It was really foggy when it happened, so it took Mari a while to realise she was being followed. Maybe the fact that her headphones were in also had something to do with it, but she only had them in because she didn't want to listen to Jean. It's not like Jean was the worst foster mother she'd ever had, but when you bounce around the system for 10 years, you kind of become closed off to new people. It also probably didn't help that her house always smelled like tobacco and the kind of old paper than makes you sneeze. But the main reason Mari was avoiding going back to Jean's house was the fact that when she got back, she'd have to go to bed. It's not like Mari had anything against sleep. In fact, she wished she could get more.
Mari just hated the snakes.
Whenever she crawled into her sheets, Mari would be tormented by the slithery demons. It started when she was around 4 years old, just the feeling of cold and slippery tubes running along her body, of forked tongues against her skin. Then, Mari had heard the hissing, and opened her eyes. She remembered screaming, because honestly, what else was a scrawny 4-year-old supposed to do? Go back to sleep? Fat chance. When David and Carol, her ex-foster parents, ran in to see what was wrong, they wouldn't believe the hysterical toddler, who insisted that there were at least 40 snakes trying to eat her in her sleep. They sent Mari back to bed with warm milk, and said she'd feel better in the morning. Spoiler alert: Mari didn't feel better in the morning.
Eventually, after years of insisting that she wasn't imagining things, and being told that there wasn't any possible way that snakes could crawl out of the floorboards specifically to torment her each night, Mari stopped telling the adults in her life about what happened. She convinced her care workers that she was ok, and that she was just making it all up for attention. Mari got so good at lying, she almost believed herself. Of course she wasn't being attacked by snakes every night. That was completely illogical. It was probably a nightmare. The scratches and bruises on her ankles were most likely from bashing them against the foot of her bed in distress, not snakes wrapping themselves around them and squeezing. But that belief only ever lasted until the sun went down, and the snakes came back.
Anyway, Mari was walking back to Jean's, taking the scenic route, trying to avoid her bed for as long as possible, when it attacked.
"Can I interest you in a copy of The New Yorker?"
Mari thought it was weird that a saleswomen was offering her an American magazine in Trowbridge, England. In fact, she thought it was weird that a saleswoman was in a deserted park at all, but she didn't comment. The woman had deep red hair, black jeans with a blazer, and a bright pink shirt. The fog seemed to curl away from her, as if her very presence repelled it. In short, she didn't look like a saleswoman at all.
"Uh, no, thanks."
At the time Mari thought that she was just being irrational, but upon seeing this women, every cell in her body screamed at her to run. She ignored herself, and started to walk away, humming a tune to take her mind off the strange woman, who was still looking at her weirdly. She stopped when she felt a hand grip her arm.
"Are you ssssure? We give special discounts to dem-people under the age of 16. I'm SSandy."
Mari couldn't answer, not because she was actually considering buying a magazine with the money that she definitely had, but because of the way Sandy's hand hand felt on her arm. It was like the woman didn't have skin. Instead, Mari could feel cold, hard discs where skin should be. Scales. Snakes.
Snapping out of it, Mari yanked her arm away. "Sorry, no. I have to go now, bye!" She started to run, but heard an angry hiss behind her.
"Not ssssso fasssst, Halfblood."
Mari didn't take the time to consider what Sandy was actually saying, choosing instead to start to sprint. She got a pretty good distance away, too, when suddenly Sandy was in front of her.
Mari screamed.
Sandy looked different now, and not in a good way. Her black jeans had been replaced by two long snake tails, their green scales glittering in the street lamps despite the fog. Her red hair was gone, and her head seemed to be covered entirely in scales. But what terrified Mari most was her mouth. Long fangs dripping in venom hissed at her and Mari was once again immobilised from shock and fear. The stack of magazines Sandy's hand was replaced by a huge axe, and Mari didn't want to think about the dried up red liquid it was coated in. The thing flicked a forked tongue at her, and Mari scrambled away, tripping over a rock in the process.
This is where I die.
"Hey!"
This voice was new, and sounded terrified. Mari looked up, and saw something that, if she wasn't currently staring into the slits of a freaky snake-woman looking at her with an expression that she now identified as hunger, would have made her check myself into the nearest mental hospital and ask for a full evaluation.
It was a guy with goat legs.
He had blonde hair and green eyes, and was wearing some kind of orange shirt with the words Camp Half-blood printed over a picture of a winged horse. But the thing that caught Mari's eye the most (other than the goat legs) was the long bronze sword he was pointing at her.
Or, luckily in her case, slightly above her.
The snake-woman looked up and hissed at the newcomer, giving Mari a chance to scramble as far away as she could. Which wasn't very far.
The boy (goat? Thing?) threw the knife at the snake woman, causing her to dart to the side, fortunately further away from her. Unfortunately, they were still faced with an angry snake woman and nothing to defend themselves. The snake woman turned away from Mari, advancing instead on the goat boy. He seemed to have used his one trick too soon. Now entirely without the element of surprise, he cowered away from her.
Mari tried to sit up. Right now the only thing between her and a very unpleasant death was a shaking half-goat, who seemed to be on her side. Either way, it wouldn't matter if he was dead. Snakey was advancing on him quickly and at most Mari probably had a few seconds before the thing turned him into an evening snack. Mari had to do something, and she had to do it now.
She picked up the rock and threw it at the snake thing.
Mari didn't even have time to be shocked when golden -not red- blood oozed from Snakey's head wound. It turned away from the goat boy and started to glide towards Mari again. Mari tried to run, but the snake thing was faster than she could ever be, especially when she was still on the ground like an idiot. Mari got roughly two metres away before the snake thing slammed the blunt end of its axe into Mari's head and lifted her up. That was the point when Mari began to cry. Now, she was an ugly crier. She'd seen those movies where the heroine just had a quivering lip and red cheeks, but when Mari cried, it was like water leaking through a dam. Her face went splotchy red, she started to shake, and her eyes became bloodshot. The whole shebang. Either way, her tears were not about to convince this snake woman to let her go.
By this point Mari's feet were just brushing along the ground. The snake demon opened her mouth. Mari closed her eyes, so she didn't have to see its teeth. Its breath smelled like a mixture of something rotting and snake venom. (Mari wasn't sure how she knew what snake venom smelled like, maybe from her nightly horrors.) Mari gagged, which only resulted in her breathing in more of the smell. The snake woman leaned closer, and Mari briefly wondered if Jean would attend her funeral. She guessed it didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Blood filled her vision, probably from her head wound.
Sandy opened her mouth, poised to literally bite Mari's head off...
Mari fell to the floor. She frantically looked around for the snake woman, but only found a lot of gold-ish dust that definitely wasn't there before, and the goat boy, pointing the long sword at her threateningly. She tried to crawl away from him, and he looked at her confused before remembering that he was brandishing a sword at an 10-year old girl who had just been attacked by god-knows-what.
"No no no, wait! I'm not here to hurt you! I swear! Look, my name is Oak."
Oak? In her dazed state, the only thing that occurred to her was that she'd never met somebody named Oak before.
"Oh gods, you're hurt! Ok, ok, it's fine, look, eat this, I promise it will make you feel better!"
He shoved some kind of golden square into her hands, but even with a bleeding wound, she knew better. She threw the mystery square at the goat boy. At this point, the adrenaline had worn off and her vision was starting to fade. Mari knew that she probably only had a few minutes before she lost consciousness, so she tried to keep the goat boy talking, hopefully long enough for Jean to get worried and look for her, or, more likely, for some drunk teenagers to find them and take her to the hospital.
"Mmm... not taking... y-your drugs..."
His eyes widened comically, and if it were any other situation Mari would have laughed, but she was too scared, and he shook his head. "It's ambrosia, I swear! I would never drug anybody, I'm trying to help!" This didn't endear her to the goat boy. He might have scared off the snake woman, but he wasn't exactly normal either, and she didn't know what ambrosia was code for, but she didn't want to stick around to find out.
She tried to get up, but her eyes started to droop, and she fell back onto the wet grass.
"Need... a hospital... please..."
The last thing Mari heard was a panicked bleat as her head lolled to the side and her eyes closed.
bump bump bump
Mari woke up to her head falling against a padded seat. It was pounding, but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore.
"What in the bloody fu-"
"Sorry. I'm new to this, English people have really narrow roads, and there's the whole driving on the wrong side thing... Are you ok? How's your head?"
She looked in the direction the voice came from, and tensed as she saw the goat boy, who she was liking less as time went on, smiling apologetically at her from the driver's seat. It's not that she wasn't grateful to him for saving her from the snake woman or anything, but that didn't exactly give him permission to kidnap her. Especially when she was suffering from a head wound.
She touched her hand to the back of her scalp, expecting for it to come away bloody, but was surprised to feel a cloth bandage.
"Wha- how long has it been?" she asked, trying not to touch her head anymore. Suspiciously speedy healing or not, it was still probably a bad idea to aggravate the wound. "It's been a couple hours since you fell unconscious. I gave you some nectar, carried you to your foster mother's street and found the car your keys worked on."
As freaked out as Mari was that he knew where she lived, she was relieved that they were in Jean's car. They might not get along, but at the very least Jean would report the theft. That being said, it didn't mean Mari wanted to stay in the car with a potential stalker/kidnapper who was also a goat any longer than necessary.
She tried to keep him talking as she inched her hand towards the door. What was his name again? Some kind of tree? "Who are you?" She tried to keep her voice steady as she asked, but even she could hear it shaking. He sighed.
"I'm Oak. I've been following you for a couple weeks, making sure I was right about what you are before I got you somewhere safe. I should have expected something like this to happen, I'm sorry. But the most important thing is that you're alive right now. You're Marion, right?"
"How the fuck do you know my name!? Nobody calls me that."
"Your friends call you Mari."
At least there was something he seemed not to know about her. Which was that Mari didn't have any friends. Not in a sad way, but as a foster kid, she'd never stayed in one place for more than 8 months. She didn't want to waste energy building up friendships with people she wouldn't be around for any kind of extended period of time.
Anyway, there was no possible way he could know her full name, unless he was a very dedicated stalker who had been planning this for a while. Deciding that it was probably better to make her great escape now, head wound or not, Mari yanked the handle of the door, ready to jump and run, deserted road or not. She hoped goats were slower than humans.
"Woah woah woah, what the Hades are you doing?!"
She ignored the goat boy -Oak- and leaped out of the car. Sadly, her genius plan to get away lasted about 7 seconds. She tried to get up to run and felt a sharp pain in her ankle.
Hands wrapped around her underarms, pulling her up and back into the car. She was dumped back onto the seat, which she now recognised as the one she'd spilled coffee on a few weeks ago when Jean was driving her to school. The stain was still there, reminding her how badly she wanted caffeine at that moment.
"What were you thinking? You could have hit your head and made your injury worse!"
He prodded and poked at her ankle whilst she protested to no avail. Eventually he sighed in relief, declaring it to be sprained, not broken.
"I would offer you some ambrosia, but you've had it too recently. If you take any more, you could incinerate."
Despite all the strange things he had said, this is what finally convinced Mari that he was insane. Drugs had a lot of nasty side effects, sure, but none of those involved burning to freaking ash!
"Ok, you've had your fun. I'm done with your whole fantasy game. Let me go. I promise I won't tell anybody. I'll even take the blame for the car, I'll say I stole it for attention. Please, just let me go."
Realisation dawned on his face, and he shot away from her, horrified. "You- you think I'm trying to kidnap you?!"
Mari stared at him, incredulous. This guy did not just carry a girl into a car, drive her into the middle of nowhere, and make her seem like the crazy one for freaking out and trying to escape. What did he expect her to think?! That he just wanted to take her the long way to hospital?
He ran his hands through his hair, drawing her eyes to his forehead. It's not like he had a particularly ugly hairline, or that his hair was covered in grease like her maths teacher, Mr. Reynolds. It was arguably worse. Sticking out between his hair were two small brown horns.
"What the hell is that?!"
He grinned at her sheepishly (goatishly?), which was the absolute wrong response to her question, and Mari grabbed the map from the dashboard and brandished it at him threateningly. It wasn't much, but it was all she had to defend herself. It made her feel better, at least.
"Look, please put the map down. I'm trying to help you! I'm just going to put your leg in a splint."
It may have been a stupid move, but she was in a lot of pain. Her ankle felt like it was trying to break free from the rest of her foot, and she nearly threw up. She needed some kind of medical attention, and goat boy was the only one around to give it to her. She reluctantly handed over her foot, and he gave her a hopeful smile, which she did not return. He opened a wooden box with a polished bronze medical cross on it, and taking out a roll of bandages, smooth piece of metal and some gauze.
She didn't want to look at her ankle as he worked, so she busied herself in trying to locate the knife he had brought along during their encounter with the snake woman. It took her a few minutes to spot the shiny gold sticking out between a the space in between two of the seats in the back. It was mostly covered by a huge snakeskin, which she hadn't noticed whilst she was busy staging her grand escape.
Not for the first time, Mari let out a huge shriek.
"What the fuck is that?!"
Goat boy jumped up, hand reaching for the sword and panic in his eyes, before sagging in relief when he followed her line of sight. "Oh, that's just a spoil of war. Monsters sometimes leave them behind when you kill them." Mari didn't listen to what he had said as he continued to splint her ankle. She was too busy freaking out at the snake skin in the back. Part of her was overjoyed at the image of Jean eventually finding it in her car, but it was a very small part.
She was about to demand that he get it out, now, when she felt a hollow sensation in her chest. Mari couldn't explain what it felt like exactly, but it was kind of like knocking on a door, except the door was her respiratory system. All she knew was that she had to keep the snakeskin in the car, or something terrible would happen. She didn't know why or how she knew, but she just did.
That was some bullshit. Mari absolutely hated snakes, and now she had to travel with the skin of a giant humanoid one that tried to kill her. Maybe the fact she felt like she was getting a Syme amputation, or maybe everything was finally catching up with her emotionally. She wasn't entirely sure what opened the floodgates, but she started bawling like a newborn baby.
"Styx, please don't cry! Oh gods, uh... look, I promise I'll explain everything to you, if you just let me get us both somewhere safe. Please."
She shook her head frantically. She didn't want to go anywhere with the goat boy, even though he had saved her life. She just wanted to crawl up on Jean's sofa, wrap a blanket around herself and watch a cheesy movie like she usually did instead of sleeping. Instead, she was stuck in Jean's coffee smelling car, with a potentially feral goat boy, a head wound and a giant snakeskin.
Goat boy started pleading even more intensely now, as if he were the one begging to be allowed to leave. "Look, I will explain everything to you, but we need to get out of here. We've already stayed too long. I lost the hellhound that was following us but I don't know how long we have until it finds us again."
"H-hellhound?" Mari asked in a small voice. Evidently, goat boy took her fear as agreement, as he finally lowered her ankle onto the ground, slammed her door, and ran around the car before getting in and speeding away.
24 hours ago, in this situation Mari would have scoffed and called bullshit on the whole 'hellhound' thing, still refusing to go anywhere. But she'd just been attacked by a terrifying snake woman hybrid with awful breath. Nothing right now was impossible. And as much as she wanted this to be over, she also wanted answers.
Despite her curiosity, they stayed in a tense silence for the next 10 minutes. It probably would have been longer, if not for Mari. She had tried to keep herself occupied, humming to herself, or bouncing her good leg up and down, but she couldn't stay still for long. That was probably because of her ADHD. She always had trouble staying still, and focusing because of the disorder. She also had emotional outbursts, and was generally reckless and impulsive. Basically she was probably the worst person to leave alone in a room for any extended period of time. Anyway, she lasted 10 minutes, which was surprisingly long for her, but maybe the depressive atmosphere helped.
"So... you said you'd give me an explanation."
His head snapped up, and he nodded nervously. Mari was expecting something about some kind of nuclear explosion gone wrong, maybe something like a witness protection programme, or, hopefully, somebody with a camera to walk into the middle of the road and give her £10,000.
Instead, goat boy asked her, "How much do you know about the Ancient Greek pantheon?"
Goat boy -or Oak, as he insisted Mari call him- was insane. Or, at least, that's what she wanted to believe at first.
"You've got to be joking. Or trying to indoctrinate me into a cult. Or both. Myths are called myths for a reason- they're not real!" she protested. Oak looked at her pityingly, like he'd had this conversation before. "Not real just like the snake woman who attacked you earlier today?" Mari glared at him, and did not grace his comment with a response.
He sighed. "Mari, I know this is confusing. But you have to trust me. And right now the only option for you other than dying painfully is to get you to camp half-blood and train you." She looked out of the window, even more confused. "Train me for what?" she asked. It was darker now. They'd long since left the fog behind, and it was starting to rain. As the drops fell down the windows, she played the same game she used to as a kid. Mari imagined each drop was a person, and the water falling into new drops were people growing together and then falling apart. It reminded her of how hopeful she was as when she was little, whenever she was brought to a new foster family. Maybe this one would be the right fit, maybe they'd get rid of the snakes, and give her a home.
Mari looked away from the window.
"You need to learn how to fight monsters." Oak told her. She stared at him for two whole minutes before looking away, refusing to face him as she finally responded.
"No, I don't." she told him quietly.
He huffed in exasperation, muttering "Zeus, give me strength," before parking the car at the side of the deserted road. They'd been taking roundabout routes and unnecessarily complicated detours. Oak explained that this was to try and confuse as many monsters as possible. Mari thought this was stupid and that he should just get them to where they were going (he still wouldn't tell her where that was) as fast as possible. Oak didn't listen to Mari.
"Marion, what do you think the monster was after when it attacked you earlier?" He asked this like a teacher trying to get a four year old to count past 7.
"Uh, a light snack?" she asked.
His lips twitched at her phrasing, like he was trying not to laugh, but he nodded. "You're half right. Yes, it wanted to eat you, but the only reason it followed you was because it could smell you."
Slightly insulted, she lifted her jacket to sniff her underarm, embarrassed at having run out of deodorant the week before. Jean refused to get more for Mari or herself, since she didn't get paid for two more weeks, and was saving for a trip to the Himalayas with her boyfriend, Anton.
"No, not that way! I mean your scent naturally attracts monsters."
"Wow, thanks."
He huffed in aggravation. "Mari, The monster was following you because you smell similar to a God! What does that sound like to you?"
"...Like you're on drugs," she guessed.
He put his head in his hands, clearly done with the entire situation, as if he was the victim here. "Di Immortales, Marion, it means you're a demigod!" he exclaimed.
There was a beat of silence. "No. Nope. No thankyou. You're taking the piss."
His face went red, and he looked like he wanted to tear his hair out, but he soldiered on. "Look, I know it's hard to-"
"Hard to believe? Ridiculous? Idiotic? Absurd? Please, feel free to take your pick of the following descriptors."
Oak tried to raise a hand to her shoulder, as if to calm her down, but she slapped it away, hysteria clouding her vision, turning the world into a dull grey, as she sat in a car going 70mph in a 20 road, unable to process anything being said to her. "I live in Trowbridge! Not Ancient Greece! Monsters, I will believe, I kind of don't have a choice at this point in the Gods, fine! It's not like I really cared about religion all that much anyway. But me being the daughter of one? HELL TO THE FUCKING NO. You're out of your goddamn mind!"
"Mari..." He tried to interrupt her again, but she wasn't done.
You know, I have put up with a lot from you. Taking me from my life, driving me halfway across the country, telling me some story about the Greek gods existing and procreating with mortals for funsies, but this? This is the line. Right here. And you literally drove right passed it, giving it the finger on your way out. I AM NOT PART OF YOUR FREAKING NIGHTMARE," she yelled, blood rushing to her face as she ranted.
"Mari," he repeated for the third time.
Without wasting a breath, she interrupted again. "No! You don't get to talk, not when you have literally tried to uproot me from my entire life! You know, I may not have a family, or my own home, but that does not give you the right to just uproot me from the one sense of stability I do have! I did not ask you to fight the snake monster thing for me, and I did not ask you to take me wherever the hell you're trying to take me! I didn't ask for any of this, and I'm not a bloody demigod! So you can take your fancy camp and shove it right up your-"
"MARI GET BACK!"
His sudden shout finally snapped her out of her furious haze enough for her to hear the snarling behind them. Oak paled, grabbing the sword and jumping out of the car, locking it from the outside. Mari banged on the windows, screaming at him to let her out so she could try to help him, but he was too preoccupied to pay any attention to her.
Oak held up the sword, his hands shaking as he faced the enormous humanoid creature, which was carrying a terrifying-looking iron club.
"Give up the half-blood, satyr! I can smell her, I know she's here! I'm hungry!" The thing roared, brandishing its club in Oak's general direction. "Y-you'll have to go through me!" Oak whimpered. Even Mari cringed at his voice, though some part of her was touched that he cared.
"Acceptable! Satyrs make tasty appetisers!" It smiled, and Mari backed away from the window in fear. Like the snake women, its teeth were long and sharp, and a horrible yellow colour. The monster swung its club at Oak, who jumped out of the way, and for a second, Mari was terrified he was going to faint. He darted around the thing, reached up, and jabbed the bronze sword into its hip. It howled in pain, glaring at Oak, and swiped the club.
To her horror, Oak had chosen that moment to catch his breath, and was tossed three meters away like a rag doll, possibly causing severe spinal damage.
Oak was able to stand up, but stumbled, dazed. Mari began to panic, frantically banging on the car door. Annoying and condescending as he was, Oak was the only thing standing between her and the... thing, and if he went down, she was screwed. She had to force herself to calm down as much as she could, as banging on the door and screaming at the thing to pick on somebody its own size (i.e., the size of a baby killer whale) wasn't doing her much good. She looked around for anything to help her, but all she had were a few pound coins, a portable radio, a cigarette lighter, some breath mints, three bottles of Jean's beer, and the snakeskin.
The snakeskin.
It wasn't much, but if she rolled it up, it could theoretically fit inside the things mouth, which would at least stop it from trying to turn them into an afternoon snack. And she didn't know if that alone was deadly, but the beer...
Plan forming, Mari still needed to get out of the car. She cursed Oak for trying to play the hero, and closed her eyes, wrapping her denim jacket around her hand and turning away. She mentally prepared herself for the bleeding hand, and punched the glass as hard as she could.
Nothing happened. Out of options, she reached for the radio and threw it at the glass with all her 10-year old might.
CRASH!
The glass shattered, mostly outside, though some shards fell into the car, which Mari was careful to avoid. The sound barrier now gone, she could hear everything going on around her. The sound of metal on metal, and a suspiciously Oak-like cry of pain. Not good. She forced herself to ignore the sounds, as it wouldn't do them any good.
Mari reached through the smashed window, her body half hanging out of the car as she picked up the key Oak had dropped in his preparation to fight. Thankfully neither of them noticed her. Finally unlocking the car, she got to work on her materials...
"Hey!" Mari yelled, slamming the car door behind her, rolled up snakeskin in hand. She tried not to think about the fact that she was touching the skin of her single worst fear (other than maybe arachnids and small spaces, but to a much lesser degree). "If you want to kill me, how about you come over here and fight me like a... um, whatever you are!" She looked around for Oak, but couldn't see him anywhere. She'd have to focus on that later. The thing looked up at her and shrieked angrily. "I am a Laistrygonian Giant, demigod, and you... are food!" it shouted.
Demigod. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
"Yeah? Well then come and get me!" Mari taunted, not making an effort to move, despite her instincts urging her to find some kind of weapon and attack before it was too late. Ignoring her instincts, she let the monster -Laistrygonian- scoop her up, trying not to cower in fear and horror at the appalling state of it's dental hygiene.
"Mari, no! What the hades are you doing?!" she heard Oak scream in horror.
No time for second thoughts, as it was lowering her towards its disgusting grinning mouth, Mari jammed the snakeskin between its teeth. It dropped her as it howled in shock, trying to yank it out. Before it got the chance, she uncapped the cigarette lighter and threw it at the snakeskin, watching it light up. She didn't know if snakeskin was flammable, but she knew that beer was. This is the one time Mari would ever be grateful for Jean's borderline alcohol problem, as she remembered the now empty beer bottles in the back seat.
The Laistrogonian lit up like Guy Fawkes, and turned to ash. Oak came up from around the car, face pale and sweaty. "Now do you believe me?" he asked, his voice small.
Unable to look away from the burnt out ash that used to be a horrifying cannibal monster, she nodded numbly and gulped, her adrenaline quickly wearing off.
"Yeah," Mari croaked. "Yeah, I believe you."