Chapter 29: The Sue Pulls A Gandalf[1]
(Peter)
I watched as Miss Sunshine used her overpowered demi-god abilities to ride around all day and talk to everyone except me.
"Paint a picture," my unicorn steed said snidely. "It shall last longer and perhaps give your pitiful life the illusion of meaning."
"Nobody fucking asked you," I snarled.
The unicorn lifted its head to stab me again, but I'd gotten used to dodging and easily evaded its attempt.
I couldn't believe I had been afraid of these mouthy bastards before. If I had realized that I was finally out of Apollo's nightmare theater, then I could have used my own demi-god powers to pull a Hama and steal water from the flowers around me to deal with these damn monsters.[2] Instead, I'd cowered like a total noob. I couldn't imagine what New Moon would make of my actions…or rather I could, way too clearly, and it wasn't good.
As if reading my thoughts, the unicorn said, "You are the worst type of scum."
When I didn't immediately protest, it went on to say, "Someday, you will fall in love, and then, as is right, your heart shall be broken into millions of shards that not even the most devoted mother could put back together and when that happens you will remember this day and know it was my divine will."
"Would you just shut the fuck up?" I asked, before dodging yet another attack.
I swear the unicorn had been insulting me nonstop for hours. I was so done with these dumb creatures. When Miss Sunshine had appeared out of nowhere, whatever spell they had cast on me broke. I still saw them as beautiful, but I could now tell that they were pompous asses that thought I was the worst for cross-dressing and fooling them.
Cross-dressing wasn't high on my list of likes either. Though after dying and suffering fates worse than dying, being forced to sit around in a pink dress was not worth getting pissed about. Not compared to the true troubles that plag—[3]
I scowled through another stomach-turning bout of nausea.
"You can feel your own wickedness roiling inside you," the unicorn said.
"Why don't you worry about your own fucked—" I leaned back to avoid the horn, "—up sense of morality?"
The unicorn angrily retorted to this challenge but I ignored it. Swearing at the animal helped keep me grounded. That didn't mean I had to listen to every barb it threw my way. I had plenty of my own.
Speaking of guilt and self-loathing, I had the unpleasant task of seeking pardon from…
Asking forgi…
Apologizing!
I needed to apologize to Miss Sunshine. Except she was still talking with Bianca.
Earlier I had been so sure Miss Sunshine was coming over to speak with me, but then she'd stopped to talk to Grover. I didn't envy him. The Sue had looked royally pissed. Obviously, I hadn't exactly wanted to talk to her after that, but I didn't even get the chance because she shot forward to the front of the group, and now she had decided to speak to Bianca of all people.
I wondered if they were talking about Bianca joining the Hunters like Percy and her did in Chapter 12.[4] It was a bit late for that. It seemed like these unicorns were taking the place of the Erymanthian Boar which was random, but I had more important shit to worry about than the strange substitutions this fic was making.
Since Miss Sunshine seemed too preoccupied for me to talk to her. I went back to the thoughts that helped me feel like myself without inducing homesickness i.e. PJO, Greek mythology, and trying to outsmart a plot twist. That's right, I'd spent a lot of my free time mulling over the simple but all-important question of who the fuck New Moon was.
I just could not get over what Apollo had said before. I had spent like an entire year as New Moon. Ignoring the strangeness of me not knowing her name or identity automatically, I should have more than enough clues to figure it out.
I had several facts and conclusions thus far:
_1. New Moon was a long way from her home. Either she was from an alternative timeline or my world or something. That would explain her talk with Hestia, the fact that her Thaila had a different father, why none of the gods here had a clue to who New Moon was, and why New Moon was being so secretive in the first place.
_2. New Moon was probably not a goddess or nymph like Zoë. That's why she called Artemis Lady Artemis and why she didn't disappear during the end of the world.
_3. New Moon is not a normal mortal or demigod either though? Besides being a hunter of Artemis, she didn't freeze and Hestia implied she was special.
_4. New Moon has pale skin that she doesn't like. She mentioned this multiple times.
_5. New Moon's name might start with the letter N. There was no telling what Thalia was about to say, but it seemed likely.
_6. New Moon was not trusted by the other hunters. New Moon might not be a goddess but she was old. She talked weird and just knew a lot of stuff (charming naiads, how to find hidden hot springs, the entrance to Atlantis, and the titan war). Despite her obvious experience, she wasn't an officer for Artemis and she hadn't been particularly liked before Annabeth and Thalia had arrived. That indicates that something probably happened in her past that made her untrustworthy or unwanted by the other Hunters.
_7. New Moon was not interested in the upcoming titan war. Her actions seemed to be centered around assisting Annabeth and her belief that only I can help Annabeth for some reason.
I wish I had more to go on, but that was all I had been able to think of.
However, if I assumed New Moon's true name started with an N, I could theorize a bit more. N names weren't that popular in Greek Mythology, so if I was right and New Moon wasn't a goddess or nymph that eliminated nearly everyone from both PJO and mythology. In fact, there was really only one famous mortal woman in Greek Mythology with a name that began with the letter N:
Niobe, Queen of Thebes.
She was the one who thought it was a good idea to say her children were better than Artemis and Apollo. In most myths, Artemis and Apollo straight-up murdered the entire family, but in some, a boy and a girl are either turned to stone or spared but marked for life by being turned a pale green color.
If New Moon's name did start with an N, my guess was that she was a child of Niobe. It made perfect sense. The only problem was that this fic loved fucking with me, so I suspect—
"Hi Peter!"
God Damn it!
I whirled around just in time to see Miss Sunshine use her wind powers to clamp something onto my wrist.
"Please watch over this wrist wrapper for me," she said quickly with that overly large smile of hers. "It was a gift."
I tried to still my racing heart and said breathily, "Hey Sunshine."
At this point, I knew I should launch into my apology. It was the other thing I had been thinking about all ride, but I hesitated.
I knew that it shouldn't be a big deal and that Miss Sunshine was normally fairly easy to please and that my life might literally depend on me apologizing and that it was just the right thing to do, but…I don't know. I just really didn't want to, alright?
"Well," Miss Sunshine said, lifting up her hand in a wave, "Ba—"
"Wait!" I said, doing my best to ignore my qualms about this whole apology thing, the bubbly feeling in my stomach, and my unicorn's ongoing and unhelpful mutterings which is probably why my words came out sounding more New Moon-ish than I would like. Still, I managed to say, "I wish to talk with you."
My reward for biting the bullet was this bit of nonsense. "Walk?" the Sue said, "Whoa! Right! Walking…" [5] Then she started giggling manically which was as creepy as it sounds.
"Uh, Sunshine," I began because she was being weird even for her.
But the Sue didn't let me finish. She just babbled, "Walk later, way be?" [6]
Okay…so she wanted to go on a walk later? Did she mean she wanted to chat then? "Alright," I began, "but—"
"Wonderful," she said, cutting me off, "Wiedersehen, Peter!" [7]
Wiedersehen? The fuck?
I wanted to question her further, but there was a gust of wind, and Sunshine's unicorn stopped while mine kept going. I turned around and called to her, "Come back!"
The Sue didn't seem to hear me. In fact, she was quickly becoming a speck. I watched her and her unicorn turn around and veer off to the southeast.
Where the hell was she going?
My unicorn spoke up again, saying, "Even tainted women draw away from your foul company. For even they have standards too high for the lowly dirt stain that you—"
"Would you just shut it!" I snapped, not bothering with swear words. "I get that you're angry about the cross-dressing thing and giving us a ride," I told the pissed-off golden horse, "but seriously how is it my fault that you approached me?"
"You sat in maidenly splendor. A lone girl who is dressed like that expects to be approached," the unicorn said.
That drew my attention. I faced forward and leaned to the right to look the unicorn in the eye. "What you just said is supremely fucked—" I leaned further right to avoid its horn again, "—up." The animal sounded exactly like the assholes who used to date my mom.
"You and your guttural tongue speak only filthy lies," the unicorn retorted. "Someday you shall be buried—"
I ignored the rest of its slander and turned back to look for Miss Sunshine again. At first, I only saw the leavings of today's sunset and more flat-ass desert, but then in the corner of my eye, I spotted something to the east heading towards us fast.
Good. She was…
Wait.
I squinted. That wasn't Miss Sunshine and her unicorn. The dark object wasn't tall enough and it was too wide. I stared as it got closer. It looked like a silver sports car.
Or no…
It was a giant…
Slay?
Shit.
I suddenly knew exactly what was barreling toward us.
"WATCH OUT!" I shouted, trying to force my unicorn to move out of the way.
The unicorn refused. "Retribution! Trash!" it cried before a harness appeared around its head and it jumped into the air. Suddenly, we were flying with Artemis's slay behind us and I finally realized something.
"You're not a unicorn," I said.[8]
The not-unicorn let out a derogatory grunt and then it did a Star Fox barrel roll in mid-air.[9] It wasn't the only one. Soon Grover, Zoë, Bianca, and I were all falling from our steeds, and to make things worse, cause why the fuck not?
We weren't even heading for the ground. Instead, there was an ominous, square hole opening up before us.
"ANN-DYE!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Fuck!"
We plummeted through the hole and kept on going. Our screams echoed back at us. I made sure to keep my focus upward and moved my arms to see if there was any water nearby to work with. But since this was the fucking desert, nothing happened. All I could do was watch as the opening above us began to close.
The last thing I saw before I was totally engulfed in darkness was Artemis's slay circling overhead with the four seriously misrepresented Ceryneian Hinds smiling smugly down at us and trilling with laughter.
Footnotes
[1] In the Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, Gandalf has a bad habit of just disappearing from the party to go do random stuff. The wizard gave no apologies for letting the weaker dwarves and titular hobbit, Bilbo, fend for themselves for a chapter or two.
[2] In Avatar the Last Airbender, Hama is a master water-bender of the southern water tribe. She mastered the art of blood bending. She also showed Katara (the water-bender of Team Avatar) how to drain the water from a field of flowers.
[3] Yeah, Peter is still suffering from New Moon-ism.
[4] Chapter 12 of PJO Titan's Curse is called I Go Snowboarding With a Pig. The pig in the title is referring to the Erymanthian Boar. Poor Peter is seriously out of touch with the plot right now.
[5] More wiggles. Translation: "Talk? Oh! Right! Talking…"
[6] Translation: "Talk later, maybe?
[7] Wiedersehen is usually said as "Auf Wiedersehen" which means goodbye in German.
[8] To be fair to Peter, as a child of Poseidon, he should only be able to talk to horses. It makes sense that he'd assume these creatures that look like unicorns and talked like horses were unicorns.
[9] A Star Fox barrel roll is different than an actual barrel roll. Taken from the Star Fox wiki: An actual barrel roll is when a plane makes a complete rotation on its longitudinal axis while following a helical path (think DNA), approximately maintaining its original direction. It is sometimes described as a combination of a loop and a roll. However, in the Nintendo game, Star Fox, a barrel roll means doing a rapid Aileron Roll which is a full, 360-degree revolution about a plane's longitudinal axis. Also, if you type 'do a barrel roll' into Google, something cool will happen. Try it!
A/N: First off:
Less than 10 footnotes this chapter. Welcome back Peter! This arc is officially done!
Second off:
Today is 5.22.2022 and my 5-year anniversary of being on this site is coming up this month, so please allow me to get sentimental for a bit. The Sue's Curse is my 4th fic on this site and the interesting thing was I wasn't sure whether I'd ever publish this one. It was just supposed to be an editing exercise for NaNoWriMo, but then march4fun suggested the footnote format like in the princess bride, and then it suddenly all made sense. The rest as they say is history.
Going by the numbers, this is my most popular fic which is weird for sure. Every month I look at my view pages and I am wowed by how many people from all over the world tune in to this crazy story. It's been so fun polishing this fic and sharing in the mystery of New Moon, the silliness of Andi, and the tribulations of poor Peter. It's been hard too. I always thought that publishing in a big fandom would be…different I guess. I think despite my success, this has been quite humbling. I now have proof it's not just the fandom that affects my fics' popularity, but me and my weird tastes. I thank everyone who has stuck with me thus far. We have a ways to go, but I hope you all enjoy the journey as much if not more than I did.
Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting this fic.
I hope you all continue to do so!
Thank you also for listening to this self-indulgent prattle. If for some reason you're curious about my other thoughts on my other fics or what I'm building up to this month, keep an eye out for uploads from me this May as I celebrate my 5-year anniversary of being on this site.
Otherwise:
Until we meet again!