𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑮𝒐𝒓𝒆－ 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧

𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆

"Don't push it, Drew," Ariadne said, making her presence known. The two turned to see the intimidating girl staring them down. Her hands rested on her hips, and Jason noticed that she made the orange camp shirt seem like it was made of the priciest diamonds on earth. Even better than Drew looked. But he didn't say that.

Ariadne was too scary to make him speak.

Drew gave the girl a supposedly confident smirk. "Don't worry, hon, I'm not pushing. I just assumed since he's powerful and all, that he would be immediately claimed. Like, you know, Percy." Her voice turned wistful. It was no secret that the moment Drew had set her eyes on Percy they turned to hearts, and she hadn't stopped flirting with him anytime the older couple visited.

The daughter of Dionysus scoffed.

Then she heard footsteps on the front porch. No—not footsteps—hooves.

"Chiron!" Drew called. "This is Jason. He's totally awesome!"

Rounding the corner of the porch was a man—except he was part horse. From the waist up he was human, with curly brown hair and a well-trimmed beard. He wore a t-shirt that said World's Best Centaur, and had a quiver and bow strapped to his back. His head was so high up he had to duck down to avoid the porch lights, because from the waist down, he was a white stallion.

Chiron started to smile at Jason. Then the color drained from his face.

"You..." The centaur's eyes flared like a cornered animal's. "You should be dead."

Chiron ordered Jason—well, invited, but it sounded like an order—to come inside the house. He told Drew to go back to her cabin, which Drew didn't look happy about. The centaur had a staring match with Ariadne, which she eventually won because he was out of it.

The centaur trotted over to the empty wheelchair on the porch. He slipped off his quiver and bow and backed up to the chair, which was opened like a magician's box. Chiron gingerly stepped into it with his back legs and began scrunching himself into a space that should've been too small. Ariadne smirked at Jason's dumbfounded face as the centaur'a lower half disappeared and the chair folded up, popping out a set of fake human legs covered in a blanket, so Chiron appeared to be a regular mortal guy in a wheelchair.

"Follow me," he ordered. "We have lemonade."

The living room looked like it had been swallowed by a rain forest. Grapevines curved up the walls and across the ceiling, which Jason found a little strange. He didn't think plants grew like that inside, especially in the winter, but these were leafy green and bursting with bunches of red grapes.

He found it especially strange as the vines seemed to follow Ariadne around, wrapping around her shoulders as if to comfort her, and she only smiled.

Leather couches faced a stone fireplace with a crackling fire. Wedged in one corner, an old style Pac-Man arcade game beeped and blinked. Mounted on the walls was an assortment of masks—smiley/frowny Greek theatre types, feather Mardi Gras masks, Venetian Carnevale masks with big beak like noses, carved wooden masks from Africa. Grapevines grew through their mouths so they seemed to have leafy tongues. Some had red grapes bulging through their eyeholes.

But the weirdest thing was the stuffed leopard's head above the fireplace. It looked so real, it's eyes seemed to follow Jason. Then it snarled, and Jason nearly leaped out of his skin.

The blond became all flushed as Ariadne stifled her laughs behind her hand, and was hit by Chiron, who gave her a warning look.

"Now, Seymour," Chiron chided. "Jason is a friend. Behave yourself."