Struck by Lightning

XVI

The armored figure slipped into the small room, quietly closing the door. After taking a deep sigh, the figure slipped off their helmet, revealing a weary female face, her blue eyes framed by sweaty black locks. Tossing the helmet to the side, she moved to the solitary bed in the room, looking at its current occupant. For a few seconds, she stood there beside his head, watching his chest rise and fall with his breath, his expression free of the worries that faced them in waking life.

Still, it had to end, as all good dreams did.

"Percy," Thalia whispered, gently shaking his shoulder. With a snap, he shot up to a sitting position, his eyes wide and alert. Seeing that it was only the armored Thalia that was in the room, he slowly breathed out and unclenched his readied fists.

"Shift's up already?" Percy yawned out, rubbing his eyes as he placed his feet on the ground.

"Mhm," Thalia intoned back, having moved over to the small dresser at the foot of the single bed. She began taking off her armor, pulling each piece off and placing it on the top of the dresser. After that, she grabbed a towel and quickly entered the small en suite bathroom, the shower turning on almost immediately.

By the time Percy finally got to his feet and had rubbed most of the sleep out of his eyes, Thalia had stepped out of the bathroom, a towel tied around her body and her hair still damp from the shower. Silently, Percy slipped past her into the bathroom. When he was finished showering, he quickly dried himself off and turned off the bathroom light, stepping into the darkened room. On the bed, Thalia was already asleep, softly snoring with her blanket half draped on her.

Percy quietly suited up in his armor. Standing beside the bed, he leaned over and gently kissed Thalia on the forehead, before leaving the room and locking the door behind him.

Outside, it was a raucous affair, with monsters from all corners of Greek mythology inhabiting the Princess Andromeda. Between them, the occasional squad of demigods moved about, as well as messengers and other human mercenaries. A motley crew of people, none of whom had friendly countenances.

"Fenrir!" a harsh voice yelled from across the deck. Percy's head snapped to see a tough human mercenary waving him over, his other hand resting on a M16 rifle. The man had a nasty-looking scar running down diagonally across his face, and his chest was accentuated by a bandolier of bullets and grenades. Quickly, Percy ran over, snapping a salute as he reached the man.

"You're late! Why aren't you at your post?" the mercenary yelled, his spittle flying from his mouth, with not a small amount falling onto Percy's armor.

"Uh..."

"What are you still doing here? Get to your post!" the man roared, and Percy quickly ran off, heading to the storage room that he was supposed to guard. It was a mind-numbing job, watching people go to and fro, as well as checking the occasional request form for some supplies.

As he finally made it to his spot, Percy sighed and turned around, back to the storage room door as he adjusted to his usual routine of watching monsters and humans alike walk past while hoping that his knees still had some semblance of blood flow to them.

He and Thalia had lucked out – "Fenrir" and "Fangorn", the two guards that Zoë had eliminated and they had replaced, were fairly new recruits, and as such, were so disconnected from the social circles of the Princess Andromeda that no one batted an eyelash when "Fangorn" turned out to be female. The two simply shared a small cabin on the ship, rotating out for two separate eight hour shifts in a single day. Unfortunately for the both of them, this meant that they rarely had time to interact with one another, usually doing no more than waiting for the other to finish showering or cleaning up and then switching who was in the bed. Five days had already passed like this.