The Fate of Olympus | Reynabeth [✓]

27. The Demigods Adrift

"I think so," said Annabeth. "I didn't think this would be so confusing."

"Can we..." Reyna started. "Can we go inside the Athena cabin from here?"

Neither Annabeth nor Nico spoke, but they floated through the door to look at the inside of the Athena cabin. Strangely enough, the void seemed to come with them.

Annabeth's eyes glazed over while she looked at objects as they had existed and would exist for all of time. It was both day and night, so she saw electric lights both on and off. She saw a book that was new, but also scuffed and dog-eared with highlights inside of it, but also a pile of dust. Somehow Annabeth could see inside the book even though it wasn't open for most of its lifetime. She saw the book at every point in time that it had existed.

People were like that to Annabeth, too; she saw them as they had once existed and she saw them as they stopped existing. She could see them at every moment in time that they had existed inside the cabin, every moment overlaid on top of each other like a direction. Most humans would only see a one-dimensional slice of time. Annabeth saw every slice at once.

Annabeth saw herself. She was young and ran from monsters. She was a teenager and faced monsters with bravery and quiet determination. She was old and lived a peaceful, quiet life with Percy and Reyna. She was busy with school. She was a hero. She was retired. Through it all, Reyna's strength shone brightly through the void, and Annabeth allowed herself to feel its warmth. Annabeth's own thoughts came to her simultaneously like she didn't need time to think.

Annabeth felt something burning in her pocket. She linked her arm with Nico's and fumbled in her pocket. It was the Ring of Gyges. She'd forgotten.

They saw Camp Half-Blood's first construction. Everyone was frozen, constructing buildings, in the early evening.

"Look! We're parallel to the surface of time." Nico pointed at the completely black abyss of spacetime like it would help them understand. "Now we can see one moment of time at a time. But now we're not tethered to the Athena Cabin. We're drifting through space now."

"You can control where we go?"

"Yeah, I can even control when we go," said Nico. "As long as Reyna lends me her strength. I think Lou Ellen's magic is starting to break through the gods' magic. It makes it so that we can control when and where we want to go. We're not floating aimlessly anymore."

They started to skim along the surface of Earth. Most of it was ocean.

"Hey, Nico, can you slow us down?"

"We're being pulled," Nico's voice was panicked. "I spoke too soon. It looks like it's harder to control than I thought."

"We'll stop once we get to land," said Reyna.

Annabeth felt strangely calm. "What're you basing that on, Reyna?"

Reyna didn't answer. Her eyes were closed in fierce focus. She and Nico joined hands so they formed a circle.

"Sorry," Nico said. They flew over stopped, mountain-like ocean waves so fast that they became a blur. There wasn't any wind though. They must not have displaced any air. Annabeth wondered how they were able to breathe.

"This is more of an art than a science," Nico gripped Annabeth's hand tight. "Darkness shows up all over the planet, you know. I think we can end up anywhere there's a shadow. Also try not to think about how dark interstellar space is. I don't want to end up inside a black hole."

Annabeth thought very hard about anything except black holes in interstellar space. She thought about books and sand and ruins. Did black holes even exist? Mortals had discovered them after they had stopped believing in Greek gods. Say, was the moon landing real if the moon was Artemis's sled? What was real?