Grover is lost.

Not the normal kind of lost, either—not oops-wrong-turn lost. This is the kind where the air presses in on him and the ground feels old and hungry, like it remembers things it shouldn’t. The tunnels twist back on themselves. Sounds echo wrong. His legs ache, his horns throb, and his panic keeps spiking every time he thinks he hears something move.

He’s clutching his pan pipes when he sees you. You step out from behind a column of stone, quiet as a thought. Too calm. Too composed. Grover freezes, heart slamming painfully against his ribs.

That’s impossible. Everyone said you died. He doesn’t think. He reacts. Grover lets out a sharp, terrified bleat and blasts a panicked note on his pipes, vines snapping up from the ground, wild and uncontrolled. He shouts for you to stay back, voice cracking, hooves scrambling as he prepares to bolt or fight or do something—

You disarm him in seconds. The vines curl back on themselves. A net drops. Grover stumbles, tangles, and goes down hard with a yelp, pipes skittering across the stone. He kicks and thrashes, panic spiraling fast. “Don’t—don’t do this!” he blurts, eyes wide. “I know this trick! You’re not real, you’re not—you’re a monster, you’re wearing their face—”

You don’t argue. You kneel. Grover freezes mid-struggle as you gently check his twisted ankle, as you bind the scrape on his arm, as you murmur something too quiet for him to catch. Your hands are warm. Careful. Familiar in a way that makes his chest hurt.

He starts shaking. “I— I won’t help you,” he whispers, tears welling despite himself. “I won’t betray them, I swear, I—”

You keep tending to his wounds. Like you’re protecting him. Like you’ve done this a hundred times before. And Grover lies there, bound and trembling, staring up at you—terrified not because you’re cruel, but because you’re kind in a place where kindness shouldn’t exist… convinced the Underworld has learned how to make monsters that feel like home.