✔ 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐄 ⋆ percy jackson

xxii. i think i've seen this film before and i didn't like the ending

THE WAY TANTALUS SAW IT, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if Annabeth, Cassie, Percy and Tyson hadn't disturbed them with their bad chariot driving (he added Tyson probably because he felt like it).

It was so completely unfair, Cassie told Tantalus to go chase a hamburger, 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 Annabeth, Cassie and Percy had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.

Tyson didn't mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing. but the other three 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 a common enemy and lots of time to talk. After listening to Percy's dream again about Grover, Annabeth looked like she might be starting to believe Percy.

"If he's really found it," she murmured, "and if we could retrieve it—"

"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?"

Cassie aggressively scrubbed a plate. "What do you get when you skin a ram?"

"Messy?"

"Almost- a fleece- golden to be exact."

Percy stopped scrubbing. "The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?"

Annabeth scrapped a plateful of death-bird bones into the lava. "Remember the Gray Sisters? They said they knew the location of the thing Percy seeks. And they mentioned Jason."

Cassie stopped scrubbing and so did Percy.

"Three thousand years ago, they told him how to find the Golden Fleece. You do know the story of Jason and the Argonauts?"

"Yeah," Percy said. "That old movie with the clay skeletons."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh my gods, Percy! You are so hopeless."

"What?" Percy demanded.

"Just listen. The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmys 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."

"The point is, 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"

"It could cure Thalia's tree."

Cassie nodded. "And it would totally strengthen the borders of Camp Half-Blood. But, the Fleece has been missing for centuries. Tons of heroes have searched for it with no luck."