The quest was today.
Great.
I already had my blade packed and a few of my favorite snacks for our journey, but I was still nervous. Percy was overly excited, grabbing me by the foot and dragging me out of bed and halfway across the cabin floor. I was 100% sure that I was going to die. If Percy was this excited, I could wait to see Sophia.
I peeked around the cabin door to make sure it was safe to come out, and there was no sign of a Sophia to ambush me. With a sigh of relief at seeing she wasn't there, I strutted out, adjusting my camp shirt slightly. Much to my surprise, it wasn't Sophia who ambushed me out of the open.
It was a blur of black hair and tan, and I found myself crashing to the ground. It was Leo Valdez, looking at me with wide eyes.
"Amath! There you are! Me, Sophia, and Phillip have been waiting, man!" He wore a huge grin, his mop of hair all over the place.
"Gah, Leo." I shoved him off me, adjusting my camp shirt again. "Calm down, I'm up, I'm up."
I scrambled back to my feet, shouldering my bag full of my favorite snacks, a spare dagger, and a paper that I wrote my funeral plans on. If I didn't survive, maybe my friends would find it and spread the word, I had decided.
"Valdez!" I heard Sophia shout from a distance away, and Leo took off in that direction before she had to come after him. That wouldn't be pretty. She obviously liked him, but was good at hiding it except for the constant blushing when he was around.
I decided to follow him, and trudged off after. Percy came running behind, so excited that he wasn't even really ready yet. He still had unbrushed hair and his shirt was practically hanging off him. (Not really. But, you know.)
Sophia was training with Leo, and he had left her to go tackle me and drag me over, overly excited. My head still hurt from being knocked over.
Sophia was going to lightly chastise Leo for running off until she saw me trekking down there, and tossed her blade down. Probably to tackle me, too.
And she almost did, if I hadn't moved out of the way. "Amath!" She managed to pull me into a bone-breaking hug, which told me straight away that she was too excited. I groaned to show my pain, and she reluctantly let me free.
"Quest day! Aren't you EXCITED?" She jumped up and down squealing like a girl at a Justin Bieber concert while I watched her with a straight face.
"I guess so," I let loose a sigh, crossing my arms. Sophia didn't seem to bother with my sour attitude about the whole thing. I started to wonder how many monsters we'd get attacked by, when I decided to find Ren.
I found him out in the strawberry field, nervously fiddling with his reed pipes.
"Hey, Renny!" I greeted, with a huge grin. "You wanna go on a quest?"
"No," He muttered under his breath, breaking into a sweat.
"Neither do I. But you've gotta come. You were mentioned in the prophecy-thing."
"That doesn't mean I have to come."
"It's hard to reverse a prophecy. PLUS, you're the protector. You have to come along."
"Aww.." He groaned. ".. fine."
After he'd packed his tin cans and pieces of furniture, I led him back to the group to see Annabeth.
"See ya, Sophia. Take care." She hugged her sister, then turned to me. "Don't let Percy kill you with stupidity along the way."
"Love you, too," Percy muttered.
She turned to Leo. "Leo Valdez. Have you packed your mechanics?"
He nodded, his grin widening.
"Good. Build some awesome stuff for me." She gave him a brief hug, then turned to Percy and Phillip.
"Phillip. Build some awesome stuff with your brother. And Percy."
She glared at him like she was going to punch him. Then she smiled lightly and kissed him, right in front of everybody.
"Don't get killed."
"I won't."
On that note, she returned to her cabin.
"Alright." Percy shouldered his bag, looking over his shoulder.
"So where are we headed?" I inquired, looking down the path that led back to the strawberry field and into the mortal world.
"West, I guess," Sophia replied simply. "Depends on where Argus takes us."
"Argus?"
I learned who Argus was by the time we'd gotten in the van and were driving.. west.
He was this dude who I hadn't seen yet. He would look pretty normal if it wasn't for his eyes that were pretty much all over his body. He didn't talk much, probably because I was later told that he had an eye on his tongue.
While Sophia, Leo, Percy, and Phillip chatted excitedly, I looked out the window quite glumly. Okay, maybe I should have been a little more excited, or at least tried to be. But, at the time, I just wasn't feeling it. There was a chance we wouldn't find my mom, and there was a chance that I would die, and there was also a chance that I would lose one of my friends.
I cast a glance to the other five, and felt myself grow a bit empty. Without any of them, I don't know how I'd go on. I'd been at camp for only a short time, but I'd already grown attached to every one of them.
As we went on, I pulled myself out of my deep thoughts and listened to their conversations on how much fun we'd have. Ah, sure.
I guess we'd see.
