𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐬'𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 • 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘺 𝘫𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴𝘰𝘯

Uatnyu Mes Gderan Gomen Meprouim

Y/n Pov:

It's nice to know there are Greek gods out there because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just terrible luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force is trying to mess up your day. 

So there we were, Annabeth and Percy and Grover and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses. 

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupil and full of terror.

"Three Kindly Ones. All three at once." 

I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: 

"Come on! The farther away we get, the better." 

"All our money was back there," Percy reminded her. "Our food and clothes.Everything." 

"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight—" I started.

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?" he interrupted.

"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine," I told him.

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine." 

"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth. 

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans...a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

We sloshed across the mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. 

After a few minutes, I fell into line next to Percy. 

"Look, I..." I told him. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was brave." 

"We're a team, right?" he said.

I was silent. I hesitated whether to tell him or not.

"It's just that if you died...aside from the fact that it would suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world." I told him quietly.

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Percy except a glint of his mesmerizing eyes. 

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" he asked me.

"No, only in field trips," I told him. "I lived in an orphanage before Camp Half-Blood, and it isn't something you would call home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home. At camp, you train and train. And that's awesome and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That'swhere you learn whether you're any good or not."

There was silence for a moment.

"You're pretty good with, weapons," he said. 

"You think so?" I asked.

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me," he told me.

I smiled.

I remembered that in olden times if you threw an apple to someone, was a way of asking for marriage, and remembered our game of Hacky Sack and how it ended. 

"You know," I said, "maybe I should tell you...Something funny back on the bus..." 

I was interrupted by some reed pipes.