I had woken up on the verandah of the big house. There was a cover thrown over my lap, it had pictures of growing vines and red strings on it. In my hand was what was undoubtedly a Glas of nectar.
I could hear people playing while others were sparing or out on the lake, gliding over it in their canoues.
Grover was next to me, trying to make me take a sip. He looked good but there was this expression on his face that irritated me slightly.
"I'm sorry, Percy. I should have been able to protect both her and you." he said, interrupting my thought process.
Well, now I knew why he had looked like that. It was guilt. He felt guilty for failing to protect my mother and me even when he didn't have to.
" Grover,... " I spoke, trying to establish eye contact with his shifting eyes. "... It wasn't your fault. God's intervened and no one can expect a satyr, regardless of age and power, to overcome that. And besides. You job wasn't to protect my mother but to bring me to camp. Which you did. Successfully if I might add."
Grover had started to relax while he listened to me talk. No doubt because he had feared that I would hate him for the" death"of my mother.
But then that stupid insecurity of his reared its head.
"Percy, I know there is no easy way to say this but are you sure about that? I mean... I mean she is dead because of me." So he blamed himself for her presumed death.
I wasn't having any of that. I just woke up from a nightmare that, if it had translated into an increase in actual age, would have made me the oldest living being in this entire dimension, even if you added the age of everything that had lived up to this point including anyone still alive to this point, and then multiplied it by a googol (A 1 with 100 zeros behind it.).
Yeah, now your head is swimming with impossible numbers isn't it.
But even if it hadn't been translated into an actual addition to my age, it had still added to my mental development, my experience and more.
I spoke languages that had yet to be invented by a race whoes ancestors hadn't even developed yet.
"Grover, Mom wouldn't blame you for this either so don't feel guilty over something outside of your control. Lets just..." but I was interrupted before I could continue.
A camper, not one I knew of, appeared from behind us and told us that Chiron and Mr. D were waiting for us in the house.
We didn't need to be told twice as Grover helped me up by throwing my arm across his shoulder, steadying me so that I wouldn't fall.
What can I say, the nightmare left me weakened for the time being.
It took us only a few seconds, certainly less than a minute to arrive but when we did, something majestic awaited us.
Just kidding, Mr. D, also known as Dionysius, looked like he had in the books. Like a cherub turned middle-aged in a trailer park.
Chiron was still trying to hide his identity as a centaur by disguising his horsepower as a motorized wheelchair.
They were playing pinocle, a game I had only recently learned about in my nightmare. Over the years I had actually grown pretty good at it, if I may say so myself. But I had no intention of showing that niche-skill I had developed. It would just raise some questions as the last official rule work on it had been released in ancient Greece even before Rome had began to conquer it.
So knowing the rules as someone that was supposed to be oblivious to the existence of the pantheon, was very very suspicious and might even be cause for concern for a certain airhead.
But let's be honest, Zeus would be suspicious of an orange if you told him it would try to kill him, no need for a curse or an oracle either.
"Mr. D, if I may introduce to you the new arrival, Perseus Jackson. Though he does like to go by the name of Percy."
Chiron had said, not even leaving his wheelchair.
"Why should I care about what he likes to be called. Anyway, Peter Joan. We need two more people to play this game with and you will join whether you like it or not. Mr. Underwood, you will, too. And for your information, you better hope this takes longer than normal as we will have something to talk about after this."
Dionysius voice was drenched in dry sarcasm but atleast he wasn't as mean about it as he could have been.
We began playing this game, with me pretending to not know the rules and them not saying a word about the many mistakes I purposely made.
During the game we talked about the fact that the gods are real, shocker I know. And even the fact that monsters could be killed but would come back eventually, who could have know. And while we played, I knew someone was watching from behind me, looking at my hand and listening in on the conversation.
Considering that no one was visible behind me, I deduced that it must have been Annabeth Chase using her Yankees cap.
I couldn't wait to confuse the shit out of her by pretending to be a child of hephestus for a bit, but I would have to discuss this with the God himself beforehand. Wouldn't want the God of blacksmiths to be cross with me.
After the game had finished, Chiron had unsurprisingly won, Mr. D used his power over mental illnesses on me, probably to see if there was something wrong with me that would lead to problems in the future.
I could only speculate what he detected, but judging from the rather massive and instant change in his expression I could guess that he had noticed my traumas, most of which I had managed to overcome, with exception of my most recent nightmare, and my rather impressive collection of weird impulses and though patterns I had developed over the years in said nightmare.
Then he ordered Annabeth to show me cabin 12, the cabin of Hermes.
After we had walked a few meters, with Dionysius probably thinking we were out of earshot, he turned to Chiron and asked"What the fuck Is wrong with that child? I thought his first monster was that fury! Why did I just find out it was fucking Kampe!"
Huh, it seems those nightmares left deeper marks than I had expected.