Annabeth Chase and the Battle of the Labyrinth

Chapter 7 - A drakon fancies me

Sometimes being the head counsellor of your cabin has its perks. Especially when you have a whole cabin of people that you can make do stuff for you when you are too busy or too distracted to do it yourself. Such as inspections. 

With everything that had been happening recently, inspections was the last thing on my mind, so when I ran back from the meeting, I was glad to see that my cabin mates had cleaned the entire cabin to a good standard and even cleaned up most of my stuff. I didn't particularly have a lot of stuff there now that I lived with my father again, and what I did have I generally kept tidy, but it was the finishing touches, like making sure my bed sheets were tight and under the bed was swept that counted. 

"Thanks," I said to Malcom as I did the cursory sweep of the cabin to make sure nothing had been missed.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "We know that you have a lot on your plate. Anything we can do to help. We're always here."

I looked up from where I'd been checking under the desk to see that he was in earnest. Gazing around the room, I could see the rest of my siblings nodding in agreement. I couldn't help but feel comforted and appreciative of their support. 

"Thanks, guys," I said, trying to show how grateful I felt. If only I could tell them everything, but there was still so much that I had to keep hidden. 

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We passed the inspection easily, the Athena cabin having such a good reputation of cleanliness that Silena barely looked in, just sticking her head around the door, nodding her approval then walking out again. 

I needed a break from being me, just for a few hours, especially after the events of this morning, so I headed down to the lake to see that Percy and Tyson had beaten me there. I was surprised to see Tyson as I didn't even know that he was in camp. It seemed that the more I thought about all the problems building up in my mind, the less I noticed things around camp. But Percy reassured me by saying that Tyson had only just arrived when we were at the meeting so I felt like I hadn't completely lost my grip on reality. 

Percy wanted to catch up and talk, but I couldn't think about anything but the problems that had been plaguing me, so we ended up speaking about those. 

"What's this 'other way'?" he asked. "The thing Clarisse mentioned?"

I rolled a flat stone in my hand, testing how smooth and aerodynamic it was before I threw it across the lake. It made 14 skips before sinking into the water. 

"Something Clarisse scouted out," I answered eventually, still reluctant to share details until I knew more. "I helped her a little this spring. But it would be dangerous. Especially for Grover."

"Goat boy scares me," Tyson said softly. 

Percy stared at him. "Why would you be scared of Grover?"

"Hooves and horns," he said, eye wide. "And goat fur makes my nose itchy."

And that provided a much desired break from discussion on Grover from my part, and brought out more frustrated confusion from Percy, not just about what he didn't know, but why his brother could be scared of his best friend. Typical Greek family. 

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Before dinner I tried to get in a bit more research about the labyrinth, trying even the most unlikely and strangest ancient texts I could find, but nothing helped. There seemed to be nothing more I could find out about the labyrinth. There was still so much to learn but no where to learn it. Except for experience. 

It was that thought that haunted me all through dinner, making me unable to engage in conversation. It even held my mind as I went to bed. It was no wonder that I dreamt about it also.