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Percy groaned as she rolled him over, trying to get him in the optimal position. Her hands slipped against the spike in his leg, her brain running at a hundred miles an hour, trying to work out if it was poisoned or not, if she should leave it in and minimalism the damage and blood loss, or if she was letting him be poisoned by it. And if they could get out of this before she had to find a real answer to it.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, trying to act calm, trying to keep her heart rate in check. “Are you- how much does it hurt? Let me help.”
“Gimme a second,” he said, his eyes landing on the spike and grimacing. “I’m going to be so real, ‘Beth. I feel like shit.”
“Thanks, Percy, that’s good to know. Scale of one to ten for the pain?”
He thought about it for a second, “Where one is a papercut and ten is having my tendons torn out and flipped the wrong away around?”
“Sure.”
“Like a six.”
She hissed, looking around to see if there was any water, either to use to heal Percy or to turn into a mist to call for help, but they had been driving through the Mojave desert and the problem with deserts was well.
“No water?” he grimaced. “Sorry I made our bottles explode.”
She looked over at their completely totaled rental. No chance at getting their deposit back now, probably. Unless they could pass this as a… act of god. Act of gods, more like. Absolutely dickheaded gods. But that was an inside thought lest she became cursed by more than one goddess. She was still having to deal with cowpats showing up right where she was about to put her foot. At least Hera emulated her holy animal, she thought.
Speaking of gods, maybe that was the answer here. Maybe that was what they needed to do to get out of here. Apollo might have helped, but he was… indisposed. As a human. Without powers. Asclepius sounded nice enough, or like he would be down to help them, at least, but it might have been a long shot. Her knowledge of Egyptian gods was better than it had been in the past few years, but it didn’t mean she wanted to test it particularly. Especially not after their last tussle. She would, if it came down to it. She would do anything for Percy.
But other gods… other pantheons. She could work with that. Maybe.
Percy was sitting up and grimacing now, but he wasn’t showing any signs of immediate deterioration, so she thought he probably wasn’t poisoned. It didn’t mean that they had any way out of here though, or that she wanted him to move any more than that.
Closing her eyes, she pressed her lips together, thinking before she started, “Hi Frey. How’s it going? I don’t know if you know me but I’m your son, Magnus’, cousin, and I need help, please. I need, it would nice to be able, I mean, to heal my boyfriend, so if you could-”
“Annabeth,” Percy blinked at her. “You’re glowing.”
She opened her eyes, ready to check the size of his pupils, but she saw it too, coming out from her hands. A soft glow, probably unnoticeable in direct daylight but the falling sun meant she could see it fine. Just like Magnus had described.
“Thank you!” she said, turning around to Percy. “Full disclosure, I’m not really sure what I’m doing and I didn’t read up on it.”
“Go right ahead,” he tried to smile but she could see the pain it was causing him. “I trust you.”
Magnus listened carefully when she told him, his grip tightening on the handle of his cup, small cracks spreading out like frost on a winter lawn, the only thing giving away anything under the surface.
“I mean…” he said slowly, his lips twisting a little. “I told you about the Skofnung Stone, right? About who could wield it and stuff?”
“What about it?” she frowned. “You said that it couldn’t be drawn if there’s a woman there, and that… something about Swedish nobility?”
He grimaced, “Followup to that, what do you know about the mythology about the like… I’m not doing great on definitions here, I guess Randolph could have given you a long and drawn out version of events, but do you know who one of the first kings of Sweden is supposed to be.” He shrugged, “I mean, I guess, is. I think.”
“... No.” She paused, “Should I?”
“I don’t think it constitutes as common knowledge, to be fair. It’s Frey, by the way. Also his dad, Freydad. Njord. He’s got a weird foot thing, did I tell you about him?”
“I think so,” she said, slotting pieces together in her head. “So Randolph is descended from Swedish nobility, as in, we all are, right?”
“Right,” he said. “And more specifically, from Frey. Which might be why…” he wiggled his fingers at her in a particularly unhelpful demonstration for her dramatic acquirement of healing powers. “You have to be born with Alf Seidr, as I am told. I don’t think it can be bestowed, but like… if it was already there a little bit, I guess it could have been increased. You’re just lucky that goats don’t suddenly start talking shit about you and you can understand it.”
She stared at him for a second, “What?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I ate Hearthstone’s dad’s heart, but he was a dragon and it was wyrd and I’m not making this better, am I?”
“You’re improving in terms of general weirdness at least.”
“Thanks.” He drained his cup and made a face, “The lounge coffee on Floor 23 is better, to be honest.”
She dodged past her cousin suddenly having become a coffee snob and hit for the centre of the topic, “So we’re legacies. Like, descendants of a god without necessarily being a demigod.”
His forehead wrinkled up, “I suppose. Just don’t make me think about any of that.”
“Fair,” she said and pushed her cup away. “So, what can you teach me?”
“First thing,” he said, getting up from the table. “Is blood sugar. We’re going shopping. We need snacks.”