A/N: I finally found a way to get this chapter down on paper (screen actually)
Disclaimer: I'm not a man… No need to say more.
Enjoy!
I get a story and become really confused
Percy Jackson POV
Annabeth and Iris just stood and looked at each other, Iris smirking and Annabeth confused and slightly scarred. Grover, Nico and myself had told her about our, uhm… drive we got from Apollo.
Grover and Nico just looked resignedly each other. Tyson had almost the same face as Annabeth: he was confused.
I saw the horizon start to glow in a golden light.
"If I were you, I would look away." Iris told us. Considering Artemis had told me the exact same, about three years ago, I grabbed Annabeth and turned her around while covering my own and her eyes, before I closed my eyes I saw Nico do the exact same with Tyson while Grover turned around and held his eyes completely closed.
I could feel the heat, before I heard Apollo yell. "Hey princess!"
I turned around, still holding on to Annabeth, and saw Iris being swung around in a hug by Apollo, both looking veryhappy.
Then they faced us again, they looked like they had a conversation, except they didn't talk and they didn't even look at each other, because Apollo stood behind Iris and held his arms around her waist.
"Guess we should get going, the west coast would probably like some sunshine." Apollo said, while changing his car to one of those cars with room for seven persons. He motioned to us that we should get in.
"Why can't I drive?"Iris asked, while opening the front door in the passenger side.
Grover, Annabeth and I sat in the middle row behind the two gods, while Nico and Tyson sat in the back.
No one spoke a word, when the car took off ground. For a while nobody talked, the only thing you could hear was the sound of the radio, when Iris and Apollo fought over the channels.
In the end I couldn't stand it anymore, so I asked:"Why was it we should talk to Hades?"
Iris turned of the radio and answered: "Actually you shall talk to Styx."
"Oh Styx's nice, but still a bit scary," Nico said. I turned in my seat to look at him, who would have thought that the son of Hades was a scarred by a river in the Underworld.
"Uhm… Yeah, but why are we supposed to talk with him?" I asked.
"Her. Styx is female." Iris said. But before I could speak she said, "And you will talk to her because she is the one who asked for a quest in the first place."
"Uhm, how long until we get there?" was the only thing I could think of to say.
"About 5 hours. Not a big deal, anybody wants to play Car Bingo?" Apollo said. Nobody answered that.
"Guess that means no." Iris smiled.
"Story, story, story," Tyson chanted.
I could hear Iris sight.
"What do you want to know?" She asked.
"What about your life? As Annabeth said, you aren't the goddess we know the most about." Nico pointed out.
"It's always like that, they never know anything about me, Nemesis, Hecate, Hebe and I could continue." Iris said, obviously upset, to Apollo.
"Well… Princess, don't you think this is the right time to let them know who you are?" Apollo answered, both gods completely ignoring us. They looked intense in each others eyes, until they broke eye contact at the same time.
Iris sighed.
"I don't know who my parents are." She started.
"I thought you were the daughter of Thaumas and Electra." Annabeth said.
"Will you let me tell my real story or will you tell the wrong story?" She asked.
Annabeth blushed but didn't answer.
"I thought so. About 2749 years ago I was born. By someone, but I was left at a beach or thrown in the ocean. On intentionally or not, I don't know. But the point is that I came down in the ocean were Poseidon found me and took care of me, until the winter solstice, where he brought me and I kind of befriended all the gods…" Both Iris and Apollo smiled at the memory.
"I still remember the look on Athena's face when she called you cute and Aphrodite pointed out that you were a smaller, more girly copy of Poseidon. Priceless." Apollo said. They both began to laugh.
I shared a look with Annabeth, that didn't sound like Athena, at all.
"Percy, it happened more than 2000 years ago. People change." Iris told me, like she had read my mind. I guess I just had said it out loud.
"After I had befriended the gods I returned to the sea and lived and grow up there. Then after, I think three centuries or so, I became a goddess. I still lived at Poseidon's palace; after all I was still a child." Iris continued.
"Three centuries! Then you're not a child anymore." I said.
"Nico is more than 70 years old and he's still a child, right?" Iris said.
"Thanks for bringing that up," I heard Nico mutter.
"Your welcome. Well, uhm, 50 years after I was born, there was a big meeting for all gods and goddesses, and since I wasn't a goddess at that time I didn't come so I had to get a nanny."
"What has that to do with anything? I mean seriously a nanny?" I asked.
"Percy, then you, Grover, Annabeth and Tyson washed up at Miami, Chiron told you guys that we had been friends for centuries. It's more likely millennias. He became my nanny at that meeting and since then we have been friends."
I didn't know what to say, but I didn't have to say anything because Annabeth said: "So are you two dating?"
I instantly know it was one of the worst things to say, I saw Apollo tighten his grip on the steering wheel and Iris close her eyes and she seemed to work hard at controlling her breathing.
"Why does everybody think that we're dating?" Iris asked when she had her breathing in control.
If I had to be honest, I would think that they were dating, I mean they acted like they were. I was about to mention it, when I saw something out of the window, it looked like birds but they had human heads.
I leaned forward to get a better look out of the window. But the human birds were gone.
"OW! Get your hand of my shoulder! Now!" Iris wept, while pushing my hand away. Apparently I had leaned myself on her shoulder.
"Sorry," I muttered and leaned back in my seat again.
Iris turned around, the best she could, in her seat and looked at me. Although, not in the eyes (I didn't complain) but even though she didn't look me in the eyes I could still see the twinkling tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Percy, show me your hand." I could hear on her voice that she tried to control herself, so she wouldn't freak out.
"Oh boy, here we go again," Apollo muttered. Iris just hit him.
"Shut up." She snarled. "Show me your hand Percy, now!"
There was already many gods who disliked me; I didn't need one more so I showed her my hand.
She started to look freaked out, and I mean really freaked out. She kept murmuring, in a language I didn't know, but she sounded like, there was something there couldn't be true.
I looked at Annabeth for an answer, considering she's Athenas daughter she's pretty smart. Not that I would ever admit it. But this time Annabeth didn't look like she knows what was going on.
"Uhm… Iris, is something wrong?" She asked.
"Just about a million things." Iris answered lovely answer. She sat back in normal position again. "But nothing to worry about."
But I would have sworn I heard her quietly say, "I'll kill her."
My suspicions were confirmed when Apollo said/sang, "she can't die."
"What's with the singing?" I heard Nico say behind me.
Annabeth turned around to face Nico and said, "You really should get a grip on you mythology." I heard two snorts by the word mythology. "He's the god of music."
"Oh…" Nico, Tyson, Grover and I said.
Annabeth snorted.
"Just because she can't die I can still hurt her." Iris said.
"How?" Apollo asked.
"I could walk into her closet with a candle and accidentally stumble over something and therefore loose the light. Oops."
Who would have thought that the rainbow goddess could be so mean, even though I didn't really get who the goddess, she would kill, were.
"Don't bother to think about it." Iris said.
"Uhm… What?" Grover asked.
"Don't bother to think about who the goddess is."
"How did you know that I thought that?" three demigods, one satyr and a Cyclops said, with one voice.
"Sweeties, I was reading your mind."
Before we could answer (or more likely yell at her) Apollo exclaimed that we had landed.
We all got out of the car and found that we were standing in front of DOA RECORDING STUDIOS once again, at least for Grover, Annabeth and me. I didn't want to think about how many times Nico had been here.
"Great, we'll just drop them off at Styx and then head for Japan. Agree?" Apollo asked Iris.
"Best thing happened today." She muttered. "Okay… Now come on, we don't have all day"
After a short pause she added, "Well Apollo and I have, but you guys don't, so are you coming?"
We all started to walk to the entrance. I couldn't help but think about the last time I walked into Hades, but on the other hand, the first time I was here, turned out fine. In the end, at least.
A/N: I'm not completely happy with this chapter so I might rewrite it.
Please let me know what you think.