('Nother short one. I have forgotten how to write. lol So, while writing this one I was double checking ages on the timeline I'd made and it's all wrong! Oh my goodness I cannot get a working timeline at all! So it's all gonna be fudged crap and we'll pretend it makes sense.

Have fun!)

Cyclops. Annabeth had been mentally armoring herself since she'd busted out of Meriwether College Prep with Percy. No matter how sweet the baby cyclops was, Tyson still freaked her majorly out. Polyphemus was no sweet baby.

When she found out that Percy was dreaming about Polyphemus she could have cried. Of all the gods forsaken islands the Fleece could be on it had to be this one.

She steeled her nerves and watched the sheep flock into the cave. She'd lost track of which one was carrying her best friend as a passenger pretty quickly. The cyclops had just grabbed the stone to close the cave entrance.

"Hello, ugly!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Who said that?"

Well, she had his attention. Here's to hoping he had some memory of his tussle with Odysseus.

"Nobody!"

His face turned red with rage and he roared a reply back to her. She barely heard it over the heartbeat in her ears. He was terrifying as he focused solely on her, whether he could see her or not. She had to shake herself out of her frozen state.

She started running and called out another taunt. "You're too stupid to remember anybody! Much less Nobody!" It was a good thing she was already moving, because the giant boulder, his cave's door, sailed through the sky and shattered into a million pieces where she'd just been. "You haven't learned to throw any better either!" her throat was scratchy as every fiber of her being shouted at her to be quiet and hide. But she continued to taunt and hollar, zig-zagging down the path that led away from his cave to avoid his boulders and lead him away from her companions.

The routine lasted several minutes. Yell, run, breathe. Yell, run, breathe.

She found a small alcove to pause for a moment collecting herself both mentally and physically. Pretend it was any other monster.

That's when one of his boulders exploded sending her flying through the air back towards the cave and directly at the feet of Polyphemus.

She screamed.

.

S: Carter?

S: Carter?

S: Carter

S: Carter!

C: WHAT?!

C: TIMEZONES SADIE!

S: Wats dads fav colour

C: what?

S: does he have a fav?

C: why?

S: our sm trip is coming up o.O

C: Im too tired for this

S: Caaaarrrter!

C: maybe red?

S: you dont KNOW

C: gnite Sadie

S: would red look better than green?

C: ...

C: in your hair?

S: wat do you think?!

C: your gonna dye your hiar dads fav color?

S: well im gonna TRY

C: Y?

S: …

S: so he convinces gran to get off my back about it

C: sure.

C: try red.

S: thx!

C: Goodnight

.

"I am ready," she pressed. Iskandar was being annoyingly stubborn.

Zia had outperformed nearly every other magician in her age group and Iskandar still refused to give her the rank of scribe! It was ridiculous! She was the best fire elementalist anyone had seen in years and had been studying every piece of Egyptian history she could get her hands on since Iskandar had found her.

She had even memorized the calendar of auspicious moments in her free time.

Iskandar was being an overprotective fool and every training dummy in the Nome was suffering for it.

Desjardins was no help. He kept referring to her as 'child' or some other demeaning title.

She was more than Iskandar's charity project!

As her next fireball hit the target she watched the flames slowly burn and die, allowing her anger to die with them.

She would be forever grateful to Iskandar. He was the closest thing she had to a father. She knew that was why the Kane man got to keep his child. Iskandar thought of her when someone told him to remove the child from the House. She heard plenty about that situation when Desjardin was pretending she didn't exist and said too much in front of her.

She sighed and left for her bunk. It didn't take long to restock her bag.

She dropped onto her bed and picked up her tome detailing Ptolemaic Egypt. Allowing herself one more long suffering sigh she began reading.