Hey it's me! So I just wanted to say this here cause ik some of yall don't read the author notes.... but basically I wanted to say that ik my time line is messed up bc I did Esme's birthday before I started TTC, and technically it wouldn't have happened yet. So if things are confusing just know that I'm aware and just ignore it. Thanks loves!
★★★
Camp Half Blood in the winter was one of Esmeralda's favorite sights. Snow had gently graced the tops of cabins, the stables and big house, and left frosty tips on the grass and trees. The cabins were decorated with tiny balls of light, sort of like Christmas lights, except they were a bit larger and seemed to be actual balls of fire. Esme loved Christmas, no matter how cold it was outside she always felt warm and fuzzy around the holiday season. However right now she felt queasy and dizzy, and it took everything in her not to dry heave into the nearest bush after that bumpy landing.
Esme felt something tug at her sweater, she looked down to see Nico. "Are you ok Em?" He asked her.
She nodded, "I'm fine." She took a deep breath of fresh air, trying to regain her senses. "Welcome to Camp Half Blood."
Nico looked around, taking it all in. "Woah is that a climbing wall."
"Mhm,"
"Whys there lava pouring down it?"
"For shits and giggles,"
"Can you climb it?"
"Yeah, took me a while to get to the top. And a few burns, but I mastered it eventually. Come on, let's introduce you to Chiron."
"I'll come too," Percy said hastily, ignoring Em's glare. "Zoe you've met Chi-"
"-I know Chiron, let him know we will be in Cabin eight. Hunters follow me."
"Oh! I'll show you the way!" Grover said eagerly.
"We know the way."
"No really, it's no problem. And you never know you might-" Grover tripped over a canoe, still muttering and yapping. When he finally got back up he was at the end of his rant. "-like my old daddy goat used to say, come on!"
Zoe rolled her eyes, but there was obviously no getting rid of Grover. The boy practically had pulsating hearts in his eyes as he lead the hunters away towards the Artemis Cabin. Esmeralda watched as Bianca leaned over and mumble something to her brother. However Nico only scowled and turned his back towards her.
"Take care sweethearts," Apollo waved goodbye, then turned to Esme and Percy. "Watch out for those prophecies you two. And uh, you watch out for this one." He looked at Percy, pointing at a grumpy Esme. "She's got a murderous glint in her eyes."
Percy couldn't deny that, and he couldn't blame Esme for wanting to light him on fire. He just hoped she didn't...
Apollo flashed one more wicked smile before climbing back in his sun bus. He took off in a blaze of heat, blinding them with light. When it was finally clear to see again they found the red Maserati soaring away over the forest.
"Who's Chiron? I don't have his figurine." Asked Nico.
"He's our activities director." Percy said, "he's well... you'll see."
Camp half blood was practically empty. Only a few year rounders were present since demigods really only trained during the summer. As they walked towards the big house, Travis and Connor could be seen picking a lock to the camp store. Ares kids throwing snowballs at each other. And Charles Beckendorf in the forge welding and tinkering as always.
"Hey you guys go on without me. I'll catch up to you in a few minutes." Esme said, looking off towards the forges.
"You're leaving?" Nico asked.
"I'll be back in a few minutes stink, go with Percy and Thalia to the big house." She said, ruffling his hair.
Nico nodded and trotted after them. Percy looked back, watching as Em jogged away. He desperately needed to apologize to her, now just wasn't the right time.
The forges were dimly lit, the majority of light came from the colorful balls of fire handing from the rafters. There was another small yellow light coming from the back of the forge, followed by continuous clang clang sound. Em wandered around towards the back following the sound.
"Charlie?" She ducked under a large machine. "I'm back?" Between the loud sounds and his welding mask Charlie had failed to notice her. "Charlie," Em poked him in the shoulder.
He jumped slightly in shock, dropping his tools and lifting his mask. "Crap, you scared the shit out of me Emmie." He put down his tools and threw an arm around his sister. "How'd it go?"
Esme pressed her lips together in a tight smile, "we lost one of them."
Charlie's eyes widened and Em realized her words were misinterpreted. "No no no, she didn't die. She just joined to hunters."
"Yikes, the other one?"
"Cute little kid, he's off with Percy and Thalia to the big house." She said.
Charlie nodded and turned his latest project over in his hands, inspecting his welding job. "So... Percy. How's he doing?"
Esme rolled her eyes, "he's fine." She said shortly.
Charlie raised his hands in defense, "just asking. And just trying to look out for you too."
Esmeralda rested her elbows on the table propping her head up in her hands. "Yeah well, you don't have to worry about him."
Charlie looked at Esme, noticing her wandering eyes. The last few months she'd been so excited to finally see him again, now she looked uninterested at the mention of his name. "Uh oh, what happened?"
She shook her head, "it's nothing..."
Charlie didn't budge, he just crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, waiting for her to start talking. Esme sighed knowing he'd won, "I was offered a chance to join the Hunters of Artemis and he got really controlling and said that I couldn't join because of-" she made air quotes with her fingers, "-the prophecy."
"Do you want to join?"
"Huh?"
"The hunters."
"Pft- no. I was never going to, I couldn't leave you or camp or... I just- agh!" She grabbed her sword, stabbing it into the closest wooden post. "It got me so mad when he said I couldn't join. Like, what's that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think it means?" Charlie asked, pulling the weapon out of the wall. He shifted towards a sanding machine and began gently filling the edge of the blade.
"That he's selfish." She said blatantly.
He laughed quietly, shaking his head slightly.
"What?"
"Emmie did you even think for a minute that maybe he didn't want you to join the hunters because he didn't want you to leave?" He removed her sword from the sander and began polishing it with a cloth. "Sometimes people don't think before they say things. And the way they intended their message to be read gets interpreted differently."
Esmeralda hadn't considered that. But the thought of Percy not wanting her to leave made that weird fluttery feeling return. "When did you become so smart?"
"I've always been smart you just don't fuckin' listen." He smiled, handing back her sword.
"Hey," she said taking the weapon. "You may have the brains of the family but I have a sword... so-."
Charlie rolled his eyes, "get outta her Emmie."
"Sir, yes sir." She teased as she skipped out of the forge, Charlie laughing behind her as she left.
"Love you!" He yelled.
"Love you too!" She yelled back, running towards the big house. When she arrived on the front porch she was met with a heated argument between Percy, Thalia, Mr. D and Chiron.
"... there is a possibility that's this Annie girl is simply dead." Said Mr. D.
Esme's heart stopped, there's no way they were just going to assume Annabeth was dead.
"Annabeth may be alive." Chiron pointed out.
"Exactly, which is why we need to be out there searching for her." Thalia exclaimed.
Esmeralda stepped up the stairs, knocking on a support beam to announce herself.
"Ah Esmeralda." Chiron looked pleased to see her in one piece. "Glad you could join us."
She offered a small smile. "Um, respectfully Mr. D, Annabeth is alive." She said quietly.
"And how exactly could you have known this?"
"I-I can feel it, it's like this ringing in my ears. I get it whenever someone near has passed, I never felt a ringing when Annabeth fell. So she's got to be out there somewhere."
"Hmm," was all Mr. D could say."
Em raised a brow, "that's all? Hmm?" She wanted to strangle him with her hands for that response.
"Yes well in the case that Annie bell is still alive, I'm afraid she will have to smart enough to escape on her own."
"What!" She cried. "How can you say that?"
"Well there's no telling for sure if your little death senses are correct so-"
Percy stood up abruptly, Chiron sent him a warning glare but he stubbornly ignored it. "I'm sorry, what?" He glared at Mr. D. Esme half expected him to start arguing about saving Annabeth, however Percy had a completely different idea in mind.
"I beg your pardon?" Mr. D asked, slightly appalled.
"A daughter of Hades, just told you that she knows Annabeth is alive. If there is anyone in this camp who's qualified to say that, it's Esme. And I know, you're not going to sit here and doubt one of your most powerful demigods."
No one spoke, Esme especially. She thought Dionysus would've turned him into a Dolphin by now, but the god just stared with a harsh on his face.
Percy wasn't finished. His face was flushed with rage and his fists balled at his sides. "You're glad to loose another camper." He continued. "How would you like it if we all disappeared, huh?"
"You have a point," Mr. D yawned.
"Yeah, ya know just because you were sent here as a punishment doesn't mean you have to be a lazy jerk. Maybe you could try helping out a little bit."
Silence fell upon them once more. Mr. D opened his mouth to say something, most likely a curse that would turn Percy into dust. But Nico and Grover came bursting into the room, Nico chatting it up as always.
"Em your back!" Nico exclaimed, "this place is awesome!" Nico beamed at Chiron, "you're a centaur!"
Chiron managed to smile, "Yes Mr. Di Angelo, though I prefer to stay in my wheal chair for er, first interactions."
Nico looked at Mr. D, "and woah, you're the wine dude."
"The wine dude?"
"Dionysus right? Oh wow, I've got your figuring and everything." Nico's brown eyes were wide with excitement.
"My figurine?"
"Yeah from my game, Mythomagic. You've only got like five hundred attack points so everybody thinks you're the lamest, but I think your powers are sweet."
"Ah well..." Mr. D seemed stumped, "that's gratifying."
Nico smiled, not knowing that his little burst of excitement had just saved Percy from being toasted.
"Percy, take Esmeralda and Thalia down to the cabins, inform the campers we will be playing capture the flag tomorrow evening."
"Capture the flag?" Esme didn't mean to question Chiron's judgment, but this was absurd. They should be setting up a search party for Annabeth, not playing war games.
"It's tradition, a friendly match whenever the hunters visit."
"But-"
"Run along,"
Esme frowned, "this is a joke." She mumbled and turned to walk down the stairs, Percy and Thalia following closely behind her before Mr. D could remember he wanted to kill Percy.
The three of them trudged towards the cabins in defeat. "You've already got Ares on your bad side Percy. Do you really want another immortal enemy?" Thalia scolded.
"I'm sorry I know, I know." Percy said, "I just... it's so unfair."
They stopped by the armory, Thalia looked out towards half-blood hill where her tree still stood. "Yeah well, a lot of things are unfair."
Percy looked at Esme, she was busy playing with the ends of her hair, avoiding the both of them. He could tell she was upset and agitated, but he wasn't sure if he had the right to comfort her in the moment. Thankfully Thalia stepped in for him.
"We'll find Annabeth. She's strong, she'll be ok." Thalia said.
She took a shaken breath, "it's not that it's just, if Luke gets ahold of her..." her eyes watered slightly and she looked back down to avoid Thalia's strong gaze. "He's got no control Thalia. If he gets ahold of her there's no telling what he'll do to her."
"It's ok," Thalia tried to calm her down. "We're going to get her back, I promise."
Em nodded, "I just hope it's soon."
Over by the basket ball courts, a few hunters were shooting hoops. However one hunter in particular had gotten herself into a heated argument with a son of Ares. The guy had his hand on his sword and the hunter looked just about ready to grab her bow.
"I should go and break that up." Thalia said, "you guys go tell everyone about capture the flag. And Percy, you should be team captain."
"Oh, uh. I was actually going to say you should be captain."
"We can, uh, co-Captain or something."
Esme looked back and forth between the two, sensing an issue would come out of this, however she kept her mouth shut. Co-captains only worked with two people, and they were Annabeth and Esmeralda. There had been many attempts in the past from other campers, but it always ended in disaster. Esme and Annabeth worked well together, one had the brains and the other had, well... the sword. Annabeth would come up with the plan, and Esme put it into action. Percy and Thalia did not seem like the type to get along, but it looked like they were going to have to find that out the hard way.
Dinner that day was a drag. Esme sat with Nico at the Hermes table, along with Travis, Conor, and a few others. She had to constantly kick the brothers in the shins as they tried to persuade Nico that poker was better than Mythomagic.
Percy and Thalia both sat alone at their tables, but at least they had tables. It seemed kind of pathetic to make forbidden children sit by themselves, there were only a pinch of them to begin with. The Ares table had only a few kids after Clarisse had been sent away on a top secret quest, she'd been gone for months already. Hephaestus and Aphrodite were also occupied with only a few. The only table that seemed alive was Artemis. The hunters laughed and ate while others arm wrestled with one another.
Esme scooted her food around her plate. She'd separated the carrots and peas from her rice, pushing each food to a different corner of her plate. She couldn't stop thinking about Annabeth. And the idea of Luke getting to her only made it worse.
Someone tugged at her sleeve and she turned to the left to see who. Nico looked up at her, ready to ask another one of her us questions.
"Yes Nico?" She asked.
"If your dad is Hades, why are you sitting with Hermes' kids."
"Hades doesn't have a table." She explained, "he doesn't have a cabin either."
"Why don't they build one."
She could've told him how Hades wasn't respected as much and that would've probably led him to ask more questions. So instead she just lied, "I've been asking myself that since the day I got claimed."
"Ohh what was that like?" Jesus did this kid ever run out of questions?
Esme looked back down at her food. "Um, not as glorious as you think. It's fun and all when you're a child of Athena, or Apollo. But when your dad is someone who's not supposed to have any children, people see you as a mistake, or a threat. It took me years to gain people's trust and respect again. Some still don't like me, I'm ok with that though. I have..."
She trailed off. She didn't have Annabeth right now. She wasn't sure what her and Percy were dealing with at the moment and she certainly didn't have Luke.
"You have me." Nico said, "I respect you. And I think you're the coolest demigod ever." He beamed.
A smile appeared on Em's face, a real one. "Thanks stink." She ruffled his dark hair. "I think you're pretty cool too."
Everyone called it a night early, leaving dinner and retreating to their cabins. Lucky for Nico the Hermes cabin was pretty empty, so he received the luxury of a bed.
"Em?" Nico asked quietly. He was staring at the ceiling above his bunk, thoughts running wildly through his little brain.
"Yeah?" Esme whispered.
"Do dangerous things like that happen a lot. Like, with Annabeth?"
Esme frowned slightly, she could sense a tiny bit of fear in his voice. "Sometimes, yeah."
"Are you scared?"
She was terrified. She'd been terrified since the moment she crawled out the window and started running.
"No. And neither should you, because you're going to learn to protect yourself here at camp. That's why we're here Nico, we train to survive."
"Will you help me?"
"Course I will, cool kids look out for each other after all." She grinned.
Nico seemed satisfied with that answer and let out a little sigh. "Good night, Em."
"Night Nico."
Em fell asleep easily, that was good news. The bad news was the dream that came along with her slumber.
Annabeth was on a dark hillside, shrouded in fog. It almost seemed like the Underworld, because Em immediately saw the resemblance and I couldn't see the sky above—just a close, heavy darkness, as if she were in a cave.
Annabeth struggled up the hill. Old broken Greek columns of black marble were scattered around, as though something had blasted a huge building to rums.
"Thorn!" Annabeth cried. "Where are you? Why did you bring me here?" She scrambled over a section of broken wall and came to the crest of the hill. She gasped. There was Luke. And he was in pain. He was crumpled on the rocky ground, trying to rise. The blackness seemed to be thicker around him, fog swirling hungrily. His clothes were in tatters and his face was scratched and drenched with sweat.
"Annabeth!" he called. "Help me! Please!"
She ran forward.
Esmeralda tried to cry out: He's a traitor!Don't trust him! But her voice didn't work in the dream.
Annabeth had tears in her eyes. She reached down like she wanted to touch Luke's face, but at the last second she hesitated.
"What happened?" she asked.
"They left me here," Luke groaned. "Please. It's killing me."
Em couldn't see what was wrong with him. He seemed to be struggling against some invisible curse, as though the fog were squeezing him to death.
"Why should I trust you?" Annabeth asked. Her voice was filled with hurt.
"You shouldn't," Luke said. "I've been terrible to you. But if you don't help me, I'll die."
Let him die, Em wanted to scream. Luke had abused her and tried to kill her and her friends. He didn't deserve anything from Annabeth.
Then the darkness above Luke began to crumble, like a cavern roof in an earthquake. Huge chunks of black rock began falling. Annabeth rushed in just as a crack appeared, and the whole ceiling dropped. She held it somehow—tons of rock. She kept it from collapsing on her and Luke just with her own strength. It was impossible. She shouldn't have been able to do that.
Luke rolled free, gasping. "Thanks," he managed.
"Help me hold it," Annabeth groaned.
Luke caught his breath. His face was covered in grime and sweat. He rose unsteadily.
"I knew I could count on you." He began to walk away as the trembling blackness threatened to crush Annabeth.
"HELP ME!" she pleaded.
"Oh, don't worry," Luke said. "Your help is on the way. It's all part of the plan. In the meantime, try not to die."
The ceiling of darkness began to crumble again, pushing Annabeth against the ground.
Esmeralda shot up in her bed, cold sweat collecting on her forehead. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her hoodie and tried to catch her breath quietly. She knew it was only a dream, but demigod dreams were tricky. And she knew for a fact Annabeth was in trouble, and it was Luke's doing.
Em tried to relax, but her heart rate seemed to increase the more she thought about it. She suddenly found it hard to breathe, and tears began to swell in her eyes. She looked at her clock, it was just after midnight.
Fuck it.
Esme ripped off her blanket and quickly made her way out of the cabin. Once she was outside she bolted across the camp towards cabin three. But just as she was about to knock, the door swung open on its own.
Percy stood in the door way in shock, not having expected her to be there. He seemed to be in the same state of distress as Esme.
"Did you see her too?" He asked, assuming they had the same dream.
Esme was still struggling to catch her breath, especially after running. All she could do was nod. She bit her lip, trying to hold herself together. However her emotions won, as soon as one tear fell she lost control.
Esme collapsed into him and Percy immediately wrapped his arms around her as if he was programmed to do so. She didn't care if she was still mad at him. In the moment she just wanted to feel his arms around her.
Percy held her like his life depended on it. "It's ok, we're gonna find her." He whispered.
Em looked up at him, "Luke has her Percy." She cried, "he doesn't care about her, he'll kill her."
"Shh," he cupped her face in his hands, wiping her tears away with his thumb. "It's gonna be ok, Esmeralda. I promise, we're going to get Annabeth back."
Esme tried her best to believe him and relax. But until she knew Annabeth was safe she'd be unable to. She choked back another sob and hid her face in his chest. Percy kept his grip on her till her breathing slowed down.
"Thank you," she whispered, wiping the rest of her tears with her sleeve.
Percy took a deep breath, "Esme, I'm so sorry."
Em looked up at him as his tone changed.
"I shouldn't have said those things to you." He began to rant. "I was stupid and selfish and I was scared you'd leave me but you should be able to join the hunters if you want and-"
Esme had to silence him but pressing a finger to his lips, "I wasn't going to join the hunters Seaweed brain."
Percy let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, "you weren't?"
She shook her head.
"Are you still... do you still hate me?"
"Percy I could never hate you."
As she said it all of Percy's tension melted away. She didn't hate him.
"We really need to stop arguing every time we see each other." Esme pointed out.
"What fun would that be?"
She smiled and shook her head slightly. "Do you think I could stay here?"
Percy nodded a smiled, "you can stay with me as long as you'd like, princess."
4005 Words
Authors note
I told you guys I had cute moments prepared. I'm kidding this was completely on the spot and not at all what I was originally planning but I really like it and I think this chapters' so cute. Also the official ship name is Esmercy argue either the wall! Thoughts?
- Your Mystery Girl ★