(Ella's POV)
The way Tantalus saw it, the Stymphalian birds had been minding their own business in the woods & wouldn't have attacked if Annie, Percy, Tyson & I hadn’t disturbed them with our bad chariot driving.
This was so completely unfair, I told him to shut up & not assume stuff since he was way to busy chasing pastries to even see what had happened, which didn’t help his mood.
He sentenced us to kitchen patrol scrubbing pots & platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with cleaning harpies.
The harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get that extra-clean sparkle & kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so Annie, Percy & I had to wear asbestos gloves & aprons.
Tyson didn’t mind. He plunged his bare hands right in & started scrubbing, but we had to suffer through hours of hot, dangerous work, especially since there were tons of extra plates. Tantalus had ordered a special luncheon banquet to celebrate Clarisse’s chariot victory-a full-course meal featuring country-fried Stymphalian death-bird.
The only good thing about our punishment was that it gave Percy, Annie & I a common enemy & lots of time to talk. After listening to our dream about Grover again, she looked like she might be starting to believe us.
“If he’s really found it,” she murmured, “and if we could retrieve it-“
“Hold on,” Percy said. “You act like this...whatever it is Grover found is the only thing in the world that could save the camp. What is it?”
“I’ll give you a hint. What do you get when you skin a ram?” I said.
“Messy?” Percy asked. I chuckled & said.
“No. A fleece. The coat of a ram is called a fleece. And if that ram happens to have golden wool-“
“The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?”
Annie scrapped a plateful of death-bird bones in the lava. “Percy, remember the Gray Sisters? They said they knew the location of the thing you seek. They mentioned Jason. Three thousand years ago, they told him how to find the Golden Fleece."
"You do know the story of Jason & the Argonauts, right?” I asked Percy.
“Yeah,” he said. “That old movie with the clay skeletons.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “Oh my gods, Percy! You are so hopeless.” I snickered.
“What?” Percy demanded.
“Just listen. The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus & Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece & carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off & died along the way, but that’s not important.”
“It was probably important to her.” I said.
“The point is, when Cadmus got to Colchis, he sacrificed the golden ram to the gods and hung the Fleece in a tree in the middle of the kingdom. The Fleece brought prosperity to the land. Animals stopped getting sick. Plants grew better. Farmers had bumper crops. Plagues never visited. That’s why Jason wanted the Fleece. It can revitalize any land where it’s placed. It cures sickness, strengthens nature, cleans up pollution-“
“It could cure Thalia’s tree.” Percy said.
Annie nodded. “It would totally strengthen the borders of Camp Half-Blood. But guys, the Fleece has been missing for centuries. Tons of heroes have searched with no luck.”
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Daughter Of Lightning - Book 2 (A Percy Jackson x OC fanfic)
FanfictionA year ago Zeus's lightning bolt was stolen...which would've been the cause of the next world war. But Eleanor, Percy, Annabeth & their satyr friend Grover had managed to return it. Grover had headed off in search of the great Lord of the wild: Pan...
