Does anyone have those weird thoughts while going to bed?

We left Percy's apartment a bit after noon, and he stayed behind. "So you'll be heading back to Camp Half-Blood?" Annabeth gave him a tight hug, not wanting to let him go.

He smiled to give her comfort, "Don't worry about me; I'll be going into rehabilitation. Gotta learn how to use a sword with one arm. And hey, if Apollo's there, he'll be able to get me fixed up a bit, right?" His girlfriend reluctantly let him go, and climbed onto Blackjack's back alongside Austin.

"It was nice meeting you two," I sheepishly grinned, knowing that it was mostly my fault for making the family sort of fall apart. Sally gave a pressed smile while pursing her lips, and waved her hand, as if the gesture would make me go away faster. Lance awkwardly wrapped his arms around my waist, and I patted Rigel's backside while putting my feet in the saddle's stirrups. Instantly, he opened up his wings and began to gallop. Blackjack did the same, and eventually the both of them took off into the air while beating their giant wings. Their feathers rustled in the strong wind, and we soon were up in the sky, looking down over the Manhattan landscape.

Where off to, Madam Astra? Rigel bobbed his head as he kicked in the air.

"However long your stamina lasts," I said, already thinking of my mental map, "When you guys get exhausted, we should be able to get to Las Vegas on our own."

Without stop, probably 'bout three hours and around thirty minutes, Blackjack shook his mane, But man, I'm going to starve from the donut deprivation!

"That's around..." I counted on my fingers the time and a dotted trail appeared on my map, "Texas? I've never been there before. And don't worry Blackjack, we're going to need to take a couple of rest stops... I might've drunken a lot of chocolate milk back at Percy's apartment."

"We're heading to Texas?" Annabeth called from across. Her blonde ponytail whipped violently back and forth, "The last time I've been there was in the Labyrinth."

"That wasn't a fun era," Austin tried to get his hair out of his face with his hands, but then he'd nearly slip off of the pegasus and had to wildly grab Annabeth's shoulders before plummeting to his death. My eyes slowly turned to the sky. I felt nervous flying through Zeus' domain, but he seemed okay with us saving the world for now. I mean, I might've had a personal hail cloud once in a while, but nothing that would kill me (yet). Which reminded me of someone who could possibly kill me: Serena. I mean, she was pretty powerful, and for such a young girl. But the question is, how can she be so young when Percy is... How do I put this delicately, in his prime time?

He's only a year older than you, Rigel read my mind, He's not that old.

"Stupid psychic horse," I muttered.

It is not my fault that Lady Artemis has notified me of your irrational predictions, thoughts, choices, and lack of mentality.

"That last one can't possibly be true."

"Astra," Lance said beside my ear, "Serena was the girl we saw in Tartarus, right?"

"Yeah," I swiveled my head to look at him, and our noses almost touched. I was able to get a glance of his piercing blue eyes before he backed away, face slightly flushed. Probably the summer heat getting to him. "What about her?"

He placed his hands against his cheeks as if he was checking his temperature, and regained his composure, "She reminded me of something. Something back at the camp-, oh! The prophecy!"

"With a close one's lie to mask another's birth," My eyes widened, "Do you think that that's the thing the prophecy was talking about? Sally lying to hide Serena's birth?"

"No way," Lance frowned, with his nose wrinkling at the thought which I found sort of adorable, "And the line before that: the owner of the sky will soon reach the Earth. Does that mean Ouranos is almost resurrected because we learned about the lie?"

"That can't be it. I mean, we're probably overthinking... Right?" I stared at him with a genuine concern. But the look in his eyes were enough to tell me that the both of us knew this was the kickstart to the prophecy.

* * *

After a long, boring, and annoying ride thanks to a certain alicorn, we were dropped off in the Chihuahuan Desert (yes, I thought it was Chihuahua too... Pity that it isn't.) surrounded by bushels of cacti. I'm so out of here, Blackjack took off into the air, This heat is messing up with my flawless mane, and I can't stand sweat-, I mean, I need to check up on Percy as fast as I can after the donut break.

Whistle when you need me, Madam Astra, Rigel lowered his muzzle, Although, if I am needed to catch you in midair again, we're going to require a small talk with your mother.

"I love you too," I kissed his nose and gave him a quick pat in between his eyes. He quickly flapped his wings and flew off right behind Blackjack, either heading back to Camp Half-Blood or the nearest Monster Donut shop. My inner G.P.S. immediately got to work. "Alright, the nearest city is El Paso," I said, pointing in the general direction, "We're going to have to travel north if we want to grab a ride."

"That sounds like a good plan," Austin readjusted the straps on his backpack, "What do you think, Annabeth?"

"Hm?" She looked up, obviously lost in thought, "Uh, yeah Astra, I'll go fishing with you."

"Annabeth," I gestured all around us, "This is a desert. The only body of water that could possibly exist is my pool of sweat, and I'm pretty sure they don't hold organisms with gills."

"Sorry," She rubbed her forehead stressfully, "Lost in thought. Okay, let's go." Annabeth trudged south (thanks brain compass), with her feet making train tracks behind her. For being a daughter of Athena, she seemed to have lost all intelligence when thinking about Percy.

"Er, Annabeth?" I asked, "North is the other way."

An uncomfortable silence settled upon us, and she swiveled on her heels and walked through the barren desert.

Imagine how empty your mind is while you're taking a really important school test, even though you crammed every single piece of information inside the night before. That's exactly how the desert looked like. If it was about a hundred degrees in New York, then multiply it by infinity, because I was literally having Niagara Falls falling from my forehead. I could literally see heat waves roll over the sand, and the cacti were starting to look very comfortable to sit on. Luckily, we happened to travel onto a higher elevation, and the temperature seemed to have lowered. The scenery slowly started to turn into a grassland. We must've walked about two hours without stop, and I was already tired.

"Time?" I asked.

"Judging by the direction of the sun, it's probably about a bit past five," Austin squinted his eyes towards the colorful sunset. "Maybe thirty past?"

"Should we set up camp?" Annabeth was already taking off her backpack. She was probably very exhausted with today; talking with the gods, fighting Python, separated from her boyfriend, a three and a half hour flight, and a two hour walk in the desert. Gods, we did a lot in one day.

"Yeah," I muttered, feeling a bit sympathetic for Annabeth, "This place should be pretty good. We haven't seen any monsters in a while."

We all instantly dropped our backpacks, stretching out our sore and tightened muscles. After I chugged down an entire water bottle on my own, I went out to look for anything that could possibly start a fire. With a terrible attempt of picking up a cactus (which probably was one of the smartest moments in my lifetime), I managed to find bushes of dried grass and an adorable pronghorn. Long story short: that animal knows its swear words.

The sun was slowly starting to disappear behind the mountains, and the moon began to appear. White stars already speckled the sky that was a glowing combination of pink and orange. "You done?" Lance looked up from his tasks of setting up the sleeping bags and sat himself down on one.

"Yep," I placed the pile of grass on the ground, "Where's Austin? I need him to light this before the sun vanishes."

He pointed behind him, "Getting the food ready."

I saw Austin peeling some fruits with Annabeth, already managing to cheer her up with some lighthearted jokes. I gestured at him to come over and pointed at the pile of grass. He nodded, patted Annabeth on the back, and headed in our direction. "This is it?" He asked, cracking his knuckles.

"Hey. It's hot outside. I'm tired. You really can't expect much from me," I plopped myself down in the sleeping bag next to Lance's, "Ah, my butt has comfort at last." Austin looked at the leftover beams of sunlight from the sky, somehow grabbed one out of thin air with two of his fingers, and pulled it to the direction of the grass. Within moments, the grass was lit, and we had an instant campfire.

"You know, sometimes I'm jealous of you," Lance sighed. "All I have is stealing skills."

"I'm sure you've got something we don't know of," I lightly punched his shoulder, "Maybe something that has to tie in with your annoyingness."

"Hey! Don't insult my ability to annoy!"

"So it is a gift."

"Alright, the fruits' done," Annabeth came over with a woven basket filled with an array of delights. Her face was streaked with sand, and I wasn't about to tell her about the spider climbing the side of her head.

"When'd you make that?" I looked at her with amazement.

"Just now. It wasn't too hard." She placed it in front of us, and we dug in full heartedly like a starving hellhound.

* * *

We laughed and sang the classic campfire songs from back at Camp Half-blood while Austin strummed with his bow, and cooked s'mores with the junk food that Lance stole from the camp's shop. The moon finally reached it's peak, shining a silver glow that contrasted with the fire's orange flames.

"Mary had a little Chimera, with a hide as tough as steel," We all sang off harmony, and cackling so loudly that the wildlife howled back in complaint.

"Hah, it's getting late," Annabeth wiped a tear (of laughter! I'm not Octavian enough to make her upset again) from her cheek, "I'm going to crash." She fell back in her sleeping bag, and within moments, was already snoring lightly.

"When the sun's down, I'm out for the count," Austin chuckled, tucking himself into the bag, "See you two when it rises."

"Night," I smiled, and he rolled over to sleep. Lance laid himself down as well, pulling the covers up to his chin.

I took off my ponytail, getting ready for bed. I pulled the sleeping bag over me, held my second in command of my army of darkness, and laid myself down while staring at the stars. A shining huntress ran across the sky while shooting stars, and almost seemingly waved down at me. I gave a light wave back, unable to figure out how a constellation could move like that. While trying to figure that out, a thought seeped into my head. The conversation I had with Paul earlier about how a human could be made out of stars; how Lance said I was dead inside. Was I not actually a human being..?

"Lance..." I murmured, checking to see if he was awake.

"Yeah?" He turned to face me, "What's wrong?" His blonde hair was matted against the pillow, and his blue eyes seemed see right through me.

"I was thinking about what you've said earlier; about me being dead inside."

"Oh Hermes," He grabbed my hand in worry, "I didn't think that was going to hurt your feelings; I was only meaning to cheer you up. I'm sorry!"

"No, no, it's nothing like that," I patted the back of his hand consolingly, "I was just trying to figure things out. Remember that one day on the train where I was literally crying like a three year old who dropped their ice cream?"

"The nightmare?" He let go of me, and all of a sudden, my hand felt cold, "Yeah, I was scared. And Hades, I didn't even know you that well so I wasn't entirely sure of what to do."

"It was a vision about the past, when Artemis was talking to Zeus about me," I began to explain what happened in the dream. I didn't entirely tell him about the toilet or anything, but it didn't seem important. I went through how adorable I was in that crib, how Artemis was fighting with Zeus, and how she was talking to me before sending me to Earth. "Now I'm not entirely sure what to think."

"What do you mean?"

I reverted my gaze back up at the moon, wondering what my mother would be doing right now. "Artemis said something about love making me complete. What do you think that's about?"

Lance seemed to thinking about it, trying to decipher what Artemis was trying to say. "I might've read way too many John Green books, but maybe you'll be complete when somebody loves you. Not like the family kind of love that Artemis gives you or from our friends, but an actual genuine affection for you."

"But who would love me?"

Silence answered me, and I turned my head to look at his face. It was too dark to see it anymore, and I assumed that he managed to fall asleep while we were talking. It was a tiring day, after all. My eyes fluttered to a close, but would instantly shoot open again from overthinking. I got out of my sleeping bag, unable to fall asleep and left my teddy bear unattended. He can survive on his own. Curling up besides the warmth, I stared at the dancing flames licking at the grass. If I wasn't a human, then what was I? A monster..? Nah, I have a bit more sanity than most. I was in the midst of counting on my fingers of all the monsters I could've been and which should've been extremely flattered when I heard a footstep behind me. I swiftly whipped my head around, finding no one there.

As I swiveled around back to the fire, sea green eyes greeted mine, and a hand went over my eyes as a knife leaned against my neck.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Gods, I hate this chapter. It just doesn't flow.

Sorry for the day late update, stalkers! I was busy procrastinating my homework until the last minute. I hope you guys enjoy that annoying cliffhanger! Love you all!

(Guys. Any thoughts on Lance and Astra? I just like teasing you all~!)

Drop a vote/comment if you enjoyed! I smile every time I see what you guys think about each chapter.

XOXO,
Arisa