Join Us - A Pirate's Life is Best

Chapter 5 : Seaweed Brain

Annabeth's POV

Annabeth couldn't help it, her curiosity got the best of her.

She couldn't sleep without getting answers for all of the questions that were whirling around in her head.

So she decided that once everyone was asleep, she'd sneak out if the infirmary and try to find the answers somewhere, and if she couldn't, she'd simply listen to the ocean, which always calmed her.

Silently, she made her way out of the infirmary and tried to find the way to the deck, which, on a ship as large as the one she was on, wasn't the easiest task.

Her mind wasn't helping, either. It kept wandering back to her questions, and kept getting distracted by the ship's neat architecture.

Ten minutes after she'd left the infirmary, having still not found the way to the deck, she knew she was lost.

After another five minutes of stumbling around the foreign ship with no idea where she was going, Annabeth finally made it to the deck.

She'd expected it to be empty, as all the pirates had seemed quite tired when they'd gone to bed, but to her surprise, Percy was sitting on the railing at the side of the ship.

For some reason, his name had stuck in her head the moment it was first mentioned, and Annabeth wasn't sure how she felt about that.

Upon closer inspection, Annabeth realised that Percy seemed to be meditating, and there was water floating in front of him.

The water wasn't just floating, it was moving, flying through the air around him, circling around his body, before suddenly shooting towards Annabeth.

She yelped in shock, fearing that he was trying to attack her, but before coming into contact with her, the water stopped and started circling around her as well.

Annabeth couldn't help but laugh, but she didn't really know why.

She continued to watch in awe as the water circled around her for a few moments, before shooting back towards Percy, and then back into the sea.

As the adrenaline and awe passed though, shock settled and Annabeth was back to that question that had been nagging her since they'd seen the pirates control elements:

Who are they?

"How do you do that?" Annabeth asked, walking towards Percy.

"Do what?" Percy asked as she leaned against the railing next to him.

"You know what I mean. That stuff with the water. How can you control it?"

"It's... a long story, one I didn't really pay attention to. All I know is I got the power from my dad." Percy chuckled. "I can talk to certain animals as well."

"That's cool..." Annabeth trailed off.

"Why do you care anyways? Don't you hate pirates?" Percy asked.

"I- I do... but I don't know, you guys seem... different." Annabeth replied, looking down, slightly embarrassed. "I honestly don't mind you."

Annabeth's heart stopped as Percy flashed her a genuine smile. It was absolutely breathtaking.

"That's good to know." Percy chuckled, looking back out to the ocean and closing his eyes.

"What are you doing now?"

Annabeth soon got her answer, as a bunch of seaweed flew out of the ocean and shot past her head.

Suddenly an idea formed in her head, one she hoped he'd be on board with. "I'm gonna make that your nickname."