Daughter of the Sea

I quietly changed into jeans and a hoodie, grabbed my bow and some arrows, then stumbled out of the cabin. I wasn’t entirely sure where I wanted to go — to the archery range to shoot a few bullseyes, to the arena to destroy some dummies, or to the beach to let myself be soothed by the sound of the ocean.

Whatever I would’ve ended up picking, I never would find out since, after closing the door behind me, I turned around to find myself face to face with a horse.

Woah, hey boss!

I sighed. “Blackjack,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

Blackjack was a pure black pegasus. He was beautiful. He was kind of mine — in the sense that he’d adopted me after freeing himself from Luke on the Princess Andromeda last summer. Of course, I had nothing to do with it directly, but he still credited me with saving him, and decided that this must mean he now worked for me. I hadn’t seen him since summer, after I headed back into the city to start up the new school year.

Listen, boss, Blackjack said, we’ve got a sea critter that needs some help.

“Again?” I asked.

Yea, boss. I told the hippocampi I’d come get you. What’s with the bow, by the way? I thought you didn’t do archery.

“I joined the Hunters of Artemis,” I said in a deadpan voice.

Sea, the hippocampi had a habit of asking for my help whenever I happened to be available. For any problem, really. Beached whales, dolphins in fishing nets, that one time with the merman that I’d rather forget about entirely because ew. I’d get called to help out with whatever underwater problems were going on in the area.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s get going then.”

---

I ended up hitching a ride on Blackjack since that would be a lot faster. I marvelled at just how much cooler my life was than just two years prior, when I was stuck putting up with my shitty step-dad while my mom was at work, still believing myself to be fully human and also a boy. Now, here I was, a quasi-immortal girl, riding my flying horse friend at dozens of miles per hour over the waves out to help some sea creature with their problems. If you’d told that poor depressed egg where she’d be by now, she’d probably have freaked out a little.

Here we are, Blackjack said, slowing down and circling over a spot in Long Island Sound. Straight down, boss.

“Thanks for the lift, buddy,” I said, patting his neck before sliding off his back, plummeting down to the cold water below.

Another thing that me from two years ago would have freaked out over: diving several yards down to the bottom of the sea.

I willed myself down into the darkness. I wasn’t entirely sure how much pressure I could withstand — if I could maybe reach the bottom of the Pacific — but it was definitely much more than any normal human could. I couldn’t exactly see this far down — not normally, anyway. Instead, I could sense things around me. Outcroppings of rock, animals, currents, plants.

Once I reached the bottom, I found three hippocampi. They were swimming around an overturned boat. I took a brief moment to admire the way they looked — the rainbow shine of their tails, their manes — and took note of their panicked movements. Clearly, something was causing them distress.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out the problem. Trapped under the boat, tangled up in a big fishing net, was some sort of animal. By the looks of things, this creature had managed to get itself tangled in the net of this boat, and had shifted it around so that it was threatening to crush them with one wrong move, resting against a big rock sticking up from the sand.

One of the hippocampi kept trying to bite the net, but that didn’t exactly work. The others kept swimming around in a panic, unsure what to do.

Free it, lady! one of them said when it spotted me. The others quickly copied, and they started chanting at me to free this creature.

I came closer to get a good luck at just what it was I was about to free. At first I figured it was a baby hippocampus — it wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to rescue one of them in a similar situation — but, then I heard a sound that I one would never expect this deep underwater: “Moooooooooo!”

Once I got even closer, I realised that what I was looking at was a cow. Like, an actual cow — mostly. The front half was a normal calf with beautiful black fur and the back half was all serpent — long and snaky, with fins running along the sides.

“Huh,” I said. “Who are you, little one?”

“Moooooo!”

Unfortunately, I could not understand cow-speak.

We don’t know what it is, lady, a hippocampus said. Many strange things are stirring.

“So I’ve heard,” I said. I fished my pen out of my pocket, uncapping it and letting my sword grow to its full size.

That was the wrong move. The cow-serpent started to panic, thrashing around and getting more tangled. The boat started to shift. The hippocampi started swimming around in a panic again. I wasn’t sure if it was possible to be stampeded underwater, and I didn’t want to find out.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to cut the net!” Then I got an idea. The sword was big and intimidating, but my new hunting knives… those much less so. I put away my sword, and, before actually taking out my knife, I started trying to calm down the cow. “Ok,” I said. “Ok. No more sword. See?” I held up my once again empty hands. “Just… think calm thoughts, ok? I’m not going to hurt you. Now, I don’t know if you can understand me, but I’m just going to take out my knife. I promise, I’m not going to hurt you with it, I just need to cut the net, ok?” I eyed the boat warily. “Actually, on second thought, we should probably get this away from you.”

I directed the hippocampi to help me push the boat away. With our combined efforts, we managed to get the boat in a position where it wasn’t threatening to crush my new friend here.

“Alright, Bessie,” I said. Don’t ask why I called the cow Bessie, it just kind of popped into my head. “I’m going to take my knife out. Please don’t freak out, I just need to cut the net.”

I wasn’t sure if Bessie understood me, but, when I pulled out my knife, she didn’t panic. She gave the knife a nervous-seeming look, but let me start sawing away at the net. It took a bit of time, but it was much faster than if I’d needed to untangle it by hand. Finally, I had sawed through enough of the net that the cow-serpent burst free, swimming in happy little circles. I giggled at her antics.

Thank you, lady!

“Yeah,” I said.

“Mooooooo!” Bessie added.

“I’ve gotta go now. I’ve got a quest.”

I shot up to the surface. Once I was exposed to the open air again, Blackjack swooped down and letting me climb back onto his back.

Success, boss?

“Yeah, we rescued a baby… something. I dunno what it was. Panicked like crazy when she saw my sword, so I had to use my knife to cut the net. Nearly got stampeded too.”

Good deeds are always dangerous, boss. You remember saving my sorry mane, huh?

I couldn’t help but think about my dream about Annabeth, unconscious, bruised and oh so frail looking. My heart clenched.

I’m going to save her, I thought.

---

“Hey, Phoebe, where’d you get that shirt?” I asked as we were getting ready to head out on our quest.”

She looked up at me. “Oh, um, those Hermes boys apparently grabbed it for me.”

“The Stolls?” I asked, concerned.

“Yeah, them.”

I frowned. “You probably shouldn’t wear it then. I wouldn’t put it past them to have sprayed it with something to prank you.”

Phoebe held out the shirt, giving it an appraising look. “You know what? You’re probably right.” She dumped it into a nearby trash can.

Zoë came over to us, her camping bag slung over her shoulders. Phoebe and I each had similar bags of our own.

“Well,” she said. “Shall we be going?”

We met up with Silena and Grover at the Big House.

“Hey, Grover,” I said. “Silena.”

“Percy!” Grover said, giving me a hug. Silena just gave me a small smirk.

“Um, how’s your, uh, new sister?” I asked her.

“She’s doing fine,” Silena said. “I have Drew coaching her on her charm speaking.”

I had no idea who Drew was, but I didn’t say that.

“So,” Phoebe said, “where are we headed?”

Zoë gave Grover a look. “Well, goat boy,” she said. “You have thy magic.”

“Right! Grover said. He pulled a small bag out of his pocket filled with… acorns?

“Acorns?” I said.

“Oh, this is what I use for my tracking magic,” he said. “Now, just play a little tune, and…” He raised his pipes to his lips and played a few notes as he scattered the nuts over the porch. They wiggled around as Grover played, finally stopping once he finished. “Ok,” Grover said. “So these five nuts here are the five of us.”

“Which one is me?” I asked.

Grover ignored my question. “And this nut here-” Grover pointed at one of the other nuts that was slightly misshapen “-that’s the monster we’re after. They’re a bit south of us.”

“The prophecy said to go west,” Zoë grumbled.

“The monster will probably start heading west then,” I said. “But for now, we should follow it.”

“Percy’s right,” Phoebe said. “South it is. Zoë, you still remember how to drive, right?”

“Well, yes,” she said.

“You look, like fourteen, thought,” Silena said. “I’m sixteen. I have my license. I should drive.”

“I’ve been driving since the automobile was invented!” Zoë retorted.

“It’s a bit hard to beat those qualifications,” I mused.

Silena scoffed. “What if we get pulled over, Zoë?”

Zoë glared at the daughter of Aphrodite. “Why would we ever get pulled over? Does thee doubt my driving ability?”

“No! It’s just… argh!” Silena stomped her foot. “Fine! You know what? You drive then! Do you even have a license?”

Zoë smirked. “I do, actually.” She fished around in her pocket, pulling out a Wisconsin driver’s license. It had a picture of her, circlet included, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t allowed in ID photos, as well as her date of birth — June twenty-first, nineteen-eighty-one, which was definitely not accurate, either for how she looked or her actual age.

“There’s no way a cop would think that’s real,” I said.

“Who’s side are you on?” Zoë muttered.

“No one’s,” I replied. “We need to get moving, though. How about rock paper scissors? We don’t have time to set up another duel in the arena, and especially over something as silly as who drives.”

The two other girls gave me an incredulous look. Behind me, Phoebe started laughing loudly. “Oh, Percy. You’re hilarious!”

“I’m serious. Since you two don’t want to resolve this like adults, just play fucking rock paper scissors.”

Zoë glared at me.

Silena pinched up her face. “Fiiiine,” she said. She turned to Zoë, holding out her fist.

Zoë returned the gesture. “On shoot,” she said.

The two girls pounded their fists against their palms three times. Then, on the fourth one, Silena pounded her fist into her palm again, while Zoë held out an open hand.

“Ha! I win!” she exclaimed.

“Best of three!” Silena said.

“What? Thou did not say that before we started!”

But she acquiesced, and the two girls repeated the procedure all over again, this time with Silena going for scissors while Zoë repeated paper. They repeated for a third time, which ended in both of them doing scissors. Finally, they went for a fourth round, and Silena won with rock, crushing Zoë’s scissors.

Zoë grumbled, but handed over the keys to the van to Silena anyway.

“This was a silly waste of time,” she muttered.

---

As we started driving down Long Island towards New York City, I decided to tell the others about my second dream last night. After I finished, I was met with silence. I spotted Silena glancing back at me with a concerned look in the rearview mirror.

“So Lady Artemis is holding the sky now,” Zoë said.

“Looks that way,” I said.

Phoebe let out a long sigh. “Still need to save her by the solstice. At least now we know where to look.”

“We should head straight there!” Zoë exclaimed.

“We need to follow the monster first,” Silena said. “You heard the prophecy. We can’t just rush straight to wherever this place is-”

“San Francisco,” Phoebe supplied.

“-to San Francisco. We follow the monster. We have time.”

“We only have a few days!” Zoë said.

“Girls!” Grover exclaimed. “I agree with Silena. Follow the monster to Artemis.”

“Fine,” Zoë said. “South we go, then.”

I could tell she wasn’t happy with it, but it was the best option we had. We continued driving in silence until reaching New Jersey. We turned onto the I95 and began heading south. Around then, Phoebe and Grover started up a conversation about nature conservation up in Ontario or something. Silena continued driving south. Zoë kept sitting in the passenger seat with her arms crossed, practically radiating moodiness.

Eventually, a bit northeast of Baltimore, Zoë told Silena to stop. We pulled into a rest stop by the side of the road. There was a gas station and convenience store. I was a bit hungry, so I considered going in and buying a little snack. So did everyone else, and the five of us piled in. Phoebe, Zoë and Grover made their way to the back to try out the acorn magic thing again, while Silena and I started perusing the fridge units for pop and the shelves for oreos, chips and fruity gummies.

“So, Percy,” Silena said as we got in line to check out. “Why are you on this quest?”

“To help save Artemis,” I replied.

Silena smirked. “I think we both know that reason is secondary to your actual reason.”

I blushed. “Saving Annabeth.”

“She’s important to you.”

I nodded. “Of course she is. She’s my best friend. She’s always been there for me. I have to save her.”

Silena nodded. “Very important to you. You like her, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “We’re both girls.”

“You’re allowed to be gay, Percy.”

“It’s not weird?” I asked.

“Definitely not.”

“Like, I could’ve just been a straight guy, right?”

“Could you have? Silena gave me an amused look. “Percy, you’re trans. You can’t be any sort of guy. That just isn’t you. This-” she gestured at my body “-is you. You’re a girl. So what if you also like other girls? Is it more authentically you to be a girl and date another girl.”

“I can’t date,” I said.

Silena frowned. “Boys though. Right? Your oath only mentions guys?”

“Well, yeah-”

“So you can definitely date another girl if you wanted, then.”

“I- I’m not sure about-”

“Then just ask Artemis.”

I nodded slowly. Truthfully, a part of me wanted to forget about this discussion entirely. Another part wanted to announce to the whole world how much I wanted to kiss Annabeth-

Whoa there brain. Slow down girl.

Desperate to change the subject, I asked Silena, “so, um, why did you come on this quest?”

“I want to prove myself,” Silena said. “Everyone thinks us children of Aphrodite are shallow and vain and whatnot. And like, yeah, there’s some vanity going on, we are children of the goddess of beauty, after all. But we are not shallow. I want to prove that I’m just as capable as any other demigod.”

“Oh,” I said. “You’re definitely not shallow,” I said.

“Thanks Percy.”

Then it was our turn to pay for our snacks. We had a six pack of coke, several bags of chips, a container full of Oreos, several packs of gummies, and Silena decided to grab a lighter at the last second. We ended up splitting the purchase between the two of us, each of us slapping a ten dollar bill on the counter, evenly splitting the change.

Our other questmates had gotten back to the van before we did. Zoë gave the snacks a disinterested look, while Phoebe happily accepted a pack of raspberry flavoured gummies.

“Where to now, princess?” Silena asked Zoë.

Zoë scowled. “Washington,” she said. “DC. Not state.”

“That’s not much farther,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “Plus, it’s southwest of here. That’s something, right?”

Zoë did not appreciate my attempt at cheering her up. She did, however, accept a can of Coke when I offered it to her.