Previously:
"Oh, Oracle of Delphi, where can we find Thanatos?" Nico spoke up since I was frozen, thrown off by the sudden change of topic.

"Demigods and Witch facing dangers untold,
Travel south to fields of gold.
North and South must they search,
Only to be found and sent with a voice.
For Death has made his choice."

"Di immortales," I muttered just as Rachel came out of the green mist trance. "Way to make it sound as morbid as possible."

Dinner that night was...strange. I know Harry was thrilled to be in a place where his celebrity status didn't matter that much. The miracle of not dying when everyone expects you to has grown old thanks to me. He seemed happier, was making more friends. Same with Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Penny.

Hermione and Ginny seemed to gravitate toward the children of Athena. For completely different reasons. I think that Ginny might have a field day when she meets any children of Ares. She has found kindred spirits in the fierce attitudes that they both seem to have. She was currently having an arm wrestle with a red headed son of Athena. Hermione was fascinated by everything that they knew about the mythical creatures. Not to mention the way the Hecate children do magic. I know for a fact that the book she is reading right now at the Hecate table is not found in the wizarding world at all.

Ron found a chess buddy in the Hermes cabin and has been playing for the entirety of the meal. Which was saying something because Ron rarely missed an opportunity to eat.

Of course because Harry's celebrity status didn't mean much in this part of the world, meant that all awed gazes were on me.

I sat with Penny, Grover, and Rachel at Poseidon's table with my head bowed over my pizza. Avoiding all eye contact and trying to not draw any attention to myself. So far, no one was doing anything.

We all know how long that lasts.

"WHAT?"

I winced at the sudden noise and instinctively looked up to see what was going on. My head popped over Grover's at the same time Conner stood up from his table. The last person I knew personally who was physically in camp...I think.

Silence.

"PERCY!"

"H-hey, Conner," I replied.

He was suddenly sitting on one side of Grover with his tray of food in front of him. "I didn't realize you were coming to visit! I didn't think you were ever going to come back!"

"Well, Harry, Hermione, and my siblings wanted to check out camp for themselves and I needed to do somethings for Hecate, Medusa, and myself." I now turned to Penny. "Which reminds me, I need to pick a few things up from the Athena cabin before we leave tomorrow."

"You're leaving already?" Conner said, sounding disappointed.

"A quest," I answered. "I was just filling Grover in. Not that he's coming."

"Why not, Percy?" Grover asked, poking at his food moodily.

"We might have to go back to the Underworld again." I said flatly. "You made me promise when we got back last time that I would never make you go there again."

Grover was still at that. "You have a point." He finally said.

"Anyways, since you're here too, do you mind helping Grover out with something while Penny, Nico, and I are gone?" I turned to Conner.

"Anything, Perce!" He said enthusiastically.

"Keep an eye on my siblings, Harry, and Hermione." I said. "They don't know how things work here and may not know that some things are too dangerous for them to handle. They'll test you on that."

"Do you not want them to train?" Conner asked, slightly confused.

"No, I definitely want them to train," I quickly said. "I just don't want them to encounter the harpies after dark, the lava in the kitchens, the forest, fighting with Clarisse if she shows up—in fact, I should introduce them to Mrs. O'Leary so they don't accidentally get on her bad side, and don't forget about—"

"I get it Percy," Conner interrupted me with a laugh. "You're an overprotective brother."

"Am not!"

"Yes, you are, Perce." Penny was laughing too now. Along with Grover and Nico.

"It's not my fault they have a propensity for getting into danger," I said, folding my arms across my chest. "Remember what happened at the ministry?"

"They'll be safe while your'e gone." Conner assured me. "Oh, and Percy?"

"What?" I said, pouting a little.

"The red hair looks good on you."

"No thanks to you and Travis."

-            -            -

The campfire that night was blurry. I hardly remembered the songs sung and very public introduction of myself. (Thanks Chiron for that). I was too nervous about telling Ron, Ginny, Harry, and Hermione about leaving them tomorrow morning.

It wasn't any better now that they were sitting in front of me waiting for me to explain myself before we finally went to bed.

"Penny, Nico and I are going on a quest tomorrow to figure out what we can do about Harry's situation." I said. "Conner, the counselor for the Hermes Cabin, Lou Ellen, and Grover will be here to help out if you need it. I asked them to keep an eye on you. As long as you don't do anything stupid like go into the forest, you'll all be fine."

"You're leaving? Where are you going?" Ron demanded.

"As far as we know, we're going south," Penny answered. "The prophecy wasn't much more clear than that."

"We'll find out more as we get going," I continued. "That's always how it goes."

"What does the prophecy say?" Hermione asked.

I recited it for her and waited as she sat contemplating it.

"'North and South must they search,'" Hermione muttered. "Right after it says that you need to go south? That's not very clear at all, is it?"

"Actually, I looked at a map earlier and I think that it means we need to look at both North Carolina and South Carolina." I said. "Not a hundred percent sure on that though."

Penny stared at me in stunned surprise. "Percy, that's brilliant!"

"How are you going to get there?" Ginny asked.

"There's a train route that goes south," I said. "We can make stops along the way to make sure that we're on the right track."

"We'll check in every so often to see how you are all doing and update you on our status." Penny said, smiling reassuringly.

"We'll be fine, Percy," Harry said. "We might even learn a few things to teach the DA when we get back so we can use it against Voldemort."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course your mind would go there."

-            -            -

Penny and I stood on the top of Half-Blood Hill waiting for Nico the morning of our quest. We both had backpacks filled with essentials; ambrosia, nectar, drachmas, and extra clothes. My bag was the never ending space one I had gotten from Hermes and it was filled with books about Horcruxes, non conventional cures to petrifaction, magic the Hecate children had figured out, spell making in the wizarding world, Latin, and Greek. We had a lot to do this summer and whatever time we had on this quest that wasn't traveling, I would be reading up on topics to prepare me for the school year and whatever else I could think of that would help us.

Hecate, Penny, and I agreed that she would look over the cures to Medusa's petrifying curse, and I would be preparing my curriculum for next year. Penny took up the responsibility of looking up everything to do with Horcruxes. Both on the wizard side and the mythical side.

It took some convincing of Penny to get her to leave her traveling robes behind. She didn't seem to realize that no one in the mortal world wore things like cloaks now a days. Although in some parts of the country during certain times of the year, hardly anyone would pay her a glance. I didn't want to risk it.

"Ready to go, Percy?"

I jumped almost two feet in the air at Nico's sudden arrival. He walked out of the shadows like you would a doorway. Narrowing my eyes at him, I sniffed. "I was ready an hour ago—"

"No you weren't, Percy," Penny interrupted.

"—and shouldn't you avoid shadow traveling so much?" I continued as if she hadn't said anything. "I seem to remember that you had major energy drains after shadow traveling years ago."

"The key word there is years," Nico said, as if I was thick in the head. "I have honed the power enough so that I don't waste so much energy when I shadow travel now."

"Humph!" I said, crossing my arms.

Argus was already down the hill with the van. We piled inside and told the many eyed man to take us to the train station. The trip was quiet, the fact that neither Nico or I were huge morning people had a factor in that. Penny sat in the front passenger seat, quietly chatting away with Argus while Nico and I got about 30 more minutes of sleep.

Then we got to the train station, found our train, boarded it, and got a few more hours of sleep.

Putting things off was a skill honed during the summer. Penny apparently didn't appreciate that because she kicked us both awake before the train even left Jersey. The darned Ravenclaw.

"What?" Nico demanded grumpily.

"We need to discuss possible places for the fields of gold mentioned in the prophecy." Penny said, her hands on her hips. She towered over us, with a glare she only could have perfected from Molly, before finally sitting down across from us.

"Fields of gold?" Nico muttered, still not quite awake.

"'Travel south to fields of gold,'" Penny recited. "'North and south must they search.' We've established that could mean North and South Carolina. I am not familiar with the geography of this country so you will need to think of places."

"What makes you think we know anything about North or South Carolina?" I protested. "I'm from New York!"

"And I'm from a hotel in Nevada!" Nico threw in.

"How do you know know anything about the states in your own country?" Penny asked, incredulous.

"Do you know how big the United States is?" I returned.

"There are some things that are consistent throughout countries no matter what," Penny persisted.

"McDonalds," Nico said immediately.

"Starbucks," I said almost as quickly.

"Monsters," Nico said now.

"The Labyrinth?" I suggested.

Penny snapped her fingers in front of our faces just as Nico opened his mouth to suggest something else. "Focus! Do any of those things have anything to do with fields of gold?"

"French fries," Nico said.

"Coffee?" I said, a little unsure about Starbucks.

"Gold dust," Nico said, nodding his head firmly.

"...Monster dust?"

"You two are hopeless." Penny said, deadpanned.

"I try," I smirked.

"What about actual fields?" Penny suggested, seeing as neither Nico or I were going to help. "Or places you would harvest gold?"

"Harvest gold?" Nico repeated.

"I was trying to think outside the box!" Penny said, throwing her hands up. "You weren't thinking of anything!"

"She may be onto something," I said thoughtfully. "Anything underground is part of Hades' domain, right?"

"It's more Pluto's thing, really," Nico said, still not on board with the idea.

"Still, it wouldn't hurt to check some of the mines we see." I pointed out.

____________________________________

BOOM!

Coughing, Nico, Penny, and I rushed out of the shaft and into the sunlight. That monster was not happy to see us at all. I was forced to use the earth shaking abilities I got from my dad so we could escape.

"'It wouldn't hurt to check out the mines,'" Nico said in a mock version of my voice.

That had been the third gold mine we visited that day. At each one of them, some monster had made one of them their home and were not happy with us trespassing.

The three of us had slept through the stops in North Carolina and almost missed the last stop for South Carolina if it hadn't been for my grumbling stomach. We rushed off the train, found a McDonalds at Nico's insistence, and decided to find a hotel for the night. The decision to wait until the next morning to look at the mines in the area was made for us, considering how all the mines nearby had been closed for two hours already.

"Oh, shut up!" I grumbled, eyeing our surroundings. I wanted to make sure that no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary in our direction. The last two mines we were kicked out because the security thought we were obnoxious teenagers. This one, we had found an opening a little out of the way and not so close to the tourists. Fortunately, no one was coming our way but that likely wasn't going to last long. "What are we even looking for?" I asked as we walked quickly into the woods, out of the way.

"We'll know it when we see it," Nico said. "You know this, Percy, you've been on quests before."

"It's been a few years," I muttered.

"Can we try an actual field now?" Nico demanded.

"I think that would be best," Penny said, sighing. "Maybe it really isn't so out of the box as I thought it would be. Percy made it seem like prophecies wouldn't be so straightforward."

"They aren't ever what they seem," I said in an effort to defend myself. "They often have double meanings, and often, we go for the wrong one."

The closest field we found was on the north-east side of North Carolina. I had been expecting the golden fields of grain that the national song was so famous for. Instead we got flowers. Little, four petaled, yellow flowers covering the hillsides. (AN: I know this flower is more of a winter crop, just work with me here)

"What are they?" Penny asked, looking at the field in awe.

"I don't know," I said, looking at the flowers with trepidation. Something felt off about this field. As beautiful as it was, something just felt wrong.

I got my answer as we were wading in the field of flowers, wandering across the vast field, looking for the thing we didn't know we were looking for. I was hoping it was Thanatos himself but of course it wouldn't be that easy.

No. A mob of karpoi had to surround us in the middle of no where.

"And what are your names?" I demanded, I hated these things.

"Perseus Jackson..."

"No, that's my name, what is yours?" I said firmly, as if talking to a wayward toddler.

"Perseus Jackson, searching, searching..."

"Look, I don't have time for this," I said, rubbing my eyes in frustration. "I have a school year to plan, a world to save, I don't have time to argue about my name or convincing you to not eat us or whatever so here's the thing," I paused. "You're going to tell me what your names are, or I am going to burn the field."

"Percy!"

"These things are evil, Penny, they worked for Gaea one time." I protested, pointing my finger accusingly at the short, green skinned monsters. "Their friend's names were Wheat, Barley, and Sorghum." I whirled on the mob, which was noticeably smaller than before. I guess my threat to burn the field had some weight. "Now, what are your names?"

"Rapeseed," one karpoi said meekly, looking down at their feet. I wasn't about to be fooled though.

"Rapeseed, what are you doing here?" I demanded firmly, my hands on my hips.

"Perseus Jackson, perfect sacrifice for Aristaeus." Rapeseed said quietly.

"Aristaeus?" I questioned. "Who's that?"

"Sacrifice?" Penny said. "Percy, how could you ignore that part?"

"It's happened so often, now, I hardly notice it." I waved my hand.

"Aristaeus is a minor god of bees," Nico spoke up.

"Bees?" I rose my eye brow at my cousin.

"It's a bit more complicated than that but that's the simple answer." Nico sighed. "He is credited for instructing mortals in agricultural, viticultural, and bee keeping pursuits."

"Why would he need me as a sacrifice?" I asked.

"Killed a dryad," the karpos said helpfully.

Nico nodded in understanding. "One myth said that when his bees had unexpectedly died, it was because he had accidentally killed Eurydice, a dryad, and Orpheus' wife. He had to make a sacrifice to her sisters and Orpheus to show he was sorry."

"Tell him to find another sacrifice, I'm busy," I told Rapeseed, who nodded quickly before disappearing in a whirlwind of the yellow flowers that surrounded us.

"That was a surprisingly peaceful resolution for you." the new voice made the three of us jump in surprise.

"Lady Persephone!" Nico exclaimed.

"Hello, Nico," Persephone said calmly.

"To be fair," I held up a finger, after getting over my shock. "I am not the one who starts the fight unless someone is asking for it."

"Yes, we've all heard the story of how you fought the god of war when you were twelve," she waved her hand, unimpressed. "My husband would not stop talking about it for months."

I blinked in surprise. "Hades talks about me?"

"Indeed," Persephone said, a weird twinkle in her eye. She looked very different from when I saw her last in the Underworld. There, she was almost deathly pale, her hair was dark and curled around as if it was floating. She had worn a dress that had all sorts of blooming flowers that billowed around her like smoke, but it was faded. As if it were incredibly old.

Up here, she was a different kind of beautiful. More alive. Her dress still floated around her like smoke, but it was brightly colored. Her hair was lighter, almost golden, and her skin had a healthy amount of color to it. Out of all of it, her eyes were the most captivating. Being no longer washed out, they sparkled with many colors, which only made her smile look more mischievous.

"Would you join me for a picnic?" The goddess suddenly said. Before we had a chance to respond, we were sitting down on a red and white checkered blanket with a wicker basket and an assortment of foods surrounding us.