𝑨𝑪𝑻 𝑶𝑵𝑬 ━ 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹  𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑹𝑻𝑬𝑬𝑵

𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐇 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐀 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍, they were like two peas in a pod, they were almost twins at this point, one mind, one heart. The moment they had met, it felt like the stars had aligned, even if it was almost noon and not night. It was such a special moment, that Iris and Annabeth knew, they knew they would be best friends for as long as they lived. 

   Til Death Do Them Apart

And Iris would like to keep it that way, but not yet, no one would die yet. No one would leave her yet, even if she knew she couldn't help her. Iris wanted to have her best friend by her side, until she was eighteen, until she was fifty, until she was old enough to die.

She knew I couldn't get her out of the water, only Percy could. The sea was his advantage, not hers. It had always protected him, and Percy seem to be having the same thoughts, he took Iris by the hand — not thinking about what he was doing, propelled them forward and grabbed Annabeth's ankle. Iris could tell something had happened, the moment he touched her.

The moment Percy touched her, a shock went through his body, and he saw the Sirens the way Annabeth had been seeing them. They looked like her dad, a beautiful woman who looked a lot like her — Athena, a smiling Iris was there next to them, and next to her with one arm around her was . . . Luke. 

The whole scene glowed in a warm, buttery light, the four of them were talking and laughing, and when they saw Annabeth, their faces lit up with delight. Annabeth's mom and dad held out their arms invitingly. Iris smiled widely and waved towards her, Luke grinned and gestured for Annabeth to sit next to him as if he were still her friend. 

Behind the trees of Central Park, a city skyline rose, it was Manhattan, but not Manhattan. It had been totally rebuilt from dazzling white marble, bigger and grander than ever—with golden windows and rooftop gardens. It was better than New York. Better than Mount Olympus. 

He knew immediately that Annabeth had designed it all. She was the architect for a whole new world. She had reunited her parents. She had saved Luke. She was with Iris, always had been, always will be. She had done everything she'd ever wanted.

He blinked hard and when he opened his eyes, all he saw were the Sirens—ragged vultures with human faces, ready to feed on another victim. Before he could pull Annabeth, Iris yelled at him to bring her back to the surface of the water, Iris was at the surface, looking at the Sirens that sat on the rocks. He pulled Annabeth back into the surf.

Percy willed the currents to carry them towards Iris who was yelling for Annabeth. Annabeth pummelled and kicked Percy, making it hard to concentrate. She thrashed so much they almost collided with a floating mine. 

   "ANNABETH, PERCY?!" yelled Iris as they went under. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She frantically swam towards them. Looking around moving her arms around the sea. 

They had gone under, and Annabeth stopped struggling. Her expression became confused. Then our heads broke the surface and she started to fight again. Iris took a breath; she could see them again, and she swam closer to them.

Percy saw her and unconsciously took in a breath he didn't he had been holding. He hadn't seen her since they hit the water. He was glad, glad that she was alive, he knew that she would survive but even then, he felt relief.

   "The water. It's the water that can save her." Percy said to her as he breathed heavily from all the swimming, he could barely hear her. "I need to get her underwater, again."

   "What? Jackson, what are you—," Iris whispered-shout, as she watched him, she couldn't hear him properly but knew. "I'll go down with you, if I need air, I'll go ack up to the surface and come back."

   "Iris, I don't think that's—."

   "Percy."

   "Fine." said Percy, jaw tightened, not wanting her to do so. "I'll try to make an air bubble."

Iris nodded frantically. Percy grabbed Annabeth again and the waves to push them down. Iris went in after them and she could see there was a struggle. What is Percy doing? Please, Gods. Then there were bubbles, bubbles were rising from where they had gone under, and as Iris came closer to the two, the bubbles came around them and amazingly formed a huge bubble.

Whatever, Percy had done was working, the sea obeyed to him, it was amazing every time. There was a flurry of white, his vision cleared, Annabeth, Iris and he had a huge bubble of air around them with only their legs stuck into the water. 

Annabeth gasped and coughed. Her whole body shuddered, but when she looked at her two friends, they knew the spell had been broken. She started to sob, and Iris pulled her closer to her body. She put her head on her shoulder, and Iris held her. She finally held her best friend, her tears had dried up, but she smiled. 

   "I'll get us back to the ship," Percy yelled at Iris, who just nodded as she held Annabeth. He turned to Annabeth; Iris could only hear him slightly, but she knew what he said. "It's okay. Just hang on." Annabeth nodded to let him know she was better now.

Percy made the current steer the three of them through the rocks and barbed wire and back toward the hull of the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was maintaining a slow and steady course away from the island. They stayed underwater, following the ship, until he judged that they had moved out of earshot of the Sirens. 

Then Percy surfaced and their air bubble popped, Iris struggled a bit to hold Annabeth and the latter could tell and separated from her. She smiled sadly at Iris, she knew Iris had worried about her, she could tell, and she hated it. She hated that she'd done this to her, to Iris, her best friend, her sister.

Percy ordered a rope ladder to drop over the side of the ship, and they climbed aboard, Annabeth first, then Iris and finally then Percy. Iris kept her ear plugs in, she could hear but barely. They sailed until the island was completely out of sight. Annabeth sat huddled in a blanket on the forward deck. 

Finally, she looked up dazed and sad, and eventually mouthed, safe.

Iris took out the earplugs. No singing. The afternoon was quiet except for the sound of the waves against the hull. The fog had burned away to a dark blue sky, as if the island of the Sirens had never existed. "You, okay?" Percy asked Annabeth. 

Of course, she's not okay. Thought Iris. 

   "I didn't realize," she murmured, not looking at either of them.

   "What?"

   "How powerful the temptation would be." Annabeth said, as her eyes looked almost glossed over with a misty colour.

   "I saw the way you rebuilt Manhattan," Percy told her, Iris looked over at him and frowned at this, that was what happened when he touched her ankle, he had seen what she had been seeing. 

   "And Iris, Luke and your parents." She blushed. "You saw that?"

Iris smiled, she didn't know that Annabeth had seen her, though she was sceptical of Luke, she knew that they had been through a lot together and Iris knew she couldn't change that. Even she had fallen into his trap. She felt warm, knowing that Annabeth felt the same way as she did her.

   "What Luke told you back on the Princess Andromeda, about starting the world from scratch...that really got to you, huh?" said Percy, to which Iris wanted to hit him with her elbow but decided against it. Annabeth pulled her blanket tighter around her.

   "My fatal flaw." said Annabeth. "That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris."

Percy blinked. "That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches and kinda taste shitty?" 

Iris rolled her eyes and scoffed. "No, Kelp Head. That's hummus, which is great by the way. Hubris is worse."

   "What could be worse than hummus?" said Percy in a more sarcastic way. 

   "Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else...even the gods." said Annabeth.

   "You feel that way?" said Percy. Annabeth looked down. 

   "Annie—." whispered Iris. 

   "Don't you ever feel like, what if the world really is messed up? What if we could do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework." interrupted Annabeth. 

   "I'm listening." said Percy. Iris only nodded and came closer to Annabeth, the latter smiled lightly.

  "I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did—that's why the fire is still burning. That's why Olympus is still around." She took a small breath. 

   "But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: 'If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.' Don't you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?"

   "Um...no. Me running the world would kind of be a nightmare." joked Percy. Iris tilted her head nodding at that, it would be a nightmare.

   "Then you're lucky. Hubris isn't your fatal flaw." said Annabeth, her voice stoic. 

   "What is?" asked Percy, looking back at Iris. She didn't meet his gaze. 

   "I don't know, Percy, but every hero has one. If you don't find it and learn to control it...well, they don't call it 'fatal' for nothing." 

Percy looked like this had him thinking, he looked like he was in deep thoughts. 

   "So was it worth it?" He asked Annabeth. "Do you feel...wiser?"

She gazed into the distance. "I'm not sure. But we have to save the camp. If we don't stop Luke..."

She didn't need to finish. They all knew what would happen, what had happened, what is happening. Iris huffed, and she looked out. 

Iris's eyes widened. "Percy." 

He turned to look at her, surprised that she called him Percy and not Jackson or Kelphead, then followed her gaze. Up ahead was another blotch of land—a saddle-shaped island with forested hills and white beaches and green meadows. 

   "30 degrees, 31 minutes north, 75 degrees, 12 minutes west. " Whispered Percy, he turned to look at Iris. 

They had reached the home of the Cyclops.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐄, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 an island full of monsters, full of cyclops, and Iris hated it. Why did it have to look like such a beautiful island? It could have been full of craggy and sharp rocks and tons of bones across the island or covered with dark clouds and lightings, but this island looked like an island from the Caribbeans, the weather was amazing, and she wished she was on holidays.

Someone should literally put up a billboard that said, MONSTERS LIVES HERE, WATCH OUT. But except for that, the place looked like a postcard. It had green fields and tropical fruit trees and white beaches. Iris could have sworn she had been to a place like this for the holidays. 

As the trio sailed toward the shore of the island, Iris breathed in the sweet air, it felt refreshing, or more like surprising. It felt like a vacation, and she knew it would not be so. 

   "The Fleece," she said, looking at the island.

Percy and Annabeth nodded; they could all feel its power. She could tell why people could believe it would heal anything, even Thalia's poisoned tree. 

   "If we take it away, will the island die?" asked Percy to which Annabeth shook her head. 

   "It'll fade. Go back to what it would be normally, whatever that is." stated the blonde.

In the green meadow at the base of the ravine, there were several dozen sheep that were milling around and just past them was a path that led up into the hills. At the top of the path near the edge of the canyon, was the massive oak tree, the tree. Something gold glittered in its large branches. 

   "Damn. This is too easy," Percy said. "We could just hike up there and take it?"

   "That would be more like a trap." said Iris, narrowing her eyes. 

Annabeth's eyes narrowed. "There's supposed be a guardian. A dragon or..."

That's when a deer emerged from the bushes. It trotted into the meadow, probably looking for grass to eat, when the sheep all bleated at once and rushed the animal. It happened so fast that the deer stumbled and was lost in a sea of wool and trampling hooves. Grass and tufts of fur flew into the air.

A second later the sheep all moved away, back to their regular peaceful wanderings. Where the deer had been was a pile of clean white bones. The three exchanged looks. "They're like piranhas," Annabeth said. 

   "Piranhas with wool. How will we ever—" continued Percy, rolling his eyes. 

   "Gods, really right now." Iris interrupted him, as she turned to him. He only smirked and was about to respond but was stopped. 

   "You guys!" Annabeth gasped, grabbing both of them by the arm. "Look." 

She pointed down the beach, to just below the sheep meadow, where a small boat had been run aground. . . the other lifeboat from the CSS Birmingham. They all knew what this meant, and it didn't look as good as they wanted. 

The trio moored the Queen Anne's Revenge on the back side of the island where the cliffs rose straight up about a good two hundred feet. Percy figured the ship was less likely to be seen there. They rowed a lifeboat to the edge of the rocks and made their way up, very slowly. Annabeth went first because she was the better climber, then Iris and finally Percy.

She was not very keen on the idea of climbing this cliff but what could she do. They quite literally came close to dying five times, which was not what Iris thought would help, but with incredible luck, they moved on.  

Once, Percy lost my grip and found himself dangling by one hand from a ledge fifty feet above the rocky surf. But he found another handhold and kept climbing. A minute later Iris had the unfortunate move and hit a slippery patch of moss, her foot slipped and landed on Percy's face.  

   "Sorry," she murmured, almost letting out a chuckle but decided against it.

   "S'okay," he grunted, though he was glad that she didn't fall. Finally, as they reached the top, when their arm muscles were shaking from exhaustion, they hauled themselves over the top of the cliff and collapsed.

   "Fuck," grunted Percy as he laid on the grass.

   "Ouch," moaned Iris, feeling exhausted.

   "Garrr!" bellowed another voice. 

Annabeth clamped her hand over her mouth and pointed. The ledge they were sitting on was narrower than they'd realized. It dropped off on the opposite side, and that's where the voice was coming from—right below them. 

   "You're a feisty one!" the deep voice bellowed. 

   "Challenge me!" It was Clarisse's voice, no doubt about it. "Give me back my sword and I'll fight you!"

The monster roared with laughter. Annabeth, Iris and Percy crept to the edge; they were right above the entrance of the Cyclops's cave. Below them stood Polyphemus and Grover, still in his wedding dress. Clarisse was tied up, hanging upside down over a pot of boiling water and Iris's eye widened.

   "Hmm," Polyphemus pondered. "Eat loudmouth girl now or wait for wedding feast? What does my bride think?"

He turned to Grover, who backed up and almost tripped over his completed bridal train. "Oh, um, I'm not hungry right now, dear. Perhaps—"

If they came out of this alive, she would never let Grover forget about this. He looked hilarious.  

   "Did you say bride?" Clarisse demanded, shaking his head in disbelief. "Who—Grover?"

Annabeth muttered over and over again, "Shut up. She has to shut up." She watched the scene, brows furrowed, she was angry, of course everyone was in this situation.

Polyphemus glowered and looked at his 'bride'. "What 'Grover'?"

   "The satyr!" Clarisse yelled out. 

   "Oh!" Grover yelped; his voice getting higher, it sounded almost girly as if he was trying to imitate one. "The poor thing's brain is boiling from that hot water. Pull her down, dear!"

Polyphemus's eyelids narrowed over his baleful milky eye, as if he were trying to see Clarisse more clearly. Partly because his rancid smell was now up close and personal. Partly because he was dressed in his wedding outfit.

   "What satyr?" asked Polyphemus confused. "Satyrs are good eating. You bring me a satyr?"

   "No, you dumbass!" bellowed Clarisse. Iris was not keen on this, Clarisse needed to stop speaking. "That satyr! Grover! The one in the wedding dress!" 

Iris truly had never wanted to slap someone more than right now, but it was too late. All they could do was watch as Polyphemus turned and ripped off Grover's white wedding veil—revealing the fourteen-year-old satyr with his curly hair, his scruffy adolescent beard, his tiny horns.

Polyphemus breathed heavily, trying to contain his anger at the supposed bride. He looked like someone had taken someone from a toddler. 

   "I don't see very well," he growled. "Not since many years ago when the other hero stabbed me in eye. But YOU'RE—NO—LADY—CYCLOPS!"

The Cyclops grabbed Grover's dress and tore it away. Underneath, the old Grover reappeared in his blue wash jeans and vintage band T-shirt. Grover yelped loudly and ducked as the monster swiped over his head. He panted heavily looking around.

   "Stop!" Grover pleaded frustrated. "Don't—don't fucking eat me raw! I—I have a good recipe!" 

Iris didn't let the gasp that wanted to leave her mouth, she couldn't. Percy saw it though; he saw that she was scared for Grover. He knew that they had known each other longer than he did, and she seemed ready to kill for him. Percy reached for his sword, but Annabeth hissed, "Wait!"

Polyphemus was hesitating, they could see it, a big boulder in his hand, ready to smash his would-be bride. It didn't look good for Grover, but Iris couldn't let that happen, she couldn't let him die. She wouldn't.

   "Recipe?" Polyphemus asked Grover, frowning.

   "Oh y-yes! You don't want to eat me raw. You'll get E coli and botulism and all sorts of horrible things. I'll taste much better grilled over a slow fire." said Grover. "With mango chutney! You could go get some mangos right now, down there in the woods. I'll just wait here."

The monster pondered this, and Iris hoped, prayed that Polyphemus would comply, even though he was going to turn Grover into a sauté with mango chutney, it gave them time.

   "Grilled satyr with mango chutney," Polyphemus mused looking at Grover, he then looked back at Clarisse, still hanging over the pot of boiling water. "You a satyr, too?"

   "No, you overgrown pile of dung!" she yelled. "I'm a girl! The daughter of Ares! Now untie me so I can rip your arms off!"

   "Rip my arms off," Polyphemus repeated. 

   "And stuff them down your throat!" said Clarisse.

   "You got spunk."

   "Let me down!"

Polyphemus snatched up Grover as if he were a wayward puppy. "Have to graze sheep now. Wedding postponed until tonight. Then we'll eat satyr for the main course!"

   "But...you're still getting married?" Grover sounded hurt. 

   "Who's the bride?" Polyphemus looked toward the boiling pot. Clarisse made a strangled sound. Well, that was a change of type. 

   "Oh, no! You can't be serious. I'm not—"

Before they could do anything, Polyphemus plucked her off the rope like she was an apple and tossed her and Grover deep into the cave. "Make yourself comfortable! I comeback at sundown for big event!"

Then the Cyclops whistled, and a weird mixed flock of goats and sheep—smaller than the man-eaters—flooded out of the cave and past their master. As they went to pasture, Polyphemus patted some on the back and called them by name—Belt buster, Tammany, Lockhart, etc. 

Iris thought to herself, those are the weirdest names for pets, who names a goat, Tammany?

When the last sheep had waddled out, Polyphemus rolled a boulder in front of the doorways, shutting off the sound of Clarisse and Grover screaming inside.

   "Mangos," Polyphemus grumbled to himself. "What are mangos?"

He strolled off down the mountain in his baby-blue groom's outfit, leaving them alone with a pot of boiling water and a six-ton boulder, and their trapped friends.

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❪ ៸ 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ━━━━━ ! ﹆◞ ❫
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❪ . . . the 13th chapter for LOVE STORY everyone, I think his chapter was not easy to write, my writer's block was heavy. But it was fun to write!!! ❫
❪ . . . This is like 3.6k which was less than i wanted but this has been long overdue so enjoy anyways! ❫
❪ . . . PLEASE tell me how you guys feel about it ??❫
❪ . . .PLEASE don't be a ghost reader, comment and vote, I love to reply to everyone and interact with my readers, love all of you darlings <33 ❫