Daughter of the Sea || HoO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Once Tori, Piper, and Jason landed on the ship, they were immediately bombarded by questions from the other five. They explained how much of a jerk Hercules was and the battle with Achelous. Tori had to have mention Piper's badass bull riding  skills at least four times. 

After leaving the Pillars of Hercules—unscathed except for a few coconuts lodged in the hull's bronze plating—the ship traveled by air for a few hundred miles. Tori hoped the ancient lands wouldn't be as bad as they'd heard. But it was almost like a commercial: You'll notice the difference immediately

Several times an hour, something attacked the ship. A flock of flesh-eating Stymphalian birds swooped out of the night sky, and Festus torched them. Storm spirits swirled around the mast, and Jason blasted them with lightning. While Coach Hedge was having dinner on the foredeck, a wild pegasus appeared from nowhere, stampeded over the coach's enchiladas, and flew off again, leaving cheesy hoof prints all across the deck.

"What was that for?" the coach demanded.

To make matters worse Percy kept sulking around and complaining Tori's ears off. He told her how whenever he  stopped by to see Annabeth, she was so lost in thought that the conversation went something like this:
Percy: "Hey, how's it going?"
Annabeth: "Uh, no thanks."
Percy: "Okay...have you eaten anything today?"
Annabeth: "I think Leo is on duty. Ask him."
Percy: "So, my hair is on fire."
Annabeth: "Okay. In a while."

"I don't feel loved."

"Perc-"

"She's completely zoning me out!" Percy said, interrupting his younger sister. 

Tori sighed, "You know she gets like this sometimes. It's just one of the challenges of dating an Athena girl."

Percy frowned. "I'm worried about her," he confessed, "after her encounter with the spiders at Fort Sumter, and I don't know how to help her, especially if she shuts me out."

"I don't think we can help her Perc," Tori told him truthfully.

The siblings didn't talk much after that. Percy eventually left, probably going to go try to Annabeth, leaving only Jason and Tori. The duo didn't say much, mostly to busy trying to stop the aerial attacks.

Finally around midnight, after the ninth or tenth aerial attack, Jason turned to her. "How about you get some sleep? I'll keep blasting stuff out of the sky as long as I can. Then we can go by sea for a while, and you and Percy can take point." 

Tori wasn't sure that she'd be able to sleep with the boat rocking through the clouds as it was shaken by angry wind spirits, but Jason's idea made sense. She went below decks and crashed on her bed.

Her nightmares, of course, were anything but restful.

Tori dreamed she was in a dark cavern. She could only see a few feet in front of her, but the space must have been vast. Water dripped from somewhere nearby, and the sound echoed off distant walls. The way the air moved made Tori suspect the cave's ceiling was far, far above.

She heard heavy footsteps, and the twin giants Ephialtes and Otis shuffled out of the gloom. Tori could distinguish them only by their hair— Ephialtes had the green locks braided with silver and gold coins; Otis had the purple ponytail braided with...were those firecrackers?

Otherwise they were dressed identically, and their outfits definitely belonged in a nightmare. They wore matching white slacks and gold buccaneer shirts with V-necks that showed way too much chest hair. A dozen sheathed daggers lined their rhinestone belts. Their shoes were open-toed sandals, proving that—yes, indeed—they had snakes for feet. The straps wrapped around the serpents' necks. Their heads curled up where the toes should be. The snakes flicked their tongues excitedly and turned their gold eyes in every direction, like dogs looking out the window of a car. Maybe it had been a long time since they'd had shoes with a view.