𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 7

Seven
𖧷

A Frustrating Day

  The way Tantalus saw it, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods, and would not have attacked if Annabeth and I didn't go out disturbing them with our bad driving.

  It was totally just Tantalus picking on me for something and making up favorites that caused the punishment. That is exactly why I told him to go shove a stick up his ass. That also obviously did not go well for me.

  He sentenced us to kitchen patrol–scrubbing pots and platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with the cleaning harpies. The harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get that extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so Annabeth and I had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.

   Annabeth and I had to suffer through hours of hot, dangerous work, especially since there were tons of extra plates. Tantalus had ordered a special luncheon banquet to celebrate Clarisse’s chariot victory–a full-course meal featuring country-fried Stymphalian dead-bird.

  The only good thing about our punishment was that it gave Annabeth and me a common enemy and lots of time to talk. And we could decide that Percy might've been telling us the truth about his dreams with Grover.

  "If he’s really found it," she murmured, "and if we could retrieve it–"

  "Hold on," I said. "You act like this ... whatever-it-is Grover found is the only thing in the world that could save the camp. What the hell is it?"

  "I’ll give you a hint. What do you get when you skin a ram?"

  "Well, depending on the place you kill it, arrested."

  "No, not that," Annabeth rolled her eyes.

  I looked up and took a moment to think, "A fleece?"

  "Yeah, a fleece. The coat of a ram is called a fleece. And if that ram happens to have golden wool–"

  "The Golden Fleece. Are you fucking kidding me?"

  Annabeth scrapped a plateful of dead-bird bones into the lava. "(y/n), remember the Gray Sisters? They said they knew the location of the thing you seek. And they mentioned Jason. Three thousand years ago, they told him how to find the Golden Fleece. You do know the story of Jason and the Argonauts?"

  "The movie?" I asked. "With those clay skeletons and shit?"

  Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh my gods, (y/n)! You are so hopeless."

  "What?" I demanded.

  "Just listen. The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that’s not important."

  "It prolly was to her."

  "The point is, when Cadmus got to Colchis, he sacrificed the golden ram to the gods and hung the Fleece in a tree in the middle of the kingdom. The Fleece brought prosperity to the land. Animals stopped getting sick. Plants grew better. Farmers had bumper crops. Plagues never visited. That’s why Jason wanted the Fleece. It can revitalize any land where it’s placed. It cures sickness, strengthens nature, cleans up pollution–"