gnossienne
n. the realisation that you didn't actually know someone as well as you thought you did
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'Look, I never wanted to be a half-blood.
Let's start from the top, shall we?
My name is Cassandra Jackson, but everyone usually calls me Ca...
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I sat in the front seat, still in shock. Rain lashed on the windshield. I wasn't sure how mom could see where she was driving, but she never took her foot of the gas.
At every flash of lightning, I glanced back at Grover, checking over again if he still had hooves.
'Maybe I really have gone mad?' I thought.
"So, you and my mom... you know each other?" I heard Percy asked Grover.
"Not exactly. We met once when she came looking for Cassie-" Grover froze.
"Came looking for me?" I repeated. "When?" Grover avoided my question.
"She knew I was watching over you two, though."
"Watching over?" Percy questioned.
"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But, I wasn't faking being your friend." He added, hastily. "I really am your friend."
"You've been lying to us all this time." I said, still staring ahead.
"What are you, anyhow?" Percy asked.
"That doesn't matter right now." I scoffed at Grover's response.
"You're half donkey! Of course it matters!" I snapped.
Grover let out a sharp, throaty 'Blaa-ha-ha!'
I'd heard it before, but I just figured it was just a nervous laugh, but now I realised it was just like a goats bleat.
"Goat!" Grover cried out. "I'm half goat. Not donkey."
"You said it didn't matter." Percy pointed out earning another, "Blaa-ha-ha!"
"There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult."
"Satyrs? As in Mr Brunner's myths?" Percy interrogated.
"Were those old ladies a myth? Was Mrs Dodds a myth?"
"So you admit there was a Mrs Dodds!" Percy exclaimed.
"Of course."
"Then why-"
"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract." Grover said all of this like it was perfectly logical to think such way.
"You're insane." I told him.
"Blaa-ha-ha! You saw Mrs Dodds, so you know I'm telling the truth."
"Why could nobody else remember her?" I asked.
"We put mist over their eyes. We'd hoped you'd think the Kindly One was just an illusion. But it was no good, you had already started to realise who you are."
"Who I - wait a minute, what do you mean?" I was seriously getting annoyed. Each answer only seemed to gain us more questions, each left unanswered.
