━━ ❝ 𝐢𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 to shine like a star you must burn
like one ❞
•--• ✹ •--•
[ i. completed / edited
ii. previously called folklore
iii. extended summary inside
iv. book 1 of the greek tragedy series ]
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THE WAY TANTALUS SAW IT, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if Annabeth, Cassie, Percy and Tyson hadn't disturbed them with their bad chariot driving (he added Tyson probably because he just felt like it).
It was so completely unfair, Cassie told Tantalus to go eat a cake, which didn't help his mood.
He sentenced them to kitchen patrol scrubbing pots and platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with the cleaning harpies.
The harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get that extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so Annabeth, Cassie and Percy had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.
Tyson didn't mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but the other three 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 their punishment was that it gave them a common enemy and lots of time to talk. After listening to Percy's dream again about Grover, Annabeth looked like she might be starting to believe Percy.
"If he's really found it," she murmured, "and if we could retrieve it—"
Percy frowned. "What exactly is it?"
Annabeth aggressively scrubbed a plate. "What do you get when you skin a ram?"
"Messy?"
Cassie cringed at the leftovers. "Almost- a fleece- golden to be exact. Really pretty, shimmering, golden fleece."
Percy stopped scrubbing. "The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?"
Annabeth scrapped a plateful of death-bird bones into the lava. "Remember the Gray Sisters? They said they knew the location. And they mentioned Jason."
Cassie stopped scrubbing and so did Percy.
"Three thousand years ago, they told him how to find the Golden Fleece. You do know the story of Jason and the Argonauts?"
"Yeah," Percy said. "That old movie with the clay skeletons."
Annabeth rolled her eyes and told them the story.
There were these two children of Zeus, Cadmys and Europa.
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 and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor.
Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important, so only Cadmys reached their destination.
