𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐌𝐞𝐧 || Percy Jackson

Nine

The train finally made it to Denver.

They hadn't eaten since the night before. Well, Aurora had nibbled on a small piece of her cotton candy while they ate. Annabeth practically shoved a granola bar down her throat, Grover and Percy having to stop her before Aurora choked.

"Let's try to contact Chiron." Annabeth mumbled, rolling her eyes when Aurora turned away from her. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"We can't use phones, right?" Percy tiredly asked. After stopping Annabeth from suffocating Aurora with the granola bar, he had to hold the other girl back from attacking her with the same bar.

"Again, what is a phone? I'm starting to think you guys are making this stuff up." Aurora groaned, Grover giving her a brief explanation of the different types of phones invented.

They wandered around, being fed since Aurora somehow managed to get her hands on lottery tickets.

And she won them five hundred dollars.

"You, me, Vegas. You bring your luck, we win big." Grover had slung his arm around her shoulders as they walked towards an empty do-it-yourself car wash. "You can buy all the candies you want!"

"What does Vegas look like again?" She muttered to herself as they went to the stall furthest from the street, Grover moving away from her.

"What, exactly, are we doing?" Percy asked when the satyr picked up a spray gun.

"It's seventy five cents." Grover grumbled, Aurora already digging through her bag for the change she'd gotten earlier. "I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"

"Don't look at me." The blonde held her hands up and stepped back. "The dining car wiped me out."

"I have....two bronze and one medium silver." Aurora proudly said as she produced the change, holding it out for him. Grover smiled and took it, making a note to slip it back in her bag as Percy handed him a quarter.

"Excellent. We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good and my arm gets tired of pumping." Percy turned to Aurora, seeing as she's the only one who understands that he doesn't know this life.

"'I-M.' Or, 'Iris Messaging.'" She watched Grover put the coins into the machine. "It's how we communicate when we leave camp."

"The Rainbow Goddes, Iris, carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods." Annabeth added on, Percy blinking.

"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?"

"Gods you desperately need a lesson." Aurora groaned, turning to him. "Water mist in sunlight makes a rainbow. Iris is the Rainbow Goddess."

Percy nodded as Grover turned on the spray gun, the afternoon sun hitting it and making it break off into a rainbow.

"Drachma, please." Aurora tossed her one and Percy watched them in confusion. And some concern. "O, Goddess, accept our offering."

Annabeth tossed the drachma into the mist. It disappeared in a golden shimmer, Aurora rocking on her heels and humming a tune as they waited.

"Half-blood hill, please." She chirped after a moment. Percy blinked and she had her tub of cotton candy in her hands, Grover sending him and Annabeth a look.

"Rora, no." Annabeth sighed. Percy stared into the rainbow, slowly beginning to see the strawberry fields and the Long Island Sound in the distance. The rainbow seemed to open up on the porch of the Big House.