Meeting of the Guardians
*First Person Point of View ~ Percy Jackson*
"Ow," was the first word that slipped out of my mouth as I woke up. I'm not ashamed to admit it because the pain was unimaginable.
"Percy!" I heard a muffled voice cry, and I suddenly felt soft hands on my chest. Small fingers ran over my bare torso, feeling along my ribs and up to my collarbones.
I coughed as the fingers pressed gently on my left side, where I was sure the ribs were broken. My breath stuttered in my throat as I refrained from inhaling, as the air would stretch my lungs and therefore my ribs. The pain was replaced by an empty feeling in my lungs, but at least I could no longer hear the grinding of my broken ribs.
"I'm okay…" I muttered, opening my eyes. I blinked a few times as my eyes were assaulted by bright lights. My retinas were screaming in agony just like the rest of my body.
Once the images in front of me turned from blurry shapes swimming in the sea of brightness into Thalia and Korrina, I tried to sit up. I was immediately forced back down by both the terrible pain in my chest and a strong hand on my shoulder.
My eyes flickered up to see Korrina. Her arm was stretched out to block half of my vision as she pushed me down.
"Stop," she ordered, "Lay still. Moving will just cause more damage." Her eyes were narrowed in a glare and her mouth was set in a firm line.
I laid back in bed, nodding my head. "Okay," I said, my voice scratchy, "Okay."
"Good," Korrina said, her glare disappearing. "Wouldn't want you tearing your new stitches, would we?" Her teeth gleamed as she sent a smile my way. I averted my gaze - it was like Apollo himself with his mega-watt smile.
"What's happening?" I asked as I caught a glimpse of the other guardians in the background. They were all shuffling around and shifting between their feet, fiddling with their fingers. "What's wrong?"
"Percy," Aikaterine began, her voice surprisingly soft. She walked towards me so that she was in my direct view. "I've called a meeting. We must discuss the recent events."
My eyes narrowed in confusion. "What recent-" I paused. Everything suddenly came back to me, a rush of images flashing before my eyes. I groaned as the images only added to my killer headache. "Okay," I managed to get out, "Then let's discuss it here. Forgive me if I don't do much talking as listening, Katie."
I got a few laughs.
"No problem," Aikaterine said, a look of relief on her face. I wonder why. Maybe she thought my sense of humour was broken, too, just like my ribs. Maybe it was my use of her nickname - the one that only her closest friends know.
"Perfect! Then let's begin. Everyone pull up a chair." Kleopatra, guardian of my father and daughter of Hermes, was her usual bubbly self. Her eyes gleamed mischievously as always, but I could tell that she was hiding a flicker of concern behind her façade.
As suggested, the guardians all pulled chairs up around my bed, and Korrina pressed a few buttons on a remote, causing the bed to tilt up so that I could look at all of them without straining my neck.
"Well, to start off this meeting, Percy, where have you been? We've all been so worried," Aikaterine started. She was sitting in the chair directly to my right and her hand rested on the bed. Her fingers were just barely brushing my arm.
"Some more than others…" Kleopatra muttered. Her voice was just loud enough for me to catch it. Of course, that was only because she sitting directly beside Aikaterine, and had her body facing my legs.
My eyebrows shot up as I realized what she meant, though I was extremely confused. I looked around at the other guardians and Thalia, trying to subtly spy on them.
Long story short, it didn't work.
"Stop staring at us, Percy, and get on with the meeting!" Thalia said. She was sitting directly opposite me, her arm in a black cast and sling. There were bandages wrapped around her head and a few pieces of white medical tape were holding together her cuts. She had her feet propped up on the end of my bed, and I could see that her leg was also in a cast.
I nodded, quickly averting my eyes. "After Thalia and I were captured, I had to fight in a ring-"
"I already told them that bit. Skip ahead, Perce!"
"Okay." I cleared my throat, then I took a sip of water from the glass that Aikaterine had offered to me. I handed it back and she replaced it onto the nightstand. "After that I was taken to a cave. It was… like a laboratory, with jars of body parts on the shelves and a metal table with restraints."
A few of the guardians gasped in horror, and I saw Eulalia flush a little greener. It was only when she was blushing or nauseous that I could tell that she was a tree nymph. All the other times I saw her, I tended to forget that fact because her complexion was so human and her pointed ears were always hidden by her hair. Other than that, she could easily pass for a teenage human with a green lipstick fetish.
"From there, Perses experimented on me. He uh… he wanted to see if a god or goddess could feel it when their guardian was in danger, just like how we can feel it when they are in danger," I explained.
"That's terrible!" Lysandra cried. Her grey eyes were wide, alarm swimming in their murky depths.
"Yeah," I agreed. "Now can we move on? I don't want to talk about it anymore."
I knew that they could hear the desperation in my voice, but I didn't care. There was an empty feeling in my chest and the more I talked about what had happened the worse the feeling gets. I just wanted it to stop. It was a deep dark pit of despair that I hadn't felt in over fifteen years, and I never wanted to feel it again for the rest of my partially-immortal life. That's a long time. I know.
"Very well, let us discuss the gods' behaviour." Aikaterine clapped her hands together as if cutting off the previous conversation from the current one. "I know that it is not just me, but I have noticed that the gods' personal items - more specifically, their items of power - have been stolen. By who or what, we don't know, but the robbery has caused our charges to become distrusting of one another. We stand on the precipice of a civil war amongst the gods, and I fear that we must fight each other to the death."
I saw all of the guardians look down in despair at Aikaterine's words. We all knew that our charge came first over friendship. If a war did break out, one of us might be forced to kill another. I looked around at all of their faces - facs I knew so well - and wondered which of them would be the ones killing, and which of them would be the ones dying.
"We have to find a way to stop them! It's not too late yet." Nereus said, his confidence spilling from his words.
I smiled. He was always the most hopeful of the bunch. No matter the conflict, he always found a way to put an optimistic spin on it. I really wished I could've gotten to know him more as a brother.
"While I was held captive, Perses was talking about letting the gods destroy themselves," I began. I felt a pang of discomfort in my chest at the thought of Perses, but ignored it and pushed on. "He said that he was sending me back as a parting gift for them, but I feel like it was more than that."
"What do you mean?" Eulalia asked.
"I get the feeling that Perses has the same type of sick humour that would make him give his opponents every chance to beat him, just because he believes that he's going to win in the end. It's going to take all of the guardians to calm down the gods, and I was the one missing. We know that Hestia isn't going to participate, and Hera will most likely stay with Hestia, so all we need to do is talk our charges out of the battle," I could feel my voice rising. I had faith in my friends.
"Percy, that seems a bit unrealistic…" Lysandra said.
"I know that it's a long shot, but it's all we've got," I reasoned. We had only a twenty percent chance that my plan would work, but it was better than a zero percentage chance of success with no plan.
"I think it will work. All we have to do is explain to the gods that their items have been taken by someone else in order to start this whole war and they will understand… right?" Korrina said, her voice wavering slightly at the end.
"Of course. We need to get the chance to explain that Perses is the real enemy. Once they know that, they will put the fight with each other on pause and we can take care of that blasted Titan. Hopefully once he's been defeated we'll be able to return the gods' items to them."
We all turned to Berenike - guardian of Hades - in surprise, as she rarely spoke. Even whenever she did so, her voice was always light and timid, but now, she had a rough edge in her voice like… hate. Her white tresses were quivering with anger and I could see her hands clenched into tight fists. If I looked close enough, I could see a hint of loathing in her eyes as she spoke. Did Berenike hate the titans? None of us could know as no one knew her past, only that she was over three thousand years old. She must've been there during the first Titan War. I wonder what happened.
"I agree with Berenike. The gods may be stubborn, but they will always band together to take on a common enemy that threatens their era," Aikaterine said with a sharp nod to the young teen. "In the meantime, Percy, I suggest that you and Thalia head back to Artemis' temple. She seems to the be only one unaffected by this misgiving epidemic and we cannot afford to lose her as well."
"Okay, just give us another dose of ambrosia and some nectar for the road and we'll be on the road in ten minutes," Thalia said. She swung her legs down off the bed - careful of her sprained knee - and used a pair of crutches to stand up.
Immediately, Lysandra stood up and grabbed some of the godly medicine, giving both me and Thalia a few small squares.
It melted like honey on my tongue, though tasting of sweet brownies. Instantly, I felt the pain in my ribs dull, and a few snaps could be heard as my bones realigned themselves. I felt the cuts and bruises along my body fade, the slight stinging of open flesh disappearing. Like Thalia, I swung my legs off of the bed and then AIkaterine helped me stand. She handed me a pair of crutches.
"Come on, Thalia. Let's get going."
Thalia nodded, and together with our crutches, we hobbled out of the infirmary and began the long trek to the gods' temples. This was one of the times that I wished Artemis wasn't the eighth Olympian.
We walked along the golden roads of Olympus. Our pace was slow, but we made good progress, passing by minor gods and satyrs and nymphs. After a nearly fifteen minute walk - which should've taken only three or five - we made it to the circle of temples.
The entrance was directly between Zeus and Hera's temples, which were the closest to the throne room. I guess Zeus is just lazy. Artemis was the eighth Olympian, meaning that her temple was the fourth on the left from where we stood.
"Percy, do you think that everyone is okay?" Thalia asked as we made our way down the middle of the temples. The road went straight through the middle, then led in the wide circle around a central fountain.
"I hope so, Thalia. We know that Artemis isn't involved in the fight, but who's to say that it's just because she's smarter than to fall for the trick. Maybe something happened to her and that's why she doesn't have bats in her belfry like the rest of them." I stopped as our walk came to an end in front of Artemis' silver temple. It stood tall in front of us, the silver dull in the sunlight, but I knew that it would shine like the moon on earth.
We ascended the steps and immediately, I felt like something was off. It was as if my brain had been twisted in my head.
I dropped the crutches and sprinted up the steps, ignoring the pain spiking through my chest and legs. Thalia was right behind me, though she was still hobbling with her crutches. I threw the doors open.
"Artemis!" I called, hoping against hope for an answer.
My heart sank as I looked down to find a trickle of golden ichor staining the silver tiles. Here was a smudge against the column right next to me and a trail leading down the hallway.
"Mr. Percy?" A voice called from down the hall. I saw a head peek around the corner. Her face was mostly covered by her blonde hair, but I recognized the girl as Amelia. Any other time, I would have smiled at her slight lisp as it gave me a sense of familiarity, but not now. Not when Artemis was in trouble.
I ran down the hall to join Amelia at the corner. "Amelia, what happened?"
She met my eyes, tears in hers. "It's Ms. Artemis, Mr. Percy. Something's wrong. She needs help."
"Take me to her," I said.
"Come on! She's this way, Mr. Percy!" Amelia grabbed my hand and tugged me along, taking me into the living room and then up the spiral staircase and taking a right, and left, and then another right, leading to a single silver door at the end of the upstairs hallway.
"She's in here. As soon as she collapsed, we brought her up to rest in bed," she said. For a moment, her lisp disappeared, and I knew that she was really worried, but then it returned, breaking the moment.
I opened the door.
Word Count: 2470
Average Words per Chapter: 1574
Word Total: 22, 037
CSP2708
Dylan Walts