Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.
Author's Notes: Not much changed this chapter (still – next chapter is a different story!), but holy shit. Rewriting this made me realize how many times I used the phrase "or something like that" in the original. Like, I would say you could make a drinking game out of it, but I'm concerned you would get alcohol poisoning if you did. Ah, well. Woes of a writer, I guess?
Speaking of next chapter, and every 2k chapter I've rewritten so far, they're all 3k words now. Can't promise a whole lot of exciting content to them, but. The word count is increasing, y'all!
Anyways, hope you enjoy and until next week,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
~The Finding Home Saga~
~Finding Home~
~Chapter 9: I'm Forced Into A Quest~
You know what sucks?
Almost all of the people you thought you were becoming friends with ditching you because you're a son of Poseidon, that's what.
The morning after I had been claimed, Chiron moved me into Cabin Three. I was the only person in the cabin, so I had plenty of room for all of my stuff...which only amounted to one set of spare clothes and a toiletry bag Luke had stolen for me, but still. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all of my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.
And I was absolutely miserable.
Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel like I had a home in Cabin Eleven and I could be a normal kid – or, at least, as normal as a half-blood could be – I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.
And yeah, most of the people I had been becoming friends with ditched me because of it. Oh, sure, nobody mentioned how I had controlled water and levitated a bunch of Ares kids off the ground with it, but I could tell it was the main reason why almost everybody started leaving me alone.
Ethan, Alabaster, Travis, Connor, Chris...all of them steered clear from me as if I had the plague. And it hurt.
The only people who didn't treat me any different were Luke and Katie. In fact, if anything Katie started to hang out with me more, saying we were basically step-siblings now and it meant we had to stick together. It made me feel incredibly grateful for having her as a best friend, and I told her as much over and over again, to the point it almost became obnoxious.
As for Luke, he went out of his way to help me, too. Our sword lessons become one-on-one – because none of the kids from Cabin Eleven wanted to fight with me now – and he pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.
"You're going to need all the training you can get," he said once, while we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now, let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."
Now, you might be thinking at this point that working alone with Luke would've lessened my crush on him – although that wasn't what I would've called it. However, if anything, it made it worse. Because he was not only an excellent teacher, but an amazing teammate on top of that, and when I thought about those things, my mind went to places it really shouldn't have gone to.
I thought about saying something about it once or twice, but I never did. Mainly because every time I tried, I found myself blushing and I couldn't even get the words out of my mouth.
Which was perhaps for the best, anyways. Now that I was revealed to be the son of her mom's nemesis, Annabeth was more bitchy than ever, especially during my Ancient Greek lessons in the mornings. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd poked her right between the eyes.
After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest...Poseidon?...Dirty rotten...Got to make a plan..."
And things just seemed to spiral from there. One night, I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway. It was a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro Page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the more I read, the angrier I got, and the more the words floated around the page.
BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER FREAK CAR ACCIDENT
By Eileen Smythe
A woman named Sally Jackson (34) and her son, Perseus Jackson (14), are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned 1978 Camaro was discovered last Saturday in a ditch on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The roof was found several feet away, with an indication the car had been struck by lightning.
The mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other things of the missing mother and son. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.
Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabriel Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Perseus, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.
Police would not say whether Perseus is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally and Perseus Jackson. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.
The phone number was circled in black marker.
My hands shook. I wanted to do something – punch something, kick something, etc., etc. But when I felt the tug from behind my navel start up again, I forced myself to take a breath and calm down.
Now was not the time to destroy the cabin with my freaky water powers.
I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down on my bunk in the middle of the empty cabin.
"Lights out," I told myself miserably.
That night, I had the worst dream yet.
I dreamed I was in a deep, underground cavern – the kind that went down and down and stretched out for miles, like Mammoth Cave. It was dark, hot, and damp; the only light source came from a shimmer of golden light, which dimmed and brightened sporadically, almost like it was breathing.
"You were supposed to set the hellhound on him," I heard a deep, bellowing voice say in Ancient Greek.
Shivers went down my spine when I heard the voice. Instinctively, I turned to see where it was coming from, but then I realized there was no point, because it sounded like it was coming from everywhere.
"I'm sorry," a new voice said, this one familiar and soothing and coming from the opposite side of the golden light.
Nervously, I walked around it and, in the dim light, saw Luke. His face was carefully blank and I had a feeling he couldn't see me, much less hear me, but nevertheless I reached out and whispered, "Luke?"
"Why didn't you do as you were told?" the all-encompassing voice asked. "Are you gaining feelings for the boy? You know what happened to the last one."
"Don't talk about that!" Luke snapped, his face contorting, before he winced. "I...I'm sorry. Just...just give me some time. I'm sure I can convince him to come over to our side."
"Are you sure you can do that, demigod?" the voice questioned.
Luke hesitated, but only for a split second. "Yes. I'm sure of it. Just give me until the end of August. Please."
"Very well," the voice said. "But don't think that you will escape punishment for disobeying one of my orders."
Abruptly, Luke fell to the ground. I rushed forward to help him, but my fingers fell through his body, like I was a ghost. "Luke?" I whispered. "Luke, what's wrong? Talk to me!"
But Luke didn't say anything. Instead, he looked up at me – no, through me – and opened his mouth and screamed.
I woke up with a start.
I was still in bed at Cabin Three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills.
A storm was brewing, I could tell that much.
Suddenly, there was a frantic knocking at my door.
"Come in," I said, although my voice cracked halfway through.
Katie opened the door, her eyes wide and her hair blown all around her. Leaves and vines were crawling up her arms again – definitely not a good sign. "Mr. D wants to see you."
"Why?"
She shook her head. "I'd better let him tell you."
Anxiously, I pulled on my shirt, pair of shorts, and shoes, before I followed her outside, sure that I was in huge trouble.
For days, I'd been expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I had been declared a son of Poseidon, who wasn't supposed to have any mortal children at all, I figured my entire existence was some sort of crime. The other gods had probably been debating to punish me for even being born, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver the verdict.
Over the Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction, but I didn't ask Katie if we needed an umbrella. Alabaster had told me about how the children of Hecate, so him and Lou Ellen, warded off bad weather a few days ago – before he had ditched me, that is.
My mood soured even more at the thought.
At the volleyball pit, the kids from the Apollo cabin were playing a morning game against the Athena cabin. Annabeth was noticeably missing from the game, but I didn't give her any more thought.
Castor and Pollux were in the strawberry fields, walking around, making the plants grow. Like them, everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense, looking up at the storm every once in a while with wide, fearful eyes.
Katie and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Mr. D and Chiron were sitting at the pinochle table, just as both of them had on my first day. This time, though, they were playing against invisible opponents – ones that obviously knew a lot more about the game than I did.
"Well, well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."
I waited.
"Come closer," he said. "But don't expect me to bow down to you just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father. I didn't do it with Kathleen here when dear old Auntie claimed her, and I'm not going to do it now."
A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.
Mr. D merely rolled his eyes. "Typical."
Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards, while Katie crossed her arms and leaned against the railing.
"Mr. D," I said uncertainly.
"If I had it my way," he replied. "I would cause your molecules to erupt into flames and we'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."
"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron reminded him.
"Nonsense! The boy wouldn't feel a thing!" Mr. D exclaimed, then rolled his eyes. "But, I've agreed to restrain myself – I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead and sending you back to your father."
"Mr. D – " Chiron warned.
"Oh, all right," he sighed. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." He stood up then, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting – which I'm sure will be just as fun as the previous one was. Bah. But if the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Goodness knows it'd be more merciful than what you want him to do, Chiron."
Dionysus picked up a playing card and twisted it, causing it to turn into a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security card.
He snapped his fingers, and then was gone, as the air seemed to fold around him, making him vanish so that only a lingering smell of fresh-pressed grapes remained.
Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Percy. Please. And you too, Katie."
We did.
Chiron laid his cards on the table, revealing a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use. "Tell me, Percy," he said. "How much do you know about the summer solstice deadline?"
I stiffened. I hadn't really thought about that entire thing since I had arrived at Camp Half-Blood – there had just been too many things going on. But, now that he mentioned it, I remembered the conversation he and Katie had had at Yancy Academy, where Katie had said that somebody believed I was a thief. And I remembered Mrs. Dodds accusing me of stealing not one, but two symbols of power – whatever that meant.
I told him as much, per his request.
As I spoke, Chiron seemed to get wearier and wearier. "Percy," he said. "You have to understand that what is going on here, it is much bigger than yourself. But nevertheless, you are still at the center of it, due to your parentage."
I stared at him for a few moments. "And what is going on, sir?"
"At the last winter solstice meeting on Olympus, two symbols of power – something which a god is represented by – were stolen," he explained. "One was Zeus' master lightning bolt. The other was Hades' helm of darkness, as despite him not being an Olympian, he is allowed to attend each solstice meeting as he pleases.
"When Zeus and Hades realized their symbols of power were stolen, they looked for the perpetrator. Both initially thought it may have been one of our campers, as the year-rounders had been visiting that day, but then they remembered Demeter had sent Katie to you. And they grew suspicious."
"Because Demeter is married to my dad, right?" I guessed.
Chiron nodded. "Precisely. And while they could not outright accuse you before you were claimed, as your parentage was not certain, now that you have been, they have. Because, and this is what you must understand, Percy, the gods cannot take each other's symbols of power. Only a mortal can. And you are very much a mortal."
"But I didn't steal it!" I protested. "How could I? I didn't even know the gods existed back then! This is crazy!"
Thunder rolled across the valley.
"Careful, Percy," Katie warned me.
"Nevertheless," Chiron said. "That is what is going on. Both Zeus and Hades are demanding that you return them their symbols of power, regardless of your role in all of this. They want you to return them by June twenty-first, ten days from now. And Poseidon wants an apology for being accused of being a thief by the same date. And, knowing all of them, if neither of these things were to occur..."
I winced. "...It'll get ugly, won't it?"
He nodded.
"But how am I supposed to find these things?" I asked with a huff. "I mean, if the gods don't know where they are, then how am I supposed to know?"
"I believe I have an idea," Chiron replied. "But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. And you must seek out the counsel of the Oracle."
I thought about it for a moment, before I sighed and threw my hands into the hair. "Fine. I'll take the quest – if only to make sure I don't get turned into a dolphin."
"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said, with a grim smile. "Go upstairs, Percy, to the attic. And when you come back down, assuming you are still sane, we will talk more."
And despite how much I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, I nodded firmly and walked into the Big House and up the stairs.
Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trapdoor. I pulled the cord, only to cough, because as the door swung down and a wooden latter clattered into place, a bunch of dust flew directly into my face.
Heh. That rhymed.
The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else...I vaguely recognized it as something in my science class.
Reptiles, I realized with a pang. The smell of snakes.
I held my breath and climbed.
The attic was filled with all sorts of kinds of junk, covered in cobwebs: once-bright shields pitted with rust, and old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHACA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things, like hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, and various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.
By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all, however: a mummy. And not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, either. The mummy was a human female body, shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, with lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles.
I could tell that she had been dead for a long, long time.
Looking at her sent chills down my spine. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from it, cooling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes.
I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut.
"Fuck!" I couldn't help but scream.
Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain. "I am the spirit of Delphi," the voice hissed, which only made me scream again. "Speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask."
I didn't want to ask her anything. In fact, I had half the mind to scream again until someone would come for me. But I forced myself to take a deep breath.
The mummy wasn't alive, after all. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, which was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like Ananke: powerful. All-encompassing. All-destiny-changing. Something similar to that.
I took in another deep breath. "O' Oracle," I said after a few moments. "What is my destiny? I mean, what am I supposed to – OH MY GODS!"
After I had asked my first question, the mist started to swirl more thickly, collecting right in front of me. Suddenly, Ethan, Alabaster, Chris, and Luke were all standing there, right in front of me – except, it wasn't them. I mean, don't get me wrong, the mist definitely looked like them, but their eyes weren't grey, green, brown, and blue. Instead, they were all green. And their faces were carefully blank, too, as if they were unfeeling of emotion.
Ethan spoke first, albeit in the rasping voice of the Oracle: "You will go west, and face the god who has turned."
Alabaster was next, still in the same voice: "You will find what was stolen, and see it safely returned."
Then Chris: "You will be betrayed by one who you call more than a friend."
And finally, Luke, but he delivered the worst line of all: "And you will fail to save what matters most, in the end."
Then, their figures began to dissolve. At first, I was too stunned to say anything – my heart was pounding in my ears, because seeing all of them like that and hearing the Oracle speak through Luke was just too much to bear – but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? Who am I going to call more than a friend? And what will I fail to save?"
The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years or more. The attic was silent again, abandoned – nothing but a room full of mementos.
I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cobwebs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything more.
My audience with the Oracle was over.
Word Count: 3,447
Next Chapter Title: I Go Hunting For Quest-Mates
