Of Shocks and Seashells

Of Dreams and Straightjackets

Disclaimer: Don't own PJO...wish I did...blah blah blah sheep blah blah blah glitter blah blah blah...

After Thalia had been turned into a tree, time had slowed down for her, like she was a fly trapped in amber, fighting to get out. She has no idea she was a tree. Her subconscious had been detached from her body. Sure, she could still hear snatches of conversation from the outside, but she heard them and forgot them as soon as the words reached her ears. They didn't process, and they didn't make it into her memory. She remembered the dreams, though. Oh, the dreams. They were wild, fantastic, fear-inducing...beyond anything you could imagine.

The years she had spent as a pine tree had been spent of her seeing dream after dream, one after another, on and on. Some were about Jason. Others were about Luke, Annabeth, and Grover. And yet...others were about people she didn't know, or things she didn't understand. One had stood out in particular.

Her dream had started out simple enough: she was forced to take a standardized test while wearing a straitjacket. And it was white. She really hated the color white.

All the other kids had finished and were going out to recess while she had been struggling to pick up her pencil, writhing and squirming in her straitjacket, trying desperately to free herself from it.

Come one, Percy. You're not stupid, are you? Pick up your pencil. Percy? Her name was Thalia, not Percy. Who the Hades was Percy?

Thalia, in her dream, looked over at the next desk, and saw the boy at the desk was doing the same. He was also wearing a white straitjacket, but she could see a bit of an orange t-shirt peeking out from under it. He had sea green eyes, which, right then, were looking both surprised ad frustrated, and a mess of shaggy, floppy jet black hair. He must be Percy, Thalia realized. He smelled like sea salt.

Thalia kept struggling against her straitjacket, annoyed that the boy was just sitting there like an idiot, clearly dumbfounded and making no effort to escape. This had really infuriated Thalia, and she glared at him before snapping, Well, Seaweed Brain? One of us has to get out of here. Seaweed Brain? Now that was a really weird insult...

The boy, Percy, suddenly began to struggle with his own straitjacket, as though awakened from a deep sleep by Thalia's words, and she could see that he was beginning to get frustrated as well.

What's your name? Thalia has asked in her dream.

I am Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon, they boy had said. And you're Thalia, Daughter of Zeus. You're a tree.

What an odd thing to say...