The Winds Of Heaven (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

27. Laughter And Tears

Gray light came while Y/N trudged through the forest. At first he didn't really see. When he finally did, he stared at the fading darkness in surprise. No matter what his eyes told him, he could barely believe he had spent all night walking out in the woods. It seemed days since he had seen the sword through Ethan's stomach, weeks since he had yelled at Annabeth. He no longer felt any ache in his heart, but then he felt nothing in his heart except numbness. His breath produced a faint cloud of vapor in the chill air of dawn, and hunger twisted his stomach.

Today he would bury Ethan. Or what was left of Ethan, at least. Y/N was not sure if he really wanted to do it, but he didn't want to think about anything else. If he stopped he would never be able to force himself to start out again. He'd chosen a course of action, and he couldn't change it now. Anyway, he could do nothing beyond what he was doing. The only hope lay ahead. Y/N barely even noticed the cold, or the wind.

Vaguely he caught the smell of food. Already the campers were having breakfast. At least he hadn't wandered too far away from camp grounds. And the clear sky overhead announced a beautiful day to come. As grim as he felt, he was glad Ethan's laurel would be planted on a sunny day. A small voice in the back of his head told him to hope he would be fine again.

Y/N stopped as he reached the clearing where it would be done. And he saw very clearly as he stood there alone under shade how people who cared about him could all be reduced to nothing. Now that was over; he would not let anybody else stand between him and danger; he must abandon forever the illusion that the shelter of a close friend's presence meant that nothing could hurt him. There was no waking from his nightmare, no comforting whisper in the dark that was safe really. It was all in his imagination; his friend had died, and he was becoming more and more alone.

* * *

Funerals are scarcely mentioned in books, and if they are, it's that something else is happening, more or less secretly. One word is enough, usually, before moving on to something else—no need to trouble the reader too much. A character is dead, so better not to add insult to injury.

Ethan's funeral service didn't follow the camp's custom. No one had ever thought of burning a plant. There was no funeral procession toward the amphitheater, no pyre. Everything happened at the edge of the clearing where the Council of Cloven Elders usually met, in a small group composed of only some year-rounders.

The sky wasn't clouded, and it was surprisingly warm for this time of the year.

Annabeth and the others formed a semi-circle around the space which had been cleared to plant the laurel. Chiron stood on her left; Grover on her right. Jason, Piper, Leo, and all the head counselors—Clarisse, Clovis, Butch, Travis Stoll, Will Solace, Lou Ellen, and Miranda Gardiner—were also present, alongside nature spirits and satyrs. Y/N had just finished planting the laurel and stood to Chiron's left, a piece of paper in his hand. He wanted to say a few words, but Annabeth didn't feel like listening.

The last seven days had seemed a hundred, if not more. Annabeth didn't feel any less sad than she had, her chest tightening around her heart, as if a hand were trying to crush it. Having a plant in front of her was worse than the sight of Ethan's corpse would've been. She thought if she had seen his body, it would've been washed and prepared to look as if Ethan were sleeping. The laurel only made the whole situation more obvious. Ethan was dead, he had vanished forever, and she would never see him again, not even one last time to say goodbye. And she cried, she cried, she cried. . . .

She had met Ethan back when she was only seven years old. Suffice to say that she didn't have a lot of memories from before that moment. Her whole world was crumbling, losing its colors.

At some point in the middle of Y/N's speech, Annabeth looked up at the sky and noticed something strange. Storm clouds were now hovering menacingly over them. The atmosphere became heavy with humidity. Starkly she realized the freezing cold that slowly but surely settled over the clearing. A layer of frost now covered the leaves of the surrounding trees, and the dryads shivered as if they'd been covered by it themselves—which they were, in a sense.