chapter ten!
「 two months before 」
❝ come on, you have to have lotion or something—you're a teenage boy „
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THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE PROPHECY HIT ALASKA like a ton of bricks when she woke up in the morning. She hadn't been having any dreams lately, but she was still very uneasy, especially around Luke—which she felt bad about, but she couldn't help it.
She knew she had to tell Chiron even if that meant he would keep extreme tabs on Luke and Luke would hate her forever—she was doing the right thing. It was for Luke's good.
She was standing on top of the hill, saying goodbyes to Annabeth, Percy, and Grover (who were about to go on their quest) whilst waiting to talk to Chiron alone, when Luke ran up the hill carrying his winged shoes.
"Hey," he panted. "Glad I caught you."
Percy looked at him with curiosity whereas Annabeth was blushing (and trying to hide it—though not very well) like she always did around Luke.
"Just wanted to say good luck, and I thought ... um, maybe you could use these," Luke said, handing Percy the sneakers.
Percy subtly examined the pair of shoes, before Luke said, "Maia!" and its wings sprouted, startling Percy and causing him to drop the shoes.
Its wings flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.
"Awesome!" Grover said.
Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days ..." he trailed off, exchanging a quick look with Alaska before his expression saddened.
"Hey man," Percy said, "thanks."
"Listen, Percy ..." Luke started uncomfortably, "a lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"
They shook hands, Luke patted Grover on the head between his horns, and he hugged Annabeth goodbye. When he pulled away, Annabeth looked like she might faint and Luke turned to Alaska with raised brows.
"You ready for training?" he asked.
Alaska hesitated—she remembered she had offered to train at the climbing wall with Luke that day, but guess she must've forgotten when she was too preoccupied thinking about the prophecy and how she was supposed to tell Chiron she snuck into the attic.
She looked back at Chiron, hoping he would get the message that she needed to talk to him urgently, but silent facial expressions could only go so far and he didn't seem to understand.
"Yeah, sure," she said, feigning enthusiasm.
He interpreted the feigned enthusiasm as nerves and just chuckled. "You always make it to the top; you'll be fine."
"True, I'm just worried about you."
"If I were you, I'd be more worried about keeping up with me."
She playfully scoffed. "Yeah, sure. One minute."
Alaska turned back to face the three kids in front of her and hugged Annabeth before patting the two boys on the shoulders. "Good luck guys, especially with Hades," she said, lowering her voice. She was never sure when she should say the names of gods, so she was always careful about that. "He's pretty intimidating, but I know you guys can do it."
"Thanks," they said nervously.
The two older teens walked down the hill to the climbing wall. There were a few other campers there; some in the process of climbing and a couple at the top, waiting for the others to meet them there.
I'll just tell Chiron later, she thought, during free time.
"Race to the top?" he said.
She gave him an amused look. "You say that every time and I always win."
"Yeah, and I'm gonna keep saying that until I win."
"Okay," she said with a shrug.
They made their way near the base and waited for the next onslaught of pouring lava and boulders to finish pouring from the top. Most of the climbing campers made it to the top on time, whereas one of them wasn't quite fast enough, twisting and swinging to avoid dying.
Alaska and Luke both grabbed a separate rope as soon as the lava finished pouring and started making their way to the top.
She lacked upper body strength, but somehow, she was good at the climbing wall. It felt easy for her and it barely felt like work; she felt like she was being lifted by some force rather than actually pulling herself up via her arms.
She easily made it to the top, pulling herself to the edge of the wall and rubbing her hands on her legs, the rope leaving prints in her hands.
Luke wasn't too far behind, although he seemed to lose his grip a little. She watched as he continued climbing, shaking his head and playfully rolling his eyes when he looked at her already at the top.
As soon as Alaska felt the wall clashing with the other wall, she stood steady at the top, sucking in a breath as she noticed that Luke was still climbing. Lava and rocks poured down and he narrowly twisted and swung around to avoid it. He looked safe from the lava from where she was standing, but the wince on his face as he pulled himself to the top said otherwise.
He held out his right arm and inspected the redness covering a large portion of his forearm. Alaska winced too at the sight of the fresh burn and he reached out his left hand, poking it a little, before wincing in pain even more.
"Obviously don't touch it," she said, smacking his hand away with a chuckle.
"I know, but it's just ... ugh," he said.
She furrowed her eyebrows and she looked at his wound again. "We'll go back down and go to the infirmary."
He nodded and the two grabbed back onto the ropes, descending the wall significantly faster than they had come up. Luke managed to reach the ground faster, either from motivation to get away from the lava or since Alaska didn't feel the same force when going back to the ground; probably both.
They made their way to the infirmary and were surprised to find that no one was there.
"Where is everyone?" Luke asked, the two wandering around the room.
Alaska shrugged before finding a note. "Out on the archery fields if needed, Lee," she read aloud. "You want me to go get him?"
He shrugged and sat down on one of the empty cots. "I'll be fine; it's just a burn. Worst case scenario, I'll just have a scar."
"Or you get an infection and get gangrene and your arm has to be removed," she said, getting a minuscule square of ambrosia.
"I'm not gonna get gangrene," he said with a playful scoff. "Besides, we can just get one of the Apollo kids to fix that."
"Right," she said, handing him the ambrosia square.
He popped it into his mouth while she looked around the small table of medical equipment. There wasn't much mortal medical equipment since most demigods could just be fixed up with some ambrosia or nectar and Apollo healing magic.
She managed to find a cloth and some gauze. She ran the cloth under cool water before walking back over to the cot that Luke was sitting on. He propped it on the table next to the bed and she gently pressed the wet towel onto the wound.
A hiss escaped his lips from the pain and she looked at him cautiously, ready to remove the cloth in case of too much discomfort.
"I don't see why we can't just get Lee. I mean if you can just get rid of the scar and wound, why don't you?"
"I dunno, I like having the scars," he said.
She looked at him in amusement and shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips. "You're such a dork."
"What?" he asked, feigning offense.
"You think you're so cool with your scars."
He shrugged. "You're the one that finds me cool because of them. I thought they just looked like ... I don't know; I like how they make me look more flawed—human. But hey, you're the one who thinks I look cool."
"Technically, I never said I thought you looked cool."
"You didn't have to say it," he said. "There's this thing called facial expressions and body language."
"Okay," she said with a small scoff, her smile expanding.
"See! I'm right!" he said smiling, pointing to her now laughing face.
She used her free hand to cover her mouth to hide her laugh and accidentally pressed harder into his arm, causing him to hiss out in pain again.
"Sorry," she said, clearing her throat and turning her attention back to the towel.
"It's okay," he said. "I mean, you can admit they look cool though. They're like my battle scars."
"Ah, yes. The great battle of Camp Half-Blood's climbing wall."
"It was a great battle. Plus, the scar on my face is more noticeable, and it has a cooler story."
"You don't even like telling that story," she said.
He shrugged with a lazy smile. "To some people, it may make me seem heroic. Plus, it's a cool story that makes me seem super cool."
"I'm sure mortal girls are so impressed when you tell them you fought—and lost to, by the way—a dragon."
"Hey, don't be jealous," he said, regretting the words as soon as he said them.
Alaska chewed on her lip awkwardly and cleared her throat. "Do you even talk to mortal girls? You never get out of camp."
"I meant jealous of me fighting the dragon," he said and Alaska nodded in understanding. "You could have fought the dragon, too."
"I was trapped," she said.
It was weird how just a few words could create a hiccup in their conversations before they returned right back to normal. After that night, they never really talked too much about their kiss, or even the fact that Alaska had died.
She was happy and comfortable with the fact that they could just act like that night never existed and pick up where they were before.
Of course, sometimes her mind wandered back to the feeling of his lips on hers, her hands in his hair, and the way his fingers pressed lightly into her waist, but it had been a year. He had probably gotten over it and so should she.
"There you go again, making excuses," he said, shaking his head with fake disappointment.
"I was in a literal trap. You think I would've just let you lose to a dragon by yourself?" she asked.
Not really waiting for a response, she took the cool towel off his arm and threw it into the sink before looking back around the room. Giving up, she turned back to Luke.
"You have any ointment, or lotion, or anything I can use on this?" she asked.
"I stay year-round, where would I get ointment or lotion from?"
She shrugged. "I'm sure you have your ways. Come on, you have to have lotion or something—you're a teenage boy."
"And you're a teenage girl."
"Yeah, but you ... never mind. Stay here, I'm gonna go find something."
She immediately went to the Aphrodite cabin and after lots of asking, someone finally offered her some sort of aloe vera gel that they used whenever they got sunburned.
When she went back to the infirmary, Luke was still sitting there, looking bored and playing with the beads on his necklace. She set the aloe vera down beside him and waited as he finished applying it over his burn wound.
He fanned the thin layer of ointment first before she started wrapping his forearm in gauze bandaging. As soon as she finished wrapping it and was clipping it in place, his eyes flashing gold seemed to be the only thing she could focus on before a wave of the same dark navy color fogged up the room.
Instead of passing out and having a dream, she saw flashes and short moments of who knows what. She saw snippets of the Olympus throne room, the pit she was standing at in her dreams, Hades' throne room, and other places she couldn't quite pinpoint.
The strong metallic smell and taste of blood pulled her back into the room she was presently in. She took a few steps back, balancing herself and trying to avoid contact with Luke.
"Everything okay?" he asked with a nervous laugh.
"Uh, yeah," she said. She hesitantly cleared her throat, tightened her ponytail, and started cleaning up the stuff they had used.
She definitely needed to talk to Chiron soon.
"You look like you saw a ghost," he said.
"I must've stood up too fast or something."
He furrowed his eyebrows. "You never sat down."
"I should return that," she said, pointing to the bottle of aloe vera gel, ignoring his last statement.
"I'm sure they won't miss it that much," he said, swiping it with his left hand before she could grab it.
"You can't just steal their stuff," Alaska said with a disappointed sigh.
"I'm sure they have a whole arsenal of this stuff," he said. "Plus, I'm pretty sure I need it more than them."
"Yeah, well I was the one that asked for it and now they're gonna think I never returned it."
"Did you tell them when you were gonna give it back?"
She sighed. "No, but you can't just—"
"Then you're fine," he said dismissively and she rolled her eyes. "I'll take the blame if they really care about it that much, but I'm sure they don't."
He stood from his seat on the cot and started making his way out of the room, the stolen ointment in hand. Alaska was zoning out, thinking about the flashing images in her head when Luke's voice pulled her back.
"You coming?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"Yeah," she said. She turned to look back at him and her breath hitched when she saw his eyes were the same gold color as before and his aura was back to the darker haze that smelled of blood.
Looking at the haze too long seemed to make it the only thing she could focus on—it clouded her mind and she could taste blood on her lips.
The deep voice from her dream earlier (from Luke's perspective) started to speak, though she couldn't figure out what it was going to say since she was pulled out of the trance.
"Hello? Earth to Alaska?" Luke said, humor in his voice laced with a morsel of worry.
She blinked and furrowed her eyebrows, looking at the familiar boy in front of her; the same purple aura and clear blue eyes she had always known.
"Is everything okay with you? You seem kind of ... out of it lately," he said.
"Uh, yeah. Everything's fine," she said, rubbing her forehead and walking over to him, the two leaving the pretty much empty infirmary.
"Okay," he said doubtfully, not pressing her anymore though. "You know you can always talk to me, right?"
"Yeah," she sighed. "And the same for you too."
"I know," he said.
Maybe if she hadn't known him and all his little tells for so long, she wouldn't have caught the barely-there hesitation in his voice before he answered and how his small smile didn't seem quite as genuine as it normally would. But she did know him well—maybe too well for her liking for what would be coming.
They were best friends and they always knew they could talk to each other about anything; anything and everything except this. Luke couldn't tell Alaska how exactly she was brought back to life and Alaska couldn't tell him that she already knew.
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author's note!
alaska's like really dumb right now for not telling chiron immediately, but she's gonna get even dumber as the plot progresses; just you wait
also, idk how to treat burn wounds. I looked it up a little, but I was scared there would be actual pictures of burn wounds (and I'm pretty squeamish), so I scoured the internet carefully and minimally