Olympus High

I meet the rudest statue ever

Rain hit the roof, imitating the sound of a gun. Darrien shifted to avoid eye contact with Payton. Theseus rolled on the floor tiredly. Since the hydra fiasco, we had kissed Hallie on the cheek goodbye, and went to the nearest medical clinic for my feet.

"Um, how long until we get there?" I said.

"About 2 hours." The uber replied.

His white van made a sharp turn as we all hit the wall. Darrien groaned, prying his face off of the window.

"Sorry." The uber said sheepishly.

Theseus whimpered. Abigail readjusted her quiver, which she always did when she was nervous, which had started looking more bulky than usual. Payton rubbed his necklace from Hephaestus trinkets. Darrien started playing with Hallie's locket, something she used to wear everyday. It had a picture of all of us, a group picture before we set out for the quest. We were smiling in front of Olympus High, barely ready for the danger ahead. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

I opened my eyes and found myself in the Garden of Hesperides. How long have I been asleep? How did I get out of the van?

I was dressed in a flowing silver gown and and had tanned skin that slightly glowed like moon light with blond hair getting blown back by the wind. I was hovering a few feet above the floor, not even with winged sandals. 5 teenagers were walking up the mountain.

They entered and I saw them: me.

Me and my friends were walking to the garden of Hesperides. I must be experiencing this through someone else.

Payton clicked a gold pen and it transformed into a trident. He swung it over his head and smoothed his eyebrows.
"If you'll excuse us, ladies," he said, "We have business to do. You're too pretty to be mean and not let us in."

Despite myself usually blushing, someone who looked almost exactly like me except taller, in a gold dress, hovering higher than me, and with hazelnut hair replied by saying, "Despite many quotes, flattery shall get thy nowhere, Son of the sea God."

A girl with a rose gold coloured dress, red hair like flames, shorter, and hovering lower than me smiled. "We are the Hesperides. My sisters and I have guarded this garden for eons, with the help of Ladon."

A dragon almost like the hydra, but with even more heads, crawled over. It hissed. The youngest, rose gold dress, fished in her pocket and came up with raw lamb. She pieced it and threw it at the creature. It jumped up and ate it with a snap.

"Cool pet." Abigail said.

I smiled. "Hello, daughter of the maiden. I thought Artemis bared no children."

Abigail tensed. She hated people saying that. It made her sound like a mistake. But technically, she was. Artemis got drunk one night in Washington by faking her mortal ID, screwed with her "Men are pigs and utter trash" policy, screwed a guy she met at the bar, found out she was pregnant the next week (after Hera texted her a "Congrats! It's a girl!"), gave birth to Abigail in the forest, and here she was. It was also pretty bad since Artemis's mortal form was only 16 at the time, relatively young. Abigail has never really met her father. It was just a simple one-night stand sort of deal, and sometimes I see Abigail cry when someone mentions it. All she has left of her father from the bar is a photo of him from his ID. It made me feel even worse that I (or, rather, the person I'm seeing the future through) had said it. "Yeah, well, you thought wrong. Didn't Atlas have more children? Where's Calypso?"

"Calypso fought against the winning side. She lives in Ogygia on an island. She lives a rather lonely life." I replied.

"Can we get through the garden?" Darrien said.