"Hey Piper, we need you here" One of my sisters called. I followed her to my cabin where a very loud discussion was taking place. Apparently, Drew's nail polish (purple, Hera should have chosen her for the camp exchange, she would have loved the Roman shirts) had spilled over someone else's bi flag. Personally, I thought it actually looked good, it was the exact right shade of purple, and I've always thought the purple stripe took up a bit too little space, but this wasn't my flag. I tried to force a punishment on her using charm speak, but she had that ability as well, which granted her a certain level of immunity to it. We then argued back and forth for a while, but I was eventually able to overpower Drew and make her clean the flag by hand. In addition to the physical labor, the loss of both nail polish and nail polish remover would be enough punishment for her. "Thanks Pipes, I really needed that flag to be clean" "No problem. Anyone got any other problems or can I get back to my friends now?" No one said a word and Annabeth could probably give a long talk about why saying there was no problem was a non-proven statement and silence was only appropriate or something like that, but I just left for the beach speechless (speechless meaning that I didn't give a speech, not that I was too surprised to say anything). When I came back, it appeared Annabeth had just started to switch.
Her head fell forward and her eyes closed, like she was barely staying awake. "Annabeth, are you ok?" Jason asked with slight panic in his voice, but Percy calmed him down. "Don't worry bro, she's just switching to another alter. The thing with her-" he tried to explain but Jason quickly informed him that he already knew about the disorder. After about two minutes, it was over. Annabeth looked up again, a childlike smile on her face. "Hello, who are you?" she asked. "The cat is sooo fluffy. I know you, you're Percy. But who are you two?" "Act like a new person came in" I whispered to Jason before telling the child "Hi, I'm Piper. Annabeth and I are friends." "And I'm Jason, her boyfriend and also Percy's friend." She seemed to like that. "Hmm, Percy's friends are good. And boyfriends are good. Percy is a good boyfriend. Annabeth's boyfriend." "Aw, thanks. So, I guess you're just here to play with the cat?" Percy asked. Only then did I notice the half skeleton cat small Damasen aka lil dam standing next to her. "Hm, yes. He's fluffy." I felt like I was about to die from an overdose of cuteness. "That's why I'm here. Where are we?" "This is camp half-blood" I explained. "Do you know what that is?" "I know! We went there with Thalia and Luke. And Grover. But then Thalia…" The smile on her face faded. "Don't worry, she came back" I told Annabeth (Well, technically this wasn't Annabeth, but I didn't know who it was, so I just stuck with that name) and her adorable smile began to return. "Want to go visit her tree?" Percy suggested. Annabeth nodded excitedly.
"Speaking of Grover, does anyone know where he is?" I asked. "I haven't seen him since Gaia died." "When she rose, that caused a lot of destruction and as lord of the wild, he's kind of responsible for making sure all of that is fixed. He said it'd take about three weeks give or take, so he might return at any point now"
We went over to half-blood hill, making sure no one would notice Annabeth's child-like behavior. Once we reached the top of the hill, Annabeth seemed genuinely impressed by the tree. "So this was Thalia. It feels strong and save. Oh, what's this?" She pointed at the golden fleece. "That is the golden fleece. It protects camp and it brought Thalia back. I got it from the island of Polyphemus, together with Annabeth. Now it makes the tree stronger." "The tree is strong" Annabeth confirmed. "We also have a tree inside. But it's black like Thalia" I was confused. I had only met Thalia once in December, but I was certain she was white. But her clothes had been mostly black, so maybe that was what Annabeth meant. Our usual understanding of what people mean when they say certain things doesn't always work when applied to seven-year-olds.
Following a random intuition I said. "So, I've heard you're a good fighter" "I am!" She looked down on herself. "I'm a bit big for my usual techniques, but I can try. Do you have a knife?" I decided to give her Katoptris and use Chione's sword for myself. As soon as we started fighting, her childish attitude disappeared and the fight seemed to be the only thing on her mind. Maybe she had switched out for someone older. Or maybe the months when she had been traveling with Thalia, Luke and Grover trained her to fight with no regards to her young age. Or it was ADHD. I noticed that she sometimes hit a bit too high, as if she was underestimating her own height, which might have actually been the case given that she was used to being seven, but she was still very good. After a few minutes, I finally got a good hit in and Annabeth momentarily froze from my swords powers before regaining movement a couple of seconds later. "I win" I told her. Once the fight was over, her innocent, child-like face came back. "You win. You fight good Piper. And I like your coldness sword. Here, your knife. I don't know where my knife is." "Thanks for the compliment. The sword used to belong to a goddess, but I took it from her. Annabeth's eyes went big. "Wooow. You took something from a goddess. I think I like you even more" I had always been looking up to Annabeth, so seeing her looking up to me made me really proud.
I looked to the sun slowly approaching the horizon and realized it would soon be time for dinner. And we all knew that Annabeth couldn't go there while a child was out. I tried to go the direct route. "Uh, not to offend you or anything, but we're having dinner soon and we need someone older for that. Can you get Annabeth?" "I can try. Annabeth, are you there?" A few seconds passed. "Sorry, she can't hear me. Let's handle this logically." I didn't think I had ever heard that sentence being said in such a childlike voice. "I came here because I liked the cat. Annabeth will come when she likes something. Annabeth likes when Percy kisses her. I think." "Kissing my girlfriend back into control? Might work, I'll just give it a try." Percy gave Annabeth a kiss and she started looking like she was falling asleep just like during her last switch. It was working!
Annabeth
I hate losing time. I was just sitting at the lake with my friends and now I was on half-blood hill and Percy was kissing me. What had happened? "Hi, I'm back. How much time passed since Percy returned from repairing the pipe? What happened?" "Oh, just an hour or so. It's time for dinner soon." Good, I was starving. The regular kind, not the I've-not-consumed-anything-but-liquid-fire-for-the-past-24-hours kind of starving. Have I mentioned how terrible that river tastes? I should probably stop thinking about it, I had already lost two hours of my day because of trauma, and I really didn't need to also have a flashback.
After dinner, those of us who would leave camp for the rest of the year, which of course included the Romans (Their plan had worked, only two or three naiads still insisted on moving to camp Jupiter) went to pack their stuff. I knew I would stay here for at least another few days, so I just sat on my bed and watched my siblings pack up. I tried not to think about the fact that tomorrow, among the many goodbyes, there would be a few last ones. Not all demigods made it through the winter and often, the summer would start with funerals. But again, I tried not to think about it. Instead I thought about my upcoming delayed birthday. I realized I hadn't actually told my siblings about that. "Oh, before I forget it, which won't happen, I'm celebrating my birthday three days from now. I'd suggest those of you who have presents for me and won't be here on that day can just collect them in a bag. Or actually, those of you who stay here can do that as well, because I might be at the Jackson's for my birthday." "But Annabeth, wasn't your birthday over a month ago? I think we held a small celebration for you, even though you weren't here." One of my sisters asked. "Well, chronologically speaking, my birthday would be the 12th of July, but during some parts of my last mission, time did some weird things, and I also lost a few days in the lotus casino, so I'm not sure when my actual biological birthday, or rather the anniversary of my day of appearance, would be exactly, so this year Percy and I decided to both celebrate on the 18th, which is his chronological birthday. His biological birthday is a bit after that for the same reasons; the Lotus Casino and the last quest" My siblings got to work, pulling more or less dusty presents from wherever they had been hiding them from me, and put them all in a bag. Then they sent out to collect presents from the other cabins. We may look like a bunch of nerds and know-it-alls, but when it comes to quickly organizing something, no one gets close to us. While my siblings were out collecting presents, I took the time to think about whatever came to mind. Like my mind for example. 'Hey, anyone there?' I called out in my thoughts, but no one answered. Now it was just me and my own thoughts. And little Damasen. How did he even get in here? I had a feeling that cat could teleport.
He lay down next to me on my bed and I began slowly stroking his back. It surprised me how calming such a simple action could be. The only other thing that could be this calming was Percy, who came in just that moment. "Uh, quick question, how exactly does temperature work?" I didn't even have time to question why he would ask such a thing, I instantly got ready to answer it. "Do you want the scientifically accurate explanation or the seaweed brain friendly explanation?" "Uh, seaweed brain please. But don't you underestimate my intellect." "Well, temperature is basically a measure of how much the individual particles in a substance are moving around. The more they slow down the colder the substance gets. Why are you asking?" "Oh, I just remembered a TV show I used to watch where they could control water, and in one scene they froze it and I wanted to know how exactly they did it. Maybe even learn it myself." "Oh, okay, see you tomorrow seaweed brain. Don't get eaten by the harpies" "Good night wise girl. See you tomorrow". He closed the door and I was alone with my thoughts again.
Where was I? Ah, yes, small Damasen was very calming. It could also help with that feeling of a clouded head I had sometimes. I actually looked it up, and it's called feeling dissociated. But sometimes, he'd also create that feeling, I assumed it was because other alters would want to be with him as well. But most of the time it was just extremely relaxing and calming. The two of us just sat on my bed for a few more minutes before my siblings came back with a few more presents. We then all got ready for bed, told each other a good night and went to sleep.
The morning of the last day of summer is always the second most chaotic of the entire year, topped only by whenever a spider infiltrates our cabin. With this being my tenth summer at camp, I was a little bit more relaxed, but the general chaos still got through to me, which was stupid since I didn't even have to pack anything yet. All I had to do was say goodbye to all my friends. And to Percy of course, but I would see him again the day after tomorrow, on our birthday. I could very well imagine how angry my mom would be once she found out that Percy and I now decided to move our birthdays together. Of course, we had declared the Athena-Poseidon-rivalry to be over, but I was almost certain the two gods really didn't give a schist. Though I had never taken into consideration the rest of the Athenian family, aka my siblings. "Uh, one question. With me loving him and our mom hating him, what's your opinion on Percy?" No one answered. "Don't worry; I swear I won't make you clean the stables just because I don't like the answer." Now, Malcolm dared to answer "I think we've come to the agreement that we accept Percy under three conditions:
Number one: He protects you" "Wait, are you saying I need someone protecting me? Do you know how much I have achieved? I have-" "Calm down Annabeth. It's true, you really don't match the helpless girl/ damsel in distress stereotype, but I think we can all agree that there were like a dozen situations where you would have died without Percy. Now, going on with the list:
Number two: he helps us win in capture the flag. Even if it's just by distracting Clarisse by being a victim" "Come on, that was one time four years ago. He wasn't even claimed at that point." "Anyways,
Number three: he kills spiders for us." That was probably the best point so far. If you want to get an Athena kid to like you, the best thing you can do, apart from getting help from Aphrodite or her children, is to kill every spider they see. I'm living proof for that. If I remember correctly, which I always do, one time when my admiration for Percy spiked was the moment he saved me from that robot spider army on the thrill ride o' love. "I think he regularly fulfills all of those requirements. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but he even killed Arachne herself." At that time, and later when we had met Achlys, I had actually been a little bit scared of him, but I would never admit that. Okay, maybe I had been more than a little bit scared. But this was not the time to think about that time. Actually, it was never a good time to think about it. Flashbacks are never good and, from the snippets I remembered, my time in Tartarus was full of flashback potential. So far, I had mastered many enemies, but my own memories were a tough one. But at least with this one, I had help from within, even if I couldn't really communicate with them right now.
Here's the new chapter, a day earlier this time, since I won't be able to upload it tomorrow.