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"thought you were supposed to be impressive"
ARIADNE HAD BEEN SCARED OF THE DARK. When she was younger, Castor and Pollux had brought their old nightlights from home for her, and she still had them in a small box beneath her bed. And normally, the dark wasn't forty feet tall. It didn't have black wings, a whip made out of stars and a shadowy chariot pulled by vampire horses.
Nyx was almost too much to take in. Looming over the chasm, she was a churning figure of ash and mole, as big as the Athena Parthenos statue, but very much alive. Her dress was void black, mixed with colors of a space nebula, as if the galaxies were being born in her bodice. Her face was hard to see except for the pinpoints of her eyes, which shone like quasars. When her wings beat, waves of darkness rolled over the cliffs, making Ariadne feel heavy and sleepy, her eyesight dim.
The goddess's chariot was made of the same material as Nico di Angelo's sword—Stygian Iron—pulled by two massive horses, all black except for their pointed silver fangs. The beasts' legs floated in the abyss, turning from solid to smoke as they moved.
The horses snarled and bared their fangs at Annabeth. The goddess lashed her whip—a thin streak of stars like diamond barbs—and the horses reared back.
"No, Shade," the goddess said. "Down, Shadow. These little prizes are not for you."
Ariadne eyed the horses as they bickered. She was still shrouded in Death Mist, so she looked like an out-of-focused corpse—which broke Annabeth's heart every time she saw her. It also must not have even very good camouflage, since Nyx could obviously see them.
The brunette wished for Percy's gift of understanding horses, but just from their expressions, it wasn't a good understanding.
"Uh, so you won't let them eat us?" she asked the goddess. "Because I know the look of starved animals—and that is exactly what it is."
Nyx's quasar eyes burned. "Of course boot. I would not let my horses eat you, anymore than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will kill myself!"
"Oh, don't kill yourself!" Annabeth cried. "We're not that scary."
The goddess lowered her whip. "What? No, I didn't mean—"
"We'll, I'd hope not!" Annabeth looked at Ariadne and forced a laugh. "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"
"Ha, ha," Ariadne said weakly, her father's acting passing right through her genes when she was born. She sucked, in other words. "No, we wouldn't."
The vampire horses looked confused. They reared and snorted and knocked their dark heads. Nyx pulled back on the reins.
