Chapter 40&1: The Twilight Workshop[1]

(Andromeda)

Time evaporated as Artie showered me with jewels, furniture, statues, carvings, mopeds, weapons, and lastly, armor.

Like a lot of demigods, I usually didn't wear armor. It often didn't go with my carefully crafted style, but today, I once again was forced to push the envelope of the fashion world like only I could.

When I came out of Artie's dressing room in a gleaming suit of armor that looked like a milky runway with extra stars, I declared, "This armor is glam-glori-gorgeous!"[2]

"You Are Glam-Glori-Gorgeous Galore," the Not-Nico and Not-Luke bots said, accurately while J-pup barked agreeably.

They were right, of course. In the armor, I was the summer tan-skinned, Champagne blonde-haired, dove grey-eyed, and mahogany-browed and lashed princess knight that Lancelot and Guinevere always wanted to have.[3]

"What's its domestic form?" I asked, still taking myself in via the twilight bots and in the three full-length mirrors before me.

"Curtsey to reactivate it," Artie instructed from his workbench. He was busy fixing Peter's sword.

I did as Artie said and the armor transformed into a magical knee-length summer wedding dress with a showy back, flowy sleeves, belly flowers, and whistly lace.[4]

"Artie!" I squealed, "Your fiancée will love this dress when she sees it!"

"Really?" Artie asked hopefully.

"Oh yeah, it's out of this world," I said beamingly as I swished the dress back and forth. "If I wasn't so dead set on a winter wedding, I'd be tempted to ask if I could take it."

"Winter…wedding?" Artie repeated slowly in an odd voice.

"Yup-yuppie! I'm always dressed for summer. I think it would be mythical to change things up," I said merrily, still admiring the dress. It was prettier than pink![5]

"A winter wedding sounds nice," Artie agreed stiffly.

"La, Artie, you're just saying that because I said it," I said with a sagely giggle. "It's okay for you to have your own dreams, Artie. I'm not offended by you wanting a summer wedding. It'll be a nice season for you to get married again."

"But…"

"No butts, mister handicraftsman! How's the sword coming? Are you done?" I asked as I danced over.

Artie gave me a balmily bamboozled look.[6] He must really like the dress. He was going to love seeing his future wife in it. I couldn't believe he let me demo it. Artie truly was the sweetest of pies.

Since the poor guy was too busy staring at me in his future wife's dress, I grabbed the sword out of his hands. The sword immediately turned into a small bouquet of white roses. "These are nice," I said kindly.

"Figured I should make the adamantine sword match the armor," Artie explained.

"Oh!" I cried. "But Artie, this isn't my dress or my sword," I said, explainingly.

"It's not?" Artie exclaimed, shocked to his socks.

"I know! Both are so majestic!" I agreed, exclaimingly, "But this dress belongs to your fiancée and this sword belongs to that future bestie of mine who I'm trying to impress: Peter Johnson."

Artie just kept gaping.

Poor old Artie was so forgetful sometimes, so I added helpfully, "Remember? I mentioned Peter before? I was worried that he had gotten in trouble since he can be so precocious. Did you know that Peter traveled all over the US when he was younger, helped start a rebellion for fading folk, or that he went missing from camp for weeks one time, but when he came back no one really punished him for it? Or, and this is a really weird one Artie, Peter used to be a moat. He's not a moat anymore though. He's a regular person with eyes like the sea and hair like nighttime, surprisingly broad shoulders, a classical nose like you see on the statues, a jaw that looks manly even after adding makeup, and a really really nice mouth that can make the sweetest smiles but is mostly used to swear a lot, like even more than you do Artie which is bad, but I recently found out that underneath his mad and argumentative exterior, Peter has a sad and sensitive interior that needs lots of support and care but not hugs because Peter doesn't like hugs or being touched or at least he didn't like being touched before he fell into a coma but now he seems fine with it which I wish I had known while he was in a coma because if I had known that touching was okay sometimes I would have tried to kiss him awake but I didn't know so I wept over him and Apollo had to step in and…Artie, what are you looking at?"[7]

Artie wasn't staring at me anymore. He was staring at something behind me.

Something that made him look mean and a bit sad.

Before I could turn to look at it myself or ask again, Artie met my gaze and answered, "Your quest mates are here."

"WHAT?" I whirled around and stared. "How in the 5W's?"[8]

"ANN-DYE!" Bianca shouted at me from across the workshop. "What are you wearing and how's my—OMG is that a robot Nico!"

I didn't answer. I was so SO confuzzled and the puzzle kept mincing into more mystery meat as Bianca ran up and started fraternizing with the Not-Nico bot, Zoë came over to me to pester Artie with questions he knew better than to answer, and Peter came up beside her to talk about virgin goddesses and possible legal action!

I felt like I was missing something…something HUGE, huger than even the trial. My sense of temporal distance had been off since I left the underworld. I mean it had to be off, but not this off. I was supposed to be losing minor days, not major moments.

What was going on!?

"Andromeda," I looked up. It was Artie. Everyone else had climbed onto the bigger than Big Bird golden eagle that was going to be our ride.[9] "Don't forget what we talked about," he said vaguely.

"We talked about a lot of things, Artie," I reminded him.

"I mean Dad's offer," he clarified.

"Oh that," was all I said because I didn't have time to chew on such small potatoes when I had just been teleported across a Colcannon canal.[10]

"Come on ANN-DYE, let's go!" Bianca shouted at me even though I was feet away. At least Bianca being too loud made sense, but the supercilium look she was sending Peter didn't.[11] What was that about?

I climbed up onto the golden bird and asked reasonably, "Can someone please explain what's up and down and all around?"

I expected Zoë or Bianca to volunteer, but they both looked at Peter which made me look at Peter and I mean really look at him.

He was dressed in goth-black boots, off-black yoga pants, ink-black fingerless gloves, and a sable-black baggy hoodie that shadowed most of his face but not his classical nose, nice mouth, or mildly manly jaw.

What a downgrade compared to the properly color-coordinated dress I made him.

This was my chance!

I smiled rosy gold and began, "I guess you scrounged up some new clothes, but even Grover…Jiminy thicket! That's the tricky wicket!"[12]

Something vital was missing!

And I knew what!

I turned back to Artie and the twilight bots who were already life-sized Barbie-sized thanks to Artie's super-fast bird.[13] I put my hands in the air and waved them like I did justly care. "The bag," I called.

Not-Nico, J-pup, and Artie just waved back. Not-Luke made the 'Call me' sign, but no one got the bag.

I took a step towards the back of the eagle, but then I remembered my bargain. I couldn't fly right now.

Fiddlesticks in a blest bargain basket bin![14]

I put one hand around my mouth and tried to shout louder. I knew Artie could probably hear me if he healed his ears.[15] "Please! Someone! Go—!"

A mini roped harpoon whizzed past me towards Artie's workshop. Then the rope and harpoon came flying back and before I could say "Bag" again, the bag was in my arms.

I goggled down at it. Someone's hand touched the bag and their other hand grabbed and removed the harpoon. I goggled up.

Peter was holding a mini harpoon hand gun done up in silver and gold.[6]

Had I gone cray-cray?[17]

Since when did Peter have moves like that?

I watched dumbfoundedly as he spun the dial on my metallicized bracelet.[18] While the mini harpoon gun collapsed back into it with a whoosh, a wretched shiver went down my spine, and the same wiggly wariness that I'd experienced after Peter's makeover whirled back to life. Words warped and withered in my mouth. My eyes had to work not to wander far far away from Peter's new smile. And the smile knew it because it wasn't his kid-in-the-candy-store smile, a Percy-related grin, or even I'm-smiling-a-secret-joke smile-smirk, it was a worldly womanly weary war-free smile that was all wrong on Peter's usually wickedly worded lips.[19]

Then he spoke, "I do believe the words you are searching for are: Thank you. If so, you are welcome." Peter's smile widened but didn't warm as he added, "Now please, sit down, Miss Sunshine. I have a tale for you nearly as long as the night."

Footnotes

[1] I just like that this is the answer to Chapter 38&1's title.

[2] I believe she's combining runway and the Milky Way as in the galaxy we live in and that glam-glori-gorgeous is a combo of glamorous, glorious, and gorgeous.

[3] As some of you may have noticed, Andromeda's appearance has changed. I believe this is the fourth time that's happened during this fic.

[4] I think this is a reference to bells and whistles which means attractive additional features or trimmings.

[5] Pretty in Pink is a movie from the 1980s, but it's also an expression for being naked. I don't know if Andromeda means it that way or was simply using pink to mean happy.

[6] Balmy means pleasantly warm as well as extremely foolish and eccentric and bamboozled means to confound or perplex. Methinks Artie has a crush.

[7] I just really like this monologue, especially when you compare it to Andi talking about Westlife or Luke. Who knew Andi knew so much about Peter?

[8] The 5W's are Who, What, Where, When, and Why. Sometimes people also add an H which is how, but Andi included that in her question.

[9] Big Bird is a Muppet on the show Sesame Street who is eight-foot two-inches tall. Impressive but not nearly big enough to carry several people.

[10] Colcannon is an Irish mashed potatoes dish. It also sounds similar to canon.

[11] Supercilium means eyebrow. I imagine Bianca is raising one or both of her eyebrows at Peter and being like: 'Can you believe this girl?'

[12] Rosy gold sounds like a blushing smile to me. I think Andi is referencing Jiminy Cricket who is Pinocchio's conscience. The phrase is sometimes used as a substitute for Jesus Christ. A wicket is a cricket term, cricket the game I mean. A tricky wicket refers to a difficult problem or situation.

[13] A life-sized Barbie is 28 inches or about 71 centimeters.

[14] We've talked about fiddlesticks before. The word means nonsense. I believe the blest bargain part is talking about Andi's deal with Olympus since blest means blessed. And the inclusion of a basket might be a reference to the phrase "going to hell in a handbasket" except here it's a heaven basket.

[15] I assume this means Artie is often hard of hearing since he's old here and his job might be loud.

[16] So yeah, Andi's bracelet and the source of her heart shield is actually a multi-weapon tool. Hephaestus mentions this when she first gets it, but Andi has mostly used it as a shield.

[17] Cray-cray means crazy, specifically deranged being an extreme level of crazy.

[18] Metallicized means to make (usually a circuit) thoroughly metallic, as by replacing a ground return with another wire, but here I think Andi is saying her bracelet is silver and gold colored instead of its usual pink. You might remember the bracelet is a gift for someone else. I assume this is why it has multiple color schemes and weapons.

[19] I wondered at Andi calling Peter's smile womanly, but I think, among other things, what she means here is that the smile is motherly. My mind goes to Durga's famous smile, but that's just me.

Hey everyone,

I originally thought this chapter would come out sooner, but as you all might have noticed the site has been struggling this fall. Notifications are back (or at least they were the last time I checked), but stats are still down and Twitter is full of users claiming that they are having weird one-off bugs. I don't like to publish chapters when the site isn't working, especially for my bigger stories like Sue's Curse (though my poor 5-shot She-Hulk fic which you should all check out was sacrificed to the void). I waited through October to see if the admins would fix things, but it was stop-and-go. Then it was November and as I usually do, I tried to pause my fanfiction activities to focus on NaNoWriMo. Instead, I ended up dealing with real-life stuff which has been full of story-level problems the last few months. I have the bruises, nerve damage, and lost property to prove it. But that's enough excuses. Today is a good day because:

It's Sue's Curse's publishing anniversary!

Thank you all for all your support through another year of my gamma-reading!

Things in this story as you may have noticed keep getting weirder (Just look at the chapter titles). Even Andromeda is getting confused. I hope you're enjoying the insanity because we still have more to go on that front.

And since things have been so weird(in story and out), I decided to schedule my next update. I'll be publishing the final chapter of this arc on the release date of the new PJO TV show to celebrate its arrival.

Look forward to it and more Sue's Curse in the coming year!

See you on the 20th!