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This chapter, for an interesting change of pace, is told from Annabeth's POV. To all of you Percy fans: don't worry; he'll be back next chapter. It's basically her brooding so that everyone can relax and get into all the details of the story.
Chapter 2
Love Is Definitely Not Demigod-Resistant
I was about an hour early, I realized, as the cab dropped me off at the movie theatre. Well, there's only so much time a girl can spend reading in a hotel room when she's about to see her best friend and the only real home she'd ever had within the upcoming twenty-four hours.
Sitting on a bench outside the theatre (I would buy my ticket after Percy arrived and we both decided on the film), I tried to relax and enjoy the electric, Manhattan atmosphere. I took out my well-loved copy of the Odyssey. The cover was frayed but still beautiful with its blue and silver leafing, and I remembered the day Chiron gave it to me. It was my eighth birthday, and the first birthday I had celebrated at camp.
Nestled comfortably between pages 200 and 201 was a contrastingly new Polaroid that functioned as a bookmark. My eyes automatically shifted from side to side in search of prying eyes, even though I knew my family members were all at home, in California. I opened the book to look down at the photo for the millionth time since Percy's mother had sent it to me, without Percy's knowledge of course.
It was a picture of Percy, taken about three months prior. He was sitting on a park bench, grinning crazily for no apparent reason other than to be silly. Percy, and every other demigod for that matter, very rarely allowed himself to relax, so to have captured his expression was very precious indeed.
For some reason, looking at the picture always caused me to think of how much Percy differed from Luke. Luke was blonde and of an outdoorsy attractiveness, while Percy took a great deal after his mom in facial structure. With high cheekbones and fine-arched eyebrows, Percy was of a gentler, more dramatic appearance. In the picture, the wind had tousled his thick, longish dark hair, and it was hanging done in front of his eyes. It was his eyes that kept him from being just average looking. He had the largest, most fiercely beautiful eyes of any boy I'd ever seen. They were a green that always matched the ocean and his mood: dark, brooding blue-green; sad, soft gray-green; cheerful moss green; fierce, and almost black-green. Many people claimed that their eyes' color changed with mood, or the color of clothing that they wore, but Percy's were the only ones that I knew of that literally did so. Sometimes, if there was a storm taking place at sea, you could watch the swirls of color crash against one another within his irises.
I admitted to myself that I missed him, and was looking forward to the first normal, teen outing we would have together, and that most teens would have taken for granted because they didn't have the worries of a demigod.
I looked at the picture again, and remembered something Chiron had told me in confidence about former Cabin Three campers (he didn't think it appropriate to discuss Percy's deceased siblings with him until his life was no longer endangered by prophesies). He'd said he'd once had a camper named Jasper, a son of Poseidon before the pact of WWII, and that he and Percy looked nearly exactly alike, although complete opposites in personality (Jasper had been very timid). All campers within the same cabin tended to favor one another in looks: Demeter, willowy; Hephaestus, stern; Ares, big; Poseidon, brooding. Chiron said that the personality differences between Percy and Jasper were a fine example of how sharing blood does not define who you are. Only you can determine what is set into the stone.
Chiron had also laughed, stating that Cabin Three campers were by far the most emotional, tending to let loose amounts of rage rivaling even that of the Ares kids. He said that it was lucky that Poseidon drew the sea, for he would have made an even more horrible God of the Underworld than Hades, if that were at all possible.
I thought of my mother, too, with all her wisdom and beauty, and how she would never let go of her temper in any form of reckless, destructive rampage. She would bide her time, plan efficiently, and hit her opponent where she had deduced it would hurt the worst. I feared for Percy, whom I could tell my mother wasn't too fond of and was far too young to be decimated on the spot.
This is why we weren't on a date, why we could never go on a date. Our parents were never going to get along, and it had ended the life of many a young halfblood, trying to defy what was written in the stars. It didn't work for Helen and Paris, and it didn't work for Romeo and Juliet, and it was certainly not going to work for a halfblood as unlucky in love as me.
