Quest For 12: Chapter 12 (Patreon)

And the winner is…

Option D, Tell Chiron all of these different parts that went into his choice!

Final Score:

Option A, Say he didn’t understand risking his life: 15

Option B, Say he wanted to protect Clarisse: 10

Option C, Say he wanted glory: 4

Option D, admit that all of these played a role:59

Chapter 12

Into the Woods

Chiron was still looking expectantly at him. Taking a deep breath, Perseus started to speak. 

“It began because I couldn’t let Clarisse go alone,” he said. “I thought about getting help. I even came up with people I could go to. But then… I thought that if we pulled it off with just the two of us, maybe I could get my reputation back at camp. I wanted the glory. The thing is, I could only make that decision because I didn’t understand yet. It wasn’t until Medusa was right there, cutting me to shreds, that it finally sunk in I could die. I— I’m… I’m trying to figure out which one of those three really pushed me to do it, but I can’t. Either it was all of them at the same time, or it was something else I can’t put my finger on, so I guess my best answer is that I don’t know?”

“That’s a perfectly good answer,” Chiron said. “Better, I’d hazard, than the one I would’ve gotten from the you of the past.”

“If it was the me of the past, I would've wiped those monsters away with a single thought,” Perseus said bitterly.

“If you could do that, then you wouldn’t have grown,” Chiron said. “Feel free to hold this against me, but I was not sure you would grow even this way.”

Perseus struggled to sit up higher. His arm was still wrecked, but Clarrisse’s ‘treatment’ had been as effective as medicine. Sex invigorated him, restoring some tiny sliver of his power and helping him stay energized and alert, even when talking to a centaur determined to drag him into a discussion on morality.

“You hate me,” he said.

“No, not anymore,” Chiron said. “Today alone, you behaved recklessly. But you also strove to protect your fellow campers. It was Clarisse you helped directly, but the rest of them are also safer now, with the threat dealt with. You acknowledged that you wanted to boost your own name, but you also acknowledged that your motivations were complicated. More than just being able to die, that makes you mortal.”

“If you’re trying to lift my mood, it isn’t working.”

“Whether you care or not, I feel that I should at least say it. You have become better than you used to be. Certainly better than you were the last time you stood in this camp.”

Perseus perked up, unable to help leaning forward in bed. That wasn’t the first time Chiron talked about his last visit in less-than-glowing terms.

“That’s why you hated me when I first got here, isn’t it,” Perseus realized. “It’s about something I did the last time I visited camp.”

Chiron didn’t answer.

“What was it? What made you so mad that you thought about shooting me on sight?”

“I wouldn’t have really done that,” Chiron admitted tiredly. “They were threats, to drive you away. I feared this was all a ploy. I do not anymore. Whatever else you may be, at the moment, you are clearly mortal, in every sense of the word.”

“Can’t you just tell me what mistake I made?” Perseus asked. His body ached, and his mind was still exhausted, ready to drop back into slumber at any moment. He was in the mood for a straight answer. “If I don’t know, how am I supposed to know what not to do again?”

Chiron peered at him. Despite Perseus’s hopes, he did not offer the straight answer the god-turned-mortal was chasing.

“Not yet,” Chiron said. “I can’t say for certain that you would understand, even now. Live a bit more. Recuperate from your wounds. In time, when you are ready, I’ll remind you. Only then will it get the reaction it deserves.”

Privately, Perseus thought the old horse might’ve had a much more melodramatic side than he had given him credit for. But he nodded tiredly, acknowledging that there would be no budging the stubborn centaur.

Something occurred to him.

“Medusa’s head stayed behind as a trophy,” he said. “You should send someone to pick it up. It’s dangerous.”

But Chiron, who had already started wheeling himself out, only looked back with his furrowed eyebrows.

“I’ve already sent demigods to investigate the barn,” he said. “There was no head there.”

“What? But it… I swear I saw it...”

Did the trophies monsters left behind disappear if they weren’t claimed? He’d never heard of a case where the hero left one behind, so it was possible. Still, the whole thing felt strange.

“Rest, Perseus,” Chiron said. “You’ve earned it.”

As if a spell had been cast over him, Perseus felt the dregs of his stamina run out, sliding down in bed as he allowed sleep to take him. Despite his worries, he slept soundly.

O-O-O

Everyone told him that his recovery was going perfectly. Perseus was half-convinced they were lying to him.

It had been over a week, and his body still ached when it moved! Who cared that the cuts had closed, and some had disappeared entirely? Even with Nectar, Ambrosia, and intimate moments with his nurse, he still felt like he was operating at maybe sixty-percent of his body’s usual standard, perhaps even less. How on earth could that be a perfect recovery?

Because mortals healed slowly. That’s what everyone kept reminding him. But this slowly? How did they not wrap themselves in cushions and hide away all day long, if this was what they dealt with every time they got injured? It seemed unthinkable to him, to be perfectly honest.

Still, he had recovered enough to walk around unaided, and to move in most of the ways he needed to, so long as he remembered to be slightly ginger about it. So when it came out that the Apollo Cabin needed help gathering medicinal herbs from the forest, Perseus offered to help. Anything was better than remaining cooped up inside the Big House for days more on end.

That was how he came to be here, walking across grass wet with morning dew toward the tall trees of the Camp Half-Blood woods. The fiery hair of Kayla Knowles was visible in front of him. The cute daughter of Apollo had been one of the first people to greet him at camp, along with Thalia, Annabeth, and Clarisse, and Perseus had been looking forward to getting her alone for the afternoon. His eye twitched.

“So remind me again,” Perseus said. “Why are all of you here?”

Thalia shook her head at him. Clarisse crossed her arms. Annabeth just squinted.

“The last time I left you alone, you managed to nearly kill yourself,” Thalia said. “Three times.”

“You’re not healed,” Clarisse grunted. “Can’t fight that way. Don’t worry—” she smiled a tad nastily “—Mommy’s here to keep the monsters away.”

Perseus considered pointing out that she was still limping very slightly from her own injuries, and that if anyone was going to be doing the protecting, it would probably be the healthy daughters of Zeus and Athena with them. But he decided it simply wasn’t worth it.

When he turned to Annabeth, the blond peered at him.

“You could be up to something,” she said.

“Something like gathering medicine?” Perseus asked.

“You’re crafty enough to interrogate a monster. But you're stupid enough to walk into a trap right after. You should be grateful. If I didn’t come, you’d probably find a way to walk into a monster den today without noticing.”

“Grateful. Right.” Trying to put the ensemble cast out of his mind, Perseus sped up slightly, moving closer to Kayla. “What exactly do you need help with to gather herbs?”

“Finding them,” the daughter of Apollo said sourly.

“You should’ve gotten children of Demeter for that. Or even one of Dionysus’s sons. Someone with an affinity for plants.”

Kayla just scowled.

“We already know where they grow!” she said. “We’ve been harvesting them for years. The problem is that they aren’t there anymore!”

“Did you pick too many?”

“Of course not! You’ll see. Some of the best spots have been burned to a crisp, like a wildfire burned through. In other places, there are still holes in the ground where someone yanked out the roots and everything. We’re having to go deeper and deeper into the forest just to have a chance.”

“Dangerous,” Thalia observed.

Kayla glanced back at her. “That’s what I got you guys for. This time, I’m sure we can handle it!”

Perhaps Perseus was imagining things, but he thought the girl sounded a tad desperate.

“I keep hearing about how dangerous the woods can be,” Perseus said, “but surely not even a camp like this would stock anything that was too—”

Before he could finish, something distant and incredibly loud roared. The tops of the trees swayed. A few leaves drifted down, landing by their feet. Unless he was imagining it, Perseus actually felt the ground itself tremor slightly.

“Our climbing wall has molten lava,” Thalia said. “Our curfew is enforced by person-eating bird women. When we want to have fun, we put on armor and pick up weapons to fight in the forest. When it comes to keeping monsters, in the deeper parts of the woods, this camp does not hold back.”

All of them paused at the threshold of the trees, looking up at the tall trunks casting shade across them.Then they kept moving, walking under branches capable of blocking more than half the sun’s light.

“Usually, the monsters aren’t too bad,” Kayla said, trying to lift the mood. “It’s not like we have Hellhounds running around!”

“Of course not,” Annabeth said. “Hellhounds are native to the underworld. They’re not conducive to a natural ecosystem. The camp only keeps monsters that won’t hurt the woods. There’s a colony of Myrmekes. Stymphalian Birds move in, but they’re seasonal. My brother Malcolm keeps insisting he saw an enormous bear in here, but I think he was just making excuses after losing in Capture the Flag.”

“I’m sensing a theme here,” Perseus said. “Let’s call it, ‘Animals, but bigger.’”

“And deadlier,” Annabeth said. “Often meaner, too. But nothing that needs to eat demigods to survive. Everything I mentioned can live off of wild prey. Otherwise they would constantly be attacking camp, just to survive.”

“So what do you think that roar was?” Perseus asked. “I’m hoping it was a super big gopher. Have you ever heard a gopher make noise? Since I haven’t, I can happily assume that they would let out roars like that if they were big enough.”

“Gophers squeak in high pitches,” Annabeth said.

“See, this is why nobody likes Athena or her children. I would’ve been so much happier without knowing that.”

“Well it’s not my fault you’re happy being stupid!”

“Are we going to have to listen to them the entire day?” Clarisse grunted.

“From what I’ve seen, they’re like this every time they’re around each other,” Thalia said.

“Great. I can’t wait.”

“Focus!” Kayla chided the rest of them. “Let’s just find the herbs, and get out.”

She looked the most shaken of any of them by the roar they had heard and all this talk about monsters. As a doctor, she probably wasn’t used to fighting, and would rather not if she could help it. Unfortunately for her, the plan to quickly collect plants and get out fell apart as soon as it began.

Kayla led them to every spot she knew within a half-mile, and they came away with absolutely nothing to show for it. Some of the spots were charred to a crisp, along with every other bit of plant life in a fifteen-foot radius, as if a wildfire tore through that one little patch of woods specifically before extinguishing. Other spots were just missing the plant they were after, with holes in the ground that looked like they came from a shovel. The only thing every spot had in common was a complete lack of anything useful to harvest.

“We’re going to have to go deeper,” Thalia said after yet another bust.

“I knew it would be bad— but this bad?” Kayla looked worried. “It’s already gotten worse just since I was here last week.”

“We just need to find the plants, right?” Clarisse asked. “That doesn’t sound too hard. Just tell me where to look and I’ll find ‘em for you.”

“Like… splitting up?” Kayla asked. “I’m not sure…”

“It could be a good idea,” Annabeth said thoughtfully. “We’ve been looking for forty minutes and we have nothing. If we don’t split up to cover all the spots we need to, we’ll just be back another day to start over. If plants are really disappearing faster, that might mean we waited too long.

“But it’s dangerous!” Kayla said.

“We’ll each go with someone else,” Annabeth said. “The woods aren’t as bad as people say. Half of their reputation is just to scare less experienced campers out of sneaking in. With a group like this, it should be fine.”

“You say we’ll go in groups of two, but there’s five of us,” Perseus pointed out.

“I’ll go alone,” Thalia volunteered. “I’ve handled worse.”

She slapped her wristband, capable of transforming into a horrifying Aegis replica in an instant, in order to prove her point. As she was the best fighter that was completely healthy, Perseus saw no reason to object.

“Clarisse can go with Kayla,” Thalia said.

The daughter of Ares looked at the redhead with an appraising eye before shrugging.

“I could go with one of them!” Perseus said. “Either one, really…”

Getting close to Kayla had been one of his main goals in agreeing to this outing. And Clarisse was still better than the last remaining alternative.

But Thalia only gave him a harsh look.

“You’re still hurt. Kayla doesn’t know how to fight. I’m not sending you two out alone. As for Clarisse, the last time we left you two together, you picked a fight with multiple legendary monsters. You’re not allowed to work together ever again.”

Perseus found her logic frustratingly sound. Annabeth seemed to be in the same boat, because despite a crabby look on her face she stepped closer to him, silently accepting the pairing.

“Meet outside the woods in two hours!” Kayla said. “If anyone doesn’t show up, we’ll get help and look for them. Other than that—”

She pulled out notes, having them crowd around to see diagrams of what they were looking for. She described the shape, scent, and traits of the plants they were looking for, down to the type of environment each of them liked to grow in. When she was confident that each of them could identify what they were after, the groups split apart. Thalia went east. Clarisse and Kayla went west. Perseus and Annabeth took the last direction, forging due North.

They walked in silence for ages. It wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t quite as tense as Perseus thought it would be. They checked a variety of spots, but found a similar lack of plants to when they’d been with the full group.

“What’s so important about these herbs in the first place?” Perseus asked eventually, after discovering yet another burnt patch of forest where their prize was supposed to be. “Don’t demigods just heal with Nectar and Ambrosia anyway?”

Annabeth glanced at him. “You’re hurt right now, aren’t you?”

“Somewhat,” Perseus admitted reluctantly. 

In truth, every time he tried to move at a pace quicker than a walk, his body quaked and protested.

“But you had Nectar and Ambrosia,” Annabeth said. “Didn’t those fix it?”

It was clearly a leading question. Playing along, Perseus said, “They helped. But after a while, I couldn’t have any more.”

“Exactly. Demigod healers can’t rely on god food like a cheat to heal anyone, because it can’t fix really bad injuries before it vaporizes us. Mortal medicine can help, but most of the time, they make herbal remedies for when they can’t use Nectar safely.”

“So part of the reason my body is messed up is because they can’t find these herbs?”

“Probably.”

“Someone should’ve said that from the start!” Perseus marched ahead, doing his best not to wince from the way his body ached as he did. “Let’s get me— I mean, let’s get the Apollo Cabin their medicine!”

Just then, something in the woods made a crunching sound.

Annabeth had a dagger in her hand in an instant. Perseus crouched, peeling his eyes. That noise hadn’t been either of them; it came from up ahead.

They had almost reached another of the spots Kayla told them about. It was just a dozen steps forward— exactly where the noise came from.

“Don’t attract attention,” Annabeth whispered.

Before he could ask what she planned to do, she’d pulled a baseball cap off a loop on her belt. The moment it touched down on her head, she disappeared.

Perseus knew she was still there, because he felt her brush his shoulder as she slipped past him. But there was nothing to see. She had gone entirely invisible.

Unwilling to be left completely behind, Perseus crept forward himself, trying to get a look at what it was in their path. He expected all sorts of things, most of them different kinds of terrifying oversized animals, but he certainly wasn’t prepared for a fat little figure wielding a spade.

They had a hoodie on that was slightly too big for them, with the hood pulled all the way up. The figure dug through the ground with a small hand-held shovel, pulling up herbs by the roots that perfectly matched Kayla’s description of what they were looking for.

“My plant,” Perseus hissed to himself, thoughts already on the delay to his recovery.

Soon, Annabeth should have been reaching the person. With the element of surprise, there was no way the person in the hoodie could escape. Not only would they get this plant, they would also find out who they were, and why they had been taking these herbs in the first place.

Only, instead of an invisible ambush being sprung, a feminine voice grunted. The figure twisted in time to watch Annabeth reappear with a thud, her hat fluttering off as she fell on her face. The moment the person in the hoodie realized they weren’t alone, they turned and sprinted away.

“Nice one,” Perseus couldn’t help but say.

Annabeth was scowling. She spun around, taking her dagger and slicing apart a thin green vine.

“It grabbed me!” she said. “I stepped over that vine, and it wrapped around my ankle anyway!”

As tempted as he was to continue making fun of her, they had more pressing issues. Their quarry was getting away with shocking speed, moving far more deftly than someone that portly should be able to. Annabeth hopped up, and they were ready to give chase, when another sound reached them.

It was a roar, one that shook the woods just like what they heard before they entered the forest, only much closer this time. Perseus was almost forced to cover his ears. Immediately after, a voice bellowed, “Bring it on!”

“Clarisse,” Perseus mumbled.

Annabeth looked torn. She hesitated, and Perseus realized it was up to him to make this decision. 

He could try to chase the figure himself, going after them while Annabeth hesitated. She would catch up if he could reach the person in the hoodie. All it would take was pulling off one sprint.

He could also jar Annabeth out of her hesitation and send her. Her body was in better condition. If he gave her a little push, she could chase down the figure, while he caught up at a slower pace his body was more likely to put up with.

Or, they could abandon the person entirely, allowing him to escape in favor of helping the others. They could hear the direction Clarisse’s voice had come from. It wouldn’t be too difficult to find them.

He just had to not hesitate, and pick one.

Choice: What should Perseus do?

Option A: Chase the figure himself and let Annabeth catch up.

Option B: Let Annabeth chase the figure, and catch up himself.

Option C: Let the figure go for now, returning to the others.

How to Vote: How to Vote: Look for the poll (posted separately) that corresponds to this chapter.

I will count votes cast across all the sites this story is posted to (see my profile for details) and go with whatever has the majority. Chapters will generally be spaced out by at least a week, to give plenty of time for everyone who wants to vote to get the chance to.