Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

008, fishstick is a pipsqueak

CHAPTER EIGHT

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

Sylvie woke up feeling weak(er than usual), disoriented, sore, and completely out of it. She shifted with a quiet grunt first, letting Annabeth and Percy know she was awake. When she finally mustered up enough strength to open her eyes, Sylvie registered her surroundings.

She was now in a rowboat with a makeshift sail stitched of gray uniform fabric. Annabeth was manning the pitiful excuse for a ship, and Percy had just sat down next to her. Sylvie—an intelligent being, really—stared at him for a minute. Then Annabeth suddenly piped in with a greeting, and Sylvie snapped out of it, pushing herself to sit up.

"We've been sailing for hours," Percy told her.

Sylvie's eyebrows furrowed. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

Percy cracked a smile. He teased, "Cowgirls need their beauty sleep, Applejack. Didn't you know?"

"I'm not—!" Sylvie protested, before she looked at the smirk Percy sent her, and knew he was being annoying on purpose, "answering to that..."

He pointed at her. "You just did."

Sylvie shook her head. She turned away from Percy, because she needed to hide her beaming grin and pink cheeks from him. The whole situation was terribly embarrassing, but Sylvie physically couldn't get a grip. This was Percy Jackson sharing banter with her. If you told Sylvie from last year this would be happening, she probably would've strangled herself with vines. On accident.

"Where's Tyson?" she asked, to change the subject.

Percy sucked in a sharp breath, and Sylvie's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. She knew she shouldn't have asked. He couldn't even answer Sylvie, he was so torn up.

For the first time, Sylvie longed to hear the word boots once again.

"He may have survived," Annabeth said suddenly, trying to cheer both Sylvie and Percy up. "I mean, fire can't kill him."

Sylvie nodded, but her mouth felt dry. He'd given his life for them—for Sylvie, who he'd only known for a couple of days. It made her so incredibly guilty, because Sylvie didn't know if she would have been able to do the same. Her fear encircled her in a trap of constant chains—more than half of the time, Sylvie couldn't move or breathe. Drowning in the panic was a constant threat to her, and Sylvie hated herself for it, but a lot of the times she did sink. She never had something or someone that saved her from doing so.

"We'll find him," Sylvie opted on saying instead. She couldn't dare let herself think about another option. Percy looked pained at the statement, but she stubbornly insisted, "We will."

"Okay," he whispered right back.

Waves lapped at the boat. Percy and Annabeth showed her some things they'd salvaged from the wreckage—Hermes's thermos (now empty), Hermes's bottle of multivitamins, a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia, a couple of sailors' shirts, and a bottle of Dr Pepper.