PRECISE AND ACCURATE
A/N: This happened during the eight months Percy was away at Camp Jupiter. And I figured Annabeth must be really great at drawing, since she's an architect. And a perfectionist.
The cool sea breeze embraced Annabeth as she sat on the beach by the sea. It was cold, and she shivered at some intervals, but she didn't even put on the littlest effort to shield it. Her hair was being blown away wildly, making it look like flickering flames of gold. She took off her jacket the moment the winds started picking up grew stronger, revealing her sleeveless orange shirt. That way, maybe Percy's arms can't be around her, at least something close to his feel was there. Her toes slightly dipped on the lapping waves.
She brought out her sketchpad from her backpack and scattered the array of colored pencils on the sand. She had a hundred of them. Anxious, she flipped the sketchpad to a page were a sketch laid unfinished. She's been trying to finish it for weeks, but every small detail made her delay it.
When she first decided to do this little project, she swore not to look at any pictures of Percyatall. She would rely solely on her memory; this way, she could see whether she remembers clearly how he looks, with not the merest detail flawed. She thought she'd be finished before curfew.
She started drawing at her bunker in Cabin Six, letting her masterful hands work on its own, while her brain racks for data, images of the Son of Poseidon. She would drop her pencil and sigh defeated sometimes, as some images become blurry. The days passed, and she became exasperated at her efforts. But she didn't want to give up. She wanted to prove to people – well, mostly herself – that her memory of Percy was spot on. But now, she was doubting her self. Notgood.
She got her backpack, dumped her pencils and sketchpad in it, picked up her jacket, and trudged out. Practically dragging her feet on the sand, she picked a spot by the beach where they usually hanged. This place she new would trigger the smallest yet best feelings of being close to him. She wouldn't have paid attention to any of these if she didn't like him the way she did – or loved him. But the tingles, blushes, goose bumps and shivers were used by her to remember the details. She drew hands down more than she could ever have inside the Cabin, were not a hint of Percy was left (except for inside her trunk, were she kept his pictures, which she hasn't touched in days).
The only thing she accomplished in there was his eyes. In fact, they were already colored. Being the sucker for detail that she is, she had to buy a whole new set of colored pencils because her current one lacked the right shades of greens for it. She combined the new set with the old one.
At the beach, she was able to finish his hair, his entire face, ears up to his neck. She stared at it a couple of time before she started being fussy; erasing and redrawing parts like his mouth, locks of hair, his jaw line, doubting if they really looked precisely like that. After dozens of trials that failed her, she buried her face on the page and screamed.
The fact that she couldn't remember accurately made her want to do a lot of things to Hera that would be inappropriate to print. She took one last look at his unfinished face. She erased the mouth again when she figured out what was wrong. She made the side curve upward awkwardly into his usual lopsided, goofy smile. This made her smile to herself. But staring at it again, she saw how messy the page had become from so many erasures. She packed the pencils back in her pack and called it a day, seeing the sun sink beneath the waves.
She craved to look at a picture of Percy again, but she wasn't the type to give up. Besides, their last picture was a few months ago. Who knows what he looks like now, after whatever the Roman Camp done for him? Maybe he sported the same cut as Jason, removing the unruly waves. Or a buzz cut. That one made her giggle a little. Would he still smile as if he was embarrassed like usual, or would he be stern and determined looking? The thought of the degree of how much Percy might have changed depressed her. And the fact that she really didn't know and couldn't know (for now) if he did.
She banished all the negative thoughts and trudged back to Cabin Six before going to the Mess Hall for dinner. She dug up her trunk, hastily throwing stuff onto her bed, looking for the photo album buried underneath. Electricity surged from her fingertips to her entire body when she grabbed it. She opened it to the last page, where she put her last picture of him.
She smiled a little, despite the fact the holes were being drilled in her heart. She compared it to the picture. The eyes she drew were perfect. Precise, accurate, spot on. Also the mouth, the nose, the face shape. The ears were slightly off. The hair was alright. The neck of her drawing needed to be a slight bit wider. She spent a considerable amount of time staring at the picture and her sketch, finally fully remembering. Other people would have said that her memory was great, but to her, if it wasn't perfect, it was cloudy.
"Annabeth," Malcolm, her brother, called out. "Let's go to dinner."
She took the picture and put it in her shorts pocket, and walked out with him, the conversation about columns and acoustics slightly drowning - but not completely – burying the heavy weight in her chest.
The End
So what do you guys think? I am not fully convinced that my writer's block fled from the anxiety building up in me from not writing a fanfic for a long time.. But I'm glad I'm still able to compose something, thought it might not be the best plot-wise and style-wise and whatever-wise. And I guess it lacked a little bit of my quirkiness.. IDK. So, for me to find out..
REVIEW. Hohoho. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
LOVE,
Legendaryhuntress.
Stand, Bow, Bye!