Heads up: This chapter was written prior to 1/6/21

Kieran had literally never spoken to a god or goddess before, not even Mr. D. So when he realized that Eos was in front of him and everyone else was apparently waiting on him to talk first, he only panicked a little.

Okay, more than a little. "What, expecting someone else?" Eos asked, smirking the exact same way Aurora and Jared, or really any of her kids, did.

"Oh, wow," Arianna whispered from somewhere behind him. Right, she hadn't seen a goddess before… that she'd remember, anyways. And Eos looked impressive; she stood taller than any of them when she stepped down from her chariot, though she quickly shifted to… not a normal size, but a head taller than Diego. Her dress had all the colors of the sunrise, and her eyes matched what little they could see of the sun itself.

So yeah, not exactly making him less nervous about talking to her. Hadn't Brenna said she'd help with that? Why the heck hadn't she said anything? Kieran looked back for a second and realized that she wasn't even there, unless she was hiding behind Diego or something (which was possible). Before the awkward pause could get any worse, he blurted, "Uh… sor- I mean, no? I mean, uh…"

"Look, I'll level with you, I wasn't supposed to stop at all since I'm on sun duty today, too, but we've got about five minutes before it catches up and you helped Apollo's son yesterday so I can't get in trouble. All right?

"Now that that's out of the way, let's start over. I'm Eos, goddess of the dawn; what are your names?"

It sounded like she already knew but she'd given him a way to maybe fix the conversation and he was gonna take it. "I'm Kieran, and these are my friends Diego and Arianna."

Because if Brenna wasn't gonna show herself, why should he introduce her? He'd half expected Arianna to correct him (if Brenna was hiding from Eos for some reason, there was no way Diego would give her away) but instead she asked, "So if Apollo still talks to you, do you know why the gods won't talk to anyone at Camp?"

"The Olympians won't," Eos corrected. "I'm not bound by their rules. Which unfortunately means that I don't know that, but I do know that they can't talk to you. That's why your camp director was recalled."

"And why you're on sun duty today?" Diego guessed.

"Exactly."

"Mr. D. was recalled, then?" Kieran pressed. She'd just said that, he probably sounded like an idiot, but finding that out was kinda the whole point of their mission and he wanted to make sure he'd heard right.

"Correct. And Olympus is closed," she added. So it was, for sure, then. Oh gods, that couldn't be good. "But I still have to do my job, and Apollo's too I suppose, which wouldn't be an issue if mortals remembered Helios."

Kieran vaguely remembered who that was, he thought. "He drove the sun chariot before Apollo, right?"

"He taught Apollo how to drive it," Diego replied.

"He did," she confirmed. "And he was the charioteer for a long time after that. Apollo liked being able to just get out whenever he wanted, and Helios liked the company. But then Zeus said we didn't need two sun gods, or two moon goddesses, so he and Selene 'retired.' After that… well, you know how it is. If Zeus finds out that Apollo and I have figured out how to combine our jobs… actually, he probably wouldn't mind much right now, but I'd get stuck with more work while Olympus is closed, and I don't need more work."

"So this isn't just a thing you had to do today," Kieran said. "You've done it before."

"We switch days. If the sunrise ever looks a bit off, now you know why."

That made a lot of sense, actually. "What else do you do?" Arianna asked.

"Meet up with my… what would you call them… pieces?"

"It's okay, you can say lovers," Diego responded. That's what that meant?

"Oh, good. Trying to keep up with mortal terminology is exhausting. I'm glad you got rid of 'thou,' English is bad enough without that set of rules. My lovers do help, but there are so many differences!"

"There are," he agreed. "Though that's true for a lot of languages."

Yeah, no kidding; stores just had signs out that said "papaya" and "mango" and Todd said those were naughty words that Kieran shouldn't use! Okay, "mango" was only bad if he called a girl that, but still. "You're right," Eos responded. "So, any other questions?" [1]

"I know you said you didn't know why Olympus closed, but do you know who would?" Arianna cut in just as Kieran was about to say no. That was actually something they should look into.

"Hm… someone who goes there more often, I suppose. Of course, that only helps you if they're out here on occasion. Your best bets are probably Iris, Phobos, Deimos, or Enyo."

"Where could we find them?" Kieran followed up.

"An active warzone," Diego muttered under his breath, "or wherever they can be the biggest pains in the ass."

Eos smirked like she'd absolutely heard that. "I see you've met your half-brothers. Personally, I think Iris would be the most likely to actually help, but I haven't seen her in a while. I do know where Enyo usually is, though; your Capitol, with your Congress."

"Why would she be there? I thought her thing was bloody carnage… oh wait, never mind, I get it now," he said.

"That's not the only reason; some mortal way back when got her mixed up with Eris in his poems and now she's even more of a nuisance. If she's not seeing enough strife, she tries to make it herself. I hope you don't actually plan on talking to her."

"You said she's in Congress, so probably not; we can't just walk in there," Arianna replied.

"That's not entirely true," Diego corrected. Oh gods, was he gonna suggest they break in? "We could if we're with my mom."

Kieran would almost rather go with his assumption. He'd met Diego's mom once, and he'd had no idea how to interact with her; there'd been a lot of people around at the time, but she'd kept trying to do stuff for him and it was weird. "…your mom could get us into one of the most secure places in the country?" Arianna asked.

"Probably. At the very least, she could tell us if Enyo's actually there right now."

"Huh. Well, if you do see Enyo, she might not try to kill you on sight, so that's something. I'd better get going, the sun's catching up. Good luck!" Eos hopped back into her chariot and sped off.

"Might not try to kill us on sight… that's reassuring," Kieran murmured once she was gone.

"Well, we've got some information now," Diego said. "What do we do with it?"

Kieran sighed and started walking back towards their car. "Whatever we do, I'm gonna have to drive again, so we might as well head out."

The others followed him, and when they got there, Brenna was sitting in the seat behind the driver's side. "So, how'd it go?" she asked.

"You woulda known if you'd come with," Arianna pointed out. "Gonna explain that at all? You just said you had to go and left."

Oh, so there had been some warning, he'd just missed it. That didn't really make it better. "Not my mission, not my problem," Brenna mumbled.

"You made it your problem when you invited yourself," Kieran retorted. "We could've actually used you back there!" Seriously, what the heck was up with her? The only thing keeping him from ditching her in Maine was the memory of the empousa attack the night before. Well, that, and he was scared of what Diego would do to him if he tried.

Because, of course, he seemed to know something the rest of them didn't, and for someone who hadn't wanted Brenna along in the first place he was being weirdly clingy. And they had gone off together the night before… gods, had they planned this? If they had, why hadn't he ducked out? He'd made it clear before they left Camp that he hadn't wanted anything to do with Eos. "We were fine," Diego responded like that would magically fix everything. "She didn't even threaten our lives once."

"True, but that's not the issue," Arianna said in the kind of tone that made every muscle in Kieran's body tense because she sounded calm but that was a warning and he needed to be ready to duck, or dodge, or straight-up run. "If we're working together, we all need to be on the same page."

"And I get that, I really do, but…" Brenna trailed off mid-excuse. "Gods, fuck, okay, the short version is I was friends with one of Eos's sons and I couldn't keep looking at her 'cause she reminded me too much of him so I had to get out of there. If it'd been Apollo, I swear I would've stayed, but I just couldn't, you guys! I'm sorry!"

She actually sounded sincere, and okay, that was a reason he could accept, but she was on thin ice. "Yeah… full disclosure, guys, I stayed because by the time I thought about running she'd definitely already seen me," Diego admitted. "Until she started talking, I thought she was gonna kill me."

That explained a lot. Well, not about why he'd think that, but Kieran wasn't sure he wanted to know. "How come?" Arianna asked, which was probably a mistake but it was too late to stop her. And she seemed to realize that too, because she immediately followed it up with an apology. "Shoot, sorry, forget I said anything."

"I, uh… also… knew… that guy, and we were… not friends," Diego replied. "Anyways, Brenna, here's what you missed…"

While he filled her in, Kieran started the car, figuring that the others would get in. The car had a lot less snow on it than it had when they'd left the campsite; had it just fallen off or did someone clear it?

He didn't care enough to ask out loud; he could see, so that was good enough. Pretty soon, everyone was both in the car and up to speed, so he pulled out of the parking lot. It was quiet for a couple minutes until Arianna burst out, "Are we just not gonna talk about last night?"

Oh gods, Kieran had hoped they wouldn't; he remembered seeing someone coming up to their campsite and waking Diego because he'd probably know how to handle that better (and he'd forgotten to hand over his watch when they switched, but that wasn't nearly as important). After that, it was… hazy, except he knew he tripped at some point, and it'd taken him a few minutes to stop shaking once the empousa was dead.

"What's there to talk about?" Diego sighed. "We already said it wasn't anyone's fault… but… oh shit, I just realized I never thanked you, my bad. Thanks for taking care of it, you did good; especially with an unfamiliar weapon."

Kieran mumbled his assent, even though that part was news to him. Arianna sure hadn't mentioned shooting the monster when they were alone at the campsite (he'd assumed it'd been Brenna)… maybe because she was too busy trying to keep him from leaving. He hadn't really meant to ditch the others, but as soon as the guilt set in (because it happened on his watch) his first instinct was to run as far as he could, as fast as he could. Some leader he'd turned out to be.

"Uh… thanks," she began, "but I meant more… what was that thing, anyways?"

Of course she didn't know, she must've been so confused… "Right, you probably haven't heard of empousae before, have you?" Diego asked. "I hate them. A lot. Especially the one that showed up last night."

"There's more of those things?"

"Unfortunately. They're kinda like demons or vampires, and they… uh… I guess 'seduce' is the best word, but I don't like it… they seduce men and drink their blood. It's really hard to resist them. I was trying the whole time, and you saw how well that went. And they usually won't go after women unless they get in their way. If you and Brenna hadn't woken up, she probably would've just drained us and left."

"…so that's why Brenna said you guys couldn't help last night," Arianna murmured.

"There was a lot more I wish I could've explained last night, but Staci only gave me a minute," Brenna piped up. "Speaking of Staci, what'd she look like to you?"

"Her name was Staci? That's more normal than I woulda thought. Uh… she had like flaming hair, bat wings, and one of her legs was metal and the other one was like a donkey leg?"

That matched up with what Kieran had been told about empousae having different forms; that was not what he'd seen. She'd just looked like a regular high school girl. "Gods, I have so many questions for Jess now," Brenna muttered.

"You might get to ask her soon, depending on where we go next. Speaking of… where are we going next?" Diego asked.

Kieran shrugged, keeping both hands on the wheel as he did so because unlike some people he wanted to be safe. "I dunno, what do y'all think?"

"We could just go back," Arianna suggested. "Enyo… doesn't really sound helpful."

"She really doesn't," Diego agreed, "but if she has more information… it's not too far out of our way…"

"You wanna see your family," Brenna said. "Dude, same."

But he'd gone home for Thanksgiving? Kieran couldn't really blame him, though; if he had an opportunity to go see Todd for any reason, he'd take it in a heartbeat. Sometimes he wished he'd never left Miami (not that he hadn't left his mom's place; he'd never regret that).

Todd said he could learn to deal with monsters, but he lived with two other guys and more importantly Kieran didn't want him to get in legal trouble. His mom hadn't bothered looking for him when he left, but if she'd found out he was with Todd she would've done something out of spite.

"How far is it really out of our way?" Kieran asked.

"Uh… maybe four hours? Iunno, but you'd keep staying on I-95 so it's at least direct," Arianna replied. "But before we decide for sure, we should maybe make sure Enyo's actually there."

"How do we do that without going… oh, you want me to IM Mamá, okay," Diego said. "Except the one thing I forgot was drachma. Did anyone bring any?"

"You could just call," she pointed out. "On a phone?"

Did she not know how bad of an idea that'd be? "That doesn't tend to go well for me, but if I have to, we should find a landline," he responded.

"You guys are looking at me like I should already know this somehow, but what's wrong with using a… oh wait, monsters. Right."

Kieran had already seen more monsters in the past 24 hours than he would in a typical year before he went to Camp. They didn't need to go out of their way to find even more. Didn't anyone have drachma?

And then he realized that he did. Because Connor had given him two and literally all his possessions were in his backpack in between the middle seats. "Y'all, I have drachma, we don't need a phone."

"Like a rainbow's easier to find…" Arianna muttered. "Wait a sec… Eos said she didn't know where Iris was, but couldn't we just IM her?"

"We don't know where she is," he answered.

"Do we need to? She's the one sending the messages, and she knows where she is," she argued.

He hadn't thought about that. "Okay, so we go make a rainbow - I have a prism, that should be the easy part - and then if Iris can't help us, we call my mom?" Diego ventured.

"We could probably IM her, too… but if we're going after Enyo we'll need to report back to Chiron at some point…" As much as Kieran didn't want to, he relented. "Yeah, we'll have you call her. But don't say any names."

"No problem; all I have to do is ask if she's seen a goddess hanging around at work. Should be easy enough."

Brenna cut in, "So Maya does work at the Capitol? I thought she said the Pentagon."

"It varies; that's why I said she could probably get us in," Diego replied. That would make sense. "And before anyone asks, I don't really know what she actually does, apparently that's 'classified,' but I'm ninety percent sure she's in the country right now."

"Could we contact her if she's not?" Kieran asked.

"Maybe? Probably. I'd rather call the house, though, I don't really want her to get attacked by monsters either."

"…is your mom a demigod?" Kieran had gotten the impression that most demigods didn't get to have kids, but he couldn't think of any other reason monsters would attack her. And honestly, it would explain a lot.

Diego shook his head. "Not that I know of, anyways. I meant more in case she's with my little sister, though she should be in school when I call."

Oh, right, that could be a problem. "Wait, so has Alicia… you know…" Brenna trailed off before she finished the question, but it wasn't hard to guess where she was going with it.

"Not yet, but Mamá thinks it could start happening soon. She's already made it longer than I did without getting attacked… directly… so we're hoping to keep it that way."

"…monsters come after little kids?" Arianna asked. She sounded angry, and like she was really hoping someone would say no. But of course no one would; Kieran saw his first monster when he was twelve, and according to the other year-rounders, that was late.

"Well… yeah," Diego replied. "I had to fight a basilisk in kindergarten, but at least I got to stay at home for a few more years. Annabeth's been a year-rounder since she was like seven."

"Head counselor of the Athena Cabin," Brenna explained. "She should be coming back soon, I guess she did regular school this year, but she's like, super smart and the best strategist at Camp.

"But yeah, monsters don't care how old you are. Kids don't usually know a lot about demigod stuff, so that kinda protects them, but they also can't usually fight back. And if they can… more monsters. It's kind of a no-win situation."

It really, really was. "…s-so what happened to me last week… that kind of thing happens a lot?"

He didn't really know what had happened with Arianna before she got to Camp – heck, even she barely remembered, apparently – but he knew it'd been bad. "That's why we have protectors," Diego answered after about a minute. "To find new demigods before the monsters do. It… uh… Brenna, help?"

"Oh gods, all right; Arianna, the answer to your actual question is 'no' because what usually happens is you run away or you die. And when your mortal parent actually gives a shit about you, it's hard 'cause then your protector has to explain stuff and get permission to take you to Camp..."

Okay, Kieran was gonna focus on the road. He could do it. She'd been referring to her own mom, not his, and either way he didn't need to hear what she was gonna say next.

That lasted all of five minutes because driving was boring, dang it, he needed the conversation to keep him awake. Or caffeine, that'd help a lot.

"Hey Kieran, mind sharing how you ended up at Camp?" Brenna asked.

Well crap, they were still close to the same topic. "Are we going around the car or something?" he responded.

"If everyone's fine with that, sure," Diego replied. "We don't need to go over all the details or anything…"

No one argued, so Kieran figured it was okay. "All right, then. I literally got there by mistake; I was following the coast North because these dog-seal things were chasing me and I thought they wouldn't follow me once I left Florida – I was wrong – and I ran into Jared and Michael while they were patrolling. They took me across the boundary and the monsters ran away."

He didn't mention that they'd thought he was a spy who'd let the telekhines in later while everyone's guard was down. It didn't really matter and he did not wanna end up explaining the Labyrinth stuff. "How long did that take?" Arianna wondered. "That musta been a bit of a hike."

"A couple months. I'm really glad it was summer." Not so glad about what was going on that summer, but he wouldn't have made it if it'd been any colder. Or if he hadn't lucked out and not had to deal with rain ever. "So who's next?"

"Not me," she immediately shot back. Yeah, that was fair; they all knew how well that trip went.

"Eh, what the hell, I'll get mine over with," Brenna said. "Me and Rory had to hitchhike across the country and it was a bad time. I had my gun, but I didn't have any bullets… not even normal ones. And Rory…"

"…wasn't the best fighter," Diego finished for her.

Kieran had taken classes from Rory; he hadn't spent much time with him outside of that, but he couldn't imagine him ever picking up a weapon. He could imagine him tracking down new demigods; it was pointless to try and skip if he was teaching. He'd just pick up his lyre, excuse himself for a minute, and come back with whoever was missing.

"Y-yeah," she agreed. "We started off on a train… and almost got eaten by monsters, so we were gonna just take the bus but we didn't have a ton of money and he wouldn't let me steal shit so we ended up hitching rides with people and it took a lot longer than it had to. On the plus side, the only monsters we saw after the train were ones we could run away from so there's that."

"Wow, that's…" Arianna didn't seem to have any idea how to finish her sentence, which Kieran got because he wasn't sure how to start a response to that. Maybe because he knew more of the details, and he really wished he didn't.

"Somehow not the worst time Rory had bringing someone to Camp, because he found me too," Diego commented. "Well, him and Brenna did, anyways."

Really? He'd literally never mentioned that she'd been there before. "Oh gods, you're gonna tell them about that?" Brenna asked.

He ignored her. "I was just minding my own business, hiding from a cyclops in an alley with my sister, when this idiot decided it was a good idea to try and mug me before Rory could stop her."

"Oh my fucking gods, I did not," she grumbled. "Mugging is for people who can't pick pockets."

"That's what you're gonna get offended by?" Arianna exclaimed.

"I mean, I invited them to my house after all that, so who's the real idiot there?" Diego responded. "Anyways, that was before getting to Camp, I just like giving her shit about it. We did end up fighting that cyclops and it was not a good time, but the actual trip was great. Mamá drove us and no monsters were around and because she drove we have photographic proof of Brenna's emo phase." [2]

"Which you will not show them unless you want your mom to see the tape from Karaoke Night," Brenna threatened.

Gods, Kieran had forgotten about that night. They weren't allowed to have another, ever, for… reasons, and that was honestly for the best. But he knew exactly what she was referring to and he would pay to see that reaction footage. "Nice try, but there's no way you brought that."

"It's in my bag, waiting. I still wanna know where you found heels in your size."

"…where Chris found heels in my size," Diego muttered. "He claims they were from the Camp store. I don't think he meant Camp Half-Blood."

"Y'all planned that?" Kieran blurted.

"Okay, which duet did you do?" Arianna asked innocently.

Diego sighed. "So you know that one musical with Olivia Newton John and John Travolta…?"

"That's Grease. Oh my God, you guys sang 'You're the One That I Want?' And dressed up?" Kieran didn't actually look back at her because he was still driving, but he knew she had to be grinning.

"There's more duets in that movie… but yeah, it was that one. I did not plan on singing but certain people talked me into it when Clarisse said no. I kind of forgot that Travis was recording."

"Most people did, between all the distractions and whatever Connor used to spike the punch," Brenna commented. "You don't have that excuse, though, 'cause you saw me not drinking anything and decided I knew something you didn't. Side note, Kieran? How the fuck did you know it was spiked?"

Because his mom had taken him to so, so many parties he had no business being at as a small child. "I know when water's bad," he responded. "And I know Connor."

"Fair enough."

"Honestly I wouldn't care so much if my mom saw that, I'm more scared of what she'll show you," Diego said. "Tía Carmen always had a camera out and Tío Manolo used to buy really embarrassing outfits for me before I could read."

"My dad did that too," Arianna sympathized. "I think he was worse to my cousins, though, 'cause they're all guys who went through Spider-Man phases…"

"Was Spider-Man a thing when he was born, and did your grandparents know about it?" Brenna asked.

Kieran wasn't sure why that'd matter… and then he remembered what Arianna's last name was. "They named their kids Peter, May, and Ben," Arianna replied. "They knew. Dad always volunteered to take all the kids to town for trick-or-treating just so he could dress up as Uncle Ben."

"Yeah, he would've gotten along with my uncle – we didn't really celebrate Halloween, but there was a costume day at school and I decided it was a good idea to be Simba one year… yes, there are pictures, but I think I hid them pretty well."

"Speaking of hiding things, how're we gonna deal with all our weapons if we end up going to your place?" she asked.

"We have a gun safe – Brenna, the code changed and I don't know it, so just wait for Mamá to come help you with that – and there's a rack by the door for other stuff. Alicita won't mess with anything, she knows she's only allowed to use her knife. We told her I wasn't allowed to touch it, which is true, and she decided that was fair."

"Dude, why wouldn't you be allowed? Also, are we all good with stopping for food?" Kieran had seen a sign for Dunkin Donuts and was already signaling. No way would anyone say no to that.

And he was right, they all agreed. Diego answered his first question with, "It's been passed around a lot, and I'd rather not learn everything the people before her did with it."

"Okay, that's fair," Kieran conceded. He kept forgetting that was a thing. "So, are we gonna risk going inside, or…"

"We'll have to, I doubt everyone has the menu memorized," Diego said.

"I've never actually been to one of these," Arianna confessed. "So do they just sell doughnuts, or…?"

"There's other stuff too," he explained. "And we're all bringing weapons in and getting everything to-go."

Kieran had just assumed that, but the reminder was a good idea. "Okay, y'all, I'm parking; do we wanna just do the IM too while we're stopped anyways?"

"Yeah, after food," Brenna responded. "Diego, you've still got that prism, right?"

"Yep, and it's actually sunny now so we should be able to get a good rainbow."

"Awesome. Can you order for me? I've gotta stop in the bathroom…"

"We can wait for you," Arianna offered. "I don't really know what all's here anyways…"

She was probably just trying to be nice, but Kieran had snuck out of Camp enough times to know that Brenna had someone else order for her literally every time there was a menu to cover up how much she struggled with reading. He did the same thing at new places, because making decisions was hard, and then just ordered the same food every single time. "Oh no, go ahead, we need to be fast, right?"

And before anyone could reply… she left the car and went in by herself. Because of course she did. But at least that time it was a small building and they knew where she'd be. Still, they wasted no time going in, because it was pretty busy and it didn't look like there were monsters, but monsters loved eating doughnuts almost as much as they loved eating demigods and okay in hindsight it was kind of a bad idea to go to a doughnut place.

They managed to at least get their food before they saw any monsters. Three harpies wearing construction uniforms. "Dude, what are you doing?" Kieran whispered, because it really looked like Diego was gonna draw his weapon. "They haven't even looked at us!"

"It's called a pre-emptive strike," Diego muttered, though he did at least take his hands off his halberd. Like, if it'd been a different monster, fine, but harpies weren't dangerous?

"I think they just wanna go to work," Arianna murmured. "We'll probably be fine?"

She did not sound sure about that at all but she was right. "We will be. As soon as Brenna comes back, we can leave," Kieran said. "Also, they literally don't have weapons, so…"

"Oh. Wait, she should've been back by now… does someone wanna go check on her?" Diego asked. It'd been, like, five minutes tops, though?

"I guess I'll have to," Arianna sighed. "Since you guys… are guys. Be back in a sec."

"Someone's adjusting quickly," he noted once she'd left.

"Yeah," Kieran agreed. "Last night…"

Diego cut him off, which was fine, because he wasn't gonna finish that sentence anyways. "How are you holding up? Not gonna lie, that one kind of got to me."

"I'll be okay. But we really could've…"

"I know. As much as I hate that it was Jess's ex, Brenna used the hell out of that connection."

Her what now? "So you remember stuff?" Kieran asked, opting for a safer question.

"Sort of. Gods, we got lucky, I thought she was gonna tell us to kill them, and… uh… oh hey, look, they're coming back."

"Good, let's get the heck out of here." Kieran had not thought about that possibility and he didn't really want to.

It only took about a minute for the girls to re-join them. "What'd I end up with?" Brenna asked.

"Egg and cheese croissant and some tea thing that I already forgot the name of," Diego replied like they totally hadn't just been talking about anything abnormal. "We all got these ham and egg muffin things, and there's doughnut holes for everyone."

"Cool. Wait, three coffees? Since when do you like coffee?"

"I don't, mine's a hot chocolate. So are we gonna just stand in the parking lot to do the IM?" he asked as they walked back to the car.

"Sure, why not," Kieran answered. "It won't be the weirdest thing anyone's seen."

They did eat first, and while they were doing that the harpies left the store. "Did you guys see them before?" Brenna whispered. "Are we gonna…?"

"Yes, and no, we're not gonna fight," Diego sighed. He sounded almost disappointed about that.

"Good. Did I miss anything else important?"

Okay, yeah, they probably should've told her about them, but Kieran had honestly forgotten. "Nope," Arianna assured her. "You guys ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Kieran mumbled. "Let's… make a rainbow, I guess."

Diego got out the prism and they definitely looked like a normal group of teenagers standing in a circle sacrificing a coin to a goddess. "O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering," Kieran intoned, because he was the one with the drachma, it was just easier that way. "Show yourself."

"Lady Iris is running the store right now – this is Fleecy. Can I take a message?" a woman's voice called. Seconds later, a nebula with fluffy white hair came into view. "Not a lot of people call to ask for her directly, you know."

"That's kinda sad," Arianna said. "Well, I guess tell her we appreciate her taking messages for everybody. Not really why we called, but it's really nice of her to give us a way to talk to people without attracting monsters. Must be pretty hard work."

"You don't know the half of it. Sometimes people use the big rainbows, and it's so hard to connect with those… ah, sorry, I'll be sure to pass that on. Why did you call?"

"We were hoping she'd be able to tell us why Olympus isn't accepting calls right now," Brenna explained, surprisingly tactfully.

Fleecy sighed. "That explains why I've had twelve attempted calls from Chiron. But I honestly don't know what's up with that, Hera just showed up at the shop and said Iris shouldn't take messages either way from Olympus. To give her a bit of a break. Really it's giving me a break, I handle a lot of IMs while she mans the counter."

"Iris has a store?" Arianna asked.

"Oh yeah – Rainbow Organic Foods & Lifestyles. R.O.F.L. for short. If you ever come out to No-Cal, stop by! We have Ding-Dongs!"

"We'll keep that in mind," Kieran responded. "Thanks, Fleecy."

"Any time! Bye now, good luck getting those answers!"

Her image dissolved, and mortals had definitely noticed the four of them talking to someone who wasn't there. It was time to get moving again.

They didn't get back on the interstate right away, partly because Kieran noticed they were running low on gas, but mostly because they hadn't learned much from Fleecy. Like, okay, Iris had talked to Hera, but she was Hera's messenger in the myths, that made sense. Plus, they didn't have a timeframe for that.

Their "game plan" was to find a gas station, borrow their phone if they could, and keep heading south. They got maybe two blocks before red and blue lights appeared in his rearview mirror.

Footnotes:

[1] - "Papaya" can be slang for lady parts in Spanish depending on where you go, and calling someone a "mango" is like saying they're sexy. Definitely gotta watch how that's used. Kieran asked why Todd was laughing at a produce sign once when he was like 4, didn't quite get a real explanation, and at this point he's too afraid to ask.

[2] - Minor spoilers for Redacted but Diego's skipping over quite a bit here.

Author's Note: Sorry for skipping August, guys, I had... let's just say A Lot going on. I'm in a fun spot with this fic where I have at least something for every chapter... except the next three. Still, I've been having a bit more free time at work to write so hopefully I can get back to our regularly scheduled updates.

Next time: CW cops, anxiety, body horror ig? I didn't tag that the last time it came up in chapter 10, but this time it's not just a discussion. Speaking of that chapter though, I'll be doing the same thing with a footnote and a tl;dr for those who'd prefer not to read the scene.