DESTINY ↳ WILL SOLACE

11. We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium

He was interrupted by Grover who came prancing into view triumphantly with a whole handful of aloe vera. Will promptly forgot what he was going to say as he stood up in relief, taking the plant from Grover with a few grateful words and began stripping the outer layer of the plant. Then he grimaced.

"This might hurt, but it's the only way I can think of to stop the infection without medical supplies. You ready?"

Percy nodded, but she really shouldn't have, because nothing in the world could've prepared her for Will pressing his entire hand against her burn. Somehow, she didn't cry out, but she flinched so hard she smacked Grover in the mouth, who did yelp and leap away. Will didn't break his concentration. He was murmuring something under his breath—something ancient, words too low for Percy to hear. His hand took on a golden tinge, and then her leg started to feel... weird.

When Will pulled his hand away, he looked a little more stooped and tired than before, but there was a triumphant gleam in his eyes. "We'll just need to make it back to camp on schedule and you'll be fine. You probably wouldn't even lose your leg. Or your hands, for that matter."

"Yay."

Percy felt extremely weird just sitting there while her friends acted as her doctors. Sure, Will had technically been her doctor before, but just sitting in the middle of a forest, at night, with one friend humming under his breath about Apollo and healing and whatever while glowing and the other friend who was half-goat was slathering her leg in aloe vera was a strange situation. A week before, she wouldn't have imagined herself in that scenario. Hell, three hours ago she wouldn't have.

"No pressure on that leg," Will instructed as he finished tying off the last makeshift gauze around her hand, his shirt several inches shorter. "If there's a fight, I'll take care of it, okay? I don't want you making your injury worse. I can't rely on a hymn to my dad all the time. It's good, but it takes a lot of energy, and I need a lot of time to recharge."

And so Percy was given a makeshift crutch (which was a four-and-a-half long branch Grover had found) and the three of them stumbled into the darkness.

To say the three of them was miserable would've been an understatement.

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Will and Percy were too tired to even try and comfort him. Percy limped along as best she could, feeling her leg slowly healing itself from the mix of water and godly magic, but what frustrated her most was that the wound was a crippling one—it wasn't enough to kill her, but enough to be a nuisance and make her a burden on her friends. She wished she could shake her crutch at the sky and yell at the gods, but considering what they had just gone through, she wasn't sure if it was wise to push her luck.

"Thanks for coming back," Will said quietly.

Percy blinked in surprise, and then she looked at him. "Uh, no problem, I guess, but what was I supposed to do? Abandon you?"

"That would've been the most logical decision. You've only been training for what—two weeks? Less than that? I wouldn't have blamed you if you ran. It would've made sense. In fact, I would've told you to go." It looked like he smiled a little, though Percy couldn't be too sure. "But you were good. Not gonna lie, I thought taking down the Minotaur had been pure luck on your side, but you have a natural talent for combat. I doubt even few can say they can kill two Kindly Ones after about two weeks of finding out the mythological world is real."

Percy didn't know what to say to that, but Will hadn't been expecting an answer. He just began humming under his breath—a sweet, soft melody that sounded so eerily familiar. Though she didn't understand the words, it made her think of summer skies and golden fields, a shining sun and lazy clouds. Some of her tension dissolved, and the pain in her leg diminished. She found herself almost smiling despite the situation.