Chiron knew he wouldn't like the result of this meeting.
He was walking a young and wounded Grover Underwood to the Council of Cloven Elders for a report. The poor satyr was trembling, thinking his license would be revoked, since this had been his second mistake in all his career. Though none of his previous charges blamed him in the slightly, Chiron could see how Grover was pushing himself hard to make up for Thalia Grace's situation.
He pulled out of his thoughts when he arrived upon the Council. He would like to stand there and show his support to Grover, but he was an honorary member of the Council and as such, he couldn't be showing favoritism. Not that the others cared about it, since they were showing favoritism all the time, but Chiron wasn't going to call them on that.
"Grover Underwood." Silenus, one of the oldest satyrs you could ever found, started. He was sitting on the left of the head chair that was specially reserved for Mr. D. "Care to explain us why you face this augustus body with a wound?!" Chiron sighed, knowing the honest explanation would set them off.
"W-well, you see..." Grover started to stutter the words, not nearly ready to face the Council again, but he had too. "I- I was on my way to retrieve a demigod-"
"Stop!" Maron, at the right of Mr. D's honorary seat, raised his palm to stop him from talking. "Underwood, make like the trees, now!" Not trying to find the funny side of the pun, Grover left trying not to stumble in the way. Only when the young satyr was gone, the Council directed their questions to Chiron. "What in Underworld, Chiron?!"
"As Grover was trying to explain..." Chiron began, with his infinite patience. "He was about to make contact with the demigod, but a monster appeared and had a locked target on him. Naturally, Grover distracted him enough for the demigod to escape, but was left with a broken arm. The Healers say it would be alright in a couple of weeks-"
"This has to stop, Chiron!" Leneus, the most vocal of them, demanded. "I, for one, will not tolerate that our satyrs are doing the dangerous job of getting demigods to safety when it's obviously your job to get them here!" Many in the Council voiced their agreement. Chiron sighed, satyrs were very headstrong and, theses in particular, lazy. "We should be aiming our efforts in searching for Pan!"
"My dear Leneus-" Chiron stopped himself for a second. Claiming that Pan was dead, as it had been proclaimed eons ago would not do any good. It would see him as the villain and the Council didn't want to hear a word against it. Even if Pan showed up and died in front of them, they would call it a fake and keep searching. "-who do you propose to send, instead of satyrs, to recover demigods?"
Many of the satyrs in the Council stopped talking and looked at each other. Yes, they were all in favor about not sending satyrs to retrieve demigods, but none of them were actually proposing a solution. Chiron knew there was a solution, actually he had already thought of several ones, but there was only going to be one that the Council would accept.
"Do we need to send for them?" Silenus asked with hatred. Chiron closed his eyes and counted to ten before replying.
"Silenus, I doubt that even your benevolent Mr. D would save you if the Olympians discover you are the reason they could fade away..." Chiron decided to be a little aggressive, as these meetings never accomplished anything. "If this were to happen, you could be relegated to the woods and forbidden from searching for Pan-"
"They wouldn't dare!" Maron was fast on his hooves, his face red in angry. Chiron simply shrugged his shoulders.
"They're not doing much of an effort now, so why would they care?" His retort disarmed many of the satyrs, who were furiously whispering to each other. Maron held his eyes on Chiron one last second before admitting defeat. "There's one solution, but I'm reluctant in proposing it, as my concerns are the same as yours with your satyrs-"
"Anything that keep satyrs away from danger is good in our books-"
"Then, suspend the searches for Pan." That statement drew gasps and horror looks from the Council and one old satyr passed out from the shock. "I thought not. Now, I was going to say we should make some new rules about this solution... Even then, we'll have the trouble that no one could identify the monsters until is too late..."
"Couldn't the brat of-" Chiron silenced the satyr with a look. "I meant to say, the children of Lord Hephaestus couldn't come up with something?"
"Alas, they had tried..." And failed horribly... "But nothing will be able to replace a satyr's nose."
"Speak clear, Chiron!" Leneus was getting impatient. "Name your solution or we will have this conversation over and buried!"
"I was thinking of reinstating the Rescue Squad."