𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐀, 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧

09 - mabel is a #phineashater

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BY THE TIME THEY WERE BACK ON THE BOAT, exhaustion had washed over Mabel like a wave. It was a conscious effort to keep her eyes open, her body sagging against Percy's side as Frank told them how he'd defeated the basilisks. (Don't ask Mabel how, she was not paying attention.)

Percy had just let her sit there, her cheek pressed into his arm as she attempted to listen to Frank with weary eyes. Mabel guessed he got it, kind of. The weariness that came with having your mind turned inside out, shredded memories trying to patch themselves together with stitches and staples. They were both tired.

So when he slung his arm around her shoulders and smiled down at her with all his sharp features and soft eyes, she took it as her cue to let her eyelids flutter shut, trying to keep her body from tensing in anticipation of the dreams.

Maybe she would get lucky. Maybe she'd get a break.

If she thought that, she was naive.

As soon as Somnus had a hold on her mind, she blinked to find herself before a mirror. It was tall, like something you'd see in an antiques shop, with an engraved gold frame depicting a swirling design of lyres and spears, twinkling in the darkness.

Mabel was barefoot, her feet pressed against cold ground that she couldn't see. She shifted uncomfortably, a flash of movement catching her eye in the mirror in front of her.

It was all very quick. The whisper of a name, floating upon the air with its lilting vowels and rolling syllables. The kind of name that feels familiar, yet powerful. Nothing like Mabel, which is soft and harmless, and nothing like Perseus, which is heroic and sturdy. Just a name that holds a soul, a name that people remember. If not for the bearer's feats, then for their losses.

People remember you far more if you become a tragedy. They turn your sorrow into songs and your grief into poetry. No ending is poetic; all that blood was never pretty. It was just blood.

He was there, in the mirror. Golden hair, slender shoulders, piercing green eyes that have seen nothing and everything and too little and too much. She knows him. This reflection. He felt like her, and like someone else entirely. They may have not shared an eye shape, or the slope of a nose, but there was something in the soft downturn of his lips and the tinge of rage behind his bright eyes that reminded her that everyone is a little insane. Mania rots within all our souls, eating away at our minds until there is nothing left but pain and fear and a whole lot of rage.

She stared. Their eyes met, green and hazel clashing like a sword upon a shield. I know you. It seemed to go unspoken. He stared back at her for a moment, before his lips curled up, baring white teeth in a gentle smile that seemed to mean so many things. But it mainly seemed accepting.

Then he was gone, taking the light with him.

Mabel. Whispers hung in the air, murmuring secrets to the void for no one else to hear. Images came, flashing memories of things that made Mabel's stomach twist.

They came quickly. First freckled cheeks, the olive skin splattered with blood. Then a circlet of some kind, the silver metal bent and stained with crimson. A charm bracelet, burnt and smoking, with a single charm of a golden scythe. A frayed eyepatch on bronze skin, followed by a scarred face, the jagged white line running across a glowing gold eye. Then bloody eye sockets, shards of blue ceramic glass protruding from the flesh. Next, the skin of a throat, slit clean through like a red smile. Finally, a mangled body with the shaft of a spear through the ribs.