Sea Green Eyes

Trials of Apollo - Part Three

Apollo had wanted a bow or quiver. And they didn't have any.

"I suck at archery," Percy explained which was really all the explanation he needed.

"Yes, but I don't," Apollo said. "This is why you should always plan for my needs."

"Watch it," Cressida warned as she and Percy walked hand in hand. "We can take Meg to camp and leave you behind very easily."

Apollo shut up after that as Percy grinned and went back to the archery topic as if it was nothing.

"And Drama Queen has like five weapons on her right now. Her sword, her thyrsus, her staff, her spear, her switchblade. And that's not including the magical powers we both have. A bow and quiver would be useless to us."

"Unless it could help you pass senior year," Cressida mused and Percy chuckled.

"Then it would be a very different story."

When they reached the Prius, the couple climbed into the front seats as Apollo and Meg clambered into the back.

How the mortals never got carsick, Apollo would never understand. The second he sat in the backseat he was hit with nausea as Percy got onto the Long Island Expressway and Cressida fiddled with the radio.

"Gods, remind me to poach that Led Zeppelin from Pollux when we get there," she said as the band came on the radio.

"Is it the good one?"

She flopped back onto the passenger seat, the seatbelt behind her back because that was the only way she could wear it without it feeling like she was being tied down again. Annabeth was in Boston currently visiting family but she was working on a seatbelt design for Cressida that would keep her safe but not make her feel tied down.

"Is there a bad Led Zeppelin album?" she asked with a raised brow, her eyes shining through her dark glasses.

"You know what I mean."

"Yes," she grinned. "It's your favourite Led Zeppelin album."

And Percy laced their fingers together as he brought her hand to his lips, neither of them, along with Meg, being affected by the constant braking and lurching Percy had to do as they sat through traffic.

"Doesn't your Prius have flamethrowers?" Apollo demanded. "Lasers? At least some Hephaestian bumper blades? What sort of cheap economy vehicle is this?"

Percy glanced in the rearview mirror. "You have rides like that on Mount Olympus?"

"We don't have traffic jams," he said. "That, I can promise you."

Meg turned and gazed out the rear windshield, probably checking for any shiny blobs pursuing us. "At least we're not being—"

"Don't say it," Percy warned.

Meg huffed. "You don't know what I was going to—" "You were going to say, 'At least we're not being followed,'" Percy said.

"It's bad luck for a demigod to say that, Meg," Cressida said. "I can't even count the times that Fish Face here has jinxed us."

"Hey, I was still new to being a demigod. You can't exactly blame me for that. And you can't blame me now if we notice that we are being followed. Then we'll end up in a big battle that totals my family car and probably destroys the whole freeway. Then we'll have to run all the way to camp."

"I won't blame you for that," Cressida promised. "But on the bright side, I can use my magic card to buy your parents a car that will actually fit the soon-to-be five of us comfortably."