El Fuego y La Flor - The Storm

Chapter 10 - We missed you, Big C.

Cassia

»You have a prism in your backpack?«
I took out the little, triangular shaped piece of glass and looked over my shoulder.
»You don't?« I replied, a bit taken aback by that question.
»I mean... no?« He replied, as if that was normal.
»Then how do you send Iris messages?«
»Uhm... I... I just... I don't know?«
This almost hurt my demigod brain, but what did I expect? I just shook my head and went back to the middle of the room. My hand was freshly bandaged, but the pain still dimly pushed through it with every heartbeat.
I held up the prism, until the sunlight hit it, splitting into seven different beams of light. Since we couldn't open the windows, we had to add water manually. Leo stood next to the light beams, flicking water with his fingertips from a glass. If someone would have entered the room in this very moment, we wouldn't been able to explain ourselves.
Leo had told me that it was about eight am, the rain had poured relentlessly all night long and the wind had blown stronger tonight. After my recent dreams, the bad weather made me uncomfortable. Trapped. Aware that we were on a giant body of water, which seemed to be our nemesis on this journey.

Finally, a small rainbow flickered in the room, Leo quickly threw a drachma at it.
»Oh Iris, take our offering. Please show us Chiron, Camp Halfblood.« I chanted, like a mantra. I had made the mistake of not saying »Please« once, and only once. Iris was strict when it was about manners.
Lucky for us, it only took some moments to show us the Centaur, in his magical wheelchair, holding cards far away from his face, his chin lifted slightly to study his deck. Like old people always did. Mr. D. sat across him and spotted us first.
»Ugh. Half-blood matters.« He mumbled, rolled his eyes and got up, snatching his diet coke and throwing his cards on the table.
He nodded at us.
»Lino. Cressida. If you'd excuse me.«
I assumed those were the names he had come up with for us. Seriously, how could someone screw up a three letter name?
Then he left the table. Thank the gods they sent us the most competent and helpful god to take care of our Camp.

Chiron had spotted us by now, his eyebrows raised, a small smile on his lips. I raised my healthy hand to wave, Leo grinned stupidly.
»Yo Big C.« He said, somehow that Nickname was worse than anything Dionysus could have come up with.
Chiron nodded at him, then his gaze turned back to me. His expression grew more serious, mirroring mine.
»What's going on?«
»Okay, good news first: The fact that you're playing Cards with Dionysus, means you're probably not dead yet?« I replied, but my voice broke a little and it came out a question. Chiron's expression became even harder, a worried look in his eyes.
I told them about my nightmare. From the hands in the water, to the owl pillar, the crown, the snake, the ship sinking. I told them everything. When I finished, telling about the giant eye in the water-vortex that had been Camp Half-blood, my voice was trembling. I shook my head, and stopped talking.

Leo hadn't known the story yet. I didn't want to tell it twice, once was bad enough. I think he had never been this quiet for such a long time. It was eerie.
After I finished, he awkwardly put a hand on my shoulder, the kind of "I am trying to comfort you and I don't know how" gesture, that was sweet, and also awkward as hell. I steadied myself and looked up at Chiron. His lips were drawn back, a frown formed on his forehead, his dark eyes were narrowed. He didn't seem to exactly look at us, but through us. Then he shook his head quietly.
»Everything at Camp is okay... it's just... it's been raining since the two of you left, three days ago.«
I shivered at that. Here's an idea for a short horror sentence: It has been raining since the two of you left. Great.
Then Leo spoke again. Seriously, if he remained quiet and didn't move, it was easy to forget that he was there.
»Okay so. Our enemy is someone related to water. Like, huge bodies of water. And we are on an ocean.« He grimaced. »Cool.«
I couldn't help but agree. If that vision from my mind came true... if our ship ended up miming the Titanic, we would be responsible for the death of hundreds of people - normal mortals! And most likely even more if this mission didn't succeed.

Chiron nodded grimly.
»Yes. You are. And that is... bad.« His way of expressing himself seemed to have taken a toll. Maybe he tried to imitate me with that? I'd be offended, if the situation wasn't this dire.
»Your ship will arrive in London after seven sea days. You're on the third. You already made two days and you haven't encountered any monsters or problems yet.« He paused, studying our expressions. »Right?« He then added, unsure, and that for a reason.
So we told him about the Cetus. This time, Leo said a lot too. I downplayed my stupidity, not really mentioning how I found the Cetus cute at first. Leo told the rest of the story, mainly the fight. I noticed that he downplayed the way he defeated the sea monster. No blazing flame that could have burnt the skies if he wanted to. Just some fires, some crispy burnt Hedgehog, and that's it.
»I brought Cassia back to the room and let her rest. But since then we didn't see any other Cetuses or sea monsters.« He shrugged.
I added onto that. »But someone must've released it on this ship, right?« I asked, hoping for Chiron to say something along the lines of »Nah, that Cetus got on the ship by himself and you're fine, you're completely safe, hahaha, just have some fun!«
Unfortunately, he purged that thought by speaking the truth: »Yes. You have to be mindful of your surroundings and the people you come across. Any person could be the enemy.«

His voice was grim, and deep, as if he already imagined how we got eaten by a bunch of Cetuses for dinner. I shivered at that thought.
Chiron examined us for a moment, before he shook his head.
»Five more days, adding this one. You will manage it.« He then said, trying to give the both of us some hope. I clutched my hand around my necklace, my index finger running over the edges and curves of the pomegranate seed. Leo's expression was just as grim, which was unusual and unsettling.
Then Chiron sighed deeply, for a moment his shoulders slacked down, as if he was tired, tired of being the hero's trainer, tired of sending off young children to die in wars they were dragged into. For the first time, I wondered just how much loss he must have endured. How many young heroes had he sent off, and then waited for their return endlessly? It broke my heart a little. And I quietly promised myself that he wouldn't have to mourn either mine or Leo's death this time.

Chiron regained his composure and analyzed us again with his dark, wise eyes.
»Are you two getting along?« He then asked, quietly, his eyebrow raised questioningly. I didn't know where that question had come from, before I remembered that he told me to get along with Leo, just before we had left the house after discussing the Prophecy. Had that really just happened four days ago? It seemed like an eternity more. I glanced over at Leo, his curious gaze met mine, as if to ask Do we get along?
I managed to smile slightly.
»Yeah, we do. He's not that bad.« I shrugged.
»Awh, Cas, you melt my heart with your sweet talking.« Leo replied, raising a hand to his heart, mocking an expression of relief and gratitude.
I nudged his shoulder playfully, rolling my eyes.
»Careful, I can still change my mind.«
Then I turned back towards Chiron.
»No, really, we get along. I didn't throw him off the ship yet, so it's okay. And he really isn't half bad, like you said!« I added, a sly grin creeping onto my face.

Leo didn't even know which aspect of my sentence to criticise first. He just replied my smile with a teasing grin of his own and held up a thumbs up for Chiron.
»She's not that bad either. She's almost... tolerable."«
He needed about ten seconds to come up with that word. I took from that, that he either had a very limited vocabulary, or that he didn't want to be too nice to me. Both seemed plausible enough. I nudged his side with my elbow again. He nudged my shoulder with his.
When we looked up, Chiron was suppressing a chuckle.
»Teamwork is important.« He then said, a soft smile lingering on his face.
»It's almost like the two of you are friends now, hm?«
I looked at Leo again, this time I was asking whether that was the case. He nodded.
»Getting there.« He replied, shooting me a smug glance for a second. I scoffed and turned back to Chiron.
»We're getting there.« I agreed.

Chiron nodded, concealing his laugh with a cough. He set on to add another comment, to wish us luck or to tell us that we'd be alright, to ask us to be careful or to give us some advice. But we didn't find out what he was about to say. His eyes narrowed and then widened, he straightened himself and set on to say something else.

Then our room exploded.