This completely, utterly, 100% cute nonsense and Frazel fluff. It's been sitting on my phone, begging to be posted, and I decided to finally upload it before my July disappearance.
Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. All rights to their respective owners. I do, however, own a really cute stuffed owl, so I think I won that...
The Elephant in the Room
It started as one of Percy's jokes.
He was in California with Annabeth on family business - her father had some huge professor thing that week - when he saw it in the store. Even though he didn't have a reason to give Hazel a present, since her birthday was still a couple months away, he couldn't help but grab it.
He showed it to Frank first, who just rolled his eyes.
Hazel, on the other hand, loved it.
"It's so cute," she declared, holding up the gift like a scene from The Lion King. Except it wasn't a lion she was holding. Instead, it was a stuffed elephant - one of the small ones with the huge, cartoon eyes.
"I'm going to name it Frank Jr," Hazel decided, hugging the elephant.
"Of course you are," Frank muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Percy to hear.
But Hazel loved Frank Jr so much, Frank couldn't stay mad.
She kept it at her bunk at Camp Half-blood, since stuffed animals weren't very Roman. She visited the other camp, usually just to check on Nico, often enough that she left her bunk in Cabin Thirteen made, and she already kept a lot of her drawings there as well. But even with the elephant on the other side of the country, Frank could tell that she loved it.
Frank wasn't sure if Hazel loved it because it reminded her of him (which would be nice) or if she just liked having it with her. Some part of him wondered if having something cuddly like that helped her sleep, the same way being a dog helped Frank sleep at night. Of course, she may have just liked the stuff animal, which Frank had to admit was kind of cute with its big eyes. Whatever the reason, she loved Frank Jr.
So when her birthday did come up and Frank saw a large, fluffy elephant while shopping for birthday presents, he couldn't resist.
Hazel, of course, liked the larger animal just as much, and affectionately named him Small Frank (Percy's suggestion).
Small Frank and Frank Jr continued their presence in Cabin Thirteen, which may have prompted Nico to get her a third stuffed elephant, Frank Sinatra, for Christmas. Now, Nico claimed, the elephants could on a daring quests and save the world of stuffed animals.
Hazel just laughed and tackled Nico with a hug.
And, to this day, the elephant trio still remains on Hazel's bunk in Cabin Thirteen, nearly arranged next to her pillow during the day and hugged ferociously whenever Hazel slept in the bunk at night.
So apologies to anyone annoyed at all the stories today, but I really want to get everything finished and published before July, so there might be one or two more coming today, and few in the next couple days as well.