𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐑 𝐄𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒𝐄 - [𝐩. 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧]¹

008 | mother knows best

┌─────── ⋆⋅☀︎⋅⋆ ───────┐

└─────── ⋆⋅☀︎⋅⋆ ───────┘

EVERYONE WAS MISERABLE that night.

They set up camp in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers, which made the air around them smell stale. They'd taken some blankets from Aunt Em's and attempted to make sleeping bags out of them, but the ground was still soaked from the rain so the bedding was immediately wet, making for a very damp, very uncomfortable sleeping situation.

They didn't dare light a fire to dry their clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. They didn't want to attract anything else.

As soon as it was decided they would sleep in shifts, Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky. Atala debated joining him, wondering if the branch would be better than the moist ground.

"Go ahead and sleep," Percy told her. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

"M'not tired," she said, stifling a yawn.

"You need to sleep," Percy chided.

"My brain won't let me. Besides, you need sleep too."

"Then we'll both take first watch," he said stubbornly.

Atala laughed, leaning against the base of the tree and wrapping a blanket around herself.

"It makes me sad," Grover said from up in the tree.

"What does?" Percy asked "The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"

"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah," Percy mumbled. "I guess you'd be an environmentalist."

Atala elbowed him in the side and gave him a look.

"Only a human wouldn't be," said Grover grumpily. "Your species is clogging up the world so fast...ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

Atala face-palmed.

"Pan!" Grover cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"