It's the last chapter! Waaaaaahhhhhhh! :(
I suppose it's a bit symbolic... Summer's ending (I start school within the next week), and this story is too. D':
Thank you so so so much for all of the kind things you guys have said about this story! I'm glad we broke 100 reviews before it had to end. Congratulations to via-iris-message, the 100th reviewer!
The italics below the author's note are from last chapter - to refresh your memory, in case you somehow forgot what happened. ;)
And enjoy! :)
Disclaimer: Nope, nope, nope. I own nothing and nobody. Nobody: Odysseus pretended to be Nobody when fighting the Cyclops Polyphemus on his island... Ah! I'm turning into Ella the harpy! :P Well, I still own nothing. Except the plot.
Then Katie looked up and realized that Travis was nowhere in sight. Worse, a twelve-foot-tall monster with two gryphons on a leash was staring right at her. She cursed, something she rarely did (after all, every little kid at camp looked up to her, and she had to set a good example). "Hello, Demeter's daughter," the humanoid chuckled. "I've been waiting for you."
Her worries:
To be fair, Katie put up a decent fight. But the monster knew how she fought, carried a sword five times as long as her knife, and had two eight-foot-long bird-lions at his beck and call. She knew she'd lost before she'd started.
"Did you have to tie me up with these disgusting leashes?" she complained ten minutes later. "I mean, honestly, they're made of freaking human flesh. That's nasty."
"Oh, don't complain, daughter of Demeter," the monster growled. "Your life is too short to be grumbling constantly."
Katie fell silent. Really, she'd just been talking to take her mind off of her worries. For one, well, duh, she'd been captured by a giant man who was ruthless enough to have two ruthless gryphons for pets. For another, she didn't know what had happened to Travis. As far as she knew, the monster could've killed him and fed Travis to his pets already. Katie didn't know what she'd do if that was what had happened. She only prayed that he'd gotten away and that he wasn't stupid enough to come back. She was dead meat. But it was possible that he still had a chance.
"So, fat and ugly," she taunted, trying to keep the monster from possibly getting bored and going after the son of Hermes, "what are you? You don't have enough tattoos to be a Laistrygonian, you have too many eyes to be a Cyclops, and you're too small to be a real giant."
"I am Bargodus!" the monster roared. "Gaea has created me anew to keep the giants on track! Some of them may be smart, but they tend to fight among themselves like the Titans – family rivalries and all – and they have trouble working as a cohesive unit. I keep their eyes on the prize, so to speak, and am the very impressive commander of the giants!" He said the last part in a booming voice obviously intended to intimidate her.
"Aren't you a bit... small for that? How do they respect you?"
"Bah, pesky demigod," Bargodus grumbled. She'd obviously hit a sensitive nerve of his. Katie didn't feel guilty in the least. "Gaea and my gryphons keep them in line if any dare oppose me."
"So what you're saying is that you aren't strong enough to have authority, so you have your mommy and your guard doggies do it for you," Katie said, attempting what she hoped was a sneer.
"You annoy me, plant-lover!" Bargodus howled. "I want to kill you, and do it now!"
"Then why don't you?" Katie asked smugly, secretly hoping the answer wouldn't be something like, I don't know, actually. So I will. Die, daughter of Demeter!
Luckily for her, it wasn't. "Because I want to bring that son of Hermes back here and watch the tormented look in your eyes as I torture him. Then I'll torture and kill you and watch the tormented look in his eyes. Then I'll kill him! Oh, it will be glorious!"
He really was ruthless. "Lovely plan," Katie said, trying to keep the terror out of her voice, "but I see one flaw."
"Really?" He was amused. "Please, point it out."
"You'll have to catch that son of Hermes first."
"I have one of my pets tracking him down as we speak!" Bargodus proclaimed. "Although," he muttered as an afterthought, "Death really should have been back by now. But I'm sure he will not fail me…"
"You name your pets?" Katie questioned. "How... cute."
"They are not cute!" he howled. "Their names are Death, Blood, and Torture!" How imaginative, Katie thought. "And Death is my finest track-and-capture gryphon! Your son of Hermes doesn't stand a chance!"
"Oh, I think he does," Katie said, silently praying, Please let him stand a chance. Please let him stand a chance. "You don't know him like I do."
"Ah, but you don't know my gryphons like I do," Bargodus retorted. "Still, though," he muttered, "it wouldn't hurt to send reinforcements. After all, the girl is secure..." He looked up at her and bellowed, "Still, though, it wouldn't hurt to send reinforcements! Torture! Go after the son of Hermes!" Nothing happened. No streak of lion-bird disappeared into the woods. "Torture! Go after-" Bargodus turned. The gryphons were gone. "Torture?"
"I'm afraid your pets won't be able to help you anymore," a voice yelled out from the trees. A voice Katie worried was oddly familiar. "You're on your own, Bargodus." And Travis – yes, Travis, he'd been stupid enough to come back for her after all (and she loved – er, hated him for it) – stepped out of the forest and charged the monster.
He should've stood as little a chance as Katie at defeating Bargodus. He didn't have any memories of sword fighting, so he shouldn't have been good at it. His ankle had been so badly sprained and swollen that he shouldn't have been able to stand or walk, let alone dodge attacks at lightning speed. He'd broken his right arm and shouldn't have even been able to hold a sword. But there he was, dancing around their camp, using his right arm and putting weight on his ankle like there was nothing wrong with them at all. He hadn't been injured yet – and Katie couldn't say the same for Bargodus. Ichor flowed from slashes on his arm and cuts on his back. They weren't serious, but they were damage. Best of all, Travis moved too quickly for Gaea to bog him down. Mud squelched at his shoes, but it could never grab hold. Katie never would've believed it, but he was actually winning. Needless to say, she was impressed.
Finally, finally, he managed to deliver a crushing blow to the back of Bargodus's head. He was temporarily out for the count, which gave Travis time to make his way over to her and cut at the leash until it broke. Suspended a few inches above the ground, Katie stumbled and fell straight into his arms when she was free. "Travis..." she said slowly, as she tried her best not to cry, "you idiot... you shouldn't have come back for me... What if he'd gotten you too?"
"But he didn't, Katie," Travis answered, "and that's what's important. Now come on. Are you going to help me fight him, or should I do this on my own?"
Katie took a deep breath, banishing any remnants of fear, and grinned at him. "Where's my knife? I think it's time I bring out my ninja-goddess side."
Honestly, Bargodus didn't stand a chance after that. He scratched them slightly a few times and bruised Katie's shoulder, but all in all, Katie thought that she and Travis did the most damage. It was pretty obvious after they'd scattered the commander of the giants into drifting golden dust.
When they were done, they just stared at each other for a moment. Then Katie ran and jumped into Travis's arms. "How... how did you... how are you...?"
"Not falling over with pain from my injuries?" Travis smiled. "Well, I ran pretty far into the woods when those things were chasing me, pretty much tuning out my ankle's very annoying screaming. But then I tripped over a tree root and one of Bargodus's gryphons tracked me down pretty easily. Luckily, I'd picked up my sword while sprinting. I stabbed it, it crumbled into dust, and I scattered its dust like you'd told me to so that it couldn't reform. Then I heard Bargodus – luckily that guy doesn't do quiet, really – say, 'Hello, Demeter's daughter, I've been looking for you,' and I knew you were in trouble. I had to help you out. So I picked up a giant stick with my not-broken arm and hobbled over here. It was a good thing you put up a fantastic fight, by the way. It kept the gryphons distracted long enough for me to find the canteen of nectar and drink it until I stopped feeling injured."
"So you risked the god-drink with magical properties after all?" Katie grinned. "I didn't have to waste thirty bucks on a splint and sling?"
"Ah, I'm sure we'll need them soon enough," Travis laughed. "After all, we're pretty accident-prone, right? Anyway, then it was simple to take the other gryphons out while you smart-mouthed Bargodus – nice job, by the way – and you know what happened after that."
"Mm-hm, yeah, I do," Katie smiled at him. "You saved my life."
"You would've done the same for me," Travis said, turning deep red. "It's no big deal."
"It is a big deal," Katie answered. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear. "Thank you for everything, Travis." Then she stepped back, looked at him, and decided to do what she should've done six months ago. She kissed him.
It lasted a long time, and she closed her eyes and enjoyed every millisecond. Then, finally, they broke apart, and Travis was holding her tightly and she didn't want him to ever let her go. She looked up at him nervously, biting her lip. He had a really strange look in his eyes. What was going through his head right now?
Her worries were reassured when it was his turn to whisper in her ear. "Well, you were conscious this time, at least."
For a second, the comment didn't register. Then her mouth dropped open slightly and she stared at him. "Travis? Your memories...?"
"Totally restored," he grinned. "Your kiss was magic."
"No," she said finally. "It was just the right stimulus to jog your memory." Then she kissed him again.
"Oh, Travis!" she said when they pulled apart for the second time. "I have something for you." She ran back to where she'd dropped everything when Bargodus had gotten her and picked up the packages she'd bought. Then she hurried back to him.
He raised an eyebrow. "70% cacao dark chocolate subtly flavored with orange zest? And sparklers?"
She shrugged. "That store had the randomest things. I mean, I walked past an aisle with all the flags of the world – there weren't any American ones, but he had plenty of Algerian and British and Swedish flags in stock. After that, I wasn't all that surprised when they had sparklers and chocolate together in aisle three." She smiled at him. "We don't have a picnic blanket, and it's the middle of winter, but it's nighttime... And besides, they have Christmas in July, right? Why can't we have Independence Day in December?"
He grinned back. "That sounds like a great idea." They lay down next to each other, opened a bar of 70% cacao dark chocolate subtly flavored with orange zest, and lit some sparklers (as a pyromaniac, Travis had a lighter on him at all times).
"You know, Katie," Travis said eventually, "how I gave you that spare sleeping bag?"
"Mm-yeah?" She said it vaguely, still wrapped up in the glow of the moment.
"Well, it wasn't a spare," he told her. "It was Nicholas's sleeping bag, and I bribed him to give it to me for a night so that you could use it."
"Really?" she looked up at him. His face was its usual tan shade – not bright red, like it went when he was lying. And the statement hadn't been said like a question. He was telling the truth. Katie only wondered why he'd waited so long. It wasn't like the sleeping bag's owner was a huge secret or anything. "And how did you do that?"
He shrugged. "He got my bed. I slept on the floor."
Katie glowed inside, even warmer than before, because she guessed it was a big deal after all. It meant that he'd cared about her six months ago, the same way she'd cared about him. They'd both just been too stubborn to admit it. Somehow, it made her feel better. "So... why are you telling me this now, anyway?" she asked nonchalantly.
He shrugged again. "I don't know. I just figured, couples aren't supposed to keep secrets, right? No matter how small?"
She smiled and leaned closer to him. "Oh, so we're a couple now?"
His face was an inch away from hers, and he was grinning that half-grin yet again. "I kind of thought that was what all the kisses meant." And he added one more to the list, as if to prove his point.
They were still two hundred miles from home, and more monsters could appear at any moment. But Katie refused to worry. For now, they were safe.
They were together.
And that was all that mattered.
Once again, thank you thank you thank you for the reviews/favorites/follows! Each and every review brings a smile to my face, even if I don't respond to you personally. (Sorry about that, but I've been really busy for the last couple of weeks and simply didn't have time. And I'll only get busier as school starts up again... :/) Thanks to all of you for reading this story faithfully! I look forward to keeping your readership for other stories! :)
Forever writing,
Storm