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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 ghostbusters...but carjacking!
——— 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐀! ( DECEMBER '07, WASHINGTON DC )
SO, THERE'S A COMPLETELY reasonable explanation for why Verona wanted to go to New Orleans — her dream had told her to. She knows that sounds weird, (no, she really does) but demigod dreams are supposed to guide you on quests and aid you. Demigods have intuition and precognition — they're made to be heroes. Sometimes in the midst of remembering that demigods are half mortal and very much killable, people (monsters, specifically) seem to forget that demigods are still half god or goddess. Verona's half goddess, she's got this (she thinks).
She'd dreamt of an abandoned naval base (at least, she assumed it was abandoned judging by the triad of cobwebs and overgrown vines). It was tall and it gave Verona an eerie sense to get out while she still could — however, she was in a dream, so, of course, her dream self just had to venture further. She cringed at the cobwebs and looked out for spiders (sometimes, Verona felt more like a daughter of Athena with her copious fear of the eight legged insect). It was out of nowhere that she felt flashes, like something was clawing at her, vines and branches wrapping around her hands, and her feet and her body, wrapping her in and sinking her into her depth. Next thing she knew, she was falling through a dark pit. The vines were now shocking red, but still wrapping around her in the sourest way possible. She heard a chuckle, she felt herself flash towards a sign.
Welcome to Louisiana, it said in bright white. Another flash and she was flashing towards a brilliant array of lights, the loud music jamming her ear in, her heart pumping to the rhythmic beat.
The french quarter, Verona thought. She, ironically enough, grew up in Louisiana for the first eight years of her life — she remembered what New Orleans looked like, she would be able to identify it like a needle in a haystack, like the back of her hand.
She remembered when her dad had taken her to the french quarter for her birthday one year — they lived a bit out of New Orleans but her dad worked in the city, he was a bartender. It was her seventh birthday and they had a nice dinner after her dad got off work, and then walked throughout the city. There was loud music and people dancing, and her dad had stopped at a small jewelry shop and bought her a beautiful necklace, with a small gold dove adorning the pendant (of course, Verona hadn't known what the dove meant at that time, now, she did).
Verona could still feel the weight of the necklace as it sat on her neck right under her camp beads to this day.
When Verona had awoke in the morning, it was still dark out. She had, coincidentally enough, run into Percy who was also trying to escape camp. One heartfelt conversation and a explanation on how to get the chariot of damnation to appear later, Percy had taken off on Blackjack and Verona had made her way towards Thalia's tree to start her own quest.
