The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

9. Talk Under The Stars

That night was pretty horrible.

They camped in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food papers.

They had taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but they didn't dare light a fire to dry their damp clothe—and except Annabeth, nobody knew how to light a fire. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. They didn't want to attract anything else.

They decided to sleep in shifts. Percy volunteered to take the first watch.

Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Y/N and Ethan lay on the ground, arms behind their head as pillows, watching the sky. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and starred at the night sky, too.

"Go ahead and sleep," Percy told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

Grover nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. Y/N and Ethan neither, for that matter.

"It makes me sad, Percy," Grover said.

"What does? The fact that you signed for this stupid quest?" Percy asked.

"No. This makes me sad." Grover pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist," Percy said.

Grover and Ethan glared at him. "Only a human wouldn't be," Ethan retorted. "Your species is clogging up the world so fast...ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human."

Grover sighed. "At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?" Percy said.

"Pan!" Grover cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly Y/N was nostalgic for something he had never known.

"What's the search?" he asked.

Grover looked at him cautiously, as if he were afraid he was just making fun. "The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he finally said. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pand has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refused to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher, isn't it?" Y/N said.

"It's my life's dream?" Grover said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand...the statue you saw back there—"

"Oh, right, sorry."

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"Hang on—the first?" Percy repeated.

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."