Chapter 5

Percy´s POV

"We are about to leave hyperspace! Please remain siting in your chair." the voice of the captain echoed through the whole spaceship.

I was sitting next to Annabeth who seemed to be smiling ever since she left the office of her father, which made me wonder what they were talking about. Maybe she would met some old friends in Delphi or something like that.

"You look good with that new suit." she said, breaking the silence.

Oh right! Because I was going to accompany her throughout the whole trip I had to disguise myself as some rich aristocrat. Otherwise I wouldn´t be allowed to attend the negotiation or the ball. So shortly before we left Olympia a servant of the king gave me this new suit and I got to say it felt good for once to not wear the heavy armor of the royal guard.

"Uh thanks?" I replied, feeling a bit uncertain whether she was teasing me or not. Her smile looked honest though. I grinned back and looked out of the window to see that we were just arriving at the planet Delphi.

"So… how long do you think will the meeting take?" I asked her.

"Maybe two or three hours? It mostly depends on whether Minos the king from Tartarus is moody today or not. He is famous for his hour long rants when he hasn´t had a great day." Annabeth answered. The venom in her voice, when she mentioned Minos, clearly indicated that she didn´t liked that guy very much.

I decided to take a good look at that Minos guy before he could get anywhere close to Annabeth.

Then a barely noticeable groan went through the ship which indicated that we have reached our destination and I took that as my signal to stand up to give the rest of the guards a short overview of the general plan.

"Alright soldiers, as you know guards aren´t allowed behind the gates so your job is to guard the area around the ship. We have no clear information when we´ll be back, but I guess it going to be tomorrow. As long as I´m away Clarisse will be in charge!" I told them and they nodded.

When I turned around I saw Annabeth grinning at me "You got them quite under control, don´t you?"

I chuckled at that "Well I´m their superior, so they better listen to me if they don´t want to get kicked out of the royal guard."

"True… Anyway let´s go! My dad is probably already waiting for us!"

With that she went to the exit of the spaceship to join the king and I followed her.

"No, no! We won´t come to a conclusion under those terms!" Minos yelled for maybe the thousandth time that day. I had to suppress a groan.

As I found out, Annabeth was sadly right when she said that the king of Tartarus could unnecessarily prolong a meeting for hours when he had a bad day. Right now it was about which planet would get the rights on a newly discovered planet. It wasn´t that much of a deal actually. The planet was in the same solar system as Tartarus and therefore belongs to King Minos. But the Trade Union wanted for everyone to have access to the planets resources. Tartarus would still get about half of the mining rights, which was a very good offer by the way, but Minos refused to accept the terms.

It took them almost on hour to get the old king to sign the contract and I may have fallen asleep for a short time during the negotiation but luckily no one noticed. I got to say it was pretty boring but Annabeth seemed to enjoy the whole political stuff, besides Minos rant of course. She even came up with some pretty smart solutions which seemed to impress many of the kings and queens around them.

Overall the meeting was very peacefully but during the end I became a bit weary because I noticed that one guy about my age with blonde hair and a scar on his face starring at Annabeth. He narrowed his eyes though when he noticed me starring back at him but then he just grinned.

When the meeting ended I pointed shortly at him when he had his back turned and I whispered to Annabeth "Who is that guy?"

"Who? Oh yea that´s prince Luke Castellan his father was king Hermes of Caduceus." She replied.

"Was?"

Annabeth nodded "Yea was, he died many years ago and his uncle king Minos adopted him. But why do you ask?"

I decided it was better to first obverse that Luke guy a bit before I was going to tell her. Something about the way he moved remembered me of something but I wasn´t sure.

"Nothing… uh we should get ready for the ball though."

After we changed into more fancy clothes we went into a huge white building. Several guards were protecting the entrance who were eyeing me wearily when I walked past them. ´

In front of us was King Frederick who was talking to an old friend of him, Lord Apollo. Meanwhile Annabeth linked her arms with me and I took a moment to inhale her sweet scent.

Woah! Not again man! You´re just guarding her nothing more.

But it was just impossible to ignore the beauty that was standing next to me so I asked as casually as I could "Would you like to dance?"

I expected her to just laugh at me or something like that but she just took my hand and said "I thought you´d never ask."

With that she pulled me with her to the dancing floor which was already a bit crowded but we managed to find a spot and she laughed when I twirled her around. Then we started to sway in the rhythm of the music for a while and I was glad because I wasn´t that good at dancing. The experience of holding her like that was absolutely amazing and I couldn´t help but notice how our faces where inching towards each other. Annabeth had a look on her face that pretty much yelled: DO IT ARLEADY. Her eyes contained something that was different that all those times before, or maybe I was just too stupid to notice it. It was love and I was pretty sure that I looked the same right now.

Oh screw the rules!

With that I leaned in and so did she but before our lips met we were interrupted by a male voice "Oh hey Annabeth!"

I groaned and was about to turn around to tell to back the fuck off before I made him but then I saw his face. It was Luke Castellan.

Alright and that is another chapter. Sorry it took me longer than usual. Normally I write down the core version of a chapter in about 2 hours and then about the same time for editing. This time I had to do it over a couple of days, because I couldn´t figure out where I should start and end. Now I´m pretty satisfied with the result though.

And holly crap I just looked at my emails! Almost 1000 views, 24 subs and 11 favs and reviews. You guys (and girls) seem to really like the story. Well thanks for that!

A short question do you want more fluff or less?

-Inverted Logic