Confidence & Pride// [Percy Jackson OC]// Book 5

{Chapter Four}

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"And all the memories and days you lost/ you add them up and then you count the cost
You're just a shadow of a man undone/ Another life that has just begun"
- Shadow of a Man (Neulore)
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A FATHERS SUPPORT

ARYA HAD NO IDEA how much time had passed, or where she ended up. But when she regained consciousness it's because someone was trying to get into her head. She thought it was Kronos, and fought them hard. It wasn't until she heard a voice that she realized she was wrong.
   
"Arya let me show you something." Nico called in the darkness.
   
"No." Arya said shortly, before shutting him out completely. She didn't have it in her right now to deal with anything, much less the war that just took her best friend from her. Whatever it was he could tell Percy and Percy would relay it to her.

She fell back into unconsciousness.
   
To her greatest annoyance, it couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes before she was woken back up to the voice of Percy and Tyson. It took her awhile to get the motivation. After a minute of scolding herself, convincing herself she couldn't sit out, no matter how much she wanted too. She had to keep pushing through, she had to see out the rest of the war. It was so far beyond personal.
   
She opened her eyes slowly, it like they had been weighted shut. Directly in front of her one the other bed in the room was Percy, and standing over him was Tyson. She wanted to be excited to see her cyclops brother, but instead all she did was meet his eye, and then turn herself over in the bed to face the wall.
   
The turn over didn't feel normal though, it felt weightless, like she could push off the bed and float. She shifted her eyes upwards and realized that the room was lit up, but not by lights, but by pearls. Then it clicked in her head why exactly Tyson was around.
   
She let out a sigh and closed her eyes again as she came to the conclusions that she was underwater, and somehow, Percy and her had ended up at Poseidon palace. A place she had lost interested in every seeing, long ago.
   
"Is she okay?" Tyson asked, he clearly had meant it to be quiet, but he hadn't quite grasped the concept of a whisper yet.
   
Percy took a minute to answer. Arya imagined he was scratching his head to try and come up with a good one.
   
"Yeah. Well... No, we just went on a mission that went badly. She's really upset big guy"
   
"More like worst possible outcome" She mumbled under her breath as her last memory of Charles resurfaces and she forced herself to push it away.

She heard Tyson swimming over to her, and could feel his presence next to her. "Can I help make you happy?"
   
Arya bilked away the tears, hard. She took the sheet that had been on her and pulled it up over her shoulders. "I don't think so."
   
There was a long silence, and eventually she felt a hand on her shoulder, but it wasn't a hand big enough to be Tysons. She turned her neck to see Percy next to a rather upset looking cyclopes. It was the first time Arya and Percy had really seen each other since the explosion. Nothing else filled Percy's eyes but guilt. She wasn't sure what was going through his head, but it had to have been crippling, having to choose between Charles and Arya. Letting Charles sacrifice himself like he did. It was called survivor's guilt, and Arya imagined she wore a similar expression.
   
Charles didn't deserve this, and both of them knew it, and no words could help them feel any different.
   
"We'll get through this together okay?" He whispered out, reminding her of the promise they had made almost two years ago, when it became clear they were going to be the children of the prophecy.
   
Arya was struggling to think anything through clearly at the moment, but she was able to tell herself that while she lost Charles, she still had Percy, she had a war to finish in his name. The other fallen demigods as well.
   
It didn't do much, but it did give her enough will to keep going.
   
"Together." She whispered back, lifting her hand up and putting it over his.
   
"Maybe Daddy can help make you happy?" Tyson offered.
   
Arya doubted it very strongly. Her and Posiedon had been on the mends all year, each visit a little more pleasant than the last, but with him fighting his own war and Arya dealing with the one of the main land they had only seen each other a handful of times. She doubted they were at the comfort and understanding stage yet. She wasn't sure she wanted to be. She just wanted to stay in the underwater bed.
   
But she couldn't tell Tyson that, he was just trying to help her. He was nothing but kind all the time. The least she could do was humor him, and maybe going through the motions would help, maybe it would keep her out of her head.
   
So, with a nod, Arya slowly sat up and kicked into a floating position behind her brothers, and followed them out of the room.
   
When Arya was young, when she thought of Poseidon as a father, she had wanted to grow up in Poseidon's palace, she would daydream about learning Greek history at her father's side.    
   
Poseidon had been very honest with her last year and explained that she would have grown up to resent him even more than she already does, because she would have been outcast and lonely. She understood what he was saying at the time. But as she swam through the underwater palace, she now really understood what he meant.