Child of the Moon

Our Friends Meet Percy's... Dog

Percy stood at the edge of the glacier, leaning on the staff with the golden eagle, gazing down at the wreckage he'd caused.  Zoe and I stood behind him, waiting for Frank and Hazel to return.  Several hundred acres of newly open water dotted with icebergs and debris from the ruined camp.  The only remains on the glacier were the main gates, which listed sideways, and a tattered blue banner lying over a pile of snow bricks.  The others ran up to us.

YN: Yo.

Percy: Hey.

Frank: You're alive!

Percy frowned.

Percy: The fall?  That was nothing.

YN: Yep.  He fell twice that far from the St. Louis Arch four years ago.

Hazel: You did what?

Percy: It doesn't matter.

Frank: Where's Annabeth?

YN: She went back to Camp Half-Blood.  I figured Octavian doesn't need to know-

Percy: Hey, I got a bone to pick with you, Zhang.  You can turn into an eagle?  And a bear?

Hazel: And an elephant.

YN: An elephant?

Percy shook his head in disbelief.

Percy: That's your family gift?  You can change shape?

Frank: Um... yeah.  Periclymenus, my ancestor, the Argonaut... he could do that.  He passed down the ability.

Percy: And he got that gift from Poseidon.  That's completely unfair.  I can't turn into animals.

I snorted as Frank stared at him.

Frank: Unfair?  You can breathe underwater and blow up glaciers and summon freaking hurricanes... and it's unfair that I can be an elephant?

At this point I burst out laughing.

Percy: Okay.  I guess you got a point.  But next time I say you're totally beast-

Frank: Just shut up.  Please.

Percy cracked a smile.

Hazel: If you guys are done, we need to go.  Camp Jupiter is under attack.  They could use that gold eagle.

YN: One thing first, though.  Hazel, there's about a ton of Imperial gold weapons and armor at the bottom of the bay now, plus a really nice chariot.  I'm betting that stuff could come in handy...

It took us a long time, but we all knew those weapons could make the difference between victory and defeat if we got them back to camp in time.  Hazel used her abilities to levitate some items from the bottom of the sea.  Percy swam down and brought up more.  Even Frank helped by turning into a seal, which was kind of cool, though Percy claimed his breath smelled like fish.  It took all three of them to raise the chariot, but finally they'd managed to haul everything ashore to a black sand beach near the base of the glacier.  Zoe and I felt a little useless, but hey, we can't really do much here.  We couldn't fit everything in the chariot, but we used Frank's rope to strap down most of the gold weapons and the best pieces of armor.

Frank: It looks like Santa's sleigh.

YN: You mean my mom's chariot.

Percy chuckled as Frank and Hazel looked at us weirdly.

Frank: Um, okay.  But can Arion even pull that much?

Arion huffed.

Percy: Hazel, I am seriously going to wash your horse's mouth with soap.  He says, yes, he can pull it, but he needs food.