Sunburn- phoebus apollo

--vi. i gave my blood sweat and tears for this

PERCY JACKSON

It'd been a while since Percy had shared a dream with Rhea. It hadn't happened since two winters ago, when Annabeth and Artemis had been kidnapped. He'd assumed, perhaps naively, that it wouldn't happen again.

But it did. It was. Right now.

The weird thing about it, though, was the fact that he and Rhea could actually see and communicate with each other this time around.

(Unfortunately, the dream turned out to be a nightmare.)

They saw Nico first, and it had been a rough start and an even rougher end. The kid had been trying to summon his mother, only to get his sister instead, warning him of a past he shouldn't try to understand. And then, after brushing her aside, when he'd actually managed to call upon the spirit of Maria di Angelo...

Well, they were left to witness her untimely end.

How Zeus had murdered her. How Hades had ordered Nico's and Bianca's memories to be wiped clean in the River Lethe. How the embittered god had cursed the Oracle of Delphi because of a power she couldn't control.

Because that was what the Olympians did, right? They took out their anger on innocents, and they orchestrated the darkest of tragedies.

It was no wonder Rhea was worried about going through one of her own. Seers really did meet grisly ends.

(But Rhea wouldn't. Percy swore his life on it.)

Besides, despite his love-hate relationship with the god, Percy knew Apollo at least wouldn't allow anyone to lay a harmful hand on Rhea. It was the only thing the two of them could agree on: Rhea had to live a long and happy life. Personally, Percy would have preferred it if she could have spent it with someone other than the sun god—but, well, beggers can't be choosers.

And prophecies were unavoidable. Percy knew that now.

Rachel seemed to as well—weirdly enough.

After the dream of Nico had been interrupted by his father, The dream had abruptly switched gears and brought them to Rachel—but the insights they'd received from that little visit hadn't been so happy, either. Rachel had been convinced that she had a message to give to Percy, that she had to see Rhea immediately, that it was all a matter of life or death. Somehow, she'd been able to write out Percy's full name in Ancient Greek, despite the fact that she was mortal, and—to their horror—she'd managed to convince her dad to arrange a flight back to Manhattan in exchange for her going to the very school she'd been dead set against. It was terrible, terrible news all around, and Percy wanted to know why the dream was showing him this, why Rachel was behaving so oddly, why any of this had to happen.

But then Thalia shook them both awake, and they were taken out of the dream.

"Percy, Rhea," she said, looking as bad as Percy felt. "Come on. It's late afternoon. We've got visitors."

He sat up, disoriented, as Rhea let out a tired yawn.

"Who's here?" Rhea asked, running a tired hand over her face.

"A Titan. He wants to see you guys, under a flag of truce," Thalia explained, which seemed to wake them both up immediately. "He has a message from Kronos."

****

They could see the white flag from half a mile away. It was as big as a soccer field, carried by a thirty-foot-tall giant with bright blue skin and icy gray hair.