Chapter 2

ANNABETH

Annabeth had been going to the cave for a few days when Grey had completely healed. Her project with the purple fabric was almost finished, all she had to do was sew the hood. She knew what she was going to do, and honestly it scared her. With what she was planning, she could be executed.

She was finishing the last stich on the hood when Grey screeched and flew back into a corner, scaring the daylights out of Annabeth.

"What was that for?!" She laughed at her owl's funny behavior, and recognized the poor squealing of Grey's lunch in his claws. She tied off the knot and admired her work. The cloak draped from her shoulders and barely touched the ground. The hood was baggy as it laid on her back, but covered her entire face when up.

"Perfect." She smiled as she wore the cloak over her dress, which would have to go. She was planning on taking some of her dad's old commoner's clothes so she wouldn't trip if she had to get out of something easily. She also could be disguised as a man and protect her identity as Annabeth Chase.

She had told Helen she was spending the night at Thalia's house, but she stayed in the cave so she could go out and try something. The sun had just set and she decided that she should sneak in and get the clothes now if she had any hope of being unseen.

Sneaking in was the easy part, sneaking out was harder because Bobby and Matthew were in the way. Annabeth saw them run for their room and she took her chance and dashed out the back door. She didn't stop till she was back in her cave panting and changing into the outfit she snatched.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." She started quietly talking to Grey. "This is absurd. I'm going to be in so much trouble." She had finished putting on the outfit and now examined herself.

The shirt was oversized and hung loosely from her body. The pants weren't as tightfitting either, which she had prepared for both. Annabeth had grabbed two belts just to be sure nothing would fall off of her. The two belts were both different widths. She took the one with the shorter width and secured her pants around her waist. She took the second belt, which was almost twice the width of the first, and wrapped it around her stomach right above her hips. Annabeth thought she looked like one of the pirates in her fairytale books her mother had hidden in her pillow right before she was banished, then laughed at the thought of her being in a fairytale.

"Grey," She called out for her owl and raised her arm up horizontally for him to land on. The two of them had been doing this for a while so she was used to the feeling of his claws on her arm. "Follow." And she lifted her arm up quickly to send Grey up in the trees to follow her from.

~0~

She knew where she was going. She knew this would be the hardest part, the first time. The kingdom was very small compared to their neighboring kingdom, and a person could easily walk from one end to another end of their kingdom in a mere five hours.

As she approached the gates she was invaded with thoughts of how everything could go so wrong if she didn't get this right. She lifted up her arm silently signaling Grey to land.

She walked around the village as quietly as she could, and started looking for their shops. It was probably around midnight, so no one would be awake. Every village basically had the same layout so she knew the general area of the shops and headed in that direction.

When she got to the first shop, she was greeted with an empty counter. Annabeth knew that most people left their shop items either still out or under the counter, she just had to find the right shop.

Her plan was simple enough, she just had to commit to the part. Annabeth would snatch some old items that no one had been selling in a while, (She worked at a shop, she knew how to figure stuff like this out) and sell them for a tall price in an empty shop in the morning. When she sold all of her items she would bring the profits back to her village and divide them evenly between her people. She got the idea from one of her favorite fairytales, Robin Hood. He stole from the rich and gave to the poor, which seemed extremely noble to Annabeth. She had always respected her authority, but neglecting a rundown village seemed to cross the line for her, and she was doing something about it.

She found a shop with fabric unknown to her and decided she would grab some of this person's old pieces. Annabeth shuffled behind the counter and examined the garments. She swiped her forearm over the top of them to find them covered in dust. Delighted, she grabbed four squares of cloth and quickly ran out of the shops and down to a river she had seen as she was making her way into the village.

Annabeth knew she needed to be careful, this was the village beside the palace. That meant their security was high.

When she reached the river she lifted her arm up for Grey and called his name. With a soft flap of his wings he landed on her arm. She set him on the ground by the riverbank and began washing each cloth by hand. As she washed, she admired the patterns that were woven into the fabric. The one she was washing had intricate swirls and dots that came together in a beautiful way. Two other fabrics were solid colors and the last one was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was a sea blue silky fabric with what looked to be cherry blossom trees stitched in.

She had finished washing all the fabrics and went back to the shops to set up her shop for the morning. She would be posing as a man who was strolling through in the early hours and decided to sell some of his fabrics he had brought from his home village, which was the one farthest from where he was now.

She walked down the road and came upon an empty counter which had a vacant sign on the post holding up the cloth on top. Annabeth set down the fabric, which was now basically dry, and walked around trying to find the normal pricing for this fabric. She figured that if this was the rich village they might have parchment to write things down, but she went back to her counter empty handed.

Annabeth prepared for the morning by tying her hair up in a ponytail and tucked it behind her hood. She also made sure anything that could give her away was concealed. Making sure she looked as much like a guy as she could, she laid down behind her counter and fell asleep.

If only the morning didn't come as quickly.

"You okay sir? We just found you sleeping behind this counter and were wondering if you were hurt or something." A man who looked in his fifties was crouched over her as she opened her eyes to be blinded by sunlight.

"Um, yeah I'm fine, I just came from the town by the edge to sell some of my cloth here and I got in late last night and couldn't afford a room." She lowered her voice to sound more masculine. The man seemed to buy the story and his face lightened.

"So what cloth are you selling?" he asked as Annabeth got up off her makeshift bed and spread out the four fabrics.

"You name a price and I'll see if it's good enough." Annabeth replied.

"I'll give you a solid one hundred drachma's for the green one." Annabeth's eyes almost bugged out of her body.

"Sold." She said as she handed the swirl and dot fabric over to the man. He counted out one hundred drachma in front of her and handed it over.

"Pleasure doing business with you sir." The man said as he walked away.

The rest of the morning went just as well. She sold the solid colored ones for seventy-five drachmas and the blue cherry blossom fabric for one hundred-fifty drachmas. In the end Annabeth had collected four hundred drachmas.

She had placed the vacant sign back on the post and walked as calmly as she could out of the village before breaking into a sprint with a childish grin on her face. She stopped running about five minutes later when she was sure she had gotten a safe distance away. She prayed to the gods that her owl had followed her, but she hadn't signaled him or anything, so she had no clue if he would come when she called. To her surprise, her owl came after about ten seconds of silence.

"Grey!" She pet the owls head and nuzzled his neck. "I missed you." She kept Grey on her arm as she started walking back through the forest the way she came when a large force knocked her over, sending Grey flying up to the trees.

"Oh gods I'm so sorry, I just have to get back bef- wait, Annabeth?" she looked up to see that the force that knocked her down was Prince Percy, and he recognized her. She realized her hair had fallen out and now framed her face.

"What are you doing out of the palace again?" She asked him without looking at his face. This was the man whose parents never helped her village. This man also knows about the problem but has done nothing.

"Well, I was visiting your village again and I was disappointed to find you weren't at your shop. So I was heading back home." He says with a smirk. Annabeth became furious. This man should not be running from the palace just to visit Annabeth. He should be helping his soon to be kingdom grow, but he's just another rude teenage boy looking to get with any girl he sees.

"Excuse me. I have to get to my dying father and sit by his bed, not even able to give him pain killers or anything." She spat at him as she passed by and called her owl back.

"You have an owl?!" Percy said amazed. Annabeth turned around glaring.

"Yes I do, I nursed him back to health and he is not very friendly to strangers." She fibbed the last part, but the prince was getting on her nerves very quickly. He put up his hands in a surrendering motion.

"No need to get feisty, I'm just curious." He had the nerve to laugh, and Annabeth snapped.

"Just go back to your pampered life of people doing everything for you, and I'll go back to my life of doing everything for my family. Goodbye." And with that, she turned on her heels and stomped back to her village. She reached the village in about an hour, and ran to her cave. Grey went up to his perch and began to sleep. Annabeth knew she had a small amount of time before Helen would get suspicious, so she quickly changed into her commoners dress and cloak and hung her other set of clothes on a rock.

Grabbing the drachmas she quickly left the cave and went to the shops. Annabeth calculated how many drachmas each family would receive. She decided on giving five drachmas to each, which would leave her some to help get her father medicine.

~0~

That night, she went around and placed five drachma on every doorstep, including her own. She was overjoyed in the morning to hear the people rejoicing that they could pay for a meal now or that they could get extra clothes. She knew then in that moment she had made the right choice.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

That was 2,000 words you guys. I'm getting better at length.

So, did anyone else have that crash on fanfiction on the 11th? I was trying to see how Chasing Grey was doing and it wouldn't load.

I'd love it if you could tell me how this story is so far.

Thanks allen r and bris38 for reviewing it means the world.

When this chapter goes up I will be at the beach! Yay!

Quoeth the raven,

Nevermore…

Swimmerstar415