't make them any less horrible to live with, though."

"No I couldn't revoke it at anytime, it took a long time to get everyone to agree to it. I don't know what you want me to say I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry that I couldn't be there." He tells her, walking closer and kneeling down beside her, hesitantly reaching out and placing a hand on her shoulder hoping that she didn't reject him.

"I know I wasn't there in the past and I regret it, but if you give me a chance I'll be there for you for the rest of your life whenever you call I'll be there in an instant, I'll help you with your powers and the nightmares, I know it doesn't make up for not being there in the past, but if you let me I'd like to try to make up for not being there."