Disclaimer:

The characters belong to Rick Riordan, as do the PJO and HoO series.

Written by:

@libraryhaunter

@AmAeRaI

@Chilea

@The__Crazy_Girl

@BrokenTimeTurner

[♆SaLLy♆]

This was not what she had expected. Of course she had known that the cabin wouldn't be in the best of shape. It had been too cheap for that. But this was worse than she expected. The cabin was half sunken in the sand, and had once been pastel colored, but now most of the paint had been washed away. The curtains had probably once been colored a dark blue, but had now faded so much that they looked white.

Never mind, she told herself. I expected to spend most of my time outdoors anyway.

As she locked the cabin door she realized something. She was going to have to spend most of this day indoors. There were spiderwebs everywhere, and the floor was  covered with a thick layer of sand.

Well, at least there were cleaning materials.

Then she started to clean. She cleaned the ceiling, shook the sheets outdoors, scrubbed the windows and the curtains, then the cabinets (a lot of spiders had to find a new home), the bathroom, the floor, and at last all she had to do was unpack.

She was in the middle of making her bed when a man stepped in. She quickly looked down at his feet. He wore leather sandals. Her I-just-cleaned instinct took over.

"Could you please take off your sandals? I just cleaned."

He took off the sandals, and she gave herself time to study him. He was tall, and looked to be around her age. He wore khaki Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt which, she admitted,  looked good with his jet black hair. Judging from his tan, he spent most of his time at the beach. But what really caught her eye was the glowing green trident he held loosely in one hand.

"Why are you holding a trident?" The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them.

The man's sea green eyes glinted with amusement. "You can see it?"

She nearly let out a sigh of relief. This time, apparently, it wasn't just her seeing things. "How could I miss a two meter long glowing trident?"

The man frowned.

"I was sure I took the shorter one today," he muttered.

Okay, so, apparently, he had a collection of glowing tridents. It was not her weirdest day yet, but it was close on.

"So, why are you holding a trident?" she asked again.

The man snapped his fingers.

"I'm not holding a trident. It's just a fishing rod."

She looked confusedly at him. "No, it's a trident. I'm pretty sure it's not a fishing rod."

"Come on, Hecate. This is not the time to take some time off," the man muttered.

Hecate? The name sounded familiar.

"Sorry, but there are no Hecate's in this area. Are you okay?"

"Oh, sorry. I am fine. Uh, the reason I'm holding the trident is..." The man looked like he was thinking hard. "Is that I've just been participating in a roleplay, not far away from here."

"So you were holding a roleplay way out of the tip on Long Island?" she asked sceptical.

The man held up his free hand in surrender.

"Okay, fine. I'm actually Poseidon, god of the sea."

"Yeah, and I'm Athena." She wasn't sure exactly why Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom's name had suddenly popped up, after having been buried in her mind for so many years.

"Oh, trust me, you don't even get near to being as annoying as her. Even though you're certainly doing a great job."

Sally took a deep breath, and cursed herself for not packing her phone. "Okay, now please explain who you're living with."

He frowned. "My wife."

"Okay, where do you live?"

"In the sea."

The man was even crazier than she'd thought.

"You don't believe me do you?" He asked her.

"No, of course I do, because it's completely normal to live in the sea," she answered sarcastically.

"Okay then, let's try something different. Have you never seen something weird? Come on. You can tell me. I'm the one who claims he's a Greek god."

The weirdest thing she had ever seen? Was that the horse with a fish tail, the man with one eye in his forehead, or the giant dog with sharp fangs? Then a long forgotten memory washed over her.

She was standing alone in a car wash. Her parents had told her that if she got lost in the city, they would meet here. As she waited, two teenagers, a boy and a girl, walked over to the waterpump, and started pumping. A spray of water arced through the air. It caught the sun, creating a small rainbow.

The boy, still pumping to keep the water going, started talking. "O Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering."

The girl threw a golden coin into the water, and to Sally's surprise and confusion it didn't drop to the ground. "Show me Chiron, Camp Half-Blood."

The image of a man appeared in the spray.

"Matt, Susan. Glad to see you. How is your quest going?" He asked, and stepped a bit back to reveal that his bottom half was a horse. Sally bit back a gasp.

"Hey, Chiron," the boy, Matt, said. "The quest is going great. We're only a day away from the leopard."

The horse-man smiled. "That is good news. Our...difficult...director will be pleased. So, why were you IM-ing me?"

"Well," the girl started. "We just wanted to update you...and find out if Mila's okay, of course."

Chiron laughed. "Don't worry, Susan. Mila's making a wonderful recovery. For now, you should concentrate on your quest."

Susan nodded. "I was just worried after the incident-"

The boy gave the girl's shoulder a squeeze.

"You heard him, Susan. Mila's doing fine. Now, let's get going before we attract a monster."

As he finished his sentence, a woman entered the car wash. And...she had no legs. In their place were two thick snakes. Sally had to blink a couple of times to make sure what she was seeing was real. When she was sure it was, in fact, real, she clapped a hand over her mouth and moved back as fast as possible, hitting the wall of the car wash.

The two teenagers turned around.

"Di Immortales!" the girl exclaimed, seeming to fumble for something at her waist.

"What do we do?" the boy asked, taking a few steps back. "Fight or run?"

"Run," the girl decided. "There are no plants here."

Then the teenagers ran, with the snakewoman slithering behind them, and soon all of them were out of sight, leaving only the rainbow image behind. The horse-man cut through the rainbow, and soon Sally was the only one left there.

She looked down at the ground. Not wanting to meet the man's eyes.

"You promise not to laugh, right?" She asked hesitantly.

"I promise."

"Okay, there was this one time, I got lost in New York and my parents had told me that if I got lost, I should meet them in this car wash. I walked over to it, and suddenly this boy and girl came in. They made a rainbow appear in the water from a pump, and threw a golden coin into it, asking Iris, some kind of rainbow goddess, to show them Chiron in Camp Half-Blood. Then this image of a centaur appeared. The kids talked to him about some quest for some kind of director. Then suddenly this woman with two snakes instead of legs popped up. The kids ran, and the snake-woman chased them."

She could feel the man's eyes boring into her head.

"Even though you saw all that, you still find it hard to believe I'm a Greek god?"

She took some time to find the right answer. "I've been taught my whole life that there's no such thing as magic, monsters and supernatural forces. That all this is my imagination. So how could I not?"

"Sally, I promise you it's real."

The mentioning of her name shook her out of her trance. Why was she telling this to a completely stranger? And how did he know her name? This was madness. She looked up from the floor and gave the man a cold stare.

"How do you know my name?" she demanded.

The man looked taken back by her sudden mood shift.

"You told me."

"I didn't! Now I'm going to ask you one more time. How do you know my name?"

"I'm a Greek god, remember?" His eyes twinkled as he looked at her.

You need to stop reading. Your books are getting weird ideas into your head. Magic doesn't exist! Her uncle's voice echoed through her head. This was just her imagination.

"There are no gods," she told herself. "This will all be gone in a moment."

The man growled in frustration.

"Why are you mortals so stubborn?"

She ignored him.

"Sally, what am I going to have to do before you believe me?"

"Show me you're real," she challenged.

The man took two steps forward, and took an easy grip on her arm.

"Well, then. Do you want to see how I can live in the water?"

Great, now I'm going to get myself drowned. But then a rebellious lust struck her. This was her chance to see if magic was real.

"I swear if we drown-" She let the sentence hang threateningly in the air.

The man laughed.

"Don't worry, we won't." He started pulling her out of the cabin, and out onto the beach. She felt her bare feet sink down into the sand and slow her down, but the man didn't seem to have the same problem.

Soon the cold water was tickling her feet but the man kept walking.

"Um, isn't this far out enough?" she asked.

"Well, how are you going to see the sea if the water's only reaching your ankles?" the man pointed out.

She let him drag him further. His hands were wonderfully warm.

Now the water was reaching her breast. She was starting to regret she had chosen a white blouse that day.

The man turned around. "Are you ready to dive under the surface?"

She nodded, and then she dived with her eyes closed.

"Open your eyes," a deep voice said.

She opened them, only to be greeted with the sight of the man. Around her was some kind of bubble there was shielding her from the water. She looked around to find out who had talked.

"You can breathe down here. Just let the air out," the same voice said.

She realized the man must have been the one talking. The water must have distorted his voice.

She opened her mouth and let fresh air in.  She could breathe underwater.

"How?"

The man smiled. "I did say I was the sea god, didn't I?"

She let out a laugh, finally accepting the weird reality. "This is amazing! So all the weird things I've seen... they're all from the Greek myths?"

The man, no, Poseidon, smiled. "Yes."

"So all those things-" she shook her head-"Why am I the only who can see them?"

"It's because of this magical mist which shields the magical world from mortals' eyes. Well," he added. "Ordinary mortals. I've got a feeling you're not very ordinary, Sally Jackson."

She felt herself blush, and hurriedly covered it up with another question.

"So, what's Camp Half-Blood?"

"It's the place where the gods' demigod-half god, half human, whom they've had with mortals-children go. It's a place where they are safe from all the monsters out there."

"Wow. So, do you have any demigod children?"

Poseidon shook his head. "No."

Then she realized something.

"What were you doing, exactly, in my cabin?"

Poseidon nervously scratched his neck. "I usually go there to have some time alone to think."

She instantly felt bad. "I ruined that, didn't I?"

Poseidon smiled at her. It reminded her of waves crashing on the beach in the early morning. And those crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled...she shook her head. Why was she thinking that?

"No, you changed it for the better. You are amusing me, Sally Jackson."

She pointed a finger at him. "And you, Poseidon, are amusing me."

Poseidon laughed. "But, then, let's not waste our time drifting around. Let's talk."