The two opponents had been sparing for twenty minutes and showed no signs of stopping. Their growing audience was held in rapture as the two circled each other, of ten unable to distinguish between the lightning fast sword of the man and the dagger of the woman. The spectators had assumed it would be a relatively quick fight, but they had clearly underestimated the two fighters.

"But it's a dagger," one person whispered, "and that's a famous magical sword!"

"Yeah, but that's sort of the best thing about knife-fighters… They're constantly underestimated," another replied.

"Not to mention, those two have been fighting each other for years, they know each other's fighting style as well as they know their own," yet another said.

"Maybe, but he's one of the best sword fighters we have had in years!"

"Well she's one of the smartest!"

"He's got the curse of Achilles!"

"That's why they're only fighting to disarm!"

"Will you guy's shut up!" a fourth shouted, causing all of the people around him to turn around, "What? I really want to see the fight and you guys are distracting!"

"If you're so interested in the fight, you might want to look. I think it's about to finish." They all turned to see the two fighters struggling blade to blade, the girl trying to push the guy's sword toward his exposed neck.

"You are so going down, Seaweed Brain," I said, using my knife to force riptide an inch closer to his neck.

"Oh yeah?" he smiled, "and what makes you so sure?" Then, faster than I would have thought possible he released on the sword, allowing my knife to fall, and then flipping the sword under the knife, causing it to go flying. Then for good measure he swiped his left leg on the floor, causing me to fall straight on my butt. I looked up to see him with a stupid grin on his face, just asking to be removed. Naturally, I copied his move and causing him to join me on the ground. Unfortunately, it didn't work out quite as well for me as I'd hope because, instead of ending up embarrassed like I hoped, he just started laughing. Soon we were both laughing our heads off, getting a few wolf whistles from the crowd we hadn't noticed had piled into the arena.

I got up and tried to get the dust off of my jeans, turning to see him looking up at me with an intense expression.

I reached out my hand to help him get up and said, "Don't tell me your brain is so full of kelp that you can't even think."

He just scrunched up his forehead and said, "Hey, Annabeth, you want to get married?"

"I… What... um," in shock I accidently let go mid-pull, causing him to fall back down on the ground.

"Wow, you really know how to treat a guy," he said, chuckling. I watched hum get up, eyeing him suspiciously, not sure if I had ever seen him clearly before.

"Don't answer now," he looked at me, his bright eyes shining, "not that I'm sure you can. Just think about it o.k.? Make your pro-con list or whatever a child of Athena does and get back to me." He began to walk out of the arena, but stopped and turned around. In three long strides he reached me and placed a kiss on my cheek. "And just so you know, this isn't an ultimatum or anything. It's not like I'm saying say yes or we're over, not to mention, even if you decide to say yes, it doesn't have to happen right away." I looked up into his eyes to see all mocking gone. His face was the definition of sincerity. Then he really did leave, whereas I stayed right where I was, completely frozen, though most definitely not immune to the whispering all throughout the arena.