I hadn't seen too many places in the inner world, only the tree, the cockpit, the big house and the cliff, so marking all of that on the map didn't take too long. At least it wouldn't have had I not been such a perfectionist. Because I was just that, I of course had to walk around a bit to measure or at least triangulate the positions of and angles and distances between these four objects. Once everything was cartographed, I could do some more exploring. After walking for a while, I found a forest. The dark green color of the trees (I'm not sure what it was exactly. It wasn't pine, I would have recognized that, but it was something similar) was a nice chance from the bright green grass. I could totally see myself building a little house here. That wasn't a plan yet, more of a random thought. The only thing that annoyed me was a tree that had apparently been struck by lightning and was now charcoal, which kind of ruined the picture.

I decided to venture deeper into the forest because what could possibly go wrong? Actually, there were probably a lot of things that could go wrong, some probably too absurd for me to even imagine. There was no reason why I wouldn't get attacked by, I don't know, a flying manta ray whose underside was a giant mouth and that was the size of a Walmart. In that case, I'd probably be safer in the forest because this hypothetical creature would have no chance to get in between the trees.

After walking for a while, I discovered a hill with a small cave in it. The light only reached a few meters in, but from what I could tell, the cave led to the direction of the house. When I got closer, I noticed something behind a rock that looked suspiciously like the dragon guarding the golden fleece. It moved around and I could hear the sound of its scales gliding over the stony ground. As the old saying goes; if it looks like a dangerous dragon that will kill you if you get too close to a specific place, moves like a dangerous dragon that will kill you if you get too close to a specific place and sounds like a dangerous dragon that will kill you if you get too close to a specific place, it's probably a dangerous dragon that will kill you if you get too close to a specific place, which I considered a sufficient reason to stay far away from this cave. I made my way back to where I had decided it to maybe build a house. Well, I tried but suddenly, the trees didn't seem familiar. Nothing seemed familiar. Don't panic Annabeth. This isn't the real world, nothing bad can happen. Just follow the steps. Step one: look for immediate danger. As far as I knew, the dragon and I were the only living creatures in the forest apart from maybe birds and insects, and the dragon was busy guarding the cave. Step two: what did I have with me? Nothing but a sheet of paper and a few pencils. Not too useful.

In the distance, I heard a sound that probably meant the way back. The sound of running water. I followed it to a little creek that was flowing through the forest. I recalled that when entering the forest, I had been going slightly uphill, so the creek was probably flowing in the opposite direction, so I decided to follow it, always keeping it on my right. To pass the time, I began planning out the house I'd build here. First, I needed a list of everything the house would need to have. The first thing was running water. Not having to do work to get water made such a big difference. Where could I get this water? Maybe from the creek? I might need some pretty long pipes for that, assuming I was downhill from the river. And what would I do with the waste water? Next up on the list of things was energy. In the real world, I'd have to tap into a network of electricity, but here, I'd probably have to connect to the cog network. If I didn't have a cog nearby, I'd also need a lot of materials for that. This sounded like a bunch of relatively big hurdles, but what kind of an architect couldn't even design a functioning home inside her own head. I viewed this as a sort of challenge for myself, or a test. A test I wouldn't fail.

After about twenty minutes, I finally reached the edge of the forest. I still didn't really know where I was, but at least I was out of the forest. Now I could simply follow the edge of the forest until I recognized the landscape again. I had never crossed the creek while in the forest which left two possibilities: 1) the river partially flowed underground and I had crossed it without knowing or 2) I was on the side of the river where I belonged. I decided to go for the second option and followed the edge of the forest, away from the creek. After a while, I reached the burned tree and I knew I had found my way back. Once I was there, I added the creek and cave to my map. Their locations were obviously not exact and more of an educated guess, but it was still good to have them on the map. I decided that I had done enough exploring for today and to instead begin on designing the house I would put here. I did the planning on the backside of the paper I had used for the map. The instant my pen touched the paper, my mind was just filled with ideas. I had done quite a few architectural projects before (not to brag, but I'm kind of the architect of Olympus), but this was the first time I got to design something that was just for myself, so I didn't have to take anyone else's wishes into consideration and could just do whatever the Hades I wanted. Complete freedom was something I really enjoyed. But Annabeth, I thought you liked to plan out everything you did. I do, but I can still have freedom while planning and I prefer plans if they are made by me. I don't know how long I spent drawing out different plans for my future home, but it was at least ninety minutes. Once I was done with that, I decided to check out what was going on at the front.

It took me a while to get to the cockpit, but thanks to my map, I at least didn't get lost too badly. When I reached the front, I saw that Annie was still in control. If sleeping in the pilot's seat could be called that. To be fair, the body also seemed to be asleep and from my experience, either the body was only asleep when the person in the front was asleep or I had never in my life been at the front while the body was asleep. I went with the first possibility, which also meant that Annie sleeping on the job was probably right. I knew that I probably could get to the front now, but I wasn't tired so I probably wouldn't be able to get the body the sleep it needed. I thought about what I could do instead. If I did more exploring, I might run into something more dangerous than a dragon guarding a cave. I found it interesting that it was so similar to the one guarding the fleece. Whatever was in there was probably of a similar importance as the fleece and we had been through a lot to get that. I didn't remember too much of it, but for me, not remembering something usually just meant it was too traumatic for me to handle. Apparently, Polyphemus had dropped me onto the ground and crushed some pretty important parts of my body. Not exactly a nice thing to be thinking about, so I decided to try and find a distraction. I remembered the apple I had picked just a few hours ago. It had been at the exact right stage, so the rest should also be good to collect. Working on something usually distracted me from bad memories, so I made my way to the garden. When I was there, I found a woven basket standing there, ready to be used. Based on what I had heard, food didn't really go bad in this world, so picking a lot of apples at once shouldn't be a problem. When all the apples I could reach without a ladder were in the basket, I brought it to the house and put it where all the other ingredients were stored as well. I then did some more things in the garden until I got tired. At that point, I made my way back to the front. Annie and the body where still asleep, but otherwise I had no idea what the time was. "Garbage collectors probably assist in covering up crimes all the time" Percy suddenly said. That meant it was two AM.( Don't ask me how or why, but Percy reliably outputs the most random schist at this specific time.) That meant that if I switched out now, I'd still have a lot of time left to sleep. I gently lifted Annie out of the pilot's chair and dropped her on the pillows that was conveniently located in the corner of the cockpit. When I sat down myself, I barely had time to feel myself connecting to the body before falling asleep.

Percy

I was, as always, woken up by the sound of my alarm going off. I tried to turn it off, but sometimes was weighing down my arm. No problem, I still had a second hand to turn it off. But what was that thing on my arm? Right, it was my girlfriend. Apparently, her sleep was just a tiny bit deeper than mine as my alarm hadn't woken her up. I decided to wake her up with a kiss because I'm at least somewhat romantic, but then realized I couldn't know if this actually was Annabeth. I reached for her hand instead and squeezed it lightly. She did it back. I knew (well, hoped) that only Annabeth would react this way and that this was actually her. I kissed her on the forehead which finally woke her up. "Morning Percy" "Morning Annabeth" "How'd you know it was me?" "Firstly, your voice" "could have been masking" "Right after waking up?" "Okay, maybe not. But what about the kiss? That was before I spoke. How did you know then?" I repeated the squeeze gesture and once again, Annabeth did it back. "That's how I knew. I did it before waking you up and you did it back. I figured it could only be you because no one else would have this gesture memorized" "That's probably the smartest thing you did all day" "Well, the day started like one minute ago, so I haven't really done that much" "I'm assuming you did…" She looked up at my pillow, then back down. "As I thought. A lot of drooling" "Will you ever let it go?" "Will you ever stop drooling?" "Fair" Annabeth slid up a few centimeters such that we were now face to face. "You know what sucks about lying in bed?" "No" "I can't easily give you a hug" "You're right, that does suck significantly" "But it won't stop me. I want to hug you, so I will." Slowly, I moved my arm under Annabeth until I was right next to her and I could hug her properly. "Percy, you're way too affectionate" Annabeth said. Too affectionate? That didn't sound like her at all but I still pulled away as much as that was possible. "… for most people. Like, the average person couldn't handle that but I can because I'm super touch starved." Touch starved? You? We spend like thirty minutes per day hugging" "Yeah, but it's like with debt. You can have a well-paid job that easily covers your expenses but you can still have not paid all of your student loan debt. Right now, I get enough hugs but averaged over my life, there's still a deficit. And here's the thing about a having-your-needs-met-in-childhood debt: It has an insanely high interest rate. No matter how much we cuddle, I can always do more. Like sure, I have to like eat and sleep and stuff but mentally, I won't get tired of it anytime soon. Bonus effect: emotional closeness triggers the release of oxytocin which also makes me more creative. Some of my best designs were made in your immediate presence." "Is that why you sometimes get up in the middle of it to go on your computer?" "Ecactly. My attention span is already terrible because of ADHD. Usually, my deep affection for you cancels that out but when you add a creativity spike into the mix-no chance." "I always thought I was doing something wrong" "Doing something wrong while hugging me?" "Idk, I might have" "But I always told you it wasn't your fault" "Right, I should have known that you always and directly communicate all your needs" "But this time, it's true. You're actually doing everything right, I'm just too creative for my own good." "Good to know" "I should give Poseidon's temple a fountain that resembles that stupid salt water source he made" "It wasn't stupid. Salt is very useful" "For what?" "You're the one who knows stuff. But you need it to make food last longer" "And when is that necessary?" "What's with all the stupid questions? I guess you'd need that during winter, when food is scarce" "Do they have winter in Greece?" "Fine, it wasn't useful in that specific regard" "And even if the Athenians needed salt water, the city is only a few kilometers from the ocean" "Fine, it was kind of stupid. But if it was, why make it into a fountain?" "I don't know, it was a spontaneous idea. It's not my fault you're so good at cuddling with me" In this moment, the snooze period ran out and my alarm clock rang again. Being right next to Annabeth made it even more awkward than before, but I did manage to turn it off. "But I don't want to get up" Annabeth complained. Wait, isn't today a Saturday?" "You're right, we don't have to get up. We can just stay in bed" "That's great, because I definitely did not get my recommended eight hours of sleep. Pair that with the lower sleep deprivation tolerance that comes with the safety you give me, and you get a really tired Annabeth. I'll be honest, as soon as the serotonin from the kiss wears off, I'll be gone" "Good. If you need sleep, go get it. And yes, we definitely didn't get eight hours tonight. I guess I'll see you in like an hour"