★ 𝟐 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒅 ★ p. jackson

029

(Hey it's me! I'm gonna try something knew in this chapter with Percy and Esme. It's gonna be a duel POV where I go back and forth between their points of view. Idk if I'm gonna like it, but it was requested by @FANfic_BAEE so we're giving it a shot, bear with me :))

Have you ever tried to control a bloody nose? It doesn't work right? No matter how much you try to stop it, it just keeps bleeding till it's finally had enough and decides to stop.

That how Esmeralda Beckendorf felt trying to control her new powers. Ever since Chiron discovered what she could do he made her training living hell. He confirmed it with her that she'd been blessed by Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld. His powers included summoning gems and precious metals, navigating underground passages, and collapsing them. Esmeralda had yet to try the last one.

The worst one by far was summoning gems and metals. Unlike the dead the gems didn't need a sword to be brought to the surface of the earth. All Esmeralda had to do was focus on a spot on the ground and poof, there were gems. If she focused hard enough she could summon specific ones too. With this new power the forges were cranking out hundreds of new weapons each week, and there was never a shortage of metals.

Now, what's the problem? The problem was that every once in a while Esmeralda would loose control of her senses and without even trying gemstones and metals would appear. One week it got so bad to the point where campers started tripping over them. Chiron encouraged her to learn how to 'turn it off'. But the gift didn't come with an instructions manual. At one point she got so annoyed with the gift that she considered asking her father to try and take it back. This was the beginning of September.

Now it was a few days after Esmeralda's birthday. Esme wouldn't exactly say she was thriving, but she'd definitely gotten better at controlling the gift. She discovered that if she thought long enough she could make the gems sink back into the earth. She also hadn't had a 'flair up' since November, pretty good progress if you asked her.

However her powers weren't the only thing she struggled with this year. She was getting older, and as she got older she began to notice certain things. Certain things such as how other girls her age began to mature. They had growth spurts, their bodies became more developed, they began loosing their baby faces and even their voices changed.

Esmeralda however felt the same. She hadn't grown more than a little under an inch. She knew because every week she asked Connor or Travis Stoll to measure her. They'd carve a little notch in the wall where her head stopped. And over the course of 5 months the notch hardly moved. It didn't help either that Annabeth began to change too. She was now 3 inches taller than Esme and her body matured in places Em hadn't.

"Selina!" Esme stormed into the Aphrodite cabin. Thankfully, Selina was the only one inside, sitting at a vanity brushing her hair. Esmeralda flopped down onto Selina's bed hiding her face in the pillow.

"What's wrong Em?" Selina sat next to her on the bed.

Esmeralda turned her head to the side. "Why do I still look like a little kid?"

"What, you don't look like a little kid. You're a young lady." Selina gently played with Em's curls.

"Then why don't I look like one?"

"What do you mean?"

"Everyone else my age looks different, they're all taller, and they have boobs."

Selina couldn't help but stifle a laugh, "Em, just because some of the other girls are taller and have boobs does not mean you're any less of a lady."

Esme frowned, "but why hasn't my body changed too?"

"You can't force your body to change, it's simply just not ready. Trust me, Aphrodite spent lots of time perfectly crafting each and every one of us. Your body is perfect the way it is, and it will mature when it's ready." Selina reassured.