Fearless¹ Percy Jackson

-𝕿𝖜𝖊𝖑𝖛𝖊

🕊️.⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹🤍

┌── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──┐

"𝓦𝓮𝓵𝓵 𝓲𝓯 𝓲𝓽 𝓲𝓼𝓷'𝓽 𝓶𝔂 𝓵𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓵𝓮 𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓻"

└── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──┘

The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. They had eaten a nice meal in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas (Courtesy of Lyra who had found five hundred dollars in her pocket which she claimed hadn't been there before ). 

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"Does Chiron even have a phone?"

"I'm not talking about phones." She responded then answered his question, "no he doesn't"

They wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though Percy wasn't sure what Annabeth was looking for. 

Finally they found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. 

"What exactly are we doing?" Percy asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"

"Don't look at me," she said. "The dining car wiped me out."

The two looked hopefully at Lyra who sighed before saying, "First of all I never keep spare change, Annabeth you know that"

Percy fished out a quarter and passed it to Grover leaving him with two nickels and one drachma from Medusa's place.

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."

"What are you talking about?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."

"Instant messaging?"

"Iris-messaging," Lyric  corrected. "The rainbow goddess 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."

"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?"

Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow."

Sure enough, late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors.

Annabeth held her palm out to Percy. "Drachma, please."

She raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering."

She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.

"Half-Blood Hill," Lyra requested.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Percy was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance.

They seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandyhaired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.