𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐈𝐋¹ || 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐘 𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐎𝐍

𝐗𝐗𝐕

✦ 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊? ✦

THE WAY TANTALUS SAW IT, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if Aurora, Annabeth, Tyson, and Percy hadn't disturbed them with their bad chariot driving.

This was so completely unfair, that Percy told Tantalus to go chase a doughnut, 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 Aurora, Annabeth, and Percy had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.

Tyson didn't mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but Aurora, Annabeth, and Percy 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 Aurora, Annabeth, and Percy a common enemy and lots of time to talk.

After listening to Percy's dream about Grover again, Annabeth looked like she might be starting to believe him. "If he's really found it," she murmured, "and if we could retrieve it–"

"He has found it and we will retrieve it." Aurora countered back at the blonde.

"Hold on," Percy said, "You two act like this... whatever it is Grover found is the only thing in the world that could save the Camp. What is it?"

"I'll give you a hint. What do you get when you skin a ram?" Annabeth asked Percy.

"Messy?" Annabeth sighed at Percy's answer.

"A fleece, Water Boy." Aurora corrected.

"The coat of a ram is called a fleece. And if that ram happens to have golden wool –" Annabeth explained.

"The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?"

Aurora rolled her eyes while Annabeth
scraped a plateful of death-bird bones into the lava.

"Percy, remember the Grey Sisters? They said they knew the location of the thing you seek. And they mentioned Jason. Three thousand years ago, they told him how to find the Golden Fleece. You do know the story of Jason and the Argonauts?" Aurora said.

"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, Cadmus 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." Aurora explained.