PHILOXENIA ➸ Percy Jackson¹

ἔξοδος

EXODOS

─── ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽☼☾.* :☆ﾟ｡ ───

After dropping what was probably the biggest bombshell of all time, Thalia fainted again.

This time, Chiron immediately sprung into action, telling Percy to put her on his back, and galloped toward the Big House. Seeing this, Annabeth pried herself away from Lux and was hot on his hooves. While Ciaran went back to the cabin for some much-needed sleep, Lux spent the rest of the morning with Annabeth in the infirmary.

None of them could adequately describe what happened. From Chiron's hypothesis, the Golden Fleece had done too good of a job healing the tree, expelling not only the poison injected into it but also reviving the demigod they all thought was dead.

This should be a good thing, was the thought that ran through everyone's mind. But even those not privy to the Great Prophecy knew that Thalia's reappearance would inevitably shift the dynamics of camp and their world at large. The presence of a powerful demigod such as her surely would come with its consequences, oftentimes not due to her own making.

After trying and failing to convince Annabeth to go back to her cabin and get some sleep—the daughter of Athena insisted on staying at the infirmary with Thalia—Lux stayed until she inevitably fell asleep next to Thalia's bed. She draped a blanket around the blonde's shoulders and took one more look at the sleeping Thalia. Chiron had performed a full body check-up on her and noted with astonishment that she suffered no injuries and no health concerns. She had aged according to the tree and would've to learn how to use her body again after such a long time being nothing but wood and branches, but the centaur predicted that she would have no trouble running around in a few weeks time.

It was a miracle. None of them were smiling about it.

Lux walked out of the infirmary, not surprised to see Percy shuffling his feet on the porch.

"Hey," she said.

He snapped his head in her direction. "Hey. How are they?"

"They're fine. Thalia's resting and Annabeth's keeping her company."

"Good." He nodded several times as if to convince himself. "That's...good."

"Yeah, it's good." Even as the word left her mouth, she didn't believe in it that much.

The sky was cloudy and though the air smelled sweet with strawberries, there was also a faint, lingering scent of rain and lightning. She couldn't imagine what Zeus was thinking right now. Olympus must be having a field day.

"So, that happened, huh?" she said lamely.

"Yeah," he said absentmindedly. "I keep thinking maybe this is all a dream and I'll wake up any minute now."

"Would it be better if it was a dream?"

"Maybe? But you said it yourself. It's usually not a good thing for us to dream. What we see might come to pass anyway."

"I'm pretty sure Morpheus has a grudge against us. Or he just likes to mess with our heads."

"Who?"

"The God of Dreams. A real imaginative and head-in-the-clouds kind of guy."

"Isn't he the dad of someone in your cabin? Who was it? The guy who sleeps all the time?" He furrowed his brows in thought.