🌷 "We're Greek, Percy. We're all born with tragedy in our blood."
The only thing Daphne could ever be sure of was that she was not meant to be alive. Whatever you wanted to call it - a gut feeling or just some serious anxiety, she couldn't shake th...
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chapter IV
🌷 Daphne was beginning to dislike the pink poodle more and more. It kept hissing and barking at the squirrels in the trees, making them scurry away in fear.
Listen, she knew that she didn't look her best. She'd been on the streets for so long now she couldn't count the months, and showers and hairbrushes were really hard to come across. Daphne's hair was naturally so curly that brushing it would've turned it into a horrible fluffy mess anyway, but she supposed anything would've been better than the mess which hung around her shoulders, matted with knots and dried blood. But it didn't give the poodle an excuse to growl at her, and for Grover to respond with "No, it's okay, I wont let her hold you. She won't ruin your fuzz."
He looked at her apologetically, but the insult had already sunk. Daphne watched the poodle with loathing: she was always more of a cat person, anyway.
Before Medusa had caught her she was miserable. Wandering in a daze, knowing she wouldn't be fast enough to catch up with her friends she'd made promise to run, but still stumbling half blind along an unpaved pathway. She might've died from exhaustion if not frozen in stone. But getting rid of Gladioa was the happiest she'd felt in a while. It would be hard to miss the stupid pink poodle.
The owners had gratefully handed them $250 for their reward which they spent on train tickets and some extra food for their travels. Before they boarded, they found a public restroom which Daphne used to clean off most of the dirt and grime from her. They stopped off at a souvenir store and bought her some slightly oversided jeans since hers were ripped enough to be falling from her legs, but couldn't afford to replace her tattered and dirty pink shirt. She hid it from the mortals by sipping up a ski parka.
They spent two days on the Amtrak train, heading west through hills, over rivers, past amber waves of grain. Daphne took the time to relearn everything about her friends and discover what she'd missed. Turns out, Annabeth had hardly ever left Camp, and neither had Grover. But it was still nice hearing about it, even if it made her heart ache.
She thought about Luke and Thalia a lot in those hours where everybody else was asleep. Grover told her his passion for obtaining a searchers license and Annabeth had expressed her love for architecture; Daphne wasn't surprised - on the streets, they'd all guessed she was a daughter of Athena. They had never quite cracked the case on who Daphne's mother was, though... she wondered if they ever would.
