The Nature of a Demigod

Dreams are the Worst

[Percy's POV]

I lost hope when I saw the horses' teeth. As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's. I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with most horses.

'Hi,' I told him. 'I'm going to clean your stables. Won't that be great?'

'Yes!' The horse said. 'Come inside! Eat you! Tasty half-blood!'

'But I'm Poseidon's son,' I protested. 'He created horses.' Usually this gets me VIP treatment in the equestrian world, but not this time. 'Yes!' The horse agreed enthusiastically. 'Poseidon can come in, too! We will eat you both! Seafood!'

'Seafood!' The other horses chimed in as they waded through the field. Flies were buzzing everywhere, and the heat of the day didn't make the smell any better. I'd had some idea that I could do this challenge, because I remembered how Hercules had done it. He'd channeled a river into the stables and cleaned them out that way.

Yeah, Hercules sucked, but the point stands. I figured I could maybe control the water. But if I couldn't get close to the horses without getting eaten, that was a problem. And the river was downhill from the stables, a lot farther away than I'd realized, almost half a mile.

The problem of the poop looked a lot bigger up close. I picked up a rusted shovel and experimentally scooped some away from the fence line. Great. Only four billion shovelfuls to go.

The sun was already sinking. I had a few hours at best. I decided the river was my only hope. At least it would be easier to think at the riverside than it was here. I set off downhill.

When I got to the river, I found a girl waiting for me. She was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt and her long brown hair was braided with river grass. She had a stern look on her face. Her arms were crossed. "Oh no you don't," she said. I stared at her. "Are you a naiad?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course!"

"But you speak English. And you're out of the water."

"What, you don't think we can act human if we want to?"

I'd never thought about it. I kind of felt stupid, though, because I'd seen plenty of naiads at camp, and they'd never done much more than giggle and wave at me from the bottom of the canoe lake. "Look," I said. "I just came to ask-"

"I know who you are," she said. "And I know what you want. And the answer is no! I'm not going to have my river used again to clean that filthy stable."

"But-"

"Oh, save it, sea boy. You ocean-god types always think you're soooo much more important than some little river, don't you? Well let me tell you, this naiad is not going to be pushed around just because your daddy is Poseidon. This is freshwater territory, mister."

She looked like she'd finished with the argument for a moment before picking her angry face back up and shouting, "And the last guy who asked me this favor. Oh, he was way better-looking than you, by the way, he convinced me, and that was the worst mistake I've ever made! Do you have any idea what all that horse manure does to my ecosystem? Do I look like a sewage treatment plant to you? My fish will die. I'll never get the mulch out of my plants. I'll be sick for years. NO THANK YOU!"

The way she talked reminded me of my mortal friend, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, kind of like she was punching me with words. I couldn't blame the naiad. Now that I thought about it, I'd be pretty mad if somebody dumped four million pounds of manure in my home. But still...