¹POCKET FULL OF POSIES. p. jackson

iv. Four for a Quest

chapter four
❛ four for a quest ❜

━━━━━ IT WAS UNBELIEVABLY bad that Percy Jackson was the son of Poseidon. Josephine feared the ramifications that would soon be pouring down from the sky and crawling from the fissures of the earth. She knew Zeus and Hades were not pleased. She knew what Thalia, a daughter of Zeus, had faced as a result of her father's infidelity. She had seen it in flashes of lighting in a dream years ago. Josephine knew what the daughter of the sky had lived through as Hades nor Poseidon could ever express anger at their brother. Josephine was terrified for Percy and what it meant for him if he ever toed a foot outside of Camp Half-Blood's borders — especially with the things already getting past the camp's magical borders.

Admittedly, Josephine felt like an idiot for not noticing sooner. (And here, she had been assuming she had the "gift" of foresight — which maybe, most likely, she did. And if she didn't, she didn't want to know what else was wrong with her.) She should've seen it. Managing to flood the girls' bathroom? Being healed by water alone? She should've seen it, but she just ... didn't want to believe it. Poseidon was never supposed to have children again, and as far as everyone knew, he held up his end of the bargain — until he claimed Percy Jackson, of course.

But what was more unbelievably bad: a quest would be given. The first quest since Luke Castellan's disastrous, failed quest. And it seemed Percy would be receiving the task of venturing outside of Camp Half-Blood's borders (where all the bloodthirsty monsters would be roaming free, mind you).

Josephine wasn't supposed to know, but her dreams informed her (well ... the best that dreams could at least; things had to be cryptic and odd, of course, that's the nature of dreams). She was standing on a beach, with a raging storm coming closer and closer to shore. She had seen this before, quickly being swallowed by the sea before anything could happen. But something about this felt different — it felt more violent, more angry, more resentful. Like the storm had worked up enough magnitude, and could no longer hold back. Her heels were dug into the sand; she was fighting to keep herself rooted to the ground. Her hands were covering her face, fighting to block the sand swirling around her like a tornado.

Instead of her, all alone on this beach, now there were two men. Two men, both with long beards and heads full of dark hair. They both wore flowing Greek tunics — one trimmed in an orderly blue, and the other was trimmed with a dark, stormy sea green. These men grappled with each other; they wrestled, kicked, and even head-butted each other. They were fighting like wild, barbaric animals. Every time they connected — lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind grew even more raging.

Josephine dug her heels in further, moving to dig her fingers into the sand in front of her. With winds this furious, there was no stopping sand from getting into her eyes, and she could no longer keep her footing with just her feet. She squinted at the two figures before her. "Stop!" she cried out. Her voice was carried uselessly away by the wind.

Over the roar of the storm, she could hear the blue-robbed one yell to the one robed in green; "Give it back! Give it back! You took it with that blasted son of yours!"

The waves grew right before her eyes. They crashed into the sea bank, and from the force, they reached twenty feet over the sand, spraying the three with salty ocean water. However, that didn't stop these men. Nothing around these fighting men was going to disturb them — no wind, no waves, no Josephine. They were like squabbling children, fighting over the last slice of cake. (But the thing was, when the gods squabbled, everyone knew, and everyone suffered the consequences — not just the gods.)