Alternatively

A Lake of Tears (iii.)

The silence was deafening. Demeter's lips formed those two words over and over again, blood running down her hands. Hestia was nothing more than a pale hand peeking out of the bushes. Magic was thick and tangy and the white sands were drenched in red.

"Kill me."

The girl took a step back, stumbling through Annabeth's chest. She was so numb and she could only stare at the approaching enchantress.

A streak of white flashed across the sky, eastward to the village. Her body was on fire, she couldn't breathe. Her wings dragged and she couldn't feel her lake.

"Kill me."

The guardians were flush around the girl, wings flared out and feathers ruffled. They didn't dare hiss, not at Demeter, but they refused to let her near. A vein bulged in her neck with extreme effort, as if she were fighting something within. More and more blood stained the beach  and the candied blue sky started to darken, the sun turning black.

She was cold, desperately cold in the middle of summer.

The swans fluttered around her, urging her to stay awake when she came to. She wanted to get up, but scraping to her knees pried a scream from her clenched jaw and attempting to straighten blacked her vision out.

Athena appeared out of nowhere, as she always did. Even from watching from outside herself, Annabeth couldn't tell the difference between one enchantress from the other as they battled. It was quick and only one was left standing.

Until she too collapsed to her knees, shaking, as if she were crying. But she never cried.

"Mother!"

Annabeth blinked, suddenly seeing a girl even younger than the one in front of her running through the tree line. She ran to a healthy Athena, waving her herbs in the air.

"Mother, you promised you'd let me do something other than run your errands!"

Pain webbed through her abdomen and she blearily craned her neck, wondering just why Juniper was sitting on her stomach. She flapped her wings once, feathers tipped in her blood.

"You must learn patience," Athena replied, as she always did.

The blonde rolled her eyes, so expressive and annoyed. "I am patient, but I can do so much more!"

Blood continued to rise on the beach and she knew this conversation happened many places, but she didn't know if it happened there. The nightmare continued to play to her right, a twelve year old halfling trying to shake her mother awake.

"I can prove it-"

"There are some things you just can't do," the enchantress said, but not to the child. She stared at Annabeth, gray eyes boring into her. "Some things you aren't realistically capable of."

She gasped shallowly as a pulse pulled her back from the dream, soft like silk but erratic. She couldn't feel the lake, couldn't feel if the hunters were gone, but she could feel this. Juniper settled more firmly on her wound. The arrow was flush against her feathers and the white was slowly getting darker.

Water splashed and she turned, watching two kids running through the shallows. The boy had his pants rolled up and the girl hiked her skirt to her knees, kicking up waves and shrieking playfully. She would have never shown him the lake, but seeing it was so concrete, so convincing.

"Italy won't be so bad," she heard herself say. "You'll be back next summer."

Percy shrugged, wading through the water. "I know, it's just that..."