cymophobia | percy jackson

you promised, part one

Spring, approximately 10 years ago

Asphodel Tran knew the gods hated her. Very foolishly, however, she'd held out some hope that maybe that only applied to the Greek ones. But as gongs and bells began to vibrate without prompting, as golden Buddha idols began to tip and fall, as she sighed deeply and rose from the plush Oriental carpet she'd been kneeling on, Ash told herself she should have known better. Clearly all the gods hated her, even the ones she'd been worshipping far longer than these stupid Western ones that'd decided to crop up recently. Maybe she should have gone to the Vietnam War Memorial instead, prayed to her ancestors or something, but that was kind of morbid, plus, she was afraid she might see a ghost if she did. No, literally. Kids See Ghosts.

Exiting the closed shrine room and walking out straight past the docent, Ash subtly put her illicit stick of incense out in a nearby trashcan before shouldering her backpack and making her way out into the main museum. For some reason, adults had been overlooking her more and more nowadays, quite literally staring over her head as if she wasn't there, which was great in some cases. Like now, as she made her way through the crowds at the National Museum of Asian Art: no one questioned why there was a beat-up looking eight-year-old wandering around all alone except for a sword.

It was also awful in some cases. Like now, after she'd made her way out under the sunlight and cherry blossoms onto the National Mall to find herself face-to-face with a ginormous, seven-headed, fart-smelling dragon-snake beast, who was coincidentally standing right between her and the Smithsonian Metro stop.

Ash wanted to cry. This thing had been following her since Capitol Hill, where she'd lost her adult chaperone, Gleeson Hedge. He'd said if anything ever went wrong to meet him at the nearest high point she could see, which had taken her here, to the Washington Monument. She'd been lurking around the museums the entire afternoon, hiding from whatever hellish monster this was that wanted to kill her, but no sign of the coach. And now the thing had finally caught up to her. Delightful.

Ash blinked hard, raising the sword she dragged along behind her shakily in two hands. The blade was nearly as tall as she was and seemed about as heavy too, but it was the only weapon she had. Her eyes were starting to get painfully misty and Ash stomped on her own foot hard. No more crying, she told herself. It was something she'd decided on several weeks ago; if her tears didn't work to get her mother to keep her, they certainly wouldn't be helpful for anything else. And whatever came at her, she definitely deserved it anyways. It was time to grow up.

That didn't stop her from being upset, though. Why her, man? Well, actually, Coach Hedge had already told her why her: apparently her daddy was some big bad god who all these monsters hated and now they were coming to take it out on her. Why her father seemed to have beef with all of the scariest-looking ones, Ash wasn't sure. There'd been the hungry chicken-wing ladies in Boulder, and then the cyborg-goat vampire ladies in Chicago, oh and then the giant dog pack near Lake Erie that turned out to be way less cute than she'd thought at first glance, and so many others... and now this dude. The Fire Hydrant. Or rather, the Lernean Hydra. Coach Hedge had identified it for her the night before, when she'd coerced him into letting them make camp in the Library of Congress for the night. They'd been reading myths together when he pointed it out for her in the Labors of Heracles. There's the ugly that's been chasing us, cupcake. Real nasty, isn't she?

Yeah, no duh. But that's why he'd given her the nickname, fire hydrant, because... because... RIGHT! Because she needed fire to kill it! A ha!

Then Ash remembered something and wanted to scream out loud. She'd used her last matches to light the incense. And for some reason no one around here would let her buy a lighter because she was "too young" (coming from Berkeley, this was baffling to the child).