Heyyo people! So now, its time for the sixth chapter! Hooray! To be honest, I have almost nothing in mind and I'm just going to write whatever comes to mind in the next ten seconds. So thanks to everyone who reads this story! :) Have fun reading ...

Chapter 6

Percy had been stuck cleaning the pond all morning since they got to the palace. His father had gone off to clean the rest of the courtyard, lost somewhere in the hedge-mazes. By noon, Percy had already finished cleaning half the pond. He wiped the sweat from this forehead as he leaned on his rake to catch his breath. He examined the lake and was quite proud of his progress, but still knew it would take him about the rest of the day to finish the work. He sighed and was about to get back to work, but he felt a tap on his shoulder. He spun around to meet intense a pair of intense gray eyes.

The princess, Annabeth, was standing there infront of Percy. She held a leather bound book in her hands, her curly blond hair was fixed in a pony tail and rested on her left shoulder. "Hi." She said quietly.

"Hey." Percy greeted back. "What are you doing here, Princess?"

"Don't call me that." Annabeth glared. Percy gave a small laugh. "Alright, alright." He said as he started to rake out another patch of moss. "So what are you doing here anyway?" Annabeth looked down at her boots, looking almost.. guilty.

"Sorry I got you in trouble with your dad and you had to clean all this up." Annabeth muttered. "Although you totally started it." She quickly added. Percy glanced over his shoulder smirking. "No way! You did!" He retorted.

"No you-" Annabeth sighed. "Anyway, I just wanted to help clean up the pond, since, you know, it was partly my fault." Percy looked at her quizzically. "Um... shouldn't you-"

Annabeth cut him off. "What? You think just because I'm a princess I can't clean up my own mess?" She retorted, picking up a rake that was leaning on the side rail of the stone bridge. Percy's eyes sparkled with amusement. "So you admit you started it!" He declared. "Therefore it would be your own mess!"

"I also said it was partly my fault, so therefore only part of the mess is my own mess." Annabeth retorted victoriously. Percy pouted and continued to work. Annabeth was doing the same thing, raking out seaweed and dirt and shoving them into buckets. Though she was having quite a hard time, not used to the manual labor. A few times she struggled with pulling out the clumped up patches of moss and Percy had to help her out. She also stumbled a few times, but she managed. Annabeth wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty, she kind of had fun. Percy would sometimes randomly throw a patch of seaweed at her. Sometimes she would see it coming and avoid it, but sometimes she would get hit. When she does, she gets a patch of seaweed and throws it at him. One time, she got pissed and threw an almost solid clump of seaweed at Percy too hard the he fell into the pond. And when Annabeth tried to help him up, he pulled her into the pond with him. They'd just end up laughing in the lake, struggling to get back up while the other pulled them back into the lake. It was the most fun Annabeth ever had.

By sunset, the water was free of any moss or seaweed and the water was almost see through. The water was still slightly brownish due to years of not being cleaned. The stone bridge that went right across the pond was free of the vines and moss that had grew and wrapped around it over the years. Percy and Annabeth had been hard at work for the entire day, but they had also been fooling around with the buckets of dirt and mud, throwing them at each other, but they managed to clean that up too. Annabeth smiled as she observed the now clean pond, partly reliving old memories that had occured here. Her eyes had started to sting as she recalled all those times when she and her mother would spend the afternoon here, telling stories and wading around the waters of the lake, catching small fish and throwing them back.

That was until Percy threw a bucket of mud at her. She was covered in the sticky substance as Percy laughed loudly. Annabeth smiled evilly pushed him into the lake. Now it was her time to laugh. Percy laughed as well along with her as he allowed Annabeth to pull him up. "Thanks for helping me." Percy told her.

"No problem. It was partly my fault, anyway." Annabeth said, a smile on her face. Her grey eyes sparkled with joy, even though she was filthy.

"Sorry I covered you in mud." Percy apologized, but Annabeth doubted if we was actually sorry. "You know I was only trying to make you smile." He continued. "You should try to smile more often, so that way, people would think of you as the nice person you are." Annabeth smiled at that. "WEll, partly nice." Annabeth punched his shoulder, but she was laughing.

"You really think so?" Annabeth said, wondering if smiling would make people actually think of her as nice.

"Yeah." Percy confirmed. "You could also make more friends." Then his eyes lit up as he thought of something. "I'll introdouce you to Grover one day! He's a really nice kid around the Den. But he can't really walk."

"Why not?" But before Percy could answer Annabeth's question, Poseidon came out of one of the hedge mazes. "So you finally cleaned this up?'' He said after bowing to Annabeth.

"Annabeth helped." Percy said, pointing to the other child.

"Yeah." Annabeth said. "It was fun."

Poseidon let out a chuckle. "Alright. Thank you, Princess Annabeth. But I'm afraid we have to get home now."

"You could just stay for dinner." Another voice behind them said. King Frederick strolled casually over to the trio. Poseidon and his son bowed. "Your highness." Poseidon greeted. "Thank you, but no need."

"Dad!" Annabeth said, an eager smile on her face. "This is my friend, Percy!" She gestured to her friend. "We've been playing and working around the pond all day." The king smiled at the boy. He kneeled down to his height and whispered to him so that only both of them can hear. "You made my daughter smile. And for that I am grateful that you became her first friend." He said.

"It was no problem, your highness!" Percy replied cheerfully. Frederick laughed and stood up. He turned to Poseidon. "You must come to dinner with us, I insist."

"No need, sire. Besides, my wife would be waiting for us and she had already made dinner." Poseidon replied.

"Alright." The king replied. "But tomorrow, you and your entire family must come to dinner with us! It would be very impolite to turn that offer down."

Poseidon thought for a while and gave in. "Alright. And thank you for the invitation, sire."

"Good. Now I shall see you tomorrow, um..."

"Poseidon."

"Ofcourse. You and your son and wife."

.

After that, Annabeth bid her goodbye to her new friend, excited for tomorrow night.

Okay, that wraps it up! Thanks for reading and apologies again if this chapter was king of short and boring. Please leave a review and tell me what you think! It's quite rushed and I was quite lazy to do this ending so stay tuned! :) leave a review please!

-Apollo'sPirateDaughter