Lightnings Twin (Male OC X Pjo/Hoo)

Snowboarding With A Boar

Kaze P.O.V

We'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign said WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO. The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, though the morning was sunny.

Even with my Rashōmon, I was pretty cold by the time we got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. As we walked, Percy told Grover and I about his conversation with Apollo the night before—how he'd told Percy to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.

Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first."

I was scared Apollo didn’t know where Artemis was, I couldn't find her through Ikaros my eagle. I tried to stay calm, I didn't want to send Grover into a panic, but I knew we had another huge deadline looming, aside from saving Artemis in time for her council of the gods. The General had said Annabeth would only be kept alive until the winter solstice. That was Friday, only four days away. And he'd said something about a sacrifice. I didn't like the sound of that at all.

We stopped in the middle of town. You could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some ski cabins, and a grocery store.

"Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."

"There's a coffee shop!" said Grover.

"Yes," Zoe said. "Coffee is good."

"And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And wax paper."

Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about you two go get us some food. Kaze, Percy, Bianca, and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions."

We agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes. Bianca looked a little uncomfortable coming with us, but she did.

Inside the store, we found out a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow for skiing, the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each, there was no easy way in or out of town unless you had your own car and most importantly they had stuffed animals for a dollar each.

"You could call for a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, but it would take at least an hour to get here. Cost several hundred dollars."

The clerk looked so lonely, Percy bought a rubber rat. I Bought a racoon plush, a mini bear plush, and a silver deer plush. Then we headed back outside and stood on the porch.

"Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has a suggestion."

"But the clerk said—"

"I know," she told Percy. "I'm checking anyway."

I let her go. I knew how it felt to be restless. All half-bloods had attention deficit problems because of our inborn battlefield reflexes. We couldn't stand just waiting around. Also, I had a feeling Thalia was  upset over something.

Bianca Percy and I stood together awkwardly. I mean… Percy was never very comfortable talking one-on-one with girls anyway, and he'd never been alone with Bianca before.

"Nice rat," she said at last.

Percy set it on the porch railing. Maybe it would attract more business for the store.

"So… how do you like being a Hunter so far?" He asked.

She pursed her lips. "You're not still mad at me for joining, are you?"