Daughter of Hades: Dahlia's Struggle

Harper's Quest

About a week and a half later, Harper got a quest from Demeter herself. I was fighting a tree with a sword because Percy was busy. This time I'd brought Nick along. He had a little bow and he was practicing hitting all the red flowers. Every so often, an arrow would come dangerously close to me and I'd hit it back to him. It was probably irresponsible, but it was good practice for being aware of my surroundings during a battle. I got tired of fighting a tree, So I flopped down in the soft grass and batted Nick's arrows out of the air. He thought this game was loads of fun, so he started shooting them my way more often. It was quiet except for the occasional giggle from the kid when I hit his arrow out of the air. Harper came barreling through and ruined that quick enough.

"Help," she said huffing. She'd run from the green to here in the woods, and was out of breath. "I got a quest. Campfire. Let's go!" She bent down with her palms on her knees. I was breathless from shock. She's gonna die. Willow had told me stories of past quests and quests she'd been on. People died all the time, and now Harper was going to be one of the lost. My best friend.

"Nick, pick up your arrows and follow us after. Harper, calm down and we'll walk to the campfire together." I was anxious, and when I got anxious I walked myself through the plan. I tapped Harper on the shoulder and pointed to the trail back to camp. She stood up and we left Nick behind collecting the arrow's he'd shot. I took off leaving Harper to catch up when I saw Chiron out and about. The camp oracle, a highschool mortal named Rachel, stood beside him looking around for Harper. Rachel would give Harper a prophecy and send her on her way with two companions of Harper's choosing. I ran up to Chiron and demanded to know if it was true. "Does she really have a quest?" Chiron frowned down at me and started on some speech.

"I know it must be hard knowing it is unlikely for you to get a quest and then your rival gets a quest, but-" I cut him off right there. Everything he just said was dumb. He has failed again by thinking he knows all simply because he runs a camp. Yea, I started out rough, but that doesn't mean I'm too dumb to realize when I have made a friend. Even if it was a complete accident.

"You know nothing about me, Obviously. This is me being afraid for my best friend, not me wishing for a death sentence myself. I don't need or want a quest. What I want is to know whether or not you were in on it and how you can help me keep her alive." I heard Rachel make a noise so I directed my anger at her. I realize that as a generally average sized, young, weak looking person, arguing with tall, older, more powerful people is dumb. However, so is putting my friends in danger and not doing anything to help them. I will pull them out of the crossfire and throw you in it, even if I have to go down with you. Reckless? Heck yea.

I turned to Rachel after she made an indignant noise and started yelling at her. They were both kind of taken aback. I guessed they'd never been yelled at for assigning a quest. Chiron tried waiting until I'd yelled myself out, but I had a lot of pent up aggression and I wasn't stopping anytime soon. Harper arrived a minute or two behind me and later told me that I had a crowd of people watching me yell at Chiron and Rachel. Rachel seemed kind enough, but that didn't mean she wasn't in on it, thinking she was helping Harper. I kept yelling at them until Harper walked up behind me. I paused long enough to say hi before going back at it. Harper stepped in just before Rachel was about to speak.

"Dahlia, chill. Demeter was the one to give me this quest; they had nothing to do with it. Besides, I'm unlikely to die on a quest my mother gave me. Just chill out. Nobody is trying to take your friends again." Harper whispered the last part to where only I could hear. I had told her about the other three after practice one day when I was too tired to go back to my cabin so I just fell asleep against the fence. I had a nightmare about the hydra again and I felt like I could tell her. At any rate, Harper knew what I was really thinking and she knew how to calm me down. I looked down embarrassedly and apologized to Rachel. Chiron was still wrong and I felt no remorse. Harper took a deep breath. "Okay. Now that we're done yelling, I need to choose companions, right? I've already got an idea of who I want." Chiron stopped giving me the disapproving teacher look long enough to answer Harper with another long speech nobody gives a crap about. The gist of it was 'yea. We usually do it with a campfire and stuff, so let's begin.' I sat down on the bottom corner of the bleacher lookin stuffs and waited for everyone to get there.