Let's take a moment to appreciate this drawing ^^

Sylvia looked out the window of the van. It was all she could do not to throw up everywhere. Zoe's driving was almost worse than Thalia's.

As they drove, she thought about Nico. She really hoped he'd be okay without Bianca or herself. He was (surprisingly) up before Sylvia left, so she was able to say goodbye to him. No matter how many times she asked, though (because she felt bad for the poor girl), he wouldn't agree to wishing Bianca good luck or anything.

She'd ended up asking Will right before she left to talk to Nico regularly and be a friend to him that was actually his age, though she felt like he would've done that otherwise, given his very secret crush on the di Angelo boy, but it was better safe than sorry. Of course, that meant Nico would probably be in the infirmary--extremely bored--half the time, but you win some and you lose some, y'know?

Lux squeezed her hand tightly. Usually, Sylvia wouldn't like that, but it was Lux, so it was fine. She was pretty sure they were feeling carsick, too.

"Zoe, how about you let someone else drive?" Sylvia suggested. "If any of the cops notice you, we'll be done for. You look a lot younger than you actually are."

In almost any other context, that would be a sort of compliment, but apparently the huntress didn't take it that way. She just scoffed and shook her head.

Sylvia thought back to her previous conversations. One was with Chiron, who warned her about the dangers of both her quest and, for some reason, music. He'd given no other explanation to what that meant, though.

Then there was the one with Zoe. Though that one was more of an argument. If being a Hunter meant listening to her for eternity, Sylvia definitely wouldn't become one. The discussion was about Phoebe, who the Stolls had pranked with centaur blood, which was poisonous. They most likely put the blood on the inside of the shirt they gave her. She was apparently covered in hives. Sylvia knew there wasn't a way she or any of her siblings would be able to heal her in time, so she tried to convince Zoe to take Clarisse on the quest instead, but she was adamant on saying no, insisting that the camp was the land without rain where they were supposed to lose someone, although Sylvia could tell the lieutenant didn't really believe her own words.

After a while, Sylvia got bored. "Where are we, and will we stop soon?"

That very second, Zoe pulled into a rest stop. "We are in Maryland. We'll only be stopped for a few minutes, so hurry."

She made it seem like it was life-or-death, instead of just 'go pee now or you'll regret it,' which is what Sylvia would've said.

She entered the convinuence store with Lux and waited outside while they were in the bathroom. She kept both hands in her pockets at all times, one on the steel knife, and one on a celestial bronze one. Fawkes was previously asleep in her pocket, but woke up when she got out, flew to the roof, and laid down on it, apparently absorbing sunlight, kinda like photosynthesis. Sylvia guessed the phoenix deserved it.

Lux exited the washroom and Sylvia entered. While on the toilet, she noticed a 'smudge' of blood.

Great, she thought, sighing. Of course I get it at the most inconvenient time possible. I couldn't have gotten it last week, when I was doing nothing but working at the infirmary, or next week, when I'll either be dead or finished with this quest. Why the heck is it even this early?

At least I have tampons, she reminded herself, grabbing one from one of her pockets.

When she was done in the restroom, she washed up, added a tiny bit of makeup, because her period usually made her face look bleh, and headed out the door, joining Lux, who had waited for her. She made a split-second decision to get hot chocolate for her and her sibling, because damn, it looked good, and joined Thalia, Bianca, Zoe, and Grover as they left the store.

"Grover, are you sure?" Thalia was saying.

"Well...pretty sure. Ninety-nine percent. Okay, eighty-five percent."

"And you did this with acorns?" Bianca looked like she couldn't believe it.

Grover seemed offended. "It's a time-honoured tracking song. I mean, I'm pretty sure I did it right."

"Do it again," Sylvia advised, making him jump. Apparently, he hadn't noticed her or Lux. "I should be able to tell if you did it properly or not. I spent quite a while learning all the music-related woodland magic I could with a few satyrs a couple months ago."

"Wait, but those are only for satyrs," Grover said. "Oh, and other nature spirits."

Sylvia was confused. "I made a few tree roots dance and was able to locate the flag in Capture-the-Flag multiple times until Chiron banned me from using it in games. I'm pretty sure that wasn't just luck or a hallucination."

Grover furrowed his eyebrows. "That's weird."

"I-is that maybe a chi-child-child of Apollo thing?" Lux asked, flinching slightly when everyone looked at them. "Sylveon--I mean Sylvia told-told me we had cer-cert-certain control over music."

"Maybe." Grover looked doubtful. "I don't remember it ever happening, though."

"D.C. is about sixty miles from here," Bianca said suddenly, as if just remembering. "Nico and I..." She frowned. "We used to live there. That's...that's strange. I'd forgotten."

"I dislike this," Zoe said.

I dislike you, Sylvia thought. Fawkes suddenly landed on her shoulder, making her jump slightly.

And here I thought you figured out who Zoe was, she sighed.

When was that? Sylvia asked.

Last night, Fawkes replied. After you woke up in the middle of the night.

Sylvia strained to remember something, anything, but all she had was a fuzzy memory of sitting up in her bunk.

Um...I can't exactly remember. Can you tell me?

No. You have to figure this out on your own.

Gods, you sound like Chiron when he was talking about being wary of music, Sylvia complained.

You should break up that fight between Zoe and Thalia. Fawkes suddenly changed the subject. Sylvia glanced at them. Thalia was talking about scullery maids, or something like that.

"Whoa, you two," Grover said, nervously glancing at Sylvia, as if wondering if she'd join the fight or not. "Come on. Not again!"

"Grover's right," Bianca said. "D.C. is our best bet."

Zoe didn't look convinced, but she nodded reluctantly.

"You're going to get us arrested," Thalia grumbled. "Sylvia and I look closer to sixteen than you do, and Sylvia's definitely a better driver."

"Perhaps," Zoe snapped. "But I have been driving automobiles since they were invented. Let us go."

* * *

Lux grabbed onto Sylvia's hand for the nineteenth time. They felt like they were going to vomit any second now. Zoe was really bad at driving.

Lux started thinking about Zoe to distract themselves. Sylveon had explained how the Hunters worked and how they could be extremely old yet look nine, but they wondered just how old Zoe was. Had she really been there when cars were first made? If she had, could she maybe tell Lux about it? Of course, they'd never actually ask her, but it'd be cool to know.

Lux and Sylvia struck up a sort-of conversation a minute or so before they entered Washington.

(Too lazy to use Google Translate but this is all in French) "We're almost in Washington, right?" Sylvia asked.

"Yep. I've been th-there once or twice. It-it's an okay plac-place," Lux replied, noting the slight difference between Canadian and France French. "And there's the Potomac River." They pointed to it as the van crossed the water.

"Whoa," Sylveon breathed. "It's beautiful."

Lux nodded. Zoe parked at the curb. Grover pointed toward a big building lining the Mall as he climbed out of the back seat. "That's where we're supposed to go."

"You 100% sure?" Thalia asked.

"He did the tracking song correctly," Sylvia reminded her. "Something important is definitely in there."

"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" The daughter of Zeus grinned. "Let's go!"

Short and mostly unedited, but I haven't updated in a while soo. 

Also basically a complete filler chapter cause I'm special that way *hair flip.*

I started school again, so my updates will most likely get less frequent.

QOTD: On the topic of school, what's your favourite subject?

A: English. I just really like grammar. And reading. And writing.

Anyways, see y'all later.

-Eevee