It was always easy for Kassandra to tell when she was dreaming because it almost always started with darkness -- darkness so thick and heavy that she for the briefest moments she was sure that nothing else ever existed. 

She stepped forward, racing into the darkness until nothingness turned into endless corridors made of stone and carved from caves that lead on and on until she ripped through one as if it was nothing more than a sheer curtain and came tumbling to the ground upon dark ruins and stones. 

Kassandra winces, landing hard on her knees as she hit the remains of a temple column. She huffs and pushed herself up to a standing position, following the path up the side of the mountain, feeling the heavy weight that sunk down harder and harder upon her shoulders. 

She held her flute in hand, staring up at the remains of the place of the titans, the center of their world. 

"Brave little thing, are you?" a voice rumbles around her. "Only a child, but brave. Luke told me all about you. The girl that hates the gods." 

"Luke doesn't know anything about me," she hears her only voice say, and she spins around only to come face to face with the tip of a javelin as it comes down hard. "Not anymore." 

Kassandra raises her flute, two-handed and strong, but the spear breaks clean through breaking it apart. The javelin passes through her in a swirl of mist, carving through her face and down her chest. She would have been dead if this had been real. 

Gasping, she pressed her hand to her chest heaving desperately to gain air into her lungs that burn with the phantom pain of being struck down.

Taking a moment to gather herself, Kassandra finally stands, casting a final look around herself, before continuing up the path that carved its way up to the top. 

The top, overlooking such a far and endless view, she couldn't stand to look at it as she finally turned around. Underneath the weight of the entire world was the Lady Artemis ragged and sweating, straining with her arms raised and her strength held true. 

There was no one else for her to see, at least not in her dreams, as she came to kneel before the goddess. She wanted to touch her, wanted to bear this weight in her place because this was the Lady Artemis, the woman who had brought her to camp when she had gotten herself lost all over again. 

She touched at the chains as if her touch alone could break them away and free her from the burden. Kassandra feels tears burning. 

"How can I help you?" she breathes. "What can I do for you?" 

Her hands raised, pressing against the clouds as she shoves at it desperately. She lets out a scream at the weight, at the way it sucked all the energy from her. It was so heavy, impossibly so, but for a moment it budged, lifting higher for the goddess to shift and just her position. 

"Stop, Kassandra," Artemis says, silver eyes opening to search over the room until they land back on her firmly. "I won't let you hold this burden. Not in your subconscious or a dream. My foolish brother should have known better than to send me such a strong maiden this way." 

"Aunty," she gasps, dropping to her knees once more. She raises her hands to the clouds, pushing again, and it ripples pain down her back. "This is only a dream, isn't it? This can't be real." 

"No, it's real enough," the goddess says begrudgingly. "But instead of me visiting you, it's you visiting me." 

She grinds her teeth, gasping out. "But gods don't dream." 

"We rest," she breathes. "And that is enough for Apollo to pull his tricks." 

Squeezing her eyes shut, she settles herself to hold more of the weight. If Kassandra allowed her thoughts to wander, allowed herself to focus on anything but this, if she was almost able to ignore the sense of being crushed entirely. 

It was like she was being lowered and lowered, squished, but she refused to let Artemis burden it alone. She breathed deeply and sat higher, taking her share with a huff. 

This was nothing if she just didn't focus on it. 

"That's because you are strong of spirit, Kassie. Stronger than almost any other in your resolve," the goddess says. "But I will not let you strain your mind like this. It was never safe for you here and I won't let you risk yourself any further." 

Kassandra is shoved away from the weight and it's like a breath of relief floods through her, lightness fluttering around her as her body screamed in pain. 

"Wait! Artemis, wait!" she yells. "I have so much to tell you, a warning I need help with!" 

The goddess shakes her head. "I'm afraid there's nothing I can do," she says sadly. "I cannot interfere, even if I wanted to, my niece." 

She's kicked back into the darkness, cast out to land harshly on her back knocking the air from the lungs and causing a thrum to pound at her ribs. She moans, slowly sitting up to see that she's in the backseat of the Rolls Royce again. 

Panting, she rubs a hand over her back, pressing the muscles that burn with shaking arms. 

"Oh good, you're awake." 

"Get out of my car," she grumbles, refusing to look at him as she rubs a hand up and down her face. 

"That's no way to greet your dad, Kassie." 

"I've never greeted you any other way. I don't know what you expect," she says. She tries to stretch out her back to chase away the kinks and pains. "I don't want to see you." 

"You were nice to me before," he says and she can hear the pout in his voice. 

Clenching her jaw, she finally brings herself to look at him as he sits in the front seat. His jeans were so worn out they were almost white, his coat was ripped with stuffing sticking out. He looked sort of like a teddy bear that had been run over by a truck, but somehow, if she looked closely and imagined him clean and dressed appropriately, she could see him looking like an actual father instead of some youthful god. 

"Because then you were being a helpful god. I'm not stupid. I can tell the difference when you show up as a god and when you try to act like a father," she snaps, glaring at him. "I suppose if I ask for help you'll tell me no." 

"I'm afraid so." 

"And if I ask for help with the prophecy? I'll get the same answer even if it's to keep people from dying?" 

"Kassie..." 

She rolls her eyes, drawing a deep breath to keep herself calm. "Well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that this might be the last time I have to see you," she snarks. "I'm going to be fighting a Titan, it seems." 

He appears beside her in the back seat in a flash of light and heat. She barely has time to close her eyes. "Don't give up hope so quickly. You don't know for certain what will happen." 

Scoffing, she pushed herself as far away from his as she could, glaring all the while because she hated this man. She hated him more than she's ever hated anything in her life, and the fact that he had just suddenly taken to showing up in her life now that the gods had a reason to notice her was all the reason she needed to know that she was right all along. 

(It was only when the half-blood children were able to prove useful, to prove strong, did they get the recognition and acknowledgement of the parents that they were all so desperate to please.)

"Whatever you did to show me Lady Artemis and her struggle, for whatever reason you thought that was necessary," she says, voice oozing with her disdain and grief. "I felt Atlas kill me. A javelin. He called me brave." 

He shakes his head. "Not all dreams are as they first appear," he says heavily, calling upon all the wisdom that he had accumulated over all of his years. She heard it resounding in every word that he spoke, the way he felt the truth in his words and how he wanted her so desperately to believe it. "Don't resign yourself to such fate yet, my dear." 

"That's rich," she laughs. "Why are you here, Apollo?" 

"I wished to see my daughter," he says. "I should have expected such a cold welcome." 

"Well, aside from hating you, I was just in this dream that wasn't a dream about the Lady Artemis chained down holding the entire weight of the world and sky and then tried to share that weight with her before she somehow mentally kicked me in the chest and knocked me back here to see you," she says with false cheer. "On top of feeling and seeing myself be killed by Atlas. I'm not going to apologize for never wanting to see you." 

"Kassandra!"

"What? What do you want me to say?" she demands. "I'm nothing to you. You can't just start turning up one day and expect me to be thankful." 

Apollo sighs, reaching out with dirt-covered hands to touch her palms gently. "I only want to make you see how sorry I am, for everything." 

"Sorry?" she whispers. "Apollo, I- Apologies don't just make up for things. They don't make me hate you less or forgive you any. You know, Luke has always been right. The gods were never on our side." 

He jolts, looking at her with wild eyes that were a mixture of blue and gold, shifting between the two colours wildly. "Don't think that way." 

Kassandra shakes her head. "If you have nothing else to say, then I would like you to leave me alone. You already said that you would." 

"I don't have much time. It's almost sunset," he says and she glanced up behind him, looking for the light. "I wanted to tell you something, a warning. With my children, I am able to see a glimpse of their lives the first time that I touch them. The first time that I hold them. For you, Kassandra, the first time was when I gave you that lift back to camp. Your anger, Kassie, the way that you hold a grudge. When I say that it'll be the death of you, I mean it." 

Staring at him, she can't help the way a sort of hysteric laugh built in her chest. Why were the gods like this? Why did she have to be the offspring of the most dramatic god that was unable to make a commitment and decide if he wanted her or not? 

(When had seen her first claiming when she was nine-years-old, she had thought it the most beautiful thing.

She had chattered all day about it to Luke, the only one that would listen to her only because he had to. She had been so excited, guessing at when it would be her turn. 

Her turn never came, not until she never wanted it again.) 

"I wonder what grudge it'll be that leads Atlas to kill me," Kassandra muses, speaking the words like daggers. "Maybe it'll be one that I hold against you. Wouldn't that be ironic? It's what I believed since I found out you were my father." 

She looks behind him, searching for the sun that was more of a comfort than he ever was. 

"Kassie, my little Kassie," Apollo says gently, shaking his head sadly. "I can do nothing more to help you on this quest. I'm sorry, but you're on your own from now on." 

"Haven't I always been?" she mutters, rolling her eyes. 

Light flashes and when she looks back up to him, he's gone. 

The morning was shadowed despite the present sun, tall pine trees casting dark shadows over the little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign said WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO. 

The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. 

She fought the urge to walk in it on her way past. She never got to see this much snow around ever. In the city, it had never accumulated this much, or at least not enough for her to jump around in it unless she went to the park. And she wasn't lame enough to go play in the snow in the park on her own. 

The others were freezing by the time they got to Main Street, however, and Kassandra had enough sense to pull up her hood to cover her ears so as not to stand out too much.  

Percy shivered beside her despite his Nemean Lion coat, new yellow hat and fingerless gloves that she had dug out of her bag for him. She had linked their fingers together shortly after they had started walking, sharing her warmth. Grover had her other hand, clinging to her arm as if he could suck the sun out from beneath her skin. 

While they walked there, she told him of her dream and the conversation she had with Apollo -- making sure not to mention the part where she dies. He didn't have much of a response, but then again, she didn't have much to say about his dreams and conversation with her father either. It felt better to let someone else know, regardless. It was all she needed to feel less tightly wound and stuck within herself. 

(It couldn't help her from missing Annabeth even more. The daughter of Athena, the wise girl that that always had an answer to give even if it wasn't the one that you wanted or needed. Annabeth would have been able to tell her something, would have been able to make her feel better with a few words alone.) 

(At least then she wouldn't have been holding hands with Percy freaking Jackson to help him keep warm while pretending that it was all for him and not also for her comfort.) 

(If only the gods weren't so careless with their children, weren't expecting kids to do everything for them other than being kids, then maybe her friend would still be here. Maybe Luke might not have turned to the Titans to overthrow the Olympians. Maybe she could have felt more like an actual person earlier instead of a shadow of nothing until she knew that she wasn't sick.) 

(If the gods weren't so selfish, then none of this would be happening.) 

"There's something else," Percy says softly. 

She looks up to him, away from the mounds of snow. There was something else, actually, was really something that she really didn't want to say because telling him that she was very much likely to die wasn't exactly a point that was high up on her list to share. 

"I, yeah, um, when I saw Lady Artemis," she says, avoiding what she really wanted to say. "When I saw her she was holding the sky, Percy. That's what the Titan's curse is. It has to be. I helped her in my dream. She said it was easy because I have a strong will of mind even without my body, but it was still one of the most horrible feelings ever." 

"What was it like?" he asks quickly, searching, and she remembers suddenly that Annabeth had held this burden too. It makes her want to be sick.

"I can't describe it, but it's absolutely terrible. Because it was in a dream it was apparently easier, but it was still the hardest thing ever. It's like you're holding the weight and burden of everything and it's crushing you. It's like you're never going to be able to get up again. It's too much." 

Percy squeezes her hard. "It'll be fine, Kass. We'll save them both and we'll be fine." 

She shakes her head, facing forward. "I don't know, Percy. Do you ever think that..." she glances around them, making sure that no one was listening. "Do you ever that Luke is right? That he has a point?" 

"What do you mean?" he asks cautiously. 

Sound pulls around them, locking in place so it's just the two of them that can hear. "The gods don't give a damn about us. Maybe they aren't suited to be in charge anymore. I don't want to die for them. I don't want to die for a bunch of people that will never see me as anything other than a pawn in their game." 

"Don't speak like that, Kass," he says sharply. "You aren't going to die for anyone or anything anytime soon. You can't think like Luke does. It drove him crazy." 

She doesn't respond to him, refusing to even acknowledge his presence, because as much as he should have reason to understand, she knew that he wouldn't see it from her point. He would never get why she would want to see them all destroyed. 

(If Kassandra had been a god, she would have simply stopped having children if she didn't want them. Wasn't it wrong to so selfishly cast off the burden for someone else to lead their children to the slaughter?) 

(If it wasn't for camp, if it wasn't for the people that cared about her there, the family that she built and the friends that trusted her, she might have gone with him to create that new world image without the touch of the cursed gods and heartlessness.)

(What scared Kassandra most was if Luke had simply asked her to come before he did everything wrong, had he told her his plans and just asked her to come, she probably would have.) 

They stopped in the middle of town. They could practically see everything from where they stood. 

"Great," Thalia groans. "There are no bus stops, no train station, no car rental. No anything."  

"Car shop!" Grover calls.

"Yes, coffee is good," Zoe says. "We should get something to eat." 

Thalia nods. "Fine. We can split up. You guys get some food, and we'll check around for a way out of town. Maybe they can give us directions." 

Tey agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes. Zoe and Grover left to get warm food, and they walked over to the grocery store it out. 

Inside the store, they found out a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow for skiing, the grocery store sold rubber rats for a dollar each, and there was no easy way in or out of town unless you had your own car.

"You could call for a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, but it would take at least an hour to get here. Cost several hundred dollars."

They head back outside. Percy bought a rubber rat for a dollar. 

"Great," Thalia grumbles. "I'm going to check the other shops to see if they have any other suggestions." 

"You heard the clerk--" Percy starts.

"I know," Thalia snaps, storming away down the street. 

Silently, she turns to follow. "I'm going to stick with her. Maybe I'll find a car big enough for us all to hotwire." 

"You can do that?" Percy blinks at her. 

She laughs softly. "I spent a lot of time in cabin 11. They taught me a bunch of useful stuff." 

It was easy to catch up to Thalia right before she stormed into another store. They asked the same questions that they did at the grocery store and received the same answers. 

It did nothing to help with her terrible mood. 

"Maybe we should just steal one," she suggests as they walk out. 

"Let's try a few more places first before we ask."

They duck in and out of three more stores, all receiving the same answers before Kassandra begins to window shop for cars. There wasn't a great many options on this one street before she was sure that there was someone with a large family that can fit 6 young travellers somewhere in town. 

She eyes a van, one that looked a little bit like the Mystery Machine, and tried to figure out how difficult it would be for her to nab in the middle of town. There weren't that many people out, she could do it if she was quick and careful. (She mentally thanked the Stoll brothers for teaching her such a nifty trick a year or so back. If she could geet them onboard for this, then it'll have been worth almost getting arrested so many times.)

A hand grabs the strap on her bag tightly and yanks her back, pulling her against the wall. Thalia pressed close against her, hand on her wrist as though she was ready to call upon Aegis. 

"I think I saw something," Thalia whispers. "Can you hear anything?" 

She focused for a moment, trying to listen to anything out of the ordinary that she might be able to catch. Her nose wrinkles and she shakes her head. 

Thalia moves away slowly, inching her way the few steps to the corner to look around the side. She tenses, body seizing and she pulls away quickly. 

"They found us," the girl hissed, grabbing Kassandra tightly by the hand. She materialized her spear in hand.

"Who did?" she asks, glancing over her shoulder to try and see. 

Thalia shivers. "The spartoi. We gotta get out of here now."

An image of the skeleton warriors are conjured in her mind from lessons that seemed long past, and she picked up as they ran to getaway. The others were exactly where they had said they were to meet, but they were crowded around Grover, looking at him as lay weakly in the snow. 

"Hey!" Thalia says. "I just... What's wrong with Grover?" 

"I don't know," Percy says. "He collapsed."

"Uuuuuhhhh," Grover groans.

Kassandra moves forward, placing her hand over his forehead as she tried to sense any kind of weakness in him, but it was like nothing was there -- nothing that could require healing at least that she could help with. "I can't find anything wrong." 

"Well, get him up!" Thalia says. "We have to get out of here."

They made it to the edge of town before the skeleton soldiers stepped out of the trees wearing New Mexico police uniforms. 

Thalia brought out Aegis but none were afraid of the horrifying shield as they continued to advance, reaching for the mortal weapons of guns that were definitely capable of killing demigods. 

She brought around her bow, quickly firing an arrow at one's face but it did nothing as it lodged into place in the skull. It simply kept coming. 

Zoe and Bianca drew their bows, but Bianca was having trouble because Grover kept swooning and leaning against her. She took most of the weight, holding the satyr up as she knew that arrows would be useless regardless. 

(It was an odd feeling to face creatures that were already dead. Spartoi, skeleton warrior monsters that could not be defeated or destroyed without them being reformed.) 

"Back up," Thalia says.

They started to—but then she heard a rustling of branches. Two more skeletons appeared on the road behind them. They were surrounded.

One of the warriors lifts a phone to his ear, making a series of clacking and chittering sounds that made no sense to any of them, but were easy to tell was something along the lines of calling for backup most likely. 

"Think we can make a run for it?" she asks, hefting Grover up a little bit more as he slumped down. 

"He's near," he says in a daze. 

"It's here," Percy says.

"No," he insists. "The gift. The gift from the Wild."

Her brows furrow, letting him stand little on his own when he tries, but he only fall back against her. Kassandra huffs as she catches him. "Who's near, Grover?" 

"We'll have to go one-on-one," Thalia says. "Four of them. Four of us. Maybe they'll ignore Grover that way."

"Agreed," says Zoe.

"The Wild!" Grover moans.

Kassandra sighs, lowering Grover slowly to the snow-covered ground. "I'll see if there's something that I can do to help him." 

Percy doesn't look to her as his expression shifts to one of determination. He rolls his wrist with Riptide in hand. He charges. 

Thalia groans and follows close after. 

"Get him out of the line of fire," Zoe tells her. "Cover us." 

"Of course," she notes, keeping her bow in hand and the other to rest on the satyr's forehead. "I'll step in when I can." 

She tried to search for anything that ailed him, but knew that he was going to be fine in a few moments. Instead, she notched her bow and looked around for something that she could shoot at. 

A sound of a gun firing had her heart leaping in her throat as she watched Percy deflect the bullet with the flat of Riptide. He attacked the skeleton, but more crept up on him. 

"Percy!" Thalia screams. 

With a silent plea, she lets the arrow loose. It was a beautiful shot, ripping through two bullets before they could reach the demigod. The arrow thunked into a nearby tree, bullet fragments flew to the ground. 

But then more shots rang and Percy was thrown forward from the force. 

Thalia charged the second skeleton. Zoe and Bianca started firing arrows at the third and fourth. 

Grover started to stand, making his way to the trees blindly with his hands stretched out in front of him as if he wanted to hug all of nature itself. Kassandra grabs at him, keeping him away from the fight and the crashing sound that was coming from the forest to their left. 

Skeletons were beginning to reform and Grover was still trying to run off into the forest in a blind urge. 

She climbed onto Grover's back, forcing him to stop moving, and then knocked them both back to the ground. She sat on him, keeping the satyr still as she reached for another arrow. 

The girl looked up in time to see Bianca stab a spartoi with her hunting knife and for the monster to burst into flames.  

"How did you do that?" Zoe asks.

"I don't know," Bianca says nervously. "Lucky stab?"

"Well, do it again!"

But she doesn't get the chance as the skeleton warriors begin to avoid her, keeping away as they begin to push them back to the middle where they crowd around Grover. She stands quickly, helping the satyr and hoping that he doesn't get the urge to run off into the forest again. 

The trees shivered, snow fluttering down from their branches. 

"A gift," Grover muttered. 

She gave him a strange look before notching an arrow. She took aim, watching the spartoi approach. "Plan?" she asks. 

"I was about to ask you," Percy tells her, coming to stand before her with his sword held out, giving more than enough space for her to take aim around him. 

(She wondered idly if there was a reason that he just continued to plant himself in front of her like this. It wasn't his usual behaviour in a fight, that was for sure, but she didn't know if it was worth her actually pointing out.) 

(It did leave a sting, though, as it brought upon her waves and tides of self-doubt as she's forced to confront the idea that he might not believe her capable of defending herself.) 

And then a giant boar came screeching out of the trees with a crash as it raked its tusks through the skeletons with a cry, destroying them with wild yellow eyes. 

The spartoi were left a mess of scattered and crushed bones. 

It turned to them next. 

Thalia raised her spear. Kassandra took aim. 

"Don't kill it!" Grover protested. 

The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge.

"Uh, what exactly do you want us to do then?" she demands harshly. 

"That's the Erymanthian Boar," Zoe says, voice wavering as she tried to keep calm. "I don't think we can kill it."

"It's a gift," Grover says. "A blessing from the Wild!"

The boar screeches, charging at them, and Zoe and Bianca had to dive out of the way to avoid getting speared on its tusks. Percy grabs Percy by the back of his shirt and tugs his friend out of the way. 

She danced back on her own, light on her feet as she moved away from the boar as it skids past. 

"Yeah, I feel blessed," Percy says. "Scatter!" 

Kassandra darted to the side, keeping out of reach of the beast. it was distracted for a moment, as they separated. 

"It wants to kill us!" Thalia says. 

"Of course it does," Grover says. "It's wild!" 

"Can someone tell me how exactly this is a blessing?" Bianca asks. 

The boar turns to the girl as if taking offence to the question, but the hunter was quick on her feet, easily rolling to the side and away from the carving pat of the tusks that crashed into the welcome sign. 

They scatter further. Grover plays frantic tunes on his reed pipes that only serve to the animal angrier. 

From what she could remember, the Erymanthian boar had destroyed several Greek cities before Herakles had managed to capture it in a deep patch of snow, and while there was plenty of snow, there wasn't enough for them to trap something that big here. They would have to lead it somewhere if they wanted to trap it.

"Keep moving!" Zoe calls. She and Bianca ran in opposite directions.  

Kassandra remained still, bow held tightly in hand as she stood very still, refusing to move unless the boar actually faced her. She let out a shrill whistle, trying to hit that magical pitch that Will could, but found herself coming short as the boar only huffed and shook its head as if in annoyance. 

She could always grab her flute, she figured, definitely the kind of monster that she could make explode or ignore them long enough to make a difference. 

It didn't matter in the end as Thalia brought out her shield, the gorgon's face staring out at the boar, and the animal screeched, taking charge at the two demigods that stood together.

They turn to race up the hill, keeping out of the boar's reach only because they were moving uphill and had the ability to weave through trees as obstacles. 

She darts forward, grabbing Grover by the arm to tug him after her. 

"Come on," she calls. "We can't let them be trampled by that thing." 

Readying an arrow, she lets it land just before the boar in an attempt to slow it down. 

Grover cries out in protest. "Don't kill it!"

"I'm not trying to!" she snaps, nocking another arrow as she ran. 

A blur of silver sets the boar back on a straight path as Zoe shoots at it, herding it with her. 

On the other side of the hill, there was a stretch of train tracks half-buried in snow. She saw Percy grab Thalia by the arm, dragging her towards an old bridge that spanned a gorge. 

"We have to get it into the gorge," she calls out,hearing quite well that the hunters were right behind them. "Percy has a plan, I think." 

"How do you know?" Bianca calls to her, firing an arrow to keep the boar on track. 

Zoe shoots, picking up her pace just a little as the boar breaks throw the last of the pine trees and has a clear shot to charge. "She is a child of Apollo, they can have a sense for these things." Zoe says. 

Rolling her eyes, she ignores them as she continues to fire, encouraging the boar to chase the demigods through to the other side of the tunnel. 

"Come on. Let's hurry," she says, sliding down the rest of the hill and sprinting after the pair. 

When she made it out of the tunnel, the bridge was still intact and Percy and Thalia, along with the boar were missing. She slid to the edge of the gorge, glancing down to spot the pair seated in the snow with Aegis and the boar stuck in a snowdrift. 

"This'll be fun," she mutters to herself as she sits at the edge of the slope. She tossed her bow down to the fluffy snow beneath. 

"Are you sure that's the best way to get down?" Grover asks as he comes up behind her. 

"It's definitely the fastest," Bianca says, taking a seat next to her. 

"One, two, three, go," Kassandra blurts out then pushes herself off the edge to slide down the seventy foot slope. 

She shrieked on the way down, hands stretching out behind her to claw at the snow to slow herself down. 

Percy caught her as she went crshing forward at the bottom. "You good?"

Nodding, she pulls back and hits him in the arm. "Idiot," she curses. "You really just say, 'Screw life,' and go for it, don't you?" 

"Sorry, Kass, but I wasn't about to be skewered by a pig." 

"Shut up," she mutters, brushing pine needles from his hair harsher than she ever needed to. "Do you want me to take a look at those cuts?" 

He shakes his head. "I'm good. They're nothing, really," he tells her. 

"How about where you were shot?" she asks instead. "Those hurt?" 

The boy blinks as ifhe had completely forgotten. He probably did. She could just strangle him sometimes. "No, I don't feel anything from it." 

Scowling at the honestly of his statement, she turns to the boar that continues to struggle in the snow. "Why exactly shouldn't we kill this thing again?" 

"It's a blessing from the wild," Grover says grumpily. 

"Some blessing," Percy mutters. Kassandra nods in agreement. 

Zoe shakes her head. "He is right. It is a gift and it would be foolish of us not to use it." 

"Hold up," Thalia said irritably. She still looked like she'd just lost a fight with a Christmas tree. "Explain to me why you're so sure this pig is a blessing."

Grover looked over, distracted. "It's our ride west. Do you have any idea how fast this boar can travel?"

"Fun," Percy says. "Like... pig cowboys."

Grover nods. "We need to get aboard. I wish... I wish I had more time to look around. But it's gone now."

Grover didn't seem to hear him. He walked over to the boar and jumped onto its back. He took out his pipes, started playing a snappy tune and tossed an apple in front of the boar. The apple floated and spun right above the boar's nose, and the boar went nuts, straining to get it.

"Automatic steering," Thalia murmured. "Great."

The daughter of Zeus trudged over and jumped on behind Grover, which still left plenty of room for the rest of us.

Kassandra groaned and made her way over, dragging herself up on top. 

☼ ☼ ☼

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unedited

written: 2021-02-15

posted: 2021-04-15