002 ╱ guesswork

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chapter two / part one
guesswork


Andromeda could admit that it was a little mean to be—for lack of a better term—leading Percy on like this. The longer she spent showing him the ropes, both alongside Luke or on her own (or with Ethan by her side; which was more often than not, really), she secretly began to actually feel for the kid. She didn't like him, per se, but in the deepest depths of her soul, there was an infinitesimal twinge of discomfort whenever she noticed him quietly zoning out as he gazed towards the beach or the daughter of Zeus' Pine tree as she explained something. Andromeda didn't even outwardly complain when she had to say something all over again.

She and Ethan watched him as he settled into a careful routine in cabin eleven. True to their word, because neither of the children of Nemesis were one to break a promise, they protected Percy's belongings from slippery thieves and made sure none bothered him too much as he privately went through what Andromeda could recognize as grief for his mother.

She had mourned her fair share of people in her day: her father; the previous Hermes cabin counselor, who was killed by a monster a few months after going off to college; and even Ethan's mortal mother, a woman who she had never met before, but had clearly cared for Andromeda's brother as best as she could. Grief was a heavy thing, and Andromeda had enough experience in it to know that it was better not to bear the weight alone. Ethan had tried to explain many times to her and failed, as words were not his strong suit, but they were Andromeda's, who knew through observation and experience it was incomprehensible and all-encompassing all at once. His mother was his world at age seven, and she was torn away from him. Andromeda bared the weight of Ethan's mother's death on her shoulders right alongside her brother. She knew grief inside and out.

It was very possible, she thought, that Percy's mother was the world to him, too.

She tried to be gentle about it.

So Andromeda carefully didn't mention it when she repeated herself for the nth time, uncomfortably guided Percy away from the topic when his questions strayed to death and the Underworld, and quickly passed Percy off to Luke whenever he got too emotional for her to deal with.

Tenderness had never been her strong suit.

Unwanted sympathy had wrapped it's kind hands around her heart. She felt gross.

Not your problem, she reminded herself, as she listened to Percy shift in his bedroll beside her as presumably another nightmare struck. It felt a little like it might be her problem, though.

All of the senior campers were keeping close eyes on Percy, trying to figure out what to make of him. Andromeda was in the same boat. Percy was pretty shit at most of the camp activities that would give it away, but thank the Gods, he was a canoe champion. Here she was thinking he had no redeeming qualities. How silly of her.

Still, it was a start, she supposed. Water gods. There weren't too many children of sea gods at Camp Half-Blood (sea gods generally kept to the ocean, Poseidon was an outlier), but there were plenty of minor gods, and Olympians too, with ties to the sea.

Andromeda floated the Aphrodite child idea that she only half-heartedly was considering, but Percy pulled a face and denied it.

"One, my mom told me I have a dad; and two, I'm not pretty like them," he argued.

Andromeda shrugged. She couldn't really argue with that. "I mean, gender isn't real, and it's even less real for Gods. You think Aphrodite couldn't look like a man if she wanted to?"

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⏰ Last updated: Apr 20 ⏰

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