The Gift of the Lethe

The Olive Grove

When they come to a stop, Pallas is surprised she doesn't fall over, she is so in awe at what she sees that she isn't really paying attention to her own feet. There is a small courtyard in front of them that the hallway stretches into, and a gate on the other side. Just beyond the gate, Pallas can see a small grove of spindly trees. She's never seen them before, yet there is something familiar to them.

She lifts a hand to tuck a curl behind an ear, and the charms at her wrist tinkle as they brush against each other. Her hand freezes, and Pallas lets her eyes drift to the charms dangling from her wrist. The plant, the one Annabeth called an olive. From what she can see at this distance, it's the same plant. Annabeth didn't say olives were trees. Athena takes one look at Pallas' face and laughs softly.

"I see someone told you about the olives."

"Annabeth."

"Hmm. Did she tell you of their origin?"

Pallas shakes her head. "Nothing but their name."

"Then let me tell you how the olives came to exist."

Athena reaches out to unlatch the gate and holds it open for Pallas. She steps through, her feet moving from gray stone to green grass. Behind her, Athena pulls the gate closed before stepping up to Pallas' side, taking her hand once more. She leads Pallas through the ring of trees and into the grove, where Pallas spots something else.

A brook, burbling through the center of the grove. Greenery partially blocks it from view, a tree of some kind. At least she thinks it is some sort of tree. It's certainly not an olive tree, nor is it like any other she has seen. Its trunk is wide and stretches up towards the sky, and its leaves appear only at the very top.

Pallas steps forward to look at it from the side. The leaves curl over the other side, forming a tube with the more solid wood of the trunk on the bottom and one side, and leaves forming the rest to shield the bench-like tree from the water of the brook. Pallas frowns at the familiarity of it.

"Did you recreate the coral tube?"

Athena flushes. "I did. I made sure Annabeth left a space for it when she helped me design this space, and I asked Demeter to grow the tree for me. I had tried to recreate it before, but Annabeth has made it much better than I could have ever thought. I have to applaud her creativity. Would you like to see?"

Pallas blinks. "Was that a trick question, Thene? The automatic answer is yes. Of course i want to see it!"

Athena snorts out a laugh and steps over to the tube, ducking her head to crawl inside. Pallas follows, tucking against Athena's side to peer out through the leaves. The tree's trunk is cool against her back, and the leaves block all but tiny flickers of sunlight from reaching inside, leaving the tube a cool and shaded place to rest. She yawns, blinking. Why is she suddenly so tired? She wasn't tired before. Athena hears the sound and chuckles.

"It's the sound of the brook, isn't it? Go to sleep, you've been up for a while now. You were on the owl's schedule, weren't you?"

Pallas had forgotten about that, but Athena isn't wrong. She nods and shifts to rest her head against Athena's side, stretching her legs out towards the opening of the tube. There's plenty of space, her feet don't even come close to the opening itself. She yawns again.

"Could you tell me how the olives came to be?"

Athena starts playing with a few of Pallas' curls. "Of course. I'll do a simplified version, as I don't think you'll last through a longer one. There was a new city-state forming, and it wanted a godly patron. Both Poseidon and myself wanted that role, so we presented ourselves to the city . . . at the same time.

"The people didn't wish to anger either one of us, so we decided on a contest of sorts to determine who would be the city's patron. We would each give them a gift, and whomever gave them the best one would become their patron. For some unidentifiable reason, Poseidon gave them a saltwater spring.

"I don't know why he thought they would like that, or what use they would get out of it, but that's what he chose. I gave them an olive tree, and while they can appear small and sickly, they provide a source of food. The city chose my gift over Poseidon's, and so the city became known as Athens."

Pallas tilts her head back to look up at Athena, trying to keep her eyes open. "I suppose a saltwater spring is pretty useless. No one can drink from that."

"I'm glad you agree. Now please sleep, you must be exhausted after being awake for seventeen hours straight."

Pallas frowns, yawning again. "Seventeen hours?"

She doesn't hear Athena's response, not really. It was a string of words, but they are mush to Pallas' brain as sleep takes over, aided by the sound of the brook and the repetitive motions of Athena's hand in Pallas' hair.

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What do you think of the grove? What do you think will happen next? Tell me your thoughts!

Happy reading and I'll see you next chapter!

~ Goddess of Fate, signing out