BROKEN PIECES & GOLDEN SEAMS

XX

39. coolest person ever

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Percy's skin was a mosaic of her life, both of her past and present. There was a scar above her knee from her first picnic at the beach. There were the relatively even lines that were sewn by Coach Hedge to cover the worst wounds from her unplanned trip to Hell.

Her figure wasn't merely a canvas of decisions made by the Fates. Not at all, with the frequency she has defied the destiny written for her, the tragic masterpiece has its own strokes painted by the bearer.

Frank thought she was the coolest person he has met. She was invincible in his view, like that of a god. She was a god for him once. That belief faded with the battles fought with her. Never could she be so withdrawn, untouched, distant.

Instead, she took form in her own right. As someone that cannot be compared, as a warrior in all ways, as family in the way she lends her shoulder and occasionally leans on his as well.

He still thinks she was the coolest demigod he has met.

And one of the things that led him to consider her cool was her tattoos. The beautiful designs along with her blatant joy at having them was a sight to withhold.

Yet, he doesn't think he has ever wanted to see them like that. He has been curious about her tattoos yes, but he has never remotely wished for them to be exposed to the harsh sting of saline solution and the sharp needles to be sewn.

Her ever animated figure lay still. In the oddest times of the night, she trashed in her sleep. She chants the name of  the girl in the last silence left behind her. She stays indisposed in the infirmary cot for weeks.

The Argo II reflects her absent state of motion, alternating between floating on the dark water and hovering among the clouds as she did with screaming herself hoarse and whimpering like a wounded animal.

Seventeen days since her exit from Hell, Percy opens her eyes. Jason knows, he has been counting. He has been ruminating over the probable disappointment of Annabeth at their delay but he was sure that she would have chosen to throw away the quest at her girlfriend's state. She would have summoned Apollo himself and demanded him to heal her, without doubt.

That was the problem, wasn't it? That Annabeth wasn't there, neither to summon gods nor to hold her hand.

Percy has had eyes that had appeared to shine in the dark, almost luminescent. They hardly seemed alive when she opened her eyes then.

She began to hold out her hand to halt their rushing hands when she could manage that. Her body healed in the embrace of the ocean albeit slower than usual. Mentally? No one could say. Perhaps her awful nightmares were an indication but those were nothing new. The only difference was that her suffering was more palpable to the eye and the ear.

With time her mumbled monosyllables became heavy silence. She could be seen sticking to the walls sometimes, utterly careful of the volcanic ground only she could see. She did talk but they lacked the animation she had possessed before. Unknown to them, she had assumed what was dubbed as her 'Commander Role'. They weren't to be blamed, even her most familiar acquaintances would balk at that version of her.

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40. a danger of course

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Percy scratched away on a piece of parchment with her pen. The usual murmur of her housemates in the common room and Pansy's warm fingertips tracing figures on her forearm were a soothing routine, unlike the contents of the letter she had received that morning.