Who the hell thought making me a Half-blood was a good idea? {ON HOLD}

Act Two- Crusty reminds me of Beetlejuice, actually

Wait, fuck. Existential crisis, go away until I'm middle-aged damn it!

I stepped into the surf.

"Ophelia?" Annabeth questioned. "What are you doing?"

I kept walking. The salty water got up to my waist, then my chest.

Luke called after me, "You know how polluted that water is? There are all kinds of toxic-"

That's when my head went under.

I walked down into the shoals. I shouldn't have been able to see through the murk, but somehow I could tell where everything was. I could sense the rolling texture of the bottom. I could make out sand-dollar colonies dotting the sandbars. I could even feel the currents, warm and cold extremities swirling together.

I felt something rub against my leg. When I looked down, I nearly had a mini heart-attack. Sliding along beside me was a five-foot-long mako shark.

Thankfully, it wasn't in the mood to eat me. Instead it was nuzzling me, heeling like a dog. Tentatively, I touched its dorsal fin. It bucked a little, as if inviting me to hold tighter. I grabbed the fin with both hands. It took off, pulling me along. The shark carried me down into the darkness.

It deposited me at the edge of the ocean proper, where the sandbank dropped off into a huge chasm. It was like standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon at midnight; not being able to see much, but knowing the void was right there.

The surface shimmered maybe a hundred and fifty feet above. Distantly, I knew I should've been crushed by the pressure. Then again, I shouldn't have been able to breathe without my godly blood. I wondered if there was a limit to how deep I could go, if I could sink straight to the bottom of the Pacific. Nobody would find me there. Well, close to nobody.

Then I saw something glimmering in the darkness below, growing bigger and brighter as it rose toward me.

A woman's voice, like my mother's, called, "Persephone Jackson."

As she got closer, her shape became clearer. She had flowing black hair, and absolutely rocked a dress made of green silk. Lights glimmered around her in playful flickers. Her eyes were so distractingly beautiful that I hardly noticed the stallion-sized sea horse she was riding. She dismounted. The seahorse and the mako shark whisked off and started playing something that looked like Tag.

The underwater lady smiled at me. "You've come far, Persephone Jackson. Well done."

"Thanks ma'am." I gave her a crooked smile. "Nice to see you again."

It wasn't really that nice, considering that she knew stuff she really, really shouldn't, but I was in a good mood.

"Yes, child. I am a Nereid, a spirit of the sea. It was not easy to appear so far upriver, but the naiads, my freshwater cousins, helped sustain my life force. They honor Lord Poseidon, though they do not serve in his court."

"You serve in Pai's court?"

She nodded. "It has been many years since a child of the Sea God has been born, and never a Half-Blood daughter. We have watched you with great interest."

My hands twitched towards Riptide at that. "You better have not. Haven't you heard of what I did when the gods thought they could grab entertainment from my life?" I murmured softly.

She stills, her eyes darting nervously to the side. "We have. I apologise, we shouldn't have done so."

"No, you shouldn't have," I bit out coldly, before straightening. "Where's my Pai? How bad is the fallout of this war?"