there must be more than this provincial life.
[ percy jackson x original character ]
[ book three in the belle series ]
[ the mark of athena, the house of hades, & the blood of olympus ]
[ bonus: the lost hero, the hidden oracle, the ship of the dea...
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𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖎𝖙𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖊𝖎𝖟𝖊: AS LONG AS THEY'RE TOGETHER
★ 。／｜＼。★
BELLE ADAIR THOUGHTthat she knew something about falling from incredible heights. When she was about twelve, she had climbed to the top of the highest tree at Camp Half-Blood because Travis and Connor Stoll dared her to. However, she had lost her balance and began to fall. Belle would've slammed into the ground and broken every bone in her body if it hadn't been for Katie Gardner's quick reaction of making another branch wrap around her to catch her. But she remembered the feeling of her falling — everything seemed to go in complete slow motion and the wind whipping around her was the only thing she could hear. However, that didn't compare to the fall she was enduring now.
She'd lost track of time of how long her and Percy Jackson had been falling. Belle recalled reading something from an old Greek poet named Hesiod, who believed it would take nine days to reach Tartarus after falling from Earth. She had no way of knowing if that was true or not. Belle and Percy could've been falling for hours or maybe several days, but nevertheless, it felt like an eternity.
The two of them kept their hands tightly interlocked ever since they fell into the chasm. The chasm that separated them from an utterly heartbroken Annabeth Chase and the other five Demigods of the Prophecy plus Nico di Angelo, who were on the Argo II's voyage. Now, instead of just holding hands, Percy had pulled Belle in close as they fell through the darkness. They hugged each other tightly, afraid to let go of each other and afraid of what awaited below them.
Arachne was the cause of all of this. If her web hadn't wrapped around Annabeth Chase's ankle, Belle and Percy wouldn't be tumbling into the most dangerous place in the history of ever. But Belle didn't regret taking Annabeth's place whatsoever. She couldn't let Annabeth get hurt. Not again.
The wind whistled past Belle's ears. Unlike the cold that they were in before, the air turned extremely hot and damp. Belle wrapped her arms around Percy a little tighter. She could feel the indentation of Sunflower's keychain on her thigh and inwardly sighed in relief. Even though it had the power to reappear to her on her belt loops, she wasn't sure if Sunflower could do that while she was falling. At least she had her sword . . . if she actually managed to survive the landing.
It took all of Belle's power not to burst into tears right then and there. Life as a Demigod was never easy. Belle knew that with absolute certainty. Most Demigods happened to get killed by monsters at very young ages, and if they did manage to survive into their older years, they would have to go into hiding so they wouldn't be hunted down. It had been that way since the ancient times. The Greeks invented tragedy, after all. No hero, not even the greatest ones, had a happy ending.
