Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

039, shit...

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

Sylvie lost hope when she saw the horses' teeth.

As she got closer to the fence she held her shirt over her nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at her. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's.

"Hi, there"—she gagged—"buddy. I'm gonna clean your stables, okay? Isn't that great?"

But the only thing the horse looked eager about was eating her flesh. He seemed enthusiastic about that, actually.

The other horses waded through the field. Flies were buzzing everywhere, and the heat didn't make the smell any better. It was a horrible idea for Sylvie to do this, because the only way she ever remembered this task being accomplished, was how Hercules had done it—He'd channeled a river into the stables and cleaned them out that way. Sylvie should've let Percy take on this task, and maybe he actually had a chance of getting that done. She couldn't control water, she couldn't get close to the horses without getting eaten, and the poop looked a lot bigger up close.

Sylvie picked up a rusted shovel and experimentally scooped some away from the fence line. Great. Only four billion shovelfuls to go.

The sun was already sinking. Sylvie had a few hours at best. She decided it couldn't get much worse, so it wasn't a horrible idea to check out the river that was downhill from the stables. At least it would be easier to think at the riverside than it was here. She set off towards it.

When Sylvie got to the river, she found a girl waiting for her. The girl was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt and her long brown hair was braided with river grass. She had a stern look on her face. Her arms were crossed.

"Oh no you don't," she said.

Sylvie stared at her. "Are you a naiad?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course!"

"But you speak English. And you're out of the water."

"What, you don't think we can act human if we want to?"

Sylvie'd never thought about it. She kind of felt stupid, though, because she'd seen plenty of naiads at camp. But she gave herself some grace, because most naiads didn't like her much, so Sylvie tried steering clear of them all.

"Look," Sylvie said, "I just came to ask—"

"I know who you are," she said. "And I know what you want. And the answer is no! I'm not to going have my river used again to clean that filthy stable."

"But—"

"Oh, save it, sea girl. You ocean-god types always think you're soooo much more important than some little river, don't you? Well let me tell you, this naiad is not going to be pushed around just because your daddy is Poseidon. This is freshwater territory, ma'am. The last guy who asked me this favor, he convinced me, and that was the worst mistake I've ever made! Do you have any idea what all that horse manure does to my ecosystem? Do I look like a sewage treatment plant to you? My fish will die. I'll never get the muck out of my plants. I'll be sick for years. NO THANK YOU!"