Annabeth Chase

[Taken from Chapter 13, Battle of the Labyrinth.]




There was a shroud laid out for him in the amphitheatre.

A long green silk burial cloth, embroidered with a trident - it was all she could do not to tear up and bawl out her eyes again.

(It'd be ridiculous, and Annabeth was anything but ridiculous.)

(Or at least ... that was what she'd have everyone believe.)

He was gone.

He was really gone.



She wouldn't deny that she'd been crying; her eyes were red and puffy, and there were bunches of tissues stuffed into every one of her pockets.

'He was probably the bravest friend I've ever had,' she starts. 'He ...'

And when she glances up, there in the distance -

'He's right there!' she blurts out before she can properly think this through. (She could be seeing things. It could be a trick. Her imagination.)


*


'WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?'

She gives him the fiercest hug she can manage, never wanting to let the stupid Seaweed Brain go, because she'd been worried sick over his disappearance, the guilt, her missing him - it was all eating her alive -

'I - we thought you were dead, Seaweed Brain!'

'I'm sorry,' he says. 'I got lost.'

'LOST?' She doesn't mean to sound as hysterical as she does, but it's all she can do not to punch Percy in the arm right then and there. Lost. As if. 'Two weeks, Percy? Where in the world -'

It's Chiron who interrupts ('Annabeth. Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private, shall we?'), reminding them of where they are, what's going on and who (read: everyone at camp) is watching them right now.

Annabeth feels her face heat, but she will not back down. Not without some explanations.

Everything is going wrong.

Nothing is going according to whatever plan she thinks she has.

She's following the spider, never forgetting how much she's grossed out by them, but in her mind, there's the niggling notion that this is bad. All of this shouldn't be happening.

It's her fault; she wanted another person on her team for the quest, and you never mess with the prophecies of the Oracle.

The tunnels are hot, the stone walls nearly glowing. Her hair is in the way, and her skin is slick with sweat. But none of that is important.

They have to find the forge of Hephaestus. They have to complete this part of the deal if they want to find Daedalus and get him to help them. It's simple logic, really. It's logic she understands, even if she doesn't understand why things had to go so wrong in the meantime.