Prologue: The Morning
It was hard to say when exactly Annabeth Chase had started running. In a way, she'd been running her whole life. Running was a staple demigod skill. Monster killing, running, and capture the flag. Annabeth was good at a lot of other things, too, she reflected as he feet pounded the pavement, one after another. She'd spent a lot of time reading. A lot of time practicing knife fighting. A lot of time designing buildings. But if you were going for sheer amount of time, the skill she'd spent the most time on was running. A demigod was always running from something.
To something, she corrected herself. She was running to something, today.
It meant that her waking schedule was a little odd, but she liked to start her runs at sunrise. Annabeth's mom was the goddess of wisdom, and Annabeth had learned a long time ago that she should enjoy every sunrise she got to sun crested over the horizon and transformed the sound into a glittering pool of sunlight. She slowed just momentarily to enjoy the majesty of Apollo's work. Theoretically it was her last sunrise at Camp Half-Blood. She pressed onward, moving faster now.
Her path began to slant upward; the climb up the hills on the border of the camp wasn't the path most runners would take at the beginning of a long trek, but Annabeth did not mind the extra exertion. She was prepared for it. What she was not prepared for was the rest of this day. She wasn't sure what would happen when they reached their destination, today. The horrors of the giant war were still open wounds in her psyche. She wasn't sure she was ready to head straight to a new place- a place where her mother was looked down upon and people valued duty and honor above all else.
But Percy had such hope. The dream of the two of them being together in New Rome and going to college was what got him through his time at Camp Jupiter. It was what got him through Tartarus. Sometimes, Annabeth couldn't be sure about the future. In a way, she liked running.
Running meant progress. Even if it was dangerous, you got somewhere. Monsters were destroyed, Titans and Giants were defeated. Stopping meant... well, stopping meant passing the torch. Most of Annabeth was unspeakably relieved by this possibility, but at the same time, her fatal flaw reared its ugly head. Part of her did not want to give up questing.
The path crested at the top of the hill, where Thalia's tree stood proudly with the Golden Fleece draped over the lowest-hanging branch. Below in the valley was the only home she had ever known. Even with a home like this, Annabeth had never been able to become comfortable. Her first several years at the camp were filled with questions, training and waiting. Annabeth knew the night a mysterious dark haired boy appeared and slayed the minotaur that her life had changed forever. She and Percy Jackson started running, and for the better part of the last decade, it seemed they had not been able to stop. For years, stopping meant death and destruction.
This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, she mused, as she adjusted her cadence for the downhill slope. It made those few moments in between sweeter. After 4 years of quest after quest, the titan war, Percy's 8 month Hera-paid vacation, their time in Tartarus and their time in Greece... Annabeth had to appreciate the breathing moments. As she veered onto the long path that followed the 10-mile perimeter of the camp, she remembered that Percy had been the answer to her prayers.