Percy Jackson and The Olde Olympus by knowledgechild

Chapter 7: I Play Pinochle With A Horse

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All words in bold were written by Rick Riordan

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Look, Ares knew he was being an idiot, okay? But he really didn't want to worry Hephaestus and Aphrodite, they didn't need to know that he had a dream, or that he was currently sporting an absolutely terrible headache that could rival his father's when Athena was in his head.

They also didn't need to know about the presence he felt watching him when his back was turned, and they definitely did not need to know about his eyes turning gold overnight.

He knows he is an idiot.

But he doesn't want to worry his lovers and siblings with his stupid paranoia and problems. He doesn't want to burden them.

Ares was so focused on his thoughts that he almost didn't catch the beginning of Artemis reading:

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food. I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again.

I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?" I managed to croak, "What?" She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"Something was stolen?!" Ares faintly heard his father muttering under his breath.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..." Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.

The next time I woke up, the girl was gone. A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes—at least a dozen of them—on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

Hera smiled, Ares looked away.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries.

There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

Stealing a quick look at the boy, Ares saw him making a face of disgust, probably because of the descriptions.

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.