We talked a while longer about whatever you talk about with a seven year old whose mind also has access to some aspects of a seventeen year old brain. Eventually, it got close to dinner time. "I've heard dinner with Annie last week didn't go so good, so I'll try to get someone older" Luisa said. "Or you could sta-" but she was already gone into dissociation. After a few minutes, someone came to the front. "Hey, I'm back" Someone said. The voice sounded like Annabeth, but it was a tiny bit off. "Hi, I'm Piper, who are you?" He looked around for a few seconds before answering. "I'm Thalce. Like Thalia's nickname but with a ce at the end. I'd spell it out but you know, dyslexia." "That's the weirdest name so far out of the system" "I've got a weird origin story. That's probably why" "Are you the alter that's kind of a mix of Thalia and Percy?" "I am, how did you know?" "That's just what your voice sounds like" "Makes sense. If you saw me in the inner world, you'd also think I look like a mix of the two. By the way, since it's not really apparent by my name, I'm a dude" "Noted. So, do you know why you're out right now?" "Luisa told me something about dinner and not wanting a little out for that" "That's correct. Two days ago, Annie was out during dinner and she told everyone about how lil dam could teleport, so we wanted to avoid that." "Sounds like a thing you'd want to avoid. Now let's get to dinner before nothing's left for us." I couldn't blame him. A part of him had been homeless for two years, so food likely wasn't something he took for granted. Even Annabeth struggled with that sometimes and she had only been homeless for a few months. Two years on the streets probably had a serious impact on someone. Thalce (seriously, how did that name happen?) and I went to dinner and he handled it a lot better than a certain little. After that, we went back to our room (have we ever not done that). After a while there, he said. "I guess we have to get ready for bed at some point." "Why are you making it sound so bad?" "It's just that getting ready involves getting changed and when I'm getting changed, I'm exposed to my own body, which, as a guy, makes me uncomfortable" While saying the last word he did the "Imagination" hand movement. You know, the one from SpongeBob. "I miss being a girl. Like, I used to just be based off of Thalia, but then I slowly changed into Percy and that means I mostly identify as male which makes me uncomfortable in this body. Annabeth, why did you have to find comfort in someone of the opposite sex" A short silence followed. "She actually answered, that means she's close. Why don't you take this over? This might take a while" It did indeed take a while. Annabeth was completely dissociated for a good ten minutes. I gave her the modified hairbrush, just in case she'd need it. Eventually, she became un-dissociated again. "Hi, it's Annabeth" She sounded a bit annoyed, like someone coming home from a long day of work. (My dad's a celebrity so I know what I'm talking about) "That was… not great." A good thirty seconds of silence followed. "I'm still dissociated as schist." She was silent for a few minutes. "Okay, let's try this talking thing again. That wasn't exactly a great switch. Firstly, I wasn't triggered out, which made it harder to get to front. Also, Thalce just decided to show up after not being seen for a few weeks so I talked to him for a while probably didn't help the fronting either. All in all a very annoying switch. I've heard that they can sometimes last for hours. I hope I'll never have to deal with one of those. We've done a lot of switching recently, haven't we?" "Yes, how'd you know" "Just the good old switching headache" "That's valid. We've had literally everyone except Annie out today. Once there were three of you out at the same time. Well, you know that already, you were one of them." "But I still have no idea how that happened. Chris and I were kind of both in the cockpit and Luisa also squeezed herself into it. She's actually small by the way. Like, in the inner world" "Did you just say cockpit?" "Yes, there's a cockpit in the inner world. From what I've heard, most systems have a specific place in their inner world which is associated with fronting. If you go there, you experience the outside world. It's kind of like connecting to the matrix, except the matrix is the outside world and the real world is the inner world if that makes sense" "It does not. Go on" "Well, for us, this place is a cockpit. I don't do that much co-conning, so I've only gotten a few glances of it, but if I had to guess, it's the cockpit of a sopwith camel because, well, I grew up with a sopwith camel enthusiast." Annabeth continued to explain her internal cockpit situation. Eventually, she did what she had originally fronted for: getting ready for bed. After that, we talked for a while longer before eventually going to bed.
Annabeth
I was woken up by someone whispering my name. I slowly opened my eyes and turned around. In the faint bronze glow of my dagger, I saw Piper sitting in her bed. "Whatisit?" I mumbled. "You're here, good" Her voice sounded like she had doubted that. "Nightmare?" "Yes. Your fall" "That's my trauma" I didn't hear a response from Piper, just fast breathing. Great, a panic attack. Well, not necessarily that, but she wasn't feeling great either. I reached into my bag and got out my teddy. "Here, take this. See him? Feel his fur. It always helps me" Who knew a stuffed animal could have such a strong calming effect. I mean, I did but it still worked surprisingly quickly. "Whoa, thanks. He really helped." Her voice was still shaky, but it wasn't that bad. "Maybe I'll try to get some more sleep now. If I'm not too scared" "You sound too scared. Hug?" "If you want" "What I want is for you to not be sleep deprived tomorrow" I went over to Piper's bed and gave her a hug. "Thanks, I think I'm good now" I went back to my bed to get some more sleep. Maybe I should get some friends that aren't traumatized. Oh, wait, every demigod is.
Today was a day. I'd been waiting for this since, well, like thirty-six hours ago. Today was the day that operation give-Nico-a-hug would (perhaps maybe) happen. But first there was this annoying little thing called school. I (finally) made it to breakfast without any sort of trauma related trouble. After that, we had Physics. I think our topic is best described by something Piper said in the break "Wow, circles. And they spin. Also some Greek letters and forces that don't exist" After the break, we had music. The beginning went well. Our teacher taught us about synchronization and I surprised my classmates with my knowledge of fireflies (They flash in sync without a hierarchy!). At around the middle of the lesson, things started going wrong. Our teacher explained a game to us: He'd play a song on his piano and the first few people who could name the song would go to the next level. Whoever reached level four the fastest would win the game. A good idea, but there was one problem; You might remember that Annie often comes out if there's a stuffed animal around. This is called a positive trigger. Here's the thing: songs can be positive triggers as well. And by playing all these short song fragments, the teacher was practically blasting us with triggers. Since he always just played a short few seconds of each song, none of us were triggered very strongly, but a lot of us were, probably even more than the five (including me) which I knew of, so the area around the front was getting very crowded very quickly. It started with a mild headache, then the dissociation started. I think for most of the game I just stood there, not moving at all. When it was over, it took me a few seconds to gather the brainpower to walk over to my chair. Once there, I stopped fighting and let everyone do their thing. Whatever happened next was kind of a big mess. A bunch of people were trying to cram through the cockpit door before eventually realizing that whatever had triggered them out was no longer there so after a few minutes, everything calmed down on the inside. Once I was over my dissociation, I was able to follow the lesson again.
After the music lesson, we would have had another class, but our teacher was sick so school was already over for today. I went to my room to do homework, but not without setting an alarm for when Percy would finish his last lesson, for the off chance I would still be working on my homework by that time. What, did you think I could just keep watch on the time while working? My ADHD disagrees. Unsurprisingly, I finished my homework long before Percy finished school. After all, the sick teacher had bought me 150 minutes. Time I spent strategizing. We'd somehow need to get to camp and I didn't really know how. Maybe Percy could get us some Pegasi. Maybe he had figured out a way to travel through the city's freshwater pipes. You never knew with Percy. Shortly after my alarm went off, Piper joined me for planning. "I'm still waiting for Percy to call" I told her. Instead of an Iris message, a message from Percy arrived on my phone."cnt rb" While texting was always risky, five letters weren't going to attract that many monsters. After a few seconds, I figured out what cnt rb meant: I can't make a rainbow. Of course he couldn't, he didn't have a prism like me and no source of water (except himself). Since he couldn't, I called Percy. "Hey wise girl, ready to give Nico a hug equivalent?" "I'm almost always ready. Any ideas on how we can get to him though?" "I could take blackjack. Or maybe Mrs. O'Leary" "The latter would be faster. I guess we can try to get small Damasen to get us to camp. He got you to the lake, so it might work." "Try that. If it doesn't, you'll figure out a way to contact me." "Any tips for shadow traveling with animals?" Piper interrupted. Percy explained how he did it with Mrs. O'Leary. "See you at camp" "See you there" I ended the call. "Why did you ask him for tips on that? I was the one having a conversation" "Because I didn't want to wait for you to get over your pride" "That's fair. I then called for small Damasen. He didn't come until I followed Piper's suggestion to call him by his nickname, lil dam. This left her with a very annoying smirk of victory. Once small Damasen was there, I somehow convinced him to take us to camp half blood.
We landed next to Thalia's pine. Percy was leaning onto the tree when we arrived. "What took you so long" "Had to pack my important stuff. Also, cats aren't exactly as obedient as dogs, so getting small Damasen to shadow travel us here took a while" "Sure. Let's find Nico and give him the love he deserves." "First question: where is he? Mrs. O'Leary, do you know where Nico is?" Percy's hellhound sniffed the air before pointing her head toward the Hades cabin. The three of us went there. Percy knocked on the door. "Who's there" "Someone who's not your type, someone who shares that view and your formerly presumed straight crush" "Come in" Percy opened the door and we entered the dark and shadowy cabin.