"𝚟𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚗" | 𝚙. 𝚓𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚘𝚗

𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚎

Percy Is Offered A Quest

OR

Mr. D Does Not Follow Child Protection Laws

third person omniscient

k.p

-

ONE DAY, PERCY would like to say that he was an emotionally stable person who wasn't on the verge of breaking everything in sight.

Yeah, that day just wasn't today.

Chiron had him moved to Cabin 3 the morn after.

Percy didn't have to share with anybody. He had plenty of room for all his stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. He got to sit at his own dinner table, pick all his own activities, call 'lights out' whenever he felt like it, and not listen to anybody else. 

And he was absolutely miserable.

Just when he'd started to feel accepted, to feel he had a home in cabin eleven and he might be a normal kid- or as normal as someone can be when you're a half-blood- Percy had been separated out as if he had some rare disease. 

Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but the green-eyed boy got the feeling they were all talking about it behind his back. The attack had scared everybody.

It sent two messages: one, that Percy Jackson was the son of the sea god; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill him. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe. 

Stelle still hung out with him sometime, but that made her popularity take a hit. Nobody was willing to talk to her if she'd been with him that day. Only a select few even considered going near her.

She never had activities with him anymore, and Percy saw that she hesitated every time he asked, she was unwilling to be ostracized. Maybe that cut him the deepest, when he would have done it for her.

Still, hesitancy aside, she always did end up spending time with him.

One day, when they sat together on a hill near the canoeing lake, he decided he felt bad about bringing down Stelle with him. That always seemed to be what happened at all the schools they'd been to together.

"You don't have to, you know." Percy flicked a pebble into the lake, watching the naiads (who seemed to think that Stelle-watching was a highlight of their day).

Stelle shrugged. "I've been around you a lot, I haven't died yet. And just because you got claimed doesn't mean that you weren't a son of Poseidon before that. I don't see how you're different now than before."

"You did almost die. Mrs. Dodds, remember?" He watched as Stelle shredded the grass, green stains getting onto her fingers as the inconspicuous plant begged for mercy (silently).

"She doesn't count."

"How?"

"She was my math teacher, half of those try to kill me anyways."

"...What?"

Percy also decided to confide in Stelle the strange dreams he'd been having.

"What do you think about it?"

"I dunno, really. It's weird, but... it's gotta mean something, right? I hear Hypnos is the god of sleep... wait, but is he the god of dreams...?"

The other campers steered clear of Percy as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with him after what he'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so his lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed Percy harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise him up in the process.