cymophobia | percy jackson

𝑥𝑥𝑖𝑖𝑖, aka the moment you've all been waiting for

That day may have been the longest of Ash's life. Well, technically, it had kind of been several days, considering that none of them had slept a full night since Kronos invaded like, forever ago. As campers trickled in via various modes of transportation, the wounded were cared for, and the dead were given proper funeral rites, a la Nico and Ash, of course. Shrouds for every hero, and that meant every hero including Silena, and Ethan, had magically appeared by the campfire sometime when nobody was looking.

After that, dinner was a low-key affair. The only highlight besides the food was when Juniper the tree nymph screamed "GROVER!" and gave her boyfriend a flying tackle hug, making everybody cheer wildly. They went down to the beach to take a moonlit walk, and Ash was so freakin' happy for them, although the scene reminded her almost painfully of Silena and Beckendorf.

Slowly, the dinner crowd trickled away until there were just two certain demigods left. Ash quickly jumped from the shadow of the Hermes table into the kitchen and back again before approaching Percy, offering in hand.

"Hey," she said, sliding next to him on the bench. "Happy birthday."

She was holding a ginormous but immaculately frosted blue cupcake.

Percy stared at her like the idiot he was. "Huh?"

"It's August 18th," she smiled. "Your birthday, dummy."

Percy was stunned. He had completely forgotten, but she was right. He had become an adult this morning, the same morning he'd made the choice to give Luke the knife. The prophecy had come true right on schedule, even though he hadn't even realized it was his birthday.

"Make a wish," she encouraged.

"Did you bake this yourself?" He asked.

"Mmhmm," she giggled, holding it out to him. "But Tyson did the decorating."

Indeed, her and the Cyclops had gotten together that afternoon to collaborate on the sweet treat. While Tyson couldn't bake an edible cake to save his life, Ash made a mean dark chocolate, and while Ash couldn't frost a cake to save her life, Tyson was astoundingly proficient.

"Ah, so it should be safe." Percy grinned. He thought for a second, then blew out the candle. They cut it in half and shared, eating with their fingers, sitting together in comfortable silence and gazing out at the ocean.

"You saved the world," Ash mused finally, idly brushing crumbs off her palms.

"We saved the world," Percy replied.

"And Rachel is the new Oracle, which means she won't be dating anybody."

"You don't sound too disappointed about that," he noted.

Ash shrugged, a grin tugging at her lips. "On Annie's behalf, maybe. Can't speak for anyone else."

She watched his face for a second, then turned back to the view with a small smile. His eyes stayed on the real view, however: Ash herself, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by the object of his affections. Her smile became more of a smirk as one of her eyebrows raised teasingly. "Something on your mind, Barnacle Boy?"

"I think you might kick my ass."

"How 'bout this, I promise to kick your ass if you don't tell me."

Percy clapped some crumbs off his hands, trying to decide where even to start. "When I was at the River Styx, you and Nico told me I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, right? That made me want to stay alive."

Ash kept her eyes on the horizon, gesturing for him to go on. "Mmhmm?"

"Then up on Olympus," he said, "when they asked me to be a god and stuff, I kept thinking–"