Sea Green Eyes

The Chalice of the Gods - Part Five

As usual, Cressida was right. Talking with his mom was exactly what he needed to deal with the shock of being younged again. They'd had a nice chat on the fire escape, despite the way Percy was terrified about his mother climbing out on there when she was still in the first trimester of her pregnancy.

Percy had then come inside to do the dishes as his mother had asked to see Cressida sitting on the couch with Paul as they talked baby names. It was this stupid little game they played where they came up with the most ridiculous names they could think of and whoever had the craziest one won.

Paul's jazz vinyl played as Sally took Cressida's seat and Cressida moved into the kitchen, hopping up on the counter next to the sink as Percy told her about what his mom said. How he was far from helpless and everyone, especially teenage demigods, doubted themselves from time to time. And it was perfectly ok for it to happen.

Cressida was feeding him pieces of chocolate as he did the dishes and they started playing a game of their own. Every time throughout their lives when they felt so doubtful, like Percy had felt today - they didn't even get close to finishing the game.

When Percy was done, Paul and Sally wished them both goodnight, but they both stayed up doing homework. Cressida finished a history essay while Percy did an essay of his own and did advanced algebra while Cressida read through his essay.

And that night, as they both slept wrapped in each other arms, it was the best sleep they'd had in a long time, and boy would they need it for what was to come.

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The next three days were some of the most mundane they'd had. Assignments, meeting with their friends for smoothies, movies, or even just for a walk was actually really nice.

Percy's first swim meet of the year rolled around and he managed to be impressive but not too impressive. And he didn't summon a tidal wave in the deep end or anything. However, having Cressida cheering for him in the stands also helped.

However, on Friday, the day before the Farmer's market, and one of the three dreadful days that Cressida wasn't on campus, his mundane routine was disrupted. Today's lunch was a BLT sandwich, salty crisps, grapes, a blueberry-flavoured juice box, and some blue jellybeans. Oh, he was a lucky man - until Ganymede stopped by.

He'd filled the god in on their progress so far and had headed home to tell Cressida what happened and his girlfriend had news of her own.

Annabeth had Iris-Messaged with a plan for tomorrow. Seeing as they were meeting Iris, it was probably better to be introduced to the goddess despite the fact that Percy had already met her - they weren't taking the chance that Iris remembered him or liked him. So they were going to get a child of Iris to give them an introduction. And since Butch was home in Minnesota and there weren't any year-rounders at camp, there was only one local child of Iris they could ask.

And on Saturday, Grover was thrilled to find out who it was.

Blanche was the total opposite of what you'd expect a daughter of Iris to be. The daughter of the rainbow goddess preferred wearing black and she was a photographer who only ever photographed things and people in black and white monochrome. She also possessed the ability to drain the colour out of things and people - she'd done it at camp once and it freaked out almost everyone. The monochrome effect would pass and wasn't deadly but Chiron had still required Cressida's help to calm down an entire camp full of armed, panicked demigods.

Now they were following Blanche through the Farmer's market as Grover traipsed along next to her, trying to engage her in conversation. Occasionally he'd throw himself into her line of vision, posing in different dramatic angles, draping himself across tables of vegetables like a lounge singer on a piano. She just ignored him, stopping every once in a while to photograph a dying dandelion or ragweed growing between the cracks in the pavement.