Quest For The Third

xStarletx

A/N: Well here we are! Chapter 5. Anyone as excited as I am. If you've read my profile you'll know that I am attempting to finish more of my stories, 5 before the end of the summer. Though I know this one won't be finished anytime soon I still want to get this on the road to being finished. Right now I'm less than halfway finished the actual rough draft, still got a lot more to go. Though I hope to be finished soonish, sometime before the new year. So review and tell me what you think guys! Review make me wanna finish this faster!

Chapter 5: I Start Talking to Plants

I wasn't sure how long I had been in Eden, time was pretty wacky in this garden. How do plants grown without a sky? Or maybe the red above us was actually a sky and not rocks like I thought they were. What did it matter anyways? And was that an actual sun rising and setting, and if it was why was it when the sun was gone so was the red sky? What did it matter anyways? The point was that Eden was pretty messed up for a garden, but then again normal people didn't have a god for a father or had to worry about Cyclops' or hellhounds tracking them down like I did.

I had tried to keep track of how many days went by when I was Eden but I wasn't sure how the time differed from the human world. It looked like one day in Eden was only a quarter of a human day, but then again it could have been a whole day, just really fast, or it could have been super fast and a whole year had actually gone by. It didn't help that Clarynda had been illusive about the whole matter.

It wasn't too bad here though. There was plenty of fresh water, compliments of the waterfall – sometimes I would swim in it, you know it was pretty awesome not having to worry about Poseidon drowning me here, he'd never find this place. The fruit tasted amazing here, sweet and crispy just like I liked them, and whenever I was hungry a tree would supply me with whatever fruit I was looking for. But I was dying for a cheese burger or a milkshake.

Clarynda was with me most of the time at first, but recently she had been out in the real world more than in her garden. I could tell she was worried about something. She was constantly pacing and talking to herself, something about plans. I tried to get her to confide in me but she was adamant that I couldn't know.

I would ask her to let me go, I begged I pleaded, I tried to reason, I even tried to threaten, but Clarynda would make that face where she looked like she was going to cry those big dewdrop tears of hers. She would tell me she couldn't, that I needed to stay in Eden when Zeus and all of Hade's animals couldn't find me – where she could keep me safe.

Still I would search for an exit, but I couldn't find any. I would walk out, heading in a straight line, thinking I'd find a wall or some sort of barrio but I always ended up right where I started. I supposed the only way out was to have a tree swallow you and spit you out somewhere top side.

As I mentioned before, time ran differently here, but if I had to guess Clarynda had been gone for at least a month, two maybe since her last visit. I was officially worried. But what could I do? All I had to do was wait, and I hated that the most. I wanted to ask her why I was feeling so awful most of the times, at first it didn't last too long but it was getting increasingly worse. But with Clarynda not around and no real idea what was happening I tried to find things to keep me entertained, one of those things was swimming. I never learnt to swim before but I knew if I went too deep or needed help the trees would pull me out, and that was definitely comforting.

I climbed out of the tree house Clarynda had given me heading towards the pond where the water from the waterfall collected. I was walking between the rows of bright pink tulips and polka dotted roses. I ran my hands over their petals like Clarynda always did to all her flowers here.

"Hello my beauties." I cooed. The sun – or whatever the light source was – was rising above me. The flowers usually followed the brightness and most closed their petals at night when the sun was gone as if they slept too. There were other flowers that stayed open at night and would glow, it was always entrancing to watch them especially when they started to dance but they only did that when Clarynda danced with them. Today however, the flowers followed me not the sun, I suppose they finally got used to me.

"It's a beautiful day for a swim don't you think?" I asked them as they sniffed my hand. I suppose that was a yes. A tree dropped a large ruby red apple into my hand.

"Thank you." I graciously bowed. Of course there weren't just plants in Eden there were animals there too. Clarynda had created all of them, every now and then she would take out a statue made out of clay and breath on it and the next thing I knew it was an animal ready to frolic. It definitely explained why she healed them with mud. I wondered where she got all the clay?

I dipped a toe into the water, not too cold and not too hot, just a perfect for a dip as usual. I jumped into the water and began to swim the best I could. Which was really just a deformed version of doggy paddle. I could sense the branches lingering above me, no doubt ready to plunge after me like they've had to in the past.

"I'm alright." I called out to them. They didn't listen to me. I was about to tell them to back off when I realized what I was doing. I was talking to PLANTS! Sure Clarynda talked to her plants all the time, but she had always been a little slow and a little odd. I was turning into her. I just had to get out of her before I went insane.

I mentally went over all the areas I checked wondering if I hadn't checked somewhere yet. And it hit me – the waterfall! Birds make nests behind the water fall all the time, maybe that's what Clarynda did. I paddled my way over to the waterfall and ducked under in hopes of swimming beneath it and popping out the other side. It wasn't the best idea soon I was stuck in a current that hand me spiraling underwater. I could feel my breath leaving him, I had hit so many rocks I was certain I had broken bones and just when I thought I was a goner I felt something snake around my ankle.

Lucky for me a willow had managed to pull me out just in the nick of time. I wasn't sure how long I was asleep under the protective branched but when I awoke I had air dried, and the white and red nurse flowers were bending over me.

They dropped their tear like sap onto my wounds which were healing rapidly, it was almost like liquid ambrosia. I sort of felt guilty, this wasn't the first time they had had to heal me, in fact it wasn't even the fifth. It was like the tenth or eleventh time they've come to my rescue.

"Thanks for saving me again." I whispered to the nurse flowers and to the willow. The tree bent forward and dropped my shoes on the floor for me. I quickly got them on again and headed for the waterfall. The trees were following me again, probably thinking I was going to try to swim under again but I had a better idea. I walked past the pouring water to the rock mountain behind it and sure enough there was a narrow pathway leading off into the dark. I followed the ledge and found myself in a large cavern.

I looked back to where there would have been an opening say if the waterfall hadn't been there. I could see now that I would have never gotten up the other side. The bank was made entirely of wet and slippery clay – well now I knew where all the clay came from. The cave basically consisted of rows and rows of statues mostly deer and horses, a few pigs here and there. There were shelves of tiny birds and fish. And the end of the rows were a few people pushed up against the wall. The only one I recognized was Luke. He looked much older, probably somewhere around twenty two or twenty three and he had a ragged scar going down his cheek. The last statue had a tarp over it – well a natural hemp blanket that is. Curious I hurried over to it and pulled it off. I was looking at myself in statue form. It was wearing the full armor I had discarded months ago and it looked just like I did when I first came here. Like all the other statues it held it's hand out it's palm beckoning me to put my palm to it. I almost did until Clarynda suddenly appeared through a door that looked like it had been made entirely out of clay. She pushed the door shut in time for me to hear someone call out for her. She looked panicked.

"Are you ok?" I asked her She shrieked and jumped turning towards me, she pressed a hand to her heart once she realized it was just me.

"Thalia, you scared me! How did you get in here?" She asked me. I noticed that her flowers were taking a long time to regrow in her hair, that wasn't normal at all.

"I started talking to plants. I wanted to see if I there was a way out cause I haven't been feeling well recently and then I found this." I told her pointing to her statue.

"Oh don't worry about that. I'm not done with that yet. Let's go back into Eden. So not feeling well?" Clarynda asked, ushering me out of the cave. Her hands were shaking and her honey brown eyes had lost some of their luster. Something was clearly wrong. When we got out from behind the water fall it was nighttime. The glowing flowers were out, swaying at the sight of Clarynda. She lead me back towards the tree house.

"It's been getting worse." I told her, explaining about the queasiness I felt when I woke up and how It would go away after awhile but it was definitely taking longer for that to happen nowadays. Clarynda looked worried like she wanted to tell me something but she was scared to.

"Ok, well I'm not going to lie its going to get worse before it gets better. But the trees will take care of you." Clarynda murmured.

"What do you mean? Aren't you staying?" I asked.

"I can't but I brought you something." She told me, she snapped her fingers and a tree dropped a brown paper bag at my feet. I could smell the grease wafting from the bag. I pounced on it. A cheeseburger and fries.

"Awesome!" I cried. I remember how Clarynda was a major vegetarian and realized that this must have been very uncomfortable for her so I ate quickly. She sat beside me staring at her plants as if she were afraid they were all going to attack her.

"Don't worry, I'll be sending you home soon." Clarynda confided. I saw how sad Clarynda looked and wondered if she wanted me to stay here with her? I couldn't help but wonder what she wasn't telling me, but I was just so happy to have someone to talk to other then the plants that I didn't want to ruin it. I'd ask her later, before she left.

Thalia – Ch. 7

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