Chapter 3: Explanations

"What does that mean? Like, I'm smart or something?" I thought for a second I had misheard or something. As stated previously, I was almost the poster child for normal.

"No, Athene." Here he paused and took a deep breath. " You're not entirely human." Said my father.

"Ookay…" Well, that was a bit of a shock. How often is it that you're told you're not human? I was hoping more and more with every passing second that this was all a really, really bad dream.

"I am your father, but your mother is… Athena." Said my father, all the while examining my face for my reaction, and from the look on his it seemed he was confused that I wasn't freaking out.

" Huh. Really?" I asked. I was trying really hard to control myself, but a note of hysteria found its way into my voice.

" I didn't take this nearly as well as you when I found out Athena of all things was in love with me." Said my father.

Well, I guess I know where my mother went when I was born. I had always been told my birth had gone wrong and that she had died in labor, that I was lucky that she had clung to life long enough for me to be born. Now I know that's not true at all.

"That's great dad" I murmured, totally unaware of what he was saying.

"Well, now that this 'family reunion' is over," said goon number one, breaking into my reverie.

He reached for my dad, grinning like a maniac. That's when I decided to have hysterics. Can you blame me? I've been captured by some inhuman goons made by the most temper mental god I've heard of, and on top of it all, he wants my father and me dead.

"Don't touch him!" I screamed, lashing out at the goons attempting to catch my dad and to control me, the screaming freak on the ground.

"Hah! Look at her go!"

I didn't think that they'd enjoy this. I stopped, and lay panting on the ground. I guess with their rock-hard muscles, they couldn't feel any blow I managed to land.

"Alright, now it's time to come with us." Said Goon Number One.

This time I let them get away with slinging my father and me over their shoulders. They carried us for what seemed like five seconds, and then they stopped, untied our feet, and set us on the ground.

"You can walk from here," said Goon Number Two. For time's sake, I'll call him G#2, and his buddy G#1.

I wondered why they didn't let us walk in the first place, until I saw where we were. We were in a palace that seemed light as clouds, and for all I know that's exactly what it was made of. I felt my ears pop, so I knew we were either up high or down low. I'm pretty sure we were up high, because this place didn't look like hell to me. Everything was sparkling, especially the walls. They were a light blue that was almost white, and looked like they came straight out of a storybook.

The decorations were even better. Beautiful tapestries covered the walls, depicting heroes fighting a Cerberus, which is a three-headed dog, Chimeras, which are mythical creatures that had one head of a goat, one head of a lion, and two snakes for a tail. To add to that, it also breathed fire. There were a bunch that I'd never seen in my books as a young child; there was a whole menagerie of mythical creatures!

"Hey stop gawkin' and start walkin'!" said G#2, giving me a hard shove in the back.

"Alright, alright!" I mumbled. "If Ares wanted to capture us he could have gotten minions with at least half a brain!"

I trudged through the sparkling palace, my father walking beside me. We were in awe but not exactly enjoying being captured. In a place like that, I don't know how I managed to be unhappy, but then again, who enjoys being captured?

We finally reached sparkling doors with sparkling doorknobs that sparkled next to sparkling vases filled with seemingly sparkling flowers. Did I mention it was sparkly?

The goons looked at the doors for a moment, hesitating before talking to the guard who I hadn't noticed was standing there, because his sparkling armor was the same sparkling shade as the doors. I couldn't hear all of their words, because they talked in low voices, but this is what I managed to make out:

"Half-blood…didn't know…kicked me" At this G#1 held out his shin, which didn't have a mark to be spoken of.

"Ok, but Ares isn't in a great mood right now…you might want to be careful what you say to him" finished the guard, in the tone of voice that implies the conversation was over.

"All right, we'll be careful," grumbled G#2, and didn't really sound like he meant it.

"Come on," said G#1, shoving me when he said it. I don't know what that guard said to him, but it definitely didn't improve his attitude.

We were herded into the room behind the sparkling blue-white doors, and as we did, we heard a booming voice say something, but I was too in awe to hear it.