Percy's usual ink black hair looked goldish-ish and almost glittery. This was not a person styling choice by any means. He was covered in monster dust from head to toe. The dust Percy could live with, but even after years of battling, the blood and guts was starting to make him nauseous. A bit of hellhound intestine clung to his sneaker. Percy vigorously shook his foot in attempt to get it off without having to touch it.
"Percy, quit fooling around!" Annabeth yelled from thirty feet away. She was busy slashing and stabbing away at the monsters in front of her. "There is a time and a place for the Hokey Pokey and unfortunately it's not now."
Percy couldn't help but stare at her. Even in ratty jeans, with monster guts all over, she was absolutely stunning. Before they had entered the underground tunnel, she had tied her hair up into a high pony tail to keep it out of the way. She was wearing an orange long sleeved camp t-shirt with armour on top and an old pair of jeans. Her dagger was sheathed and tucked away in her belt. Percy and Annabeth stood at the entrance of the wooden palace. Percy looked sideways at Annabeth. He saw her looking straight forward at the door, her grey eyes set in determination. In her peripheral vision she saw Percy and turned to face him. At soon as their eyes met, Percy saw her grey eyes soften. He gave her a slight nod of the head as if to reassure her. Without speaking, they opened the elegant and wooden door together and descended the rickety stairs deep into a tunnel.
Percy was snapped out of his reverie with a blow to the chest. He landed hard on the wooden floor with Riptide skittering out of his hand. He blinked a couple of times to clear his vision. His hand came up to his chest where he had been hit. Ouch, that's going to hurt tomorrow, thought Percy. He saw a monster coming in on him from above. His green eyes widened before he swiftly rolled out of the way and managed to pick up his sword at the same time. He held up his sword and the monster did the rest of the work for him. The monster was flying at an incredible speed that it didn't have time to stop before reaching the tip of his blade. Percy instinctively shut his eyes and then rolled over onto his stomach as a shower of golden dust covered him. He looked up to see Annabeth taking on three monsters.
"Annabeth! Behind you," Percy managed to say. He only had a split second to glance over his shoulder at Annabeth before he returned his attention to another monster before him.
Monster after monster, Percy had finally made his way to the other side of the cavern. He capped his sword and shoved it into his shirt pocket. Percy had gotten his mother to sew pockets onto his camp t-shirts for a few reasons. It was a lot easier for him to reach into his shirt pocket than his jeans pocket, and quicker access meant less chance of dying. Percy also worried that the pen can might accidentally come off in his pocket and the sword would expand and that would lead to a less than ideal situation.
Percy began frantically searching the wall with his hands. To be completely honest, Percy wasn't really sure what he was looking for. He knew he was looking for the wings of Hermes and that it was somewhere in the room, but he had no idea where it could be or how to access it. He went across the curved wall until he came to a small square hole in the wall that looked almost like a mini window. Recklessly, he stuck his hand in hoping to feel the wings of Hermes. Well, actually, Percy was hoping to not feel real wings. He was hoping that the "wings of Hermes" was more of a symbolic figurine of some sort. Obviously he hadn't done his homework. That was something he always left Annabeth to do.
Instead of feeling real wings or fake wings, Percy felt spiders. He pulled his hand out and it was covered in webs and bugs both dead and alive. He shook his hand free and shivered. Hey, you don't have to be a child of Athena to dislike spiders crawling on your body. Before he knew it, Annabeth's dagger left her hand and was sailing at one hundred miles per hour, heading in his direction. It stopped as it made dove into a body. The body exploded into a pile of dust. Percy thought it would have made for a cool action movie scene if it were played in slow motion. The top of monster's head turned to dust first, followed by the rest of the head all the way down to the toe, almost as if it was doing the wave except the wave never came back up.
Annabeth's dagger clanged against the cherry oak floors. She made her way over to pick it up and tuck it away. She began to help Percy look for the Wings of Hermes.
"Got it!" Percy cried, holding it up high.
"Great, let's go now," said Annabeth, anxious to leave. The retraced their steps to find themselves back at the stairs leading to the door. They too the stairs two at a time. Annabeth grabbed the door handle and pulled on it but it wouldn't budge. "I think it's locked." Annabeth said. Trailing behind them was a monster. It wasn't like anything they had encountered before. It had two black pupil-less eyes and a long, thick tongue that tapered off at the tip. Saliva dripped off the tongue as if it were looking at its next meal. Percy and Annabeth should have been thankful that it was slowly creeping its way to them, giving them more time, but the glint in its eye with the strange smirk and the slow crawl was creepier than if it would just lunge at them.
"I'll work on the door, you take Creepy," Percy cocked his towards the monster. Annabeth nodded in agreement. "Here," Percy held out his pen. "Use my sword please. I don't really want you going near that thing." Annabeth rolled her eyes but took his pen. In return she gave him her dagger and told him to use it to pick the lock.
While Percy was busy trying to open the door, Annabeth was discovering the monster's new tricks which included flying and breathing lava. "Uh, Percy," Annabeth said. "We need to go, like really need to go." It began to spew lava as if it were vomit, just lifelessly flowing out of its mouth directly falling to the ground. Normally, that would be appreciated by a pair of demigods seeing as it wasn't threateningly breathing lava into their faces. In this case, since the entire palace was made of wood, there was little to appreciate in this situation. Percy threw all of his weight and slammed into the door. The Hermes Wings tumbled out of his pocket and slipped down the stairs. He cursed out loud.
Annabeth ventured down towards the creature and stabbed it with Percy's sword. It didn't seem to have the same effect on it as the sword did to most other monsters. It seemed to weaken it a little, but not by much. Annabeth went to retrieve the wings before they perished in the lava. Annabeth ran to scoop up the wings, the monster hot on her trail. Annabeth stabbed the monster in the heart. This time it seemed to have a large effect. The monster screeched in pain. Annabeth knew they didn't' have a lot of time. The whole palace was being burned with lava. Annabeth looked down into a hold that the lava had made. It was a dark hole that probably went on for a long time, but Annabeth wasn't willing to check it out.
Annabeth tried to pull out the sword to make another stab, but it was stuck. "Percy!" Annabeth yelled. Percy turned his attention to his girlfriend. "Throw the dagger at the heart!" Annabeth realized they needed to kill the monster before it managed to cover the entire room in lava. Percy threw the dagger with precision and hit the heart. The monster screeched again but fell limp. Percy threw himself at the door and managed to break it open. Again, ouch that's going to hurt later.
Light flooded in from the outside world. "Come on," Percy urged. Annabeth was hovering over the monster trying to pull out her dagger. It was like the monster was grabbing onto it and pulling against Annabeth. "Annabeth, the floors are burning away. We need to leave while we can still get to the door." Annabeth wasn't listening. All she wanted was her dagger. "It's not worth it," said Percy.
Percy ran down the stairs and against her will, he threw Annabeth over his shoulder (the good shoulder) and carried them out the palace. Gotta love magic. Percy said to himself when they got outside. There was no visible damage from the outside. It was as if there was an invisible boundary that the lava couldn't consume.
Percy set Annabeth down on the grass and sat beside her. He was breathing hard and she was quietly looking back at the once beautiful wooden palace. "Are you all right?" Percy asked? No answer. "Annabeth?" Still no response. Percy winced at the pain as he held his chest.
Annabeth turned to examine Percy. "We need to get you to the infirmary." Annabeth said. "I think you broke a few ribs."
After some nectar and ambrosia, the colour started to come back into Percy's cheeks and the ribs mended themselves. Annabeth took Percy's grimy hand in her own equally monster-gut-covered hand. He was sleeping and looked peaceful. With her other hand, Annabeth ran her fingers through his hair and brushed off some monster dust. For something so evil, they sure turn into beautiful dust, thought Annabeth. After a few minutes, Percy stirred awake. He smiled up at her, happy to see her by his side.
She tried to return the smile, and she thought it was a pretty good smile, but Percy wasn't convinced. "What's wrong?" he asked her. Annabeth shook her head and then shrugged. It wasn't Annabeth-like to be at a loss of words. "Annabeth?" Percy prodded.
It was then that Riptide returned into his pocket, safe and soundly. They both looked at it as it returned, with a slight golden glow. When the golden glow extinguished itself, Annabeth looked back to Percy. Oh. Percy had realized that they had left her dagger behind.
"I'm so sorry, Annabeth," Percy began to apologize.
"No, it's - I'm fine." Annabeth managed to choke out. She did her best to hide her distress. "Really, Annabeth, I feel terrible and -"
Annabeth composed herself. "It's not your fault. I told you to throw it. And you were right. I would have died if I stayed there."
Percy was shocked. Annabeth was more upset than he thought. She had just admitted that he was right. He was too upset by her distraught to enjoy being right. He didn't know what to say, so instead he just pulled her down onto the cot and hugged her tightly. His ribs and shoulder were still sore but he didn't care. Her skin was cold against his bare chest wrapped in bandage. She hugged him back and buried her face into his neck. He smelled like a mix of monster guts, sweat, and sea salt but she didn't mind. She probably smelled of something similar. Hot tears left her eyes and would have soaked Percy's skin if he could get wet.
He knew how much that dagger meant to Annabeth. Luke Castellan, his old enemy turned hero, gave it to Annabeth when she was a little girl. He took her in off the streets and took her under his wing. He was a brother to her. He protected her when they were being attacked. He comforter her when she had bad dreams. He stood up for her when Clarisse was being a bully. He taught her how to fight monsters. Most importantly, he taught her what family was. Then he turned evil but Annabeth had faith in him until the very end.
They didn't talk about Luke much. All Percy knew about the old Luke was from the snippets of information Annabeth rarely gave. Percy had had his fair share of unfortunate events, but he couldn't say that he understood what Annabeth had been through. Percy turned his head and planted a kiss on her temple. They fell asleep like that.
Annabeth went to the weapons room to find a replacement for Luke's dagger. She entered the cabin by herself and looked around. She had never been into this room before. When she had arrived at Camp Half Blood for the first time, she had Luke's dagger already and had no need to visit the weapons room. She looked around and weapons hung on the wooden walls and sat in display cases. They were sorted into swords, daggers, bows and arrows, and other weapons. She made her way over to the daggers section. She looked in the glass case. Suddenly she asked herself if she wanted another dagger. She remembered once Percy asked her why she used a dagger when a sword offered more reach. Maybe it was time to get a sword.
In the end, Annabeth walk out of the weapons cabin with another dagger. It wasn't beautiful, not like Luke's dagger. It had a regular curved wooden handle that felt cold in her hand. A cross guard on each side of the handle was painted gold. The blade, too, was gold. She tried each dagger there and this was the one that was most promising. Key word here is most. It didn't feel right in her hands but what other choice did she have?
Annabeth found herself in the training arena along with some of the other senior campers; Percy, Clarisse, Michael, Connor, Travis, Katie, and a few others. Annabeth was dueling with Clarisse, and Annabeth hated to admit it, but Clarisse was kicking her butt. Clarisse laughed. "What's wrong, Princess?" she taunted. The new dagger was really throwing off her game, but Annabeth hated excuses. Annabeth wiped away the blood and got back up, refusing to let Clarisse get to her.
Annabeth stood in her cabin looking at her reflection in the mirror. She looked awful. She had really taken a beating by Clarisse today. She was so stubborn that she wouldn't quit until Chrion stopped the two.
A few moments later, Percy came into the Athena cabin looking for Annabeth. She had cuts and blood and bruises all over her body, but he could tell the inside was in no better shape right now with Luke's dagger being lost. He led her over to the washroom and made her sit on the bathtub edge. Starting with her face he took a wet cloth and wiped away all the blood and dirt. He disinfected her cut and reached into the cabinet to look for a bandaid. He picked a blue Superman bandaid and put it on her cheek. Next he cleaned her arms and wrapped them in a white bandage. Annabeth didn't really understand why he always bandaged her up like this when some simple nectar and ambrosia would do the trick. She figured it was just Percy being over protective. She would always roll her eyes at him when he was being too protective, but Percy said that he would never stop being overprotective. Secretly Annabeth liked that he cared about her that much.
Annabeth hadn't been able to sleep for the past few nights. She would fall asleep for an hour or two, then wake up, and repeat through the night. Finally, waking up at 5:48 am, Annabeth gave up on sleep and went to her special enclosed work area. None of her siblings were allowed into that area without her permission. She told them it was where she kept all her important work papers and she couldn't risk anything happening to them. It wasn't a total lie. There was important stuff in there, it just wasn't all work papers.
On the bulletin board were some pictures. There was one of Annabeth, Thalia and Luke. They were in a beautiful park on their way to New York. The sun was bright making Annabeth and Luke's hair look almost white. There was another picture of Annabeth beside Thalia. Annabeth had been much shorter than Thalia back then. Thalia, with her dark make up, gave the camera a very threatening stare. Little Annabeth beside her tried her best to give the camera a similar threatening look, but failed. Annabeth's favourite photo was the one of her and Luke. She remembered exactly what was going on in the photo. They had been travelling for almost twenty four hours straight and Annabeth was too tired to keep going. Instead of stopping for the night, Luke carried Annabeth on his back. Seven year old Annabeth had quickly fallen asleep on his back. By Thalia's request, Luke had stopped for a photo. His blue eyes had a genuine smile.
Annabeth went to breakfast with her siblings. After breakfast Percy dragged Annabeth to the lake. It was his favourite spot at camp and the only place he could ever be alone with his thoughts. Percy like to share this spot with Annabeth. They sat on the doc, under the warm sun, looking out at the lake. They sat in silence for a while before Annabeth finally asked what was up.
Percy grinned. "I have a surprise for you."
"Really," said Annabeth as more of a statement than a question.
"Yup." Percy stuck his fingers in his mouth and wolf whistled. A moment later the water started to shimmer with a grey shadow under it. The shadow came closer towards them. "Close your eyes," he said to Annabeth. Annabeth did as she was asked and listened with her ears. She heard the splash of water as Percy stuck his arm into the water and pulled it out. "Thank, girl," Percy said to the dolphin. He gave her a pat and off she was back into the lake.
"Now hold out your hands, Annabeth." Percy placed his gift wrapped in waterproof paper into her outstretched hands. Before she even opened her eyes, she gasped. Annabeth's grey eyes opened to see the colourful, and horribly wrapped, present. She smiled as she tore through the paper. In her hands lay her old dagger, scabbard and all.
"What - how - you," Annabeth was having difficulties putting together a sentence. "Thank you," she finally managed to get out.
Percy grinned at her. "You're welcome, Annabeth." He kissed her chastely kissed her cheek. Annabeth set down her dagger and put her hands around his neck and kissed him on the lips. Percy put his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him.
"How did you ever find it?" Annabeth questioned.
"Uh, well, I made a deal with the Gods," Percy admitted.
"Gods?" Annabeth asked. "Which ones?"
"At first it was just Hades because I figured the dagger ended up with the monster in Hades. He said he needed me to get Zeus to agree to do something for Hades. I went to Zeus and he said he would only agree to Hades' wish if I could get Hermes to go to his party next month. Hermes would only agree to go if I could get Ares to stop setting things on fire. I know right? Who knew the gods has do much petty drama between them? Anyway, that kind of went on for a while until I got to Aphrodite and that ended the wild goose chase."
"So Aphrodite didn't want anything in return?" Annabeth asked.
"Not quite. I had to agree to let her children give me a makeover."
Annabeth laughed and kissed him again. And Percy knew it was all worth it.
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