We Have A Love No Other Could Cherish

Percy POV

We all gathered around the ping pong table, waiting for Chiron to show up who was in the infirmary treating head wounds of the Apollo campers. Even though they had fallen on the sponge-y ground, some had fallen on their weapons, and the result was not pretty.

Will, however had been one of the lucky ones and fallen on the ground and was now only sporting a major headache, which Rachel said was typical for post-prophetic-tendencies. He sat massaging his temples next to Nico who was leaning against his arched frame, fiddling with his skull ring.

Annabeth was leaning against my shoulder in similar fashion while talking with Piper about the prophecy. I wasn't paying much attention as it would all be repeated in about five minutes, and I was watching and exchange between Jason and Leo, who were sat behind Piper.

Leo had fashioned a small device that looked suspiciously like an Archimedes sphere, and was flying around Jason's head, zapping him with electricity. But what made it really funny was the fact that Jason was zapping it back, and frequently missed, much to the distain of the other counsellors.

I saw Katie duck as a stray lightning bolt came at her, and Travis receive a face full of electricity, just as he was about to kiss her. The effect was quite comical, as Travis seemed to vibrate on the spot with mild pain coursing through him, twitching with a pout on his face.

At least Connor seemed to think so as he howled on the floor with laughter, his legs knocking into Clovis's. Clovis, for once, was awake, and seemed to be getting even on a dozing Butch. He looked ready to murder Connor as he kept on nudging him with his theatrics, as he was trying to draw what looked like clouds and rainbows on his shaven head.

"Ahem."

All heads turned to the door, where Chiron stood, observing the room. Travis stopped vibrating and slumped to the floor gasping for breath while Katie snickered on the floor next to him, and Clovis dropped the marker pen he'd been using in Butch's head. Leo's sphere went floating to the ground with a whirr, and Will looked up from his headache.

"Now, we're here to discuss the prophecy that occurred today. Did anyone write it down?"

Katie raised her hand and produced a crunched-up piece of paper. It had some scrawled Ancient Greek on the back and I squinted at it from across the room.

Roses- water (50ml) 7 times a day, underworld fertiliser-

I smirked at the irony. Great, foreboding prophecy on one side, garden instructions on the other. Seems just about right. She began to speak.

"'Albion receives seven from legends of now,

To aid the family descendants, proud,

The fight of the fire,

Will overcome the power,

And the crystal soul shall crack

Malice of death with evil of the uncontrollable,

Shall banished by love so true,

Yet be the end of that which remains,

but only with the curse invincible obtained,

Will the two minds withstand the strain,

Shall peace once again reign.'"

She looked up from the paper and looked at Chiron, a terse expression on her features.

"Ahhh, Albion. I have not heard that word for a while. It was the old, and I mean millennia old, word for a country in Europe."

Annabeth scrunched up her forehead next to me.

"Wasn't it the name for one of the countries in Great Britain?" she voiced her confusion to the room, and Chiron nodded sagely at her.

"Specifically, however..."

He trailed off, raising his eyebrows at her, intoning her to finish the statement.

"Scotland."

Huh.

"What does Scotland have to do with this?" asked Butch, still unawares if his predicament, and looking between Chiron and Annabeth, his arms crossed.

A few people sniggered at him but he didn't notice. He continued.

"The gods never lived there, and I don't recall any Greek monsters living there."

"That is right-"

"Fae, no! I'm going to say something!"

Our heads all swivelled to the swelling exchange between Lou Ellen and Fae Church.

They turned their heads to meet ours as the noticed the lack of discussion, and I saw a firm resolve fix itself on Lou Ellen's face, while the grip Fae had on her wrist deepened.

Lou Ellen turned back to Fae and looked hard at her, and we could all see her adamancy melt away.

"Lou Ellen? Is there something you want to say?"

"Uh, yeah." She replied vaguely, turning back from Fae. "I think I might know what's in Scotland."

Silence.

"Ooookay, then. Uh, see there's no straightforward way to say this, but, err, there are a certain Greek species that was hidden in Europe, specifically London."

"Yes, but what does that have to do with Scotland?"

I surprised myself by the lack of restraint of my words, as they came out slightly harsher than I thought. Lou Ellen looked at me and face became slightly frightened as she heard me, and I sent her an apologetic look. I must have gotten scarier.

Annabeth squeezed my leg comfortingly.

"Well, through the Salem Witch trials, my mother felt bad for all the women condemned, so she smuggled some women with no attachments out to Europe, where the superstition was much less."

She took a deep breath and continued.

"She then rewarded them as a sort of compensation with her blessing, somewhat altered."

"So, there are a bunch of blessed mortals running around with magic at their fingertips?" stated Jason ridiculously, his foot tapping nervously.

"Not quite." replied Fae, taking over. Lou Ellen nodded in agreement.

"As the years went on, the amount of magic was passed on, becoming somewhat more dilute. Nowadays, they can only channel magic to a certain degree, and only a rare amount of them can use it without assistance. The mist made them forget and easily susceptible to the thought that they had been around for eons rather than centuries. They call their assistance wands, and themselves witches and wizards."

Silence.

And then Leo snickered.

I sorta expected people to start asking questions a mile a minute, but no-one said a thing. I guess that's what Greek-gods-and-monsters-attacking-daily-is-normal does to you.

I felt Annabeth glare at Leo and he immediately stopped his ministrations.

"Well, if you didn't know that gods existed, and you had magic in your fingers, isn't that what you would call yourself, for lack of better wording?" He visibly retreated, but I saw a ghost of mirth in his eyes.

"So how is Scotland relevant to the 'magic community', then?" asked Holly Victor, co-head if the Nike cabin, interrupting. She said, 'magic community' with quotation marks.

"Well, they're very organised; they have their own separate governing system, separate laws, special hospitals, and schools. One of the most famous is located somewhere in Scotland, called Hogwarts."

This time, Leo made a sound of indignation, not making eye-contact with Annabeth.

"They recently underwent their own war, actually."

This garnered more interest.

"What?" asked Will, making his first contribution to the meeting. His headache seemed to have subsided some and he ceased running his temples, looking at Fae.

"Yeah there was this evil wizard who was driven mad by his need for power, and to master death. He split his soul and placed them in seven different objects, trying to make himself immortal. A prophecy was then made, predicting that a child born on the thirty-first of July would defeat him. He travelled to the house of the boy, killing the father. He entered the room containing the mother and child and, upon which the first sacrificed herself for the child. Then he turned on the boy and prepared to kill him with the 'killing curse', but it was reflected to him, as the mother's sacrifice protected the boy.

"Years later the boy grew up in a somewhat abusive family, and was accepted into Hogwarts, in which he had probably the most twisted and dangerous school years. At the end, however, he and two others got rid of all the separate pieces of his soul and killed the evil wizard. This all took place in Hogwarts, in which many died."

There was a sombre silence, as people acknowledged the turmoil that the witches and wizards went through.

"How do you know all this? And why didn't we know about it?"

Annabeth piped up next to me, her eyes locked on the forms of Lou Ellen and Fae.

They looked at each other before Lou Ellen spoke, "Well, as heads of the Hecate and Circe cabins, it was kind of our duty to know, as well as the fact that some of our brothers and sisters attend there. It is the only other place a demigod can live, as there are barely any prophecies, but there is no protection from monsters. And as for the fact of you not knowing, what would you think Zeus would do if he found out that about a tenth of the mortal population were magical, and he didn't know about it?"

There was no scorn in her words, merely information as she seemed to bottle up her own views.

"Okay, okay. So, we now know what the significance of Scotland is...", Jason paused as a few counsellors chuckled, and he smiled a bit himself. "But who are the legends of now?"

"Well, Jason." answered Chiron, his tail swishing from side to side. "My guess is that it would be you"

"Jason?"

The confusion was clear in my voice as I questioned the pairing.

"No, Seaweed Brain. He means the seven."

That would make sense. As part of the prophecy of seven, a great prophecy nonetheless, being a major player in that would make you a legend in a century or so. I groaned at the implications. Another quest? This was getting ridiculous.

Chiron smiled sympathetically at me.

"Okay, so we've got the first and second line down- what about the third?" intoned Piper, who had remained relatively quiet.

"Well, last time fire meant Leo, so maybe Leo defeats a magic mortal?" Annabeth queried beside me, sitting up in her seat.

Leo shrugged. "What about 'crystal soul shall crack'"

"I... don't know anything about a 'crystal soul..." Annabeth trailed off. "What are the next lines?"

Katie grabbed he sheet from the ping pong table and read, "'Malice of death and evil uncontrollable, banished by love so true,'". She looked up and asked "Well, 'malice of death' could be the evil wizard? What was his name again?"

Fae looked up and said, "Voldemort."

Leo choked.

I suppressed a smirk, knowing that Annabeth would be far from pleased, but I still had to admit, these people were really bad at naming things.

I moved the conversation on. "Okay, then 'evil uncontrollable'? If we got a prophecy about it, wouldn't that make it Greek? Or further up the family tree, I mean."

"Most likely, though there are too many evil deities to count, so I won't bother with suggesting any. The next line?" Chiron dismissed.

"'Love so true,'"

Everybody turned to me.

Piper's POV

In an instant, I felt a mixture of some average and extremely powerful auras turn on me, and I'm sure that I sank into the plush sofa even further. The people in the room blinked at me.

"Well, uh, love so true... yeah."

I didn't want to offend anyone, as I already knew the answer, but there were many couples in the room, including my own. I would have loved to say that our love was truest, but love takes time, and devotion, and while we did have that, it wasn't nearest enough in comparison.

"I do kinda regret to say it, because it puts you two in the centre, but the strongest love right now in camp seems to be Percy and Annabeth."

A small whimper escaped Annabeth, who was sat on my left, and she leaned into Percy again. Jason remained quiet by my side, but I didn't acknowledge any hidden feelings from him.

"Well, Annabeth. We truly have a love no other could cherish, right?" Percy looked down at her, smiling encouragingly, as if his words could hold up the two of them.

"It's not like we expected anything else, is it?" stated Clarisse, rather harshly, breaking the silence. A few murmurs went around in assent.

"'To be the end of which remains.'" Interrupted Chiron, breaking us out of conversation. "What do we have left over from the war? Any relics, sacred weapons..." he trailed off, leaving the question open.

Annabeth slowly shook her head, but turned to Percy. They shared a look before Percy said, "We discovered that a small piece of Tartarus lives in our heads today, actually. It's what gives us the nightmares every night."

"So, this evil is going to be defeated by you two and Leo, and they're still going to take away your nightmares?" asked Jason, slightly disbelieving.

"Seems so."

There was a pause.

"Wait, there are three more lines." Katie began to read once more form the crumpled paper, "'only through the curse invincible obtained, will their two minds withstand the strain, and peace once again will reign.'"

"The curse invincible must be referring to the Achilles Curse, right?" I questioned, swearing that I'd heard it around camp at some point.

"Yeah." came Percy's full response as he ground his shoe into the ground.

Silence fell on the room again, as the information sunk in.

Percy and Annabeth would have to undertake the curse of Achilles.

"Yay."

A weak cheer came from Annabeth as she tried to lighten the mood. A few people in the room chuckled, but I saw how tight the two were gripping each other's hand.

.o.O.0.O.o.

I lay on the roof with Jason by my side, gazing at the stars. I desperately wanted to be distracted, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. I tried focusing on each star, trying to recall its name, its history, the warmth of Jason's hand in mine. But it didn't work.

"Pipes?"

"Yeah?"

He gripped my hand tighter in his and I shuffled closer to him.

"I'm worried for Percy and Annabeth."

"Me too. Me too." I murmured, not sure what to say. I felt the exact same way, but there wasn't any answer.

"I could practically feel the emotion rolling of them in waves."

"Hmmm." he replied.

My eyes narrowed. "'I could practically feel the emotion rolling of them.'" I repeated.

"Yeah, Piper. I heard."

I remained quiet, thinking over my theory. It was weird, and didn't have an ending, but it was intriguing. "Have your powers been different lately?" I asked, turning my head towards Jason's.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, stronger, weaker, the same?"

His calculative blue eyes filled with worry and curiosity as he thought, and he finally replied with, "I don't know, Pipes. I haven't really been paying attention since the war."

"What couldn't you do before the war, then?"

"Well, I couldn't create storms like Percy's, and I had a limited amount of lightning bolts… I could only fly one person at a time, including myself…"

"Wait, stop there. Flying?"

"Yeah, If I wanted to fly someone else up I had to be holding onto them, I couldn't fly them up separately. Why?"

"Well, I wanted to see if you could do it now."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it. Please? For me?"

He gave me a look but complied and stood up. He held out his hand for me and I took it, hauling myself up. He momentarily closed his eyes in concentration, before opening them and floating upwards a few inches. He looked at me and grinned. I smiled back and said, "Now try and make me float too."

His smile faded and doubt crossed his expression, but I reached up and caressed his jaw, as it was the closest thing I could reach, and smiled comfortingly at him.

"Do you trust me?"

An idea popped into my head as he started to speak.

"Yes but, Piper. What if I drop you, or…"

I imagined courage and confidence flowing from myself into him, through my hand, and his expression suddenly smoothed. "It's okay, Jason. I know you won't drop me." I said, making sure to keep the charmspeak out of my voice. I looked into his eyes and took a deep breath. His gaze lowered to my feet and he concentrated. I slowly felt a tugging force surround me from my ankles upwards, pulling me from the ground. It felt much different than what flying had felt like before, as his arms had always been wrapped securely around me. Now I was flying on my own, I decided that I preferred to be flying with him rather than alone.

I smiled encouragingly at him as my feet left the ground, becoming level with his own. The lines on his forehead slowly melted and he grinned excitedly at me. We slowly began to fly higher and higher, faster and faster as the wind whipped at my clothes. We began to move in separate paths, flying in circles and loops as we whooped and cheered. I became more confident in the thought that he wouldn't drop me, and simply let the winds take me where they pleased.

But after a few minutes, I felt his concentration slip as the tumultuous winds hugging me shifted slightly, becoming looser.

"Uh, Jason." I called, trying to get him to focus. He turned to me and saw my concern, before narrowing is eyes. I felt the winds move even further away from me again, before snapping back sharply and I gasped, the air leaving my lungs. Jason's eyes snapped open as he looked at me with panic in his eyes, and I felt the wind's hold on me vanish completely and I fell out of the sky.