(I don't own PJO. I only own Nathan, Clayton, Jennifer, Michael, and Jason.) I am aware that this chapter kind of moves at warp speed and I tried to fix it, but it seems better this way. Hope you like it after waiting for so long. December 16-17
Nathan's POV
Being bedridden for the rest of the day, I was trying to remember what happened last night. Chiron brought me dinner instead of nectar and ambrosia. When night came, I immediately fell asleep and a dream suddenly appeared.
I was lying on the sandy beach of Camp Half-Blood, enjoying the midnight sky, feeling stronger than normal. My arms were behind my head and the stars twinkled overhead. The tide whipped against the shore.
After a while, I heard a rustle in the sand behind me and my vision started to blur. Green specks danced across my eyes when I lifted myself up to sitting position. When I turned around, a black silhouette was standing a few feet away from me. Rubbing my eyes, everything suddenly had a green tint to them like I just developed night vision or some eye disorder. The figure had glowing eyes and a dark aura surrounding her.
"Hello, child," the woman sweetly called. She stepped out of the tree line and walked towards me. Her face was partially covered by her long hair that hung below the shoulders, but everything seemed green. She stopped when she was a foot away from me, "I will give you something that is worth remembering forever."
"What?" I croaked. The woman reached out to touch my right shoulder. Her hand was ice cold as if she spent the night in a freezer.
"On Yule's dawn, you won't have to worry."
I woke with a major headache and Chiron timed his entrance perfectly. He was in wheelchair form when he told me that breakfast is ready.
"Are you alright, child?" he asked.
"I'm fine," I replied, "Just a dream."
Chiron looked down as if he pondered this, "After breakfast, the Oracle requires your presence."
My face turned confused but I nodded. Pushing the covers off, I dressed and trailed towards the dinner pavilion to find that Michael and Jason were no where in sight. Good riddance, anyway. They were so mean; I could've punched them myself.
Annabeth had a look of distress while Jennifer was trying to comfort her. I didn't know what happened last night, so it must've been very tragic. And why in Hades am I even acting very sarcastic? If last night was fatal, I would've sulked too and that's nothing to be sarcastic about. It's very sad.... in a way.
Clayton and a few of the Apollo kids were discussing something about men being turned into jackalopes by Lady Artemis and some of the kids around them snickered. The Aphrodite girls were gossiping about a scream they heard last night and they seemed pretty serious about it. As for the Hermes guys around me, they were planning on stealing antiques from the Big House attic and stashing it down in the basement where no one could find them.
"If you ever get a hold of Aphrodite's scarf," one of them said, "Don't look at me, dude. Love magic can make you fall in love with the first person you see."
"What? The thing that Anna brought back from five summers ago?" another asked.
"Yeah. She said that Percy picked it up first and she snatched it away from him."
The entire Hermes cabin burst out laughing except me and the Stoll brothers.
"Do you think that he is actually falling for her?" the daughter of Hermes asked.
"Shut up," Travis Stoll barked, "You're all acting like Aphrodite's kids. Get back to the stealing part. How are we going to get past Argus?"
And basically they went their own ways. I wasn't very fond of stealing. An unclaimed demigod should know that unless they are actually a child of Hermes.
After breakfast, I walked back to the Big House. Out of the corner of my eye, Silena was building a snow girl in the middle of the combat arena until some Ares kid used it as a dummy and slashed his sword through it. Then they had a huge argument. The Ares guy started yelling at her saying that building snowmen are for babies and Silena was trying to tell him that she's never too old for snow. I couldn't blame her. I used to play in the snow when I was twelve.
When I reached the Big House, Chiron was already sitting in front of the fireplace. His million year old face looked sad when he looked up to me and his upturned lips turned into a smile.
"The Oracle is waiting, lad," he said. I sighed and walked up the stairs in the back of the room. After four flights up, a dead-end showed a trapdoor on the ceiling. Pulling on the string, the ladder swooped down without warning and got a good sized knot on the head. Great, I'll have repetitive short-term memory loss after that.
I walked up the stairs, rubbing my bruised head, and it seemed like the air in my lungs suddenly disappeared. Far in the corner, beyond tables of trophies and plaques of beheaded monsters, sat the most gruesome thing I could ever imagine: a mummy.
She was dressed a tie-dye hippie skirt with dozens of bracelets, necklaces, and piercings. Who would want to dress the Oracle of Delphi something like that, I have no idea. Her face was withered to the bone and white bulbs held as her eyes in their sockets. At least there wasn't any blood.
I slowly walked towards the mummy. My knees started to tremble and suddenly, the mummy sat up straight. Green smoke bellowed from her opening mouth. I was just about to run when she spoke in a raspy voice.
I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.
"Who is my mom?" I asked nervously. The smoke spread around the room and curled around my ankles. Then a figure started to take form in front of me like an upside-down funnel cloud and took shape as a large horse.
She rises from the pits when twilight passes, it said.
You will conjure the night and rise from the ashes.
Pride and prejudice will find the cure.
The equine son will finally be pure.
The smoke retreated into the Oracle's mouth like a slithering snake. When all the smoke was gone, she slumped down like she was going to sit on the wooden stool for another three-thousand years. She didn't tell me one bit of my mother at all.I had to urge to blurt out a million questions at the same time, but I eventually got a hold of my ADHD and turned around. At least I was going to be successful and without knowing it, I bumped into one of the tables.
A Persian-pink scarf lay on the wooden table with a label attached to it.I decided not to mess with it since that talk at the Hermes table. I didn't want the love goddess's magic tampering with my life. Something made me hesitate, but then I moved on and climbed down the trapdoor again.
Annabeth was on the rustic couch when I walked in the living room. I ignored her and started towards the exit.
Just when I was about to leave she irritatingly asked, "Where do you think you're going?"
I stopped in my tracks and turned around, "Just got my prophecy. Nothing special."
"What did the Oracle say?"
After I was finished telling her the prophecy, she flipped her hair out over her shoulder and started to think for a while. The flames crackled in the fireplace and it was hard to tell by Annabeth's face if she was shocked or just plain confused.
Finally, she spoke, "The first line doesn't make sense, same goes for the second. My fatal flaw is pride, so yours has to be prejudice, and we would turn Percy back into human once we find a cure. I don't even know the cure. We'll have to get Michael and Jason to spit it out."
"And what if they don't?" I asked.
She shrugged like it was no big deal, "Same as usual, we use brute force. Broken teeth might be involved and a few torn tendons."
"You have evil thoughts for a daughter of Athena," I stated.
"Hey, that's how interrogations work these days. You beat the truth out of them."
If you can, please send me ideas for the characters to combat in the story. Not to OOC, mushy, or anything in particular. Obstacles, riddles, or anything of that sort is appreciated.
