FOTIA - percy jackson

𝟎𝟐𝟏; reunion in the clouds

They split in half at the taxi stand. Percy told Loralai, Grover and Annabeth to get back to Half-Blood Hill and let Chiron know what had happened. Loralai quickly rebuked this, saying that she needed to see her father. The others protested, too, but eventually they decided that Percy and Loralai needed to do the last part of the quest themselves.

If things went wrong and the gods didn't believe him... he wanted Annabeth and Grover to survive to tell Chiron the truth. And, truthfully yet hesitantly, Percy thought that Loralai had enough spark to defend him against all of them Olympians.

They hopped into a taxi and headed into Manhattan.

Thirty minutes later, Loralai and Percy strolled into the lobby of the Empire State building.

They must've looked like a couple of homeless kids, with their tattered clothes and their scraped-up faces. They hadn't slept in at least twenty-four hours, and being "dead" for a lot of those hours really added to Percy's look.

Loralai strutted up to the guard at the front desk and said, "Six-hundredth floor, please."

He was reading a huge book with a picture of a wizard on the front. She wasn't much into fantasy, but the book must've been good, because the guard took a while to look up. "No such floor, kiddo," he told her.

Percy gently nudged Loralai to the side, slamming his hands down on the desk harder than he intended and declared, "We need an audience with Zeus."

"And Hephaestus, if it's possible, sir," Loralai chimed from behind the boy, annoyed that he had nudged her away from the desk.

He gave the boy a vacant smile. "Sorry?"

The two exchanged looks. They were about to decide that this guy was a regular mortal, and that they'd better run for it before he called the straitjacket patrol, when he said, "No appointment, no audience, kiddos. Lord Zeus doesn't see anyone unannounced."

"Oh, I think he'll make an exception." Percy slipped off his backpack and unzipped the top.

The guard looked inside at the metal cylinder, not getting what it was for a few seconds. Then his face went pale. "That isn't..."

"Yes, it is," Percy promised. "You want me to take it out and–"

"No! No!" He scrambled out of his seat, fumbled around his desk for a key card, then handed it to Percy. "Insert this into the security slot. Make sure nobody else is in the elevator with you."

Percy did as the man told him. As soon as the elevator door closed, both of them inside and no one else, he slipped the key into the slot. The card disappeared and a new button appeared on the console, a red one that said 600. The boy pressed it and they waited, and waited.

Loralai coughed awkwardly. "Excited for this to be done with?" she asked. Percy yawned and mumbled tiredly, "I guess."

Muzak played. "Raindrops keep falling on my head..."

Finally, ding. The doors slid open. They stepped out and almost had a heart attack.

They were standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Below them was Manhattan, from the height of an airplane. In front of them, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky. Loralai's eyes followed the stairway to its end, and struggled to believe what she was seeing.

From the top of the clouds rose the decapitated peak of a mountain, its summer covered with snow. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multi leveled palaces– a city of mansions– all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires.