Chapter 9
Guess He's Not Poseidon
"I'm not Poseidon." I heard the man say. "You fool! All of you mortals are fools! How dare you forget me, the true father of the seas! I am Oceanus!"
"Who?"
"Oceanus! Father of the waters and the oceans! Titan!"
"Chill, dude. I know, I kind of figured it out. Your name sort of gives it away. So, what do you want? I need to speak to my uncle."
"Your uncle isn't here, he's still in Maine. We are in Florida."
I could sense that we weren't in Maine anymore and that he was telling the truth, it was definitely warmer here. At least I think so, it was kind of hard to tell underwater. And I was still wondering how I could breathe underwater. As if he could read my thoughts Oceanus said, "I've given you the gift of being able to breathe underwater, at least for right now."
"Ok, that's great, thanks, but I really need to see my uncle. What do you want from me?"
"I just need you to do one thing. Please tell your uncle and the rest of the Gods that not all of us titans are terrible. Atlas's daughter, Calypso is good, I know that she's not a titan, but her father is one. Just please, help me. I hate having to hide out all of the time, never being able to show myself and not being able to enjoy the oceans. Please, daughter of Artemis, please help me."
"Ok, I will help you, on one condition. You bring me and my friend Connor as close to Poseidon as you can. I really need to deliver this package to him."
"Yes, child, I will do this for you. Just make sure you tell them."
And with that Connor and I were teleported back to Maine, right on a beach where a man was fishing with a trident. Now, the last time I assumed someone was Poseidon I was wrong, so this time I just yelled.
"Poseidon! Poseidon! I have a message for you!"
The man with the trident turned around and said, "Yes, child. I am Poseidon, and who might you be."
"I am, Arrow, the daughter of Artemis, and cousin of your son, Percy Jackson. My father is the brother of Sally Jackson. And this is my friend Connor Stoll. We have a message for you."
Poseidon took the letter I had, and read it. He furrowed his brow as he read and his eyes seemed to dart around after he read it. I wanted to ask him what it said, but I decided that was none of my business.
"Poseidon, before you go, I have something to tell- well ask- of you. I met Oceanus today, and he told me to tell you and the rest of the gods that he wants to come out of hiding. He says that he isn't a bad titan, and that he would be fine."
"Yes, thank you for both of this messages, child. You said you were the daughter of Artemis? Interesting. I thought she vowed to stay away from men. Anyways, I will consider Oceanus's plea. Goodbye, Arrow, and tell Percy to be safe, and say hi from me."
"Will do sir. Also, could you tell Hermes we delivered your message, he said he'd help us if we delivered it for you."
"Yes, Arrow. Goodbye."
And with that Poseidon rode away on a cloud of water. Pretty cool if I do say so myself.
"So, Connor. Could you, like, summon your dad or something? We really do need to get to the moon."
"Uh, I guess I could try, but I'm not sure if it'll work. You know how notorious gods are for not listening to their children."
I saw Connor close his eyes and it seemed as if he was talking to Hermes in his head. We waited for about 20 minutes, but he never came. So we decided to just stay by the beach for a while.
The moon was coming up, and it was full. I've always loved the moon. Not just because my mother's the moon goddess and I'm so connected to the moon, though I guess that's a big part of it. It's just that the moon's so beautiful and constant. It always goes through its phases and you always know that the moon's there the whole time anyway. I've always loved the stars, too. I used to camp with my dad when I was little and he'd tell me stories of the constellations. My best friend when I was younger was Native American, and they had such wonderful stories about the moon and the stars. I could listen to her grandparents talk about it all day.
Connor and I discussed all of this as we watched the sky get darker and the stars and moon get brighter in the sky. He wanted to know what happened to my best friend, but I couldn't tell him, at least not now. Mitena has her own adventures. Maybe I'll tell Connor about her later, as she has just as much power as I do. Connor told me about Travis and how they always stuck together through thick and thin. He was disappointed when Travis left for college, and he didn't really understand why he did it. I think I understood, though, maybe he just wanted to get away from it all. I guess I could understand that, though I never had it as tough as the kids at Camp Half-Blood did, I never fought any wars or anything. I wish I could say I was a hero, but I hadn't really done anything heroic yet, my father wanted me to have the closest thing to a normal life, but I just couldn't do it.
Connor wanted to know how I found out about my prophecy. Thing is, I didn't really understand it was a prophecy right away. See, I was looking at colleges, and I was visiting NYU, New York University, and this red-haired girl came up to me and her eyes became weirdly green and she started talking in a weird voice. She then told me the prophecy, "Daughter of the moon, reaching adulthood, will save or destroy the people of Camp Half-blood." I didn't really understand it then, but I told my dad about it later and he told me it has to be a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi. I thought that was weird because the girl snapped out of it after she said those words and seemed to forget that she ever said them. She then just started talking to me and told me her name was Rachel Dare, and that she recognized my last name as one of her friends, named Percy. I told her that he was my cousin and then we went our separate ways. I later found out from Percy that she was the Oracle of Delphi.
Connor seemed to be getting tired after I told him all of this, so we decided to just go to sleep on the beach, under the night sky. I stared at the stars until I fell asleep.