ੈ｡ﾟ  ･ׂׂ   ✩  RED ⌇˚ɞ act i . . .
change in perspective               

· 。ﾟ *. 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑  SIX ,
───── ❛ can they see
right through me? ❜

      THAT NIGHT WAS absolutely miserable. They'd set up camp in a clearing in the woods that was littered with trash that varied from squashed cans to cigarette buds. The air was cold, the only thing keeping them from freezing being stolen blankets from Medusa's lair. 

They didn't dare to light a fire out of fear of attracting yet another monster to their exhausted forms, so they opted for circling together in the darkness of the night.

Annabeth was curled up under a blanket, her head rested on the makeshift pillow that was her hands. Soft snores fell from her lips as exhaustion kicked in and took her over instantly.

Percy, who'd volunteered to take the first shift at keeping watch leaned against a tree and twirled Riptide between his fingers, a blanket across his lap as he listening as Grover ( who was supposed to be asleep ) told him the tale of Pan, the god of the wild. He listened intently to the explanation of his friend's grandest life goal— to find the great Pan so that he may restore nature to its natural beauty.

Laurie should've been asleep as well, but she wasn't. She lied on the ground to the left of Percy, a small cushion manufactured out of daisies underneath her head. Her back was turned to the boys as they spoke, believing they were the only two awake. Her eyes were closed but that didn't make the darkness any less terrifying to her, nor did it bring sleep any faster.

Her entire body froze up when the boys' conversation shifted from Pan to Annabeth. She felt a small pin strike her heart when Grover told Percy not to be so hard on Annabeth because she'd had a hard life and the boy's response was, "What's Laurie's excuse then?"

She wanted to sit bolt upright and slap a hand over Grover's mouth when he let slip that she'd gone on a quest a year ago, one that didn't end the way it should've.

Their conversation then shifted again, to the main focus of their journey: the quest.

Grover told Percy about how odd he, Annabeth, and Laurie had found the Fury's behaviors back on the bus and even back at Yancy Academy, how they almost seemed like they wanted information out of Percy instead of his head.

Laurie found her interest at its pique when Percy admitted, "I'm not doing this to help my father. He doesn't care about me and I don't care about him. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring my mom back."

"Look Percy, I'm not as smart as Annabeth or confident as Laurie and I'm definitely not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad's alive. You feel good that he claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you've done." Grover examined.

Percy felt as if he had become translucent so that his friend could see straight through him and read everything inside of him. Of course, he wasn't going to admit any of that.

"Well satyr emotions must work different than human emotions because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks." The boy insisted, shaking his head.

Grover tucked his feet up on the branch he was lied out on. "Okay, Percy. Whatever." He mumbled, a yawn following that diffused into a tired bleat.

"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about anyways. We barely got out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west." Percy sighed, looking down at his lap in the darkness, still fumbling with his pen.

When no answer came to him, he looked up, finding Grover was asleep on his tree branch, his arm dangling off of it and in the night's air. The boy sighed and let his head knock against the tree trunk he was leaning on, eyes staring up at the stars as if they'd solve all of his problems.

He almost jumped out of his skin when a voice asked, "Is he asleep?"

Percy's head snapped back down to ground level, finding Laurie propped up with her elbows behind her and looking at him with piercing brown eyes.

"Jeez, don't do that . . ." He muttered, his heightened heart beat slowing back down after the scare. Laurie didn't even apologize for the small chuckle that slipped through at the boy's expense.

"You're supposed to be sleeping." Percy grumbled to her.

"Yeah, well you're supposed to be an idiot, yet I just heard you pretty much decipher what happened on G's first assignment." She responded, sitting up fully and pulling her knees up to her chest.

"You . . . You heard all that? What we were saying?" Percy asked, scratching the back of his neck nervously. His stomach started sinking as he remembered the remark he made about her. "You weren't asleep that whole time?"

"No, actually I was, I'm just a really good guesser." Laurie remarked sarcastically, pulling a face that he couldn't see. Then she scoffed, "Of course I wasn't asleep, dumbass. I've never been good at sleeping on quests."

The air grew uncomfortably silent for a moment as Laurie waited for the inevitable to happen, which would be Percy asking about her past quest. She knew him just enough to know that something as intriguing as that was just too much for him to leave to the imagination.

With his curiosity getting the better of him, Percy gave into his thoughts and opened his mouth. "Why didn't you mention anything about going on a quest before?" He asked. "Heck, you should be the one leading, not me."

A bitter chuckle followed his last words, trying and failing to cover up how much part of him wished she was in charge. They hadn't even made it a day without everything going south; Percy figured that maybe if Laurie had been leading they'd be halfway to California by now.

"Yeah, right." The girl scoffed, taking him by slight surprise. Percy rethought what he had just said, making sure there wasn't an insult that he let slip through. There wasn't, so why did she already seem so bent out of shape?

"I don't think I'm ever going to be put in charge of a quest again." She admitted, her voice softer than it was before, her eyes far away from his as she gazed up at the moon.

"Why's that?" The boy asked her. Man, was he getting brave. He knew the topic had to be sensitive based on the way everyone had tiptoed around it whenever something even slightly related was mentioned, and something told him it had something to do with Annabeth and Laurie's argument from earlier.

The girl shifted uncomfortably in her spot, debating with herself whether or not she should even tell him anything. Taking a deep breath, she said, "It just . . . didn't end how it was supposed to."

How informative, Percy thought.

"That's why Chiron thought it'd be best if I joined this quest. Said it'd help get me back on some of the gods' good sides." She added after a beat of silence hit them. She was afraid that if she allowed silence to hang over them for too long, he'd end up thinking up a question that meant she'd actually have to explain what happened.

And that was something she just wasn't ready for. It'd been a year, but still, she couldn't do it. Would she ever be able to?

She found that she wasn't a fan of this sudden transparency with Percy. It was like opening up a window into herself that he could see right through, and she didn't want him to. She didn't want anyone to. Could everyone see through her?

Luckily, she didn't have to ponder the thought long thanks to Percy's next question. "I'm probably going to regret asking this, but what gods are you on the bad side of?" He asked.

Again came the bitter chuckle that she was trying so hard to hide behind.

"Let's just say that I'm not Apollo's favorite demigod. Or Aphrodite's." She told him, grateful that he couldn't see her face, for her expression probably would've betrayed her and shown how serious the fact was. "Oh, and Hades. But he's kinda hated me ever since I was born, so . . ."

"I guess that makes sense, considering the whole . . daughter of his wife thing." The boy responded. The minute the words left his mouth he wished he could suck them back in and try again, maybe say something that didn't sound as stupid.

"You should get some sleep, kelp head." She sighed, wrapping her arms around her legs and hugging them closer to her. She didn't like how friendly the atmosphere was growing; it was taking everything in her not to blurt out a remark that'd be very unappreciated by Percy, probably putting him in a worse mood than he was in earlier.

The boy opened his mouth to protest— that she could even see in the dark— but she quickly beat him to it. "Don't even try to argue. I wouldn't be asleep for hours anyways, it's not like I'll be losing any sleep." She insisted.

In truth, it wasn't even the fact that she couldn't sleep, but that she didn't want to. For the past year, each night was filled with painful reminders of her failure. So she chose to not sleep when she didn't have to, so that the dreams could only chase fruitlessly and not catch her.

Fighting the urge to do exactly what she said not to and argue, Percy gave in. He mumbled a goodnight, which was interrupted by a yawn that only proved the girl's point of him needing sleep.

In minutes, he was asleep against the tree's trunk, leaving Laurie alone in a dangerous place: alone with her thoughts and no company but the moon.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

     WHEN SLEEP FINALLY came, Laurie was not expecting that when she woke up she'd find herself having a conversation with a bright pink poodle.

She found it impossible to complain about though, for Gladiola the talking pink poodle had been the biggest saving grace on the quest so far and was the reason they now found themselves on a train ride west.

Annabeth and Laurie sat beside each other on one bench, the brunette stuffed up against the window thanks to the small space. Grover and Percy sat opposite them, Grover bleating out soft snores as his sneakers and false feet almost slipped off of his hooves. Thankfully, Annabeth caught them and shoved them back in place before they received any odd looks from fellow passengers.

Percy had long since nodded off, drool slipping down his cheek as he muttered incoherent sentences in his sleep.

The two girls sat in an awkward silence as they tried to find way to preoccupy themselves, whether it be gazing out the window at a whole lot of nothing or attempting to read a magazine that'd been misplaced, not that Annabeth was complaining.

Though after the words in front of her continuously looked like nothing but a can of alphabet soup swirling around the page, the blonde flipped it shut as she internally argued with herself.

Should she apologize? It was just the two of them, it wasn't like anyone else would hear anyways. Then again, was she really that out of line? Sure, she saw a cheap shot and she took it, but Laurie had done the exact same.

Heaving a sigh and swallowing her stupid pride, Annabeth opened her mouth to speak. "Hey, Laurie?" She asked, her voice a soft whisper so that it wouldn't wake either of the boys and give them an audience for their discussion.

Her eyes flitted over to look at the girl she spoke to, only to find that she too had drifted off, her head resting against the windowsill. So much for that idea.

Annabeth couldn't help but watch the girl's peaceful face for a moment as she dozed, stopping herself from charting every red constellation that adorned her skin. Annabeth wondered if Laurie knew just how pretty they were on her.

Grey eyes then trailed up to lidded ones, seeing as the girl's eyelashes flitted against her skin, indicating that she was lost in a dreamland. That was hardly ever a good thing for demigods.

"I won't . ." Mumbled an incoherent voice across from Annabeth, stealing her attention as she swerved her head over to look at Percy, who was mumbling in his sleep.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

       THE MINUTE LAURIE had started feeling tired on the train, she knew the inevitable outcome was going to bring her here. The place that plagued her dreams and haunted her days— some abandoned railroad just outside of Manhattan, one that she couldn't even remember the damn name of.

She was wearing the same clothes as that day, covered in dirt stains and dried blood from previous days. The same flow of exhaustion weighed down on her like it had then as she looked down at his face, a heartbreaking sight on its own.

He'd never looked less like a son of Apollo than he did then, when the usual glow that followed him slowly dimmed, as did his life. A stream of blood trickled down her arm from where a shattered blade's shards stuck into her collarbone, much like the one embedded in her friend's chest.

Tears spilt down his face as the hand that gripped their quests' priority grew limp, the hilt that remained of what once was a poisonously glorious sword falling from his grasp.

A twelve year old Laurie watched as the light drained from his hazel eyes, leaving behind a hollow gaze of eyes that looked without seeing.

Something dark had spread inside of her that day, something that she couldn't ever understand. She didn't know how to check a pulse, nor could she tell the difference between unconscious and flatlined, but something wretched in her gut and she had known. Logan Scalloway was dead, thanks to her and her stupid quest.

She felt the sob rise in her throat, only for it to be let out as a gasp that pulled her back into reality. The brunette's eyes flashed open once more, and she found that she was still on a train, Annabeth's fingers in front of her eyes where they'd just snapped countless times.

Laurie took a few deep breathes as she adjusted herself back to existence, disregarding the concern stares that were being directed her way from the eyes of both Grover and Percy.

"Come on, sleeping beauty," Annabeth said as she stepped into the aisle, swallowing the lump in her throat as she ignore the things Laurie had muttered in her sleep. "We're going sightseeing."

"Sightseeing?"

"The Gateway Arch," Annabeth said. "This may be my only chance to ride to the top. Are you guys coming or not?"

Laurie wanted to shake her head no, stay on the train until it started moving again, but the boys agreed and the next thing she knew, the brunette was being dragged around the Arch's underground museum by the arm thanks to a nervous Percy.

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