Being a guinea pig sucked.

Leaving Gem on an island with an evil sorceress also sucked.

Not knowing where everyone else after their ship blew up sucked as well.

Ren's day just generally sucked.

He knew Clarisse was feeling the same way when she muttered curse words under her breath as she rowed their boat with a stolen oar. Whoever owned it was probably off in some classroom getting fawned over by a bunch of elementary-aged kids anyway.

Meanwhile, Ren was sitting on a bench of a rowboat that was way to big for him, being absolutely unhelpful to his big sister and craving lettuce.

He was very sick of being a guinea pig. Hopefully when they went back for Gem, she would have learned enough to turn him back.

She had seemed almost disturbed at the offer to learn magic. And that thing she had said - about how she had done it before, and it hadn't ended well - well Ren had to assume it was from another SMP, unless she had gone for the lore route.

LORELORELORELORELORELORELOREguys what if Ren joined empires
I think I need Ren on empires now

"Are we going for the Fleece?" Ren asked. Or tried, but it came out as REET REET REEEEEEEET.

"I can't understand you," Clarisse growled. "You got yourself turned into a guinea pig, in case you forgot."

Ren squeaked angrily that it wasn't his fault.

"Are we still going for the Fleece?"

Ren reeted that he was trying to ask that.

"I'll take that as a yes," Clarisse said.

That was fine with Ren.

So they kept rowing.

Circe's island faded in the distance, and their surroundings went back to water, water, and - you guessed it - even more water!

Finally, they saw land again - but it wasn't their destination.

"Sirens," Clarisse said. "We need earplugs."

"Just go way around it," Ren tried to suggest.

Clarisse was rummaging in the pack of supplies she had managed to salvage - some rope, an extra t-shirt, a bottle of lotion from Circe's island, several bottles of mineral water that were also from Circe's island, and a nearly empty canteen of nectar.

Clarisse ripped up a couple pieces of the t-shirt and stuffed them in her ears, then took the remains of said t-shirt and wrapped Ren up in them.

Ren felt the air get stuffy really quickly, but he couldn't hear anything so at least that was good.

They passed the island of the Sirens without incident. Ren couldn't see anything happening because of the mass of orange that filled his vision, but when Clarisse let him out of the bundle of t-shirt, the island was nowhere in sight and there was nothing but open ocean.

Ren was pretty sure he was going insane when he squeaked something at Clarisse and she actually replied, although it wasn't an answer to his question.

The had an entire conversation like that. It was pretty one-sided, but they talked about the weather, the island they had left a few hours ago, annoying Athena kids, etc.

Well, Clarisse talked about annoying Athena kids. Ren refused to say anything bad about Annabeth or Zedaph, wherever they may be.

Okay, well maybe he did badmouth a couple of the more annoying Athena kids. But nobody was there to understand him anyway.

Suddenly, they heard a splash - and it wasn't the waves. Guinea pig and demigod looked around, already alert. Ren put his embarrassingly tiny front paws on the handle of his axe, which Clarisse had grabbed along with his clothes ("Ew, you wear Star Wars underwear?"), knowing he wouldn't be able to use it if they were attacked. Despite his pride telling him he had to help, Ren knew that the best thing he could do was hide under a bench and hope Clarisse could figure it out on her own.

They heard another splash and saw a creature racing toward them at an alarming speed - until Ren realized that that creature had a Zedaph on its back. He tugged at Clarisse's shirt and squeaked, "Don't attack!"

Well, it was still a little bit too far away to attack anyway.

The creature, which Ren could see was some hybrid of a horse and a fish, was circling their boat and whinnying.

"There's a person!" Clarisse said. "Wait. That's that Athena kid. He was on my ship too?"

Ren jumped (not very high) and squeaked.

"Wait, you're friends with this guy, aren't you?" Clarisse sighed. "Fine. Come here, horse."

The fish horse thing didn't seem to like being called an ordinary horse, but it came up to the side and let Clarisse half-drag a barely conscious Zedaph into the boat. "What... who... Clarisse?"

Ren tried to be helpful by pushing a water bottle to Clarisse. Instead, it rolled off the bench and went into the depths of the boat never to be seen again.

So Ren went to Zedaph and squeaked at him. He didn't really respond. Ren could tell that he was exhausted, probably dehydrated, and badly sunburned.

Clarisse did the Clarisse thing, picked up the water bottle that Ren had dropped, and dumped it on Zedaph's face.

Zedaph sat up, sputtered something about sea snakes, and rubbed his eyes, suddenly alert.

Ren hopped onto his chest and said hi.

"Why is there a hamster?" Zedaph yelped. "Where did you get a hamster?"

"I'm not a hamster!" Ren protested. "I'm a guinea pig."

"It's kind of cute," Zedaph said.

"He can understand you." Clarisse shoved the now half-empty water bottle at Zedaph, who promptly chugged it.

"He?"

"That's Ren. It's a long story. But he was turned into a guinea pig."

Ren jumped down into the depths of the rowboat, tried to pick up his sunglasses, failed, and realized he couldn't get back up. Clarisse laughed at him and picked him up.

"He's adorable," Zedaph said.

Ren was not happy. But he didn't want to protest, because he knew that they would just think it was cute.

"He kind of is," Clarisse replied.

Ren couldn't resist now. "MY OWN SISTER? You traitor!"

"Aww," Zedaph cooed. "How... exactly did this happen?"

"We went to a spa island that didn't like guys," Clarisse said. "Gem, being the idiot she is, stayed there in exchange for us to leave."

Zedaph thought about that. "We're going back for her, right?"

"Duh," Clarisse grumbled. "This guy would probably scratch me to death if we didn't."

Ren gave them the closest thing he could to a nod.

"Tango and Tyson were with me," Zedaph said. "I don't exactly know what happened. One minute they were there, and then the sea monster came and they were gone." He pulled a few orange scales out of his pocket.

"You killed it?" Clarisse asked.

Zedaph nodded slowly, as if unsure whether Clarisse would kill him or not for showing it.

"That's... cool, I guess," Clarisse grumbled.

But she didn't kill him.

It was a start.

"Are you going for the Fleece?" Zedaph asked.

"Yeah," Clarisse said. "Then we're going back for Gem."

Zedaph nodded, still visibly scared. "So, instead of sitting here awkwardly, we could make a plan-"

"There's no planning for a Cyclops," Clarisse growled. "There's definitely no planning for rescuing a satyr from a cave that we're not sure the layout of. I'm all for battle plans, but it's kind of impossible."

"Oh," Zedaph said.

Ren could do nothing but listen to all of this.

With the combination of impending doom and children of Ares and Athena on the same boat, it was going to be a long day.