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Chapter Text

From the very day she arrived in Olympus, Annabeth had been quite different from the other fairies. Nearly every other fairy in Olympus was born from a dandelion seed, blown from the first laugh of a baby, and with a touch of fairy dust, a new fairy or sparrow was born. However, when Annabeth arrived at Olympus, she wasn’t born from a dandelion seed, rather she, like every other governing-talent fairy, was born from a falling star that had been wished upon by a child. While other fairies and sparrows, when they were born, had to participate in the arrival ceremony that determined which magical talent the new member of Olympus was destined to have; it was just yet another thing that Annabeth didn’t have to do. That made her different. Due to the nature of her arrival, there wasn’t a question about what kind of magical talent she was going to have.

But that was all over twenty years ago. 

Now, it was only six weeks before Annabeth was due to be crowned as the new queen of Olympus. It was meant to be just a week before she turned twenty-one. Queen Athena hadn’t decided to disclose to her why the two events had to be so close together, but that was a tendency that Queen Athena had with many of her decisions. Other than remarking that a good ruler valued the common good and a great intelligence above all else, she never had to explain or justify her decisions. There was never anyone who had a higher ranking than Athena, nor was there anyone who had a strong enough following or powerful enough magic to challenge the power of the throne.

Since she’d arrived, Annabeth had always held the title of Princess, with Queen Athena acting as her only parental figure. And with that title, she had grown up quite sheltered, making appearances as needed at Athena’s side when new arrivals came or the changing of seasons, but with her title and future role, Annabeth hadn’t exactly been granted many opportunities to make friends. So, when she’d managed to befriend one of the most talented Tinker Talents, Silena, Annabeth just about refused to let go of her. And, after getting caught trying to sneak out to see Silena a few times too many, Annabeth gained her second, somewhat unwilling, friend in Clarisse, a Scouting Talent that had gotten into some trouble herself. Disobeying orders and all that. 

While Athena had intended that having Clarisse follow Annabeth’s every move would deter her from acting ‘out of line’ any longer, it instead just led to Annabeth, Silena, and Clarisse being best friends since they were thirteen. It kind of just proved that not all of Athena’s plans worked out for the best. She’d just never say as much.

Regardless of all that, Princess Annabeth had most definitely let her mind wander off while she sat in yet another meeting about something. Her days were filled with mundane meetings more often than not, going over every last detail of any minute issue or planning the next over-the-top party. As always, Annabeth sat to Athena’s right side, usually just sitting and listening to the boring conversation. Never asked her opinion or for her thoughts. So long as she could quietly sit and listen, Annabeth had sat in on practically every meeting Queen Athena had since she was six. Even when the meetings were focused on things such as her own birthday party or her coronation, nearly every decision was made by Athena. 

Their current meeting was about some inane detail about the color of the decorative flowers that were going to be at Annabeth’s coronation. She’d tuned back into the conversation just to catch Athena confidently saying, “We have other matters to get onto, like I said, they should be blue, Annabeth’s favorite color.” With practiced ease, Athena maneuvered into the next topic of conversation, something she much more clearly wished to talk about. And just as quickly as Annabeth listened back into the conversation, she tuned back out again. 

She shouldn’t have really cared about it. But it still stung. After all the years that they’d spent together, there were still seemingly a million little things they didn’t know about each other. Despite the fact that they’d spent every day since Annabeth had arrived together. Athena still didn’t know her favorite color.

The majority of the day went without further issue. Not that there really was an issue in the first place. But by the time it was early in the evening, Annabeth was giving herself another last once over in her mirror, admiring the soft blue, floor-length gown that was quite simple, aside from the small, glimmering diamonds that were sewn in ripples. Her hair had been woven into a braid in a crown around her head, with pink and white wildflowers laced into it. Just behind the sturdy braid, Annabeth was supposed to place her tiara; it was always the last step she did herself, after dismissing whoever had been sent to help her get readied, before she joined Queen Athena to make their joint royal entrance. 

But today, of all days, she couldn’t seem to steel herself to do it.

It was far too childish for her to be pitching a tantrum over something as mundane as her motherly figure not knowing what her favorite color was. Honestly, it may have been something as simple as she’d once said her favorite color was blue and forgotten, but Athena hadn’t forgotten that she’d said as much. Or perhaps it was one of her last seemingly child-like moments, since the ticking clock of her last weeks of normalcy was slipping away faster than she could ever count. What better way to prove how unprepared she was to take over as Queen of Olympus other than by sabotaging the final celebration to honor Queen Athena’s 300th full year of her reign. 

A knock at her closed bedroom door broke Annabeth from her endlessly looping thoughts. Before she could utter a word to invite the visitor into her room, or before she could take a step towards the entrance to let them in, the bedroom door clicked open, and Athena’s head popped in the opening, “Annie, what is taking you so long, dear?” 

“Nothing,” Annabeth answered immediately, planting her tiara in its intended place, taking one glance in the mirror to make sure it was properly placed before meeting Athena at the door, “sorry, I was just lost in thought, I suppose.” 

As soon as she was at her side, Athena gave her a measured once over, her expression closed off and calculated as ever, but if there was something about Annabeth’s appearance that Athena had thought about saying, she made no indication of such. Rather, she took one, short, deep breath before she plastered a pageantry smile on her face and said, “Very well, but we can’t keep everyone waiting around just because you are getting lost in your thoughts, again.” With a simple gesture, Athena lured Annabeth from her room, and easily continued their mostly one-sided conversation, as was usual, “Now, I trust you have been finding some time to practice your governing magic, like you promised?”

“Yes, Athena.” Annabeth answered, as she tried to ensure she wouldn’t trip over her dress in her heels, again, as they walked alone through the hallway, inching closer and closer to the noise of the party, “Although, I am still uh, still need to keep practicing.” 

It was embarrassing enough that she was still having significant issues wielding her magic, after all, what kind of queen would she be if she were unable to access the special properties of governing-talent magic. But after the first time she’d confided in Athena that she was having any kind of difficulty using her magic, something she hadn’t realized could be a monstrous issue when she was eight, it had been drilled into her to never mention her difficulties. Even if it was to Athena. So instead, she always framed it as needing more practice, striving for perfection on skills she still lacked to muster in the first place.

“I see,” Athena replied, her voice not hinting at her feelings in the slightest, as was normal whenever she interacted with Annabeth, “well, perhaps if you spent more time here, practicing, rather than wasting time with the tinkering talents, you will start getting some more breakthroughs. And besides, once you are queen, my dear, you won’t have much time to run amok with your little friends.” 

“If that’s the case, then shouldn’t I spend more time with them now? Rather than less.” Annabeth returned. 

At her words, Athena paused just a few meters from the door that separated them from their subjects of Olympus, and Annabeth wished for nothing more than the ability to swallow her words back up. But she couldn’t. “Are you questioning me, Annie?” Athena asked, her words cool and measured, “Do you believe that it’s in the best interest of all of Olympus that you spend valuable time with your friends, rather than perfecting your talents?” 

“No, Ma’am.” There was always only one answer that Annabeth could utter in return that would satisfy Athena, “I didn’t intend to question you, not at all. You’re right, as always.” 

As soon as the doors a little ways in front of them were opened, any conversation that they could’ve been having, if Annabeth hadn’t botched it up, would’ve ceased anyway. Since it was a celebration for her, as well as having the higher title, Athena was introduced first and met with great fanfare, so much so that when Annabeth was called out shortly after, it was barely audible. Like most other events, Athena was the center of attention, which was especially so on this particular evening, while Annabeth could’ve easily blended in with the furniture. Ironically, there were only three people who would’ve likely noticed if she slipped away, and two of them would inevitably be tasked with ensuring she stuck around. 

“Hey there, Sunshine,” Silena greeted, easily sliding into the space beside her, “enjoying the party?” 

“It’s lovely, thank you. I hope you’re enjoying yourself as well.” Annabeth replied, a bit too automatically for Silena’s liking, but being raised by Athena made almost robotic interactions be second nature.

Likewise, Silena never seriously judged her when she made such odd responses. Rather, she’d simply poke the small area of Annabeth’s back between her wings, which always jolted her out of her robotic routine. Silena called it her ‘Annabeth Reset Button’, so she started acting like her friend again. “Now, normally this isn’t my kind of scene, being around this many people always stresses me out a bit too much. But, considering it’s like the only way I get to see you lately, I’ll stick it out.” Annabeth’s heart dropped as Silena pointed out their lack of time lately, knowing it was only going to lessen further in just a few weeks. “All just to see your smiling face.” 

As Silena’s fingers pressed Annabeth’s frown into a smile, she couldn’t help the apology that tumbled out of her mouth, “I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to see you as much lately. Things have just been a bit busy, which shouldn’t be an adequate excuse for that. And, I’m sorry you have to suffer through all this just to talk to me.” Annabeth’s long apology got cut off when Silena poked her back again, “What was that for?!” 

“I must’ve hit the wrong button the first time,” Silena answered, not phased at all by Annabeth’s oddness, “had you all set on Apologetic Mode instead of Best Friend Mode. So hopefully that’s fixed now.” 

“What have you been working on lately?” Annabeth asked, hoping that she’d take the very obvious bait so they could stop talking about her behavior, “Last time we talked, I think you were still working on that new helmet for the Scouts.” 

Sure enough, whether it was to indulge Annabeth’s unspoken desire or it was simply Silena’s undying love for her projects, but she latched onto the bait Annabeth had tossed her way. “Oh yeah, I finished the mock-up for that a few weeks ago, now they’ve got some of the other Tinkers working on actually making them. They’re much better at welding and such than I am.” Silena rambled, speaking about some metal helmets with far more enthusiastic interest than Annabeth had had for really anything in her entire life, “But now, I’m working on a very special project, which I’m not really supposed to talk about with anyone. But, I’m sure she won’t mind if I tell you a bit about it.”

“Tell me about what? What’s, what are you talking about?” Annabeth questioned in return.

She took a quick glance around the party, more so checking the creatures close to them, then Silena grabbed Annabeth’s wrist and pulled the pair of them back into the castle doors. Now that the party in the courtyard was in full swing, the noise easily traveled deeper into the castle than it had been when Annabeth had been approaching it with Athena nearly an hour or so ago. Which just meant that Silena had to drag the both of them a bit deeper into the castle before she managed to say, “So, that new project I was telling you about, well, it’s something that Queen Athena requested that I make for you for your coronation.” 

Annabeth hadn’t had the slightest idea as to when Athena had snuck off to give her request to Silena. Although it was very likely she’d just sent someone to deliver the request on her behalf. But, of all the tinker-talents she could’ve picked from to make it, whatever it was, why did she pick Silena? Of course, Silena was incredibly talented and dedicated to every part of her craft; it was one of the many reasons Annabeth adored her, but she only had two friends in all of Olympus. Why did she pick one of her two friends for whatever this task was? 

“Annie,” Silena called, waving one of her hands in front of her face, “are you even listening to me?” 

“Sorry, I just, I totally just got stuck in my head for a minute there,” Annabeth apologized, hating the hurt look that had crossed Silena’s features for a second before she’d covered it up like normal, “What are you making for my, um, for the coronation?” 

First, Silena laughed for a second, which, for a long time, Annabeth had always assumed was Silena laughing at her and not the absurdities that followed her around. Then, just as she was about to explain, again, what her new project was, Silena’s eyes widened slightly, her cheeks quickly blushed, and she shut her mouth with a click. 

Before Annabeth could ask what was wrong, she got her answer, “What are you two doing in here?” 

“Nothing, Clarisse,” Annabeth answered her, only half-turning to look at her personal scout, who was, as always, trailing Annabeth around from a healthy distance, “we were just catching up. We’ll be right back out soon. Okay?” Clarisse didn’t look pleased, nor like she believed what Annabeth had told her. But she didn’t voice whatever it was that she was thinking, and instead she posted herself a few feet away from the pair. “Sil, you still haven’t answered my question, you know. What are you making?” 

Since being made aware of Clarisse’s presence, Silena couldn’t take her eyes off of the scout. Her cheeks still fairly bright red, as she squeaked, “It’s not that important, I can tell you later. Let’s just go back to the party, yeah?” Just like she’d done when bringing them both back inside, Silena grabbed onto Annabeth’s wrist and started heading back towards the party. When they were passing by Clarisse, her schooled, neutral expression was as impermeable as ever, and the party chattering and music were interrupted by shrieks and hisses. “What is that?!” 

“You two stay here,” Clarisse ordered, stepping between the pair and whatever was going on on the other side of the doors, “better yet, go to the Princess’s chambers, let the Scouts deal with whatever it is.” As much as Annabeth yearned to investigate whatever was disrupting Athena’s party outside, between Clarisse holding them back and Silena pulling her away, she hadn’t had much of an option.

Once it was clear that Annabeth wasn’t going to be allowed to go outside, she took off ahead of Silena, who pleaded for her to slow down, and rushed back up to her bedroom. She didn’t bother worrying about the door, since Silena would be coming in soon anyway, and instead Annabeth went right to the small balcony that was attached to her room, which overlooked the very courtyard the party was being held in. As she stood on the balcony, just enough to look into the courtyard but hopefully not too much to get spotted by Athena, one of the Scouts, or whatever had ruined the party, of all the things Annabeth could’ve expected to see, it certainly never would have been in a million years, she never would’ve expected to see dozens of fairies laying on the ground like they were sleeping. But even from a distance, it was quite obvious it wasn’t a very restful sleep. 

“What is happening?” Silena asked as she joined Annabeth on the balcony. They could see the Scouts focused on something, but in the darkness of the night, it was nearly impossible for the two to see what it was. But, once one of the Scouts fired a flaming arrow at the creature, only then could the two fairies see it. The shadowy, sea serpent.

Chapter Text

The evening before had started out rather lovely, even if the party wasn’t exactly Annabeth’s favorite kind of event. But, by the end of it, nearly thirty fairies were stuck in the medical clinic in deep comas, the Scouts had spent most of the night trying to chase down the monster, driving it back into the water miles away, and more than ever, Queen Athena was swamped by the fears of the creatures of Olympus that weren’t sent into restless slumbers. The entire following day, while Athena was in endless meetings and trying to ease the concern of their subjects, Annabeth had been stuck in her room all day, with only Clarisse keeping her company. And Clarisse didn’t exactly make the best conversationalist. Nor would she give up any information she’d gotten from the other scouting-talents about what had attacked them the night before. 

So, other than being insanely bored all day long, the day dragged on rather uneventfully. 

Annabeth had asked Clarisse, multiple times, if she could go see Silena, if Silena could come visit her, and if she could send Silena a message. All of which Clarisse plainly told her she wasn’t permitted to do so. Perfectly paired with remarks that they were both abiding by direct orders from Athena. Which just meant there wasn’t anything Annabeth was going to be able to say that would convince her to do anything otherwise. 

As she’d been instructed to do so, Clarisse stayed in Annabeth’s room from well before she had woken up, an hour or so at least before dawn, (Which was quite the surprise to wake up to.) until she was dismissed by Athena after Annabeth had gotten ready to go to bed in the late evening. Since she hadn’t done anything all day long, she was hardly tired when Annabeth had changed back into a pair of her pajamas and climbed into her bed. Clarisse had known, despite Annabeth lying perfectly still for well over an hour, that Athena hadn’t known about the hundreds of times she’d pretended to be asleep just to sneak out. 

Shortly after Clarisse had been dismissed for the evening, while Annabeth continued lying quite still as if she was asleep, she felt her bed sink a bit as a hand brushed a strand of curled, blonde hair that had been tickling her face. “Annie, I was hoping to catch you before you’d gone to bed,” Athena confessed, her voice more affectionate and far softer than Annabeth could recall it ever being, “I’m not sure where you were, last night, when that monster, that blasted serpent from the sea, when it had attacked. I was, it felt like I’d just seen you talking with Silena, and the next thing I knew, that thing was there, and you both were gone. Just gone.” The longer Athena had spoken, the normal confidence and wisdom that Annabeth had always idolized in her, it all washed away as she rather openly expressed how she’d felt, rather than how she’d thought, in the moment, “It’s been so long since I had to worry about you like that. You’ve just, you’ve been my strong, brave little girl for so long, I’ve not needed to worry about you being safe. And it’s not because of Clarisse, I promise it’s not.” Annabeth felt immensely guilty for pretending to be asleep, rather than having a conversation with Athena, especially when she heard her motherly figure sniffle. Another thing that Annabeth couldn’t recall ever witnessing from Athena. 

“It’s that I’ve known how smart you are, even when you do things that I wish you wouldn’t, you always make safe choices. You don’t, you don’t just rush headfirst into danger,” Athena continued, clearly unaware of what Silena and Annabeth had done the previous evening after being sent away by Clarisse, “I need to tell you as much more often, but I am very proud of you, Annie.” As she stood from her bed, Athena pressed a soft kiss to her temple, and added, “You always do the right thing, Annabeth.” Once she did, Athena slipped out of her room nearly silently, snuffing the candles out as she did.

While Annabeth continued to lie in her bed, she couldn’t help but wonder why Athena couldn’t say anything close to that to her while she was awake and without being attacked. At least she said it to her, Annabeth figured. But it was hard to fully enjoy any of the praise, considering Athena was unwilling to say it to her, let alone daring to do so in front of anyone else. She waited another twenty minutes after Athena had left, debating whether she should just go to bed or go do something, but between Athena’s words and the endless questions bouncing around her head, Annabeth couldn’t just do nothing. 

So, without wanting to waste a single second, still dressed in her pajamas, Annabeth slipped out of her bed, tiptoed across the cool floor to her balcony’s doors. The cool summer night air sent an immediate shiver down her spine when Annabeth pulled the doors open, but she gave her body a slight shake to brush off any nerves that had tried to settle over her, which also helped her wings perk up a bit before she took off into the night sky. 

It probably hadn’t been the best idea to go out so late. Considering it had already been difficult to see the monster the night before in the dark, and that had been with much more lighting from the party and earlier in the evening. Now, in the cold chill of the night air and hardly able to see anything in front of her, as all the other fairies had long since returned to their homes well before night fall, Annabeth just barely managed to keep her body from shivering too much as she followed the path of grass that had been seemingly mysteriously killed, in a winding, serpentine path, like a large snake had killed every plant that had been in its way.

“Is it the same beast?” Annabeth wondered aloud to herself, keeping her voice in a quiet whisper despite not being able to see any other beings stirring in the night, the last thing she needed was someone spotting her out all alone and either turn her into Athena or do something worse, “Or is there more than one?” 

Annabeth followed the trail of browned, dried grass until it hit the sandy beach that, for far longer than she had existed and as long as she could remember, all fairies had been forbidden from crossing onto. While they were perfectly okay, most of the time, when dealing with rain and freshwater sources, there had been legends, warnings, of fairies that had let their wings come into contact with saltwater, and it caused them to become too brittle and crack. Losing their ability to fly was something nearly all fairies feared, and someone who was expected to be just that much better and greater than others, like Annabeth, it was something she simply couldn’t afford to lose. Let alone when she hadn’t even begun her reign yet, and her destined successor was centuries away from arriving. So, even having her feet land on the soft, still warm sand of the beach that stretched into the salty water that always terrified her, Annabeth had to keep herself from trembling for a second reason. 

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing in the sand, very, very slowly inching her way closer to the water, but keeping more than a healthy distance between where the waves washed up along the coast and where her feet were planted. Logically, she knew that if some salty, ocean water touched her feet, it wouldn’t instantly shatter her wings. But, she wasn’t thinking with much logic, and the fear in the back of her mind that at any moment she could be caught and be in massive trouble for the rest of Athena’s existence, and very well after that too. 

“Who are you?” So, when a voice spoke to her out of seemingly nowhere, Annabeth couldn’t help the scream that escaped her as she tumbled onto the sand, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I just don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

It took her a bit of time searching around to track down the source of the voice, and of all the places that she had thought to find another being talking to her, it certainly hadn’t been from the water. There was a head, neck, and part of a chest sticking out of the water as a boy looked at her, “What are you doing in there?”

“The water?” The boy asked, to which Annabeth nodded nervously, “Why wouldn’t I be here? What are you doing out there?” Then he laughed, and it only confused her even further before he added, “You’re a fairy, right?” She nodded. “Well, I am a merman. So, I kind of need to be in the water, so.” 

She had grown up so sheltered and hidden away from most of the fairies, so this boy was easily the first merperson she’d ever met. And all the warnings that Athena had drilled into her head about how dangerous and deceiving the merfolk were. Athena had always told her the stories that had been passed down to her when she’d been young; she had said that the merpeople were jealous of the fact that the fairies were able to walk on the ground as well as fly in the air, while the merfolk had to remain just in the water. And, because they were so jealous of the fairies that they had lured many vulnerable, lonely fairies towards the salty sea with the promise of some kind of friendship, only for the fairy to be pulled into the water by the merperson, ruining their wings and, in some cases, leading to the fairy being drowned by the aquatic being. So, as soon as the boy willingly told her, already aware that she was a fairy, that he was a merman, Annabeth was even more on edge than she’d already been. 

“I’m Percy, or well, technically it’s Perseus, but that’s far too obnoxious,” the boy, Percy, started, his tone not making him sound like much of a threat at all, and his short joke about his own full name made her feel slightly better, “Do you have a name?” 

“Of course I have a name, Percy!” Annabeth snapped back, eliciting another laugh from him, which made her rather flustered from her outburst, as she brushed the sand off her pajama bottoms. Annabeth continued, “I am sorry. That was rather rude of me; I should’ve been more in control of myself. My name is Annabeth.” 

Once his laugh trailed off, which surprisingly was a sound Annabeth would’ve happily listened to the rest of the night, Percy asked, “Are you, by chance, a lady of high position?” The little warmth Annabeth had mustered in her body drained out in an instant, while Percy laughed again. There must’ve been some kind of telling look on her face about how she was feeling, as he cut off his laughter and explained, “It’s not a bad thing, I promise. I was more just trying to joke, which I suppose wasn’t my best idea. Plus, I mean to be fair, I’m technically a prince, one of many, I should say. I am so far down the line that I hardly qualify as a ‘person of high position’ in nearly every situation.” Most beings, aside from Silena, when they were in Annabeth’s presence, hardly ever rambled on for as long as he had been. It was oddly endearing to her. “Anyway, my point is that I had no idea that you did have some kind of position. I promise. But, since you do, I am wondering if there was something that you could possibly help me with.” 

She honestly couldn’t tell if Percy was still joking, let alone if he knew what position she held, but his ramblings simultaneously fascinated and confused Annabeth’s thoughts. Which was annoying. “What do you believe that I could possibly do to help you?” Annabeth asked him, having to remind herself not to state exactly what her title was, since he didn’t seem to know for sure what her role was, and she wasn’t going to give it to him. 

“Well, there’s not much I can disclose to you without the promise that you’ll try to help, in whatever way you can. But,” Percy had started to say, as he moved closer to the shoreline, allowing his upper half to be exposed to the air while his bottom half, which was mostly his tail, stayed in the water, “I can assure you that if my idea is able to work, then those creatures won’t be an issue for either of us anymore.” 

“What do you know about the creatures?” Annabeth asked instantly, and even with a bit of distance between her and Percy, she could see a gleam light up in his eyes as she expressed obvious interest in whatever he knew about the monster that had attacked them the night before. So, before he could make any comment about it, she quickly redirected her questions into something else, “How am I supposed to help you? It’s not like I can go into the water with you like this, nor would I be able to breathe under the waves like you can, Percy.” 

He didn’t answer for quite a while, which made Annabeth shuffle on her feet as she waited for Percy’s response. “Alright,” he finally started to answer, “I will come back here each night, and wait for you. If there is a way for you to safely come into the water, then we can further discuss the possibilities of my idea and how it would be able to help both of our domains. And if there’s not a way for you to safely come into the water, then we will try to figure out another way.” 

Annabeth had already been taking quite the risk sneaking out this one time. There wasn’t a guarantee she could offer to him that would be satisfactory. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to meet you here again,” she told him, hating the fact she could watch the hope melt off his face at her words, “I kind of snuck out here to begin with. But, I’m sure I can find a way to get here, even just to talk, in a week’s time.” 

It was the best she could offer him at the moment. A promise to speak to each other sometime soon, in the next week. But, even just that kind of a promise earned her a toothy grin from him as he remarked, “Well, then it’s a date, Annabeth. I am already greatly looking forward to our next meeting. Whenever that may be.” 

As she flew back home in the early hours of the morning, shortly after bidding Percy a good-bye and a good night, Annabeth couldn’t shake the excitement that lingered at her core. 

There was actually possibly something that she would be able to do, without Athena, to help her subjects. If she was able to work with him, as long as he continued to prove that he was trustworthy, and the two of them were able to deal with the creatures, it would be a wonderful and extraordinary start to her reign as Queen. Although, she did need to still figure out how she would get a device that would allow her to breathe underwater. And she needed to find some item or thing that would protect her wings from the saltwater. But that was all something she could start thinking about after getting an hour or two of rest. 

And so, as she finally drifted off to sleep, finally feeling a bit tired after the exhilarating roller coaster of emotions she’d felt after spending only an hour or so of her night with Percy. His laugh played on replay in her mind as she pictured his sparkling green eyes and infectious smile. Despite her best efforts to clear her mind of any and all thoughts about the evening’s events, there was just something about Percy that wouldn’t let her lingering thoughts about him be shaken from the forefront of her mind. The very last thing she thought of as Annabeth went to sleep was Percy.

Chapter Text

When Annabeth woke up the following morning, after only getting a few hours of sleep, part of her was certain that she had dreamt the entire meeting with Percy up. But, when she stepped over some grains of sand that she must’ve tracked in, it was the small morsel of confirmation she’d needed to know it was real. If Percy and their meeting was real, then Annabeth needed to uphold her end of their deal. 

She had told Percy that she was unsure of when Annabeth would be able to slip away from Athena and Clarisse to see him again. But, that didn’t mean she had to wait to get started on some projects she was going to need to have completed. So, after fulfilling her morning and early afternoon obligations with a cheery smile, Athena had granted Annabeth the afternoon off while she had a few private meetings about the attack and their plan of action against the monster. (A meeting that Annabeth was deemed too young to attend.) As soon as Annabeth was left alone with just Clarisse, she turned to the scout and said, “I would like to go to the Nook.” 

“Why do you want to go to the Nook?” Clarisse returned, her voice seemingly as cold and uncaring as ever, but having spent so much time with her, Annabeth picked up on the buried curiosity in her words. 

“I would like to speak with Silena.” Annabeth answered simply, catching the light blush that colored her cheeks at the mention of her friend. Who Clarisse had had a long-time crush on, but when Silena had started dating Charles Beckendorf a few months ago, she’d started avoiding interacting with Silena whenever possible. Like that was going to make her feelings go away any time soon. 

Annabeth had tried to get her to open up about her obvious crush, and convince her that Silena definitely had feelings for Clarisse, too. Charles Beckendorf was a sparrow who went by his last name and lived in the Nook too, but he wasn’t a Tinker-Talent; he was a Fire-Talent. Beckendorf was also on the council of royal advisors as the Lord of Fire, alongside Thalia Grace, a Fast-Flying-Talent and was the Lady of Air, and Luke Castellan, the Lord of Earth and an Animal-Talent. (Plus, Annabeth got the feeling that Silena’s relationship with Beckendorf wasn’t entirely closed off.) She figured that Silena had met Beckendorf after one of the council meetings, since she spent quite a bit of time hanging around with Annabeth, since Silena had never mentioned him prior to them starting to date.

“What business do you have with Silena, your highness?” Clarisse asked, pulling Annabeth’s thoughts back to their current conversation, “Given the recent events, I think it would be wise to avoid taking any frivolous ventures away from the castle. So, unless you can give me a reasonable, urgent matter that needs to be dealt with today, I am going to have to deny your request.” Despite the apologetic phrasing of her words, Clarisse didn’t look or sound too sad about likely denying Annabeth’s request. 

“Come on, Clarisse,” Annabeth whined, knowing that her childish antics tended to work oddly with her guard than being mature or diplomatic did, “It will be super short, and then we can come back here and do absolutely nothing all day, again. Please, please, pretty please, Clarisse.” 

It took about five seconds of Annabeth pleading with her for the Scout to groan, “Fine, we can go.”

“Wonderful!” Annabeth cheered, fluttering a few feet off the ground, which only seemed to annoy Clarisse, but luckily, they had already been standing outside in the garden. “Come on, Clarisse, the sooner we go, the sooner we can come back.” 

As annoyed as she was, Clarisse didn’t need any further prompting, and soon enough, the duo made their way from the castle and fairy dust tree and had reached the Nook, which, like always, was bustling with activity. The Nook, for the most part, was occupied by Tinker-Talents, with the occasional residents possessing other talents but who tended to be a bit more hands-on and creative, and it was a hotspot for their collaborative projects. The typical busyness of the Nook allowed for Clarisse and Annabeth to slip into the crowd largely undetected, even more so as long as Annabeth kept her wings as tucked in and not shimmering in the sunlight as much as possible. Which, with the Nook being located under the roots of one of the largest and oldest trees in all of Olympus, sunlight wasn’t exactly a thing that was in high supply.

Annabeth had gone to Silena’s house, dragging Clarisse along with her, and as soon as they’d stepped into the crowd in the Nook, the pair easily slid through the other fairies and sparrows, and they reached Silena's door in no time. Silena always insisted that Annabeth (and Clarisse) didn’t need to knock when she visited and to just walk right in, but between Clarisse’s insistence and Athena’s lessons of drilling manners into her head, Annabeth still knocked on Silena’s door before letting herself in. “Silena?” Annabeth called as she walked into the house, while Clarisse chastised her again about ‘walking into dangerous situations’ despite it just being Silena’s house, “Silena? Are you here?” 

“She better be here,” Clarisse grumbled as they walked further into Silena’s house, which wasn’t too big in the first place, “otherwise I am going to have to have words with her about leaving her door unlocked.” 

After not finding Silena in her workshop, which was where she was 95% of the time, Annabeth knocked on her bedroom door, “Silena? Are you in there? It’s Annabeth.” 

There was some odd clattering that came from Silena’s bedroom before she shouted back, “Uh, hold on, Annabeth! I’ll um. I’ll be right out, okay?” She didn’t know what Silena was doing, but from the sounds of it, she’d needed a minute or two to get her things in order, so Annabeth walked back to Clarisse in Silena’s workshop. After waiting for a few minutes, Silena hurried out of her bedroom, carefully shutting the door behind her, “Hey, hey Annabeth, Clarisse, what um, why are you guys here?” 

“Why do we need a reason to come see you?” Clarisse asked, looking angry as ever. 

While Annabeth had learned how to read Clarisse’s emotions, Silena had been able to understand them until she’d started dating Beckendorf, for some reason, and since then, she’s been oddly skittish around Clarisse. So, when Clarisse sounded displeased by Silena’s questioning about their presence, Silena looked like she was about to have a panic attack.

“No, no, no, you don’t need a reason at all. I am so happy to see you guys.” Silena quickly replied, looking between Annabeth and Clarisse as she fervently explained herself, “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry for making it sound like I didn’t want you guys around. That’s not what I meant at all. Sorry, I’ve just been, I’ve been so busy with my own projects and then there’s my stuff with Charlie.”

“Charlie?” Annabeth repeated, causing Silena’s already flushed cheeks to turn a deeper shade of red while Clarisse looked away from Silena, “You get the special privilege of calling him by his first name, huh?” 

While Silena started to stammer back that it ‘wasn’t like that’, turning an even brighter shade of red, almost bright pink, Clarisse loudly excused herself, as she proclaimed, “I am going to go wait outside.” 

As she left, Clarisse shut Silena’s door a bit loudly behind her, and as soon as she did, Silena’s bedroom door opened and Beckendorf poked his head out, to Annabeth’s amusement and Silena’s embarrassment. “Are they gone?” He asked as he strolled out of her bedroom, clearly unaware of Annabeth’s presence, as he looked only at Silena. It wasn’t until he was standing behind her, his arms wrapped around Silena’s waist, that he looked across the room and spotted her. “Oh, uh, I am deeply sorry for not noticing you sooner, your highness.” 

“It’s quite alright, Beckendorf,” Annabeth assured him, glancing back at the front door to ensure that Clarisse had left before she added, “Actually, it works out quite well that both of you are here. I have a favor to ask of both of you, but it is of the utmost secrecy. It would just be between the three of us.” 

“Not even Clarisse?” Silena asked, still sounding nervous. But Annabeth figured that her nervousness wasn’t exactly because of the scout’s presence.

Annabeth shook her head, causing the pair to exchange brief surprised looks before she explained, “Not even Clarisse. And especially not Ath-The Queen. Neither of you can say anything about it to anyone else.” 

“This sounds really serious, Annie,” Silena started, while Beckendorf nodded from his spot still behind her, “I don’t know. What exactly are you planning this time?” 

“I can’t tell you anything until you agree to help me,” Annabeth told them, “It’s, please, it’s super important to me. But it has to be a secret. Okay?” 

Beckendorf, unsurprisingly, was fairly agreeable to Annabeth’s vague proposition. While Silena, also unsurprisingly, was quite hesitant to agree. “I just don’t know, Annie, the fact that you won’t tell The Queen or Clarisse, I just have a bad feeling about it.”

“Sil, come on,” Beckendorf said as he nudged her shoulders, “what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Let’s not get into that; we’ll be here all day.” Annabeth quickly cut in, just as Silena was definitely about to start listing off the far too many times Annabeth had gotten them both into trouble in their younger years, which had led to Silena being rightfully cautious about agreeing to Annabeth’s ideas when she was left in the dark, like she was right now, “Silena, please, I need your help here. Look, if this works, I will tell Clarisse and Athena about it, okay? It’ll just be our secret for a little while, and then it won’t be a secret at all. I just really, really need your help.” 

With a sigh, Silena begrudgingly said, “Fine, I’ll help too. But if I get into any trouble, I am dragging you down with me.”

“Deal,” Annabeth replied, unable to contain her excitement, “so here’s the thing, I actually need two things.” Silena and Beckendorf shared another apprehensive look at that, but before they could change their minds, Annabeth quickly explained, “It’s not a big deal. I just, look, I can’t say too much about it, because honestly, I’m not even sure if it’ll work. But, um, there’s something that a friend of mine wants to try out, but they need to go underwater to do it and I was hoping that I could convince you,” She pointed to Beckendorf as she continued, “could build something, I don’t know what it’s called, but like that mask thing that lets you breath underwater. And I was also hoping that Silena, you would maybe make something that would be waterproof.” While Beckendorf easily agreed to her request, Silena once again was more skeptical about what Annabeth was up to. So, she had to explain a bit more, “It just needs to uh, it only really needs to keep my friend’s wings dry from the water. That’s all.” 

“Why does your friend need to keep their wings dry, Annie?” Silena asked, her tone a bit more inquisitive than skeptical as it had been, “Because I really hope that this friend of yours isn’t doing something reckless and stupid, which might get them very, very hurt.” Before Annabeth got the chance to reply to Silena’s far too knowing reply, she turned to her boyfriend and, as sweet as ever, asked, “Charlie, would you mind giving Annabeth and me some privacy? Just, we need to talk about some girl stuff that I forgot to mention last time I saw her, and we don’t get too much alone time, you know?” 

As soon as Silena had alluded to whatever ‘girl stuff’ was, Beckendorf slid his arms from being wrapped around Silena’s waist and was already walking back towards her bedroom as he said, “Say no more, I will be back here until you two are done.” And promptly shut the bedroom door behind him. 

Once they were left alone, before Silena could lay into her, Annabeth quickly said, “I am not telling you anything else unless you promise not to be mad!” 

“Oh, well, with a start like that,” Silena returned, her normal sweetness that she saved for everyone else except for Annabeth had melted away, and it was replaced by the fiery anger that Annabeth was used to being on the receiving end of, “how could I possibly be mad?! Annabeth, do you have any idea of how stupid you’re being if you are even thinking about doing the thing I think you’re thinking about doing? I mean, I am not going to sit by and just wait for you to kill yourself in some hairbrained scheme of yours!” 

“Silena, please, I am trying my best here!” Annabeth returned, matching Silena’s pitch and volume, which wasn’t the best idea, since if Clarisse heard them yelling at each other, she was sure to come right back in, “If I wasn’t trying to be safe about what I need to do, then I wouldn’t be here arguing with you right now. You are my best friend, Silena. And the last thing I want to do when I do get to see you is fucking argue! There is just something important that I need to do, and I need your help, and Beckendorf’s, to be able to do it. Please, Silena.”

For a second, it seemed like that was going to be enough to get Silena to concede on the issue. They had many disagreements in the past, but neither of them liked to argue too much, so most of their issues were resolved fairly quickly. This was not one of those times, “I want to help you, Annabeth, I really, really do. I trust you more than like anyone else. But, I can’t help you with this unless I know what it’s for.” 

“You won’t believe me.” Annabeth simply replied, “Plus, if I tell you what it’s for, you won’t help. Just, forget I asked.”

“No, Annie, listen,” Silena returned assuringly, closing the already short distance between them, grabbing onto and carefully holding Annabeth’s hands as she continued, “If you tell me the honest truth, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, I promise I will do what I can to make that waterproof thing for you. I just need you to be fully honest and transparent with me, Annie. Whatever you’re planning, I am sure that you’ve thought it out.”

After a short pause, trying to figure out how to best frame the information she’d been hoping to withhold, at least until a little later, Annabeth explained, “Alright, fine. I snuck out the other night and met a boy on the beach. He thinks that I might be able to help him seal the shadow creatures that attacked Athena’s party. But, I have to go into the ocean with him to help, and well, you know what can happen with salt water. And that’s why I need your help.” 

“I take it back,” Silena replied, “you do sound insane. But, I did say that I would help you. Just give me a few days, and I’ll get it done. I’d do anything for you. Annie.” 

“Oh my gosh, thank you so much, Sil! You’ve got it, anything you need!” Annabeth quickly returned, hugging her a bit too tightly, “I can’t thank you enough for this! I promise once, after it’s all fixed, hopefully, I will tell you every last detail. If you want to hear them, at least. But, uh, if there’s, whatever costs this, this thing has, just let me know and I’ll make sure you both are reimbursed tenfold.”

After they’d pulled apart, Clarisse visibly returned to the front door from wherever she’d gone off to pace, lurking just a few feet away from it as Silena told her, “That’s really not important, Annie.” 

“It is important, Sil. What is the point of having an exorbitant amount of wealth that I never even get the chance to use if I can’t at the very least repay my friends?” Annabeth countered, “Or, I guess, my only friend.” Clarisse’s knock at the door, signaling that it was time to go, caused both of them to jump. So, as she made her way back to the door, Annabeth quickly shouted across the room, “I love you, Sil!”

“I love you too, Annie!” Silena shouted back, “Best of luck! And don’t be a stranger!” 

Clarisse popped her head in the door as she asked, “Why on Olympus are you two yelling at each other? Are you trying to cause a scene?” She reached in and grabbed Annabeth’s arm, pulling her out the door as she was much more reserved than she usually was. Clarisse quickly added, “Bye, Silena.”

And before the door shut behind them, Silena replied, “Bye, Clarisse.” 

Chapter Text

Annabeth had to wait almost an entire week after her first meeting with Percy before she was able to meet him again. It had only taken Silena three days to create, and test, the wetsuit, as she called it, for Annabeth. Whereas Beckendorf took five days to assemble a scuba mask and retrofit an air tank to still work underwater. But, by the time it had all been finished and collected by Annabeth, it was time for her to meet back up with Percy. She wasn’t as worried about getting caught when Annabeth slipped out in the dark of night; most of the nervousness attached to the attack had died down over the week, but most fairies were still avoiding going out at night unless they had to. So, after another half-hour flight from the castle to the beach, with her items from Silena and Beckendorf in an unassuming bag, Annabeth landed on the sandy shore once again.

And it wasn’t too long after she’d landed that he called from the water, “I was just beginning to think you weren’t going to return, Annabeth.” 

“I try to keep my word, Percy,” she returned, dropping her bag onto the sand. It took her a few minutes more than she would’ve liked to zip herself into the wetsuit, especially with Percy watching. She felt a bit ridiculous getting into the wetsuit, but after getting it, the flippers, and the mask on, Annabeth slowly walked into the water, feeling the cold of the sea even through the waterproof fabric. “I’m hoping you’ve got a plan for this.” Her voice was muffled a bit by the scuba mask, which Annabeth was not used to hearing her own voice reverberate back into her ears.

Percy, to his credit, didn’t seem to care about the change in her voice; instead, he grinned wildly as she dropped into the ocean with him, their heads still bobbing above the water. “I’ve got an idea, a few things in mind, actually,” Percy returned, sounding as excited as he looked. He took a second to think over his words before he asked, “Are you? How are you feeling about your equipment? Before we get any deeper or further out.” 

“Oh, um, I think it’s all good. It doesn’t feel like anything’s wrong,” Annabeth answered, still feeling a bit too anxious about just being in the salty brine.

“Alright, uh, how good of a swimmer are you?” Percy asked, floating a bit further into the open waters, drawing Annabeth even more off the shore as well, “It shouldn’t be too bad, at least until we get closer to the barrier. Or, actually, I have a better idea. It would be a safer test this time, too.” She had no idea what he was talking about, but after she told him that she didn’t have much experience swimming, she knew how to swim, but it wasn’t something that she’d had that time to do in the past several years; but after she’d told him about her theoretical ability to swim, Percy grabbed onto her wrist and just said, “Just trust me, okay?” and he didn’t even give her the time to nod back before he tore off deeper into the water, dragging Annabeth along with him. 

Once they were fully under the water, Annabeth hardly got the chance to look around the surprising beauty of the underwater world she’d never known was there, as Percy had pulled them into an ocean current, which pulled them even faster into the further ocean. “Percy,” she started, having to almost shout to hear her own voice over the roaring currents, “where are we going?” 

“Trust me, Annabeth,” Percy called back to her, the grin still on his face, which hadn’t slipped off in the slightest since she’d landed on the beach. There wasn’t much else she could do, aside from trying to ignore the pounding of her heart in her chest every time she remembered that she was not only underwater, in saltwater too, but they were already far enough away from the shore that if anything did happen, she didn’t have any options to help herself. And, to make it worse, neither Athena nor Clarisse knew where she was. Hades, Silena didn’t even really know where she was, either. But, there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. 

She didn’t know how long they’d been coasting along the ocean current, let alone how far away from land they’d gotten. All Annabeth knew was that when Percy pulled them out of the current, she had no chance of seeing the slightest glimpse of a coastline. “What is, where are we, Percy?” Annabeth asked him, while she was still clinging onto his arm a bit harder than she probably needed to, but the whole ‘being underwater’ thing was far more terrifying than Annabeth had ever thought that it would be, “What is that place? Is that where we’re going?” 

“You ask a lot of questions, huh?” Percy simply replied.

She wasn’t sure how obvious the painfully warm blush that colored her cheeks was through her scuba mask, but Annabeth really hoped Percy couldn’t see it as she nervously stammered back, “Oh, uh, sorry. I just, it’s uh, I was, I mean, sorry. And I’m sorry for uh, for taking so long and for making you think I wasn’t coming back.” 

“You don’t need to apologize for any of it.” Percy told her, the teasing in his voice had quickly been swapped out for audible genuineness, “I never doubted for a second that you’d come back, eventually. Even if I had to wait out there every night, I’d do it every single time, especially since I’m still really hoping that we are going to be able to help our people.” He hadn’t let go of her arm since she’d, very slowly, gotten into the water. He’d held onto her even tighter when Percy had pulled her into the current with him. And now, as he pulled her along as he moved towards a building that stuck out from its natural aquatic surroundings due to the materials it had been built with, like it was seemingly something that had once been from the surface,, and yet over time the ocean floor had reclaimed the structure’s external surfaces, covering them it in barnacles and coral, some underwater plants happily thrived on the rooftop. “There are lots of things that I wanted to show you, but I think this should be our first stop.” 

Since Percy hadn’t told her what the building was, and Annabeth couldn’t see any kind of signage that would tell her what it was, she asked again, “Percy, what is this place?” 

He let go of her, briefly, as he pulled open one of the doors to the building. As she pushed past him to enter the building, Percy answered, “This is a library, but there are a few issues with it, I suppose.” Once the door shut behind Percy, the majority of the water in the room drained away, until it was about level with their waists. “That’s one of them,” Percy said, gesturing to the low water level, but seemingly unaffected by it. The water was low enough that Annabeth could easily walk along the library’s floor, but it was just high enough that Percy could still manage to make his way around the place with his tail. The structural elements inside and outside of the building seemed to be, in Annabeth’s opinion, not designed for aquatic beings to reside within. The skylight was cracked with some vines poking through, and the plants that had grown over the top of the building had drowned out the light that could’ve seeped through anyway. Plus, aside from the books themselves seeming out of place being in the water, the furniture choices to fill the space didn’t seem to be in line with what a being like Percy would be able to use.

“What kind of issues does this place have? I mean, what other issues does it have?” Annabeth asked, pulling her scuba mask off and feeling every red mark the straps left on her head. As she briefly rubbed at the tender spots on her face, Annabeth continued, “And how does it drain out like that? How, how are there books underwater? I would have thought that anything made of paper would be destroyed after being submerged for so long.” 

Rather than answer any of her questions meaningfully, which he’d clearly already picked up on the fact that doing so pissed her off, Percy just grinned at her again before he said, “You’ll see, Annabeth.” Clearly, it wasn’t his first time being in the library, as he excitedly grabbed her hand and pulled Annabeth with him once again, into a connecting room that was filled with books. The tops of the shelves dripped with water, but the books, oddly, seemed perfectly dry. As much as Annabeth wanted to do nothing more than look through the hundreds, if not thousands, of books that seemed to fill every square inch of the walls, Percy clearly had other plans as he continued to lead her into yet another room. 

This second room held a much smaller collection of books than the first did. Rather than having endless shelves stuffed full of books that hadn’t been opened in who knows how many years, there were only a few books, maybe a dozen or so, that were displayed on a worn, wooden table with a glass cover over them. Once they’d entered the room, as Annabeth tried to read the titles of the books on the table, which all seemed to be in a language she didn’t know, Percy swam over to a chest, lifting the box onto an empty nearby table with ease. The lock that had once been on the chest had been broken and swung wildly in the latch. “What’s in there?” Annabeth asked as she wadded her way over to Percy’s side, and when she caught a glimpse of the grin pulling at his lips, she quickly figured out why, “Shut up. Just show me what’s in there.” 

“Alright, alright, bossy,” Percy returned teasingly, as he knocked the lock from its place, the rusted, metal lock clattering on the table as he pushed the top of the chest open. Like the other books in the library, the inside of the chest was somehow perfectly dry, even as Percy’s hands dripped water over the worn cover, the book seemed to be unaffected by the water it should’ve been suffering some kind of damage from. “According to my dad,” he began as Percy started to flip through the pages of the book, which aside from some yellowed pages, seemed to be in fairly good condition, “this whole place used to be above the water, attached to the rest of Olympia, and it was the only library in all of Olympia, and it held all of the ancient texts and stories. And to protect all of the books for centuries to come, one of the first rulers, Queen Rhea, embedded every piece of text in the library with some of your fairy dust, to protect it from all the elements.” Annabeth had heard bits and pieces of their history from Athena, but she had always cited that they’d long ago lost many of the written records of their stories. And she felt oddly embarrassed for Percy to know her own history better than she did. Percy was either oblivious to her ridiculous embarrassment or he’d just decided to ignore it, as Percy continued on with his explanation while he still searched through the pages, “But, one of the older rulers of Olympia, King Zeus, he feared that one of the books would hold the key to allowing one of his brothers, or his people, from removing him from the throne.” 

“He was the one who broke the library off the mainland, right?” Annabeth asked, getting a nod from Percy as he seemed to be near the page he was looking for in the book.

He flipped a few more pages, all of which Annabeth was unable to decipher, as Percy explained, “That’s what my dad says at least. But King Zeus was also his annoying little brother, so I’m sure that’s part of it.” She made a mental note to ask more about that later. Clearly, merpeople were a bit different than fairies in terms of families and other things. “But, he also said that we can’t remove them from the library. The fairy dust only protects them as long as they’re in the building, and the library has been sunk down here for so long, that he thinks that if the books were brought back up to your surface level, they might disintegrate.”

“Shit,” Annabeth muttered, which caused Percy to laugh at her. Everything she did seemed to amuse him, “Well, that makes sense, I suppose. I’m guessing you’ve been able to figure out what all these books say, then? Or someone has.” 

“Nope,” Percy replied simply, which was most certainly not what Annabeth was expecting him to say. At the look she was definitely giving him, he explained, “I was really hoping you could read this. It’s not any kind of written language that we’ve been able to find down here. So, we figured that it was a language from where you live. Up on the land.” 

From when she’d been looking over at the book in Percy’s hands, Annabeth knew fairly certainly that it was not written in a language she knew. But between the look on Percy’s face and his mention of having hope that she’d be able to fix things, Annabeth couldn’t just tell him that. “Hm,” Annabeth started instead, trying to keep her voice sounding as convincing as she possibly could, “I think I’ve maybe seen something like this before. It’s uh, it’s not exactly something I’m super familiar with, but uh,” Percy was already handing her the book before she could start to ask to take a closer look at it. 

Part of Annabeth had really hoped that as soon as she was holding the book herself, something magical would happen. That she’d just instantly be able to decipher the words on the page that Percy had clearly purposefully flipped to. But, nothing happened. Instead, Annabeth stared intensely at the page until the already illegible writing started to swim in front of her eyes, the blank ink seeming to turn golden, as Percy watched her eagerly. 

“How are you doing that?” Percy asked her.

“Doing what?” Annabeth returned. 

He pointed at the book, right at the golden letters that were morphing into actual words in front of them, as the entire book glowed from the fairy dust, which seemed to climb up Annabeth’s arms a bit as well, golden shimmering dust floating around her arm up to her elbows. “The book,” Percy said, pointing out the obvious and very real change to the book she was holding, “how are you doing that? Is it part of your fairy magic stuff? Or your title?”

“Now who’s asking a lot of questions?” Annabeth returned, if only to avoid having to explain that she had no idea how she was causing the book to become legible. “I don’t think translations are usually part of governing-talent magic, but I guess that gives me something else to look into once I get back.” Percy had an odd noise and looked at her with a different, confused look than he’d had before, but Annabeth tried to keep her focus on the book instead, “What on Olympus are dream-talent fairies?” 

“I don’t know,” Percy answered, “that fairy stuff is kind of your territory and all.” 

Annabeth normally would’ve snapped at him, again, to shut up. But, unfortunately, he had a point. She should have known about these dream-talent fairies. “They don’t, that’s not a thing. At least not anymore,” Annabeth told him, feeling at a loss for words once again, just more and more questions for her to ask Athena filled her head, “I don’t know when they went away.” 

“It’s okay,” Percy assured her, “if finding out about the existence of dream-talent fairies gets us a step closer to figuring out what needs to happen to stop the creatures, then it’s worth it, right?” 

“Yeah, it’s uh, it’s worth it.” Annabeth returned, keeping her attention fixated on the book in front of her, and continued to search the pages for some kind of further information, but the black ink was taking its sweet time to turn golden and morph into actual words as she flipped through the pages. The book’s author clearly hadn’t ever thought that dream-talent fairies would ever seem to disappear, based on their minimal descriptions about what dream-talent fairies used to do. The words on the next page seemed to hint at what the dream-talents had to do with the now broken barrier, but as a headache started to cloud Annabeth's mind, the words slowed down in their changing. 

Chapter Text

The headache that had been forming in Annabeth’s head, likely from her continuous use of magic without having access to the fairy dust tree to draw from, quickly turned into her feeling extraordinarily light-headed. Which was something that hadn’t happened any other time Annabeth had used her magic, intentionally or not. There was a brief moment or two that Annabeth definitely blacked out, considering one second she was still holding the book, and the next Percy was holding onto it and keeping her from dropping into the water. 

As he dropped the book back onto the table, Annabeth got back on her feet while Percy kept a steadying hand around her wrist. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Annabeth answered, her pride getting the better of her as she pulled away from Percy’s comforting touch, a sharp coldness in her voice that sounded far too much like Athena for her liking, “I just overdid it, that’s all. It won’t happen again.” She forced herself to look through the book again, flipping through the pages of seemingly nonsensical script until Annabeth got back to the pages that had changed about the dream-talents; all because she knew that if she looked over at Percy, she’d find that concerned look still on his face. She didn’t need his pity, not for her lack of control over her magic, which was embarrassing enough for Athena to know about. 

Luckily, Percy seemed to pick up on the fact that Annabeth didn’t want to talk about what had happened anymore, but he did still ask, again, “How did you do that?” She didn’t really have an answer for him. Annabeth didn’t even know how she did it. “You said that it was maybe because of your governing-talents?” There was a cautious tone in his voice that made Annabeth feel like he was trying to calm down a wild animal. He had just been talking to her. Logically, Annabeth figured he meant well in doing so, but it only served to infuriate her further.

“I said I don’t know, Percy!” Annabeth snapped back, clutching the book a bit too hard in her hands. “Sorry, it’s just, I’m not, there are a lot of things about myself that I don’t seem to know yet. And I shouldn’t be taking any of my frustrations about my situation out on you; that’s incredibly unfair to you. And, it’s unbecoming of someone in my position to behave in such a manner.” 

“You mentioned that before, that you hold some kind of high position,” Percy started, rather than acknowledging her poor behavior, “do you think that’s part of the issue you’ve got going on? Maybe you’re just putting too much pressure on yourself?” 

All of the unjustified, simmering anger she’d been stuck in instantaneously melted into a bigger pool of anxiety and self-doubt than she normally had. Which led to her practically crying in her response, “I can’t just not put pressure on myself, Percy! Everyone is counting on me! What kind of ruler doesn’t hold themselves to the highest of standards?!” She could feel Percy still beside her, not that Annabeth could even look over at him because she knew she’d start properly crying if she did, which felt like he’d chipped away a fragment of her heart. She had foolishly allowed herself to start to trust him, and at the slightest slip-up, had certainly tarnished any kind of relationship they’d been building. “Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea.” 

She’d expected him to argue with her. Say anything about how they needed to work together, that everything would be fine, or that she was just overthinking things. But he didn’t. Instead, Percy simply replied, “Okay.” 

“Okay?” Annabeth questioned. 

“Okay.” Percy repeated, “If you don’t want to keep doing this, that’s okay. We can finish up here, and I’ll take you back. And we won’t have to, you don’t have to do any of this stuff anymore. If that’s what you really want.” 

Annabeth had no idea how someone she’d only met twice knew how to push her buttons in just the right way, but Percy did. “No, it’s, I don’t want to give up on this. If there’s even a chance that we might be able to help our people, then we’ve got to do it. Right? And if that’s the case, then I am just going to have to deal with my issues.” The slightest bit of hope and determination, regardless of how manufactured it was, crept its way into Annabeth’s heart, lifting some of the weighted pressure off for just a little while, at least. 

Annabeth had forgotten that she’d still been holding onto the book until it started to burn her hands, as every page glowed in a bright, golden hue, as the other pages had. She quickly dropped the book onto the table, and as the pages continued to glow as the heat that had been warming her hands quickly cooled off. The book flipped itself closed on the table, as the pages ceased brightly glowing gold, as the black, worn ink on the cover turned golden as well, briefly, as it quickly changed to read, “The Sea Creatures of Nightmares.”

“Sounds, uh, hopeful?” Percy tried to say convincingly, but with a title like that, it was hard to be hopeful about it in the slightest, “What else does it say?”

At his unneeded prompting, Annabeth opened the book back up. After skimming through the first few pages, which detailed the history of the fairies’ relationship with the merpeople before the sea creatures had attacked. (The book was clearly written by a fairy, considering the very unbiased narrative about the perfect, good, fair fairies being betrayed by the horrible, evil, untrustworthy merpeople. Annabeth elected to flip past the pages detailing that fallout quickly.) The pages of the book were so thick that it hadn’t taken very long for Annabeth to speed through the details about the history of the dream-talents and half-baked theories about why the Nightmare Sea Creatures, as they were referred to throughout the book, had been ‘sent’ to attack the fairies by the merpeople. Instead, she flipped through the pages until Percy pointed out that one of them mentioned the barrier. 

“Despite the strenuous relationship between the groups,” Annabeth read from the book, silently questioning why whoever had written the book had decided to mention the seemingly age old conflict on nearly every page, “after managing to lull the escaped creatures to a restful slumber, the dream-talents coordinated with the merfolk to seal the creatures away in a cave, contained within a barrier made of dream-talent magic that will protect the creatures of both domains from being plagued by the Nightmares, until a more permanent solution could be found.” 

She was already back to flipping through pages they’d already passed by, certain they had somehow missed some piece of information, when Percy asked, “Is there anything about the barrier? What was it made of? Or why the barrier might be breaking down now?” Annabeth was already searching through the pages again for any other mentions of the barrier when he’d fired off his questions.

After having to read through the entire book rather slowly, since her dyslexia seemed to decide to start acting up now of all times, they were able to figure out that neither side seemed to know for certain what had caused the sea creatures to be taken over by nightmares, but nothing that either group had tried were able to entirely remove the malevolent energy of the nightmares from the creatures. Some of them would be seemingly freed from the dark matter, but would be in their possessed states again within a week. The only thing that had worked, seemingly, was the dream-talents lulling the creatures to sleep long enough to seal them into the cave with the barrier made of the dream-talent magic, using the sweet dreams of children, the fairies, the merfolk, and every other creature that was within their reach to seal them away. Typically, the dream-talents would travel to the mortal world and quell any rising nightmares within children’s slumber, replacing them with sweet, restful dreams instead. With the Nightmare Sea Creatures sealed away, there was a noticeable decline in recorded nightmares within Olympus and in the mortal world. (There wasn’t any kind of note about what had happened within the ocean and its residents.) But it was enough information for Annabeth to figure out what had caused the extinction of the dream-talents.

“If these Nightmares were what caused beings to have nightmares, here and in the mortal world,” Annabeth guessed, trying to remember all the information she’d gotten from the book, “then the dream-talents sealing them away seems to have gotten rid of all nightmares. Which effectively caused their own obsolescence, and over time, the need for dream-talents dwindled into nothing, until there were no more dream-talents at all.” 

“That sounds about right to me,” Percy replied, sounding about as surprised by the newfound information as she had been feeling, “So if that’s what caused the dream-talents to be basically nonexistent now, then how do we fix their barrier without their kind of magic?” 

She really hated how good of a question that was. “That’s a good, that’s a good point. I don’t know.” Annabeth answered honestly, “Maybe I can ask my, I can ask Athena if she knows more about it. I’ll just tell her that I found a book about dream-talents in the library, which is true, and see if there’s anything else about them. Maybe there’s an ability I can use to almost replicate their magic? Or find some way to just fix their barrier, if we can’t make a new one.”

“You’re sounding pretty optimistic about this,” Percy teased her as Annabeth put her scuba mask back on. They’d been in the library for at least an hour, and the longer she was away, the more likely it was that she’d get caught. “Do you really think that this might work?” 

“I’m really hoping that it’s gonna work,” Annabeth answered, her voice once again slightly muffled by the mask, “And that’s basically the same thing.” The two of them made their way back towards the exit, after leaving the book on the podium where it had been on in the other room. The entire way back out the door, even though the library was fairly small, Percy held her hand the entire time, even as she asked, “Do you think this is going to work?” 

Just as he pushed the door open again, causing the room to fill with water once more, Percy answered with a great deal of confidence, “Of course I do, there isn’t anyone that I believe in to fix this mess more than you.” The sincerity of his words tugged at her heartstrings, which was some unique ability Percy seemed to have. He pulled the both of them back onto another ocean current that took them back to shore, which, similarly to the one they’d ridden down to the library, was filled with silence.

She still wasn’t sure how long it had been between Percy pulling her into the ocean currents with him and when they were deposited out of it back near the coast, but it was still fairly dark out when Annabeth’s head was bobbing back above the waves again. She’d been treading water for nearly three hours or so, and her arms and legs were already sore. And it would be so, so much worse when she woke up the next day; Annabeth already knew it was going to be. Which would be so hard to explain to Athena or Clarisse. 

“You know,” Percy started, floating in the water maybe a foot or so from where Annabeth was, “I am by no means an expert on your uh, the fairy magic stuff or what a governing-talent like you can or can’t do.” Even in the dark of night, only illuminated by the glow of the moon above them, Annabeth could see the red coloring Percy’s cheeks as he spoke, “But it seemed like, when you were a bit more uh, hopeful about what your magic could do than when you were all doubtful and scared of yourself. There's this thing that my stepmother has always told me, and it’s that uh, that hope is stronger than fear. Hope is more powerful than fear ever will be. And, I don’t know, I think that that seems to be applicable to your situation.” 

Whether it was because she wasn’t a few hundred feet or so underwater anymore, or because she could see solid ground again, or maybe it was just because she felt far more tired than she’d realized and Annabeth had to choose between holding back her emotions or keeping herself afloat. She picked the ladder of the two. “What if I can’t?” Annabeth asked, feeling tears she would hate in a few hours well up in her eyes, “What if I can’t do it? I mean, it’s, I don’t know how I did it before. With the book.” She expected Percy to ask a million questions. Wonder what she could possibly mean. Question why she didn’t believe in herself more, especially when Percy had made it clear that he believed in her wholeheartedly. But he didn’t. Instead, he just watched her, and listened, as she let more words spill out of her mouth, “I can’t control it. I’ve been trying to control. Use it more purposefully, with good intentions, but it hardly ever works as I intended. What if the stars made a mistake, and I’m supposed to be just an average, understated basket-weaving-talent or something? I’m just not good enough, Percy.  Maybe I’m not cut out for this.” 

“You are cut out for this, Annabeth.” Percy immediately returned, his voice surprisingly sharp as a blazing, bright fire burned behind his green eyes, “The stars picked you for a reason. And maybe this is exactly why they picked you. Maybe the fates or the stars or whatever knew that this whole barrier thing was going to happen, and they knew that you were the perfect person to fix it.” 

“How can you be so sure?” Annabeth asked, clutching the strap of her scuba mask a bit too tightly as it floated in the water, while a few embarrassing tears spilled down her cheeks before dropping into the calm ocean waves, “I mean, what if I try to fix it and just make everything worse? Perhaps I should just tell Athena and let her take care of it. She’s always able to fix everything. It’s like she’s perfect. How am I possibly going to be able to measure up to someone as perfect and flawless and powerful as she is?”

Percy’s wet, but surprisingly warm, hands cradled the sides of her face as he told her, “You need to stop comparing yourself to Athena, and everyone else. You’re not them, you are just you. And no one is better at being Annabeth than Annabeth.” Somehow, the things that Silena, Clarisse, and even Athena had been trying to tell her for years, in practically the exact same words, too, managed to crack through Annabeth’s rather stubborn ego just a bit when Percy was the one telling her as much. Instead of causing her anxiety to worsen, despite the well-meaning words, like they usually did, this time they actually helped Annabeth’s quickly rising panic lower just enough to hear the rest of Percy’s words, “You really do overthink everything, huh?” Which turned out to be just him insulting. 

“Thanks, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth returned with an eyeroll. She felt a bit bad for the nickname that he hadn’t really earned.

Before she could feel too bad about it, however, Percy laughed at it instead. “Alright, fair enough, Wise Girl.” 

“Wise Girl?” Annabeth repeated with a laugh of her own, “Why Wise Girl?” 

“Because,” Percy started, sounding more childish with just one word than he had the entire time she’d been around him, “you started it. And, you obviously overthink things in your head,” He poked her forehead as he said it before quickly pulling his hand back as he continued, “and maybe it’s time to listen to your heart for a little while.” So, she listened to her heart, and without thinking twice about it, Annabeth kissed Percy.