Percy In Tartarus

8: A New Companion

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Word Count: 4,708 words

POV: Percy

Chapter 8: A New Companion

What if the food was from Camp Half-Blood?

The idea made Percy feel homesick. At every meal, the campers would burn a portion of their food to honour their godly parent. The smoke supposedly pleased the gods, but Percy had never thought about where the food went when it was burned. Maybe the offerings reappeared on the gods' altars on Olympus - or even down here, in the middle of Tartarus.

The only thing Percy couldn't figure out was how his father got so many offerings, when Percy was the only child of Poseidon. He couldn't imagine any of the other campers sacrificing their food to the god of the seas unless they were trying to win a water sport at camp.

Percy thought about sitting in the dining pavilion and watching the sunset over Long Island Sound. He thought about the camp activities and the campfires.

The thoughts caused a deep longing.

Percy was eventually forced to stop eating when it felt like his stomach was going to burst with all the hot food. He didn't even eat that much, but Percy wasn't able to stomach the rest despite his deep hunger from earlier. It felt like his stomach had shrunk. Percy finished in silence, and then promptly turned around and vomited it all up. Percy's stomach and throat burned. He hadn't paced himself and made himself sick. Percy briefly wished that you could burn a cup of water, because he could have really used a swig to wash his mouth out.

Everything sucked as it was but Percy absolutely refused to walk around with his mouth tasting of vomit. So, Percy took up his club and ventured out to the nearby River of Fire.

A whole flask had been burned at the altar - which Percy assumed was from Dionysus when Chiron had caught him drinking and threw it into the fire - but it was empty. Percy was glad. He could now use it as a container. Percy first drank several handfuls of fire water, enjoying the taste that replaced the vomit, and then filled the flask with fire water.

Percy decided to do it water-bender style instead of dipping the whole flask into the river, half-scared that the fire might melt the container immediately. But it worked, and Percy almost considered himself insane for wanting to keep the nasty flames.

It was growing on him, though.

He trekked back to the crater to think.

Percy still didn't know where the Doors of Death were, but he had a working theory. The wall of darkness seemed to be the target destination of every monster Percy had passed. So, logically, that meant that the Doors had to be past the shadows. After all, the monsters had to escape Tartarus somehow. Then again, Percy had no directions past that. He didn't know what they looked like or if they would be guarded. Percy still had no idea what he was doing.

The next problem was time. Percy didn't know how long it would take to find the Doors, and if he would even be able to use them right away once found.

Percy also didn't know if time flowed the same in Tartarus as it did topside. For all Percy knew, Tartarus could be like Ogygia with Calypso, and while only two days had passed in the Pit for him, two weeks would have passed in the mortal world.

Percy started to panic. If that was the case, then he had no idea how to meet the others at the Doors of Death on the mortal side at the same time.

Trying to calm himself, Percy took deep, measured breaths, indifferent to the smell of sulfur. It would be okay. He would find the Doors of Death one way or another, regardless of whether the others met him on time. He needed to take this one step at a time. Feeling calmer, Percy crept to the edge of the crater and peered back the way he had come, toward where he had gotten his fire water. He didn't see anything, but that didn't mean much in Tartarus. Titans, monsters, and anything that was potentially dangerous could be hidden among the insect-like trees.