Enjoy! First: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1251840016 Next: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1281914698/ Previous: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1280142285/ Chapter Eight: I leaned forward and said to Mora, “We’re running low on gas.” They sighed. “You think I don’t know that?” Mor’s words had a slight sharpness to them. “I’m looking for a gas station,” I nodded, leaning back in my seat. Tate was pαssed out in next to me, and I was extremely bored. I noticed that Mor had only two moods: happy and excited of a little shy of deρressiοn. I looked around the car again, but all my eyes caught was Tate, sleeping peacefully and beautifully. Mor glanced in the mirror and laughed a bit. “It’s creepy to watch people sleep.” “I was no—” I froze. “Okay, fine. I had noticed her a b—” They gave me another look. “I was admiring her,” I admitted. “There we go!” they said. Tate shifted in her sleep, almost as if she knew. I wondered how she could sleep peacefully and . . . well, sleep. I always woke up after maybe two hours and nagged maybe an extra hour on a good day. Tate mumbled something that sounded oddly like ‘Penelope’ and Mora smirked. “Penny . . .” she uttered. Mor raised an eyebrow when I cringed. “Sorry, just hate the nickname ‘Penny’,” I explained. “It makes me feel like . . . a coin. Like I’m only worth a cent.” “Any other nicknames she can call you?” Mor pulled into the right lane before exiting towards a Holiday. I just laughed. ————————————————————————— Mora headed inside to convince the person to give them free gas. They gave me a thumbs up to start filling the gas tank while they . . . did something. A minute later, Mora came barreling out the enter door. A second after, a large, grey . . . horse raced out. I pulled the gas thing out and climbed back into the car. It looked like a normal horse, but its mouth was covered with dried blοοd. Tate began to stir and she glanced out the window. She swore in Ancient Greek and said, “That’s a Mare of Diomedes. Based off the looks of it, that’s Podargos, the swift.” Mor flung open the door and slammed on the gas pedal. “I convinced the guy to give us gas, but this guy was hanging out there. It was . . . waiting for us.” The horse was fast, insanely fast. We swerved back onto the highway, but Podargos was still on our tail. Mora realized a second too late that we had merged into oncoming traffic. A blue car was speeding towards us, a terrified look on the driver’s face. Both cars veered away from the other. One car managed to be fine and keep driving, while the other ended up in a ditch. Guess where our car landed. The horrifying horse trotted closer. I gripped a weapοn in one hand and leaned over to hold Tate’s with the other. Mor had pulled out a swοrd with a curve on one side. A kopis. The horse kicked a window open and Mora took their chance to stαb it. It whined. Tate spun a ring around and did some tapping to it. It turned in a jαvelin. She stuck the spεar towards it and managed to pierce the horse between the eyes. I felt a bit useless, but soon, the horse was whimpering. It tried to nip at Mor’s hand but failed. They climbed out of the car and kicked it. Once. Twice. Thrice. Soon, the horse seemed confused and barely conscious. “What about the car?” Tate asked. “Only this window is shattered,” they replied. “If I can get it to a repair shop . . . it might take a day to fix, but we can try.” ————————————————————————— We found the repair shop. The woman who decided to help us, with some charmspeak helping, said that she could fix it easily. She also said it would take a night. “Let’s find a motel,” I suggested. “Something cheap.” The others agreed. “I’ll call an Uber for you,” the woman offered. She also helped us take our little amount of stuff out.
The Uber driver, who gave us a slightly weird look, took us to The Caduceus, a nice-ish motel. “One night, please,” Tate asked the young woman working at the front desk. “Of course, how many rooms would you like?” she asked. “And how many beds?” “What do you have to offer?” Mor asked. The woman explained, “We have 1 queen, 2 queens, 2 queens and a pullout, 1 king, and 2 twins.” “We’ll take a 2 queens and a pullout,” Mor responded. “Thank you.” We were given a room key and headed up to our room.
