Damn fanfiction and their restricted character's for chapter titles. This chapter's full title is I Plan to Attend Grover's Shotgun Wedding. He'll Have to Forgive me for Showing up Late. It was a Little Short Notice.

It's been a long while. I have no excuses. Instead I have a new years resolution to return to writing. So I hope that anyone still reading this sad and frankly pathetic story is happy to see this chapter.

Living with a roommate was an adjustment. I hadn't cohabitated with anyone since arriving at Camp Half-Blood. I had a few days crammed in the Hermes cabin as a newcomer, but was quickly claimed and forced to me into my godly parent's cabin. Luke snuck in and slept over all the time, but it wasn't the same. Tyson was my half-brother. Directly related to me. As in we shared the same father.

Once I got over that stumbling block, it was like having a live-in pet.

Rude, I know. But Tyson behaved an awful lot like an overeager dog that wanted nothing more than to be pat on the head and told 'good doggie.'

And he only did it with me and Luke. The rest of camp held him out a distance, proclaiming him a freak and a monster.

They didn't care that he happily volunteered to wash dishes with the harpies every night. Cyclopes had a natural immunity to fire, which I thought was wicked, and I also appreciated not having to don a biohazard suit. He hung out in the forge frequently and was extremely talented.

My cabin—our cabin now—had never been cleaner.

Tyson swept the floors, made every bunk bed anew, scrubbed the saltwater fountain—which earned massive points whenever it was Silena in charge, and put up underwater plants and sea anemones in the windowsill planters—which Miranda a year-round daughter of Demeter, adored.

But Tantalus openly scorned Tyson for being a cyclops and me by association. Not that I cared about my reputation. I was well used to being the problem child and making friends with freaks.

Although it did hurt to lose all the respect I had earned from finding Zeus's lightning bolt. I hadn't cared about being the most popular camper, but it had hurt when the entire camp, aside from Luke and the rest of Hermes' cabin, Tyson, and strangely enough the Aphrodite cabin, started treating me like a lecher.

It wasn't the only adjustment I had to face.

With each passing day, the number of monster attacks were increasing. Clarisse had called loudly for a patrol schedule, and Tantalus had granted her full control of it.

She always placed me directly under her command. She had no other way to get her daily fix of belittling me for my monstrous family.

Clarisse and her pettiness weren't even a blip on my radar. I was more concerned with Grover, who had yet to return from his search for Pan, and Luke, who was struggling to hold the camp together when Tantalus and Clarisse were undermining him and he was steps away from losing Thalia for a second time.

Long story short, Camp Half-Blood was falling to pieces. No one was getting along. The camp director was trying to kill us. And the magical barrier protecting us from monsters was slowly dissolving as Thalia's tree withered.

Mr. D. finally caved to Luke's demands that they call a meeting to discuss what they were going to do, and so nine counselors, Mr. D. and the director on loan from Hades piled into the largest conference room the Big House had.

"Something needs to be done, Mr. D.," Luke insisted. "If we keep going like this, will have more campers in the infirmary than out of it."

Mr. D. hardly looked like he was listening, and for once I couldn't blame him. Watching a package of marshmallow peeps run away from Tantalus was hilarious. I didn't know if random food appearing to taunt him was part of his curse of if someone, likely the Stoll brothers, were trolling him, but it was therapeutic to watch either way.

"And what do you expect me to do, Liam? I'm not Apollo."

"Can he do anything?" Charles Beckendorf asked.

"Maybe," Lee said slowly. "But his domain is healing people. I don't know if that extends to trees that used to be human."

Silena looked ready to burst into tears. "He must try."

"He is a god, you silly girl. He must do nothing."

"There are some magical items that can heal," suggested Katie Gardiner.

Everyone turned to look at Lee, the resident son of the god of healing. "It's not like I can just ask to borrow Dad's caduceus. Besides, which, he's the only one with the power to heal it. It's elder python venom. It comes straight from the depths of Tartarus."

From there, the counselors descended into bickering and accusations. Quite a few were flung my way. They hadn't had these kinds of problems before I showed up on the camp's doorstep dragging an unconscious Grover. Everybody blamed me for Kronos's rising. Funny how prophecies worked.

I think I nodded off at some point or got lost in a daydream about Grover. The satyr had been showing up frequently in my dreams, weaving and unraveling a wedding veil, of all things.

"Percy! Thank goodness! Can you hear me?"

My dream self was slow to respond. I was still looking around, taking in the stalactite ceiling, the stench of sheep and goats, the growling and grumbling and bleating sounds that seemed to echo from behind a refrigerator-sized boulder, which was blocking the room's only exit, as if there were a much larger carven beyond it.

"Percy?" Grover repeated. "Please, I don't have the strength to project any better. You have to hear me!"

From behind the boulder, a monstrous voice yelled, "Honeypie! Are you done yet?"

Grover flinched, calling out in the negative in the fakest falsetto I had ever heard, and then argued with whatever it was about how long it was going to take.

He turned back to me. "You have to help me! I'm stuck in this cave. On an island in the middle of the sea. It's a trap. He's the reason no satyr has ever returned from this quest. He's a shepherd, Percy! Of man-eating sheep! And he has it! Its nature magic is so powerful it smells just like the great god Pan! The satyrs come here thinking they've found it Pan, and they get trapped an eaten by Polyphemus!"

"Poly-who?"

"The Cyclops! But never mind that. I'm running out of time, Percy. He's only given me two weeks to finish the bridal train."

"Enough!"

I jolted awake at the sound of Luke yelling. The oldest demigod in the room had been suspiciously silent during the argument of how to fix his best friend's fate. He looked thoroughly fed up, so I gathered no headway had been made while I took a little power nap.

"The Golden Fleece is the only item capable of healing plants."

"Not necessarily. It encourages plants to grow but doesn't—"

Luke cut across Malcolm's argument. "It's known to cure any living thing. So, it will work for Thalia's tree."

"It's a myth, Castellan," Clarisse said, derisive. "It's been lost for centuries."

Luke's eyebrow winged upwards. "Your point?" The girl flushed angrily. "If we call for a quest to find and retrieve it, the Oracle will tell us where to go."

There was a moment of silence following his confident proclamation. It was pure genius. If he went before the Oracle and asked how to find the Golden Fleece, the creepy mummy in the attic would tell him.

Tantalus finally gave up his pursuit of the bunny-shaped marshmallow treats. With a grand sweeping of his arms, he stood. "A quest for the Golden Fleece! Our only hope of restoring the tree that protects you miserable brats. Clarisse, as the strongest hero, it is only right that you take the lead on this."

Irritation bloomed in my chest. What right did the daughter of Ares have to lead this quest? It was Luke's idea and his best friend that was dying. It should have been Luke's quest. Instead, Tantalus was giving it to Clarisse, because she kissed his ass all the time.

"Luke should be in charge."

Tantalus waved away my protest with a lazy flick of the wrist. "It's already been decided, Water boy. Clarisse has proven herself to be a warrior of mettle. A paragon of strength and determination."

Clarisse stood a little taller as Tantalus showered her with accolades and bid her to see the Oracle.

I went to argue, wanting to point out that Luke was all of those things as well. Plus, he had experience being on quests before. Clarisse was a glory hound looking to get one up on me since I beat her father in sword fight on the beaches of Los Angeles and was using Tantalus's new system to do it.

"Not now," the blond hissed in my ear. So I bit my tongue and waited in anxious silence with the rest of the cabin counselors for our second least-favorite person to return.

She reappeared in the doorway, pale as a ghost, seven minutes later. "The Oracle said I'd find the Fleece."

"And?" Lee asked. Everyone in the room knew there was more to the prophecy she wasn't sharing.

"That's it," she snapped. "I'll bring back the Fleece and restore the tree."

"But the wording of a prophecy is incredibly important," argued Katie. "What was the rest of it?"

Another shouting match broke out as the other demigods call for her to reveal the rest of the prophecy.

Oddly enough, I understood why Clarisse might be hesitant. If her prophecy was anything like my mine when I was tasked with retrieving Zeus's almighty lightning bolt, it probably spoke of some horrible way she might come to fail.

It was easier to focus on the part that said you would succeed, no matter what might be lost as a consequence. I found the bolt but lost my mother.

And wouldn't that just be typical, I thought darkly. Clarisse was setting out on a dangerous quest to save what remained of Zeus's only demigod daughter, and the rest of the camp with it, and she was just as likely to have to sacrifice something like I did.

The gods didn't care for their children. We were tools to be used and discarded. Locked in a toolshed until they had need of us.

"Enough," Tantalus growled. "Why did I ever want a job working with whiny children? The Oracle has spoken. Clarisse will succeed. Go choose your companions and prepare, my dear. And you, boy," he turned quivering beady eyes on me. "It's very important that Clarisse succeeds. The safety of your precious camp depends on her."

"Like you even care," I muttered lowly, not understanding what he was lecturing me for. We already knew she was going to bring the Fleece back.

"I just want to warn you to keep your distance. Perhaps sit quietly in your cabin until she returns triumphant. After all, we wouldn't want Clarisse to fail to save what matters most, in the end." Tantalus ended his speech with a cruel smile.

There was a deafening roaring. It drowned out the sound of Luke pleading. There was a tug in my gut, not unlike the time that Clarisse had tried to shove my head inside a toilet. The Big House shuddered, pipes clattering violently in the walls.

Luke slammed a foot in my instep. "Knock it off, Perce. You'll only get in trouble if you flood the place."

A distant shriek, one of the cleaning harpies, knocked me out of my rage. Without a word, I spun on my heel and ran to the lake, the only place no one could bother me.

Time escaped me.

I huddled on the bottom of the lake, anger bleeding away to make room for embarrassment. It was one thing to blow up the bathroom when you had no idea you could control water, but another to accidentally explode all the plumbing in a blind rage.

"You rage like a hurricane upon the sea, my son."

"Father."

"Don't you think you're a little young for teenage depression?" I stared at the god of the sea, unable to comprehend that he was joking about my mood. "Right, anyways, I don't have much time."

"You never do." The words slip past before I realize it. But even as they hang there between us, I don't want to take them back.

"I must be quick this time, before my brother notices my interference."

"What are you going on about? He can't stop you from visiting me."

"Technically, allowing me to visit even once has fulfilled the terms of his oath. He could have prevented me after that. If there was a position for a god of loopholes, your uncle would have it. I have chosen to err on the side of caution, with my brother out for blood. He's already demanded that none of the gods interfere in your friend's quest to retrieve the Fleece."

"Clarisse is not my friend."

Poseidon shrugged. "Grover is, and he is in danger."

"How do you know that?" I at least had an empathy like with him that resulted in weird dream.

"I've been watching out for him since he set sail from Florida. He's run afoul of Polyphemus in the Sea of Monsters."

"The what?"

"Sea of Monsters. You would know it as the Bermuda Triangle," explained Poseidon. "Due to my brother's edict, I cannot help him."

"Hold up a minute." I was confused. "What does Grover have to do with Clarisse's quest?"

"Polyphemus, the cyclops that holds him captive, also has in his possession the Golden Fleece."

I uncurled from my ball of misery. "I have to help him! Clarisse doesn't know he's on the island and she's more likely to leave him to rot if helping him meant she would fail her quest."

I wondered if that was the true reason the daughter of Ares refused to share the full contents of her prophecy.

"I'm afraid I can't do any more for you, Percy. The Sea of Monsters is titan territory. My powers do not work there." My father looked appropriately apologetic.

"It's fine. This was enough. I appreciate the heads up."

"When you are ready to leave, go to the beach. I will send hippocampi to aid you in your travels. And remember, 30°31'N 75°12'W. Good luck, son."

And then he was gone, leaving me to wonder what exactly a hippocampi was and how I was supposed to recognize one.