Alternatively

Self Fulfilling Prophecies

He heard the sound of a blade being drawn first, seconds before the white light faded from his eyes. The strange magic clung to him and he wrinkled his nose as he blinked rapidly.

"Who are you?"

Sunlight, summer sunlight, streamed through the windows and he squinted down the sword leveled at his face. "Uh-"

"More like what are they?"

"I-" he glanced to Annabeth, shock bottoming out his gut. "Woah."

She took a second to turn to him and he saw right through her head to the painting on the wall. "I guess it worked."

He took a second to look over his hands, through his arms, poking his transparent stomach to make sure he wasn't some ghost. They were both see through, though their color remained. He could still see that Annabeth's hair was blonde, not just a light shade of gray, and his jacket was still blue.

"Who-" the sword got closer to his nose. "Are you?"

He held up his hands, earnestly meeting the wielder's eyes. "Not monsters, not ghosts. Well, I guess if we traveled too far, we could be ghosts, but I don't-"

"Take us to Chiron," Annabeth interrupted with an elbow to his side.

The girl narrowed her eyes, glancing to her friend before saying, "Why should we?"

"It's complicated," Percy chewed thoughtfully. "But hey, we're campers too, just not...from here."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Yeah," grumbled his partner. "It doesn't."

The cabin was quiet without their talking and he assumed everyone was out on activity rotation or lunch. Bunks and desks were arranged differently than literally two minutes prior, but it still felt like the Apollo cabin from the past. The very room seemed to glow with inner light, calmly radiant. He could hear people outside, laughing and talking, and if he focused, he heard the thwack of bow strings.

But he didn't take his eyes from the two campers in front of him, both sizing him and Annabeth up with varying degrees of confusion. He wasn't sure if celestial bronze could hurt them in astral form, but he wasn't willing to risk it.

"Have either of you heard of Byron's Puzzle Box?"

The lanky boy immediately ducked to whisper in the girl's ear, whatever he said bringing down her weapon arm. She appraised them more curiously and Percy's skin prickled; he knew those eyes.

"Where...when did you come from?"

He felt Annabeth look to him and he raised an eyebrow; it was her call to tell.

"We shouldn't say."

The girl frowned and he tried to guess: fourteen? Fifteen years old? There was something weird about looking at her, weirder than knowing she existed years into the future past him.

"So you know we shouldn't see too much," Annabeth was saying, lifting her chin higher. "Know that it could ruin the future if we try to change anything."

"There isn't a lot to ruin," the boy replied, flinching at the elbow to his side. "Not a lot could have changed, but I get it. Why did you come here?"

Percy rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "By accident, and no, we don't know how long we'll be here either."

"Sure makes things difficult."

He noticed how her brassy hair was knotted at the nape of her neck, how it made her green eyes pop. The way she held her sword made the healing callouses on his own hands ache, her grip almost identical to his. He blinked away when she caught him staring.