Allie Nyx & The Reborn

Athena Sears My Eyeballs Off

I guess the statue was impressive.
The room itself was a long chamber with two stories of Greek-style columns. The replica of Athena stood in the middle, standing two stories tall. She was drenched in gold; a gold dress, a gold war helmet, a gold shield, a gold goddess (who I knew was Nike; thanks uncle Rick) standing in her hand, etc. Her skin seemed painted in the wrong colors, and her head was all out of proportion. Clearly the person who made this had never met the goddess.
Anyway.
So here was this flashy statue standing two stories tall in a dull two story room, the light flooding in the entrance and reflecting off the statue(and searing my eyes, but that's not the point) and here's Tyler taking a selfie with the thing.
"Twit," I muttered.
Then I saw it.
Weaving through the columns was a sort of...gray light. Now, when I say gray, I don't mean silver. There's a silver moon beam, then there's gray light. They aren't the same thing at all. Imagine all the dust particles that you see in a beam of light in early December. Now imagine a thousand times that much, all compacted so that you can't see the light beam beneath it. You pretty much got what this looks like.
"I know," Tyler said, reading my mind again. Did I mention I hate it when he does that?
"So what do we do?" I wondered aloud. Clearly the gray light was a sign of Athena herself, but so far the only physical incarnation of the goddess was standing on a pedestal. Tyler answered my question by kneeling at the base of the statue, his head bowed in respect. I followed suit.
"O great Athena," he said, "aid us. Please?"
I sat up, ready to smack him upside the head for being an idiot, when the gray light crashed into a column and flew away as an owl.
Right out the door.
"She wants us to follow it!" I screamed over my shoulder, already running down the entrance, three stairs at a time. I fell once and got a pretty nasty cut on my knee, but Tyler picked me up and said some weird ancient spell and it healed within seconds.
"How did I know that?" Tyler shook his head as if waking from a bad dream, then we kept running.
Eventually the owl stopped in a large oak tree near the edge of the deserted park. Tyler and I kneeled again, but this time the owl just stared at us hungrily.
"I think it wants a sacrifice," I said, knowing how the gods liked their sacrifices in the books.
"Your kidding," Tyler decided.
"Nope. But what can we even give Athena that's even worth it? We left so quickly all we have is our backpacks, like twenty bucks, whatever's left on my debit card, and a pack of Oreos."
"She appreciates wisdom right?"
"Duh, she's a wisdom goddess."
"So couldn't we just, like, tell her a fact and call it a day?"
"Why would the wisdom goddess need wisdom?"
"Beats me."
I sighed. Then I had an idea.
Hecate had said that Tyler inhabited most of his fathers traits...a story popped into my head.
"Tyler, sing."
Yes...the story of Orpheus. This should work.