✔ | [1] 𝒞𝒶𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓉𝒾𝒸 | ᴘᴇʀᴄʏ ᴊᴀᴄᴋꜱᴏɴ

𝓍𝓁𝓋𝒾. Shadow travel is not for the weak

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

Find me in the sky

Dancing with the moon at night

Your heartbeat disguised as my lullaby

Be happy and know that I'm watching you travel far and wide

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

⚔ Helena ended up still winning the race despite Percy cheating.

Percy didn't know how. Maybe she had super speed or something?

He wasn't able to think about it for long because moments after Helena won their race and they both reached the arena, a wall of darkness slammed into him and sent him tumbling to the ground.

"WOOF!"

"Aw," Helena said, delighted. "It's the dead guy's giant dog!"

Percy was flat on the ground with a huge paw on his chest and a giant tongue licking his face and drenching him in drool. 

"Okay, the drool is not so cute," Helena cringed.

"Hey, girl," Percy said to Mrs. O'Leary. "Good to see you, too."

It took a few minutes for Percy to calm Mrs O'Leary down and get her off him. Helena just stood to the side and watched, amused by the giant dog but unwilling to get near her.

"Not all of us can breathe underwater," she had said when Percy asked her for a little help. 

Mrs O'Leary wanted to play fetch, so he picked up a bronze shield and tossed it across the arena. Her collar glinted when the sun hit it. Beckendorf had made it for her; he had also made her favourite chew toy. The boy always took care of her when Percy wasn't at camp.

Thinking about that made him sad all over again, but Percy threw the shield a few more times because Mrs O'Leary insisted. Helena stood next to him and squeezed his hand as if sensing what he was thinking about. 

Helena had wanted to talk to Percy about what happened personally. She knew he would probably need to speak about it to help him process everything that had happened but she hadn't found a moment to get him alone. She opened her mouth to talk to him but was cut off by Mrs. O'Leary's barks. 

There goes another chance to ask him about the thoughts that were definitely plaguing his mind.

Helena had heard about the giant dog going to the bathroom in the arena from Mark; apparently, several (not to be named) campers had very unfortunate slippery accidents, which had made her entire week. Percy opened the gates of the arena and the dog bounded straight towards the woods. 

Percy walked back to Helena and intertwined their hands before they started jogging after her, not too concerned that she was getting ahead. Nothing in the woods could threaten Mrs. O'Leary. Even the dragons and giant scorpions ran away when she came close. 

When the duo finally tracked her down, she wasn't using the expanded bathroom space. She was in a familiar clearing where the Council of Cloven Elders had once put Grover on trial.

The place didn't look so good. The grass had turned yellow. The three topiary thrones had lost all their leaves. But that's not what surprised them. In the middle of the glade stood the weirdest trio they'd ever seen: Juniper the tree nymph, Nico di Angelo, and a very old, very fat satyr.