snowfall // percy jackson x OC

chapter 11

Eira, Thalia, and Grover share the backseat of the Delphi Strawberry van, squeezing tightly together despite the open seats in front of them. As Eira listens to the quiet murmurs of her friends beside her, she is reminded of her first time heading to Camp Half Blood under circumstances that feel so foreign to her after two years.

She had stared out the same window as she is now, hoping that for one- she wasn't getting kidnapped. Did alright at that one, she thinks. But also, hoping she was heading towards a place she'd find some friends, a home she hadn't been able to have in years.

"Grover," Thalia says exasperated, "you can't just put a green card down when the color is red."

"But I thought you could change it!" He bleats, clearly annoyed with her taking back his move every time he tries to play.

"Only with a wild card, if you could play any color at any time the game would be useless" She places a black Uno card down as she says it. "Uno. And the color is green... you're welcome."

"I don't like this game," Grover says defeatedly while shuffling through almost the entirety of the deck in his hands.

I think I did alright at that one too, Eira smiles softly at the two.

They had stopped at a convenience store a while back for breakfast. Eira sipped on a hot coffee and watched the miles melt away as the van trudged south from New York. The five had opted to stop in D.C. on the way west, hoping they would find guidance on their quest ahead in the next biggest city in their path.

Cityscapes and skyscrapers turned into grassy fields and small towns for most of the morning, until Zoe Nightshade brought them to the entrance of the highway outside of the nation's capital. Eira recognized the area very faintly, she and her mom had taken a weekend trip together many, many years ago.

She remembers them driving on this same stretch of road listening to their favorite song on the radio. They spent the morning restarting a CD Staci had burned for the two of them over and over again and replaying the same melody to sing it together until their voices were raw and their smiles wide.

She wants to hate her mom for turning her happiest memories into bitter afterthoughts, but that was the one thing she could never do. She knows that if her mom were to simply come up and apologize, she would accept it. She wants nothing more than to have her old life back or to at least have a home to go back to when she wasn't at camp.

Eira continues to be cold when her friends bring up her past. Not even Annabeth knows the full story of her mother, or why Eira shuts them down when they mention anything about it. The memories were growing older, but the pain of losing them stung her the same way no matter what age she got.

Eira finds herself glancing outside of the window every few minutes to escape her thoughts. She looks up and hopes that just one time the cloud cover that had rolled in on their drive would give break to a black pegasus and the figure of Percy Jackson flying above them- despite her wishes, it did not.

After another half an hour of driving, the van pulls up to a museum.

The five campers and hunters step inside to follow the trail of Artemis Grover had been following up to this point. Eira wasn't sure how long they had been driving, but it was long enough to where she'd listen to Grover rant about any single thing in the displays around them.

Before the group could catch any moment of peace, Thalia was suddenly run over by an unknown force. Everyone drew their weapons. Zoe and Bianca had taut bows with arrows pointed right at the heap of the two on the ground.

Eira holds her breath as Thalia throws Percy off of her.

"What the hell, Percy?" She says, dusting her sleeves off from the sudden collision.