Poseidon's Daughter

8. I become Jack Sparrow

"Your stance is all wrong." 

I sighed as Jason moved my feet wider. I was in the middle of a sword fighting lesson, and I was really tired of my stance getting corrected. And to make things worse I was bored. I just wanted to get to the fighting part, I could figure out the rest later. 

"You know, we could just put her up against someone." Percy offered with a shrug of his shoulders, "That's how I learned. How most of us learned." I shot him a grateful look and nodded my head vigorously. 

 "Fine." Jason sighed. To which I did a little happy dance. Percy walked over to me pulling Riptide out of his pocket. I adjusted my grip on my borrowed sword. 

I had watched all of them fight several times, they even did it in slow motion so I could see better. Annabeth said this was what my ADHD was for. 

A grin made itself known on his face and I could tell mine mirrored it. I rolled under one of his blows, slashing toward his legs, he jumped over my blade and smacked my back with the flat of his sword. It would've gone right through my spinal cord had he not turned his blade at the last minute. 

I groaned, he beat me.

"You're thinking too much. Let it flow through you." Percy added "And, uh, don't ever turn your back on your opponent." 

I jumped to my feet and got back into position for another fight.

 Everything became slow motion. Noises fuzzed, my vision tunneled to just me and him. I closed my eyes for a brief moment feeling my muscles pull taught and relax at the same time. 

I exhaled and surged forward with a yell. He looked surprised for a moment but that surprise vanished and determination took its place. He brought his sword up to block. Our blades clashed together with a loud clang. My muscles hummed in anticipation. Instincts that I didn't even know I had made themselves known as I parried and counter attacked one of his blows. He managed to jump back just in time.

We were circling each other now, looking for weakness. I'm sure he found a bunch but didn't test any of them yet. He was waiting for me to strike first. 

I took a step forward but before I could do anything he kicked me in my stomach. I fell on my butt, his sword at my throat. 

"Ugh." I flopped down on the patted floor. Percy grinned down at me. 

And so the day continued with me falling on my butt, face, and several other parts of my body. 

"Dinners ready!" Leo hollered from the kitchen. I whooped and vaulted up from the floor racing to the kitchen, Percy hot on my heels. 

Uh oh. I was coming in too fast. I was going to run into the island. So I did the only thing I could think of. Jump. I jumped on top of the island trying to slow down before I got to the end. That wasn't going to happen. I jumped off the island and fell into a roll. I popped up and put my hands in the air "Ta-daa!" I also did a little bow. "How'd you like them apples!?" they looked stunned for a moment before they started laughing. 

"That. Was. Awesome! But you almost made me drop my pan." Leo praised and whined. 

"You pulled a total Jack Sparrow." Piper said, clutching her stomach. 

"'And that was without a single drop of rum.'" I quoted in an accent. That made them laugh harder. I smiled, glad I could make them laugh like this, even if it wasn't on purpose. 

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"Wait, wait. Is it a... hippo?" I shook my head at Hazel and continued to draw. 

"Times up!" Leo yelled a little too enthusiastically. I sighed in defeat, dropped my marker, and flipped to the next blank page. It was game night and we were playing Pictionary. 

"Ok... the boys win that round." Annabeth sounded defeated. "Wanna play a different game?" 

"Ooo. Ooo. Me, me, me!" Leo bounced up and down and raised his hand. We looked at him expectantly. "Ok, ok. What about... charades?" Everybody shouted agreements. Jason dug through the stack of games for a moment before presenting the charades box. 

"Boys go first 'cause they won last game." They whooped and pulled out the cards. Handing the first card to Frank. He puzzled over it a second before smiling and putting the card down. He shifted into a monkey. 

"Hey! I don't think Frank should be able to shift! That's not fair!" I pointed out, the girls murmured agreements. 

Several more rounds of charades later and everybody headed to bed. Shouting good nights and sleep tights and I hope you sleep with your eyes open. That one was from Leo who waggled his eyebrows at Percy who grinned back. Uh oh.