A Day With My Mom

The next day, I woke up, cuddled up with the most beautiful woman ever, my Wise Girl.

"Morning," she said with a smile.

"Not a good one?" I teased.

"I'd say it's great," Annabeth said with a giggle as she got up.

"Morning, dears," Mom said to us as she exited the bathroom.

"Morning," I said. "This was nice."

"Of course it was," Mom said. "You're with your family, for once."

My smile soured slightly at that. "Today's your date, Mom..."

Mom smiled at me. "Let's leave any difficult conversations for the date itself, alright?"

I nodded, and she hugged me tightly. "Now, I have to go make breakfast. You three take your time, ok?"

"Ok," I said.

Mom headed out, and the rest of us took our time getting ready, then we headed out to the dining hall.

"What the hell?" I asked in shock, looking at the naked Lucia.

"I've gotten two Punishment Transformations," Lucia said smugly. "One for not going on the Date, and one for not sleeping in your House. Would you like to know what each Transformation does?"

"I clearly already know one of them," I said, annoyed. "But sure."

"My first PTF is Nut Or Nude," Lucia said. "Like it sounds, either I have your nut, or I'm naked, and if I do neither, I lose 2 Charis per day. My second PTF is No Better Than A Man, which makes me always touch people."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Annabeth asked.

"See, I appreciate the female form," Lucia said. "Maybe not as much as I do Percy, but I do appreciate it. So now, I'll think, oh, Rachel has a fat ass, and the next thing I know —"

Lucia slapped Rachel's ass harshly, making Rachel jump in surprise.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" Rachel shouted.

"See?" Lucia said. "I didn't even want to do that, my body just acts on impulses I barely even have."

Rachel inched her seat away from Lucia's.

As we all took a seat, Clotho flashed in, just like yesterday. "I have come to announce the Charis standings, which have changed slightly."

Charis Rankings

1. Clarisse LaRue (3 Charis)

2. Annabeth Chase (1 Charis)

3. Zoë Nightshade (0 Charis)

4. Lucia Castellan (0 Charis)

5. Sally Jackson (0 Charis)

6. Juno (0 Charis)

7. Amphitrite (0 Charis)

8. Sadie Kane (0 Charis)

9. Rachel Elizabeth Dare (0 Charis)

"Clarisse, you have my approval," Clotho said. "You managed to steal away the King to gain his approval while blindsiding his proclaimed only-partner. You did well."

"Hey!" Clarisse said. "That's not what I did!"

Clotho flashed away, and Clarisse turned to me for help.

"Tell her I wasn't trying to be romantic, please," Clarisse asked.

"You weren't," I said. "I'll explain what we did later, Annabeth."

"Alright," she said, clearly displeased, but willing to let it go.

The rest of breakfast was fairly normal, if you ignored the naked blonde.

Once I finished breakfast, I stood up, thinking to go prepare myself for my "Date" with Mom.

Before I could even push my chair back in, Rachel spoke in a monotone voice.

"The test is to see,
Who's your three.
But beware your stance,
Or you'll lose your chance." Rachel droned.

Immediately, everyone panicked and started talking over each other.

"Quiet!" I said, and everyone shut up. "First of all, Rachel, are you ok?"

"Yeah," she said. "This actually felt easier than any other prophecy I've given before."

"That's good to know," I said. "Alright, Annabeth, what are you thinking?"

"If I may," Amphitrite said. "I've been familiar with prophecies long before the Oracle of Delphi even existed, I might take a crack at it. The second and third line are where you want to put your attention. 'Who's your three' may either signify who are your three choices for a question about some favoribility, or it asks who your third is, for you and Perseus. Beware your stance either means make sure you choose, or it warns against choosing the wrong people."

"I don't think so," Annabeth said. "I think it's about top 3, like who do you think are top 3 Contestants."

"Well, does anyone else have any other theories?" I asked.

"Nah," Clarisse said after a while. "We'll see what it means tomorrow."

"Fair enough," I said. "Mom?"

"Let's go," Mom said, and we headed to the Date Door.

Once we went through, I was unsurprised to find us in Montauk.

"This is our place, Percy," Mom said softly. "After everything, here's our comfort."

"Sadie told me you wanted to bring back Estelle," I said. "How do you want me to help?"

"If it's about want, I don't want your help," Mom said. "But to get there, I need your help. I just... Can't accept it."

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said. "If I knew that this would've happened, I wouldn't have accepted the deal."

Mom looked at me angrily. "Never apologize for trying to survive. Not to me, or anyone else. I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at them."

"Same," I said. "I'd take 'em out if I knew how to get to them."

"There's nothing we can do now, Percy," Mom said. "I have to ask, how are you?"

"I'm worried about all of you," I said. "I hate to say it, but I'm even worried about Lucia. Juno isn't my concern, though."

"Not about that, Percy," Mom said gently. "How does it feel to be away from your prison?"

I looked away. "I'm sorry, Mom, I just - I just can't think about that place, please don't ask me."

Mom hugged me tightly. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"It wasn't your fault," I said softly.

"How about we ignore all the negativity, and we do something from your childhood?" Mom suggested softly. "Let's make a sandcastle."

"I'd love to," I said, and we got to work.

For the next two hours, we worked on making a sandcastle together, laughing and playing like we did 15 or so years ago.

I looked at our sandcastle in approval. "We've done our best job, haven't we?"

"We have," Mom said. "Maybe we really should build Olympus."

"Annabeth would have a stroke if I suggested that," I laughed.

"I can't wait until she builds the next palace," Mom said. "Anyways, let's have lunch, I asked for us to have some roasted salmon."

"That sounds great," I said. "I'm famished."

Once we finished lunch, we left the Date Hall, deciding to go look for Annabeth.

We found Clarisse at the sparring circle, training her skills against a straw dummy.

"Hey, Clarisse," I said. "Do you know where Annabeth is?"

"She told me she was going to the library," Clarisse said. "Something about seeing if there was anything she could use."

"That sounds useful," I said. "Where's the library again?"

"Down the path over there," Clarisse pointed. "Won't take you more than a minute till you see a building that just looks like a library."

"Thank you, Clarisse," Mom said as we left her.

Clarisse grunted and went back to her training.

Just like Clarisse told us, we only had to walk down the path for a little, and we saw the building.

We entered the building, where we found Annabeth sitting in front of a screen.

Hesitantly, I tapped her shoulder, and she jumped in surprise.

Annabeth took a few deep breaths as she held her hands to her chest. "Percy, you surprised me. What're you doing here?"

"Mom and I were looking for you," I said. "Mom wanted to talk to you."

Annabeth turned to Mom. "What can I do for you, Aunt Sally?"

"I just had a few questions, dear," Mom said as we all took our seats. "But, Clarisse told us that you were researching into what Rachel said this morning, did you get anything?"

"Not much," Annabeth said. "See, this library has every book, reference, or link that's ever been uploaded or been at a library. So, I'm able to find things from the Library of Alexandria, and so many other places where knowledge was just ruined. I'm trying my hardest, but there's so much to sift through, it's hard."

"If only Ella were here," I said absentmindedly, and Annabeth spun to look at me.

"Seaweed Brain, you're a genius!" Annabeth said, then she immediately started typing.

"I am?" I asked.

Mom rolled her eyes at us.

"Alright," Annabeth said. "I've found the Sybilline Books. Now, I just have to read it all, and connect each Prophecy to what happened."

"How does that help?" I asked.

"Because then, even if I can't translate this prophecy in time, I'll know enough about prophecies to understand the next ones," Annabeth said. "There'll be a prophecy like every three days, this might be game changing."

"Before we leave you to your research," Mom said. "Could you help me out for a moment, please?"

"Of course, Aunt Sally," Annabeth said, pausing her reading.

"Thank you," Mom said. "So, my first question is what are my chances of making it past this round without doing anything sexual?"

Annabeth hummed. "Right now, it's higher than everyone thinks. See, it's only a worry if you're losing Charis. The only person so far who even has a chance at losing Charis is Lucia, and she's making sure she's fine. You really only have to make sure you don't lose either of the Games. Like, even if you get last place, it's worrying, but it should be manageable."

Mom's worried face increasingly became more relaxed. "And what do you think is tomorrow's Game?"

"I think it's gladiator themed," Annabeth said. "The statement Who's your three feels a lot like sports commentators talking about their top 3 players. I think the question we're being asked is who we think the next Big Thre are."

"That's... Difficult to answer," I said after a moment. "No offense, but the only player for a major domain like the Seas, or the Underworld, or the Sky is Amphitrite, the rest of you make more sense with different domains."

"Exactly," Annabeth said. "So, it might have to do with predicting future Contestants as well?"

"Oh," I said. "That's interesting."

"It is," Mom said, standing up. "Thank you for your time, Annabeth. I'll leave you to your research."

I started to get up as well, but Mom gently pushed me back down. "I'm going to go make dinner, Percy. I'd rather you not be in the kitchen with me when I'm..."

"Oh, I understand," I said. "Sorry, Mom."

"No problem," Mom said, then she left.

"Well, I'll be doing my research," Annabeth said. "Maybe you can read your mom's books? We don't have dyslexia anymore, so we can read well now."

"Oh, that's life changing," I said.

"Yeah," Annabeth said, then she passed me a book. "Here, this is a book about what mortals know about sea life, maybe you'll enjoy it."

I perched comfortably on my seat, and for the next few hours, we both read in silence, occasionally humming as we read something interesting.

Just as I was reading about crabs, a loud bell rang from the distance.

Annabeth stood up hesitantly. "That's the bell for food being ready."

"It's been that long?" I said in surprise.

I got up, then we started walking together to the dining hall.

"That was your first time really being able to spend time reading, right?" Annabeth asked. "No wonder you didn't notice the time flying."

"It was nice," I admitted. "I enjoyed it."

"Same," Annabeth said. "For all that I hate this place, I do have to admit, not all of it is bad."

"It still doesn't make all this ok," I said sadly. "I wish we could have the benefits place without the drawbacks."

"Same," Annabeth said, then I opened the door to the dining hall for her.

Dinner was a chill affair, and I was thankful for us being able to forgo all the hostility.

When we were mostly finished, Clarisse cleared her throat loudly, and all of us looked at her.

"Guys, tomorrow is the first night any of us will get any Drachma, and for most of us, it'll be our first shot at Charis," Clarisse said. "Now, I don't necessarily speak for Prissy, but I know he doesn't want to see us sabotaging each other. So, for his sake, I expect all of you to be on best behavior after the Game."

"You would seek to order the Queen of the Gods?" Juno asked.

"Where's your throne and your crown?" Clarisse asked.

Juno didn't respond.

"She gagged you," Rachel said with a laugh.

"Juno, or anyone else," I said. "If you start sabotaging, I will do what I did to Lucia."

"The King's laid the gavel~~~" Rachel teased in a sing-song tone.

I rolled my eyes at her and stood up, turning to Mom.

"Let's go," Mom said to me, and we awkwardly walked to my House.

When we entered, Mom raised an eyebrow. "So, for your room they didn't even put two beds? It makes sense, as much as I hate to say it."

"I'll take the left side," I offered.

"Alright, Percy," Mom said. "Just... Nevermind."

I thought about pushing her to tell me what she wanted to say, but instead I tucked myself in.

"Goodnight, Mom," I said.

"Goodnight, Percy," Mom said, turning the light off and tucking in.