𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍° ! percy jackson

𝐢.𝐱𝐢𝐢𝐢 - 𝐜𝐨𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐞 (𝐚)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Annabeth knew the quote from some stupid book called something like A Tale of Two Cities. So boring. She was dyslexic but went to abnormal lengths to get novels in Ancient Greek. Connor had complained to her that his English teacher had tried to make him read that for school, while Annabeth read it for fun. 

Aurora knew the line from the song "Getaway Car." (Technically, it was the best of times, the worst of crimes, but who cares, it was close enough). If there was one thing that could bring all the girls at Camp Half Blood—plus a bunch of the Apollo boys—together, it was blasting Taylor Swift at the loudest possible volume. It annoyed the hell out of the Ares kids, but no one really minded. 

As she stared at the hard ground with patchy grass and sad looking dirt before her, Aurora really wished for that at that moment. She was always at camp, all year round. It was her home, her safety net. She missed sitting around with Connor all day, eating Sour Patch Kids and laughing at Annabeth who was attempting to gain Luke's attention.

And although Camp Half Blood was a camp, she was never one for camping. Well, she never really tried, but as she stared at the ground littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers, she grimaced even more.

Her mother, and her grandmother, were huge environmentalists. Plants were their thing. Aurora loved nature. She loved seeing all the different types of flowers sprouting in their environments, she loved the little animals that were home in their ecosystem, she loved the smell of grass and the sight of a clear blue sky.

The pollution of their sacred earth hurt Aurora's heart, and by the way that Grover's mouth was downturned, it hurt him even more, being a satyr and all.

In the midst of the two nature-driven friends having heartache, Percy and Annabeth decided that they would sleep in shifts.

Aurora was insomniac since she could remember, always tense and prepared for a fight, for a monster attack. She only fell asleep at the craziest hours of the night once Gracie was next to her. Since her sister wasn't on the quest, she doubted she would get any sleep that night, thus volunteering for first watch.

However, Percy refused to let it go. "You need sleep, Flower Face. Be one with nature or whatever. I'll take first watch."

"No, you're not." Aurora's eyes flared. "Do you understand how many monsters will be after you tomorrow? I'll take first watch."

"No—"

"I don't understand why you guys are arguing over who gets to sleep first. Just take it together, di immortales. You are an insufferable duo." Annabeth grumbled loudly from where she lay, curled up on blankets. her head hit the ground, and she quickly started snoring before either of them could respond.

Grover landed on the ground, stared at the night sky sadly, and lay next to Annabeth. He joined her in a soft snore that sounded like reed pipes.

Aurora watched as her two closest friends slept soundly, in a safe slumber as if they weren't out in the wilderness on a life-threatening quest.

"Grover is sad." Percy spoke up after a beat of silence. He was frowning, touching his heart concerningly. "I don't know how I feel it, but... he is. He's sad."

Aurora sighed, sitting down on a fallen tree trunk. At camp, you could see the stars shining brightly, winking down from Olympus as if to make fun of them. "The sky is polluted, Jackson. It's a terrible time to be a satyr. Grover's goal in life is to find Pan, the god of the wild. He wants a searcher's license to find him." She hesitated, fiddling with a water lily that grew from her index finger and thumb. "He disappeared two thousand years ago. I honestly don't know if he still exists, but almost all satyrs want to find him. The bravest ones search the entire earth. Grover wants to be the first to succeed."