Started With A Dare - A POTHENA STORY ✔

Peleus The Dragon Gives Us A Lead

POSEIDON POV

My eyes widened at the sight in front of me. 3 seconds passed before my consciousness kicked in and I ordered my neck to turn away, but before I could, Athena's knife-like hand delivered a hard blow across my face.

I didn't blame her, honestly.

"That guy is a total psycho," she muttered. I had to keep myself from instinctively turning my head. "This is so ridiculous. He takes our prophecy, our weapons, our resources, sure...but what are our clothes worth?"

I didn't answer. I was still completely dazed from what I saw 10 seconds ago. I had to force its resurfacing image out of my mind to concentrate. "Yeah, what a pervert," I murmured back to prevent my face from suffering yet again.

"Anyway, I don't know if he's gonna leave us here forever or what, but we need to find a way to escape." She sounded surprisingly calm - maybe she'd had time to calm down as she woke earlier than me. Thinking of that made me sigh internally - just how many times had we humiliatingly become an unconscious heap?

I looked around. There didn't seem to be an easy escape route. What if Sinis really leaves us here forever? Would he do that? I refreshed myself on the details of his past. My memory came back faster than I thought it would.

"I don't think he's going to trap us here," I deduced. I heard a few shuffles behind me - Athena must be changing her position.

"What makes you think that?" Judging from her voice, she'd chosen to sit back to back with me. Best way to avoid awkwardness and embarrassment, I must say.

I shifted my position as well, only to accidentally bump her in the back. Well, maybe it's not such a good way. "Sinis liked to kill his victims by ripping them apart with pine trees. Since he's 'got no business with us anymore', he'd probably..."

Athena gasped. "Poseidon, are you implying..." Her voice trailed off.

I felt surprisingly at peace despite the obvious glaring at me. My only concern was for the person right behind me. How would she face...I forced the thought out of my mind. I didn't want to think about it.

"Well, on a lighter note, everything seems to lead back to the same person. We could try to solve this mystery - who exactly is the Camp Half-Blood traitor?" Athena asked, her voice still slightly shaky. Once again, I wasn't surprised. I couldn't expect her to be valiant after we'd both learned a highly possible cruel truth.

"I wouldn't say lighter note. Let's see what this person has done so far...well, for one, they stole the prophecy." I replied.

"You're stating the obvious. Well, I don't expect anything else from you. This guy also stole the Fleece and replaced it with a fake one. He's probably gotten quite a lot of help - there's no way he can do everything he's done to us while silently staying in Camp Half-Blood!" Athena sounded exasperated. I wanted to turn around and comfort her, but needless to say, I couldn't.

I tried to think about the path the real Fleece had gone through. Percy Jackson had retrieved it years ago and it should've resided on the pine tree in the camp guarded by Peleus the dragon...my eyes widened. Peleus. Who could be brave enough to challenge the dragon just for the Fleece?

No, I reminded myself. Peleus the dragon is a good fellow - he'd only go crazy if someone he didn't trust was around. Which meant whoever stole the Fleece and replaced it was on pretty good terms with Peleus.

I told Athena my hypothesis. "You're not wrong...I haven't seen anyone get close to that dragon though..."

The tent plunged into silence. It didn't feel awkward - we were both thinking hard. Who would be close enough to Peleus so as to not get attacked even when they switched the Golden Fleece? What if Peleus was just asleep? No, I reminded myself, according to the immortal words of Percy, Peleus wakes up if he hears even the slightest footsteps.

"I think I know who it is," Athena said slowly. "On the first day at camp, when we were entering...I saw Elijah petting Peleus. Doesn't the dragon hate being petted?"

I gulped. That was such a direct acquisition - for all we know, Elijah was a best friend of Wilbur's. We also saw him with Wilbur and Tristan on Circe's island...but why? I didn't believe that in such a short time Chiron decided to send the three boys on a quest as well, especially considering the fact that they were undetermined. Athena had every right to suspect them.

I guess I didn't want to suspect them because I considered the possibility of Wilbur being my own son. I pushed down personal thoughts and forced myself to look at the facts and likelihood.

"We saw them on Circe's island too," I grumbled. "Never found out why. I can tell why you suspect them."

She didn't answer, so I didn't speak more either. Could she have figured out what I was thinking? Well, it didn't matter. Even if we figured out the traitors, we couldn't do anything about it unless we got out of the tent. It was getting incredibly hard to breathe and the small space felt humid and compacted.

"You thought Wilbur was your son, didn't you? That's why you didn't want to explore the possibility of them being the traitors. It's extremely likely - they had no reason to show up on Circe's island. Not to mention they were undetermined and there's no way Chiron could've sent them such a small amount of time..."

I appreciated Athena trying to 'comfort' me, but she wasn't doing a very good job. She paused, probably realising that she didn't say the right words.

"It's whatever. I've accepted the facts. He probably wanted attention from me...it's no surprise since I've been a terrible dad to every one of my children..." My memories of finding my continuous female partners getting pregnant suddenly came flooding back. Guilt washed over me. Athena, being someone with 'brain children', would never understand.

"Okay, then! I guess we..." She stopped. I perked up my ears and realised why - there were footsteps. REALLY LOUD footsteps. They got louder and louder. I felt Athena sit closer towards me. Our backs were now touching, yet I didn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed. I guess I was too busy panicking about who the footsteps could belong to.

Turns out I didn't have much time to panic - right after the zipper opened, a sickeningly sweet smell filled my nostrils and I passed out again.

(A/N: Haven't done an author's note in a while! I've successfully planned out the rest of this story so the writing should be a little smoother and make a bit more sense now. I hope 😅 Nonetheless, thanks for coming this far! Also, we're almost at 10k reads, I can't believe how far this book's come! If you'd like sneak peaks of the coming chapters, follow me on Twitter at @ETvsPizza. Thanks for reading 😃)