Me again! Well, who else would it be? Hmm?

I blink.

"Wait, what?" Chiron gives me a look for interrupting.

"Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon were the main three. Zeus's children were Athena, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysus. The rest of the Olympians were his siblings, but Aphrodite was born from the sea foam created by Uranus's chopped up pieces.

"I don't have to tell you what their powers focused on, you probably already know that."
"Uh…so you're telling us that our parents are gods?" Percy's mouth is open.

"No. I'm telling you what they're named for," Chiron says with a wink. "Now, go back to your home and entertain yourselves." We leave in silence.

Back at the palace, I sit on the my bed and Percy sits next to me.

"Wow."
"Yeah. I can't believe that. I mean, I'm assuming that Chiron meant what our parents controlling are their powers."
"Duh, Seaweed Brain."
"You got that? It sounded really jumbled in my mind."

I sighed. "You know you have to go back out the window, right? I've got guards everywhere."
"Yeah. I know."

We sit there a while longer. Soon, my eyelids droop, and I slump against him and fall asleep.

"Princess Annabeth! Princess Annabeth, your presence is requested by Prince Malcom!" Likker shouts, jolting me awake. My head is on Percy's shoulder and his head rests on mine. Carefully, I move his head off mine and lean him back so his back is on the bed and his legs are still over the side. I tell Likker I'm coming to get him to stop yelling, scrawl Percy a scolding note, pull on a dress, and run to Malcom's private entertaining rooms.

"What, Malcom?"

"Annabeth! What's with the attitude?"

"Do you really want to know?" My voice is scalding.

"Uh, no. Just wanted to tell you that Mother doesn't feel good, so we have a day to do whatever we want."
"Sweet! But did you really have to wake me up to tell me that?"
"Careful, Annabeth. I've just had word that Prince Perseus isn't in his chambers."
I turn red. Without another word, I turned on my heel and left.

Back in my room, Percy was still sleeping. I sit next to him on the bed.

Groggily, his eyes open.

"Huh?" He says.

"You drool when you sleep," I tell him.

"Thanks," he groans, sitting up and stretching. "So what are we doing today?" He asks.

"Whatever we want. Mother doesn't feel well."
"Let's have breakfast."

"You have to go back out the window, Seaweed Brain."
"Yeah, yeah, and change.

"See you at breakfast."
"Bye." Percy leaves through the window and I fix my hair.

At breakfast, it's oddly quiet since Mother is gone. Percy and I are trying to comprehend what we heard last night, Malcom is trying to be king, and Luke is flirting madly—with a serving girl. She blushes and tries to ignore him, but he grabs her wrist and she pulls, head down, shameful. He twists, her face also twisting, but in pain. I stand.

"Luke!" My voice rings across the almost empty dinning room. Luke looks up, scowls, and lets go of the serving girl. I sit down, and the atmosphere relaxes.

But I don't. I don't relax when the serving girl breaths her thanks as she takes away my tray. I don't relax when Percy catches my eye and raises and eyebrow in concern. I definitely don't relax when Luke follows me out of the dinning room, with either a threat or an invitation to do what we did yesterday.

Percy gets there first.

"Princess Annabeth, would honor me to a day out on the streets?" Percy says with a bow.

"Um…Sure."

"Great! Go change." He whispers the last part.

"Why?"
"So we can be normal!" Percy's eyes are lit up. He winks, turns on his heel, and leaves. I stand there for a second, confused by his enthusiasm and his wink. Luke catches up with me.
"Annabeth? Would you care to join me on a day out?"

"Sorry, I have another engagement," I say, and then I push past him to my room, where I dress dark green tunic and leggings. Then I climb out the window and meet Percy.
"What are you doing?" I ask, the question aimed at the hand behind his back. It comes out, covered in something brown. That's all I see before he flings it in my face.

It's mud. It's mud and it's all over my face and in my hair.

"You!" I gasp. I bend down, scoop some up, and throw it in his face. It splatters across his nose and eyes like a mask. I go to throw more, but he holds me down against the wall.

"We had to blend! Annabeth, stop, we needed to blend!" I stop fighting and scowl.

He sniffs me.

"You smell good."
"Thank…you?" I say, confused.

"That's bad. We need to blend in, and poor people don't really smell all that great all the time."
"Oh, dear."
He makes us run the whole way to town, which I usually ride horseback. By the time we get there, we are both panting and sweaty. He sniffs me again, and wrinkles his nose.

"The smell of sweat and mud cover the smell of perfume and riches."
"And what do riches smell like?"
"Gold," He says as he pulls out a drachma. Calmly, he flips it to a beggar on the street. The beggar catches it and holds it up to the light, astounded. We continue on.

"I smell like gold?" I ask, confused.

"Yes. You've grown up with it, so you're accustomed to the smell. There,
smell that girl there," He tells me, motioned to a girl about my age wandering the street.

I stroll past the girl, sniffing quietly. She doesn't even glance at me.

"So? What'd she smell like?"
"Bread. Cheap perfume. And…ink."

"You have a good nose."
"I try. By the way, how'd you know all that?"
"The first time I left the castle, I was six. I had been planning for months. I wore plain clothes and had a brown satchel over my back. It was night, and I went to Poseidon City. I ventured into a back alley, and immedietly, and gang of thiefs pounced.

"They said I smelled of gold, and when they opened my satchel, they found nothing but a loaf of bread and a rock. They searched my pockets and found a two drachmas. The leader sniffed my skin. He mumbled that I smelled of gold, not just carrying it, and must have come to the conclusion that I was rich when a guard came around the corner. He spotted us and all the thieves ran. I went back to the castle and planned more carefully."
"Wait, so you only took two drachmas on your first night out?"
"The drachmas in my pocket were fake."
"Then…"
"They were baked into the bread."

I laughed at the geniusness of the plan.

"And the rock?"
"My lucky rock, Fred." He pulls a rock out of his pocket.

"I found it on the street once, when I was 3, when I got lost on Parade Day."

I laugh again, imagining a toddler Percy wandering around and picking up a rock, naming it Fred.

We wander around the rest of the day. For lunch we went to the same place Luke and I went, except I pay double for the meal yesterday and the meal today.

That night, we sit on top of a large, flat rock on the castle hill and look over the city, candle lights twinkling in the windows and stars twinkling in the sky.

"Sometimes I just want to fly around and throw money to everyone. It really sucks, you know? The greed of our monarchs, the poorness of our citizens."
Percy smiles at me.

"We could overthrow it. There's bound to be people out there who care, people with power."

"We should make an organization."
"The…Association…of Royals Gettting Others too!"
"For short, we could call it The Argot…or The Argo II."

I am so proud of myself for doing that. I know it's not perfect, but still.
Anyways, thanks for reviewing, please continue to do so. Hope you liked!