Started With A Dare - A POTHENA STORY ✔

My Daughter Makes Us Look For Pine-Benders

(Note: It took so much researching to write this prophecy but I enjoyed it a lot. Hope you don't find it cringey!)

ATHENA'S POV

  My daughter led us to the Athena cabin (it feels strange saying 'my cabin'), where strangely no others were present. "They're all at the Capture the Flag game," Annabeth explained when Poseidon asked her about it. "We told Chiron that we had to work on retrieving the prophecy, so we didn't take part in it."

  "It's a shame, really," Percy interjected with his hands on his hips. "I was looking forward to beating Clarisse again since she's back at camp too. Also, you should've seen the new campers' faces when we arrived. They were so eager to check out our skills." As much as Poseidon didn't seem as easy to hate as before, his son was still a first-class jerk, just like him. I still don't understand why my daughter chose to date that 'smelly bucket of nose drool'. This is my rule: No one who makes terrible nicknames is permitted to date any of my children.

  Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Only a self-centred man with a brain full of seaweed like you would keep on pestering about bragging!" Then she realised that she got sidetracked. "Ahem. Right. The prophecy."

  She took out a small notebook from the pocket of her jeans and cautiously flipped it, all while anxiously looking around as if she was worried that someone might see us.

  "Annabeth, why are you looking around?" Percy asked straightforwardly.

  "Well, Percy, for the billionth time, use your seaweed brain! This piece of information is only known by the counsellors of each cabin. No one else knows, so I can't risk letting anyone else know about it!" My daughter snapped in response, creasing her eyebrows in annoyance.

  I eyed the son of Poseidon and realised that he already knew the answer to that question - he was asking it for me and his father as gods asking too many questions just didn't feel...right. I felt the urge to thank Percy Jackson, but I told myself to keep being Athena and just focus on the prophecy.

  "There we go!" Annabeth finally found the page she wrote the prophecy in. "Here..."

  She started reading the prophecy while letting us read the written version at the same time.

  "The fall of wisdom and the sea,

Shall be lured to die and to unfree.

Gold shall revive the Pine-bender,

And what you seek shall be his to keep."

  "P-pine-bender?" Poseidon looked aghast after reading to the prophecy. "No. No. It can't be. Not that son of a-"

  "Poseidon!" I yelled at him, my patience level slowly dropping down to zero. "We didn't come for you to rant about Pine-benders, whatever those are." Then I realised that my daughter and his son were standing there, staring at us with expressions of what seemed like the middle of shock and amusement.

  I stood up straighter at once and wasn't surprised to see Poseidon do the same. Clearing my throat, I announced, "Well, heroes, I hope you succeed in this upcoming quest. We-ahem, you shall be awarded if you do. We must return to Olympus now." Annabeth's spirits immediately dropped when she heard that I had to leave - honestly, I wished I could stay as well, but time was running out and Poseidon and I still had to deal with each other, the quest, the prophecy and you know, all that usual mess. "Farewell, Perseus Jackson and..." I paused to make sure I was looking straight at my daughter's stormy grey eyes which signified mine. "dear daughter. Stay smart."

  I turned to Poseidon and he said his goodbyes as well, telling his son to 'stay fishy', which sounded a lot like a forced pun. After taking the last looks at our most remarkable children before we had to suffer the punishment of turning into useless meat bags, we teleported back to Mount Olympus.

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  We returned to the throne room to find all the Olympians except for Dionysus sitting in their seats, discussing something. When we returned, the entire room fell silent.

  Clearing his throat, Zeus stood up and exclaimed, "Well, we're all here! Except for Dionysus, of course, that wine dude friend of ours is probably dealing with his camp."

  Zeus started laughing and eyed us all as if expecting us to laugh as well. We all laughed nervously, not wanting the god of the universe to zap us with fatal lightning, even though we're immune to it. Mortals, lightning still HURTS when you're immune to it.

  He cleared his throat grandly to make an announcement.

  "Olympians," he declared, "The Earth is always close to risks and we all know that. Nevertheless, our heroes will fix everything. A major risk has descended upon us-" At that point, he stopped to send a dangerous, menacing glare that said, 'don't you dare ask'. "and it is so major that I had decided to send 2 of you down to Earth as humans to solve the problem, and I know I usually don't tell you beforehand if something like this happens." For some reason, the others decided to stare at Poseidon and me as if they already knew it was us - or maybe they could tell, thanks to the drama that happened recently. Apollo didn't stare - he was too busy glancing bitterly at Zeus to show his displeasure of being chosen three times.

  Zeus cleared his throat again and continued, "These two lucky gods already know who they are. I must have a private discussion with them right now, so if it does not concern you, please leave."

  BAM! Apollo was gone the moment Zeus finished his sentence, probably thinking that none of us noticed his final look of relief as he disappeared. Artemis and Demeter followed shortly after, leaving the remaining gods who all looked hesitant to go. They left one by one, Ares going last until only my father, Poseidon and I were left in the throne room.

  "Father, I got-" I started.

  "The prophecy for your quest. I know. I saw you two visit your children," he responded grimly, his flickering electric blue eyes scanning us for details. I took a deep breath and explained the situation of Camp-Half Blood to him, telling him what the prophecy said as well.