Grover is actually going to have two parts in this story. I won't tell you when the next one is, but I will tell you this: it will be considerably happier. Now, my eyes are drifting shut even as I write this, so I'll make my pleasantries quick. Don't own the Greek myths, any crude parodies of them, or PJO (which does not fall under the crude parody category.)
Grover lay upon the soiled earth, gazing at a blood-stained sky. His too-sensitive nose twitched at the continuous cycle of disgusting scents wafting towards him from the still, lifeless forest.
It didn't hurt so much to think about it now; not when he had already seen the worst crime committed knowingly by humans. He wasn't sure which what disgusted and saddened him most: the fact that mankind willingly destroyed their only planet, or that they didn't care enough to notice.
Grover could feel the decay in the air.
It stuck to his lungs and whispered in his head. Where is your precious Wild now, little satyr? Where will you go when I finally destroy the last of your sanctuaries, when the world has died? Where will you go, little satyr?
His world was cruel, vicious, all-consuming.
Yet Grover knew no other.
It had always been this way for Grover. He was young, far too young, to remember a time before mankind's desecration had reached it's peak. He had never been able to get 'temporary leave', like the other satyrs, in order to enjoy the last scraps of the Wild left before they, too, were lost to the insatiable hunger of the human race.
Was it possible to long for something you've never had?
Oh, but Grover wanted that something so badly. He could see it all around him, in the spark that the elders' eyes held while talking about the once-upon-a-time, in the graceful beauty of the nymphs; it's ghost was even present in this dull, sad wood.
Grover knew that Chiron and the Council thought his longing to find Pan was due to a need to prove himself, to be a hero, but that wasn't true.
Grover wanted to find Pan so he could bring back the Wild.
As a young satyr, he had listened at his father's side to the elders' accounts of the old times; times where entire forests and valleys hadn't been sullied by human contact. A time where fiercly shining sun stood bold against the blue-white sky, and where the night displayed the glorious expanse of the galaxy to anyone who would look.
That was a time when Pan had walked freely amongst his satyrs.
Then was the true Golden Age, where man and god had been at peace, where myth and legend ruled the land, where the world had been full of energy and magic. In that time, satyr could cross a country without being troubled. In that time, a simple growth song that would in present-day increase a fruit's growth rate by double, ancient satyrs could achieve four times the results on eight times the size.
The very earth was drenched with power.
Now the world felt drained, empty.
It was as if the very light of the world had gone out.
Grover thought- no, he knew that Pan was the only way to fix this.
He was the god of the Wild, and if he couldn't do it than no one could. And if no one could do it... But no. He was retrieving Pan.
Yes, Pan was the key to bringing back the Wild. Grover was going to find him, Council permission or no.
Grover was going to save the Wild, and no one was going to stop him.
A single star shone out bright and steady in the scarlet night.
