My story | PJO x male reader

Chapter 6: The Knight's Placement

The last thing I expected in Tartarus was peace. Stillness and tranquility. A moment to think. It was...scary.

The silence, I mean. The dragon's beating wings disturbed it on occasion, but as soon as he started gliding again the quiet rushed back in. It was strange. I thought silence would've been exactly what I wanted.

Back before all this god stuff, I loved the quiet. The night was always better than the day. Just laying in my bed was always better than having to do anything. Perhaps that was because I could do whatever I wanted to do. Maybe because I was a Son of Artemis, or maybe I could just let my guard down.

Here, I definitely couldn't.

Tartarus scrolled below us. Black Obsidian valleys, gray granite mountains, and red clay beaches. Rivers ran their fingers through Tartarus as far as the eye could see. One, sporting an orange blaze, stretched outwards toward the black horizon before slowly descending out of sight. Another was straight ebony, only visible off the glint the other river gave.

Short mountains of stone built themselves like obstacles in a skatepark. The tallest one only reached halfway up to us. We had to be at cruising altitude for a commercial jet. I thought that we'd run out of oxygen this high, but only then did I realize that we were actually miles down.

And seeing how big this place was, I just started questioning things. How has this been down here and nobody ever noticed? How far down am I really?

How did I even survive that fall?

I mean, seriously, I still can't see the top of this place and I landed in a river. Isn't water supposed to be like concrete from most falls?

And that river...what even was that? The River Styx, I think the voices said something about that.

I checked my forearm. The skin looked normal... enough. There were sweat droplets  and grimed spots, however there wasn't anything ethereal or crazy. But to the touch, it was harder—denser even—like my muscles were constantly tense. Everywhere it felt that way. Except for the part where Percy pulled me up.

Weird.

Orion stared at the terrain from behind me. "Take a right, beast!"

The dragon immediately obeyed, angling to the right so steeply that the world looked like it rotated 90 degrees. Instinctively, my hands shot up from the dragon's back and gripped the horns.

"Woah!!!" Lelantos laughed as if he was on a rollercoaster. "Can we do that again?"

I pulled myself back up. "No, that was..." A tornado formed in my stomach. "I think I'm gonna throw up."

Not on me, preferably. Stains are not easy to get out of scales.

Then we flew in silence for a while. Thoughts spun around me in circles. I'd think about one subject, find it too annoying to think about, and move to the next one. Shoes, river, Giants, Artemis, sleep.

Now, that subject I could get behind. Maybe I hadn't thought about it now, but I felt terrible.

To be fair, traveling to the underworld, saying hi to Cerberus, and falling halfway through the earth in one day probably means I deserve some sleep.

My head nodded forward and as soon as my head touched the dragon's warm skin the lights went out.

***

The first thing I heard was the crackling of kindling and the smell of burning wood. Senses that back at camp, meant fun stories, laughter, and a sing-a-long. But this place had a different aura. Even before opening my eyes, it seemed to be more somber. Just a touch of sadness.