Fragments of the Sea

Abrupt Abilities

Draco was staring at Perci(and not like he usually did- wait, what? Nothing!). His eyes were moving back and forth between her mouth listing off poor explanations and excuses and the floating boy in the mist. "Perci," the boy hissed, "Shut up!" There was a minute of awkward silence after Perci clamped her mouth shut. 

"So..." Her voice was a few notes higher than usual and she seemed fairly timid, compared to her regular exuberance. "I guess I owe you an explanation." Perci winced at her words and sighed. She glanced at the mist boy and raised her hand. "Sorry, Neeks, I've got to do this. It was only a matter of time. Demigods aren't exactly known for being discrete." She swept her had through the vapor and the boy disappeared. 

'Demigods...?' Draco wondered. 

Percy winced again. "Look...If you could just forget about this until later, I'd totally owe you. I kinda need to tell you and Hermione something...Heh, heh..." She tried for a smile, before proceeding to drag a speechless Draco to their next class.

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Draco watched as Perci scratched the back of her head sheepishly, and waved the other two 8th years over to her. Draco remained standing, and crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at her. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. "You, ah, you may want to sit down for this. It won't take to long, for just the basics, but it could be confusing with how bad I am at explaining," she told them, thought her words seemed directed at him. Draco sighed and sat down next to Hermione.

"Okay...so, the Greek gods are real."

Draco's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. Next to him, judging by the incoherent noises coming from that direction, Hermione was in a similar state. Perci's nose scrunched up, like she was contemplating something. "The Roman and Egyptian ones are real, too, and I'm pretty sure the Norse exist as well, but I'm still trying to figure out how to contact Magnus in Valhalla for proof. Anyway, we're focusing on the Greeks and Romans for now, alright? Cool," she said, giving a lopsided grin.

"W-Why are you tel-telling us this n-now?!" Hermione's pitch was an octave and a half above her normal tone, making her voice sound positively shrill to their ears. Percy raised her eyebrows slightly and frowned a bit. "Draco!" she scolded him, "You were supposed to tell her before we got here!" She turned back to Hermione.

"He walked in on me contacting a friend in America...via the demigod way, IM-ing. I told him I'd explain everything to both of you later. At least that explains why only he was acting weird." Perci looked at Draco, and he could see the way her eyes glazed over slightly, and the other beginning signs of her mind drifting elsewhere. She'd told them that it happened sometimes, but also that it was more frequent in the earlier years of her life.

Percy blinked and bowed her head. "Now," she sighed, "for the even harder explanation. I am a demigod, which should be obvious as I use IMs- but I am a demigod daughter of Poseidon. Time for a history lesson- I've always hated those." She took a small box out of her pocket and pressed a black button. The box opened up with several slivers of the top peeling back stiffly, like tentacles, and a mist came from the box. Suddenly, they were standing in the middle of a battlefield. 

"Hecate gave this to me, when she sent me to your magic school, so that I could explain better to those who figured me out. Oh, by the way, you're not allowed to tell anyone about this or me uncle will smite you." Draco choked, and then gasped when he saw that his legs were halfway dissolved into mist. Noticing his panic, Perci rushed to explain. "This is called the Mist, with a capital 'm'. It's what we demigods use to keep our secrets easier- Hecate is the goddess- titaness?- of it, so obviously gods and goddesses can use it as well, but basically, it's the magical veil that dilutes mortals' vision so that it's something their brains can understand. Right now, we're using it to create an illusion. There are clearsighted people, but we'll get to that later."