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—— AZALEA WEST LEANED her head against the green tarp that was covering a animal cage, fast asleep. During the night it had gotten cold, though she had completely dried up the girl was left in a constant shiver. Percy had taken notice of this and that she only had on a thin layer of clothes, and had taken his green flannel of and handed it to her.
Now in the early morning she wore his flannel over her white cropped shirt and leaned her head on his shoulder letting out quiet snores. "Did that's help." A bright light penetrated Azalea vision, groaning while she picked her head up. "No." She whined, still dazed from her sleep.
"Guess we're about to find out." Annabeth sighed moving the crystal in her hand, back-and-forth to capture the light. "Can you see where we are."
"We're almost there." Grover brought his head back in the truck. Azalea looked over to Annabeth and realized what they were doing, Percy got up first going to sit next to the brown haired girl then Azalea fallowed scooting her way over to sit crisscross applesauce in front of them. "There I got a signal." The reflection from the light through the crystal glowed up on the wall.
"Toss it seaweed brain." Azalea nudged his leg, not even realizing the new nickname she had began calling him. Percy flicked the drachma into the moving reflection "okay this will never stop being weird."
"If you want the gods attention you have to pay for it." Annabeth explained "Oh, Iris goddess of the rainbow please accept my offering." The lights on the wall changed colors. "Okay show me camp Half-blood, Chiron's office."
A head appeared in the rainbow that was young and definitely not Chiron, Azalea could immediately tell it was Luke just from the back of his jet black hair. "Luke?" Azalea questioned a smile appearing on her face from seeing one of her friends.
"Flower? Annabeth, Percy! Are you okay." Luke's voice filtered through the glowing reflection. "Yeah, we're fine." Annabeth answered for all of them. "Where's Chiron?"
"Chiron's holding camp together with both hands. Everyone thinks we're going to war, so the cabins are taking sides. Please tell me you're calling with good news." Azalea listened to her friend her smile dropping as he continued talking.
"We know who stole the bolt."
"How do you know." Azalea creased her brows at this, thinking about what he said, she leaning back against her two friends legs. "We ran into Ares and Grover got him talking and realized Ares knew who the the thief was but was covering for them." Azalea nodded her head along "so, who would Ares cover for other than..." Annabeth trailed off.
"His favorite daughter." Luke concluded. "Clarisse is the lightning thief."
"Chiron's got to arrest her, find out what she knows. There's more to this than just the bolt, something bigger. Don't ask me how I know you just gotta trust me."
"Okay I'm on it. So Ares huh? What was that like?" He asked the three "well... compared to the Chimera on Monday and Medusa on Sunday, could have been a lot worse."
"Medusa was Saturday." Azalea corrected Percy.
"I thought Sunday." He whispered, the blonde girl turning her head to face him. "No monsters on Sunday, Monday you died in the river."
"Right, so Medusa on Saturday."
"Guys, what is this?" Luke interrupted the two blondes banter.
"What?" They both responded instinct looking away from each other and to Luke. "When did you turn into an old married couple?" Through the projection he took notice of Azalea wearing Percy's sage green flannel and raised his brows.
"Thank you, someone had to say it." Annabeth lifted her hands in the air.
"Not to change the subject but I'm gonna, we could use your advice on something." Azalea shook his leg "Percy" she warned in a whisper. "We're headed to Las Vegas to find your dad." Percy continued, not listening to the girl seated in front of him.
Annabeth moved the crystal out of the sunlight, and stopped at the projection at the mention of Luke's dad. "What was that about." Percy exclaimed.
"You can't ask Luke about his dad." Annabeth muttered.
"Well now i certainly can't." Azalea rolled her eyes at Percy's sarcasm. "If you tell him we're going to see Hermes he's gonna try to talk us out of it. We don't need that right now." Annabeth explained to the clueless boy.
"At all." Azalea joined into the conversation.
"Okay, got some updates." Grover walked over to the three from the back of the truck. "The men driving this truck are not nice people, traffickers."
"We can do our best to help all these animals escape, but not if it means we're jeopardize the quest."
"No, no, no, no they've already got a plan to get themselves out. And us too, I mean some of these guys, so smart. They were really only missing like, one piece of the puzzle to get the cages unlocked." Grover shared.
"What's that?" Percy raised his brows.
"Thumbs." He raised his thumb in the air. "But we're here now, so all good." Grover tapped the cage.
"And once the cages are opens, they have a plan from there."
"Yeah really elegant. I meant these guys, they're... they're like artists" Grover continued.
—— AZALEA WATCHED AS many animals ran around, through cars and people creating an absurd amount of chaos. Citizens had stopped what ever they were doing to watch the wild animals and take pictures of what was happening. The four kids stood to the side of the highway watching the chaos unfold.
"This seems dangerous." Percy stated as a zebra ran past them.
"Oh they'll be totally fine, I gave them a satyr's blessing so they'll be able to reach the wilderness safely." Honking and screaming was heard coming from up and down the street.
"I meant for the people."
Azaleas mouth hung open in shock, thinking to her self how the hell they spent the night in a truck with a camel, buffalo, bear, ostrich and a ton the more animals. "This is crazy." She whispered to Annabeth who was standing next to her.
"Oh... them, well I mean I'm sure they'll... yeah I don't know. But the animals are all set." Grover shrugged it off.
"Okay, come on, before the cops show up." Annabeth turned to them and as if she predicted the future police sirens started blaring in the distance. Azalea looked around at their surroundings her eyes catching on a ginormous that resembles a lotus blossom flower pots of roller coasters weaving through the petals.
"So, how do we know which hotel is the Lotus?" Percy asked the two girls to his left.
Azalea nodded her head to the hotel "well I'm not one hundred percent sure but maybe the one with the giant lotus blossom on it." She gave him a little smirk.
"You were like two seconds ahead of me seriously." He rolled his eyes at the blonde. "More like four seconds ahead, sunshine." Azalea giggled at him, turning around to walk with Annabeth.
"Sometimes, it might be okay to just let the easy ones go." Percy and Grover trailed behind them "can we agree to just try it, maybe?
—— WHEN AZALEA HAD spent her first week at Camp half-blood, Luke and Annabeth had brought the unclaimed girl to go meet the pegasuses. On the walk over the nine year old girl had brushed her bare leg against a bunch of poison ivy. But after being taken to the infirmary and a few hours going by not even a slight bit of a rash was spotted on her skin. It wasn't until a year later that Azalea would figure out it was because her mother was Persephone. From then on she knew that any harmful qualities that a plant had would not be able to harm her.
The four walked into the Lotus flower hotel, people walking around clapping and cheering as well as playing games and having a drink. Azalea nodded her head to the song that played through the speakers she liked this place, she liked this place a lot.
"I know we're supposed to be saving the world, but would it be unprofessional if we just hung out here for a bit?" Percy's eyes wondered around the hotel.
"I like what you're thinking seaweed brain." Azalea nodded her head along looking up at his eyes.
Annabeth came up behind them and put a hand on both their shoulders "we find Hermes,we get him to hook us up with a ride to Los Angeles and a plan to get into the underworld. And we are out of here ten seconds later."
"I was kidding." Percy shrugged her hand off. "I wasn't." Azalea avoided Annabeth's eyes.
They were about to begin walking when Grove put his hand out "wait, hang on!"
"What?"
"Your mom told you all the stories. Did she read you the Odyssey?" Grover questioned Percy.
"The graphic novel." Azalea and Annabeth both gave him a look "it counts."
"Odyssey lands on a beach there's these guys who've forgotten where they came from, forget everything that was important to them." Azalea was starting to catch on. "And they got that way because they ate-"
"The lotus flowers." The realization dawned on Percy.
"If we go in there and then forget everything, that would be bad on a number of levels." Grover explained in a panicked voice.
"But if Hermes is in there, though, then what choice do we have?" Percy looked down at the sun kissed blonde standing next to him in his flannel. "What do you think, flower girl?"
Azalea looked between all of them "you guys just can't eat anything." Her eyes landed on Grover looking him up and down. Her, Percy and Annabeth turned and walked towards the entrance of the casino. "Wait, why were you looking at me when you said that?"
Azalea thought her hands up in the air still walking on "I didn't mean it like that, you guys just can't eat the flowers." She tried to play it off the best she could.
"Then why did you look at me like that." Grover stared the girl down.
"Wait what do you mean 'you guys'." Percy questioned Azalea, cutting off her and Grover's conversation.
"Any type of flower poisonings don't affect me. So i could eat as many flowers as I wish and still be able to remember every." Azalea informed her friend.
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Next chapter is going to be so fun!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love Estella