A Son Love & Doves

Chapter 16 The Prophecy had More

Y/n POV

We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we’d won some reality TV contest. According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honour, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

Annabeth’s shroud was so beautiful – grey silk with embroidered owls – Percy told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched him and told me to shut up.

Being the son of Poseidon, Percy didn’t have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make my shroud. They’d taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X’ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.

The burial shroud my siblings made was pink with doves, fish, cockles and roses on it. I didn't want to burn it and my siblings didn't want me to either, but I reluctatnly did at the urging of the other campers.

It was fun to burn.

As Apollo’s cabin led the sing-along and passed out toasted marshmallows, I was surrounded by my sbilings, Annabeth’s friends from Athena and Grover’s satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand new searcher’s licence he’d received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover’s performance on the quest ‘Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past.’

The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told me they’d never forgive Percy for disgracing their dad.

I think that was okay with Percy, and I was planning to punch Ares in the face the next time I saw him.

Even Dionysus’s welcome-home speech wasn’t enough to dampen my spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn’t get himself killed and now hell have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday…"

On the topic of mothers, Percy said his mother wanted to meet and thank me. Appearantly she knows what I did for her.

I had asked mom about the whole forest and rain smell and she was vauge and didn't answer my question. 'You'll figure out eventually.' or 'Love magic points to one.'  I mean I think I know what it means, but no one I know smells like forest or rain.

I did debate on telling my dream to mom, but I decided against it. I mean Thalia is dead, and from what I know she's staying that way. Eleanor does know about my dreams of Thalia, I mutter her name in my sleep now, great...

On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus’s kids, they weren’t going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They’d anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. The blasts would be sequenced so tightly they’d look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed to be a couple of thirty-metre-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colours.

As Annabeth and Percy were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell us goodbye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and trainers, but in the last few weeks he’d started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had got thicker. He’d put on weight. His horns had grown a few centimetres at least, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.

"I’m off," he said. "I just came to say… well, you know."

I was happy for Grover. After all, it wasn’t every day a satyr got permission to go look for the great god Pan. But it was hard saying goodbye. I had known Grover for a while now he was a friend, so I prayed to Pan Grover would be safe on his search.