Percy told the others he'd catch up after burying the dead man. It was yet another thing he just had to do. He'd just not feel right if he didn't.
"You don't have a shovel to dig a grave," Barbossa pointed out.
Percy replied by making some of the water from the spring form a shovel in his hand. "Oh really?" he said.
"Never mind," Barbossa said, going after the others.
Percy proceeded to bury the body. Once he had, he wondered if he could clean the water in the spring. He didn't have the Horn of Plenty now, but then, this one wasn't as bad as that spring. He shuddered at the memory. The second—no wait, third time he had a near-drowning experience. He had the first in the Styx and the second in that sand pit.
"Something on your mind?" someone asked.
Percy turned to see who had been talking. It was Dad. "Just thinking about drowning, Dad," Percy said gloomily. "I've almost drowned thrice now. It just..."
"How did that happen?" Poseidon asked, frowning. "We both know you can breathe underwater."
"First time was in Styx," Percy told him. "The second was in sand before I got my memory back and the third was after that in some sort of black water."
"Liquid." Poseidon corrected. "Not water, Percy, liquid. You wouldn't have been drowning in it otherwise. Whatever it was, there was no oxygen, and in water there always is."
"Eh—always?" Percy asked. Usually words like always and never meant the sentence was not correct, and never mind what the rest of it was. This one, however, was the exception to that.
"Of course. What did you think the O in H2O stood for?" Poseidon said.
"Oh." Percy said, embarrassed. He should have known that.
Poseidon went on with a lesson about water and the three states of matter, insisting that Percy would use proper terms from now on. Like how water did not stop being water neither when frozen into ice, snow or hails; nor when vaporized into steam and clouds. Once the lesson was done, Percy was more than ready to return to the ship.
"We must go and save her," Will was insisting.
"No," Captain Jack Sparrow told him. "How come you didn't just shoot them anyway?"
"Wet powder, remember?" Will replied.
"Wet powder?" Percy put in helpfully. "I can help with that."
"What took you so long?" Barbossa asked him irritably. After all, Percy would have been great help in the battle.
"Dad insisted on giving me a lesson," Percy replied.
"Oh. Er… fine then," Barbossa said, looking nervously at the sea.
Percy not only made their powder dry again but also produced drinking water out of it. He surprised them when the water filled the drinking barrels. Meanwhile he was filled in what had happened.
