Red Skies at Morning | Clarisse La Rue x OC | Percy Jackson AU

Meeting the Mummy

"Nonsense," Tantalus insisted. "We don't need saving."

His words prompted everyone around the campfire to turn and stare at him, our unimpressed expressions making him visibly uncomfortable.

"Besides, the Sea of Monsters?" Tantalus shook off his discomfort and continued to argue. "That's hardly an exact location. You wouldn't even know where to look."

"Yes, I would," Percy replied. 

I raised a brow and sent a glance at Clarisse, who returned an equally skeptical look. 

As much as I wanted them to be right- as much as I wanted Thalia's tree to be saved- I had to admit that I had my doubts. It just sounded too good to be true. And how on earth would Percy actually know The Sea of Monster's location? 

The Sea of Monsters shared the same magical relocation properties as Olympus. They were connected to Western Civilization and followed it around. That's why no one knew where to find the Sea of Monsters anymore and why Olympus now rested above the Empire State Building in New York instead of, you know, Mt. Olympus.

I was not reassured when Annabeth leaned over and whispered something to Percy with the same uncertain expression that I was now seeing on everyone's faces. But Percy just grinned at her and turned back to the crowd.

"30, 31, 75, 12," Percy stated proudly.

There was a pause. Nobody understood what that meant, and it had been very underwhelming.

"Oookay," Tantalus dragged the word out of his mouth. "Thank you for sharing those meaningless numbers.

"They're sailing coordinates," Percy responded. "Latitude and longitude. I, uh, learned about it in social studies."

After recovering from the shock that Percy understands what coordinates were, Annabeth spoke up to support him. "30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west. He's right! The Gray Sisters gave us those coordinates. That'd be somewhere in the Atlantic, off the coast of Florida. The Sea of Monsters. We need a quest!"

"Now wait just a minute." Tantalus tries to argue.

"We need a quest! We need a quest!" Annabeth began to chant. 

'Finally,' I thought, thrilled that we might be able to force Tantalus's hand on this. I nudged Clarisse with my elbow and motioned for her to stand up but she just stared at me for a second with a brow raised. 

By the time I realized that she didn't understand my hand signals other campers had already stood up to chant with Annabeth and I decide to just stand up and join them, Clarisse would catch on if I just showed her what I meant.

Slowly, more and more campers stood up and the now orange flames of the campfire began to rise higher and higher into the night sky with each voice that joined the chant.

"We need a quest!"

"This isn't necessary!" Tantalus hollered back to the growing uproar.

"WE NEED A QUEST! WE NEED A QUEST!"

"Fine!" Tantalus conceded and the chant stopped for a moment. "You brats want me to assign a quest?"

"YES!" We replied in unison.

"Very well," Tantalus growled, the crowd settling down to hear his response. "I shall authorize a champion to undertake this perilous journey, to retrieve the Golden Fleece and bring it back to camp. Or die trying."

As far as I could tell, Tantalus was trying to scare Percy with the peril of the quest, but from the anticipation, I could see growing on the child of Peosidon's face, I don't think it was working.