𝑳𝑶𝑵𝑮 𝑳𝑰𝑽𝑬 || 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝒐𝒄

not mr. brightside

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The afternoon stretched on, daylight decreasing steadily. Maisie wasn't very hungry for dinner, and it seemed she wasn't alone. The entire camp had a dismayed and nervous air about it. Nobody expected Percy and Charlie to be gone this long. It was troubling, to say the least.

Everyone had taken a silent vow to not leave Silena alone. The girl always looked like she was a second away from bursting into tears. The entire day she could usually be found seated next to Clarisse. Maisie knew the two had grown closer last summer, but their friendship never failed to subtly surprise her.

Maisie's friends tried to apply the same quiet commitment with her, but the problem was she was a little insufferable to be around. She would go from acting like everything is perfectly hunky-dory, to snapping at anyone who asked her how she was holding up.

This was accidental of course. She hadn't meant for anyone to be in the cross-hair of her emotional outbursts. Well, maybe there was one person she wanted there.

She banged on the door of the Big House for the 3rd time within the hour. "Chiron! Open up! You can't still be busy!"

The centaur opened the door, a tired look on his face. "I assure you, there is plenty to keep me busy during these times."

Maisie ignored that and walked inside. "Tell the Aphrodite girls to give me a Pegasus."

Chiron clicked the door shut. "Maisie, calm down."

"It's been more than a day!"

"I understand your worry. I feel the same sentiment."

"So what are we doing about it? Let me go looking for them. You can Iris Message me if they come back, and I'll turn around. What would be the harm?"

"The odds of you finding them are improbable."

"Let me prove those odds wrong."

Chiron's sigh would have made her sympathetic if she wasn't so annoyed. "I won't permit you to go. I know it's hard to hear, but all there is to do is be patient."

Maisie threw her arms up. "What am I supposed to be doing then? What's my role here?"

"You're asking me for orders?" Chiron mused. Maisie had to admit, it was a little odd.

She didn't think of it asking for orders. She wasn't going out of her way to be obedient. She just needed to do something. What was the point of her sharpening fifty point staffs? Or organizing the stick pellets from the smoke bombs? She didn't see one. The reality of her friends doing actual important work, risking their lives to prevent an inevitable invasion, while she sat here doing busy work, made her skin itch.

"You could have stationed me to go with them yesterday," Maisie finally gained the nerve to say. "I mean, Percy and I live a couple blocks away from each other. You know that. If you picked him for convenience, you could've picked me for the same." It was also the matter that the two really had never been on a mission without the other.