Annabeth's ideas were either the best thing to ever happen, or total flops that Aurora was terrified to identify as nothing less than perfection.
But as she loaded the four into the back of a Vegas taxi and demanded they travel 300 miles to Los Angeles, paying with an infinite amount of money from their casino cards, Aurora decided that she should never doubt Annabeth's plans.
"Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"
Aurora had to stifle her laugh as Annabeth straightened, clearly liking the title. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."
She probably shouldn't have told him that, because the cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.
On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. Aurora withheld specific details about her encounter with the cute little kid at the casino (aka, when Nico called Percy cute and she secretly agreed. Aurora would not be allowing the son of Poseidon to know, his ego would inflate higher than the Arch she got pushed out of), but told them how much of a blast Nico from 1945 had been. Percy told them about his latest dream.
"The servant called the dude in the pit something other than 'my lord,'" Percy tried to remember, the details seemingly getting sketchier the more he fought to remember. "Some special name or title..."
"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."
"Maybe..." Percy trailed off, neither seeming like they necessarily rung a bell.
Aurora snorted. "If he heard something as stupid as 'the Silent One,' I'm sure Percy would've remembered."
Annabeth gave her friend a look, reminding her that they were going to see Hades in just a few days. "Rory..."
Aurora opened her mouth, but unexpectedly, Percy was the one to defend her. "She's not wrong." His comment was offhanded and Aurora drew back with surprise. She did nothing to defend or protect Percy, who she didn't even consider a friend. Why did he think he had to save her, like usual? Something flared in Aurora.
"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said, eager to change the subject back to the problem at hand. "That's the way it's usually described."
Percy shook his head. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit... I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."
Aurora practically choked on her own thoughts, throwing away her annoyance with Percy for the quest. The pit... she'd been to the Underworld with her mom—and dragged there by the Furies—enough times to know what the pit was. Fucking Tartarus. And there was only one coherent being in Tartarus that could be manipulative like that... but he was also chopped up in a million pieces. There was no way.
Annabeth seemed to be having the same revelation. "It can't be." Aurora told her blond friend firmly, her hazel eyes sharp and livid. "It's Hades."
"What?" Percy asked cluelessly.
"Nothing." Aurora didn't mean to snap, but she did. "It's Hades. This is something he would do. He's evil, you know that."
Annabeth nodded, although she didn't look as convinced as Aurora. "Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—"
"Like what?" Percy inquired further.
"Can you stop asking questions!" Aurora groaned, her fist curling. As much as she loved to please people, there was one person that she didn't care to appease at all, and he was sitting right in front of her with his pretty little idiotic sea green eyes big and confused and helpless.
"No," he smirked and stuck his tongue out like an annoying child.
Surprisingly, their banter didn't stop Annabeth's train of thought from taking off running. "If he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt." As she finished explaining, she looked paler than usual, as if the thought terrified her.
There was a nagging at the bottom of Aurora's gut that told her that Annabeth's suspicions were way off. But, instead of listening to herself, she decided—demanded—that Annabeth be right, and that this was one of her good plans.
"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," Percy said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"
"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."
Percy whistled as Aurora tried to wrap her mind around the fact that Percy was doing all of this for his mortal parent. If Aurora saw her dad again... she honestly wouldn't know what she would do. "You have evil thoughts for a goat."
Grover grinned. "Why, thank you."
"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," Percy added, not willing to let the subject go. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?"
Grover shook his head, clearly mystified. Annabeth looked at Aurora, and a conversation between glances was exchanged. They both knew Percy's next question, and they were both not willing to answer. Speaking the words out loud would make it far too real for just a thought.
But, after all, Annabeth herself was just a thought before she came to be.
"You guys have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" Percy's aquamarine narrowed. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?"
"Let's not talk about it." Aurora's voice was curt, and she sounded like Chiron to her naked ears. "It's Hades, okay? It has to be."
"Ro..." Percy chastised softly, so quietly that neither Grover nor Annabeth could hear. But Aurora did, and chose to ignore him.
But the nagging in Aurora's brain was stubborn just as much as the son of Poseidon was. The problem was: they were hurtling toward the Underworld at ninety-five miles an hour, betting that Hades had the master bolt. If they got there and found out they were wrong, they wouldn't have time to correct ourselves. The solstice deadline would pass and war would begin. And they would fail. And she would be in Hades' realm, and that would be the end of everything.
"The answer is in the Underworld," Annabeth assured them, but seemed to be talking to herself more. "You saw spirits of the dead, Percy. There's only one place that could be. We're doing the right thing."
The cab sped west. Every gust of wind through Death Valley sounded like a spirit of the dead. Every time the brakes hissed on an eighteen-wheeler, it reminded her of Echidna's reptilian voice. She had to smile at the memory of being pushed of the Arch, and she considered mentioning it again.
At sunset, the taxi dropped us at the beach in Santa Monica. It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in the movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the Pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfer dudes waiting for the perfect wave.
They walked to the edge of the surf and Annabeth asked, "What now?"
The Pacific was turning gold in the setting sun. Aurora didn't know how long it had been since she had gone swimming somewhere that was not Camp Half Blood. She was sure her father took her when she was a baby to the pool and the lake when she wasn't being attacked by monsters, but by the time she could actually learn to swim, she was at camp.
Percy stepped into the surf.
"Percy?" Annabeth's voice was alarmed, snapping Aurora out of the trance of the beautiful landscape in front of her. "What are you doing?"
He continued walking, up to his waist, then his chest.
"Shark Boy, you're seriously stupid." Aurora called after him, squinting as he waded deeper and deeper. "I'm not jumping in after you!"
The last thing she saw before Percy's head went under was the raise of his middle finger and retreating laughter, and in the blink of an eye, the last of his black curls was gone under the glimmering blue.
"Great." Aurora sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose. She turned to Grover. "Your friend is an actual dumbass."
Grover stared at the shadow that once had been his friend and a wry smile played onto his lips. "I know."
"Rory, when are you going to tell the dude that you're friends?" Annabeth asked, resting her head against the girl's shoulder. "He's practically falling at your feet for you."
Aurora snorted. "I'll tell him we're friends when we actually become friends. I hate him."
"No, you don't." Grover stated as Aurora raised her eyebrows at him. As she opened her mouth to say, what the fuck?, he quickly explained. "You care too much about him to hate him."
At that, Aurora burst out into a fit of laughter. She would've prolonged it if Grover wasn't looking at her with crazy solemnity. "Care about Percy Jackson? Come on, Goat Boy. Be for real. You're the funniest satyr I know."
Grover shook his head at Aurora's hysterics and theatrical behavior. "I'm serious! You're worried about him, more than you are about anyone else. Stop laughing, I'm not joking."
Annabeth smirked, crossing her arms as she eyed her best friend. "He's right. I think you don't want the bitch to die." And to Aurora, not wishing death upon someone was equivalent to her liking them, and that made her stomach recoil and want to puke up the two burgers she devoured throughout their quest.
Before Aurora could completely deny the false accusations, Percy kicked upward towards the shore.
Almost like magic, as soon as he reached the beach, his clothes were instantly dry. He recounted what had happened, and showed them the pearls of safety that the water spirit had given him. Aurora couldn't even make fun of him for being all "Shark Boy" before graveness kicked into his words.
Annabeth grimaced. "No gift comes without a price."
"They were free." Percy justified, showing Aurora the shimmering balls of ivory with a trace of a triumphant beam. She wanted to reach forward and touch one—they were so pretty—but refrained as she remembered what Grover and Annabeth had said. She did not care about the son of Poseidon.
"No." Annabeth shook her head. "'There is no such thing as a free lunch.' That's an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. Just you wait."
On that happy thought, they turned our backs on the sea.
With some spare change from Ares's backpack, they took the bus into West Hollywood. Percy showed the driver the Underworld address slip I'd taken from Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, but he'd never heard of DOA Recording Studios.
"You guys remind me of somebody I saw on TV," he told Percy, glancing at Aurora. "You a child actor or something?"
"Uh..." Percy stammered, looking at Aurora with a gaze that screamed help!
"We're stunt doubles for a bunch of child actors." Aurora quipped smoothly, shoving Percy to the back of the bus nonchalantly. The boy stumbled into a padded seat. "McKenna Grace, Ariana Greenblatt, Walker Scobell, you name it, it's us."
"Oh! That explains it." They thanked him and got off quickly at the next stop.
As they wandered for miles aimlessly for the apparently nonexistent DOA Records, Percy suddenly stopped dead in front of an appliance-store window. The man that was on the TV was a chubby, middle aged man with alcohol stains on his shirt and a drunken look in his eyes. He was ugly and Aurora could practically smell his stench through the TV. His yellowing nails dug into his beer bottle, and she could see Percy visibly flinch. Next to him was a young blond lady patting his hand.
Percy told her too much about his stepfather, Gabe, for her to believe that the tear rolling down his cheek was real. "Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn't for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I'd be a wreck. My stepson took everything I cared about. My wife... my Camaro... I—I'm sorry. I have trouble talking about it."
"There you have it, America." Barbara Walters turned to the camera. "A man torn apart. An adolescent boy with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver."
The screen cut to a grainy shot of the four of them standing outside the Colorado diner, talking to Ares.
"Who are the other children in this photo?" Barbara Walters asked dramatically. "Who is the man with them? Is Percy Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, a murderer, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist. Stay tuned, America."
"Shit," Aurora let out a loud bark of laughter. "Do they really have nothing better to do? At least we're cute, you know? Better to have hot ass kids on your screens as delinquents."
Percy ignored her, instead staring at the flickering television. He looked like he was going to punch a hole in the window, fume practically steaming out of his ears. Aurora quickly grabbed his elbow and steered him away from the store.
Walking in the streets of LA wasn't as easy as it looked, Aurora ignoring the imploring looks of gangbangers, bums, and street hawkers as the sky darkened. As they hurried past the entrance of an alley, a voice from the darkness said, "Hey, you."
Like an idiot, Percy stopped. Aurora groaned inwardly, stepping in front of the brunette boy before they could get beat up. After angering a group of homeless men, Annabeth dragged the rest of the four into the only store on the block that looked open.
"Crusty's WaterBed Palace." Grover read for the dyslexic demigods. They burst through the doors, ran behind a water bed, and ducked.
"I think we lost them." Grover panted.
"Lost who?" The four of them jumped in unison, as if it was a scene right out of the movies. Standing behind them was a guy who looked like a raptor in a leisure suit. He moved toward them slowly, but Aurora got the feeling he could move fast if he wanted to. The shirt was silk paisley and unbuttoned. The silver chains around his neck—she couldn't even count them, but they were tacky as fuck.
"I'm Crusty," he introduced himself, revealing a smile that was bright yellow and full of tartar.
Aurora had to murmur, "No fucking shit." Because look at him. Being crusty was not an aesthetic, no matter how hard Crusty was trying.
"Do you want to look at a water bed?" Crusty asked Percy, but before he could reject, the disgusting man put a huge paw on his shoulder and steered him deeper into the showroom.
"Can we go?" Aurora whispered to Annabeth, eyeing the man suspiciously. "Something doesn't sit right—Grover!"
Grover had bought Crusty's marketing that Aurora had ignored, diving into a vibrating, massaging bed.
Crusty looked at Annabeth. "Do me a favor and try this one over here, honey. Might fit."
Annabeth started to say, "But what—" but he patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and led her over to the Safari Deluxe model with teakwood lions carved into the frame and a leopard- patterned comforter. When Annabeth didn't want to lie down, Crusty pushed her.
"Hey!" she protested.
Crusty snapped his fingers. "Ergo!"
Ropes sprang from the sides of the bed, lashing around Annabeth, holding her to the mattress. Grover tried to get up, but ropes sprang from his black-satin bed, too, and lashed him down.
"N-not c-c-cool!" he yelled, his voice vibrating from the million-hand massage.
The giant looked at Annabeth, then turned toward Percy. Sometimes, being the invisible side character worked out in Aurora's favor. That was, until Percy grabbed Aurora's hand in fear. His grip was tight and terrified, but also drew attention to the girl's presence in the room. "Almost, darn it."
Percy tried to step away, but his hand shot out and clamped around the back of his neck. Luckily for Aurora, she sidestepped quickly enough, and the man seemed to not give her a second glance. Her mind reminded her, you're just Persephone's kid. No one wants you, you're not powerful. The thought of her being of any importance made her laugh. But, for once, it was a good thing. "Whoa, kid. Don't worry. We'll find you one in a sec."
"Let my friends go." Percy demanded.
"Oh, sure I will. But I got to make them fit, first." Crusty explained.
"What do you mean?"
"All the beds are exactly six feet, see? Your friends are too short. Got to make them fit."
Annabeth and Grover kept struggling. Aurora slowly unsheathed Oleander, her sword glittering golden in the dim light of Los Angeles. She mouthed to Percy, keep going. She needed him to keep Crusty talking.
"Can't stand imperfect measurements," Crusty muttered. "Ergo!"
A new set of ropes leaped out from the top and bottom of the beds, wrapping around Grover and Annabeth's ankles, then around their armpits. The ropes started tightening, pulling their friends from both ends.
"Don't worry," Crusty told Percy. "These are stretching jobs. Maybe three extra inches on their spines. They might even live. Now why don't we find a bed you like, huh?"
"Percy!" Grover yelled.
"Your real name's not Crusty, is it?" Percy asked, his chip dipping slightly, indicating that he understood what Aurora was saying.
"Legally, it's Procrustes," the man admitted.
"The Stretcher," Percy remembered, snapping his fingers in a way that Aurora was for sure going to make fun of him for later.
"Yeah," the salesman said. "But who can pronounce Procrustes? Bad for business. Now 'Crusty,' anybody can say that."
"You're right. It's got a good ring to it." Percy yapped.
His eyes lit up. "You think so?"
"Oh, absolutely," the boy said with eager. "And the workmanship on these beds? Fabulous!"
He grinned hugely, but his fingers didn't loosen on Percy's neck. "I tell my customers that. Every time. Nobody bothers to look at the workmanship. How many built-in Lava Lamp headboards have you seen?"
"Not too many." Aurora snuck up behind the man, her blade angled at sixty degrees, exactly where it would have to be to slice the man in half.
"That's right!"
Without a second thought, Aurora swung her blade. Percy, from where he was dangling at Crusty's grip around his neck, kicked the man-monster-thing backwards. It didn't do anything but make Procrustes recoil slightly, but that was enough. Oleander's blade stabbed right into his back, plunging through Crusty's stomach. Percy slipped out of Crusty's now-limp hand and ran to cut the ropes on the other beds. Annabeth and Grover got to their feet, groaning and wincing and murmuring curses. Aurora looked between herself, Percy, and the dude they had just slaughtered, and was thoroughly impressed. They worked together to save their friends, which was a friendly and unexpected surprise.
"You look taller." Percy commented with a smirk.
"Very funny," Annabeth said. "Be faster next time. Aurora did all the heavy lifting while you talked."
"That was the point." The boy argued as Aurora looked at the bulletin board behind Crusty's sales desk. She swallowed grimly, unprepared to see what could've been her permanent home. "Teamwork makes the dreamwork." Percy turned to look at the daughter of Persephone, ready for her to back him up on his cheesy phrase, but her face had paled and her eyes were glued onto the address pinned to Crusty's wall.
"You guys ready to give my stepdad a visit?" She asked weakly. "It's only a block from here."
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The Underworld was not a new concept for Aurora. She was dragged there multiple times by the Furies, visited when she was two with her mother, and avoided it like the plague since she got to camp. But never had she ever entered the normal way. Or, like, the dead way.
"Hey, Charon." Aurora sighed, already exhausted from being in her mother's realm, as they approached the front desk. Percy's jaw dropped out of the corner of Aurora's eyesight, and she smiled to herself, a newfound confidence building inside her chest as she stared at the psychopomp.
"Aurora! If it isn't my favorite mistake of a godling. So lovely of you to come." Charon squinted through her, smoothing his silk Italian suit that matched his bleach blond hair. He thought the buzz worked for him, but honestly, only very few people could rock the look. Tom Blythe and no other.
"You're dead?" His mouth twitched into a smile, which looked almost painful and unreal in the gloominess of the dead land. "How very delightful. Hades would be—"
"Don't act so happy." She snorted, shaking her head. "Just let us through. You wanted a new suit, didn't you?"
"Yes, Aurora, but—" Charon started, his dark eyes sparkling at the bribe.
"Then let us through, gods." Aurora grumbled, gesturing for Percy, whose mouth was still slack, to give him the coins they had stolen from Crusty. "And we can get that dead quartet of singers you like to play at your birthday. I'll tell my mom."
Charon sighed, obviously convinced. He never put up that much of a fight to begin with. Aurora always sent him birthday and Christmas cards, even though she despised his boss. It was something they bonded over, because he hated his boss as well. "The boat's almost full, anyway. I might as well add you three and be off. Just because I like you, Aurora."
He stood, scooped up their money, and said, "Come along." Aurora pumped her fist and grinned at her three friends, who stared at her with shock and followed her in a daze.
They pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at their clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things Aurora couldn't make out. She had forgotten the dejected melancholy that fell over her soul every time she was in the Underworld. It was because of her mom, the longing and belonging she felt. Hades certainly loathed that Aurora was tied to his sacred realm. And she loathed that she was going there.
He escorted them into the elevator, which was already crowded with souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass. Charon grabbed two spirits who were trying to get on with them and pushed them back into the lobby.
"Right. Now, no one get any ideas while I'm gone," he announced to the waiting room. "And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for another thousand years. Understand?"
He shut the doors. He put a key card into a slot in the elevator panel and they started to descend. They entered a boat and the shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see. A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stones—the howl of a large animal.
"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."
The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. A woman holding a little girl's hand. An old man and an old woman hobbling along arm in arm. Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don't forget to mention my pay raise."
He counted their golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole.
He warbled something that sounded like Cool About It by boygenius—which Aurora had introduced him to—as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.
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Aurora would've thought she'd seen everything in the Underworld. That was, until she saw Annabeth soothe Cerberus and burst into tears as she had to leave her new dog friend after throwing him a red rubber ball to keep him from tearing their heads off.
But then, that wasn't even the craziest part, because Grover started flying. Yeah, his shoes were flying, but in the Underworld without any command? Aurora's life could never recover. They lifted off the ground and started dragging him away from them.
"Maia!" Grover yelled, but the magic word seemed to have no effect. "Maia, already! Nine-one-one! Help!"
Percy got over being stunned and made a grab for Grover's hand, but too late. He was picking up speed, skidding downhill like a bobsled. They ran after him.
Annabeth shouted, "Untie the shoes!"
It was a great idea, but even as Grover tried, he couldn't sit up. But the four kept running after him, trying to keep him in sight as he zipped between the legs of spirits standing in Asphodel who chattered at him in annoyance.
Aurora was sure Grover was going to barrel straight through the gates of Hades's palace—don't blame her if she kind of hoped he would knock the stupid statue of the god down—but his shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged him in the opposite direction.
The slope got steeper. Grover picked up speed.
Their frantic run turned into a full on sprint, and Aurora couldn't help but remember the day Percy asked her to go on a quest with him. He was panting just as he was panting at that moment, and the same terrified and pleading look was displayed on his face, although for very drastically different reasons.
The cavern walls narrowed on either side, and Aurora realized they'd entered some kind of side tunnel. No black grass or trees now, just rock underfoot, and the dim light of the stalactites above. It was strangely familiar.
"Grover!" Percy yelled, his voice echoing. "Hold on to something!"
"What?" the said satyr screeched back.
He was grabbing at gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow him down. The tunnel got darker and colder. The hairs on Aurora's arms bristled about—blood spilled on an ancient stone altar, the foul breath of a murderer. The tunnel widened into a huge dark cavern, and in the middle was a chasm the size of a city block.
Grover was sliding straight toward the edge of an endless abyss.
Tartarus.
Aurora had heard so many stories about the home for every monster and evil being alive. She always imagined what it was like... but she never realized the actuality of the situation. Almost instantly, she felt the corrupt wind of darkness yearn for her soul, a wicked pull for her body to join the millions of beasts like her in the endless fiery pit. Maybe she would end up down there, one day. But this was certainly not her day.
Aurora saw Percy pause, staring at Tartarus with wide and terrified eyes. She grabbed his hand, jostling him aggressively as he blinked blankly, his sea green gaze glazing over. "Come on, Jackson! Your best friend is going to tumble into Tartarus, so grow up and fucking get over it!"
Her words seemed to snap him out of his trance, along with Grover's panic. The satyr was yelling, clawing at the ground, but the winged shoes kept dragging him toward the pit, and it didn't look like they could possibly get to him in time.
What saved him were his hooves.
The flying sneakers had always been a loose fit on him, and finally Grover hit a big rock and the left shoe came flying off. It sped into the darkness, down into the chasm. The right shoe kept tugging him along, but not as fast. Grover was able to slow himself down by grabbing on to the big rock and using it like an anchor.
He was ten feet from the edge of the pit when they caught him and hauled him back up the slope. Percy's grip on Grover's arm was unmovable, and Aurora had never seen so much strength in a demigod before. His muscles, which were quite nonexistent, strained and Aurora grunted as she, Annabeth, and Percy dragged Grover up. The other winged shoe tugged itself off, circled around the four angrily and kicked our heads in protest before flying off into the chasm to join its twin.
They collapsed, exhausted, on the obsidian gravel. Aurora's limbs felt like lead, but what terrified her more was the whispering coming from the chasm.
She didn't even want to think it, but she knew what was in there. Or who was in there.
And it was calling for her.
ೀ⋆｡🌷 the mother of perora speaks ...
word count: 4777
date published: march 22, 2024
thoughts: the next chapter is a good one but u guys might hate me