At least the snakeskin was gone.

They'd been driving for 8 hours since the cannibal giant incident. So far the journey had consisted of 5 bathroom stops, 3 more monster attacks, 29 tin cans and one very tired 10 year old (Mari) fiddling with the radio. Oak had also spent the first 5 of those hours trying to think of ways to get to get her to New York without flying. He wouldn't tell her why he didn't want to fly, because he said it would freak her out. She told him that he'd already accomplished that beautifully, and if he hated aeroplane food that much, he could just eat the tin cans. He had ignored her.

Oak had eventually admitted that he was scared to get on a plane with her because Zeus (the king god who married his sister) had a nasty habit of blasting demigods out of the sky if he was in a particularly bad mood with their godly parent, especially when that godly parent was one of his siblings. Mari was kind of freaked out when he told her that. Even though it was very unlikely she fell into that category, he didn't want to take the chance of Zeus blasting her out of the sky.

Mari wisely chose not to voice her thoughts.

Upon hearing the reason that Oak didn't want her to fly, Mari had slumped in relief, remembering when she was a 6, and one of her few bearable sets of foster parents, Sarah and Bryan, had taken her to Belgium for a few days on a work trip. They'd returned her to social services five months later. When she told Oak this, his face brightened, clearly following the same train of thought. If Zeus felt like tossing her out of the sky at all, surely he would have done it when the opportunity presented itself?

Oak had grinned excitedly. "Hey, you might survive the trip after all!"

That statement had chased her relief away pretty quickly.

Anyway, Oak had just pulled up to Heathrow airport and handed Mari his backpack, telling her to make sure it stayed closed. Like she needed to be told. It contained at least two things which would get them arrested at security, especially given the fact that they didn't have any suitcases to check in.

"Uh, Oak, I really appreciate the help with the bandages and everything, but, won't all of this stuff show up when they scan our bags?" she asked, even as she slung it over her shoulder before hobbling along with him to the entrance. He shook his head, nervously eyeing an empty coke can by the doors. "No. A sword covered in Dracaena ichor, armour and a demigod first aid kit won't appear that way under the eyes of mortals. The mist will make sure they only see what they can comprehend." His words flew into one of her ears and out the other.

"What the hell is the mist? It's not foggy anymore," she pointed out. It was 5.13 am, and the sky was beginning to clear. It was lightly drizzling, and her denim jacket wasn't offering much protection. Thinking of the time also made her realise how badly she wanted to brush her teeth. She hoped Oak had enough money to afford some toiletries along with plane tickets.

Mari had gotten lost in her thoughts so she didn't catch Oak's answer to her question of what the mist actually was, but didn't really care. She just wanted to sleep on the plane. Oak grabbed her hand and pulled her through the doors. Her eyes were starting to droop from exhaustion (sitting in a car was fine, but sitting in a car whilst running for your life because freaky ancient Greek monsters were chasing you with the munchies was not). Because of her lack of attention, she had no recollection about how Oak had gotten them past airport security. She recalled him buying the tickets with several wads of cash, and thinking that if he was so wealthy why the hell did he not (sort of) kidnap her with an armoured van, and just tell the monsters to piss off. When she asked him that, he didn't seem to find it funny. But she didn't remember much after that. She thought it had something to do with her student ID and the 'mist' thing. Oak had to keep stomping on her foot, and she was fairly sure her big toe was going to get a bruise from his hooves.

"Hey, do you want any food? Gummy bears? Pretzels or something?" Oak asked as they walked to their gate. She shook her head. The last time she was on a plane, she ate a bag of peanuts and puked all over Sarah. She didn't need a repeat of the experience. Flying and food were not a good combination where Mari was concerned. Oak got her a smoothie and a salad sandwich anyway. They had about an hour to kill before the plane boarded, so they sat down and Oak handed Mari a book. She looked at him quizzically.

"For such an exemplary stalker, I would have thought you'd realised I have dyslexia by now. I don't feel like struggling to read right before an 8-hour flight."

He shook his head, this time not exasperated. Maybe this was a normal response for demigods. "Just try," he said. "Humour me."

Rolling her eyes, Mari opened up the first page of the book. Sing, Goddess, Achilles rage... What?! She stared at Oak, dumbfounded. Reading had never been that easy before.

Oak smiled at her, explaining, "You have dyslexia because your brain is naturally inclined to reading Ancient Greek, not English. Vgázei nóima aftó?" asked Oak.

"Yeah, it makes- WAIT!" Did he...? "Don't tell me you actually just spoke to me in ancient Greek, and I- I-"

"You understood it. Yes." Oak confirmed.

"I told you not to tell me that!" Mari's mind was spinning.

"Well, you would have been madder if I lied!" he argued.

She ignored the fact that he was right, instead continuing to read.

Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain...

The gate opened, and Oak flicked her forehead. "Jeannolemmeslee.." she mumbled, burrowing her face into her sleeve.

Oak laughed. "You fell asleep reading. I took away The Iliad before you could wrinkle the pages. We have to board."

Mari got up, stretching as her neck clicked and running her hand through her hair. Oak had yet to get toothpaste or deodorant, so she was surviving on mentos gum, which sucked because she hated chewing gum.

"You look like hades," Oak said, as they started to walk through the gate.

"Thanks." She deposited her gum and wrapper into a nearby bin. They got to the entrance, and this time Mari actually saw what Oak did with her student ID card. He handed it to the flight attendant, who was wearing bright red lipstick and had her hair in a ponytail, and they both watched as she inspected and handed it back.

When she looked at Mari's student ID, the flight attendant pursed her lips, smiling. "Miss, I'm sorry but this isn't suitable identification for travel. We need to stamp your passports before you can board."

Mari looked nervously at Oak, convinced that somebody from airport security was about to march up to them and demand that they were arrested for attempting to illegally board. She heard the sound of a throat being cleared, and looked back.

The flight attendant was reaching for a phone connected to the desk, as it was clear that Mari didn't have a passport to give her. "If you would please make your way to-" The woman paused when she had looked at Mari's ID again, her eyes growing foggy, like somebody was holding cling film over them. "Oh! It seems I was mistaken, I'm sorry. Please make your way to the boarding terminal. Your flight will take off in a in about an hour. I hope you have a pleasant journey." She smiled at them, looking embarrassed at the fact that she had almost called airport security on who she believed were innocent teenagers.

As Oak followed Mari past her as the next people handed over their passports, Mari began to wish that she could have used the mist on her science test the week before.

The plane was cramped but bearable. Oak let Mari sit by the window. She watched the ground get smaller and smaller as the plane lifted off. Eventually Heathrow was a tiny speck on the ground, and then she couldn't see it at all. It reminded her of playing with Lego as a kid, when she'd make huge monuments whilst her foster siblings made trucks. Now that she thought about it, the buildings she made looked kind of like that big Greek building on the hill in Athens. The Parthi or something. She remembered stomping on those same buildings when one of the foster kids pulled her ponytail, and briefly wondered if humanity was as insignificant to the Gods as that Lego was to her.

Mari shut the circular blind.

Small tv's were build into the backs of the seats in front of them. These were controlled by remotes attached to their seats. Mari watched How to train your dragon, got bored, read the flight evacuation manual, mainly on Oak's insistence since she hadn't been listening when the flight attendants had explained it before take-off, got bored again, and switched the screen to the map of the world, which showed the location of the plane in its journey. The yellow line behind the plane showed how far it had travelled, and the green line showed how far it had left to go. It was only a third of the way across the whole line.

Mari sighed before opening the flight evacuation manual again. "Hey, did you know we have to take our shoes off if we crash in water? What if people see your..." Mari whispered the next part as quietly as possible "...hooves?"

Oak shook his head. "The mist, Mari."

She nodded like that made sense, even though it didn't.

During the fourth hour of the flight, Mari watched The Wizard of Oz. Then she had a very disturbing thought. "Oak!" she hissed, alarmed. The poor goat boy shot up from where he'd been letting out light baaaaa sounds as he slept, attracting a few odd looks. She'd told the concerned flight attendant that he had a very rare condition that caused him to bleat when having night terrors, and that the best thing to do was just let it pass, because if he was woken up by somebody else he could throw up everywhere. She had been particularly proud of that lie. Anyway, when Oak had woken up, he reached for the backpack, probably to draw the sword, when Mari stopped him.

"When you watch the wizard of Oz, do you get hungry? If you do, does that make you a cannibal?" she asked, thinking back to the tin man.

He looked at her incredulously for two whole minutes, possibly contemplating the odds of her survival if her used the hilt of his sword to knock her out. "I'm going back to sleep," he eventually said, rolling over.

"You can't. I told the flight attendant that when you woke up I'd make sure you stayed awake so you wouldn't puke when we landed." Mari shook his shoulder.

Oak stared at her, eyes wide. "Why the hades would you do that?!" he exclaimed.

"Hey, I had to think on my feet. It's not like I've ever had to lie about a half-goat person before. I almost told her you had rabies, but I held back!"

Mari defended, but Oak looked even more done with her behaviour. "Mari, I'm half-goat. Not half-dog. I can't get rabies." Oak spoke slowly, like he was talking to a 3-year-old.

Mari looked down, chewing on her lip. "Sorry..."

Oak sighed, putting his hand on his forehead. "It's ok. That was actually kind of funny. I just wish you'd woken me up for something important if I can't go back to sleep."

"Hey, it was a genuine question," Mari protested, half serious. She'd been sitting still for far too long and needed something to distract herself, so she figured that she may as well pester Oak about all things goat.

"No, I don't get hungry when I watch the wizard of Oz. Happy?"

Mari didn't know if she was disappointed or not at that revelation.

Eventually, Mari stole back Oak's copy of The Iliad, seeing as he wasn't reading it and Achilles and Patroclus were quickly becoming her favourite people to read about. She wondered how much of it was accurate to whatever the hell - or hades, she corrected herself - the gods actually did. She hoped the part about Achilles and Patroclus dating was true, at least. She also wondered why Achilles didn't make his Achilles heel an Achilles butthole, since nobody would think to stab that. But she guessed that Ancient Greek heroes probably didn't have time to properly plan these things. Plus he didn't really get a choice.

Mari got bored, and handed the book back to Oak, who was trying to eat a sprite can that had fallen in the aisle. He hid the can when the flight attendants started handing out food. Mari didn't see what Oak picked, but she went for a vegetable slice. She didn't eat the vegetable slice, since it had the consistency of a tire, but she moved it around the box a little to make it look like she'd made an effort.

About an hour later she noticed that Oak was nervously fiddling with his orange shirt. Now, Mari may not have been very good at opening up to people, but she was observant about them. When she payed attention. Which was less often than she cared to admit, but the point was that she was paying attention then. Oak was chewing on the little opener thingy of the sprite can and looking down. He looked nervous and... guilty.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Oak started. "N-nothing. Just sitting."

"You look like you're about to explode." Then she realised what was probably wrong. Lowering her voice for probably the fifth time in the flight, she whispered "Do you need to use the little goats room?"

His face went red in embarrassment. "No! No- I-"

Mari furrowed her eyebrows confused. If he didn't need to go, she couldn't think of another reason for him to look... well, constipated.

"I'm sorry!" he whispered.

Her eyes widened. "Wha... oh shit! Oak, just, don't move, we can probably clean it up-"

Oak put his hand over her mouth. His face looked even redder, if that was possible. He reminded Mari of a furry tomato.

"Mari, it's not the bathroom! I... I just... I shouldn't have gotten you."

Mari looked down, feeling guilty that she'd made such an assumption. She gulped, swallowing her pride. "Uh, Oak... I'm sorry... I just thought since goats are wild animals and stuff..." That probably wasn't helping. "I... I'm grateful for you for taking me. Even if I was kind of prickly because I thought you were a kidnapper. You... you saved me. And, um, thanks..."

"No, no! I mean... I was trying to say that I didn't save you for the right reasons. I was in trouble with the council of the cloven elders. They were going to send somebody else, someone who'd gotten demigods across the country before. But I wanted to go. And I didn't think of how much danger it would put you in. There are satyrs who can get people internationally in hours. You'd be safe already if they'd sent one of them."

Mari didn't know who this council was, but she thought being safe from whatever monster was chasing them or waiting for them sounded good. She was about to vocalise that, but then she looked at Oak.

He was curled in on himself like a new-born baby. His eyes looked moist but there wasn't anything coming out of them. She didn't want to be the catalyst for somebody else's tears.

She she went for a less accusatory route of conversation. "But why did you volunteer? Surely if you weren't okay for the trip, you would have been told no?"

"I guess... I wanted to prove myself? Almost every satyr wants to get a searcher's licence, which means permission to search for the great God Pan, who hasn't been seen in thousands of years... But that's something I'll explain later. The thing is, I never wanted to be a searcher. I'm not very good at big jobs, or even small jobs really. I just want to find demigods and maybe even start a little reed pipe class. But, a lot of other Satyrs thought that I was too scared to search for Pan, and called me a coward..."

Oak's words made Mari feel guilty for thinking he was some awful kidnapper demon before. Sure, maybe she had a very good reason for making that assumption, and if it happened to her again she would without a doubt make that same assumption, but Oak was... nice. Not many people were nice to her, and it hurt to know that most people just saw him as some kind of joke, and then she'd made it worse by yelling at him.

Mari watched him look away in shame, and felt the need to make him feel better, but was unsure what to do. She'd never really comforted anybody other then some really little kids in her various foster homes, but she had a feeling that playing peekaboo with Oak wouldn't have the desired effect. Hesitantly, she put her hand on his shoulder, patted his back. "Uh, Oak... look, if it's any consolation, those other goat people sound way out of line. I know that we didn't really get off to the best start, but I never thought you were a coward. Just, maybe slightly evil. But I don't think you're evil anymore! I swear. I actually think you're pretty cool. I mean, you killed a bunch of freaky monster things and managed to sneak us onto a plane. And you don't eat tin people, which is always good." She lowered her voice for that part, slightly alarmed that her moral compass had switched to some variant that believed that killing monsters was cool and sneaking onto planes illegally was A-Okay in such a short period of time, but continued on regardless. "I think that if it had been anybody else, we probably wouldn't have gotten this far. I mean, you found me by chance, right? I don't think another Satyr would have been wondering around that park. And you're a really cool person. Or, satyr. Whatever. And you're my friend, goatboy.

Oak managed a small smile at least. "Thanks, Mari. You're my friend too."

The plane touched down in La Guardia Airport at 11 O'clock New York time. Mari followed Oak, who had slightly cheered up after stealing several more tin cans, and hummed a small tune to herself as he once again did his misty thing on the airport security. Oak hailed a taxi, paying in American dollars, and Mari watched in awe as the city flew past her.

Sure, she'd been to London once when she was 7, but she hadn't had a chance to actually see much of it. She'd been dumped in a hotel by Bobby, her ex-foster brother, told not to wander off, and left to her own devices whilst he partied with his friends. She had only gone with him in the first place because his parents wanted the house to themselves. So, New York was the first city she'd ever seen, and it didn't disappoint. The sun shone over the city, bathing the tops of buildings in gold. She couldn't see the pavement (or sidewalk) at all, since it was overflowing with people dipping in and out of buildings. She'd heard of Central Park, but she hadn't realised it was so huge. She actually couldn't see the other side from their taxi.

Too soon for Mari's liking, they left Manhattan behind, and drove towards Long Island. "Oak, where exactly is this place?" She was still peering out of the window as the skyscrapers were replaced by trees.

"It's a valley by the Long Island Sound," Oak told her.

Mari pretended to understand what the Long Island Sound was. "Oh, cool, do you think they have a map?"

Oak nodded. "Yeah, they have a camp store that sells T-shirts, maps, and other stuff. They usually give new campers 15 Drachma, that's Ancient Greek currency, and you can earn more from working in the store or doing extra chores. Or you could steal some. But that doesn't usually work." Oak said the last part hastily, like he was worried about destroying her innocent 10-year-old ethical ideals.

"Hey, kids," the taxi asked. "This is as far as you payed for. Are you two going to be okay?" He must have been worried about two kids, one of them clearly still in primary - again she corrected her English to American - in middle school - wandering off into the woods on their own.

Mari hopped out of the car, and looked back at Oak expectantly. He looked like he wanted to ask to go further, but was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of forcing the poor guy to drive them somewhere for free. Oak shook his head, smiling brightly at the driver. "No, we have people coming to pick us up from here, thanks! Have a great day." Oak shut the taxi door. He and Mari watched with nervous smiles as the driver gave them an uneasy look before driving away.

Once the taxi had disappeared into the distance Oak said, "Okay, camp is a few miles away, and it's probably not a good idea to walk all that way, since we'd likely get attacked before we even got halfway there. Monsters tend to hang out around the camp borders during important events, and the winter solstice is in about a week."

Mari nodded, not really surprised. She hadn't been very lucky in the last 12 hours, so she didn't really have any reason to expect that luck to make a U-turn.

Oak continued. "I'm going to IM Chiron - that's Iris-messaging, I'll explain later- and ask him to send Argus to pick us up. Argus is the camp security, and I'm warning you now, don't ask about the eyes. Just don't."

"Ok, that's cool and all, but can't we keep walking until he gets to us. Wouldn't that be better than stopping and waiting for him?"

Oak shook his head. "There's no point. Argus can probably be with us in 10 minutes. The most time we'd shave would be, like, 30 seconds."

At this point, Mari got that same strange feeling in her chest that she experienced with the snakeskin. She just knew for some reason that they had to get closer to this camp, or something horrible would happen to them. "Oak, I feel like we should-"

She was interrupted by a fizzing sound, and looked over at Oak. He had unscrewed the cap of his water bottle, and threw a drachma into the puddle on the floor. "Oh, Iris, Goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering. Show me Chiron at Camp Half-blood."

Mist started to rise from the puddle, and shimmered into the image of a man in a wheelchair, listening to Beethoven on an old radio. Oak cleared his throat twice, and the man's eyes widened. He turned the radio down. "Oak? I thought you said you weren't sure about the child. What happened?"

"It's a really long story, Chiron. I'm sorry. There's no time but I'll explain everything when we get back. We're about 3 miles away from camp, is there any way Argus can pick us up?"

Chiron nodded. "Of course, Oak. I'll have him leave as soon as we're done here." The man turned to Mari. "Hello, child. I hope you've been fully briefed, and I should see you soon. Then we can have a proper conversation." He smiled reassuringly. Before she could respond, the rainbow mist surrounding the image of Chiron dimmed, lost all colour, and disappeared.

"Sorry, Mari. What were you saying?" asked Oak.

Mari rubbed her arms nervously. "Oak, I really feel like we should start walking to camp, even if it doesn't do much. I can't explain it, I just feel like something awful will happen if we don't." She glanced around her.

Oak's gaze softened, as if remembering that she was only ten and had left behind everything she had ever known in the space of less than a day. "Mari, it's okay. We're nearly there, and everything is going to be fine now. If we start walking to camp, we might get too close to the monsters and they could smell you. If we stay here, they shouldn't detect you in just ten minutes. It's okay, everything is going to be okay, Mari." Oak pulled her into a hug, and she wrapped her arm around him in turn, letting herself be comforted and trying to ignore the ever increasing feeling that something was wrong.

They sat down, leaning against a tree and Oak handed Mari her bottle of water. "You should drink this. You still have a sprained ankle and head wound. Take it easy."

She nodded, offering him a small smile as she took a sip. She didn't feel much better, but at least she was doing something. What she really needed was a compression wrap for her ankle, a strip of sterile gauze for her head and some painkillers. Or some ambrosia. She rested her head on the tree trunk, swallowing twice. She hadn't actually felt the pain until Oak reminded her of it, possibly because of the ambrosia, but now it was back, even if it was dull. Her ankle was throbbing, and her head felt like somebody was banging it against shattered glass over and over again.

"Mari, it's going to be ok. Seriously. Trust me. I know you're scared, but you have to trust me. You're going to be fine."

She nodded, but stopped when it made her head feel worse.

"Do you want me to try and distract you until Argus gets here?" Oak asked, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

"Actually, I did have a question about Argus. What did you mean about the eyes?" she asked, taking another sip of water.

"Well, Argus was created by Hera as a servant, and now works as the camp security. His body is completely covered in eyes. He's a little insecure about it, so, just don't mention it."

Mari was a little freaked out, but tried to put it out of her head, since Argus probably wouldn't be the strangest creature she'd encounter. She was also thankful that he apparently didn't need glasses, because that sounded like an optician's nightmare.

Mari closed her eyes, letting her head fall forward to try and avoid aggravating her injury by resting it on the tree trunk.

"Argus should be here soon, Mari," Oak assured her.

She was about to respond when they heard some kind of angry howl from somewhere close by.

Oak jumped up, his eyes wide. "Was that just me?! Did you hear that, you heard that too, right?!" he bleated.

Mari frantically nodded her head, scrambling from her spot and snapping a branch off the tree. She held it out threateningly, looking around for whatever demonic monster thing was trying to attack them. Oak looked at her incredulously for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"What?" she asked.

"Celestial bronze, Mari. That won't do anything."

She began to panic, throwing down the branch and searching through the backpack. "Something, something, something... Oak, there isn't something, what do I do?" Her veins felt like they were full of ice water, and she started to breathe heavily.

"Get behind me, and get ready to jump into the car as fast as you can." Oak squared his shoulders, trying to hide the terrified expression on his face. His fake confidence wasn't very successful, and in Mari's opinion he looked like he was going into cardiac arrest and trying to pass gas at the same time.

"No, that's not fair! I can't just leave you here. You helped me, and you're my friend, and-"

Oak shifted his sword into one hand and put the other on one of her shoulders. "Mari. You are a demigod. You have to get to camp. Once Argus gets here, he can get us away quickly and safely. But there's no point if you die. You have to trust me."

They heard the howl again. They didn't have time to wonder what the monster was before two gigantic dogs burst through the trees. Mari gaped. There was gigantic, then there was monstrously huge and then there was whatever the he - hades - these things were.

Oak looked like he'd just been told a close relative had died. His face went white as he looked around hopelessly for Argus. "Two..." he moaned under his breath.

Mari tried to slowly step back, but, in a horrifically ironic continuation of her luck, she stepped on the same useless branch she'd thrown down a few seconds earlier, making a crunch that increased the dogs' awareness of her. Mari stood stick-still. She contemplated praying to whoever her parent was to please find a way to summon an immortal vet or something to take them away.

Oak chose that exact moment to move, raising his sword above his head and trying to engage in battle with both dogs at once, reserving his biggest blows and the majority of his attention to the larger one. He periodically stuck the smaller monster, hoping to keep it antagonised enough for it to go for him and not Mari.

The smaller dog leaped out of the way to avoid Oak's sword, allowing him to catch a particularly strong whiff of Mari's scent. Now, he remembered his original purpose: catching some tasty tasty demi-god food. The animal growled as it advanced towards her.

Mari couldn't back away as she was already against a tree. She couldn't fight, couldn't talk the creature out of eating her, couldn't run. "Shit, shit, shit..." she whispered. The giant dog held out its snout, looking at her almost expectantly. She furrowed her eyebrows. Shouldn't she be a human chew toy by now? She yelped when she felt something slimy lick her hand.

Hesitantly, she held her hand up to its jaws. It was kind of like what Sarah and Bryan's dog, Harold, did when it wanted to play. Maybe-

Teeth sunk into her flesh. "Ah!" she screamed, fresh tears gathering on her eyelashes. It was like tiny knives stabbing into her palm and twisting. The dog unlocked its jaw and she yanked her hand away, trying not to make a sound. It had tasted her blood now. It had tasted her blood and it was probably hungry and she tasted like food and she was weak and hurt and helpless and...

Mari had an idea.

She couldn't run because if you ran away from a dog that was like encouraging it to chase after you. But dogs chased everything.

As slowly as she could, trying to ignore both Oak's panicked bleats and the growling that was a lot louder, a lot closer, she crouched down and with her good hand, she picked up the branch she'd discarded, the branch she'd stepped on only to give herself away. She could only hope that Ancient Greek monster demon dog things had a similar mind to a normal dog.

"Hey, doggy! Hey! Fetch!"

As hard as she could, she threw the stick across the road. She was surprised by how far she managed to get it. It was at least ten metres away, and Mari knew that while the short distance would probably give her a few seconds at most (if it even took the bait) she hoped that those seconds would give her enough tine to come up with some kind of plan.

For a second, the dog made no move and Mari whimpered and pressed her body into the tree. Then, she heard paws moving quickly away from her. Only seconds later, the sound of paws grew louder and closer once more. She felt something nudge her. She opened her eyes and screamed at the bright red ones staring back at her. Drool was was falling onto her feet. On the ground beside them was a saliva-coloured stick. Did he really want to play fetch?

Blinding pain shot through her as the wound began to bleed, more tears falling from her eyes. The dog kept back, preparing to spring and Mari knew trust she had to act fast. She picked up the stick with her good hand. Once again she threw it away from the gigantic dog thing. It bounded away from her to retrieve it, when she spotted Oak's sword on the dirt next to her. Without thinking about the how part, she swiped it up into a similar position Oak had used to charge the bigger dog. She almost felt bad about what she was about to do, but her survival instincts won out and she steeled herself, promising that if she ever made any money on her own that wasn't ancient Greek currency, the first thing she'd do would be to donate a large chunk of it to the nearest animal shelter.

When it came running towards her, she shakily shoved the sword into its neck using her good hand, and watched as it turned to dust.

"Oak! Oak, I killed one!" she called, slumping in relief. Now Oak just had to finish off the other one and they could be on their merry way...

Silence.

She turned around to where he had been fighting the other one, and nearly fell to her knees. Lying in a puddle of golden dust and blood, was her friend. Her goat boy.

Oak.

She let out a strangled cry, and ran towards him as his eyelids fluttered. She had a bite mark on her hand, but he had a bigger one in his stomach. She could see the white of his rib cage.

"Oak, what..." she trailed off, trying to ignore his pain-filled bleats and whimpers as she pressed her hands into his wound, trying to apply pressure.

"Heard you scream... looked over... sa-saw-" he stuttered on the last word, and coughed blood into his orange shirt. "Saw you throw the stick... so proud... and then- then it got me so I- ungh- stabbed it an-and tried to throw you my sword-" He gagged on his own saliva and blood, and Mari tried to soothe him.

"Mar- Mmheh-Mari- my sword-" he choked, in too much pain to move his head. "It's- it's y-yours..." Mari shook her head, unable to comprehend what she was hearing. "No, Oak! It's going to be ok, you promised me. You're going to survive this and show me around camp..." she trailed off.

Oak smiled. It wasn't sad. It was more resigned. "S'okay... I'll- i'll be a p-pla-plant... go b-back into na-nature... like the gre-gr-great God Pan w-would ha-have wanted..." A tear slipped from his eyes, and he swallowed. This was all it took for Mari to start bawling, too. "One more req-request..."

It was too much. She couldn't speak, couldn't nod her head, couldn't do anything but desperately try to stop the blood coming didn't he broken body of her friend who did not deserve to die.

Oak seemed to be able to read her agreement form her eyes, and smiled in relief. "Take m- take me ba-back to camp." He coughed again, and this time the blood came out thicker.

Mari managed to nod mutely, and at that moment they both heard the sound of an engine drawing closer, of wheels against gravel.

"Mari... thank-" He was barely able to talk now. "Thankyou- f-for being m-m-my ff-friend." Oak's voice cracked as he sputtered his last words. Red stained his lips as if he'd eaten a cherry-flavoured sweet. She wished that was what it was. Her sobs increased as she heard the engine grow louder as it drew nearer, then cut off. There was the slam of a door and feet running. She barely processed that as she stared at the ruined body of her friend. Her goat boy. Except, it wasn't her goat boy anymore.

Nestled in the soil, between a bloody backpack and a celestial bronze sword, was a poppy.