Watching Cousinly Love is Better than a Soap Opera

That night, Chiron ordered me to sleep before anyone else, including Cece. I didn't feel tired at all, but I was gone as soon as I hit the pillow.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn't at camp, I was in a palace. The windows didn't have any glass in them and it reached all the way to the ground. Outside was barren and full of sand. I didn't know where I was, until I realized the hills were pyramids and sphinxes. I was in Egypt. I remembered Annabeth telling me many of the pyramids were in Alexander. Suddenly, my heart felt like lead. The very thought of her made me feel hopeless and angry.

I heard laughing coming from the balcony. I hide behind a column, forgetting that I wasn't really here. On it was two people; a boy and a girl. I couldn't see the man clearly, it was like a wall of light was blinding me from seeing him clearly, but I could see the girl clearly. She seemed to have radiated beauty. She was mocha colored, had short, straight black hair, and a smile that said as much as her laugh says about her personality. She was dressed in a white wrapped dress with a blue transparent cape attached to broaches on each strap on her shoulder and golden rings on her fingers. I saw the man's silhouette expression darken suddenly. The lady wasn't laughing anymore. Instead of looking at him now, she looked out at the slaves working on the pyramids. I couldn't tell if she was still smiling, or scrunching her eyes from the sunlight.

"You know you don't have to go through with this, Aanu." The man said, breathing heavily, like he was suffocating. She didn't look at him still, but she could fell his emotions.

"Your fourteen years old. Though your kingdom is excited I… I can feel you're not ready."

She sighed and turned fully towards him. Could see her body fully now. The process was almost finished. She was pregnant, but I could tell they were no ordinary babies.

"You are correct, Perceus Jackson." An ancient voice said. I turned around to see an old face.

"Hello, Palla,"

She didn't smile big; just a prideful smirk. She was dressed in the same white wrap as the women, I'm guessing name Aanu, but she wore a weird crown on her head that looked like a bird holding a sun disk. She dripped in gold and precious stones and gave me a felling of low self esteem. She gave out a small chuckle, like she found humor in my thoughts, or something else. She looked at me as if I was the biggest idiot in the world.

"I'm not Palla, Perceus." She answered back. She sounded as if she had two voices instead of one. "My name is Would Be. Basically, I'm the thing that would have happened if I should have, and if I did it. I'm basically a choice. I'm a what."

At lease I knew what she was talking about. I proved it by saying, "Um… Say What?"

She nodded her prideful face towards the place I was looking before. The man's silhouette hand moved and touched the girl's face. He said something in ancient Greek. She looked down towards the ground.

"It's no use. Nothing is going to make me feel better."

"You know how you can. I don't want to lose you, Aanu."

He smiled and took his hands and placed them in her own. She looked him deep in the eyes, weighing his glare every once in a while.

"Do you know who that is?" Would Be said matter-of-fact. It just occurred to me that this girl was fourteen, as the man seemed to be at lease seventeen, maybe even older.

"Her names Aanu, right?"

She, or what, just groaned, frustrated. "Are you serious? Look at her! I mean really, truly, look at her!"

I looked even harder than I did at first. Her face looked awfully familiar, like an old friend's, but younger. I felt my heart skip a beat, a tug in my stomach, and a shiver down my body. I had a huge lump in my throat.

"That's- Cece?" I croaked. She held back a laugh. "If you mean Cece, as if in Cecille, than yes, it is."

I couldn't believe my eyes. Palla and Cece are old. How was that possible? A memory crept back to me.

"Cece, How old are you?"

She sighed. She began to calculate in her head adding invisible numbers in mid air. "About four thousand fourteen years old, I think, that's what I calculated."

"And you're still alive?"

"Lotus Hotel"

"I see."

"So this is her mother, right?"

She gasped sarcastically. "O my gods! You actually have the right answer. You make me proud."

I snapped at her. "I don't need your sarcasm, thank you."

She looked deadly pleased that I cracked. "Heed this warning, Perceus," she warned. She said my name with so much hate; I almost wanted to commit suicide. "Don't forget what I am. I can easily get rid of you! I am here to help you. I cannot change what I am. I am pride. I am what should happen, and pride, mush like your little wimp outburst puts your life in my hands and that's what you just did."

For the first time, I didn't talk back. She gave an even bigger prideful smile. "Listen to me, Perceus Jackson. You must tell Cece this: You are to travel to the land of sin where your worst nightmare always began. No questions, right?"

I began to open my mouth, but she dismissed me and I woke back in my empty cabin.

I didn't tell her the dream; I just said that in my dream, a messenger told me to tell her that. Once I told her, her skin became darker. At first, she looked scared, but then, she looked angry. "We must leave NOW!" Everyone on the quest was here, and we all left the camp not to long after she said that. About fifty miles out of town, She stopped us at a sewer opening. She took the lid of and looked in, as if her life was about to be over. "Let's make this a quick one, please." And with that, she jumped in.

I was last to go in. It wasn't that I was scared or something, I just had a problem going into the place where all Cece's nightmare began. We walked a little, no speaking. It seemed as if everyone knew what was going on, excluding me.

"Cece-"I said, she put her hand over my mouth and shook her head; warning me, but it was too late. Suddenly, an ambush of girls, about the same age of Cece came from above and snatched us up from above.

Before I knew it, we were in a throne room. There were female guards dressed in strange attire you would see at a renaissance fair. On a throne made of treasure was a girl the same age as Cece. She even looked like her a little, but she was dressed like she was going to a renaissance fair also. She wore some kind of head wrap like a fortune teller with a dress that looked like it was a pair of overalls on the top. He had a puffy blouse on top that looked like a pirates with boots and drapes around her waist. She was draped in jewelry. When she saw us, she looked discussed, but had a mocking face when she saw Cece.

"Cecillia, my favorite cousin." She amused. "What a bitter-sweet moment indeed."

"Esmeralda, I'm guessing you still go by." She answered back. She must have known we were wondering who she was. She mouthed the word Gypsy. I had to think about it for a while, and then I caught on.

"You're the queen of Thief's." Nico exclaimed.

"You're smarter than you father, Goth Boy."

That one made Nico angry. He was about to summon a whole army of the dead before Cece stopped him. Esmeralda just smiled a cruel one.

"Unlike my cousin here, I actually worked to escape death. I fought it. No extra body, no Lotus Hotel. You're father hates me, yet he doesn't know one way to destroy me. Stupid old man."

"Esmeralda!" Cece warned.

"Oh, yes right. I have not introduced myself correctly. I am Esmeralda Syeira Andrewson, daughter of Hermes and Cousin of Cecillia and Pallina. You may call me Queen Esme."

Cece gave out a loud laugh in disbelief. "This is so you! I have to admit, I feel sorry for you, Nanu. Have to change your name, leave your mother to face a deadly death, almost killing me and Palla, completely destroying your chance to rain as a pharaoh just to become one. Congratulations! You completely screwed up your eternal life, your highness."

Esme seemed to have been so embarrassed, she couldn't stand to look at her cousin. I didn't even want to look at Cece. None of us did.

"Well, screw you, my elder cousin. It shall be mine."

"Too late, Nanu-"

"It's ESMERALDA to YOU!"

Cece just mocked her and rolled her eyes. "Ok ESMERBLAHBLAH," I realized this was so out of character for Cece. She seemed to have been acting more and more like a rebel.

"You're acting more like Palla than anyone else. Do you want your fortune or not."

Cece pursed her lips. "Good girl." Esme answered back. She threw each of us a backpack that weighted at least ten pounds I found it funny when Nico tried to catch his, since it made him spin a 360 and fall with his face flat on top of the backpack. For the first time, Cece smiled at Esme.

"thanks, Nanu."

Esme still seemed pretty mad she wouldn't call her Esme or Esmeralda, but she gave the same faint smile. "Don't get to comfortable with my gifts and be careful. I don't want you to get… hurt."

She sounded as if she was up to something, but Cece just walked out and led us to the exit. At one point, she turned to me. "Percy," she said. "tell me your dream this instant. It is important."

I sighed and wetted my lips.