Bianca di Angelo & The Olympians

Bats And Owls

Annabeth POV

Percy walked angrily towards his cabin, obviously sulking. It was stupid, if you asked me. It made sense that he be left behind. He and Bianca were the two most powerful demigods we know of, and if one of them died, the other one would be there to take the place. In that scenario, they should be kept apart. Then again, only I knew the true reason this was a good idea.

Should I tell Percy?

He seemed almost... self centred. I mean, the guy was loyal, but he wasn't hounorable. That was dangerous. If he found out he and Bianca were qualified for imminent death, he would probably stop regarding his own life altogether. That wasn't good if he could be deciding the fate of our entire society.

As for Bianca, I didn't know (Feels like I've been saying that a lot, lately).

She was a rouge. As a Daughter of Hades, she would always be a rouge. She understood justice, and knew when she had crossed the line. Like last year. I didn't know her fatal flaw. I could say it was loyalty, but she would have talked to me after the incident, if that were the case.

She did try to, I argued.

When I had seen the face of the girl who had just stabbed Luke, the girl who looked like some kind of sociopath waking me up in my cabin... I reacted how anyone else would. It wasn't her fault I had nightmares, I understood that now. For a short time, I blamed her for hurting Luke. But Luke had done what he had, he had broken my trust.

How did I explain that to Bianca?

I stood in my cabin, collecting my things. We had decided to keep the quest quiet, try to minimize panic. And, we didn't know about Silena. Best to keep your enemies close.

Yankees cap? Check.

Change of clothes? Check.

Drachmas? Check.

We didn't know how long we could be gone. If Katie's estimation was correct, probably about 3 months, hopefully.

I discreetly moved to the woods, to our allocated spot for departure. Bianca was already there. She was leaning her back against a rock face, flipping her dagger in hand. It was one thing we had discovered a couple months into winter, that her sword had a 'dagger mode', she just had to trace the fuller up the blade with her finger, and it would shorten to a more manageable size. Nico's didn't have the same function, so we kept the fact hidden from him.

She glanced up at me, traced my figure with her eyes quickly, and looked back at her dagger. "Any plans for the quest?" I knew I had started a ticking time bomb, by speaking to her alone, but it was an important question.

She looked off to the side, playing with the string of her grey pullover. "Rhode Island." I looked at her oddly, and she pulled up a small smile. "It's the most 'nature' filled state. And for no leads, it seems like a good place to start." I had no reply, because that was actually... Smart. So I nodded. I took a spot, leaning against a cut off stump (That year was a real tragedy for the blue team. Flowers everywhere). "Sleep. It's fine."

Bianca must have noticed how I had bags under my eyes, but she also bore a look I couldn't place. Sadness? Regret? Pity?

No. Guilt.

I knew why she looked at me like that every day. I hated it. I had just done what anyone else would do. It wasn't my fault.

But it wasn't hers either.

"Sorry I'm late." Piper jogged up to us. "I was just doing some ground control."

Bianca cocked an eyebrow. "Ground control?"

Piper leaned a hand on a tree, crossing her legs and putting her weight on the hand. "Silena."

I nodded. Bianca explained her plan to head to Rhode Island, and we set off out the border. Bianca grabbed my hand, then Piper's and quickly traveled again. I stopped Piper from waltzing into a wall, then glared at the girl who was playing with her sword again. "A little warning next time?"

She shrugged. "You thought we were gonna walk there?" I rolled my eyes.

I looked around the alley we were in. "Any place to start?"

Piper walked outside our little alley, and paused, reading over a man's shoulder. She gestured for us to follow her, then walked up to the man. She asked him if she could have his newspaper, and he handed it over quickly.

"Check this out." Piper showed us a picture of a blurry boy, maybe 12, 13. He wore a green shirt and- "A red cap." she said, pointing to it.

Bianca looked intrigued, even slightly amused. "Grover? Boy breaks into Zoo, alleged animal trafficker?"

"If anyone would know about some magical nature rug, it would be him." I agreed. It would be good to see him after all these months.

We began walking toward the address of the zoo (I constantly cross checked the road we were on to figure out where we were). After, maybe, an hour and a half, we finally crossed the road to the Zoo. Bianca shadowed us in.

We slipped around the place, generally sticking to the nocturnal section (They seemed to like Bianca mostly, and the owls who didn't were okay as long as I was near her. Piper found this fact hilarious, and got tripped by a random bone in the path as I snickered in the background). After a few hours of this, we eventually found our target; a boy in the elk exhibit.

Eventually we got his attention, and he looked at us in pure shock, before coming over to us. "How are you here? Why are you here? Wha-"

Piper shushed him. "We are on another quest." I said.

He looked at us disbelievingly. "For what?"

We dragged him back to the Nocturnal section,and explained what he had missed in the last few months. He had been here for a similar reason as us, because it was nature filled. We asked what he might know about The Golden Fleece, and he shook his head. "I wish I could help you guys, especially considering..." he trailed off hopelessly. "But that thing is off the grid. I'm headed to Florida next, I'll keep an eye out for something that doesn't exist anywhere anyone's survived before."

Bianca sighed, "There must be somewhere that qualifies for that that we would know about. Then we could sail into oblivion." she said sarcastically.

"You act like we are going to the Bermuda Triangle or whatever. We'll figure something out." Piper said, chuckling.

I would have laughed with her, but what she had said had set off my memory. "Why Florida?"

He shrugged, "There's rumored to be some huge nature scent over there." Why? The exact reason we had come to Rhode Island was because of that, so why did Florida qualify?

"Would a lot of Satyrs go there?"

"I assume so."

Bianca squinted at me, "You have your planning face. What is it?"

I decided not to question the 'planning face' comment. "What if a monster got hold of the fleece? Then hid in the Sea of Monsters? Then Satyrs would follow the scent to their doom, which would be why none have ever come back? It fits!" I said, my sureness of my idea growing as I spoke.

Bianca put a hand up, "Back up. Sea of Monsters?"

"Yeah," I said, "It's like this part of the ocean that all the hero's went through back in Greece. Filled with baddies. Hades, it even attacks mortals."

Piper looked at me incredulously. "Mortals? But wouldn't they figure out something was wrong with it?"

I smirked. "You just said it, yet you question what it is." I laughed, and she looked at me oddly, "It's Devils Sea. Also known as-"

"The Bermuda Triangle."