LOST AT SEA | jason grace

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨. 𝑃𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑖𝑑𝑜𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑎 𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙

𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙰𝚂 safe to say that Lorna did not think her actions through. As she fell, her vision blurred and it felt like she was in two places. She knew that she was falling though the sky, with her friends at the railings, watching her slam into the ocean, but she felt as if she were travelling through a never ending pit. 

She felt water engulf her, the impact of the fall made her thoughts fuzzy. She barely registered the Hippocampus neighing loudly at a flying blonde boy, before it allowed Lorna on its back, diving into the water and zipping past the fishes.

𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙿𝙰𝙻𝙰𝙲𝙴 was much prettier when there wasn't an ongoing battle with a Titan. Rainbow the Hippocampus (Lorna assumed that it was her old friend) swam her right into the heart of the palace. The place changed after Oceanus destroyed it in the last war. The palace used to be made of sea stone, abalone shell, and pearls, but apparently, Poseidon changed his style to be more modern.

The walls were made of marble, with large squares to resemble windows. The old lanterns were replaced by chandeliers, and there were open oysters floating around with a bulb of light in them. The throne room was round and large, with a row of merman/nereids/guards around the walls.

At the center, on a lifted platform, there was Poseidon. He sat on his coral throne, a smile on his face as he watched his daughter enter. He wore his usual Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, his beard was shorter than before, his hair was jet black, his skin tanned, and his sea-green eyes gleamed. All in all, he looked just like Lorna, or maybe, Lorna looked just like him. 

"Lorna," Poseidon chuckled. "My favourite daughter."

"Dad," Lorna scowled. "You asshole!" She lunged herself at the God, zooming through the water. She tried to put her hands around his neck. He ducked away. Then, she kicked his shins. He didn't flinch. But Lorna managed to slap the God across his face. 

Her father grabbed her fists before she tried anything else, he looked at her with sorry eyes. "Lorna, please."

"How could you let this happen?" Lorna cried, although she didn't know how that worked underwater. "You promised us that after Kronos, we would be okay! Then, Gaia happened, and I let it pass, only for you to SEND PERCY TO TARTARUS! YOU BITCH!" 

She couldn't help the sobs that came out. Poseidon tried to comfort her, he wrapped his arms around her as she mourned the loss of her brother and shouted curses at him. He didn't plan for Percy to fall into Tartarus, but he didn't stop it either. Perhaps, he didn't care, or he was scared. 

Lorna didn't care. 

She wiped her eyes after crying into Poseidon's shoulder for 10 minutes. 

"I'm sorry for this," She said. 

Then, she slapped Poseidon again.

"Okay, I feel much better now."

Poseidon glowered at her. "You may be my daughter, but you better not cross the line."

"And you may be my father, but you better watch out because I'm not afraid of you. Now, why am I here?"

"To spend time with me. Look, I even wore your favourite Hawaiian shirt and everything." Poseidon grinned.

"You want to spend time with me?" Lorna asked.

Poseidon nodded delightfully. "And also because you have been very sick and useless."

Lorna couldn't disagree with that. Being in the water made it much easier for Lorna, but the minute she broke the surface, she knew she would pass out. 

"Are you going to heal me?" Lorna asked.

"Follow me, Lorna." Poseidon got up and made his way through the large marbled hallways. It was ridiculous to see a God in vacation wear, swimming through marbled walls of a grand palace. He stopped after making dozens of turns, opening a door for Lorna.

Lorna stepped inside the room and immediately wanted to leave. There was a large scallop shell in the middle of the room with seaweed pillows inside. Around it was every sea creature Lorna could name. There were Dorys, Nemos, seahorses, squids, sharks, whales... anything you imagined. 

A very pretty woman in a simple white gown approached Lorna and Poseidon. Lorna recognised her as Amphitrite. The first time they met, she ignored Lorna because she was busy kicking Oceanus' ass. Then, when Lorna visited Poseidon in one of his palaces, Amphitrite was much nicer to her. She taught Lorna how to braid pearls into her hair and they baked cookies.

"Hello, Lorna," Amphitrite said. 

"Hi," Lorna waved. "What's going on here?"

"All these sea creatures have agreed to sacrifice a bit of their energy to heal you." Poseidon explained. "You just have to do is lay in that shell and we will do the rest."

"Is this some sort of ritual?" Lorna asked. "It feels like a cult ritual."

Poseidon and Amphitrite didn't answer her. Amphitrite led her to the middle of the room and Lorna hesitantly lay down in the scallop bed. Poseidon lay a large weaved blanket over her and slowly covered the scallop shell. 

Lorna didn't know what she was doing. She lay in the scallop, staring into the darkness, while her dad and step-mom did some voodoo on her. Time seemed to slow down and she got bored. You couldn't expect a demigod with ADHD to lay in a scallop and not do anything. She spent her time making shadow puppets with the light from Tremor (stupid ring followed her). Then she decided to play tic-tac-toe with herself. After she exhausted all the childhood games she could think of, she resorted to karaoke. 

In the middle of singing Dancing Queen by ABBA, she suddenly felt like all the energy was sucked out of her. 

This isn't supposed to happen! She thought. You're supposed to make me stronger, not kill me! Dad!

Then she passed out.

𝚆𝙷𝙴𝙽 𝙻𝙾𝚁𝙽𝙰 opened her eyes, she wanted to slap Poseidon again. She was in the middle of the ocean, on a scallop shell boat, and all Poseidon left was a selfie of him holding up a peace sign with Amphitrite in the background with her head in her hands. He used squid ink to write: "Sorry" smiley face, heart, "have fun saving the world!!!!!!"

"DAD!" Lorna shouted. 

She sighed and leaned into one of the seaweed pillows. Pearl beads were weaved into her hair and she was wearing one of Amphitrite's signature white gowns. There was a tiara on her head and coral bracelets on her wrists. Her nails were painted white, but most importantly, she didn't feel like her body was ripping itself apart anymore. Yay!

Lorna thought that while she was on her scallop speed boat, she could spend some time thinking about how to save Percy and Annabeth. But her plans were foiled when within 5 minutes of her waking up, she had already reached the Argo II. 

She screamed for her friends to lower the rope ladder but none of them heard her. So, she controlled the water to bring her on to the deck where she rang the ship's bell.

Leo sprinted up, sighing in relief when he saw her. "Guys, tell Jason to stop pulling all his hairs out, she's back!" He screamed. 

"Oh, thank the Gods!" Jason exclaimed. He raced forward and hugged the life out of her. "I thought you killed yourself!" 

Lorna patted his back comfortingly while saying, "I know you guys are probably all like: 'OMG! Lorna, why did you do that? We thought you died! You're my bestfriend!' But calm down, look, I'm fine! All my limbs are intact and I'm all healed! Yay!"

"We weren't that worried about you." Leo brushed her off.

"He set everything he touched on fire." Frank informed Lorna. 

"What are you wearing?" Piper asked. 

"Yeah, my step-mom played Barbie with me while I was unconscious." Lorna said, getting a bunch of weird looks from her friends. "Wait, where's Hazel?"