[2] 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 ― p.jackson

010.

「010. remove those pretty tears」

THEY TRULY thought they'd lost the spider until tyson heard a faint pinging sound. after making a few turns, backtracking a few times and finally turning a corner- they found the spider banging its tiny head on a metal door. the door looked like one of those old-fashioned submarine hatches: oval, with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. where the portal should've been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a greek ȇta inscribed in the middle.

they all looked to each other.

"ready to meet hephaestus?" grover asked nervously.

"no," percy admitted.

"not really," mumbled cadie, looking down at the spider. "what a weird little guy."

"let's go meet hephaestus!" tyson added brightly, turning the wheel without another word.

as soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with tyson not far behind it. the rest of them followed, not quite as anxious. if anything, cam was probably the most energetic after tyson and the spider. with his leg being made by the god himself, it was like meeting your favourite celebrity (that's what cadie guessed, anyways).

the room, safe to say, was absolutely enormous.

it looked just like a mechanic's garage, with several hydraulic lifts. some had cars on them, but others had stranger things: a bronze hippalectryon with its horse head off and a bunch of wires hanging out its rooster tail, a metal lion that seemed to be hooked up to a battery charger, and a greek war chariot made entirely of flames.

smaller projects cluttered a dozen worktables. tools hung along the walls. each had its own outline on a peg-board, but nothing seemed to be in the right place. the hammer was over the screwdriver place. the staple gun was where the hacksaw was supposed to go. under the nearest hydraulic lift, which was holding a '98 toyota corolla, a pair of legs stuck out—the lower half of a huge man in grubby gray pants and shoes even bigger than tyson's. one leg was in a metal brace.

the spider scuttled straight under the car, and the sounds of banging stopped.

"well, well," a deep voice boomed from under the corolla. "what have we here?"

the mechanic pushed out on a back trolley and sat up.

cadie had briefly seen hephaestus before on olympus last winter, so it wasn't a total surprise to see him. she had a distinct memory of him dancing to something that looked like a mix of the macarena to the beat of 'apple bottom jeans', so she psyched herself up for the meeting by pretending that's what he was normally like.

there wasn't much of a difference, actually. he just seemed a bit more tired and in need of a break.

his work jumpsuit was smeared with oil and grime, with the name 'hephaestus' embroidered over the chest pocket in a neat sort of pattern that cadie was rather sure he'd done himself (she was extra sure when she glanced away for a split second and saw a corner dedicated to sewing with a bronze sewing machine).

his leg creaked and clicked in its metal brace as he stood, and his left shoulder was lower than his right, so he seemed to be leaning even when he was standing up straight. he wore a tired scowl on his face with one of his eyes being circled by a what she assumed was celestial bronze. she couldn't tell if it was a magnifying glass for helping with mechanics or if it was simply there for the aesthetic but either way, it suited him.

his black beard smoked and hissed and every once in a while a small wildfire would erupt on his beard before he shooed it away with roughed hands that had bright red bandages on a few of the tips of his fingers.