Pick Your Battles

The plan

The walk to the Isle of Anesidora took longer than expected. A light mist swirled around them the further they moved from the platform, and after about thirty metres north, the bodyguards' island was almost completely invisible, a nebulous mass through the fog. It felt cool against Annabeth's skin as she walked, and somehow made it harder to hear as well, so she tuned out of her friends' conversation. She thought instead of what Bea had meant when she spoke of her promise. Could it be that the gods hadn't ordered for Pandora to be captured here, and that this was someone else's doing after all? A mortal, or a demigod, or someone even more ancient and powerful? But if that were true, why had Hermes refused to free Pandora because he didn't want to forfeit his favour with Father. It didn't make any sense. Unless, of course, Hermes didn't know that Zeus hadn't captured Pandora (Annabeth had made the same assumption) and was doing what he thought his father wanted him to do. Or another possibility - someone had broken Pandora out of Zeus' prison and kept her here, for leverage over the gods, or simply just a fearful reputation - the notion that there was someone out there who could steal from the gods and get away with it. Annabeth shuddered at the thought. What chance did they stand against someone like that?

Ladybug fell into a step next to her, easing her tension.

"I just wanted to say," she seemed to be struggling to get the words out, "thank you for saving my life back there, when we were under that goddess' control."

"It's okay," Annabeth said. She was happy Ladybug wasn't upset with her for putting her in such a dangerous situation. She felt an urge to protect the younger girl, which was possibly why she felt inclined to speak to the goddesses in Greek instead of English. "You saved my life, too, up on the tower."

"Still," Ladybug didn't meet her eyes. "Your world is just so different. More ancient and dangerous than I could have even imagined. It just made me think... back there with Peitho... the way they called us mortals and the way we were affected by her spell," she took a shaky breath. "No matter how hard we fought we just couldn't beat them. Because we're not..."

"Demigods?"

Ladybug nodded sadly.

Annabeth smiled. She reminded her a bit of their friend Rachel Dare, the only other person Annabeth knew who had expressed sadness at the prospect of being mortal.

"Can I tell you something that happened to me when I was fourteen?"

Ladybug sniffed. "What?"

"It was during a rescue mission. We were supposed to take these two demigods back to camp with us, no delays. But the monster had already tracked us down and was too strong for the three of us to defeat."

"Three of you?"

"Me, Percy and Thalia, Daughter of Zeus," Annabeth explained.

Ladybug glanced back at Percy, who was staring at the water thoughtfully, while Cat Noir upheld some animated discussion that required lots of hand gesturing and twirling of his staff. "So you've known him for a really long time then."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Percy? Yeah, of course. He came to camp when we were twelve years old, after defeating a Minotaur no less."

"Wait what-"

"The point is, during this fight, I made a big mistake. I was trying to save Percy, but I ended up getting kidnapped by the monster and taken to this ancient villain's lair on this creepy mountain cave on the other side of the country."

Ladybug's eyes widened. I could see her brain testing out a million possibilities, calculating what she would do if she was in that situation. "So what did you do to escape? Outsmart him? Ask him to duel?"