Author's note (and apologies): Dear who-ever-still-feels-like-reading this. I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT. I just needed a break from fanfiction, but I kept thinking about this story and how amazing it is that people have read it and that I really want to finish it, especially if there's still one faithful reader out there waiting for its ending. I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting for so long, I understand that most of you have probably given up on Erin's story by now, but if you haven't, it would mean the world to me if you gave the new chapters a read. I PROMISE I will finish this story within the next two months.
So, this is my "Respite" chapter, as a sorry after the long wait and a cheers to any new or old readers. Erin and Ryan just got back from Maria Di Angelo's death site and Metanoia, the goddess of regret, gave Erin a warning that she will have to come to terms with her past if she wants to succeed on this quest. Just a quick summary for you, as it's been so long.
Now, I only own my OC's and my plot.

Lots of love,

thegirlwiththetrident

Chapter eighteen: Respite

Ryan didn't say anything, even after I came back from my little stroll with Metanoia. It turned out we'd only walked around the corner and that her personality manifestation or whatever she'd called it had really been just an illusion.

Without agreeing on it, we walked back to where the ruins of the hotel were. Only — the ruins were gone.

"They probably only reveal themselves to non-mortals, and we've already seen them." Ryan mused. His face was still ashen, and there was so much sadness in his eyes that I couldn't help but reach out for his shoulder. "Are you okay? Metanoia, she said -"

"I'm fine, Erin." Ryan snapped, shrugging my hand off. "Whatever that goddess said, it's none of your business."

I was about to snap back at him to quit being such a jerk. but then I caught his gaze, and there was a silent plea there for me to stop talking about what was bothering him. So I did.

"Okay." I took a deep breath and told Ryan everything the goddess had said, as detailed as I could remember it. His eyes narrowed when I relayed what Metanoia had explained, or rather not explained, about the danger in my future, and he seemed just as puzzled as I was when I told him about what she'd said about my past.

"And you really have no clue what she meant?" he wanted to know, scrutinizing me as if wanting to catch me lying.

I looked him squarely in the eye. "None. And if you think I'm not telling the truth then you can just - "

"Woah, calm down." he held his hands up, and to my outrage there was a grin on his face. "I never said you were being dishonest. Why should you? We're in this together."

That surprised me. So far Ryan had made it relatively clear that he was no fan of mine, and the feeling was quite mutual. Still, the way he'd said 'we're in this together' made my insides grow a little warm. Not that that meant anything of course. He was still a jerk.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see what it all means." Ryan sighed. "It's not like we could expect any clarity when we're on a quest that concerns the Spirit of Delphi."

I nodded. No, clarity was not to be expected when dealing with oracles. Rachel had made that pretty clear. It's no wonder she seemed so bitter, I found myself thinking. Something about that thought bothered me, but I couldn't understand why it seemed important. I decided to ignore it for now.

"So, what do we do now?" Ryan asked, rummaging through his bag. We'd stopped by a supermarket on our way out of the town, and we'd basically raided it. Both of us now had backpacks stuffed with food, a sleeping bag and a torch. I liked my new backpack, it was dark turquoise and, though small, quite roomy.

"Well, I think there's really only one option." I murmured, turning this way and that, scanning the deserted landscape.

"And what's that, Sherlock?" Ryan mocked, now munching on a muesli bar.

"Well, obviously I'll have to find another portal, Watson. Metanoia said I already have all the abilities I need to seize my destiny or something like that, and as I don't see myself developing any other unexpected skills, I guess I'll just have to continue with the only remarkable thing I can do."

I half expected Ryan to argue, but he just nodded. Perhaps he was a little tired; I know I was.

"Listen, do you feel up to another portal-thing today?" I asked, trying to make my voice casual rather than concerned, cause I somehow suspected he wouldn't appreciate that.

Ryan shrugged. "Not really. But there's no shelter out here -" he gestured around us at the open road, "and I don't wanna go back to that town with goddesses on the lose in there. So I guess that really does only leave one option."

He was right, and so I doubled my efforts to find another portal in the air. Because, that's just what I like to do for fun, you know?

"You know, I think you're getting better at this" Ryan said after we'd picked ourselves up from the ground. We'd just gone through the portal I'd found, and had once again landed in a sprawled heap, on freshly turned earth.

"And why's that?" I asked, brushing dirt of my jeans. I felt dizzy, like I'd just spent an afternoon on a Merry-go-round from hell.

"I don't feel like dying, for one. And I think the suffocating was at least a second shorter, this time." Ryan grinned at me, adding to my confusion. Was he actually joking? I hadn't thought he knew how.

"Well I'm glad you think I'm improving. Maybe we should develop a ranking system and then you can give me a report at the end of the quest." I wiggled my eyebrows to show him I wasn't being snarky, just playing along with the joke.

"Yeah, maybe." Ryan chuckled. He had a nice laugh. For an idiot, of course.

Looking around at our new location told us we'd landed in a freshly dug square of earth, just next to a road on one side and a small park on the other.
Houses framed the other side of the pavement, and a taller building was just off to our right.

"City?" Ryan asked, and I nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. Definitely not a town." I said, gesturing to the tall buildings of a CBD rising into the sky in the distance.

Next to me, Ryan rubbed his arms, and I noticed how cold it had become. Also, the sun was low in the sky, which meant we might only have an hour of daylight left.

"Do you think we should find a place to sleep or check this place out first?" I wanted to know, suddenly glad to have someone who could tell me what to do. This whole depending-on-yourself-questy thing still made me a tad nervous."

Ryan turned to the little park behind us. "Find somewhere to sleep." he said firmly, and I almost sighed in relief. I was so exhausted, I could have slept quite happily on a pile of rocks.

"Come on." Ryan murmured, and made his way to the fence lining the park. I moved to follow, but after only a few steps the ground suddenly rushed up to meet me.

I barely had time to fling my hand out when a pair of strong arms caught me and pulled me up.
I tried to focus on Ryan's face but my vision was too blurry. For a moment I worried I was having something similar to the fit back at camp, but then I recognized the tingling sense of extreme tiredness.

"Sorry." I mumbled, barely able to keep my eyes open. Where had this sudden lack of energy come from, I wondered sleepily. "Too ... tired."

I thought I saw Ryan smile, though that could have been a hallucination.
"Bet that portal-jumping takes its toll, huh?" he whispered, lifting me up into his arms, as if I weighed no more that a medium sized dog, which I knew I did.

"You're strong ..." I felt the need to say, stifling a huge yawn.
"Okay, you really need to sleep. I'll take first watch, mhm?"

That was the last thing I heard before the lights winked out.

When I woke up, it was because sunlight was making the world behind my eyelids turn a pinky red. Yawning, I blinked, looking around.
Trees, a playground in the distance, a few benches spread here and there. We were still in the park.

A look to my left told me that Ryan had (surprise!) not vanished on me again, and I was secretly glad. His eyes were closed, but the moment I sat up they opened groggily.

"Hey." I said. "Weren't you supposed to wake me for my watch?"

"I tried." Ryan yawned, rubbing his eyes. "But I don't think a raging hellhound could've woken you."

I felt guilty, and the nagging thought that I was not made for this quest pushed itself into the spotlight again. Go away, I told it.

Nuh-uh, it laughed. You can't even stay awake for watch.

"Get some sleep now." I told Ryan, trying to brush over my embarrassment by adopting a brisk, commanding tone. "We can go explore later, just get some rest first."

Ryan seemed reluctant, but his tiredness must have won over, cause eventually he nodded.
"Okay, but don't let me sleep longer than two hours, yeah?"

I nodded absently, rummaging through my backpack for something edible. There were apples, a slightly squashed banana, packets of chips and cookies, a box of muesli bars and water. Perhaps not the most wholesome of diets, but questers couldn't be choosers.

I ended up eating two apples and half the muesli bars, cause I was starving. I'd always had a healthy appetite, but since starting on this quest I'd become a ravenous monster. Seriously, I could've eaten all my food, but luckily some of my restraint remained.

In the end I let Ryan sleep for three hours, and though he was annoyed when I woke him up, I thought he secretly agreed that he'd needed the rest.

When we broke up camp a few minutes later, I noticed Ryan looking uneasily from side to side.

"What's up?" I asked, hoping nothing was.

"It's weird..." Ryan frowned, fingering his golden watch which I now knew was the disguise for his sword. "We haven't met any monsters yet. Usually on quests..."

"Well don't jinx it!" I cried, frantically rushing to the park fence and knocking on the wood, three times.
Ryan stared at me, then laughed. "You really believe in that stuff?" he mocked.

"How can I not?" I demanded. "After finding out that our world is actually ruled by the Olympian gods, how could I not think that it's dangerous to tempt fate? Be glad we haven't met anything yet, even though you're wrong, 'cause we have!"

Puzzled, Ryan asked "What?"

"Those creepy eyes we saw in the forest? We only avoided that encounter cause the dryad intervened." I shuddered at the memory.

"Oh, that." Ryan said, waving his hand like it was a through-away experience. "That was nothing, I've had much worse on other quests. One time, there was this lake monster- "

"Don't!" I interrupted him, then said, quieter "Please don't. It's...scary."

I expected a look of contempt to pass over Ryan's face and maybe a condescending remark about how I wasn't trained blah blah blah, but to my surprise he nodded, and shut up.

"So where are we going?" he wanted to know, after we'd crossed the road.

I didn't want to take responsibility, but somehow I knew this was my call. I was, after all, the one who had a weird connection to the Spirit and not Ryan.

So, I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate again.

"That way" I finally said, and pointed to the tall building I'd noticed when we'd arrived.

"What's there?" Ryan wanted to know, though he'd already started walking toward it.

"I think... it's a mall." I stated slowly, and the closer we got, the more certain I became.

There was a general buzz of, well, mall-ish atmosphere the moment we reached the front doors.
Not too many people were around but apparently it was enough for Ryan to start fingering his watch/sword again, as he usually did when he anticipated danger.

To be honest, this did not entirely reassure me about my decision making.

Hesitantly, always looking over our shoulders and doing swift checks of the crowd, just to make sure nobody was sprouting antlers or something, we entered the building.

And then I had no idea what to do.

"Erin? Where to now?" Ryan asked, not looking at me but staring suspiciously at an old lady who had smiled at us from a bench nearby.

I noticed Ryan was more glaring than staring and hissed at him "Cut that out! She's just being nice!"
In return, I got a glare as well.

"Just lead the way and let me deal with security." he retorted, his head held arrogantly high.

"Oh, you stupid twat" I muttered under my breath as I turned away. I was in no mood now to tell Ryan that my super-sensory skills had left me just when we needed them most, so I decided to go explore … and hope that they came back.

We'd been walking around for maybe fifteen minutes when something finally caught my eye.

It was a store, non-descript looking at first, with an orange sign reading "Music the Corner" hanging above the door.
Inside the window there were CDs, Ipods, Boomboxes, basically anything music related.

We'd almost passed it when I glanced at the sign again – and faltered.
Beneath the normal letters, strange ones were appearing, twisted into symbols I couldn't read. And I thought I knew why.

"Ryan, look at the sign." I whispered, pretending to check out an old CD player on display.

I heard a sharp intake of breath as Ryan read the sign and then heard his muttered words: "Ancient Greek."

I rolled my eyes and looked at him. "Yeah, I'd gathered that. What I don't know is what it means."

For a moment Ryan looked confused, then he caught on. "Oh, sorry Erin. I forgot..."
He trailed off, then cleared his throat and translated:

"Music the Corner. Customers interested in our special Olympian deliveries, come through to the back."

Tell me what you think! New chapters are on their way xxx