¹Pocket Full of Posies, p. jackson

xvi. Another Piece of the Puzzle

chapter sixteen
❛ another piece of the puzzle ❜

━━━━━  FOR DEMIGODS, THERE weren't many moments of peace upon finding out about their godly heritage. Whether it be that the half-blood learns who they believed their parents were, it turned out not to be. Like Rose, the man she called her father was only her stepfather; as Rose told Posie, she believed Zachary had been her father, having no recollection of a time before him and her mother were dating. As it turned out, Zachary had not been Rose's father, but the Greek God of Thieves was. If it wasn't that, it was some horrible monster attack — many demigods had those experiences; some tale of the last moments of their lives, where they could no longer ignore the strange things, instead forced to face them head-on. If it wasn't that, then even more rarely, their parents simply sat them down and explained some of what they knew as mortals — their kid had a "special" kind of parent that brought their kid the bad kind of attention from things that were never supposed to exist. Those explanations of their godly heritage were rare, as most parents of heroes tended not to be able to see through the Mist (and if they could, it was more than likely they couldn't comprehend the fact that Greek myths were real).

For many demigods, there was something from the Greek world that hunted them down — whether it be monsters or some other kind of enemy of their godly parent. There came a time when the half-blood couldn't handle the constant sightings, and so, they ran away. That's how it was for Annabeth (and many of her siblings). With her connection to Athena, spiders had a natural hatred for her, remembering the story of the Goddess of Wisdom and Arachne. It was the same for Posie — snakes hated her (and her siblings) because of what Apollo had stolen from Python and his killing of the giant snake. Snakes slithered from the shadows of her bedroom at night, and when she would finally get the courage to run, Beau never believed Posie. It was like that for years — until she couldn't stand the idea of being stuck, all alone in D.C., with Mrs. Hall gone. So Posie ran away.

Either way, half-bloods became good at handling bad news and even worse situations. They must be, not only if they wanted to survive, but if they wanted to make it to the only safe place in the world for them — Camp Half-Blood. It seemed cruel, and it was, but there was nothing Posie could do to change it. The gods were thousands of years old, and they never stopped having children with mortals who caught their eyes. What could she do to change that? There was nothing. The only thing she could do was try and find ways to deal with the hand she was dealt. The first step (and the first step of a million, it felt like) was to overcome her fatal flaw, fear. The second step, in quick succession to the first, was to get answers from anyone she could, whether that be Onesimus, the faceless man, or Chiron. The first step was already precarious enough; she wasn't sure she would ever deal with her fatal flaw properly.

As she settled back into her life at Camp Half-Blood, the more and more negative thoughts began to plague her, like all the worrying that she would never be able to have enough control of her powers. She tried to look for the bright side of things — she was home, back in Cabin Seven, in her own bunk, with her half-siblings. Those were all great things, but only if they meant her dreams would finally leave her alone. At least her first archery lesson back at Camp didn't unfold as they normally did — trying to hold back tears as all her siblings carefully danced around the fact that she was horrible with a bow and arrows. This time, she was smiling, listening to the ridiculous debate regarding Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It was common knowledge that Cabin Seven was not a big fan of that specific Shakespearean play, but even Posie didn't know the extent of the hatred. It didn't stop at Romeo and Juliet, either, shifting to the best Shakespeare plays (in Cabin Seven's very not humble opinion). The top three contenders were Hamlet (however, both Lee and Michael groaned in unison, offending Posie greatly), Macbeth (out of spite for how her offer was treated, Posie loudly booed Michael's suggestion, despite the fact that she quite liked the play), and finally A Midsummer Night's Dream (this time, no one protested).