▃▃▃ ᴅᴏɴᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ʜᴇʀ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴏꜰ ɪɴɴᴏᴄᴇɴᴄᴇ ꜰᴏᴏʟ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱʜᴇ ɪꜱ ꜰᴜʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ʙᴀᴅ-ᴊ ɪʀᴏɴ ᴡᴏʀᴅ
▃▃ ʙᴏᴏᴋ 1 ▃▃ In which the only daughter of Persephone sneaks on a quest to see the world for the first time since she's been at camp. The daughter of wisdom...
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𖥔 ݁ ˖ ⭑ ‧₊˚ ⋅ જ⁀➴๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⭑
Elara had too much on her mind and couldn't sleep, so she stared at the roof of her treehouse. After a while, she decided to take a walk to clear her thoughts.
As she wandered around the camp, she eventually saw Percy sitting alone. She decided to join him.
"Hey," she greeted.
"Hey, Lara," Percy replied.
The sky was clear and filled with stars. Elara looked up, recognizing the constellations she had read about before-Pisces, Sagittarius, Orion, Cepheus...
"Beautiful, aren't they?" A said, almost in awe.
She almost choked on her soda when she heard the voice.
Standing right next to them was a man in nylon running shorts and a New York City Marathon T-shirt. He was slim and fit, with salt-and-pepper hair and a sly smile. He looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't place him. Her first thought was that he must have been taking a midnight jog down the beach and accidentally wandered into the camp.
That wasn't supposed to happen. Regular mortals couldn't enter the valley, but maybe with the tree's magic weakening, he had managed to slip in.
But in the middle of the night? And there was nothing around except farmland and state preserves. Where could this guy have jogged from?
"May I join you?" he asked. "I haven't sat down in ages."
Elara glanced at him suspiciously.
Percy said, "Uh, sure."
He smiled. "Your hospitality does you credit. Oh, and Coca-Cola! May I?"
He sat at the other end of the blanket, popped a soda and took a drink. "Ah. that hits the spot. Peace and quiet at -"
A cell phone went off in his pocket.
The jogger sighed and pulled out his phone. Their eyes widened as the device emitted a bluish glow.
When he extended the antenna, two tiny creatures began writhing around it-green snakes, no bigger than earthworms.
The jogger seemed unfazed. He checked the LCD screen and muttered a curse under his breath. "I've got to take this. Just a sec..." he said, then answered the call, "Hello?"
He listened intently, while the miniature snakes writhed up and down the antenna, slithering dangerously close to his ear.
"Yeah," the jogger said. "Listen - I know, but... I don't care if he is chained to a rock with vultures pecking at his liver, if he doesn't have a tracking number, we can't locate his package... A gift to humankind, great... You know how many of those we deliver - Oh, never mind. Listen, just refer him to Eris in customer service. I gotta go."
