Chapter 20
Still Piper's POV
I thought that would sleep, but nooooo, I got to drift into another dream in which I was in a garden full of beautiful flowers: roses of every possible colors, lilies...the garden was full of the flowers' perfume, at the middle of it was a marble representation of a woman half naked carrying a dove and a rose, I got closer to it when it says
"Oh Piper dear, I wasn't expecting you so soon" I got so scared that I jumped back and ended up into the roses and their thorns ripped my skin and clothes and for a dream it hurt more than in reality making me scream as a mad woman.
"Mo...Mo...Mother?" I asked hoping she was just behind the statue but my hope was just over when the statue moved and got down from its stone to come near me.
But as it got closer to me, well just imagine a big marble statue coming to you, well there no much difference as if a giant was coming to you because well my statue-mother was bigger and taller than her real version thought not as big as I was told they are in their throne room, I was so scared that my first reaction was to try to stand up and run but I lamely ended up into more flowers and more thorns with cut me as if I was made of butter, my mom just tsk tsk me and grab my fighting form on the collar of my shirt and lifted me as if I was a kitten.
She putted me down on the nearest bench and said "Here Piper" as I was struggling to take off the thorns that were glued on my clothes my mom talked as if I got her whole attention "You scared me when you disappeared. I've been trying to contact you since then, but my efforts were unfruitful, tell me what happened to you dear" the statue said and sits next to me. It felt strange to call "mom" a statue, and worse to tell it your story. I'm pretty sure that if someone saw me talking to a statue I would end up in a psychiatric facility. I told my mother everything that happened since the end of my quest until my rescue by Hunter and Arya. My mother listened to everything I said better than her human version which made it strange for me as she now she was made of marble but I didn't want to ask her about. After listening to everything, at first mom didn't utter a word, she seemed far in her thoughts and her hand subconsciously caressed the rose in her hand, we stay like that for what seems to me like an hour and then I heard her says
"So that Hunter guy is the same that helped you in your quest to free Hera"
"Yes, the same guy" I replied to her question
"And he doesn't like some Olympians including me" she addresses to me as her marble head turns around to meet my eyes, and I just gives her a nod to answer to her. She sigh and asks me how does Hunter looks like but when I ask her why she wanted to know she replies "Just in case I've met him or his father somewhere and that's why he doesn't like me. What other reason is there for a young boy to hate me if it wasn't about me going out with his father?" I couldn't answer to her because for a moment that possibility came to my mind, and it seems like Hunter doesn't like his immortal parent, and if it's a man...
"I don't know mom, maybe you just messed up one of his relationship the way you always like to do it" I tell her with a little bit of resentment in my voice because of Jason and I.
My mom seems to see the change in my voice because she says "my dear Piper, knows that I never planned for you to be dumped by Jason as most of times it's my children that do it to others." she tells me and seems sincere and serious since the last time I saw her, "I thought that it might work between Jason and you but it didn't, I may be the love goddess but favoritism is forbidden to me by the council and the fates. And if you recall, during your quest I made a lot of favoritism." she adds to defend herself but I didn't want to back down on this subject so I dared to say
"And what about Percy and Annabeth? You shattered their relationship and his heart and his mind by the way" I now stand up to dominate her marble statue-like "during my quest with Jason and Leo you talked about them as if they still existed and that they were the best couple, and don't tell me you didn't do it because I remember reading that you promised Percy to mess his love live up for your entertaining" at the end of my tirade my breath was heavy and my fists clenched but my mother didn't take me seriously. She looked at me for a moment and said
"Well about Percy, I didn't want it to come this far. Yes I told you they were the best couple since Paris and Helene so tell why would I want them to parted their own ways leading one to his death when I only wanted to made a little drama in their relationship? And you should know that even when I act if the fates aren't ok with it they can change it, Percabeth? Well it was ok as a motivation for the TWII but not anymore once out of it. I don't blame them for everything but I know my mistakes and feel sorry for Percy an-" I just didn't want her lame excuses anymore so I cut her
"HE'S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU, MOTHER? Feeling sorry for him won't help him, when he needed your help the more; you people turned your back on him. So don't pretend to feel sorry or claim that pathetic rule 'No god shall interfere in mortals affairs' because countless time you interfered in my quest just like your husband, and as I rode in Percy Jackson's life the only gods who didn't interfere in his quests are Demeter, Hades and Jupiter plus most of the minor gods" when I finished I walked back and forth to try to calm myself, but what infuriated me more was my mom slight smile and then she said
"You're in love with a dead boy" and then she laughed as if there was no tomorrow, I could feel my face getting hotter as I looked at her clutching her stomach because she laughed too much, when she stopped she looks at me smiling and says "I didn't know that it was possible even when the character died a long time ago without you knowing him; yes none of us care anymore about Percy after the war, and if you've read his life from his POV you should know that it always wanted it this way but we let him down when he needed us and we can't change a thing about it, only regret it as now we need his help...we're helpless" she paused as she wiped the tears in the corner of her eyes but the damn smile was still there she seemed to read my mind for her smile widened "don't worry Piper there is nothing to do about it, maybe if you choose reborn after your life you shall be together...but as his soul is nowhere to be find, well reborn is out of option for him"
"Mom, don't tell me that you brought me here to laugh at me because I don't find it funny" I tell her because I wanted her to put an end to her nonsense about Percy and I. But my mother knows me too much because she laughs once again and then stopped under my glare.
"No you're right; I want you to go back to camp. I can't let you in the wild by yourself while the earth is after you. Thalia's team his looking for you and from what Artemis told me yesterday they've found a really good lead to your place so you shall wait for them there and go back to camp Half-Blood with them."
"No, I won't go back there mom" I say looking at her in the eyes as if defying her so refuse.
"Piper, it may not look like it but I'm worried sick about you and now more than anytime knowing that you're walking with a psychotic teenager who seems to loath some Olympians with me included among them" she says but this time I can see the worry in her voice, I've never seen my mother acting motherly but this time I was witnessing it. "But honey..." she tries to explain herself but I didn't give her the time
"No mom, we need every ally. I'm going to camp Rome to get us from camp Half-Blood a better chance and a better view of us by them because even Jerric is more or less strong, because of his behaviors the roman demigod won't accept him thus they won't accept us when the time will come for the two camps to join strength. And if I can convince Hunter to help us and lend us his strength even for a moment, it will tip the balance of the war. He maybe psycho but he's strong and trustworthy?" I say as I took both cold marble hands into mines. Mom seems to have an inner struggle about my idea but concedes with it at the end
"Tell me more about that Hunter guy" she suddenly says, as I was about to open my mouth and complain about the psycho demigod that barely smiles, that always seems to have energy to do anything with his amazing body and permanent faraway look I stop myself and I notice the smirk that she was hiding well I won't dig my own grave, shall I? I asked to myself, so I say
"He's a son of god from his father side I think but they don't like each others, he's over 6 feet, muscular and tanned probably because of the road and because he like to feel the sun on his skin, he's blue eyes that sometimes tend to a sea-blue or sea-green color. Pretty..." when she took in what she said, she quickly added "Pretty good looks...no not looks, pretty good swordsmanship and if I must believe what Thalia said: He's swordsmanship is far beyond Percy's which is a feat considering Percy's swordsmanship allowed him to held his ground against Titans and gods and that he was considered as the best swordsman CHB ever had." after seeing the lost look in her eyes, Aphrodite asked
"Does he have strong arms?" she said it lowly as bait to me, her daughter who jumped on it as if it was a salmon and I a kitten.
"Yeah, strong arms with well defined muscle, with good 6 pack abs." and to just to justified myself or to drown myself I say "I only saw them once when he was taking a sun bath near a river before leaving Florida" and when I saw the mischief and smile in my mother's eyes, I understood that she had me and I turned beef red which made her laugh more than before so much that she was on the ground laughing while I was pouting.
When she was over, she stood up and took off the dirt on her half naked body, she glanced at me with a smile and tells me
"Good for you, at least I don't know who this demigod is and he's too young for me, but maybe I will just wait for him to grow up a little bit to take him after all there's a quote from a French poem that says: "Petit poisson deviendra gros pourvu que Dieu lui prête vie" and she winked at me at the end which just made me scream
"MOM" but my reaction only widened her stupid smirk and she just says
"Don't worry dear, he's all your...for now" I couldn't take it anymore, I didn't know if it was because she was laughing at me, or because she thought that I was thinking of Hunter as a boyfriend, or because she planned on take him from me (From You?) I tried to end the subject by asking her why was she a marble statue-like.
"It's because of the paranoiac old fool, he would've catch if I was in flesh and bones here, and there is also a meeting about that Hunter guy because apparently Hecate and Thanatos reported about him to Hades, and with Hera's report on his strength, let's just say that Zeus is more paranoiac than ever since with Percy Jackson especially that Thanatos disappeared after his report" she said the name lowly then looked at me "You know Pipes, one of Percy's closest friend knew about Annabeth and Jerric's relationship before anybody but he didn't do anything to warn Percy about it. He could have avoid his death if he told him in the beginning but he didn't" I tried to ask her who he was talking about but she just kissed my forehead and I was back at our little camping site.