𝐖𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐂! percy jackson

xxxvi. Coward's Defeat

━━ chapter thirty-six
coward's defeat

✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

    ━━And so, Fiona was led to an underwater infirmary by a bunch of fish-centaurs. She followed them into an entire city of kelp; rows as tall as apartment buildings with Greek-style temple and amphitheatres all on the seafloor. Looking up, her heart twisted to see━high above━a smudge of white that could be the sun. Had they'd been under here overnight? Gods, was everyone all right? Was Percy all right? Had they sailed on without them, were they still searching, or ... or had the monster won over. 

    Fiona didn't want to think of that possibility, but she was in the ocean, and Percy hadn't found her. Not that she needed to be found, she can take care of herself (can she? Her brief moment of panic against the monster could argue otherwise), but he would have been down here, breathing and searching for them, talking to these creatures to let them go. 

    Fiona hated to limp. She refused help, hobbling in behind the escorts. Despite how much it hurt, she also refused to show it. She will not be weak, even if recently, she seemed to be. She tried to search for Hazel, Leo or Frank and where they could be, but had no luck. She ducked under the door of a small pillared house and was met with a bunch of floating coral hammocks.

    That can't be comfortable. 

     But Fiona was led straight to one. She awkwardly drifted up onto it, sitting there and waiting as the escorts left. She looked around. Curtains draped in colourful seaweed, separating the coral beds. A seashell was open and used as a cupboard to the far right. It looked a lot like The Little Mermaid. 

    She was suprisingly alone. There were no other injured ... uh ... would they be mermaids? Hippocampi? (She really doesn't know what's going on here). 

    Fiona took a wide glance in search of anyone, and when she was sure she was completely alone, she took a deep breath and doubled over. Tears prickled at her eyes, and she couldn't help but let out a sob at the pain she felt and the shame. 

     What had happened? She had stared at that creature while her friends were fighting and let it take her, like a coward. She didn't try to run again ... she just took that one chance and that was it. Amongst tears and sobs, Fiona glared at her dislocated knee, the strap still attached, but it did nothing to help. She yelled at it through gritted teeth, frustrated. 

    Fiona felt like she was a football player with an injury that stopped her from ever returning to a game; her whole life, her job, everything she has worked towards, thrown out because of one unfortunate event in the field. She had lost. And that moment she froze up? Fiona has never felt more scared. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move, it was like she had stared straight into Medusa's eyes and was turned into stone, forever in an expression of horror. 

    She's never experienced something like that before. She was always quick to think, quick to act, just quick in general ... and now ... she wasn't━and not just mentally. 

     "Are you all right?"

     A gentle voice whispered in through the curtains of seaweed. Fiona's sobbing immediately stopped. Furiously wiping away her tears, she croaked, "Who's there?"

    The head appeared; a meditteranean complexion with pretty eyes and sharp cheekbones. What followed, was a fish tail. He looked human tail up, but there was something different. That was until Fiona saw the gills on his neck and the scales around his nose and chest. And his eyes ... they were the colour of purple like the coral.