Percy Jackson, Son of Olympus, The Titan's Curse

| Chapter XVIII | How to Bribe a Winged Horse (Doughnut Edition) |

*December 18 XXXX*

*Percy's Point of View*

***

It had started to rain.

I could feel vibrations going through my face from the cold surface of the glass as I watched the city blurring by. Zoë wasn't the safest driver by any standards, and I was sure that if we were pulled over I'd have to use the Mist to cover up her age and the fact that there were so many of us in the van, but at least we were moving quickly. I wasn't sure how much longer we'd go before a break – we'd only just started driving from camp an hour ago – but I was already feeling anxious. I hated small spaces because I couldn't move, and I'd already been on an eight-hour car ride this week, so you could tell I was going crazy. Maybe if I just daydreamed out the window it would be fine.

My mind drifted to Artemis and Annabeth, then to Thalia and camp. I wondered what Thalia was doing. Given the look on her face last night, she probably wasn't taking too well to being left behind, especially since I'd been on three quests in the last two years and she'd only just gotten out of her tree.

I couldn't blame her for wanting to come. Annabeth was her friend, too, and they were even closer than I was with Annabeth, all things considered. I couldn't imagine what life must be like for her, coming out of a tree after six(?) years and finding the small seven-year-old she'd taken care of was now thirteen and her only other friend in the world had betrayed us. That must've been tough. Coming on this quest to save Annabeth and do something was the only option I could see, but she was missing the point. This quest was to save Artemis. To get Artemis to Olympus in time for the winter solstice – because the solstice wasn't decided by a date.

Chiron and Dionysus had only pulled me aside after the meeting to explain, probably because I'd been living on Olympus for the past nine years of my life, but the Winter Solstice has never been set because the calendar had always been lunisolar. Sure, there were guidelines, but the solstice and therefore the meeting always fell on the closest new moon, and without Artemis to bring her moon chariot to Olympus, it would continue to run, thus the new moon would never occur, and the Winter Solstice would be skipped. I guess the gods could still have the meeting without this, but, you know, they're traditional, ancient beings, so that probably wouldn't work. Artemis and Apollo were the timekeepers.

Then again, Annabeth is our friend. Saving her along this quest would definitely be a positive, especially since she's in the same place, but we can't lose sight of what's important. I don't know how many times Athena drilled it into my head that the world comes first, and while my body is screaming at me to save Artemis, save Annabeth, I can't let emotions cloud me. Weird, right? A son of Poseidon thinking logically?

Not really. Emotionally roiled within me like – for lack of better words – a raging ocean. I could feel dread, worry, fear, all of them splashing up like waves on a sea cliff. All I could do now was focus it. Focus all of my emotions on one purpose. Save Artemis, and we save the meeting. Save the meeting, and we save Olympus. And...save Artemis, and we save Annabeth.

I doubted that Thalia was having better luck with her emotions. Demigods have ADHD – we're known for it – they're usually misdiagnosed. They're our battle reflexes. We see too much, feel too much, so it's close enough to be one in the same. The difference was that Thalia wasn't trained since early childhood to deal with them correctly. None of the demigods at Camp Half-Blood are. The difference was that Thalia wouldn't be okay just sitting at camp twiddling her thumbs while we were out travelling across the country saving Artemis and Annabeth from the burden of the General.