the archer, percy jackson

005. killer quest

chapter five
005. killer quest!

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    WENDY SHOULD have seen it. Destroying the bathroom plumbing? Being healed by the water?  It had been obvious the entire time who Percy Jackson's father was▬Wendy just didn't want to admit it. She wondered if she had jinxed herself, thinking to herself that the one person she wouldn't be able to work with would be a child of Poseidon (thinking, of course, that it would be the least likely outcome. There hasn't been a child of Poseidon in ... Wendy doesn't know, and that's a first), and here the Fates are, making jokes and sending her spiralling. How was she supposed to get the attention of her mother, get a quest, prove herself and figure out this mystery all at the same time if the person she had been thrown into this with was the son of the very God her mother rivalled with? Athena and Poseidon do not get along. They are not supposed to get along. It has been an eons-long rival between the god of the sea and the goddess of wisdom ever since Athens first chose its patron in Ancient times. 

    Sure, being friends with Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon will most definitely get Athena's attention onto Wendy, but that attention wouldn't be positive. The last thing Wendy needed was another reason for her mother to consider her useless and a disappointment. It wasn't like Percy made it hard to avoid, because Wendy was pretty sure he was avoiding her, too. She wasn't always the best at knowing the reasons why people did things, but this one wasn't hard to decipher. Percy was still annoyed over her plan to use him as bait for the Ares cabin during Capture the Flag. Wendy wanted to tell him that the plan had been fool-proof, and they weren't going to let him be beaten down too hard, and in the end, he handled himself▬but now that he was moved to cabin three, Wendy couldn't. 

    She felt frustrated and hurt, and couldn't help but wonder why the Fates gave her a friend, only for him to turn out to be the last person she should ever be friends with. Why make her have dreams about him, know that she was supposed to team up with him ... and then make him the son of Poseidon? It was stupid. Why couldn't he be the son of Zeus? Or Hephaestus▬or even Ares or Apollo! Anyone except Poseidon. 

    How was she ever going to prove herself now? 

    Wendy was stuck in her globe once again, watching the outside from the inside, and she hated it.

    She sat on the wooden bench, legs crossed up to her chest by herself. She glanced out at the lake and then beside her, deep down wondering if Percy would come out of nowhere and sit down beside her. 

    She wasn't good at making friends, but she wanted to be friends with him. 

     But now, what mattered most? Her mother's approval, Wendy's own, or finding the bolt before the solstice? She hated how she found it hard to choose between them. 

    Someone sat down on the seat of the bench to join her▬it was that alone that told her it wasn't Percy. Wendy glanced over and met the awkward concern of Annabeth Chase. She swivelled so her legs were inside and under the bench, sitting right beside Wendy's feet that moved to relax and rest on the seat. They sat in a good silence for a few moments. Neither one of them knew exactly what to say. Feelings were something both tangible and intangible at the same time. Both Wendy and Annabeth were terrible at trying to regulate and express their own, let alone help others express and regulate theirs. 

    Annabeth fiddled with her dagger and started scratching her initials on the wood of the bench which so many▬including Wendy▬had done before. The summer sun glared down through the treetops and bounced off the lake, making Wendy pull her baseball cap lower over her eyes to give her some relief from the glare.