"Leo, I swear to the gods, if you don't stand still I will knife you with this chisel." Nyssa growled.
She was crouching on scaffolding, brandishing the tool.
She surveyed seven very uncooperative demigods below her reprovingly.
"But I have to go to the bathroom." Leo protested.
"I'll do it." Nyssa warned, poised to throw her sculpting supplies like a javelin.
When the Senate had commissioned Hephaestus Cabin to construct statues of "The Seven"as a sort of goodwill gesture, they didn't count on the difficulties of getting seven ADHD demigods to pose for four hours. None of them were happy about being on their feet all day as Leo's brothers and sisters each worked on a larger than life sized statue of one of the Argo's crew.
For the last few days, the seven had stood for hours in the forum of New Rome, feeling more antsy and self conscious by the minute.
Now, instead of carving in eyebrows on Jason's statue as she was supposed to, Nyssa had to reign in the anarchy.
Out of shear boredom, Percy was testing how far his control of water reached, trying to overflow fountains that were farther and farther away. Gushing and screams could be heard as far away as Caesar Street.
Hazel was seeing how many times she could summon Arion before the horse got fed up and ignored her.
Frank, despite his growth spurt and weight loss over the summer, was the most self conscious. He kept turning into different animals out of nerves.
He transformed into a kangaroo and began to hop around, which was obviously not good for Nyssa's blood pressure.
"Oh man, my hair is awful." Piper despaired, sounding more like one of her sisters.
"Piper, your hair always looks that way. Its fine." Annabeth insisted soothingly. She had taken out an architecure book and was flipping trough the pages.
Jason raised his eyebrows which made Nyssa chisel the marble counterpart wrong and groan.
"Piper, you cut it with safety scissors. Since when do you care about your hair?"
"I know! But this is important." Piper explained. "These statues will be here forever. We have to look okay, or it'll be an embarrassment our whole lives. It's like picture day, only instead of people laughing at your pimples for a week, they'll be laughing for a hundred years."
Annabeth chuckled. "Point." she looked up at her statue where Jake Mason was putting the finishing touches on its frizzy marble hair. "It's just so weird they'll be here for so long."
"Stopped a war last year too." Percy grumbled. "Didn't need statues. Do kids learning about us in five hundred years really need to know I looked so stupid in the praetor uniform?"
He glared at his statue, where the clasps of the preator cape was being etched into the shoulders of statue Percy.
Jason grinned. "No, but they'll definitely need to know about that cowlick."
"Boys, please." Nyssa begged as Percy lightly smacked Jason on the chest. "We're almost done."
"Thank the gods." all seven of them breathed at once.
"Okay, chuckle heads." Nyssa laughed, making one last incision into the marble. "You are released."
She climbed down and admired her work.
"Wow." Percy murmured.
The starues were suddenly worth it. They were beautiful ten feet tall masterpieces, each a miniature Athena Parthenos.
Like the Parthenos, they all had blank, severe expressions that made them look unapproachable and timeless, not the scared teens they had felt themselves to be.
But as they looked closer, details betrayed the real demigod behind the immortality. Acne a conscientious and possibly vengeful sculptor had captured. Jason's scar. Piper's sloppy hair. How short Hazel was, or how lanky the boys were, not yet grown into and used to their heights.
Percy could swear Annabeth's had her trademark smirk.
He smiled.
"Y'know, maybe it won't be so bad if everyone remembers us like that." he said, following everyone to the mess halls for lunch.
Leo snorted. "Speak for yourself man. Now people are gonna see my ugly mug every time they walk through town."
"Everyone's going to know how short I am." Hazel complained.
"My hair. Why didn't I fix my hair?" Piper muttered dully. Annabeth pat her on the back.
"As long as nobody knows how I got my scar." Jason conceded.
"I told Reyna I look dumb in this uniform..." Frank griped.
As his friends continued to complain, Percy glanced back at his statue.
Past the serious facial expression, there was a lot he could complain about too.
They had captured his unruly hair, his unclear skin, and his not so muscular frame. They had even remembered the scar on his hand, something he definitively didn't want to be reminded of.
But that was how he wanted to be remebered. Not as a hero, but as a person.
Years in the future he wanted a generation of demigods to say "Man, Percy Jackson was probably an awesome guy to play video games with" not "Man, Percy Jackson was a cool hero" like he used to think about Hercules.
He wanted people to know he was real guy. Right now, a very hungry real guy.
As he clutched his stomach and complained, Annabeth admonishing him for being such a baby, he looked at the statues one more time.
They stood impassively, a testament to what a couple of frightened kids trying to keep everything they love from falling apart could do.
A/N: I can't believe this is the fiftieth chapter! You guys are awesome and I appreciate everyone who reads this story so much! Thank you for sticking with this morning mental exercise project that is my outlet for PJO hiatus.
I thought a chapter about the seven's legacy would be appropriate for this one. Hope you liked it and thank you for reading/reviewing!
