A/N: Ahhh! I'm finally posting again. Don't worry guys, even if it seems like I've abandoned this story, I promise that I haven't. I have such an interesting story line and plot and characters that I have yet to develop and introduce to this story, so I'm not going anywhere any time soon.
(Also, I'm currently on season 4 of Merlin and I'm currently freaking out. WHY DOES IT ONLY HAVE 5 SEASONS. IT DESERVES LIKE 1OOOOOOO MORE. COLIN AND BRADLEY AND ANGLE AND KATIE AND MY HEART I CAN'T EVEN OMGS I'M ALMOST DONEEEE. Okay. Small rant over.)
Chapter 8: Hidden Meanings
"All ready?"
Annabeth had thrown on a simple gray shift she had snagged from the mahogany dresser and chucked off her spoiled shoes and socks into a corner, abandoned and still damp. She opened the door to find both Sally and the boy waiting for her outside. Sally swept into the room with towels on her arm, laying them over the covers and patting the bed. Annabeth gingerly laid on her back, inhaling sharply as Sally raised the shift.
"Poison indeed," she muttered as she poked and prodded Annabeth's side. Sally glanced at the boy. "Did you close the wound?"
He nodded once.
"I don't know if I should praise you or scold you."
"The latter sounds fine to me," Annabeth piped up. Sally hid a smile.
"You ceased the blood flow and prevented infection, yet succeeded in trapping the poison in her veins."
"Which would you had rather me done?" The boy said exasperatedly. "Let her die of infection, blood loss or poison?"
"I don't know." Sally bit her lip.
"...Will you do something about it?" Annabeth whispered, her side hurting more then ever.
"Of course," Sally reassured her. "Per—" the boy coughed violently into his fist. "Darling, grab my black bag from the cupboard. It should have everything in it." The boy rushed out the door, leaving Annabeth and Sally alone.
Sally cleared her throat to break the silence. "How old are you, dear?"
"Sixteen," Annabeth replied. "How old is your son?"
"Seventeen." Annabeth couldn't hide the surprise that danced across her face. "Yes, he can seem a bit much sometimes," Sally laughed. She brushed wisps away from Annabeth's face and the younger girl couldn't help but like the maternal gesture.
"Will there be an IV?" Annabeth asked, recalling a book she had read that included a wide verity of medical knowledge, extensively on blood poisoning and how to treat it.
Sally nodded, observing Annabeth's unpleasant expression. "It will only be to sedate you," she said. Like that was supposed to be reassuring. "I am hoping we can easily purge the poison from your body—it is still quite fresh and shallow in your veins... should be a simple task... Had you arrived an hour earlier, however, your fate might be all the very different."
Annabeth mutely glanced out the window that looked over the busy city. Everyone moved with purpose outside in a sea of colorful fabrics—even the homeless folks were begging for scraps and money with vengeance—yet Annabeth was condemned to lying helplessly on a bed, unable to do nothing. She glared at the bright blue skies and puffy white clouds with a bitter taste in her mouth. Annabeth hated feeling weak. Her pride was battered and fuming with the desire to prove that she was anything but helpless.
The boy returned to the room with a black handle bag and immediately began to assemble an IV pole, bag and needle.
"Can't you just use magic?" Annabeth said desperately.
Sally shook her head as she produced a match from her apron pocket; striking it upon the windowsill, admitting a small flame from the tip. The boy passed her a surgeon's knife, sterilizing the blade with the flame.
"Some injuries can be treated by Darkcraft, and others only by mortal medicine," the boy explained.
"But the Manticore scratched me... doesn't that count as a magically influenced wound?" Annabeth recalled the ball of mist the boy had conjured in the woods and decided she liked the idea of magic over needles.
"The Manticore was magical, yes, but it's claws possessed no more Darkcraft than a normal bear's jaw—had it been the tail that struck you, the treatment would be significantly different. Darkcraft can only treat Darkcraft, I'm afraid."
Annabeth groaned as she flopped back onto the pillows.
Sally fastened a tourniquet above her elbow and instructed Annabeth to clench her hand into a fist. As Sally positioned the needle upon the surface of her skin Annabeth made Sally count to three before sticking her.
"Count to twenty, please," came Sally's soothing voice.
"One... two... three... four..." Almost immediately Annabeth felt the IV's sedation effecting her senses. "Five... six... seven... eight..." Her tongue became muddled and her eyelids grew heavy. "Ten... eleven... fifteen... sixteen... eighteen..." Her vision blurred at the edges and her head felt dizzy and fuzzy, like someone had stuffed cotton balls into her skull. Oh-so-slowly, Annabeth was swept away into the beckoning darkness of unconsciousness.
She was back in the Chasm. Everything was dim and dark; the air smelled of chilled corpses and brittle flesh and the temperature was well below freezing. Icicles hung from the cold dirt walls and frost coated every stone and root. A tall figure sat on the edge of the couloir, swinging its legs merrily as it perched above an eighty foot drop.
"Be careful!" Annabeth called as rocks tumbled into the dark abyss below. She did not feel her lips move or her throat open, yet both she and the other inhabitant both heard her words as clear as day echo throughout the Chasm.
The figure turned to her, flashing her an impish grin. "It is you who should be careful," he advised. He wore a simple brown tunic with laced sandals and he had no cloak, yet seemed unaffected by the cold atmosphere.
"After all; you did almost died twice today. It would be such a shame to have to replace you so soon... we did see potential... success... value. Such a shame to throw it all away the second you arrived."
Annabeth found herself slowly approaching the pit, the boy, drawn to him in an unexplainable manner. What bothered her most was his face, or lack of; his features were veiled behind shadows and her own blurry conscious—only his eyes were sharply defined in a golden glow—as if to remind her that this was, after all, only a silly dream.
"Who are you? Why are you here? Why am I here?"
The boy furrowed his brow. He appeared lost in thought. "I am not sure," he said at last. A sad look appeared on his face and Annabeth wished nothing more than to give him a hug. "Some day's I am him... weak... sour... troubled... afraid... And other days I am of an entirely... other... essence... And oh, how I long to be freed! Freed of the imprisonments that have been bestowed upon on us.
"As for you, your mind did all the work. You wished to see the Chasm again, and I never refuse an order. I serve to please!" He giggled maniacally as he swung his arm.
"But I don't recall wishing to be back here," Annabeth protested. Why would she want to visit this dreary, haunted place again?
"It did not have to be a conscious desire," he informed her. He kicked his legs and a piece of brown hair fell in his eyes. "Tell me, what is it like to belong to your own mind... your own will?"
"I... don't know." Regular-Annabeth would've found this whole conversation very odd, but Dream-Annabeth only shrugged her shoulders carelessly.
The boy grinned, widening his mouth in a victorious smile. "Of course you don't know! As if—we are the same, you and I. Very similar indeed!" He leapt from the chasm's edge and stalked to Annabeth, plucking a branch incrusted in ice from a tree ingrown in the earth.
"I am sorry to have to let you go so soon," he sighed as he dug the frozen tip into the ground. "But He is not yet strong for a lengthier meeting. One day, though, He shall regain his strength, every last ounce that they have failed to rip away! One day, my dear Excellus, we shall be reunited and restored to our formal glory once more, no longer in mind but in person!"
The boy lifted his chin, opened his mouth and let out a shrill whistle between his teeth. He cocked his head, face tilting towards the couloir. A deafening dissonance of animalistic growls, barks and howls responded to the single note. He smiled, satisfied, and turned back to Annabeth."Can you wait? Can you wait a little while longer? Soon, my Excellus!!"
The boy drew a symbol in the dirt and Annabeth felt a tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach and the space in her head. The last glimpse Annabeth caught was his golden eyes smoldering like a hot, summer night as they melted the frozen Chasm into a sea of mud and bodies.
Annabeth woke to the dying sun casting long shadows upon the walls of a vacant bedroom, and no recollection of shadow boy's or frozen corpses. An IV stuck out of the crook of her arm that connect to a barely empty bag of fluids strung onto a metal pole. A large bandage tinted red was taped to her side which was very sore, but a different kind of pain from the poison.
The bedroom was empty, the window was dark, and for a moment Annabeth was afraid and disoriented.
"Who is she?" She heard Sally whisper faintly from another room, and Annabeth could breathe again. The boy's response was too low to make out. Annabeth's abdomen throbbed as she tried to sit up. Sally sucked in her breath. "Perseus! You shouldn't have!"
"Bingo," Annabeth whispered.
"I know, I know," the boy said tiredly. "But I couldn't... she didn't... she saw through the Entrancement, Mother. She saw through the Entrancement—she saw me! She saw my reflection in the pond while under the influence of the Glade... and I knew she was different. It was like you and Father meeting the first time. I was... drawn to her. Captivated... it was as if... as if I was the one entranced... I couldn't help myself."
Sally sighed and shifted her weight. "I know, sweetheart. I... I was afraid this would happen, given your considerable heritage, and bloodline, and..."
"Mother, it's fine—"
"No, it isn't. This isn't the life I wanted for you, this... half life was never meant to condemn you."
Annabeth couldn't contain a yelp as she fell against the pillows, her trembling arms giving way to her dead weight. She heard the two shift and Perseus say, "I'll check on her."
Footsteps lightly patted the ground and soon his shadow filled the space beneath door. "Are you alright?" He asked as he hovered in the doorway.
"Water," Annabeth rasped.
He swept to her bedside with a full glass in his hand. Annabeth greedily slurped her fill with his aid, mindful of the line that was attached to her arm.
"What happened while I was asleep?" She gasped at last.
"We had to reopen your side to flush out the poison. Then we stitched you back up. You will be sore for a few days but you won't die," he said brightly. No wonder her side ached. "And we have painkillers should you need them."
"Is your mother a physician?" Perseus shook his head as he placed the glass on the nightstand.
"Then how is it that she's so... good at treating wounds?"
His face hardened. "She's had a lot of practice."
"Knock knock," Sally said as she rapped on the door. She stepped inside and sat on the end of the bed. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired," Annabeth admitted.
Sally nodded. "As is expected. Any pain, discomfort?"
"Only the stitches."
"Take two of these every six hours for the next three days." Sally produced a little bottle of red pills from her pocket and dumped a couple into Annabeth's palm. Annabeth swallowed them immediately, cringing at the sour taste. Percy handed her water to chase the pills with.
"I have a question for you," Sally said finally. "And I would like you to answer it as truthfully as possible."
"Alright," Annabeth said awkwardly as she wiped her mouth.
"Do you recall how you ended up here?"
"Perseus brought me... don't give me that look—I'm not deaf!" Annabeth told his enraged face.
"How much did you hear?" He growled.
"Before the forest, before the Glade," Sally redirected them with a firm tone and sharp eyes.
"The... Chasm. I was in the Chasm, and the General and Keli were there. Before that was the Marble Hall in Othrys, where Othrys is I do not know because I cannot get an answer out of your son."
Sally's face grew solemn and Annabeth feared she had failed to remember an important detail.
"Your memory is just fine," the boy reassured her. "The pure fact that you can remember is the problem."
"It is? Why?"
"They can usually recall nothing," Sally said quietly. "Their memories are cleaned and they arrive in the Glade clueless. It has always been... done, this way, so that they have absolute no recollection of their past whatsoever..."
"Whom, exactly?" Annabeth pressed. "The "Excellus"? The General called me that. What is it?"
"Let me see your numbers, dear," Sally said abruptly.
Annabeth's jaw dropped as she displayed her hand. "H-how?" She studied the golden numbers; she could not recall when they had stopped counting, or who it had been for. It could have been for Zoë or Perseus or some stranger in the city crowd.
Sally sent Perseus a sad smile, who held a candle high in the air. "You have your answer."
"What?" Annabeth said stupidly.
"Listen carefully, Annabeth—yes, of course I know your name; I knew it within the first five minutes of meeting you!" He exclaimed. "What do you expect? I can read your mind."
Annabeth tried to contort her features into a more pleasant expression: it was difficult.
Perseus haggardly ran his hands over his face. "You cannot tell anyone, anyone, my name. You must keep it to yourself, at all costs. You have no idea what power it attains."
"It must be a great deal for you to conceal it so greatly," Annabeth commented. "Especially for Zoë's Hunter."
She did not miss the way Perseus's face whitened, or how Sally placed a hand on his shoulder.
"If spoken by certain Craftling's, names can possess enough power to lord control over their owners. One can command the evilest of deeds... horrific acts... even summon the dead with a simple name. Bianca was no different. She was foolish enough to believe Zoë... foolish enough to think that the Hunter's oath could withstand such Darkcraft. Ultimately, her blind trust got her killed... And yet, Zoë still recruits new Hunters and weaves them lies of false truth."
Annabeth allowed him a moment of bitter contemplation.
"I... shall keep your name in secrecy," she said after a moment. Perseus let out an exhale of breath. "But I want something in return."
"That being?"
Annabeth met his eyes with a determined, challenging stare. She didn't care if she couldn't pick up a glass of water without assistance or if she was too weak to sit up. She wanted answers, and she would see that he would provide them with every ounce of strength she had left.
"Help me get home."
Sally made a sound in her throat, and she and her son shared a glance of hidden meanings.
The pain pills must've kicked into her system, for Annabeth slipped into unconsciousness once more before she could hear Perseus's response.
A/N: please review!
I saw that someone said my story was confusing, and for that I apologize. I have been aiming for it to be mysterious and intriguing, not utterly confusing. My suggestion is to review Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books again. They might clear some things up in this story.
Or not! :)))
(C'mon, I'm a writer! You really think I'd tell you my secrets?)
