A Son From Lands Unknown (PJO x Male Reader)

Love Gets Smug

The six rode the boar until sunset, which was about as much as any of them could take from how wild it was. It was like riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day.

It wasn't immediately clear how many miles they had covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until they were riding across a vast, empty desert.

As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."

No one needed convincing. They slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then they waddled away as best they could with their saddle sores.

After the third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.

"It likes the mountains better, I guess?" Percy said.

"Can't blame it," Thalia shrugged. "Look."

Ahead of them was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open for several decades, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said 'GILA CLAW, ARIZONA' hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of what seemed to be hills at first glance, but they weren't actually hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

"Whoa," Percy said.

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Grover. "I don't suppose you have another wild boar up your sleeve?"

"Please no," (Y/N) said. "Last one nearly made my head explode."

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to Percy or (Y/N), but Grover looked concerned.

"That's us," he said. "Those five nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" Percy asked.

"Irrelevant," (Y/N) argued. "What's this cluster over here?"

"Trouble."

"A monster?" Thalia asked.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make any sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge..."

He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something from an alien planet.

The group decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. No one wanted to go dumpster diving in the dark.

Zoe and Bianca produced five sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. (Y/N) chalked it up to magic, the same way they never ran out of arrows, but that thought only made him want one of those bows more.

The night got chilly fast, so Grover and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire. (Y/N) scouted the rest of the town for any other supplies, nothing like food or other perishables, but more small kindling pieces. He didn't find any, but he did find some old records from the town. Pretty soon, they were about as comfortable as they could get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere.