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"Gods, Percy, you win! Now get off!" Annabeth laughs and struggles to lift Percy's iron tight lock on her wrists and shins. Both of them had lost their swords, and they had spent the last minutes of the spar wrestling on the grass. "Percy, seriously, move!"
With a heave, she thrusts her arms up, trying to roll Percy off her. In an actual fight, the move would have minimal effect, but Percy's eyes have glazed over and she frees herself, with him falling beside her. They lay there for a while, catching their breath. Annabeth feels exhilarated, as she always is after a practice session with Percy, but he seems dazed more than anything.
Annabeth props herself up on her elbow and smacks his chest. "Hey, what's wrong? Is this not exciting enough for you? You look like you're about to fall asleep."
He doesn't look her in the eyes when he responds, "Remember the last time we were like that?"
She sighs, afraid that this topic would come up sooner than later. Honestly, she'd rather it up come sooner, but right before the funeral was pretty bad timing.
Oh well, might as well talk it out. No use in holding it in for the next four hours.
"I remember, Percy. I remember that you didn't do it. Even though I was half a second away from stabbing you in the gut, you didn't return the favor."
"But, Annabeth, I wanted to." He flips around so he's staring at her, his green orbs slightly crazed and desperate. "Somehow Kronos got in my head and he made me want to. Want to- to kill you."
"It probably wasn't Kronos himself. He'd usually hire one of the minor goddesses or spirits on Gaea's side to do his dirty work. Maybe Styx or something. You know, with her being goddess of hate and all."
"Maybe."
"Seaweed Brain, you seem to forget. You managed to restrain whatever instinct whatever god stuck in you. You're ADHD, for god's sake. It's nearly impossible for you to not give in to your impulses, and yet you still did it."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know."
"You still have nightmares?"
He takes out Riptide from his pocket (Annabeth vaguely wonders whether it had reappeared during their wrestling and if he just chose not to use it) and twiddles with it. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
Annabeth swings herself around, resting her head on his torso. The edge of Riptide's blade is dangerously close to her head, giving her goosebumps from flashbacks of the last time it was so close- back in Tartarus. The shivers give her more guilt than fear, though, since what she's thinking about is exactly what she's trying to convince Percy will never happen. Percy doesn't notice her brief discomfort; he switches playing with Riptide's cap to running his fingers through her curls.
"Talk. It'll make you feel better," Annabeth orders.
Percy rubs his head. "It's- it's the same dream every time, and I feel like I'm reliving it all over again. Like- I see you, and I can see what I'm doing and what I'm feeling, but I'm trapped behind this window or something, watching myself chase you and hate you, and try to kill you, without being able to do anything!"
Annabeth stays silent, remembering the battle herself. She is used to fighting Percy, but never seriously. Never to keep herself alive. Especially never running away from an attacker because she couldn't bear to hurt him.
"And I heard you too. I heard you asking me to stop and think and fight against whoever was in my mind. And I really was, Annabeth! I swear, I was trying like Hades to stop."
"I know," Annabeth says. It's you, Percy, who needs to know that. Believe what you're saying.
"Can I help? Percy, I'm sure Chiron will let me stay over at your cabin for a few days." It always comforted Annabeth when she woke up and found Percy right next to her- drool or no drool.
"...No, it's not that. The dream always ends with me trapping you under, and I'm an inch away from cutting your throat. I never get to the part where I finally come to my senses. Sometimes I'll wake up with Riptide open in my hands, and if you're there, laying next to me in that position...I'll freak, Wise Girl."
"Percy, you're too big of a pussy to hurt me."
He scoffs, "A pussy?"
"Your fatal flaw is loyalty. Do you really think you'll hurt one of your friends, much less me, before hurting yourself, no matter what kind of weirdo has invaded your head?"
"No. I don't. But it still hurts thinking about it."
"Yeah. Life sucks," Annabeth remarks dryly.
"Tell me about it."
"But we still survived, didn't we? All seven of us. That's pretty epic, if you ask me."
"I'd rather...," Percy bites his tongue.
"You'd rather what? Listen, I know we lost some friends in this war. Too many. So that's why we have the funeral- to honor them. And every day after, we honor them by carrying on with our lives and moving past whatever shit Gaea threw at us. Because we owe them that much."
Smoke wafts up into the air in the distance, near the gathering pit.
"They're starting to burn the shrouds, Percy. Come on, you smell. Let's go shower." Which isn't entirely true, because Percy's sweat always smells perfectly of sea salt and fresh ocean air.
He stretches and puts his arms behind his head.
"You go. I'm going to take a rest here first."
When Annabeth turns to get up and leave, Percy catches her arm and adds with a small smile, "You know something? You really are a Wise Girl sometimes."
A light smattering of applause rounds from the solemn ring of campers around the campfire when Hazel descends the podium from her eulogy. Tears race down her face as she blurts out the last mention of Nico's death right when they were about to close the Doors, and she rushes off to join the audience next to Frank.
Irritation and winces lace her movements, since the burns from the mountain explosion have not completely healed yet. Frank too sits forward in his chair; the fire had seared off his belly and tail feathers when he and Hazel flew off the ledge, which transferred to a marred back with long, ugly scorches in his human figure.
In fact, the entire crew of seven demigods suffered from a whole collection of injuries, not fatal thankfully, but ones that Apollo couldn't treat as easily with a pack of ambrosia and some off-hand poetry. Gaea had left her mark and her poison resided in each monster's claws and swords. Jason's leg, for instance, had healed the wrong way from the temporary nectar he ingested on the ride back to camp, and setting it right landed him a month in the infirmary, plus a half a year of physical therapy afterwards. The caretakers had allowed him a momentary leave to attend the funeral, to which he walked to with a tender limp, to give the eulogy for Reyna.
Percy and Annabeth were a bit better off in terms of their physique, since Hades had granted them a blessing when they were in their most dire state, but both were constantly haunted by nightmares during their sleeps and flashbacks during their days. Now, Annabeth sits dignified in the front row, having already paid her respects, but Percy is nowhere to be seen.
Chiron trots up to the microphone, only for presentation purposes though, since his voice booms loud enough without the amplifier. "Now then, if that is all, we shall begin the burning of the shrouds to honor the fallen demigods." He raises his hands and pulls up the sleeves of his black tuxedo to summon the harpies with the shrouds. The fire in the pit center trembles purple as unease stirs through the campers- isn't Percy Jackson, survivor of Tartarus, hero of the war, uniter of the two camps, destined to say a few ultimate words before the burning began?
Suddenly, the earth rumbles, toppling chairs and dining tables. Kids jumps up in alarm, senses already suspecting the worst- a monster through the barrier, or a loose Titan? Clarisse stands protectively in front of her younger siblings, having already lost half of her cabin. Leo hovers near the fire, ready to use it to his will if the situation calls for it.
Instead, Hades erupts out of the ground, right next to Hazel, who is so startled she steps backwards into Piper, who in turn stumbles into several other campers. Hades watches the line of demigod dominoes with amusement. He wipes his hands, delicately adorned with black rings and skulls, on his tunic, and the dust simultaneously drifts apart. Greeks and Romans alike begin to drop into bows, but he puts a hand up to stop them.
"I suggest you wait for that. More are coming."
Demigods yelps in alarm as they scramble out of their places to let room for an incoming god or goddess (thankfully all in human form). Cracks and spots signal where they would appear- Hermes, Ares, and Athena come next-, and with the addition of the minor deities, there are too many to count. Annabeth notices Zeus and Poseidon are absent- in fact, only those with children that had died in the war are present.
Ares grumbles, rolling his shoulder and flexing his arm. "Alright, you punks. Let's get on with this funeral."
For the first time, Chiron is so flustered that he whinnies in surprise, throwing up his forelegs, tail stiff.
Hermes is more gracious with an explanation. He raises his caduceus, George and Martha hissing in synchronization, and a final concentric circle etches itself onto the stage. The air crackles with heat, and Percy appears, dazed like the ground had just burped him out as if he were a bad piece of chicken, but at least every limb is attached correctly.
He speaks meekly, "Hey. Uh, I brought some guests. Sorry for being late."
It takes a long while for the gods to settle down. They each give their respective speeches- each sounding a bit pretentious, but still they manage to choke out a few words about not being able to defeat the Titans with their children's help. When Percy finally takes the podium to give his last words, everyone is still shuffling their feet and avoiding eye contact with the twenty-some omni-potent figures in their midst.
"I'm not too great at this stuff, so I'll make it short. You know, I'll be honest with you guys. I didn't really want to come today. I wanted to stay away from this, as far as possible, because it hurt. It hurt thinking that somehow I'm still alive and breathing, while all of my friends gave their lives. It hurts thinking that maybe, some day in the future, we'll have to do this all over again, and some person that already died would have been able to do something that I couldn't. So I was scared to come.
But then a certain someone knocked some sense into me. After thinking about what she said, and after some time out in the ocean, I figured that it'd kind of be a disgrace to our fallen friends if everyone was a coward like me and no one showed up to the funeral. Because that would mean that we're still dragged down by the past, and that's not why they gave their lives. They gave their lives so that we could live ours.
I asked Lord Zeus' permission for the gods to come down here just this once, since so many of us were lost in the war. Greek or Roman, it doesn't really matter- they deserve to know that their parents and their friends and their teachers are all proud. Nothing makes you stronger than knowing that your friends died because they had faith in your abilities to make sure their deaths weren't in vain. So when we take a moment...I'm not going to tell everyone what to pray for, but for me, I'm going to pray that the fates give me the strength to properly honor them."
After a minute of booming silence, fire is set to the shrouds and sniffles come from the crowd, as they watch the wispy python of smoke slither its way up into the heavens.
At the same time, in a gold marble mansion atop a round hill of perfectly grown strawberry fields and honey-sweet ambrosia gardens, a group of similar demigods toasts their glasses of nectar, their laughs reverberating throughout Elysium.
Hope you enjoyed! Sorry for the long wait- I wanted to make sure the last section was decent quality before I put it out.
So, what did you think- of the story, of the ending, of anything? Review!
PS- did anyone watch The Sea of Monsters? The movie as a movie by itself wasn't that great, but I adore the Percy Jackson series, so seeing that fandom come alive was amazing. :)