Under the Water(Fem. Percy)

Chapter 22

"He's supposed to be keeping you safe, Percy." Dad trails me through the long halls of the palace. My hands, shaking, are in my pockets. I take a hard right. If I can just make it to the main hallway..."You can't keep avoiding him like this."

"What does he have to protect me from in my own room?" I snap. Hours and days keep going by, and nothing ever changes. Well, things change, but not within my little bubble of existence. I might as well be trapped in sleep again. That would be better. Sleep at least means being unaware. Even now, I can't quite remember anything from when Hera took me. One moment I was going to bed in my room on winter break, and the next it's the middle of summer and I'm facing down the she-wolf.

The water around me thickens, allowing Dad to catch up. He presses his hand to my back and herds me towards my rooms, towards the gardens. Not Amphitrite's. Mine. There's no plants in it, only empty planters boxed in by thick stone walls. I'm supposed to spend time here, cultivating things and making it how I want. Growing things that I think are pretty.

But my hands are much more suited to destruction. All I can do is hurt and destroy. There's a reason Mom takes care of the moonlace, and there's a reason why I don't touch any of Tyson's plants.

Dad frowns and looks around. Spades and tools lean untouched against a wall. Silt has settled over most of the surfaces. To my relief, he doesn't say anything, only perches on the edge of a planter. After a moment, he digs in the sandy soil and drops a few seeds from a pocket into the hole. Water nudges me over. I have no choice but to bear it as he guides my hand to hover over the dirt.

"Relax, and push energy into it. Like you did with the storm."

All I can focus on is the way he's gripping my wrist. It's a tight hold, like irons. My bones ache and shift; I bite down a cry. It won't let up until I do what he wants, so there's no use in protesting. Power flows out of me like a torrent. It wants to swirl in the water--twist it, churn it, thrash it. An empty pool opens in my gut, fed with a safe, steady trickle of energy from Dad.

The seeds split open, and twisted, brown sprouts emerge. They flop and curl like silver maple leaves in fall.

"I'm not good with plants." I yank my hand away. Dad's shoulders fall. Scales crawl over his arms again, and I have to suppress a shudder.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just have a black thumb."

His talons tap against stone. The hairs on my neck stand on end. "Percy," he says, "growing things like this relies heavily on being calm and maintaining your emotions at a steady level. Emotional control if you will. So for you to not even be able to get it to sprout properly means there's something seriously wrong."

I can only blink at him and shake my head. Emotional control? Does he have any idea of what I'm actually like? Or is he so lost in our similarities that he refuses to see the bad that's reflected into me? I know my emotional outbursts are bad. They always have been, even before I could control water. Which means that they're only worse now, and I can't control them.

The sea doesn't like to be controlled. Doesn't like being restrained, so how could I keep my emotions in check when half of me's the ocean?

"You're very quiet," he says.

"What the heck do you even want me to say?"

"For starters, you could tell me what's wrong."

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe that that only privacy I get is when I'm in the bathroom? That you don't trust me enough to let me stay in my rooms by myself? That--That I need a babysitter? I'm almost twenty years old, Dad, and you're treating me worse than you did when I was twelve, and you called me a mistake to my face back then so it's not that high of a bar to clear." I drop my head into my hands. Oh, this was dumb. "I'm trying, I am, but I can only take so much before I end up snapping, and Cyreus is going to get caught in that."

Dad sighs. "Baby, I need you to listen to me." My surprise draws me up short, and I stare at him. Did he just--- "This isn't me not trusting you. My guards are very capable at keeping people out of the palace, but they're mortal. They make mistakes, so you need to stay somewhere safe until I can make sure you aren't in any danger. Really, I want to keep you in my rooms or with me, but I doubt you'd enjoy that too much."

"I don't like being treated like I can't handle myself either."

"If it makes you feel better about it," he says lightly, "consider it your punishment for leaving the infirmary to explore."

He brushes his fingers against the wilted, withered seedling, and it spreads with vigor. The stem branches and grows into sinewy vines bursting with heart shaped leaves. Large blue flower buds bob in the water. I keep my hands folded in my lap. Don't ruin this. My nails scratch across the small asterisk scar from the pit scorpion. Dad lifts his hands to cup the largest, most developed one of the bunch, and he breaths out power. It swirls, blue, then sinks into the plant. Large, fragrant petals unfurl.

Before I can protest, he plucks the flower and tucks it into my hair.

"Things will be much easier if you accept this. I just want to treat you like you're the little baby I never had a chance to raise." A flash of teeth, a bright smile. He cups my face in one human hand. "And that includes me protecting you. If I'd had my way, you'd never have learned how to hold a sword except if you'd shown interest in it."

I have to chant to myself that he's lying.

"Now, I've got a few hours, how about we try this again?"

Consider this...and advance for this weeks chapter. Aka I don't know a way to make this a clean transition into the next part and it works better as separate chapters but I don't want to keep drawing out the book

(For instance, Why is Everything So Loud was not supposed to be as long as it is. I keep coming up with ideas for it)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this cute kinda fluffy stuff, and there's still more coming this Saturday

See yah