☆｡LEGENDARY｡⁠☆ | apollo |

xx: a blessing that's truly more of a curse

There were a lot of things Ashlyn didn't think she would get to do in her life.

One thing was to live past sixteen.

Another, slightly unpredictable one, was to be on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign said
WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO.

The air was cold and thin. The roofs of
the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, though the
morning was sunny.

Ash bit her cheek as the cold sank its teeth into her skin. She huddled towards Thalia and the girls waked ahead of Percy and Grover. She sighed and accepted her fate of being frozen to death when a voice she had missed more that she'd like to admit chimed it.

'Miss me much, sunshine?'

Apollo!

'Who else would it be?'

I don't know...some other immortal deity?

'I know for a fact that...besides my sister; I'm the only god you know personally.'

You know we'll find her, right?

The god in response hummed nervously. Even scared, his voice sounded like nightingales singing.

'Oh, don't worry about me!'

How- I- what?

'You do know I know what your thinking when I talk to you, right?'

...Most definitely

Her mind flashed involuntarily back to the bloodied room and cruel words she had heard echo from the last into the present.

'I'm sorry, sunshine...'

She hummed in response and cut off the mental thread to him.

"...Apollo the night before— he'd told me to seek out Nereus in San Francisco." 

Ash started to pay attention to what Percy was saying.

Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first."

Ash glanced over at Percy and saw the defeat in his eyes about their situation. She didn't like it much either but didn't want to send Grover into a panic. She knew that they had another huge deadline looming, aside from saving Artemis in time for her council of the gods. The General had said Annabeth would only be kept alive until the winter solstice. That was Friday, only four days away. And he'd said something about a
sacrifice. Ash didn't like the sound of that at all.

They stopped in the middle of town. One  could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some ski cabins, and a grocery store.

"Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."

"There's a coffee shop!" said Grover.

"Yes," Zoë  said. "Coffee is good."

"And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And wax paper."

Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about you two go get us some food. Percy, Bianca, Ash and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions."

They agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes. Ash looked over at the girl beside her and Bianca seemed uncomfortable going with  then- ash didn't say anything. She had an underlying resentment for the girl- she didn't hate her. She was just... frustrated?