Heroes of Olympus (The Throne of Stone)

Chapter 08 Owls Fly At Poseidon's Head

Chapter 08

Owls Fly At Poseidon's Head

Percy

“Why did I pass out in the first place?”

“Um..your mom took control again and scared the overalls off Leo.” I cracked a pathetic smile, “We were talking about the quest and you just lost it.”

“So I really have to go?”

“Well, that prophecy that Rachel spoke was directed at you so um...yeah.”

“Great. Just great! I just got here, to this wonderful place and now I have to leave so that someone can chop my head off. Sounds awesome.” Emma frowned. Her bottom lip quivered like she was going to cry if I didn’t find an upside,

“You don’t know that will always happen. Prophecies can have double meanings. It could mean something completely different.”

“Yeah. In Percy’s prophecy it talked about Kronos reaping his soul and, hey he’s still okay!” Annabeth said that enthusiastically but she still frowned.

I skipped dinner. Oh, I was still hungry. But I just couldn’t go to see everyone watching me and thinking about how I would die. Late at night there was screaming. Not a loud noise, like, loud ear piercing screaming. I realized that the scream belonged to Annabeth. I jumped out of bed and ran to the Athena cabin. This time I didn’t care about camp rules I ran right into the cabin. Annabeth was panting and covered in sweat. Emma was peering down at her from the top bunk. Annabeth ran to me and jumped into my arms. I hugged her trembling body, her tears stained my pajamas but I didn’t care. I knew she couldn’t bear to go back on that dreadful quest where at every moment we were in danger.

“Can I go with you?” Annabeth whispered into my shirt. Without answering I swept her off her feet and carried her back to my cabin. While I was walking Annabeth managed to pull herself together. She still was crying but she had stopped uncontrollable bawling, “I can’t go back.”

“I know.” I didn’t want to go either. I was just starting to make up all of the time I had missed at Camp Half-Blood while I was on my quest, thanks to the most annoying goddess ever. I hardly ever got to see the camp before I was told to leave again. I set Annabeth in the cocoon we had built for frequent demigod nightmares. We had decided to build this pile of pillows and blankets after we returned from the Argo II. Annabeth had nightmares every night and I had occasions where I would wake up drenched in sweat. We just found it easier to sleep together so that we knew that the other was still alive.

“I feel sorry for Emma, this quest may be her last.”

“Let’s hope it’s not.”

“What about Jason?”

“I don’t know.” Jason had tried to kill me but so had Luke in the Titan War and Luke was a true hero. Jason just didn’t seem like a bad guy.

“Is this the end?” Her voice broke at the end,

“No of course not.” I twisted around so that I could look straight at her, “Annabeth we have gone through everything. We have survived the Titan War, giants, and our own parents. We can survive this.” To keep her from protesting I kissed her again.

“What about New Rome?”

“We’ll have to wait I guess.” I had envisioned a great future for the 2 of them in New Rome. But now that New Rome was destroyed my dreams for us had been destroyed as well. The Great Merging didn’t help either.

I looked up at the ceiling of my cabin and thought about how many innocent people died on the day of The Great Merging. I had seen part of it myself and I really didn’t want to remember. Annabeth held on tightly to my fore arm,

“But I don’t want to wait. I want to be happy now.”

“I know. I do too. If I could I would do everything I could to make our dream reality.”

Annabeth paused and a small murmur escaped her. Not moments she started snoring. I lightly chuckled, she was so cute when she was sleeping. All of her worry lines on her forehead ceased to exist. Sometimes when she wasn’t screaming her head off in her sleep she smiled, almost as if she was imagining New Rome. I kissed her forehead and I fell asleep.

    

Of course I regretted falling asleep, I could never really sleep there was always tedious demigod nightmares. This time I saw Olympus, Athena was drawing on a clipboard and Zeus was desperately trying to rub the worry wrinkles out of his forehead and my dad was playing with his trident. My essence floated over to Athena who was scratching something off her clipboard.I floated closer to see that Athena had hastily drawn a stick figure labeled Perseus and had crossed me off as if she was trying to kill me just by drawing me on a clipboard. Her owls were flying around her head. They looked like songbirds compared to the sheer size of Athena’s head,

“I don’t like this.” She muttered.

“It really is impossible to determine who you fall in love with and after you fall in love you can’t fall out.” My dad insisted. Athena’s owls started flying at my dad’s head but Poseidon deflected them with a twist of his trident. The owls took a dip in the ocean, “Ha. Never gets old.” He murmured.

“They are not supposed to be together!” Athena countered, “They’re our children. They are making a huge mistake. I can see how it all it all turns out. It doesn’t end well.” Athena continued to scribbled me out on her clipboard. More of her owls came to fill in for the owls that were still stuck in saltwater. Athena whispered something into what I supposed was the barn owl’s ear, this owl was much larger than the others and it wore what looked like a bronze circlet on it’s head. The owl screeched and flew out of the room and the other owls followed it.

“What did you do?” Poseidon yelled. Athena smirked and disappeared just as Poseidon raised his trident. The image blurred and now I was floating in front was a large mound of dirt.

“Dirt Face!” I yelled, I reached for Riptide but my favorite weapon wasn’t there.

“Perseus Jackson, I have waited.” The voice was gravelly and sent a chill up my spine, “Alas you have a greater challenge to deal with. For now you wake. Wake Percy, WAKE!”

I woke up to screaming, again.  Annabeth was thrashing next to me, I opened my eyes but instead of seeing Annabeth I saw the barn owl with the bronze circlet. The owls had grabbed a hold my shoulders and were digging their talons into my biceps. I reached for Riptide but I saw that another one of the owls had grabbed it was trying to figure how to disable it.

“Annabeth!” I yelled. I searched the room with my eyes for her and came across her on the other side of the room. She was silenced with a strip of duct tape across her mouth, she had a shocked look on her face. I tried to reach over and un duct tape her but the talons dug further into my arms, I yelped in pain. Annabeth had tears in her eyes. The owls had finished with Annabeth and now all of the owls converged on me. There had to be at least 20 of them. The owls managed to lift me off the ground they dragged me out of the room with Annabeth rolling around on the floor. Apparently the owls had duct taped her feet together. Annabeth reached out and grabbed my hand. Her tears were streaming freely now. I kissed her one last time before the owls dragged me away.The owls didn’t have a good flight pattern and flew through a tree. A branch hit me on the head. Then I blacked out.