༄ 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓, grover underwood

17. 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐘 𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐎𝐍

The four of us are currently on a train. Grover and Kaylee are sleeping on the bigger top bunk, and I can hear Grover snoring. Kaylees a extremely deep sleeper. I think she could actually sleep through a World War and a atomic bomb going on at the same time.

Annabeths on the lower bunk, and I'm on the floor. Luckily, I have a gazillion blankets and a few pillows. But, all my comfort faded when I woke up from a nightmare. I had been with my mom at that swimming class when I was younger, then I was alone in a desert with The Voice.

I just lay there, reminding myself it wasn't real and nothing happened, looking up at the ceiling with Grovers snoring as background noise.

"Hey, you asleep?"

I ask Annabeth, not sitting up.

"Yes."

She mutters, shifting in her bed. Grover and Kaylee are both sleeping like rocks. It's actually kinda scary.

"You and Thalia were really close, right?"

I inquire.

"...Yeah."

Annabeth responds, looking up at the bottom of the top bunk, probably feeling like strangling Grover because of his snores.

"What was she like?"

I ask, genuinely curious. I've heard a lot about Thalia, but I'm still curious to know more about her.

"Why?"

"She was the last forbidden kid before me, right? She must've dealt with the same kind of stuff."

"She was tough. I mean, she knew she was a forbidden kid, she just didn't care,"

Annabeth chuckles softly.

"When Luke and Thalia found me, Luke cared for me right away. But Thalia... she made me earn it."

"Is that why you give me and Kaylee a hard time?"

I ask.

"We gotta earn it with you too?"

Annabeth sighs a little.

"Yeah. Maybe."

"I gotta say, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

"What doesn't make sense to you?"

Annabeth asks.

"The way you guys all talk,"

Grover snores again. Kaylee is still very much asleep, like a baby.

"The way the gods want us to think. Gotta burn an offering to get a parents attention. Kaylee had to beat up on Clarisse just to get her mother to admit she's her mother. It isn't supposed to work that way."

I finish.

"People who are close to you aren't supposed to treat you that way."

"You wanna know how I ended up alone on the road in the first place?"

Annabeth asks.

"I started out as a gift to my father. That's how it works with Athena. We're born from a thought in her mind, and then given to a partner she feels connected to. And for a while, I was treated like a gift. My father cared for me. He loved me,"

Annabeth touches her camp necklace, playing with it a little.

"I knew it. Then he met a woman. They had their own kids. And to her, I-- I wasn't a gift. I was a problem. So I left. I was seven. It isn't the gods that think that way. It's everybody. But atleast with the gods you know the rules. Show them respect and they'll be in your corner, no matter what."