The wind rustled through the trees. The humming of Aeolus filled the forest and the animals of Pan happily sang along. Light danced along on the forest floor over the roots and fallen branches with the guidance of Apollo's lyre.

A smile tugged at the edge of Perseus' lips. This was his home. He had spent his entire life playing in these forests with his sister. They played chased each other around tree trunks, hiked the snowy mountains and played hide and seek in the local cave at the shoreline. This was his home and this may be the last time he sees it.

The thought made him take pause. Doubt crossed his mind, not for the first time since setting off on his journey, but he quickly pushed it out of his mind. There was no backing out. He was already so close to the edge of the forest; he couldn't give up his dreams now. He pulled the straps of his bag taunt and the water skin at his hip jostled at the movement. It shouldn't be too long until he found the road.

Perseus froze. The loud sound of twigs snapping turned his attention to the jaggedly moving bush behind him. There was a spike of fear jabbing down into the pit of his stomach, but his fears were quickly quelled when he saw the source of the noise.

He greeted with the sight of a very annoyed big sister. Korinna swatted away a stray branch and turned to Perseus with a thunderous look that rivaled their mother's. The adders of her hair hissed in annoyance. One even bared its fangs at him, making a show of releasing venom at him. Korinna quickly soothed it, stroking the snake's scales while chastising it,

"Now, now, we've talked about this. It's rude to bear your fangs, even if my little brother is being stupid and annoying." The snake gave a short hiss in response, but she was no longer focused on them, instead, she was back to glaring at her brother. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Um...Taking a walk?" He attempted to lie. It wasn't technically a lie, he lied to himself, he was walking… all the way to the nearest human city against Mother's strict orders to avoid them at all cost.

Korinna simply raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms. "I saw your plans. I know what you're up to Percy."

"You read my notebook! Not cool Kora." His sister simply smirked.

"It's not like it was very interesting anyway." Perseus just huffed before he stomped away. Kora quickly followed after him, jogging to catch up with his stomping.

"You're not going to stop me. I'm going whether you like it or not."

"What will Mother say?" She argued back. The black adders of his own hair were now hissing furiously which once again riled up Korinna's.

"Really, Kora? I'm not a little child anymore. I'm 15 and I can make my own decisions." He snapped back. Korinna stopped walking which caused Perseus instinctively stop too. She stared dejectedly at him,

"There's nothing I can say that's going to change your mind is there?" He didn't respond. Sighing and breaking her gaze, she looked down at her leather bag. What Perseus had failed to notice before was that her bag looked to be very full considering they hadn't planned to do anything to do today. Had they? He didn't remember Kora saying anything this morning when he left.

"Let's go then."

Percy's eyes widened in shock. He had obviously heard wrong.

"What?"

"You heard me. Now hurry up I want to at least reach the edge by nightfall." She picked up the hem of her peplos, hiked past him, leaving him there in shock with his mouth open. Kora was coming with him. Kora, his big sister, the girl who refused to do anything that upset their mother, was coming with him. Another moment went past before she called over her shoulder at him, which fortunately sprung Perseus back in action.

"Why are you coming with me?"

"Because if you're going into the mortal world, then I have to come too, to make sure you don't get yourself killed."

"I can look after myself. I'm not that stupid." He retorted. Kora let out a breathy laugh,

"Could have fooled me." She teased him. The sister gave her brother a small shove that sends him stumbling in the nearest bush. When he re-emerged, there was a look of determination in his eyes.

"Oh, it's on." Kora took off running, laughing as Percy chased her.

Eventually, the two gorgons came towards the edge of the forest. Percy hesitated as he stared at the last bit of foliage that stood between them and the mortal world. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the point still stood. There was no going back after this, they would be within the view of mortals and possibly more scarily the gods.

"We can still go back if you want, Percy." Korinna chimed in hopefully. Her brother merely glared in response and she shrugged nonchalantly while she muttered: "At least I tried."

No turning back, he stepped forward, manoeuvring his way through the underbrush. There was the road. The giant slab of grey concrete and asphalt seemed to go on for miles in both directions. Now which way to go now?

"Left or right?" Perseus turned to look at his sister and then turned to both look left and right. Both paths looked identical to each other.

"Erm...Right?...No left."

"You have no idea where we're going, do you?" Percy just looked away sheepishly. "Didn't you bring a map with you? There are loads at home." Korinna said. Her brother pulled out the map and shoved into her hands.

It was one of the many maps from the pile in the back of the cave, where they kept all the stuff that they had collected over the years from unsuspecting humans over the years. Perseus had loved to play with the various objects in their collection. He spent hours guessing the uses of the strange human devices. He even made his mother teach his sister and him English so they could they could read human books. It wasn't soon after that the gorgon children started asking to go to the human world and of course their mother denied them every time and even went as far as trying to scare them with cryptic warnings of the outside world. Korinna stopped asking after that, but Percy persisted. So when he finally decided to go to the human world, he picked out some of the most useful looking gadgets in the vague hope that they would be useful. The map was one of the things he had picked up but what he had failed to realise at the time is that he didn't know how to read a map. Neither of them knew how to read a map.

So Percy watch amused as his sister, eyebrows furrowed, stared blankly at the map in silence. Kora stayed in silence for several minutes, practically glaring at the large piece of paper with all its stupid yellow squiggly lines and splotches of green and blue.

"You finished pretending you can read that map?" Her brother chuckled. She just glared in response. He let out a short hiss of laughter before pulling Kora in one direction. "Come on, let's just go this way and hope for the best."

"Really? 'Hope for the best', that's your plan?"

"Don't be like that, Kora. It's not like I'm making you come with me."

"Well, someone has to look out for you. Plus it's not like I don't want to see the human world as well." She paused and sighed. "It's just what if we come across demigods? You remember what Mother told us? Demigods kill people like us without a second thought and then we'll end up in that horrible pit." Perseus grabbed hold of his sisters shoulders.

"Stop worrying. We are going to be fine. You know why? Because we have each others' backs. We can do this, Kora. Don't overthink it." After Percy's rallying talk, Korinna found herself calming down. She started to nod at her brother and he smiled brightly back. They continued to hike beside the road, pulling at the straps of their satchels and quietly humming the lullaby their mother used to sing to them.

The sun was setting and civilisation was still nowhere in sight. The stars were becoming visible through the veil of the atmosphere and the noises of the forest seemed a lot less friendly in the descending darkness.

Kora didn't think it was safe to camp to the road so the siblings moved into the forest to camp. That was where they found the lake. It glistened as the last remaining rays of sunlight danced off the surface of the water. The water itself was perfectly still, which looked rather odd to the siblings who had grown up next the waves of the ocean. Yet despite that, there was a calming feeling that came with sitting next to the lake. Perseus filled his waterskin with the water from the lake while Korinna collected wood from the tree line.

Suddenly, Percy was spitting out the water, drawing his sister's she raised an eyebrow at him, he sheepishly responded,

"Saltwater." pointing to his waterskin and then the lake. Now it was Kora's turn to laugh at Percy. She dropped the wood into a pile and approached her sibling, grinning.

"This is why you should be more cautious, Brother. Here take some of mine." She teased before offering him her own waterskin. He washed out his mouth and handed the skin back.

"Thanks."

Kora just continued to smile as she took out her scrap of metal and flint to light the fire. The first time the sparks refused to light the kindling. She tried again. This time successful. The kindling started to crackle and the heat was building rapidly as the rest of the wood fueled the flame.

"You did it!" Percy exclaimed happily.

"Yes, she did. It's a good job, she's here." A voice said behind him. Preparing himself to fight, Perseus turned around. There emerging from the lake was their father, Lord Poseidon: god of the seas. He was smiling down at Percy.

"Otherwise, my dear son, I think you'd last very long." He said. The boy crossed his arms, careful not to look into his father's eyes, arguing back,

"I would be fine."

"You just attempted to drink saltwater." Poseidon deadpanned. Percy's face turned red as he looked to the floor, the snakes of his hair writhing and twisting in embarrassment, meanwhile, his sister took a piece of cloth and tied it around her eyes before moving towards their father.

"Korinna, my clever daughter." He greeted as she hugged him.

"Hello father, what brings you here?" She released him from her hug. Poseidon sighed, his age showing through the cracks of a broken smile. Not that Korinna could see that.

"I need your help. Help from the both of you." He admitted. Perseus quickly retrieved his own cloth, tying it over his eyes he rejoined his family.

"What has happened?" He asked.

"Zeus's-" Lightning and thunder clouded the sky. "master bolt has been taken. He's furious and clueless about who has taken it. I can feel a storm brewing and it's not going to end well. I cannot personally interfere and this is why I need your help."

"What do you want us to do?" Percy asked.

"I need you two to deliver this." He placed an object in Kora's hands. She took a moment to feel the object.

"Father, what is it?"

"A weapon, although right now it is disguised of a mortal pen."

"Where are we taking it?"

"To Chiron, the trainer of heroes. He is in New York."

"New York." Kora screeched.

"Don't panic, my child. You need to be strong. You two can do this." He assured her. "Oh, and before I forget. These are for both of you." He placed a pair of tinted black sunglasses in each of the siblings' hands. "These will protect others from your gaze. It wouldn't do for you both to go around New York turning mortals to stone. It attracts bad attention." There was another crack of thunder. This one louder, angrier, than the previous. "I must go, any longer here and my brother might accuse me of conspiracy. Good luck, Perseus and Korinna." With that, Lord Poseidon walked back into the lake.

They removed their cloth binds in favour of the sunglasses. The glasses made the world seem even darker than before, but anything was an improvement on the cloth. They turned back to their forgotten fire, eyes glued on the rippling light. They sat next to the heat source for who knows how long. Korinna focused on tending to the fire occasionally putting another log on the fire, all while not trying to fall apart. They had been given a task or a quest if they were true demigods. It was important and Kora was honoured that their father trusted them enough to do this, but why did it have to be New York? Of all the places to go. New York was full of other monsters and demigods, and most worryingly it was the home of the gods. How were they going to survive? Yes, they were gorgons, but that doesn't mean they can take on the entire city.

"How we going to do this?" Percy broke the silence and Kora's train of thought. Her mouth stumbled a bit trying to find the right words.

"I don't know." signaling the end of the conversation. Eventually, they did fell asleep around the campfire.

Perseus dreamed of a large grand white building. He watched as a man with the lower half of a horse. Quickly he realised that it was a centaur, perhaps Chiron? He was a centaur if Percy remembered correctly. The centaur was walking up the stairs of the grandiose building. He led behind him a line of mortal children. What was odd was that one of the children was carrying a trident. Their father's weapon of choice, Percy thought. Was he a demigod? Maybe a half-brother? Percy watched as the boy walked up the stairs and into the large building. Finally, the gorgon took the time to try and read the words on one of the scarlet banners mounted on the building. He thinks they say, 'The Met', but he not too sure. Kora was always better at reading English. The building faded out of Perseus' mind and the vision ended.

Meanwhile, Korinna had fallen into a fitful sleep, nightmares swirling around her head. She saw lightning striking down against the growing tsunami forming in the sea, listening as a harsh voice laughed evilly. The scene changed and in front of her was a pack of bears. Standing on their back paws they closed in, trapping her in a corner. She could see that her hands were holding clumps of stone dust. The bears growled and bared their teeth before clearing a path. Then a silver stag appeared. Its silver glow was blinding as it raised and charged towards her. Kora didn't know what to do; she was frozen to the spot in fear. Bracing herself for the impact, the girl raised her arms in defense. Suddenly, everything was submerged in darkness.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully, this is better written than the old version, but if you find any mistakes please tell me. Any criticisms are welcome. If you like this, then I'll try to continue writing this. Right now, I'm in the middle of replanning the plot, it will be slightly different than last time.

So until next time, bye