Beyond the Shining Lights (Percy Jackson Barbie's Mariposa AU)

Chapter 7

After flying for the night, everyone was exhausted.

"What is this place?" Annabeth asked as the four fairies landed on the ground.

Clarisse whipped her head around, glaring at Piper. "Hey, what gives?"

"What are you talking about?" Piper asked cautiously. "I didn't do anything."

After a few second of silence, Piper whipped her head around to Clarisse. "I said I didn't do anything!"

"I heard you."

"So why did you hit me?"

"I didn't hit you!"

"Both of you, knock it off!" Silena hissed. After a couple seconds, she looked over at Annabeth. "I get that you hate me, but did you really have to hit me?"

"What are you talking about?" Annabeth asked as she felt something hard hit the back of her neck. Annabeth looked towards the tree line to see a fairy with messy red hair and stained clothes laughing in the trees. Annabeth slowly flew closer. "Hello?"

"Oh, you've spotted me." The fairy said, scratching the back of her neck as she emerged from the trees, her green wings like leaves shimmering in the morning sunlight. "I'm Rachel. Rachel the Tree Fairy. I'm kinda native to these parts."

"You were the one throwing those seeds at us, right?" Piper asked angrily, pointing to the pink seeds where the fairies had walked away from.

"Maybe..."

"That wasn't very nice." Annabeth said, crossing her arms.

"I'm sorry!" Rachel quickly apologized. "Most of my kind died out a long time ago. I'm afraid that you four are the first fairy contact I've had in years."

"Your kind?" Silena asked cautiously.

Rachel nodded. "Tree fairies like myself were eaten by the Titans long before they went after you butterfly fairies. They believed that by eating us, they would get our gift, but instead our gift is what caused them to go blind. They now pass that on from generation to generation."

"Your gift?" Clarisse asked cautiously.

"Tree fairies can kinda see into the future. Deep roots, you know?"

"So you can see our futures?" Piper asked excitedly.

"Yes..." Rachel said, her head turning to Annabeth. "But right now, I'm blinded by her future."

"What does that mean?" Annabeth asked cautiously.

"I see two options for you." Rachel said cautiously. "One in pure darkness, and the other in bright light. Which one you'll take is kind of jumbled. My only advice, don't doubt yourself so much. Your self doubt could be your destruction."

Annabeth blinked for a second, then shook off what Rachel said. "Could you tell us where we are? We're trying to find the Bewilderness but we lost our map."

"Well that's easy." Rachel said, spreading out her arms. "This is the Bewilderness."

"Seriously?" Silena asked, relieved. "Let's grab that flower and head home!"

"Could you show us to the center of the Bewilderness?" Clarisse asked, offering up a snack as trade. "We'll give you food."

"I'm in!" Rachel said, quickly grabbed the snack Clarisse had in her hand. "Food around here is really bitter. Anything has to taste sweeter than what I normally eat."

"Thank you, Rachel." Annabeth said gratefully as the four fairies followed Rachel to the center of the small clearing they were in.

"Well, here we are!" Rachel said, spreading her arms wide as they hovered in the air.

"I'm sorry, I'm confused." Annabeth said, looking around. "This is the center of the Bewilderness?"

"The Bewilderness was the name of my home." Rachel explained, motioning to the trees around them. "The trees were the homes and this statue stood at the center of the town square."

"Hey guys, fly up here!" Silena said, hovering above everyone else. The four other fairies flew up and looked down at the top of the statue, seeing that the top made a giant flower. "This must be the antidote! All we gotta do is take this rock back home!"

"Silena, I like the way you think, but I don't think that this is the flower we're looking for." Annabeth said, flying to the side and noticing a giant mermaid holding up the flower, remembering part of the story where Antonio Andreas talked to some mermaids for more information. "I think that this is another map."

"What do you mean?" Piper asked, flying down to Annabeth.

"In truth, Percy based this map after The Tale of Antonio Andreas, my favorite book of all time. The story is about this a man trying to save his wife, who was poisoned by ilios. After Antonio Andreas got to the center of the Bewilderness, he talked to some mermaids for more information." Annabeth explained, pointing to the mermaid. "I think we need to find some mermaids and ask them for more information."

"Annabeth," Piper said gently. "You're basing this entire quest off of a book?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but the map was based off of the book and we got here with it's help. Who's to say that the rest of the story won't help?"

"That's all find and dandy," Silena said as she, Clarisse, and Rachel all flew down to their level. "But where do we find mermaids?"

"I know where." Rachel said quickly.

"You do?" Annabeth asked excitedly.

Rachel nodded. "Yeah. There's a mermaid lagoon not to far from here."

"Well, let's go!" Piper said excitedly as she and Silena started flying in two separate directions.

"Wait!" Clarisse said, causing the two fairies to pause as she took the snack bag off of her shoulder, offering it up to Rachel. "Can you come with us? You know this place better than we do and this is a time sensitive mission. I'll give you any snacks you want."

"Deal!" Rachel said, slinging the bag over her shoulder. She pointed in a north eastern direction. "The mermaid lagoon is that way."

"Let's go!" Annabeth said happily as the fairies followed Rachel, glad to have some guidance in where they were going.