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Water acted oddly around Annabeth Chase. Everyone at Camp Half Blood accepted it. Percy Jackson’s powers could almost act on their own at this point. Still, it was disconcerting to see it when it happened without him being there.
They would be playing capture the flag in a torrential rain, wrestling in the mud, and Annabeth would come home completely clean and dry. The scrolls that she lent people were completely water proof. Rumor was that if you swam holding one, it would keep you from getting wet.
And gods help anyone who insulted Annabeth, even in jest. The water would come up from the ground and the sky and the ocean to wait at her side. She would pat it like a dear pet before hitting the offender with the pummel of her sword. She didn’t need the water, but it was a comfort. It loved her because Percy did. His love was there even if he wasn’t.
Percy almost never used his powers for himself anymore. It was too startling and too powerful, but for her, he would do anything.
So, when Annabeth decided to go to school at Camp Jupiter where few people knew her, rumors started.
“She’s a lost water nymph”
“Her father is Neptune”
“She drowned in a stream long ago, floating like Ophelia to a watery death”
“She made a deal with a merman”
Annabeth did not hear these whispers. She had her friends and Percy, so she kept to herself. She was friendly but distant like a gentle tide lapping at the cliffs.
The water in cups was always slightly drawn to her. The puddles in the street dried as she was about to step around them. The shore line receded when she wanted to walk along the beach. There was no denying her power said the other students.
But her friends knew her true power. The power that came flowing from her pen as she wrote treaties between the gods. The strength in her eyes as she gazed at those she loved. Few knew her, but to those people, she gave everything.