Empress (a Percy Jackson AU)

Sunny Skies

         The sun was warm on the back of Annabeth's neck as she squatted down to pull a weed from the barley patch. It was two months since she had arrived at the farm, but it seemed like a lifetime. She felt like a different person. She had known hurt before — the rejection of her father and the cruelty of her stepmother, but this was pain unimaginable. There wasn't a day that passed by where she wasn't haunted by the deaths of her loved ones. They cried out for justice and Annabeth thirsted for revenge.

      She channeled all her energy into everyday tasks. She washed clothes as if the stains were what killed her father. She attacked weeds as if they had murdered her husband. She tended the barley plants as if they were her own child. Percy noticed a difference in her that went beyond her physical — she was carrying herself in a different way. Hardship had shaped her into a sharpened dagger and her stormy grey eyes often hardened like flint.

Percy understood the way that pain could chip away at someone, as a sculptor chips away at marble. His father had perished in a sea voyage when he was little and his first stepfather, Gabe, was a cruel man. Despite the intervention of neighbors, Gabe beat his wife. Gabe died when Percy was twelve and by then, he had to get a job to supplement the little income his mother earned. There was little respite for the family until Sally remarried.

So maybe that was why Percy stopped one afternoon to ask Annabeth if she wanted to talk. They were at the beach and while Percy searched for shellfish in the shallows, Annabeth looked for shells that could be sold to city merchants. The sand was hot underfoot and her feet sunk into the earth whenever she moved.

Instead of immediately answering, Annabeth bent over and grasped a shell that was half-buried in the sand. She picked it up and brushed off the sand, peering at the shell as intently as a mother might gaze at her newborn babe. "What is there really to talk about?"

Her voice was rough as if she had gargled saltwater and when Percy caught her gaze, her eyes were as stormy as a hurricane. Percy stepped onto the shore, water droplets spraying and darkening the sand beneath him and made his way over to her. He wanted to put an arm around her, but he wasn't sure if she would be comfortable with that. Instead, he said, "I know you're hurting."

     Annabeth's eyes flashed like lightning in the midst of a thunderstorm. "You know nothing of it! My whole family is gone. Luke, he promised . . . He said he would be my family after my father sent me away when I was seven. Frederick, he was just a baby and my greatest joy. How could she order his death? I hate her — I hate her."
 
     She was crying now, tears lashing her face, and Percy stepped closer. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her and she buried her head in his chest, letting the heaving sobs she had been keeping at bay for so long spring forth.