WARNING: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE UPDATED VERSION OF CHAPTER 9! YOU WILL BE CONFUSED!
Anywho, I decided to write this, but first I need to give you... A METAPHOR! Yup, this story is like a car, and to keep it going it needs gas, aka the reviews! A flame is like a car crash! :]
"Well, well. You didn't get yourself killed." Green shuddered. Ares sounded disturbingly similar to the maple leaf after his encounter with a certain demonic trio he might mention. Perhaps he shouldn't act so surprised, war tended to be rude and blunt. Oops. Suddenly hoping Ares couldn't hear thoughts or anything like that, and making a mental apology just in case, he felt his hand drift to the pocket of his sweater, green of course. Then, it kept right on drifting.
There was a hole in his pocket. Green let his hand slide further and further down, into the lining. Something long, thin, and very familiar lay there. When he pulled his hand out, a small pine needle lay in his palm. Instantly, he knew it was Thalia's. Zeus hadn't actually bothered to be too specific with the type of pine he turned his daughter into. He just picked the tallest and most regal looking, and it didn't quite fit the New York area.
A crushing feeling seeped into him then, like he had been hit by a truck. The needle was a dry reddish color, rather than its usual rich, dark emerald. For a second, he had thought he'd be able to talk to Thalia. Stupid, he thought. Of course it would be dead by now.
"You're a jerk." Green let some of the Greek he'd heard Annabeth and Thalia say echo through his mind. As near as he could figure, he was calling Percy a kelp-headed son of a gorgon, which wasn't that far from the truth, besides the bit about the gorgons. Why did Percy insist on insulting every god they ran into?! Surviving was hard enough as it was. He edged in front of his gloriously stupid friend, hoping that Ares wouldn't zap a respectful innocent bystander.
Then, as casually as Green might offer someone a raspberry, Ares gestured towards a zoo van on the street. Huh. Apparently being immortal makes getting rides easy. Thanks for the help, Dionysus. Half paying attention to Percy, insulting Ares, of course, the other half of his mind was wondering about a weapon. Meh. He'd find one later, when they passed a forest or something. Fortunately for his role on this stupid quest, he noticed the others walking away before they were completely hidden in the truck.
Instead of letting his resentment go, as he usually did, he grabbed it and imagined stuffing it into a test tube. He didn't want to let it fester, but he did want to study it. This here was why Kronos was rising. In fact, according to myth the only reason Ouranos wasn't still ruling the world was that feeling, caged in Green's chest. Trying to imagine why someone would let that emotion grow inside them was like imagining why smokers would keep smoking, even after realizing those things were slowly killing them.
The fact was, most people didn't realize how bad resentment was until they were addicted. That was why Kronos had killed his father. With that, Green let the nasty feeling flow out of him, remembering that he hadn't displayed any signs whatsoever of a greater learning capacity than a four-year-old. Oh well, he'd learn to talk soon.
By the time he was finished with his train of thought, he was in the truck, helping Percy and Annabeth shut the metal door. His nose wrinkled at the smell of animal poo, and lots of it. Great. They couldn't have put one of those strawberry shaped car air freshener things, even though at close range they smelled worse than cat stool?!
Upon glancing around, in the light of Percy's sword, he spotted at least ten things the truckers should have gone to jail for besides lack of air fresheners. Humiliating the animals, improper feeding, obvious abuse, terrible grooming, gum, and by the way they balked at the sight of the sword, they were afraid of blades. Ah, real anger. Unlike Ares messing with him, this went straight from his head, processing their cruelty, to his fist, which decided to curl up and contemplate where it would hurt most to punch them, to his feet, and he was halfway to the door when the truck started moving.
Green sat down hard, and tried half-heartedly to yelp a little, then made a mental note to free the animals, beat the living daylights out of the truckers, or both as soon as the van stopped moving. In the meantime, he helped the others with the animals. Wincing as he stuck his hand through the bars of the lion's cage after the turnips, only wincing because they were turnips, they might have had families- no. Don't dwell on that.
"Careful!" Green turned around to find the others staring at him, and shrugged. He doubted the lion would be hungry enough to eat him. Besides, lions could eat veggies. If they felt sick after too much meat, they'd eat grass. Meh, no point signing all that.
After that, he just sat in the corner, leaned his head back, and listened. It turned out Annabeth had arachnophobia. He supposed it made good sense, what with her mother being Athena and all, but it still seemed stupid that she and her siblings had to deal with the fallout from something their mom did. That was what he hated about the gods. They never dealt with the consequences, their children did. It seemed cruel. Then again, the fates existed, so what did he expect?
"You were the satyr who tried to rescue Thalia, the daughter of Zeus." Green nearly threw up. 'She doesn't blame you, it's okay, she isn't even dead, and when we get back, you can talk to her.' He was as bad as Ares, letting Grover carry that around, when all he needed were twenty words and he could melt a ton of guilt, but he just… couldn't. In that moment, he hated himself, and he hated the gods, because the best they could do was turn her into a pine tree.
He was really glad he didn't have that apple.
Heh, not entirely true. You haven't digested my seeds yet.
I didn't eat any seeds! Oh, wait… One had gotten in his mouth when he was laughing, and he'd just swallowed it. Crud. He needed to think about the implications of his power.
You could still join Kronos.
Kronos wouldn't turn her into a pine tree, he'd be the one sending monsters after her and cackle as she was overrun.
…
See? Busted. Now shut up!
His self-loathing grew with every word Percy and Annabeth used to comfort Grover. All he needed was thirty seconds, and he could help Grover. Eventually, the satyr fell asleep, and Percy and Annabeth started talking. Green did his best not to listen, but… it was interesting. Again, he knew he should have talked, to help his friend. No. She wasn't his friend. If he was any kind of friend, he wouldn't just be sitting there, letting Percy of all people do the talking, not that he was half bad at it. Still… it shouldn't have been just Percy helping.
After Percy and Annabeth had followed Grover into sleep, Green lay awake for a long time. He knew it wasn't right to hate himself for this, but that didn't mean he didn't do it anyway. Sighing, silently as always, he closed his eyes once more, and this time he succeeded in drifting off.
The banging trick Annabeth pulled bordered on ridiculous, and the idea that Percy and Grover could talk to animals too… He swore, mentally of course, and decided from then on to only eat nuts, berries, fruit, and dairy. Yay. Ah well, it was that or sit in the lions cage and have Grover tell it that it had his permission to eat him if it wanted.
