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Plans (Chapter Three)

Leo was sitting on the beach looking out at the water and taking in everything, going over what has happened and listening to the sounds of the waves rolling in and out; just relaxing. Then out of nowhere he was bumped into by a shirtless Festus and a panicking Will that was chasing Festus.

Leo, getting up after being knocked over, asked, "Whoa, what's the rush?" Honestly, he was kind of mad at being pushed over like that but he figured there was a point.

"We got a major problem Big House now," Will answered, shoving Leo toward the big house.

Leo halted in his tracks, stopping Will's shoving. "Okay. First, what's going on?" He was still trying to get his center of gravity back.

"No time to explain here." Will grabbed Leo's wrist, not caring about his opinion, and started to drag him. Leo tried to fight back but couldn't stop Will from dragging him along, and before he knew it he was at the Big House with Will, followed by Festus.

"Chiron! Chiron! Where are you, Chiron?" Will screamed. Leo didn't understand what was so important that he had to be dragged to the Big House; couldn't they have calmly walked instead?

"Will, calm down and just tell me what the matter is." Leo was practically begging, but Will wouldn't stop trying to find Chiron, and so Leo turned. "Festus, do you know?"

Festus shook his head. "I wish I did."

Will was still in his frantic screaming fit when he was cut off by Chiron bellowing, "What is it?"

"Chiron, thank the gods, look at this." Will grabbed the shirtless Festus, then turned him around and pointed to a small golden dragon tattoo on the left bottom side of his back, next to his waistline. It had some wording underneath that Leo thought was Greek but it was too small for him to tell. Leo was sort of annoyed he got dragged to the Big House because of some tattoo.

Chiron ran his fingers across the tattoo. "Craeton's Curse... what does this mean?" He looked to Festus and then Will, obviously intrigued. "Do you know?"

"He hasn't told me yet," Festus replied. He spoke it in a monotone voice but Leo thought his faced looked annoyed.

Chiron turned his attention to Will and Will said, "Let me start from the beginning. So when I was giving him an examination the first day he was here I noticed it but I had no idea what it meant so I asked Festus to stay in the infirmary just in case it was a sickness or something." He seemed calm but he was talking quickly.

"Point, Will," Chiron demanded. He was curious but he wanted to know what was making Will so frantic.

"Right, right. Well, anyway, after the examination I went to the Athena cabin and asked the kids there if they knew anything about it. Lucky for me one of them did."

"So what is it then? I think we are all dying to know." Leo thought a joke might lighten things up, but he had mainly said it to berate at Will.

Will continued, not caring that Leo had said anything. "Well, basically there is this story, about this demigod named Craeton. He was the son of Hermes, and he was sneaky, like way beyond sneaky. Even though he was a demigod he had never been attacked by a monster because he could always sneak away from them, or he hid until they gave up. Then one day he prayed to his dad and said something along the lines of, 'I'm way better than you, I should be a god not you.' Obviously this angered Hermes so he put a curse on Craeton." At that word Leo begin to worry. A curse? Since when was a curse ever a good thing? To add to that, why was Festus cursed?

Festus jumped up and started to pace, his little body shivering at the thought of having a curse. "A curse! I have a curse! What kind of curse? Is it a bad curse, a good one? Will I die, will I-"