Ariel Sagitta - a Percy Jackson fanfic

Chapter 23

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Chapter 23

    “So, stay put or keep moving?” Austin asked.

    Katie pondered this. “It won’t make a difference to the Pegasi. They’re much faster than us, and they’ll follow our scent.”

    “But if we move, wouldn’t that make the scent stronger?”

    “Yeah.” Katie’s faced turned sour. “But staying put… I don’t like it. It makes my skin crawl.”

    Ariel didn’t realized until then, but she felt exactly the same way. Her feet were itching to keep moving; sitting still was wasted time.

    “You should lead us.”

    She looked up. Katie and Austin were looking at her expectantly.

    “What? Me?”

    “You’re our human GPS.” Austin said. “It makes perfect sense.”

    Ariel gulped. It was daunting, being the leader of a quest like this. She wanted the responsibility; she didn’t want the responsibility. She wanted to prove her strength; she wanted to curl up into a ball and hide in a hole for days.

    Her logic decided her. She was the one with the sense of direction. She had to lead.

   She took an arrow out of her quiver and nocked it. She couldn’t decide if it made her feel safer or not.

    “It’s that way.” Ariel paused, sensing the environment. “And nothing else is around.”

    With that, Ariel swept through the woods, Austin and Katie following closely behind.

    Ariel instantly felt calmer. Everything else around her faded, leaving only the path ahead of her. She could sense it, the energy of the hunt, how it ebbed and flowed through all living things. Ariel had felt this before, but could never explain it before, how her senses sharpened to the tiniest details, how her body fell into the rhythm of her surroundings, how good it felt to be pursuing something. To be able to contribute, instead of being the extra, useless baggage.

   That thought struck her cold. Was this her only purpose? To hunt? Everytime she thought of hunters, she thought of bearded guys in camouflage and bright orange frocks, with ridiculously large guns. Was that was she was?

    A killer?

    Stop it! Ariel berated herself. Even Artemis isn’t like that. She isn’t a killer.

    But she couldn’t convince herself. Artemis had killed her—or at least, made every attempt to do so. She left her on the streets, all alone, with nothing to help her. Artemis had killed her childhood, had forced her to grow up quickly in order to survive.

    I’m not like that. Ariel promised herself. I will not be like that.

   Yet a worm of doubt threaded her mind. She was already like Artemis in so many ways. What prevented her form becoming a killer as well?

    “Ariel!”

   She turned around. To her utter bewilderment, a huge ravine, as wide as she was tall, separated her from Austin and Katie. They stared at her in complete shock.