afraid ツ l. valdez

15. eden is afraid of meeting the romans

Compared to fighting two giants, this should be easy for Eden. She should've been used to the gut-wrenching fear and the racing heartbeat. She wasn't, though, and the exploding statue didn't help at all.

The five of them boarded the completed warship before the sun rose and started their journey to pick up their remaining quest members. Eden was exhausted and went back to sleep in her cabin, but came to the deck when Annabeth woke her up and said they would be arriving soon.

They were completely prepared. The white flag was hanging from the mast, they had three different plans, and Coach Hedge was in his cabin watching mixed martial arts championships. The last thing they needed was the satyr jumping down onto the Romans brandishing a wooden club and screaming "Die!"

Despite all this, Eden couldn't shake the cold feeling and the fear that was washing over her in heavy waves. Something was going to go wrong, Eden's dreams could tell her that.

The month leading up to their departure, Eden hadn't been sleeping much. She always woke up shaking uncontrollably, even screaming sometimes, from her nightmares. Sometimes they showed her Leo, looking at her with unfamiliar cold eyes. Other times, she saw Nico, sobbing as he was overcome by a horde of monsters. Arguably the most terrifying dream, though, was the one that caused her to scream.

Eden herself stood in a swirl of dark mist, almost unrecognizable. Her eyes completely black, even the whites and her brown hair was dark as the night. Arrows, spears, and other projectiles shot out of the swirling storm to an unseen target. The black tornado grew taller until it completely enveloped her. Then, real pain would coarse through her until she woke up screaming bloody murder, the pain fading within an hour.

The first few times it had happened, Butch from the next door Iris cabin came running in, brandishing the closest item on his nightstand. Once it had been a box of tissues, which came in handy when Edens started sobbing into his arms.

Eden hoped they were simply dreams and not reality, but it rarely ever worked that way with demigods.

But, could she blame the Romans if they fired on the ship? It certainly didn't look friendly. It was two hundred feet long, with a bronze plated hull, mounted repeating crossbows fore and aft, Festus as the figurehead, and two rotating ballistae in the center that could easily destroy a town in five shots. Thankfully Leo sent one of his newest inventions, a holographic scroll, to alert their arrival.

Annabeth gripped one of the shields on the starboard rail and peered over the edge as they soared through a cloud and revealed green and gold of the Oakland Hills below them. Eden knew Annabeth was the most nervous of them all, for she was finally going to see her boyfriend for the first time in half a year. Eden hyped her up the best she could and told her how great she would be, not even lying a bit.

On the stern quarterdeck, Leo rushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and wrestling levers. Most helmsmen would've been satisfied with a pilot's wheel or a tiller. Leo had also installed a keyboard, monitor, aviation controls from a Learjet, a dubstep soundboard, and motion-control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. He could turn the ship by pulling on the throttle, fire weapons by sampling an album, or raise sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast. Even by demigod standards,Leo was seriously ADHD.