Grover

I knew something was wrong the minute I stepped over the camp boundary. The problem wasn't visible necessarily, the lushes forest still loomed over head and Thalia's tree stood tall and proud. The assortments of twenty cabins were all still there and there was no sign of fire. The Hunters weren't here. Don't get me wrong, Thalia is a perfectly nice person and Artemis is to die for, but problems tended to break out when the gang of immortal teenager girls cross the boundary. The problem in camp lay in the mood.

The people were there, it was the middle of summer after all, but they seemed distant. No one was playing in the volleyball court. Clarisse sparred angrily at a dummy in the arena. The archery range was clear. A couple younger campers walked around with no real purpose. There was silence throughout camp. A type of saddened silence.

It was strange. I had never seen it this way before. No, even before the Second Titan War, there was more noise, chaos, and the people were driven. Of the five so people I had seen, they all felt defeated. Now being a satyr, I am able to pinpoint this feeling as I walk past another girl. Katie Gardener from the Demeter cabin was watering a garden with shaking hands. The stream of water from the can was broken and unsteady. She met my glance when I passed and bit her lip as to keep from crying. Oh no. Either Grover had become the big bad satyr, lord of the wild man or Katie had felt sad for me. I'm going to go with pity.

Juniper. Oh gods of Olympus. Please let her be alright. I hadn't seen a fire, but her lifeline is so fragile… Or maybe she had gone out of range of her tree, taken some berries and somehow… something hadn't worked. No. My girlfriend wasn't dead. By now I was racing full speed, panting and gasping through the forest to Zeus's Poop Pile. Sorry, I mean Zeus's Fist. At first I almost had a heart attack. One of her neighboring nymphs was crying. Then I saw her. Alive and well.

"Juni!" I call out. I used to call her June, until I was told by none other than Annabeth that June, as in the month was named after Juno who happened to be the Roman equivalent of Hera, who happened to hate Annabeth. So I switched over to Juni. Of course I asked Juniper first, but she agreed.

My girlfriend looked up her tinted green face streamed with tears, her eyes looked bloodshot behind the green shade. I looked past her at her bush, still completely healthy. I come forward and hug her. NO questions asked I'm simply reassuring her. Hey, that's what the book said about being a good boyfriend.

Juniper pulled away from me far too soon, she hiccupped lightly and brushed her tears away. The nymph grabbed hold of my hands and looked in my eyes. "Grover, I'm so sorry I need to tell you this, but honey," she paused to hiccup, "Percy and Annabeth, they.. they fell in…" Her voice died off. I wiped some of her fresh tears of her face. "Tartarus. They fell in Tartarus." She just blurted it out. Like ripping a bandage, quick and easy. Except it felt like I was the bandage, being ripped away, quick and painful from the ground that supported me.

No. No. It couldn't be true. I pulled myself away from Juniper and left her. Just recently had someone I met on one of my journeys told me there are five steps to grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I had rolled my eyes and laughed. I mean I can tell if someone is lying, so why should I have denial. I am calm, why be angry? Why bargin with the stone faced gods? Why be depressed if the sun still shines and the plants still grow? Why accept something I always was fine with? Maybe then I hadn't thought it deep enough. Denial, did not mean not believing, but not wanting to believe. Check. That is where I was now.

Heck right I didn't want to believe. I didn't want to believe because it wasn't true! I refuse to believe my best friend and his girlfriend (who on her own had been a great friend as well) had fallen into the depths of the unknown. It wasn't possible. We had been on and survived so many adventures together… A little voice nagged me, 'You knew this was coming, one day, without you they would get in trouble.' Anger coursed through my veins. It was all my stinking fault! Mine and the gods.

This peace-loving satyr let out a choke of air as I shouted into the sky, "You'll pay! This is all your fault. Why couldn't we all just be normal for once!" I hope my voiced reached Olympus. I hope they felt guilty.

I groaned and collapsed onto the ground. No thunder rumbled as an after affect from my comment. No wave swooped me into deep sea. No owl pecked on me until I died. Death was an interesting concept. One a nature lover like myself incounters a lot. But it gained a whole new meaning for me when I heard how Percy had met Death. A sidenote Annabeth had mentioned in her Iris message. I had done my research and… All I could hope is my friends won't be seeing him again anytime soon.

I frowned as a sudden though struck me. In a way, I had just grieved in four of the five stages. In a strange, speed through satyry way. I knew there would still be more to come. In a way I was still in the initial shook. I was 80% of the way to get passed it. . Yet, I still didn't accept it. Not one bit. My vision was still clouded over from my tears and my hearing distracted from my thoughts. I felt like I was the only thing alive in the forest. I stayed sitting here, like this for what seemed like hours thinking it through. Percy; Hero of Olympus and Annabeth; the brains of any Action, his Wise Girl. They had to survive.

I pull myself up and glance over the crystal waterway of Long Island Sound. Cleaner than before thanks to Percy. Taking a breath I made my way back to Juniper. Maybe I didn't need to accept. Maybe I just could hope instead. Yeh, that's what I would do. They weren't dead. They would survive. That's what life is all about isn't it? Moving on but never letting go?

I would see them again.

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