Annabeth's Point of View

The Last Olympion - Confessions

This is, as I like to call it, the first real kiss Annabeth and Percy shared. Right after Rachel was made the Oracle - I'm sure all you Percy Jackson lovers remember it well.

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The rest of the day was as strange as the beginning. Campers trickled in from New York by car, pegasus, and chariot. The wounded were cared for. The dead were given proper funeral rites at the campfire.

Silena's shroud was hot pink, but embroidered with an electric spear. The Ares and Aphrodite cabins both claimed her as a hero, and lit the shroud together. No one mentioned the word spy. That secret burned to ashes as the designer perfume smoke drifted into the sky.

The Ares kids didn't even complain about the smell.

Even Ethan Nakamura was given a shroud—black silk with a logo of swords crossed under a set of scales. As his shroud went up in flames, I hoped Ethan knew he had made a difference in the end. He'd paid a lot more than an eye, but the minor gods would finally get the respect they deserved.

Dinner was torture. I sat with my siblings, laughing and celebrating over our victory, but every time I would glance next to me and not see Percy, it was like a horrible tug in my heart.

Percy sat alone in his table, picking at his food dully.

It was all wrong, we should be sitting together, hand in hand - we deserved that much. He deserved that much. He saved the world, and it was his birthday.

His birthday...

I looked down when I felt something soft brush against my fingers, an realised I had been holding the cupcake Tyson and I baked for Percy a bit to rouphly. It was a cute cupcake in my opinion, chocolate with blue icing.

"His favorite," I murmered quietly.

"What was that, Annabeth?" Marcus, one of my siblings, asked.

I shook my head and glanced at Percy. "Nothing. I'll see you guys later, okay?"

My siblings' eyes flickered to Percy but they said nothing as I got up and walked over to Percy, who was watching Grover and Juniper walking in the beach with a peaceful, yet sad expression. I wondered what he was thinking about.

I slid in the bench next to him. "Hey, happy birthday."

I held out the blue icing cupcake, and he stared at me. I felt sort of stupid, giving him a ruined cupcake, but I never baked before, and people always said handmade gifts were the best - cheap people, but people nonetheless.

"What?" Percy said blankly.

"It's August 18th," I said, not surprised he had forgotten. "Your birthday, right?"

He sat there, stunned for a moment. He was sixteen, and he didn't even realise it. He changed a lot over the past years, becoming more and more handsome, I couldn't help but feel a bit smug that he was the most good looking boy in camp.

"Make a wish," I said with a smile.

"Did you bake this yourself?" Percy said, raised eyebrows.

"Tyson helped." I admitted.

"That explains why it looks like a chocolate brick," Percy noted. "With extra blue cement."

Instead of feeling insulted, I laughed and held the cupcake up to his face so he could blow out the little flame.

He thought for a second, then blew it out.

I was fully aware that no one was eating anymore, that Percy and I were alone, and I wondered if my siblings got everyone to leave. I decided to thank them when I seen hem tonight.