We then continued learning about stuff like foreshadowing. I knew way too much about that already. A certain friend of mine whom I definitely don't have any issues with (because why would I have issues. It's not like I have trauma that would cause them) is the Pythia of the god of fancy foreshadowing. Apollo, please don't kill me. But seriously, Rachel and I are fine with each other. There just was a certain time where Rachel might have been able to do (and even party did) cause certain things that lined up with my abandonment issues. But Rachel is the oracle now, meaning she can't date and for some reason Percy thinks I like that. Speaking of Rachel and dating, I once overheard the following conversation between Rachel and Apollo
"Why can't the oracle have a boyfriend?" "Love can cloud the mind. An Oracle with an obstructed view is of no use" "Oh. What about a girlfriend? Didn't think about that, huh" "Rachel Elizabeth Dare. I am Apollo. I am not only the god of knowing things or predicting other things, I also pretty much invented bisexuality. Did you really think I wouldn't think of that?" "Well schist" "I mean, I didn't, but that's irrelevant right now"
So, where was I? Right, foreshadowing. Prophecies are basically foreshadowing which somehow manages to be blatantly obvious while also being frustratingly vague. Like, 'The heroes soul cursed blade shall reap; a single choice shall end his days' why didn't it specify that the one dying was not the half blood of the eldest gods (who reached sixteen against all odds). I was convinced Percy would die. I decided to move that though to after the lesson. Nothing too interesting happened for the rest of lesson. Now that the spider was contained, I was mostly mentally stable for most of the period. After we had finished the lesson and received our useless homework, we went back to our room.
"I can't believe that it's only been a week since we moved into this room" "A week and a few hours" "Shut up Chase" "Haven't heard that in a while" "I don't think I ever said that" I informed Piper that she had very much said that sentence to me. Just once, but it happened. This then led to a long discussion about the exact circumstances of that sentence, which then almost led to a flashback for Piper. Once she was stable again, I asked "How about a round of…" instead of finishing the sentence, I pulled out my dagger and pointed it at Piper. "You should have recovered by now" "Recovered from what?" "Oh, last time we did this, you had a flashback and you got worse after that" "right. Yeah, I should have recovered. Then I'd say we do swords only?" "Why just swords" "Because you need to practice in all categories and because that is the one category I can beat you at." "I guess I'll give you a chance. Swords only it is" I got my drakon sword from under my bed (I know, not the best hiding place, but it was the only one big enough), Piper got hers and we made our way outside. "I seriously don't know what we'd do without the mist" Piper said. "We could just pretend to be cosplayers or something. Also, if the magical mist was to fail, we'd still have the psychological one" "The what now?" "The psychological mist. People only take in a small fraction of the world around them and fill in the gaps based on what they expect. The best example of this is the letter order effect. When you're reading a text, and you're not dyslexic, you only really look at the first and last letter and the length of the word. That means that when you mix up the order of letters, as long as the first and last are correct, most people will be able to read it. They observe something weird, but see what they expect" "Sounds a lot like the mist" "exactly my point. People love to think they are right and will ignore facts, like the fact that I'm holding a very real sword. But the magical mist of course also plays a role in concealing everything. Ready to fight?" "Bring it on"
Unfortunately, Piper had been right about being better than me at sword only combat. Actually, that' wasn't true, her sword was just better suited. Its larger mass meant that upon a direct collision, my sword would lose all its momentum and I didn't have the leverage to hold its position. Because of this, I had to get more creative. Luckily, I was rather good at that. After exchanging a few hits, I initiated my strategy "Oh, by the way, that was science hour with Annabeth" Piper was distracted for a second, which I used to jump to her side. One step later and I was behind her, gently placing my blade against her neck. "Why are you distracting me mid fight?" "Because then I'll win" "Just because you can't win fairly" "If by fair you mean by brute force, then no, I can't win fairly. However, that definition is ms and also fighting isn't about being fair. It's about survival. Also, if you win by force, it doesn't mean that you're stronger, you just have a better sword. If anything, that is unfair" "Great, now please remove your sword from my neck" I did so.
We played a few more rounds, Piper was slightly better than me. Sorry, her sword was vastly better than mine and I was not able to compensation that one hundred percent. After a few rounds, I decided to do my homework. It wasn't anything particularly interesting, just history and math. As per usual, I spent around three minutes producing something that would be given an A if it were readable. When that was done, I decided to relax a bit. Just as I was about to do so, a rainbow flickered into existence. I saw Percy talking, but the connection wasn't good enough to understand him. Was he trying to create a rainbow with his own powers? He appeared to be in his dorm room, so it was likely. "I can't understand you, I'll call you" I said to him. I don't know if he understood me or had just had the same idea as me, but the call ended. I called Percy back. "So, any reason you called?" Percy looked at me in a way I knew all too well. "Okay, Percy, calm down. Everything is fine. I'm here" "You are. That's good. You're here" "I am. What happened?" "Just a flashback. I needed to make sure you were okay. Plus you're a comfort person in general" He didn't tell me what the flashback had been about, but that was okay. Given that it had prompted him to check up on me probably meant that it had been from shared trauma, something happening to me, so it might have been triggering for me as well.
"Just sucks that I can't feel your arms around me." "We'll figure out a way around that issue" "Until then I guess all I can do is hug my pillow" "How about this; I also grab a pillow and use that to send a hug to your pillow" "I guess that works" Sure, what we were doing was kind of silly, but if it helped Percy… In my own experience, simply knowing that someone wanted to give you a hug could sometimes help a lot.
"I tried calling you but well… you saw what happened" "The great Perseus Jackson, defeated the minotaur and the god of war at twelve, can't make a rainbow." "It takes a lot of focus to keep enough water droplets in the air and not moving, which is kind of hard to do when you're just out of a flashback." "Under those circumstances it was pretty great I'd say. So, you were barely out of it and your first instinct is to create a rainbow and call me?" "Yeah" "Honestly, this means a lot to me" "As I said, you're my comfort person. Also, you're just happy I'm dependent on you because it'll definitely prevent me from abandoning you" "Maybe" "And I don't blame you. You've had certain traumas and now you're happy about any chance to avoid it happening again, which is the case because of how much you stabilize my mental state" "That's pretty much what is happening. Now that you're here, is there anything else you want to talk about?" I remembered wanting to talk to Percy about the prophecy that had supposedly predicted his death, but decided against with. This was a sensitive topic which was best discussed while being able to cuddle. Properly, not just with mediating pillows. While I had obviously had a terrible life, I was very lucky to not have any trauma relating to physical affection, otherwise using it as a remedy for trauma wouldn't be a viable option. Without that, my mental situation would probably be a lot worse. Of course, my fear of abandonment was always lurking in the corner of my mind, but I was usually able to ignore it for long enough to recover. "Not sure. Well, there is one thing, yesterday in art class we were talking about statues and guess which one we used as the example" "I don't know, something Medusa made?" "Yes, my stepdad." "Have I ever told you how cool your mom is?" "You might have mentioned it. A lot. But like she deserves it. Entire family died, years of end of life care for her uncle, single mom until recently, she deserves the world" "Wish I could say that about my dad" "He's trying his best, plus you have my family" "That's true. They practically adopted me when you were gone. But maybe they were just trying to be nice. After all, I was the one who'd bring their son back" "Annabeth, how can you say that? You're practically a part of the family" I would never admit it, but this knowledge always filled me with a happiness I hadn't felt since Luke and Thalia had found me hiding under a piece of sheet metal. The difference was that these two had, more or less unwillingly but still, abandoned me while the Jackson-Blowfis-family didn't seem to have any intention of doing so.
Just in this moment, Piper can in. To an outsider, me hugging my pillow probably looked quite strange. "Uh, are you okay?" "I am. Percy is not, so I'm using my pillow to send a virtual hug to his" "Uh, okay" "Hi Piper. Annabeth was just helping me get over a flashback" "With a virtual hug?" "Don't ruin it" "Whatever" "Your know, that actually worked surprisingly well" Percy said. "Sure, I couldn't actually feel you, but the emotional reaction was still there. I'd say I'm recovered now" "Great, I'm recovering from my abandonment issues" Piper looked at me, probably confused as to how this situation related to my abandonment issues. "Percy won't bite the hand that feeds him. With emotional stability I guess. And biting is abandonment." "I think I know what you mean. Just the fact that you're aware of this reason to not abandon you shows that you have some serious problems" "I know. You don't need to tell me that" "Sorry" "It's fine" I heard the signal for dinner sounding across our room. "Percy, we have to leave now, is that okay?" "Yeah, I've recovered enough. See you soon" "Bye" I ended the message and we made our way to dinner. Nothing too interesting happened there until an older looking guy approached us. "Hey Nerd" he said to me before slamming into me. Not strong enough to knock me over, but I did drop the tablet with my food. As it fell, I noticed that it was slightly rotating. I didn't have time to catch it, so instead I hit the uppermost corner. This reversed the rotation in such a way that when the tablet reached the ground, it was in a perfectly horizontal position. This meant that nothing spilled onto the floor. My glass took a dangerous hit but it stayed in one piece. I picked it up like nothing happened. "Hey incompetent bully wannabe" I said back. "What… how…" "It's simple math. Falling speed, 9.81 m/s^2, rotational speed, Hades, at this distance you can even neglect air resistance." "Uh…" "But you wouldn't know that unless you are a nerd. Also, I am not a nerd. Nerds are smart, socially awkward and obsessed. I am not socially awkward, just smart and obsessed. That makes me a geek." "Um sure" "Can you say more than two words at once?" "If you're not socially awkward, then why are you so bad at being nice to me?" I turned to look at him properly. By properly I mean intimidatingly. "If I was socially awkward, I'd be incapable of being nice. For you, I'm just choosing to be mean because you made me drop my food and I don't forgive easily" "Oh, yeah, sorry about that I'd better leave you alone now" "I think that is a great idea" I said as I cranked up my death stare to the max. He turned away so quickly that he dropped his own food but I caught it and gave it back to him.
"Getting a bully to apologize in under a minute. Good job" Piper said. "A bullies confidence is like a rock shaped inflatable. It looks hard to break, so no one even tries, but it's actually very easy. I didn't even have to do much, looking at him did most of the job." "To be fair, your eyes are insane. I don't mean that as a compliment. Well, technically it is one. I don't mean it in an aesthetic way" "Thanks, I prefer tactical compliments anyways. But seriously, bullies just bully others to act tough and cover up their low self-esteem. If they had better self-esteem, they wouldn't have the need to pick on people who seem weaker, that's why you'll almost never see a bully with actual confidence. I'll be honest, getting rid of bullies in this way is kind of a hobby I have" "Your hobby is to criticize the coping mechanisms of people with low self-esteem?" "Now that you say it like that, it sounds pretty mean, though you have to consider that said coping mechanisms are harmful to not only the individual but also people around them. Maybe instead of just insulting them, I should help them get better" "That's a great idea"