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Camp Half-Blood grew before Hestia’s eyes: what had started as a small valley with twelve cabins in perfect horseshoe formation had bloomed into a canyon filled to the brim with different cabins for every deity imaginable. The original horseshoe was barely visible amongst the clutter of cabins upon cabins upon cabins.
If she were being honest, Hestia enjoyed it much more than before. She didn’t like to bother people herself, always preferring to be in the background the same way a lit fireplace was, but she felt as though every deity deserved recognition. If she could give up her throne for every god or goddess like she did with Dionysus, she’d do it in a heartbeat.
As camp blossomed around her hearth, so did the campers. Before, she could count on one hand the number of campers who she knew the name of; who just stopped and chatted on their walk to their next activity. Now, in the center of two hundred-plus cabins, even those whose cabin was barely visible from her little hearth would scream, “Hello, Miss Hestia!” as they ran from one side of camp to the other.
Just after the Second Giant War, a few younger campers, brought over to her hearth by Nico di Angelo, had started calling her that, and it caught on. It didn’t matter how many campers had come and gone since then, how many decades came and went, she was still Miss Hestia. She had a suspicion she’d always be Miss Hestia.
Whenever a camper would ask her to sit with them at dinner; which had become a communal affair because, while Hecate had managed to magic more space for the abundance of cabins, over two-fifty tables was a bit too much for their quaint little dining hall (Maybe quaint wasn’t the word, as the four tables could fit upwards to two hundred fifty kids each, but the long benched tables was far more the vibe of a camp than two hundred fifty little tables), there’d be multiple kids pushing and shoving trying to sit beside her. There became a signup sheet by her hearth so she could make sure every kid got a turn. Usually, she’d have to take on an appearance older than her preferred one since some of the younger children would beg her to let them sit on her lap.
Hestia adored getting to eat with the children, and with the adults who came to visit camp, and meal time soon became the highlight of her days. “Miss Hestia made dinner feel like Thanksgiving,” she’d overheard a kid saying to his friend the first time she’d ate with them—sitting next to a then-eighteen year old Nico di Angelo who begged her to join him and his boyfriend for dinner the final night before they left for college, “She feels like family.” It had been nearing twenty years since she overheard that, and in those two decades she’d never missed a meal at camp.
That day, Hestia had a young Deimos girl curled on her lap as best she could while still eating her mac and cheese. To her left, a daughter of Zeus was telling Hestia a story about her day at camp, and to her right, a son of Agon was jotting down his idea for a new tournament at camp that he expected Hestia to comment on every once and a while. The rest of the tables were filled with laughing demigods, and Hestia could see the occasional show of powers—a Kymopoleia kid creating a storm in her cup, a child of Adephagia filling their plate to the brim, an Iris boy making a rainbow in the air around him—Hestia wondered how she ever kept away from this dysfunctional family for long.
“Miss Hestia?” Anita, the little Deimos girl who’s cheeks were puffed with mac and cheese like a squirrel’s stuffed with nuts, said.
“Yes, sweetheart?” Hestia said. “Swallow, please.”
Anita took one big swallow. “Do you have children?”
Enid paused her story abruptly, not even bothering to finish her sentence about the Ares camper she’d shocked. “No, Miss Hestia doesn’t have kids, everyone knows that.”
A Melinoe kid, Bridget, who sat on Enid’s other side, elbowed the daughter of Zeus, “She’s been here a week, E, and she’s like six.”
“I’m seven,” corrected Anita.
“Seven,” amended Bridget.
“Still,” Enid crossed her arms defiantly, “All the little kids are always playing Mythomagic, and it literally says on the card she’s a virgin goddess.”
A son of Athena piped up a few people down. “My mum’s a virgin goddess.”
“So’s mine!” a child of Loxo shouted across the table. The entire dining hall was quiet now, listening in on their conversation. “And we’re still here!”
There was a loud roar of approval from the children of virgin goddesses, which echoed off the pillars designating the dining hall, screaming praises about their moms.
“Children,” Hestia said, and almost instantaneously the hall hushed. Hestia could see Dionysus’ face of envy from where he stood between a few of his own children, having been ready to quiet the children himself. “While many virgin goddesses, such as Athena and Loxo, bestow children on those whom they favor, I have no intentions of doing the same.
Anita turned so she could face Hestia, her legs crossed. “Why?”
Hestia tapped her nose. “Because home doesn’t have a favorite, it welcomes everyone equally and with open arms. I do not favor anyone over another.”
“That’s what I meant,” Enid grumbled under her breath.
Morrie, having completely forgotten about his contest, leaned across Hestia, “‘Course it was.”
“I will electrocute—”
“Enid,” Hestia scolded.
A lightning bolt fizzled out in her hair as she leaned back. “Sorry, Miss Hestia.”
“Does that answer your question, Anita?”
Anita pondered for a moment, stroking her chin like it were an invisible beard. “So, you don’t have kids because everyone’s your kid?”
Hestia chuckled. While she hadn’t said that outright, there was some truth to it. She was the oldest sibling, the one who parents viewed as a third parent, the one who’d welcome you no matter what. The one who everyone saw as a pseudo mother.
“In a way.”
Anita hummed in thought, before turning around, “I like being your kid, Miss Hestia.”
And while some people have tried to argue that romantic and sexual relationships are superior to that of a friend, with little Anita on her lap, with Nico who’d first invited her to the table at camp, with all the campers past and present, Hestia could only wonder how some people saw this as less.