Bridging the Divide

Two truths one lie: Keefe's ok, he's normal, she's dead

Sophie

Sophie decided on the spur of the moment to go flying with Silveny. She was outside then, and she knew Sandor, Flori and Ro were posted far enough away, but within shouting distance.

Carefully, she shifted into a baby alicorn, making sure she looked somewhat like Luna so that nobody realized she was another 'alicorn'.

She walked up to Silveny, who nickered in excitement. "Sophie! Fly!"

"Yes, FLY!" Silveny beat her wings, and Sophie flapped after her. It took a few minutes of flapping, but soon she was soaring around in the cool air. She got tired quickly, so she returned to normal, smiling when Luna put her head on Sophie's knee and promptly fell asleep. 

Everything had been... achingly normal, but Sophie had a few dozen half-baked plans. She was going with her instincts and making it so that the Neverseen would be the ones trying to play catch-up.

She needed to sleep, she knew, but it felt like hours until she finally drifted into a dreamless snooze.

Nico

Annabeth and the others had agreed with Nico when he brought up how he was worried about who Keefe might be. Nico had watched Keefe for the past two weeks, wondering about who he was. Every time Nico thought he had Keefe's identity pinned, Keefe surprised him.

Piper, their best people person, walked up to him and smiled. "Keefe... Can I ask you a question?"

'Depends,' Keefe signed.

Piper said very cautiously, "When we mentioned your parents before, you flinched. We were worried about you, so we wanted to make sure you were okay."

Keefe blinked, then signed 'My dad is a social climber egotistic and my mom is a psycho terrorist who has tried to kidnap, hurt or kill people I care about and enslave humanity, so that's a bucket of fun. Of course I'm okay!'

"That sounds like sarcasm," Nico remarked wryly.

Will rolled his eyes, and Annabeth said aloud the thing that had been bothering Nico about what Keefe had said. Well, other than the whole psycho-mom-social-climber-manipulative-dad thing."You know who both of your parents are? What god/goddess?"

Keefe snorted, then signed 'They wish! Both of them would LOVE to be gods.'

Percy said slowly, "So... you aren't a demigod?"

Keefe rolled his eyes. 'Obviously.'

Jason pulled his sword out in one fluid motion, but before he could pin Keefe up against a boulder, Keefe backflipped away and quickly signed 'RELAX! Let me explain.'

Piper nodded, and sat a few feet away from Keefe. "Talk."

Keefe nodded, sinking to his knees, and signed 'I'm not allowed to tell outsiders straight out any secrets, but extremely perceptive people could easily guess, and I couldn't help it if I blinked twice in a row if they were correct, could I?'

Annabeth nodded, and asked the first question. "Are you a peaceful being?"

Keefe blinked once, and Will jumped in to modify. "Are you peaceable unless provoked?"

Keefe blinked once, twice, and Nico felt a stab of relief.

Percy asked the next question "You talked about humans as if you weren't one."

Keefe blinked twice. Everyone began guessing what Keefe was, until Leo said jokingly "An elf, then?"

Keefe blinked twice, then signed 'Nothing like the stereotypes, though,' then stood up and walked away.

Will

Even two days and nights later, Will still couldn't believe what they had learned about Keefe. Somehow, the revelations made Will feel more protective of the other boy. A sudden movement caught his eye, and Will spun to where Keefe was, noticing the other boy was holding a small silver square that had been buzzing up to his ear. 

Keefe tried to melt into the shadows, but since Nico had tried to sneak up on Will that way before, he could still see the other boy.

The emotions on Keefe's face were shifting between worry, heartbreak, and fear. What would scare him so much that he paced in place, whenever his face was in view looking like someone had dumped a sack of boulders on his head. 

Keefe shook his head and put away the silver square, jumping in surprise when he noticed Will watching him. The surprise was only momentary, and soon the other boy was checking his weapons and hurrying up to the hill where the Athena Parthenos was.

Now running, Will caught up to Keefe and grabbed his wrist. "What's wrong?"

Keefe's hands were a flurry of indecipherable movements, full of special signs Will had never seen before. All he could make out were the words 'trouble', 'search', and most troubling, 'taken' and 'danger'.

"Slow down, Keefe!" Despite Will's trying to calm Keefe down, the other boy was now trembling in fear.

Sighing to himself, Will called Annabeth and Piper over. "Something's wrong with Keefe, but he's too panicked to tell us what's going on."

Piper nodded, then said to Keefe in a calm, smooth voice, "Relax, Keefe. It'll be okay. What's wrong?"

'Not okay NOT okay NOT OKAY!'

Annabeth asked calmly "What isn't okay?"

This time, the stream of words was slightly more manageable. 'Sophie trouble taken Neverseen missing trouble danger kidnapped psycho terrorists needs help find her.'

Annabeth understood before Will did, and asked, "Sophie was kidnapped by psychos?"

Keefe nodded.

"Oh," Will said, finally understanding. "That message on the weird silver gadget was someone telling you that your friend got kidnapped by your mom's gang. The... Neverseen? Weird name."

Keefe nodded again. 'Sophie's adoptive dad. She disappeared last night. We have to..." Will assumed the other boy was about to sign the word help, except his eyes went blank just then, and Keefe stood there, almost motionless until he sank down to sit on a rock that was nearby. Putting a hand up to his forehead, Keefe laughed in relief.

What in the name of the gods was funny about this situation?

Before you attack me, SOPHIE'S OK

I'm sorry if you thought she was gonna die, but I promise promise promise I'm not that cruel :)

See you in the next chapter :)