The Son of Death (Percy Jackson x Male Reader)

Percy And I Go to Couple's Counseling

We rode the boar until sunset, which was about as much as my ass could take.  Imagine riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day.  That's about how comfortable boar-riding was.  I have no idea how many miles we covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land.  The grass and scrub brush got sparser until we were galloping... I think that's the right term, across the desert.  As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted.  He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

Grover: This is as far as he'll go.  We need to get off while he's eating.

Nobody needed convincing.  We slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti.  Then we waddled away as best we could with our saddle sores, Thalia had to hold me up a bit because my legs were still half asleep.  After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.

Percy: It probably likes the mountains better.

Thalia: I can't blame it.  Look.

Ahead of us was a two-lane road half covered with sand.  On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoe Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said "GILA CLAW, ARIZONA" hanging crooked above the door.  Beyond that was a range of hills... but then I noticed they weren't regular hills.  The countryside was way too flat for that.  The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal.  It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

YN: Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here.

Thalia: I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve, Grover?

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous.  He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes.  They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned.  I leaned over to Percy and whispered.

YN: Gaze into the acorns.  Let them speak to you, what do they say?

Percy grinned, as Grover pointed at a cluster of them.

Grover: That's us.  Those six nuts right there.

Lucas: Which one is me?

Zoe: The little deformed one.

I snorted, trying not to laugh.  He glared at me.

Grover: That cluster right there.  That's trouble.

YN: A monster?

Grover looked uneasy.

Grover: I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense.  But the acorns don't lie.  Our next challenge...

He pointed straight toward the junkyard.  With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.  We set up camp, and the night got chilly fast, so Grover and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire.  Lucas held out his hands and the flames roared to life, now nearly the size of a bonfire.  Pretty soon we were about as comfy as you can get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.

Zoe: The stars are out.

She was right.  There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange.

Bianca: Amazing.  I've never actually seen the Milky Way.

Zoe: This is nothing.  In the old days, there were more.  Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution.