𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄! percy jackson¹

002. percy jackson

chapter two
002. percy jackson

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      I VOLUNTEERED for extra shifts at the infirmary so I could keep an eye on the boy. Sorry, look after him. If I had gone to Chiron with my request for switching my chores in cleaning the pegasus stables with Jay in order to interrogate the boy with the Minotaur horn the moment he woke up about things I shouldn't even know too much about, I don't think that conversation would have gone down exactly the way I would have wanted. The strange boy wasn't exactly helping my cause, however, because he wasn't waking up in the time I predicted. Not that it was normal for him to wake up a few minutes after I sat down at his bedside, but I'm impatient, and those few minutes ended up feeling like hours. 

    I couldn't help but be impatient. He could know everything. After waiting for so long, here the boy from my dreams was▬with the Minotaur horn and everything. He could know what this stolen thing was, who took it, where and why. He could be the demigod of the prophecy Annabeth and I read parts of when we were little. We should have never gone for it▬should have never let our curiosity win over and see what was hidden inside the pendant that hung around the Oracle's neck. But we had, and now we were burdened with parts of the future without knowing how it would all come together▬the Fates had only given us pieces of threads from the strings of so many lives, and it was a hard lesson for a daughter of Apollo to learn: sometimes, knowing the future was a curse, and never a blessing. No wonder the Sight sent some mortals mad. 

    The Prophecy said that there would be a child of the Big Three▬the first child of the Big Three since Thalia. Another forbidden child who would reach sixteen against all odds. After the Second World War, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades made a pact never to have any more demigod children because they became far too powerful and far too dangerous. This prophecy not only meant the pact had been broken▬again▬but it also meant that this child was destined to be dangerous and unpredictable, with the potential to either save Olympus or be the one to stand amongst its destruction. 

    But ... He didn't look dangerous. Far from it, actually. 

    The boy looked like the least scary person in the world, which was something rare when all of the people I knew had troubled pasts, wielded dangerous weapons, and weren't afraid to hurt someone in Capture the Flag if it meant having glory attached to their name. He had no scars on his face from failed quests, his hands weren't calloused from holding a sword, and he looked like he couldn't even lift a weapon, let alone swing it. 

    He looked how I imagined a normal twelve-year-old boy would look▬Normal, as in mortal. As in he didn't have to worry about dying if he left Camp, nor did he have to worry about destinies, monsters, prophecies and training to survive. He was blissfully ignorant of the world shrouded by the Mist, and I couldn't help but feel a little envious because I had never known anything but this world. 

    The boy had messy black hair that hung over his eyes in curls. Some light freckles dusted over his pale cheeks. There was no frown on his face and no clench to his jaw. His clothes were dirty with mud, and I had gotten him a new Camp shirt to hang over the foot of his bed to change into when he woke up. This boy didn't look like he could have killed a Minotaur, and yet the horn on his bedside table told a different story. 

    And yet, how could a Minotaur slayer drool in his sleep?

    Over the days he slept, I watched over him in between classes and chores. I rushed over to the infirmary as quickly as I could every morning, after lunch, after every training session and after dinner▬just in case he was awake. Annabeth checked in every now and then, just as curious. Grover was around almost as much as me. I've known Grover since I was little, and he found me, Annabeth, Thalia and Luke on the run. He had led us to Camp. And since then, he had barely aged. Satyrs aged differently from humans. He looked like he was a lankly twelve-year-old, but truthfully, Grover was in his late twenties. But he matured just as slow▬in a way, he was like a twelve-year-old in almost every way. I could tell he was close with the boy, Percy Jackson▬was his name. He had spent almost an entire school year with him, keeping an eye on him, making sure he was safe▬it was hard for a satyr as caring and as loyal as Grover not to get attached.