daughter of heaven || percy jackson

2.11

⎯⎯ ୨ 2.11: if teardrops could be bottled ୧ ⎯⎯

MELANIE WAS HAVING a hard time staying asleep.

her body loved to do this. whenever she had a lot on her mind, too much to think about all at once, she could never stay asleep.

usually, when this happened at camp, she'd just go to her favorite spot, where the forest ended at the corner of the beach which overlooked long island sound and had the moon glistening down upon it, and do her best to slow her racing heart.

but here, in the middle of the atlantic ocean, carried by margaret the hippocampi, she was not feeling any sort of serenity.

of course, it was hard to relax. she was zooming out of the sea of monsters at dozens of miles an hour, the cascade of mist and water spray battering down on her face as margaret and her hippocampi friends raced each other. 

somehow, all of her friends had all fallen asleep. annabeth, grover and clarisse were all knocked out on the mane's of the hippocampi, and even though percy and tyson were holding on by the tail of the hippocampi, they were asleep as well. perks of being a poseidon kid, i guess.

she tried falling asleep countless times, but she was stressed. just so stressed. about what had happened back at polyphemus's island, and still couldn't force the revelation of polyphemus killing the nymphs from the front of her mind.

and, wow. the fact that she had literally summoned nymphs - what'd they call themselves? anthousai? the fact she summoned them really made her feel sick, confused, and scared all at once. she was going to be needing a serious conversation with her mother as soon as she had a vision about her again.

after two hours of being carried by the hippocampi, one by one each of her friends started waking up.

nobody said much. melanie thought that they were still trying to process the events that had happened only a few moments prior, and she couldn't blame them. and it still felt so surreal that here they were, with the golden fleece and their goat, coming back home. 

finally, she saw the sun setting, but this time it was behind a city skyline. in the distance was a beachside highway lined with palm trees, store-fronts glowing with red and blue neon, a harbor filled with sailboats and cruise ships.

suddenly, the hippocampi, including margaret, started acting funny. they had slowed down drastically and whinnying and swimming in circles, sniffing the water. they didn't look happy.