Circle

by RavenQuill

Post HoO. Percy has regained his memories, and Camp Half-Blood has been peaceful for nearly three years. Unfortunately, recent signs indicate that the Apocalypse may well be nigh, but all anyone can talk about is Annabeth and Percy's recent breakup.

1. Prologue: Annabeth

*Author's Note: This story is rated T for occasional bad language, mentions of sex (though nothing explicit and no detailed, in-story scenarios), slight violence, and very creepy little girls. There are also mentions of minor OCs of LGBTIA orientations. Don't like, don't read.

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A few times in my life people have asked me what it means to be a daughter of Athena, to live a life nearly dedicated to wisdom and to all that the concept should entail. Ironically, there is no answer to such a question, and wisdom has many forms: it manifests itself in the beautiful, philosophical poems my brother Malcolm writes, and in the gritty determination of Alice Paul as she starved herself for woman's suffrage during the early twentieth century. It is beautiful and ugly, peaceful and exuberant, just and demanding; it is so many things that I can't really tell you what the true definition; not even for me, personally.

But I can tell you what it isn't.

The combined forces of memory, logic, and reasoning are often misconstrued to be the pulsating torso and its beating heart -the very whirling mind- that is symbolic of the nature of wisdom. To many, nothing can better emulate it, for what can be more ingenious in construction and symmetry than a figure of three dimensions and no exceptions?

But those who claim to understand the nature of wisdom (and are actually capable of backing said claims to a degree) also understand that the truth lies along other paths: those cold elements are merely the flaming sword Athena wields. Unchecked, they are nothing more than a sharp pain on a cold morning, and they cause more damage than good. Wisdom is not the abolished emotion, but the checked emotion. To destroy what is there and always will be would be the ultimate in redundancy; we must make from a situation only what can be made. A circle is a circle, was a circle.

What is, is, and it is foolish to pretend we humans (or Gods) do not cry out in pain, nor tremble in defeat, nor love completely and blindly when it is most essential that we do, and then claim it is all in the name of Wisdom. Rather, I like to think that all things that are truly and irrevocably good are also wise.

Though it took a particular year of my life to come to this realization.