GREEK TRAGEDY [PERCY JACKSON A.U] ✓

EIGHTEEN: LEAP OF FAITH

Percy waited on the dock by the lake, checking his watch every few minutes. It was just after ten at night, maybe quarter after, at the very most, but he was beginning go get antsy. Sure, he wasn't the most punctual person, but he figured Pollux would want to be on time for this.

    But then he heard rushed footsteps making the wooden dock creak and whine as if it was going to give out.

    "Sorry! I'm sorry I'm late, Maddie flat out refused to go to bed, and I couldn't leave til she went to bed." Pollux was apologizing profusely as he walked briskly to where Percy was standing at the edge.

    "You're all good, man. No worries."

    For a moment or two, they were silent, watching the surface of the lake and, due to the lack of the sun's glare on the water, seeing the mermaids swim gracefully in its depths.

    "Did my dad help you figure out how to save my sister?" Pollux's voice was loud in the otherwise quiet night.

    Percy glanced over at the other boy briefly before looking back out at the lake. "Yeah. You know Althea's Thyrsus?" He paused, waiting for Pollux to nod in confirmation. "Well, you, Maddie, Henry, and Eddie all need to use it together. Something about the collective power of all four of you."

    He heard Pollux laugh cynically. "Would be five, if it weren't for Castor."

    "Do you ever think about how he would have absolutely hated to see her like this?" Percy asked, mind drifting back to the Isle of Lost Things, where he'd seen Castor live in the flesh, so full of hatred and disdain for Althea and Camp Half Blood that he was totally unidentifiable from who he used to be.

    Pollux sighed. "He would've loved to see her finish growing up, graduate high school, y'know? We helped raise her, just like she's been raising Henry. We all used to joke that Castor and I would be the ones walking down the aisle when you two eventually got married, since Dad wasn't in the picture. It was just a joke, but he was really looking forward to that, especially when you guys got more serious."

    Percy went pale; he had known how shell-shocked Althea was when Castor had died. He had been there to hold her through all of it, but he'd never really thought about how much of her life Castor had missed.

    "So...tomorrow morning? Bring the kids to Althea's room?" Percy offered up the next stage of their plan, putting his hands in his pockets. "I have the Thyrsus, so if you want to meet me there, we can try to see what we can do?"

    Pollux nodded and said nothing more before he walked away, into the night and towards Cabin 12.

🍇

    He loved his bed in Cabin 3, he really did. And most nights before that summer, Percy could sleep just fine; the only dreams swirling around in his head were good, although admittedly vivid dreams about Grover, or Althea, or about some variation of blue food.

    But that night, the nerves got to him. When he wasn't tossing and turning, sleeping fitfully while being plagued with some of the worst dreams he'd ever had, he was sitting up in bed, sweat making his sheets stick to his legs and his hair stick to his forehead.

    The worst of the half dozen dreams he'd had that night was visions of him in Althea's room at the Big House, and he was stuck watching her convulse and cry out as her brothers and sister lifted the Thyrsus in the air, over and over again.

    That one nearly had him screaming, begging for them to stop hurting her and crying because it was all his fault.

    He woke up from the last of his night terrors far earlier than he'd meant to, and the sun hadn't even risen yet.