¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

xi. The Allure of Illusion

chapter eleven
❛ the allure of illusion ❜

━━━━━  ANNABETH HAD ONCE told Percy that they just weren't supposed to get along, since their parents, Athena and Poseidon, were rivals and all. He wasn't sure how much he believed it, but perhaps they never would have been civil if it wasn't for the quest to retrieve Zeus's stolen Master Bolt. However, truth be told, all those what-ifs freaked him out more than anything; it wasn't fun thinking about where he could be if things had played out differently. What if he never attended Yancy Academy? What if Grover never found him, or Chiron didn't think there was a chance he had godly parentage? What if the other three hadn't gone on the quest with him? Would they have been able to defeat Medusa if it had been any group of four but him, Grover, Posie, and Annabeth?

All that to say: it really sucked when any one of the four were fighting with one another. Whether it be him and Annabeth arguing over Chariot Race notes, or Posie calling them cowards (even if it wasn't outright) and saying they were abandoning Tyson. Hearing her words hurt Percy a lot more than he wanted to admit. It was even worse when he couldn't stop hearing what she told him, a finger jabbing in his chest as her chin quivered like she was on the verge of tears. You're both pieces of shit, who only think of people for what they can do for you, wasn't exactly the ego booster Percy needed to continue convincing himself that all he had done in the past week was going to prove useful by saving not only Grover but the Golden Fleece.

When he first arrived at Camp Half-Blood, it was like being the new kid in a class. Just a really large class, they were already clustered off into groups, and every group had some kind of godly DNA and access to Celestial bronze weapons — so nothing like being the new kid, except for the bubble of anxiety that came when having to meet new people. Naturally, Percy tried to cling to the few faces he knew — Grover, Chiron, Luke, and even Posie and Annabeth. There was no doubt that Annabeth hated him, especially the first few weeks after he was claimed by Poseidon. It was some perceived notion that she felt she had to hate Percy because of their godly parents. At least she spoke to him. Many campers didn't for the first weeks after he was claimed.

Alone in Cabin Three, with Grover too busy with the Cloven Elders, and Annabeth snapping at him every morning during his Ancient Greek lessons, Percy didn't have many people to talk to — except for Luke and Posie. At the time, Luke had done such a good job of making Percy feel normal (as normal as any ostracized, forbidden son of one of the Big Three could be, that is). Now, he knew the son of Hermes was doing it all as a ploy to frame him for the theft of the Master Bolt, helping Kronos led him directly to the Underworld, where the fallen Titan would try and drag him down. Then, Percy had suspected nothing, leaning on the son of Hermes as a support — that is, until he was lured to the forest behind the cabins, poisoned and left for dead by his former Head Counselor. All because his and Kronos's original plan didn't work.

If it hadn't been for Posie, those last sixty seconds might have been his last, just as Luke had promised him, infuriated that Percy refused to join him and the Titans. That hadn't even been the first time she had saved his life. Jumping on Mrs. Dodds's back, drilling one of her daggers into the Fury's shoulder; giving Medusa boils and a cough (even if it had been an accident) that gave the four enough time to hide; estimating when she and Percy needed to jump to avoid crashing into the other boats on the THRILL RIDE O' LOVE — all those were her saving their lives, even if she didn't see it that way.

When Percy was first "offered" the quest to retrieve Zeus's Master Bolt (as it was more of a command, the order coming straight from the gods), he had first thought Posie was there at the pinochle table to poke fun at him. He never told her this, knowing how adverse she was to going on the quest when she was also ordered, but he was glad that Chiron ordered Posie to go. Throughout the two weeks of being shunned for his godly parentage, it was mainly she and Luke who were the very few who were still speaking to him like he wasn't some omen of death. She had been there, hanging around, as Percy did the typical new camper routine of rotating through all the camp activities. She always tried (even if her efforts were often in vain) to cheer him up when he was inevitably bad at something, be it foot racing or archery.