|ᴛᴇɴ| - |sᴄʀᴇᴀᴍɪɴɢ sᴀᴛʏʀ|
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𝙻𝚒𝚕𝚢-𝙰𝚗𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚔𝚎 𝚞𝚙 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐.
It wasn't the most pleasant way to wake up but it did leave her cranky. With her fists balled up and sitting up almost immediately as she tried to grab her dagger that was buried inside her bag. Although she had experienced near vertigo as her vision suddenly went dark. Knowing she couldn't get into a state of panic, although she already was, she had decided to work further onto her breathing as that would seem to calm her down. With little blobs of colour filling its way into her vision, she could now blink and see almost everything had been golden in this house, which was not a surprise to Lily-Anne right there. Now, she could focus on the real task at hand.
Calming down Coach Hedge.
"Coach!" Lily-Anne then said as she stepped in, slipping the dagger into her socks. The satyr looked over at Jason as he looked almost confused with how the boy had gotten there, not before turning to Leo and Piper as his eyes calmed down. Turning back over to Jason and her, Coach Hedge had lowered his club before he spoke up.
"You're the new kid, Jason." Hedge then turned to Lily-Anne, confused yet relieved. "L.A! I haven't seen you since you were a kid, you ran off somewhere but they wouldn't tell me! Where's your cousin?"
Lily-Anne looked bashfully down at the ground as she knew the satyr from a long time ago. He used to teach her Wilderness Survival Skills back when she was younger. He said she had 'some spirit in her' or whatever that had meant. Either way, she was glad to see the satyr again, even though she wouldn't say it herself.
"Weren't we at the Grand Canyon? Valdez, McLean? The anemoi thuellai were attacking and—" His eyes had caught onto the storm spirits as he raised his baseball bat ready in attack mode as his eyes filled with violence, something hasn't changed since the last time she had seen Coach. "Die!"
With Leo stopping the Satyr from turning this all into some murder feast, eventually, he ended up calming down after a while. And after endless compliments from Jason, they began to explain what had happened to him. With Lily-Anne staying silent for most of the time since she had no clue what they had said, seeing as she wasn't there in the first place. They had spoken of Medea and how she had captured him, in which the satyr protested by claiming her to be completely and utterly dead. Until pointing out the entire room to be gold that is.
The quartet broke into a further conversation as Lily-Anne inspected the room further. It was everything, everything was made of gold (or painted, there could be some guy just obsessed with that colour, because who would deny the beauty of gold?). She was stunned, to say the least now that her mind had cleared up from this morning, although still a bit upset that the Coach had to scream to wake her up. Sleeping was everything to her (she could practise being dead without dying completely).
Walking around the room, she had caught sight of the golden throne that she had found the night before when they first crept into this house, she had thought it was a trick of the mind but it really was gold (or the colour of it). The throne appeared strange enough as it is, although she doubted any Prince would come to live here. That was her assumption. But who could be rich enough to live in a house like this? And where exactly are the owners of the house itself?
Maybe it was a coincidence, or bad timing, either way, Lily-Anne always seemed to say (or think) the wrong things at the wrong time. By the time her eyes had rested on the Golden throne, the sound of a door opening had made her freeze in place, whilst the others went dead silent, so silent in fact you could hear a pin drop. Listening to the owner's footsteps as he neared them.
It was some random fat man who wore in a bathrobe and slippers you would've seen royals wear, even with a nightcap on (but seriously, who wears a nightcap?). His hair was completely white, as is his beard. In his mouth was a golden toothbrush that had fallen off once he had taken notice the presence of the five demigods.
His eyes glanced back towards the hallway as he looked quite unsure with what to think of five random strangers inside his house. "Son? Lit, can you come out here please?" He then called out. "There are strange people in the room."
For Coach Hedge, he would've done the most obvious thing to do. Which was to raise up his bat and scream (or rather chanting-screaming) "DIE" every few seconds.
In which it took all four of them to hold him down. There was without a doubt, Coach Hedge was a fighter. An annoying one at that too. From the top of her sight, Lily-Anne had noticed a younger-looking man, maybe just a few years older than the rest of them (besides Coach Hedge of course), enter the room with the first things she had noticed was the scars that surrounded his body. He reminded her of Luke in a way, but Luke looked way more fun than this old guy's son. The next thing she had seemed to notice was his shirt, which had said Cornhuskers, but his sword said otherwise.
For a scar-filled man, he was quite the sight (there is nothing wrong in checking out the guy who might just murder you. Best get killed by a hot guy rather than some old slimy dude).
Coach still seemed to put up a fight, seeing as he was getting harder to control, although Piper with her words seemed to resolve the issue quite well. Seeing as Mr Scar Man (she was no creative person when it came to the making of that name) had stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes looked weary from the situation that seemed to unravel. In all honesty, they were the ones that trespassed the premises, they had every right to be angry, somehow the old guy didn't seem too bothered with them as he turned over to his hunk of a son.
Jason had put Lily-Anne's thoughts into his own words. With the aggressive dwarf of a satyr calmed down at the slightest, it didn't mean that he wasn't hard to control (she wished the satyr could just be frozen for a little longer so that they can get the hell out of this house and find Aelous and her Mother). Piper, with her words of wisdom, tried to convince the old goat to try and have him lower his weapons. With continuous threats presented from the Coach, Piper had a hard time trying to control him. So Lily-Anne had to try and speak up.
"What about a compromise? I'll kill them first, and if it turns out they were friendly, I'll apologize." Hedge then presented as Piper shook her head violently.
"No!"
Lightly nudging the old satyr, he turned over to Lily-Anne who seemed to softly smile over at him as she mouthed the word 'later' which seemed to please him and made the blonde's smile grow. Somehow, he ended up calming down a whole lot, to the point where Lily-Anne could rest her hand on his shoulder (checking to see if there is no funny business going around with him. Sometimes it's hard enough to not trust Coach).
The Cherokee girl turned over to the cute guy as she gave him an apologetic smile, from Lily-Anne's perspective, when she turned to Jason and Leo, the Son of Zeus kept his stare right on Piper as his jaw seemed to be clenched. It made Lily-Anne chuckle as Jason turned over to her, nudging her in annoyance.
Oh, how cute they were.
After a few sarcastic remarks from Leo's end, the five were offered a seat over by the couches that they had slept on. Sexy scar boy had seemed to protest at first, although the old man seemed to insist upon it. Lily-Anne began to make herself comfortable next to Coach Hedge, whilst Leo had propped himself right next to her.
She didn't mean to stare at him, although the conversation from the previous night had hit her and she was in no mood to have any more questions. They were stupid mistakes, she wanted to forget them completely, maybe a dip in the river Lethe would be perfect. Somehow, Leo caught her staring just as he plopped onto the couch, locking eyes with hers before the two of them turned over to the older man.
"Welcome to my humble home. I am King Midas."
If Lily-Anne was drinking her tea right at that moment, she would've spat it out or rather choked on it. Confused about what she had heard or if she had heard right. With Coach Hedge sharing the same amount of confusion as her, although he didn't keep his thoughts to himself, rather speaking it out loud. She could agree with his words at least. Turning over to the rest of them, Lily-Anne spotted Jason once more, looking around an area that shouldn't be looked at (sly Grace, very sly indeed) as his Majesty (meeting all these royals, lost its touch in all honesty, Lily-Anne just wanted a person to meet who is not royal. Although this trip had just been that) as the man sat on his throne.
Okay, that was pretty gross, a mental reminder to never look where Jason looks.
"Your Highness, what our companion had meant was that you were the second person we have met that was supposed to be dead." Another dead royal that has come back to life. Lat Lily-Anne checked, it was Christmas season, not bring back all the dead annoying royals season. "Not to offend you in any way, sir. Although you have been dead for over a thousand years." Again, she needed to be careful with royals, seeing as her last experience didn't seem too ideal. Medea just loved to be a pain in the ass, and hopefully, Midas isn't either.
The older man had seemed to agree with the girl, nodding his head with the words that she had spoken. Even turning over to his son, who also seemed to agree with him (though Mr sexy scar face didn't really seem to look all that enthusiastic about his father. What kind of Dad has their kid call them your Majesty, that's seriously fucked up). They spoke of being in a dream-like state before getting pulled out back into reality. They spoke of living as a high luxury (although Lily-Anne couldn't agree) and how it was way better than being dead.
Hedge, that amazing satyr, offered to have murdered them as another solution. Which could lead them into getting out of that mansion, she wasn't that big of having such a big house. Although Lily-Anne wished she could've murdered Midas and his son to get it all over with, the others would probably not agree with her motifs. Seeing as Jason had already disagreed with Coach's suggestion. Even suggesting that the satyr should go out and guard.
"Isn't the place heavily guarded?" She then asked the Son of Jupiter. In which Midas had decided to pull out some trusty remote control switch, whilst he pressed a few buttons. Lily-Anne glanced between the satyr and the older man, her brows raised just to make sure he wasn't kidding around, she didn't want anything bad happening to the satyr, even if he was really annoying at times, he was still dear to her, of course, she would burst if anything bad had happened to him.
As Midas declared the premises to be secure and booby-trap free, the satyr stood up as she heard a few grumbles escape his mouth. It made Lily-Anne feel quite bad that they were kicking him out the conversation, he was technically an adult too but had the aggression of a five-year-old child on a sugar rush. Calling out to him before he left, she flashed him a smile and some words of reassurance, stating that she would scream in terror if she needed his assistance and thanking him for his cooperation.
Turning back over to Midas as Jason had continued his conversation with Midas, he was the wordy one out of all of them, Lily-Anne had no further interest in talking to another royal. She had done well enough the day before, so now, she would let Jason take all the suffering. Somehow the conversation drew further away from why they had chosen Omaha to having Midas compliment his son's title back in the day. Reaper of Men...
Suddenly all Lily-Anne's attraction from the guy had slowly disappeared, knowing she had heard his name full well before. Remembering she had used to joke around with Luke, comparing his scar to this guy's dismemberment, but looking at him personally, made Lily-Anne believe Luke's scar was merely just a tiny scratch on his face. Looking over at Lit, he looked as if he was mauled by a bear.
Then it turned into Jason taking a brochure from Midas, investments in gold or something along those lines. It made sense somehow that this man would start investing in gold, he could be a billionaire if he had wanted to, seeing as everything he had touched had turned purely into gold. If Lily-Anne knew anything about investments (which she absolutely didn't), she would probably find herself investing in gold. Although as the other three didn't seem to know much about Midas, they had to cue in some weird backstory they always did in the comics before an epic battle scene. Seeing as this happens as well in real life, Lily-Anne would sometimes wonder if those comic book writers were secretly demigods in disguise.
And if things couldn't get weirder enough, Piper had decided to toss in one of the backpacks (hoping it was not hers) over to Midas, with the bag slowly morphing into a golden rucksack. Pretty and shiny, yes, but things like this always had consequences, now Lily-Anne needed to know what the catch was. And after turning her head to look over at the frozen, but golden, looking statue of Midas' daughter, she figured they were going to be next.
Next (as if the mood wasn't weird enough), Midas had decided to show them all his famous ass like ears (now that was something she found humour in, praise to Apollo for that). Though from what Lily-Anne could see when she had turned over to Jason, he didn't seem too thrilled with being in the presence of King Midas, rather quite disturbed by the looks of it as he spotted more golden statues.
This reminded Lily-Anne when Annabeth had told the story of when she was in Medusa's lair. This time they seemed to be more at risk because the man could literally (no pun intended) poke them and they would just turn golden.
"So you do have a patron," Jason then declared as Lily-Anne began to listen further into the conversation, knowing they had to leave, now. "You work for the giants."
The old man merely gave a wave of his hands as he was trying to dismiss the fact that he worked alongside the giants. It was similar to how Lily-Anne had dealt with all of it when she had worked for Kronos a while back. The sudden nostalgia made her somewhat sick.
"Well, I don't care for giants myself, of course. But even supernatural armies need to get paid. I do owe my patron a great debt. I tried to explain that to the last group that came through, but they were very unfriendly. Wouldn't cooperate at all."
"The last group?"
"Last group?" Lily-Anne then repeated Jason's words as she perked up, with all eyes on her, though she seemed all too curious with what Midas had meant.
Midas had glanced between the two of them, seeing Lily-Anne's sudden outburst had made him look somewhat interested. A plan maybe?
"Hunters," Lit snarled. "Blasted girls from Artemis."
Somehow, Lily-Anne could feel the sparks fly from Jason as her heart did a little skip. She had felt that he knew what had happened as well, somewhat glad that he knew too.
That his sister, Thalia, was here.
Although once he mentioned the missing demigod (which was obviously Jackson), Lily-Anne lost all interest regarding him. Although something Midas said made her nauseous. Something along the lines of 'They absolutely refused to be turned into gold' made her try and warn the others through her eyes. Unluckily for her, nobody ever seems to pay attention to her in the first place. But when Jason does it, everyone notices. Which was a right jab in the ass for her.
Unsheathing the knife she had placed in her socks that morning, as he began to tumble over towards Piper, Lily-Anne panicked once she had seen the girl turn to gold. Her immediate instinct was to jump off the sofa and run off to catch him from behind. Though it didn't seem to work as her plan was not as foolproof as she thought it was.
You see, he had grabbed a fistful of her hair, and reacting on instinct (and the need to not get turned to gold) she had sliced through a large chunk of her hair. Though her slice was quick and clean, her flight instinct had not been as quick. And before she knew it and had time to process what had just happened, she had realised one very important thing and that is to never run off when a guy who can literally turn you into gold.
Feeling a poke from the right side of her stomach as she had tried to move, she had felt a sudden stiffness surge through her body as her temperature had began to rapidly decrease. She knew she had to call out for someone, and she really wished he had stayed with them instead. But she didn't even have enough time to finish her sentence.
"Coach! Hel-..."
And her vision had faded into darkness.