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TWENTY TWO, chariot disaster
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THE NEXT FEW DAYS were like hell. Probably like Tantalus wanted. He'd immediately taken a dislike to Aster and Percy, most likely because they had brought Tyson into camp. Aster wasn't too thrilled that he was there either, but she'd only allowed him in to save the camp. The more she gets to know Tyson—which is mostly against her will—the more she's convinced he can't do much of anything for himself besides getting bullied and breaking non-delicate things (like picnic tables). It also doesn't help that he doesn't understand any of it.
But Percy does. And he doesn't want to do anything about it. Not that Aster is jumping up to defend him either, but at least her and Annabeth have a reason; a cyclops terrorized them on the two worst nights of their lives, and had taken Thalia from them.
Naturally, as teenagers would be teenagers, the campers made comments to Percy about Tyson. Suddenly, he wasn't Percy Jackson, the cool guy who'd retrieved Zeus's lightning bolt last summer. Now he was Percy Jackson, the poor schmuck with the ugly monster for a brother. Honestly, with the way Percy was treating his (former) friend, Aster didn't feel too sorry for him.
"He's not my real brother!" Percy protested whenever Tyson wasn't around. "He's more like a half-brother on the monstrous side of the family. Like... a half-brother twice removed, or something."
Nobody bought it. Aster and Annabeth would say nothing. Percy got increasingly angry about the whole situation, and Aster knew it was more about the ridicule than anything.
Percy had been irritable the past few days, and Aster wasn't much better. Though they tended to bicker a lot, it had seemed to be even more recently. She wasn't sure what it was, but every little thing he did just pissed her off. Annabeth tried making them feel better; she suggested that they all team up for the chariot race to take their minds off their problems.
At the very least, they seemed to have two things in common—they all hated Tantalus and were worried sick about camp, but they didn't know what they could do about it. If Chiron couldn't even heal it, what chance did a bunch of thirteen year old demigods have? Until they could come up with some brilliant plan to save Thalia's tree, Annabeth figured they might as well go along with the races. After all, Annabeth's mom, Athena, had invented the chariot, and Percy's dad had created horses. Aster didn't have much interest in the race (besides maybe betting with Steve out of all his golden drachmas), but she had some design ideas. Besides, Tantalus had asked her—not very graciously, might she add—to grow the victory laurel wreaths. One of her siblings had told him her power of growing was the strongest, unfortunately.
One morning, the three of them were sitting by the canoe lake sketching chariot designs when some jokers from Aphrodite's cabin walked by and asked Percy if he needed to borrow some eyeliner for his eye... "Oh sorry, eyes."
