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Chapter 30 – The fish
HAZEL
"So we have to try to find Morpheus in our own dreams? What is that supposed to mean?" Jason asked, frowning.
The demigods and the satyr was sitting in the mess hall, each one of them drinking their third cup of coffee and trying very hard to not fall asleep. It was still late at night, but Hazel could feel how time was slipping through their fingers. They had to get this done before they reached Greece.
"I can't even control my actions in all of my dreams." Nico said slowly. "I guess we'll just have to try calling after him in the dream?"
Piper shifted.
"Well, he can't visit every one of us, right? We have to pick one, or maybe two, who have to try."
"Obviously Valdez then." Coach Hedge said. "Poseidon told him to do it."
Leo looked nervous. He stared down at his coffee.
"You could have told me that before I drank three cups." He muttered.
Hazel gripped his hand under the table and gave him a calming look.
"It sounds good." She said. "How many hours left to 7 AM?"
Piper checked her clock.
"5 hours. We have time." Her voice was soothing, and everybody started nodding and agreeing.
Nico was the first one to shake out of it.
"Two people have to sleep. If one fails, we still have a chance. Exactly how long do they have to sleep?"
"Not so long, right?" Frank said. "I mean, they're just going to have a little chat with Morpheus."
"Are we sure he is on our side?" Jason asked, looking grim.
"Poseidon said that he and his father are neutral in this war." Leo said in a hollow voice. "As long as we can give him something in return, he will be loyal."
The room went quiet. Hazel could tell that the thought of having to give something back to the god worried them.
"I don't think he will need anything big or special." Hazel quickly said. "I mean, he is a god. If he wants something, he can just go get it. Maybe he will just ask for a small favor, or even help us for free."
"Everything comes with a price." Nico warned. "You of all people should know that, Hazel."
It was like being stabbed. He was right. She had sacrificed herself and her mother so that Gaea's giant wouldn't rise. For trying to help her mother to not go to the Fields of Punishment, she had to turn decline the offer to go to Elysium, so they both ended up in the Fields of Asphodel. To be with Leo, she had had to break up with Frank. It was true; everything comes with a price.
The silence was eerie. No one said anything, until Piper opened her mouth and said:
"We can worry about that later. Who besides Leo are gonna try call for Morpheus?"
"I can do it." Nico spoke up. "I have traveled in dreams before. I'll give it a shot."
"Great!" Coach Hedge smashed his hands together and grinned like a madman. Hazel was pretty sure he had drunk more than three coffees. "So let's get these cupcakes back to sleep!"
"I think you should sleep in the mess hall." Piper said nervously. "So we can wake you if something happens."
Nico looked slightly annoyed.
"All right then. We just have to go get some sheets and pillows."
Leo and Nico rose to their feet and walked down to their cabins to get the things they needed.
"Am I the only one with a bad feeling about this?" Jason asked quietly.
Piper stared down at her hands. Hazel bit her lip. Frank shook his head slowly.
"I don't think it's going to work." Frank said. "How is Morpheus supposed to hear them?"
"We'll just have to try and support them." Hazel whispered. "We have to try. Otherwise, Melinoe will use nightmares to make us go insane, and it's not like we can avoid sleep. We have to be fully awake in the war."
The boys came back a moment later. The demigods (and the satyr) tried to make the floor as comfortable as possible. Hazel couldn't help but feel sorry for Nico and Leo; if they were going to try searching for a god, they at least deserved nice beds.
And another thing that worried her was how they were going to fall asleep. They both had drank a lot of coffee.
"Well, good night then." Nico said.
"Be careful." Hazel pleaded.
Jason turned off the lights.
Jason, Piper, Hazel, Frank and Coach Hedge sat at the table, waiting for something to happen. After half an hour, Nico and Leo had finally fallen asleep. Now, an hour later, no one of them had woken up or showed any signs of something unusual.
Hazel was tired. She had been staring at the silhouettes of the sleeping boys on the floor for a long time now. She felt her eyelids get heavier for each minute, and she was actually not sure if she was dreaming or what.
"You should try to sleep." Piper whispered in her ear. "I'll wake you up if something happens."
Hazel didn't really know if Piper was using charmspeak or if she just was too tired to argue, but she nodded and rested her head in her arms on the table. Maybe she could be a little useful and call fro Morpheus too.
She dreamed that she was in a dark room. She couldn't see anything, but she heard voices somewhere in front of her.
"Hello?" She asked uncertainly.
"Hazel?!"
Leo and Nico came out from nowhere.
"What are you doing here?" Nico asked.
"What are you doing here?"
Leo shrugged.
"I think that it's some kind of dream-magic. One second, I'm here alone and screaming Morpheus' name, and then Nico popped out from nowhere doing the same."
"I fell asleep thinking that I maybe could help you." Hazel said uncertainly. "Maybe that's why we are in the same dream, because we all have the same task."
Nico looked around him.
"Should we just call for Morpheus?" Hazel asked.
"We tried doing that, but it doesn't work. He won't come." Nico said grimly. "Maybe Poseidon didn't mean call like in scream his name."
"You mean with a phone?" Leo asked with a frown. "We don't have phones."
Then, it dawned on Hazel.
"Not with a phone, an Iris-message." She said. "Does anyone of you have any money?"
Nico pulled out a golden drachma from his pocket.
"Where are we gonna find a rainbow in this place?" Leo asked. "It's like, the middle of Nowhere."
Hazel thought for a moment.
"We are controlling our own actions, right? So maybe we can... Travel to other places?"
Nico's eyes widened.
"Come here!"
Leo and Hazel glanced at each other before walking to Nico. He grabbed their arms.
"Think about a meadow." He said. "With a lake and trees and stuff. Concentrate really hard. If we all think about it, maybe it will travel us all there."
Leo's face broke in to a goofy grin.
"Cool. So if I think of a candy store, I will get to one?"
"Just concentrate." Hazel closed her eyes and thought of a meadow. A beautiful meadow with a glistering blue lake, white flowers that made the whole meadow smell sweetly, green trees with different kind of fruits hanging on the branches, sunshine streaming down through the foliage….
She opened her eyes to the sound of purling water. She gasped of surprise, because it was exactly the meadow she had pictured in her head.
Nico and Leo blinked a several times before they could really get what they were seeing.
"We just need to find a rainbow now." Leo said firmly.
"Over there." Hazel pointed at the lake. Different colors were rippling on the surface, making a faint rainbow.
The three demigods walked over there. Nico threw his drachma in it.
"Oh, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, show us the god of dreams Morpheus." Nico said.
The drachma didn't sink to the bottom of the lake, so Hazel assumed Iris had heard them. A dim image showed on the surface, an image of…
"Is that a fish?" Leo asked. "Because it looks like one."
Hazel didn't quite believe her eyes either, but then she remembered the myths she had read about Morpheus. He could change shape to whatever he wanted.
So Hazel did the natural thing; she bent down so she could see the image clearer and spoke to the fish.
"Excuse me. Are you Morpheus, god of dreams, son of the god of sleep Hypnos?" She asked nervously.
The fish didn't care at all about here. It continued swimming around calmly.
"We need to talk to Morpheus." Hazel said louder this time. "We need his help with something only he can help us with. We need help to block some dreams."
That caught the fish's attention. It looked straight at Hazel, and slowly started to change shape. It became an old fisher man, standing in the same lake the fish had been in. He had no teeth and a very wrinkled face.
"Are you Morpheus?" Nico asked.
The old fisher man rolled his eyes.
"Do you want me to change shape again to show you assure you that I am him?"
His voice made Hazel sleepy, and that was quite strange since she actually was asleep already. She cleared her throat.
"Sir, we need some help." She said, took a pause to look at Leo and Nico, and then rushed on. "We heard that you and your father aren't going to pick a side in this war, so we would really appreciate if you could help us. We will pay you a fair price in return."
Morpheus raised an eyebrow.
"And what could demigods give a god?"
Leo shrugged.
"We dunno. If there is something you want, you could always give us a call or something."
Hazel silenced him with a look.
"If you ever would need help with something, we will always help you."
"As long as it is reasonable and possible." Nico added.
"Hm…" Morpheus looked uninterested. "What do you need my help with?"
"There are these goddesses." Hazel started. "They are trying to toy with our minds, confuse us in our dreams. You are the dream god, could you please give us something that can block the nightmares?"
The god chuckled.
"That's none of my business."
"Actually, it is." Leo bent down next to Hazel with a very rare, serious look on his face. "Listen here, fisher hubby. We need your help, and if you don't help us, Gaea will destroy the whole freaking world. You won't get anything out of it, because you haven't picked any side. She will find some way to kill you, or trap you, or anything, but she won't show any mercy just because you didn't pick the gods' side, which by the way is the reasonable thing to do. As long as you're not at her side, you're a useless idiot to her. So help us out, because I'm sick and tired of this crap. Every night I'm dreaming the same stupid dream, and it is equally terrifying every time, and if you won't stop it we will all go insane and if the gods win actually win without us, you'll get the blame for making their kids go crazy. If you help us and then pick Gaea's side, you will be considered a loser again, just like in the Titan War last summer, because we are going to win. So I believe you don't have any choice."
Hazel and Nico were staring at Leo in disbelief. He didn't look nervous or flustered at all, he was staring pointedly at Morpheus through the Iris-Message.
Morpheus wasn't even looking in Leo's direction. He was wading through the water, like it wasn't unusual to have a demigod yell at him.
"I can't pick a side." He said in an amused voice.
"What?" Nico asked.
"I swore upon the river Styx that I wouldn't pick a side. My dad made me after what happened in the second Titan War. I was humiliated for picking the losing side, while my dad didn't have to get involved in the war at all. He told me that being neutral was the best, because everyone will leave you alone. So we made an oath that we both wouldn't pick any side at all in this war. You don't need to worry about me picking Gaea's side."
Hazel blinked.
"So will you help us or not?"
Morpheus scratched his beard.
"I guess. You have to return the favor later."
"How do we know you won't trick us?" Nico asked suspiciously.
The fisher man laughed.
"I see you're not that stupid, demigod." He said. "I swear upon the river Styx that I'll help you with this favor, if you return it when I need it."
The sky rumbled, even if it was clear and blue.
Nico nodded, satisfied.
"I'll cast a spell on your ship. As soon as you wake up, it will start to work. Good luck, demigods."
"Thank you, lord Morpheus." Hazel said.
Leo swept his hand through the Iris-Message and the dim image of the dream god disappeared.
"Guess we have to wake up then." He said. Hazel knew that he was relieved that he wouldn't need to dream of his mother anymore, even if he acted like it was nothing.
"How do we do that? And how long have we been asleep?" Hazel asked with a frown.
"We just have to concentrate on trying to wake up." Nico said. "And I don't know for how long…"
Hazel nodded. She concentrated on waking up, slowly raising her head from the table and rubbing her eyes…
Suddenly the dream was over. She sat up and turned around to see that the boys were waking up to.
"What happened?" Jason immediately asked Nico and Leo. "Did you find him?"
Leo grinned.
"Yeah, we did. Hazel helped us."
Everybody stared at Hazel.
"What? How?" Piper asked.
They told them the story as quick as they could.
"How long have we been asleep?" Nico asked.
"2 hours." Piper confirmed.
"That means we have 3 hours before we reach Greece." Leo said. "I have to go and check that everything is okay with Festus."
"I'll come with you." Hazel said quickly and rose from her seat.
A shadow of a smile went over Leo's face, but then disappeared. He was staring at something behind Hazel with horrified eyes, so she turned to see what it was.
"Well, hello there, sweeties."
The ghost of Hazel's mother was floating over the table.
Wohoo, the war is near! Just kidding. I want to warn you that I'm not good at writing about fights, so please don't judge me too hard about that, I'll try my best ;) Hope you liked this chapter! Reviews are very appreciated!