"Calm down," Nika said, her voice quiet. "Deep breaths. Just breathe. Everything will be fine."

She waited a minute until Dawn was calmer to start questioning her. "Okay. What did you see? Do you remember?" This wasn't the first time this had happened around her. She just hoped that Dawn wasn't going to ignore her or not answer because she was an arrogant bitch. That did tend to put a damper on most conversations.

The calming breaths didn't quite work, so Dawn focused on Nika's heart-song. Jason's heart-song shifted too quickly for her to pick out a steady beat. Without realizing it, she tapped a few of her fingers along to the rhythm. Once she had something to focus on, she was able to calm down.

"There was nothing," she said quietly. "No light, no sound, absolutely nothing. It was such a complete lack of anything that it seemed to just absorb everything about me and left me empty." She shuddered. "It was horrible."

Nika stiffened as she heard the description. She'd heard of that before, and she didn't like that Dawn was seeing things about it.

"We're talking to Chiron," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument. "Come on." She stood up straight, offering Dawn a hand up as well. She wasn't entirely without compassion. Just mostly.

Dawn took her hand and stood up. Once she was steady, she turned to Jason.

"You're in charge till I get back," she said. "Keep an eye on the boys, especially Jake and Kevin."

Jason nodded, and Dawn turned back to Nika.

"Let's go," she said. As they walked, she commented, "thanks. You gave me something to focus on, it helped."

Nika nodded. "I had a friend who was an oracle. A couple times she actually fell over after a vision, and she needed something to help her calm down. I figured that might work on you as well."

She stayed next to Dawn, looking around for Chiron. "You feel okay, by the way? No dizziness, headache, nausea?" She glanced at Dawn before looking for Chiron again.

Seth saw them and overheard Nika say something about Chiron. "I saw him go that way," he called down to them, pointing towards the lake.

"Thanks,"Nika said. "And go run a lap for shirking training."

"No, I think I'm alright, now," Dawn replied. "It was just an intense vision, and your heart-song helped me calm down, ironically enough. It gave me something to focus on." She wasn't sure if Nika knew what a heart-song was, but still. She glanced at Seth. She wasn't sure why he was important, but he was, and she wanted to find out why.

Nika looked briefly confused before she covered it and merely nodded instead. "Where is that damn centaur when you need him," she growled, more to herself than anything. "I swear, if we didn't need him here..." She trailed off into inarticulate grumblings and curses that she didn't mean.

Seth just smirked and watched them leave. He wasn't about to run a lap just because Nika told him to. He didn't like running.

Dawn saw her confusion before she covered it up. It was easier to demonstrate first then explain.

"Your favorite song is..." she trailed off, listening. "...Don't Wake Me?" She listened for a few more seconds. "I think that's it. But that's your favorite song, right?" She tapped out the rhythm with her fingers for a moment. "Sounds something like that?"

Nika looked startled before she nodded. "Yeah, that's right. I take it that's my heart-song, and that if my favorite song were to change that would too?" She paused for a moment before understanding dawned in her eyes. "And that wouldn't work with your half-brother because he's another child of Apollo, and you all are so musically talented and know so many songs that you can't stick with one favorite. Right?"

Pleased with that big of understanding, Nika flagged down Chiron, jogging ahead to catch up with him. "Dawn, if you would kindly tell Chiron what you Saw?"

"I have seven half-brothers," Dawn replied. "But you're right. I hear them more like... Like if someone was tuning a radio back and forth. There's no static, but it just moves from one song to another. Sometimes it's clearer than others, if one of them has a song he particularly likes at the time, but it still changes."

She nodded when Nika asked her to tell Chiron about her vision, and she gave as much detail as she could.

Chiron frowned as he listened, shifting his weight. "I do not like the sound of that," he said. "I don't know what it could be, either. I have never heard of such a thing." He looked at Nika. "Keep an eye on her and report to me with any developments." He used the tone that kep unruly campers in line.

Nika snapped her heels together and bowed slightly to him before she steered Dawn away, her hand hovering just behind Dawn's back. She didn't actually touch the other demigoddess though, frowning deeply as she walked.

"That was terrifyingly vague," Dawn commented softly as they walked away. "Chiron usually knows everything, or knows how to find out if he doesn't." Absently, she let her footsteps fall into a steady rhythm, echoing Nika's heart-song. "We need to find someone who might actually know something..." She paused. "And I might know someone. We would need to leave camp to talk to him, though..."

"Not a problem," Nika said. "Not for me. I have a car, and I'm free to come and go as I please. I'm not actually a camper here." She shrugged. "Haven't been for, oh, three years. You want to go now or later on? Now would probably be easiest, plus we can get back in time for dinner and the bonfire."

"Actually, I'm allowed to come and go as I please, as well," Dawn said. "I cleared it with Chiron a few years back, when I had to take summer classes." She grinned. "Ironically, my last summer class is where I made this particular contact." Glancing up at the sky, she gauged the time of day by the position of the sun. She couldn't stop the anger that flashed across her face, and looked away as soon as she could. "The school I went to isn't far, we should be able to get there pretty quick."

"Oh, good. Less to worry about this way." Nika walked through the camp, ignoring everything and everyone else as she headed towards Thalia's Tree and her car. She glanced over at Dawn. "Everything good?"

"I'm fine," Dawn replied. "It's not the first time I've had visions, you know. I've been Seeing things come and go for the last ten years." She paused as they walked by the cabins. "Hold on a second, I want to go get my lyre." She darted into Cabin Seven and grabbed her lyre off of her bed and grabbed her 'emergency' bag out from underneath the bed. Then she went back out to Nika. "Just in case, you know? I don't See everything."

"Yeah, I know. I meant more the fact that you looked about ready to kill someone," Nika said with a shrug. "But hey, it's not really business. Come on, girlie. Let's get going so we can see if we can find anything out."

"Oh. That," Dawn replied. She shook her head. "It's nothing. We've all got issues with our parents." She fingered the little sun-shaped charm hanging from her bag. "I guess I was just thinking that it must be nice."

"Nice?" Nika let out a hollow laugh. "Nice is not the word I'd use to describe our relationship, sweets. Nice is nowhere near what it really is. We have a very fucked-up relationship, and the only thing I get out of it is some money and more durable weapons."

"That's not what I meant," Dawn replied. "It's very interesting, really, but what I meant was that it must be nice to even know him." She shook her head. "Never mind me. Come on, we need to go to the college I went to. We need to talk to my mythology professor, I think he has every English, Greek, and Latin book known to man. He'll know at least who else to talk to."

Nika muttered something about her father being a "raging psychopath with an ego and anger issues" but let the subject drop. She unlocked her car. "Alright, sweets, get in. We'll get there faster this way." She got in the driver's seat and turned on the car, turning her music down so the volume level wouldn't bother Dawn.

Dawn got into the passenger's side, setting her bow and quiver down near her feet, along with her emergency bag. Her lyre stayed on her lap.

"It's probably a good thing we're not in my car," she commented. "It's not the best thing in the world, and you'd hate my favorite radio station, I think." She grinned. "I'm a country music kind of girl." She shrugged, and told Nika which school they needed to get to.

Nika shrugged. "I listen to all kinds of music," she said as she started driving, making her way back to the highway. "I just listen to loud music most of the time because it keeps me awake when I'm driving. I've had to drive across the country in two days before, and loud music helped me focus on something other than how tired I was and how much I wanted to throttle the son of a bitch."

"I've never complained about anyone's taste in music," Dawn said. "Though I made my co-workers think that the radio at work is broken. I was practicing a trick I saw my older brother do once." She paused. "It's weird, I haven't heard from Aaron in a while, either..."

"How many siblings do you have?" Nika asked casually, glancing over at her as she zoomed around a car doing 40 on the highway. She was genuinely curious. She knew she had a bunch of half-siblings floating around, but she wasn't sure about anyone else. The only gods she knew of that didn't have a bunch of kids were Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.