Heliophile - Apollo

1.9| We Get Advice From A Poodle. What The Fuck?

They were pretty miserable that night.

On a scale from 1 to 10, they were at a 25. The only reason that Ana wasn't that miserable was because Apollo used his powers to keep her warm and wouldn't shut up.

They camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

They'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's but didn't dare light a fire to dry their damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. They didn't want to attract anything else.

They slept in shifts with Ana taking the first watch mainly to keep talking with Apollo. Technically Apollo could do the same thing Phanes could. Build a dreamscape to talk to her but apparently, the two gods had decided Phanes gets the dreams, and Apollo talks during the day.

Grover leaned against a tree while Luke leaned against Ana.

Ana smiled when she heard "you know you're insane for going on this quest."

Ana chuckled "I know but Luke is my best friend and I couldn't very well let him go alone."

Ana was brought out of her conversation with Apollo when Percy spoke. "How are we going to get into the Underworld?" Percy asked them. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? I realized there was something strange going on with this quest. Something isn't what it seems."

Percy scoffed, "well, duh. I'm getting blamed for stealing a thunderbolt that Hades took."

"That's not what I mean," Grover said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy ... why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

"They seemed plenty aggressive to me."

Grover shook his head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"

"Asking about Percy," Ana said.

"Maybe except they said 'Where is it ?'  They seemed to be asking about an object."

"That doesn't make sense." Ana and Percy both looked at each other.

"I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt...." He looked at them like he was hoping for answers, but they didn't have any.

Percy then took a deep breath. "I haven't been straight with you," he told Ana and Grover. "I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."

Ana burst out laughing causing Percy to just stare at her and Luke to wake up from both the sound and the jostling. He glared at her "what's so funny?"

Ana shook her head "Percy thinks he's been hiding that the only reason he's doing this quest is because he wants to get his mother back."

Luke stared for a minute before laughing himself. "No shit," he spoke making Percy look at him stunned. Luke elaborated "I'm a child of Hermes. I know how to lie and how to tell if someone is lying."

Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Percy. But are you sure that's the only reason?

"I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him."

Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Percy, I'm not as smart as Annabeth. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done."

"Yeah? Well, maybe satyr emotions work differently than human emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks."

Grover pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Percy. Whatever."

"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about. We barely got out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west."

Percy fell asleep while Ana stayed up and took the first watch while switching with the others. The next morning Ana was talking to Luke about his not-so-subtle interest in the son of Poseidon when said person jolted up like he had just been electrocuted.

He was trembling from the dream Ana could tell and she looked at Luke before Percy asked, "how long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast," Ana spoke and tossed him a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend."

Ana knew that he was thinking that he was insane when he saw Grover who was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.

No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle. Percy's face was mine and Luke's when we saw it. The poodle yapped at Percy suspiciously. Grover said, "No, he's not."

Percy blinked. "Are you ... talking to that thing?"

The poodle growled. "This thing,"  Grover warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."

"You can talk to animals?"

Grover ignored the question. "Percy, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Percy."

Percy stared at Luke, figuring he'd crack up at this practical joke Grover was playing on him, but he looked deadly serious. "I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle," he said. "Forget it."

"Percy," Luke said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle."

The poodle growled. He said hello to the poodle. Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd started a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't want to return to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover. "How does Gladiola know about the reward?" Percy asked.

"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh."

"Of course," Percy said. "Silly me."

"So we turn in Gladiola," Ana explained, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple."

"Not another bus," Luke and Percy said warily.

"No," Ana agreed. She pointed downhill, toward train tracks they hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the westbound train leaves at noon."