OH, CHÉRIE!¹ percy jackson

006

❛006❜

THE WAY TANTALU saw it, the stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if annabeth, tyson percy and ivy hadn't disturbed them with our bad chariot driving.

this was so completely unfair, percy told tantalus to go chase a doughnut, which didn't help his mood. he sentenced them to kitchen patrol – scrubbing pots and platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with the cleaning harpies. the harpies washed with lava instead of water, to get that extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs, so the three demigods had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.

tyson didn't mind. he plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but ivy, percy, and annabeth had to suffer through hours of hot, dangerous work, especially since there were tons of extra plates. tantalus had ordered a special luncheon banquet to celebrate clarisse's chariot victory – a full-course meal featuring country-fried stymphalian death-bird.

the only good thing about their punishment was that it gave them lots of time to talk. after listening to percy's dream about grover again, ivy went from semi believing to full-on believing him.

"if he's really found it," annabeth murmured, "and if we could retrieve it... "

ivy nodded. "camp could a chance to be saved–"

"hold on," percy said. "you act like this... whatever-it-is grover found is the only thing in the world that could save the camp. what is it?"

"i'll give you a hint," said the daughter of athena. "what do you get when you skin a ram?"

percy tilted his head like a puppy in thought. "messy?"

ivy face palmed.

"a fleece," annabeth said. "the coat of a ram is called a fleece. and if that ram happens to have golden wool –"

"the golden fleece," percy realized. "are you fucking with me?"

the daughter of aphrodite scraped a plateful of death-bird bones into the lava, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "the grey sisters... they knew something about a location you seek. they also mentioned jason, they were the ones that told him how to find the golden fleece three thousand years ago. remember the story of jason and the argonauts?"

"yeah," he said. "that old movie with the clay skeletons."

ivy looked at the sky in prayer. "this motherfucker –"

"what?" percy demanded.

"just listen," annabeth rolled her eyes. "the real story of the fleece: there were these two children of zeus, cadmus and europa, okay? they were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to zeus to save them. so zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in greece and carried them all the way to colchis in asia minor. well, actually it carried cadmus. europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important."

"it was probably important to her," percy added.

ivy laughed but stopped at annabeth's glare.

"the point is," her best friend continued. "when cadmus got to colchis, he sacrificed the golden ram to the gods and hung the fleece in a tree in the middle of the kingdom. the fleece brought prosperity to the land. animals stopped getting sick. plants grew better. farmers had bumper crops. plagues never visited. that's why jason wanted the fleece. it can revitalize any land where it's placed. it cures sickness, strengthens nature, cleans up pollution –"