──── VALLEY OF ASHES
❝ the family gathers 'round and reads it and then someone screams out
"she's laughing up at us from hell" ❞
﹙ percy jackson 𝒙 fem!oc: annabeth chase 𝒙 fem!oc﹚
﹙ the titan's curse; the battle of the labyrinth; the last olympian...
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THE COUNCIL WAS HELD around a Ping-Pong table in the rec room. Dionysus waved his hand and supplied snacks: Cheez Whiz, crackers, and several bottles of red wine. Then Chiron reminded him that wine was against his restrictions and most of them were underage. Mr. D sighed. With a snap of his fingers the wine turned to Diet Coke. Nobody drank that either.
Mr. D and Chiron ( in wheelchair form ) sat at one end of the table. Zoë and Bianca di Angelo ( who had kind of become Zoë's personal assistant ) took the other end. Giselle, Percy, Thalia and Grover along the right side, and the other head councilors ─ Beckendorf, Silena, and the Stoll brothers ─ sat on the left. The Ares kids were supposed to send a representative, too, but all of them had gotten broken limbs ( accidentally ) during capture the flag, courtesy of the Hunters. They were resting up in the infirmary.
Zoë started the meeting off on a positive note. "This is pointless."
"Cheez Whiz!" Grover gasped. He began scooping up crackers and Ping-Pong balls and spraying them with topping.
"There is no time for talk," Zoë continued. "Our goddess needs us. The Hunters must leave immediately."
"And go where?" Chiron asked.
"West!" Bianca said. Giselle was amazed at how different she looked after just a few days with the Hunters. Her dark hair was braided like Zoë's now, so you could actually see her face. She had a splash of freckles across her nose, and her dark eyes vaguely reminded the brunette of dark night. Her skin glowed faintly, like the other Hunters, as if she'd been taking showers in liquid moonlight. "You heard the prophecy. Six shall go west to the goddess in chains. We can get six hunters and go."
"Yes," Zoë agreed. "Artemis is being held hostage! We must find her and free her."
"You're missing something, as usual," Thalia said. "Campers and Hunters combined prevail. We're supposed to do this together."
"No!" Zoë said. "The Hunters do not need thy help."
"Your," Thalia grumbled. "Nobody has said thy in, like, three hundred years, Zoë. Get with the times."
Zoë hesitated, like she was trying to form the word correctly. "Yerrr. We do not need yerrr help."
Thalia rolled her eyes. "Forget it."
"I fear the prophecy says you do need our help," Chiron said. "Campers and Hunters must cooperate."
"Or do they?" Mr. D mused, swirling his Diet Coke under his nose like it had a fine bouquet. "One shall be lost. One shall perish. That sounds rather nasty, doesn't it? What if you fail because you try to cooperate? And the other? Death that follows. . . who even know what that is?"
