Prompt #014 - Green

Prompt # 014 - Green

Connection
Time Frame: Post-Battle of the Labyrinth
Pairing: None
POV: Grover

**

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”

-John Keats

**

It should feel the same, Grover thinks. This camp—his home—should feel the same as it has for every summer he has known it. But it isn’t the same.

Everything is so much more alive.

Walking through the strawberry fields, he can feel them—the little plants’ yearnings to grow tall and strong, to strangle the fences that keep them contained, to reclaim this soil that was once theirs. He can feel their lives and seeds and potential. He can feel the life-giving richness of the soil beneath his hooves. He reaches out to brush his hands along the leaves—so green and glowing in the bright sunlight.

Ever since that day, Grover is no longer only a spectator of the wild’s glory. He is a part of it. He stops, closing his eyes. He sits down among the strawberries, their green leaves creating a cocoon dotted with red berries around him.

Fishing his pan flutes from pocket, he brings them to his lips, and begins to play.

The music—ancient and glorious as the first towering tree—pours onto the plants and the soul, drifting up into the infinite sky above him. It is almost a tangible thing: strands of sound weaving from his pipers, caressing the plants and pulling them closer to him. They lean towards him, as if anxious to better hear his music.

Beneath him, Grover can feel the sparse blades of grass punching up through the earth, as if breaking the surface of water to breathe. He is surrounded by the warm kiss of early summer air, his music floating upon its gentle winds.

Now you see, child, the ancient earth seems to whisper to him. There is a change somewhere inside him as he feels the spirit of the wild earth and all the life around him, swirling about him, singing and dancing and sighing and laughing in the afternoon sun.

His song slowly ends, and he sets his piped down into the rich earth, opens his eyes…

…and all he can see is green.

Now you finally see.

~fin~

Prompt #013 - Yellow

Prompt # 013 - Yellow

In My Final Moment

Time Frame: The Last Olympian

Pairing: None

POV: Michael Yew

**

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

-Albert Pine

**

A flash of searing pain and I am down, my back smacking into the hard pavement of the Williamsburg Bridge, and I know I’m not going to get up again.

There is a slash in my chest and I can feel my life slowly ebbing away, trickling to the pavement creating a pool of red around me. Pandemonium has erupted all around me. No one can see me—a giant chunk of steel and cable having fallen loose from one of the towers and dropped near me, shielding my body from all who might heal me. But, being a healer myself, I know it is no use. I am not long for this world, anyhow.

All demigods know it is a good chance we would die before the age of twenty, but in the back of our minds it is always the little voice of human doubt saying: “Not me! I’m too quick and smart for that!”

But I guess it was my time.

I can hear the sonic arrows—the gift from my father I can divvied up among my cabin—soaring high along the bridge, diving into the throngs of monsters that threatened our home.

It was not such a bad way to die, I think—dying to protect those you love. Sure, I had been snarky, sarcastic, rude even…but that didn’t mean I didn’t love each and everyone one of them. At camp, we’re the only family we’ve got. We may quarrel, we may fight, but at the end of the day, it’s us against the evil of the world and everyone else who doesn’t understand.

To die protecting that is not so bad.

I relax into the hard pavement pressing against my back, peering up at the brilliantly blue sky as my vision blurs. The pain is dulling—even distant now. I gaze up on the sun, the bright, brilliant sun. It flickers—yellow and bright and fierce.

Keep fighting. It seems to urge me. Pick up your bow again, Son.

Yes, I agree although my side burns and my arms feel like concrete, my work is not done. Until the last second, I must fight. For each monster I do not kill, could be the one that kills my brothers or my sisters, or any of the other campers that I hold dear.

I struggle to my knees, my vision flickering and whirling wildly. I grasp around and finally feel my hand brush over the shape of my bow. The familiar feel of my fingers closing around its form gives me strength.

I tip my head back once more, feeling the sun warm my face for the last time. I close my eyes, the sun setting the inside of my head aglow with warm, yellow light.

“Father,” I whisper to the sky, “guide my arrow…this one last time…” I weakly notch my last arrow. I can feel my hands shaking as my body loses more blood, more blood, pouring to the pavement like an offering…but I pick my target.

“…guide my arrow…” I manage to move my lips, but no sound escapes…only air…my final breath.

…and I release the arrow.

And as I collapse back to the pavement, my eyes finally closing, I know it found its mark.

~fin~

Prompt #012 - Orange

Prompt # 012 - Orange

Sunrise, Sunset

Time Frame: Pre-PJO Series

Pairing: Apollo/Other Character

POV: A Woman Apollo Had an Affair With

**

“It was as if all of the happiness, all of the magic of this blissful hour had flowed together into these stirring, bittersweet tones and flowed away, becoming temporal and transitory once more.”

-Alexandra Starr

**

One-hundred and fifty three incredible sunrises, one-hundred and fifty three unbearable sunsets. Five months and everyday was a new wonderful day of life and love—the world set ablaze with orange flames as sunlight touched every inch of my life.

My sunrise had been the most wonderful day of my life—as if a light had finally lit up my soul and the world around me began to glow when he was with me. Golden haired and beautiful: bright and alive.

But as those days flew by, my sun slowly moved across my sky.

As the noon of my romance approached, I was pregnant.

When I told him, he positively glowed. Child of the sun, I thought. My child would be bright and brilliant like him.

But I knew I wouldn’t be able to take care of him properly—my lover had told me as much. I would have to send him off each summer, maybe even during the year, to keep him safe. He would have to train and be strong in order to survive.

But he was his son, I thought. He will be strong and agile and quick and smart. My child will overcome all that comes his way.

But I knew. I knew this brief affair would have to end once I really knew the nature of his situation. It was only natural that a romance with the god of the Sun would burn hot and bright and much too fast.

It would be over, I knew.

His attention would drift as it had for millennia . He would find other woman. He would move across the land like the sun across the sky, causing sunrises and sunsets for different girls everywhere.

So the sun set low across my horizon on that one-hundred and fifty third day, and we said our goodbyes. He was leaving. It was not his fault, I knew—only his nature. Every day must have a sunrise and sunset. He knew this more than anyone.

The world once again was lit with the orange of the sun on a horizon, only it was west instead of east, the orange mixing with pinks and purples.

It was so beautiful I started to cry.

And so, as the sun set, I wept: my arms around me where my baby inside me grew warm and alive — my little sun that still had yet to dawn.

~fin~

Prompt #011 - Red

Prompt # 011 - Red

Loser

Time Frame: The Lightning Thief – Chapter 8: We Capture a Flag

Pairing: None

POV: Annabeth

P.S. I don’t have TLT with me right now, so I don’t know the exact details/dialogue

**

“You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.”

-Richard M. Nixon

**

I can see them running and I can’t believe it.

That complete idiot of a boy really did that.

I can see him—streaking through the trees, the giant red flag fluttering behind him as his too-big helmet slips down over his eyes as he runs. Who does this little unclaimed nobody think he is? Big three material?

I let out strangled, frustrated curse as I see the other team running towards our line. I call for reinforcements, but they’re all following the plan—like he was supposed to do!—and are over by where the Ares flag should have been.

Through the trees I can see him running and for a moment, a glimmer of hope spurs in my chest—maybe this lunatic, spontaneous, completely illogical move might work. Maybe we’ll win…..?!

And then I see the Ares kids stride across our line, flag in hand far down the boundary line. We’ve lost because of this stupid kid.

I throw down my spear and shield, ripping off my helmet in frustration as I stalk over to give this newbie, nobody a piece of my mind.

He may have killed a Minotaur, but he’s lost us Capture the Flag. And one is way more important than the other. He may have been cool for a while because of his initial rep, but now my cabin-mates and I are going to make his life a living hell.

My feet stomp against the forest ground, my armor clanking as I draw close to him, trying to shoot arrows from my eyes at him.

Who does this kid think he is?

It’s about time someone told him how things are done around here.

~fin~

Prompt #010 - Years

Prompt # 010 - Years

Eon
Time Frame: None
Pairing: None

**

“Immortality—a fate worse than death”

-Edgar A. Shoaff

**

It has been millennia, yet the gods remain.

An eternity of rule and bicker and watching from the clouds of Mt. Olympus. It is not such a terrible fate to the eyes of those on the ground—to their ancient subjects, and today their children. To be forever powerful and forever young and forever alive.

But to the gods of Mt. Olympus, the view is quite different.

Year after year passes in the blink of an eye. Generations of men are born, grow old, and die before breakfast. Their children are barely there at all. It is a never ending cycle of a changing world below them while the place they are stays the same—forever.

The same family, the same arguments, the same power.

No wonder they have so many children.

It is a brief moment in the eons of their eternal lives in which they can feel remotely human. They love passionately and have children that must face difficulties of their own. They can feel the intense sting of grief that comes with knowing that someday the one you know will die so you must make every day last.

And this desperation—this longing for a taste of what ever human on earth can have is what the gods secretly crave the most as the years roll by, like a wave over a rock that touches but does not alter it.

And then their children become great heroes, or die by monsters or time’s hand. Their brief affairs wither and die. The landscape changes, the people lose faith, the center of the flame moves west.

And then the cycle repeats itself—with the gods remaining alone and isolated from those they oversee on top of their mountain palace yet prison for eternity.

~fin~

Prompt #009 - Months

Prompt # 009 – Months

Remain

Time Frame: Three months after Luke left to join Kronos

Pairing: Annabeth/Luke (sort of)

**

“Three months and I’m still breathing.”

-Sober

By: Kelly Clarkson

**

He is gone.

Annabeth sits on the edge of her bed, staring down at the carpeted floor of her father’s home.

It has been three months. Has it really been that long? It doesn’t seem that long, yet it seems like so much longer.

Luke. Not Luke. Anyone but Luke.

That’s not true, a voice in her head whispers. She pushes it aside.

How could he? After so much. After so much they’d been through together, how could he just throw it all away? All those times he’d saved her live. All those times they’d laughed, and cried, and thought it was going to be the end.

How could he just…

Annabeth puts her head in her hands.

It has been three months. But here she is, living life as if there is nothing different. As if she can just live her life without Luke in it.

He was…her older brother, her mentor, her role model, her…he was all she had to look up to. He was all she had when she was little.

How can he just toss her aside like last month’s trash?

She deliberately takes in a deep breath and let it out.

All you need to do is keep breathing, Annabeth, she instructs herself. Just keep breathing.

She stands up and walks over to the window, looking out over San Francisco.

Three months.

She is here…and Luke isn’t.

~fin~

Prompt #008 - Weeks

Prompt # 008 – Weeks

Choice
Time Frame: Battle of the Labyrinth
Pairing: Percy/Calypso, Percy/Annabeth


**
“The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.”
-Madame Marie du Deffand

**

Two weeks, one choice.

Percy Jackson has never felt so lost.

Completely cut off from the world, he is floating on a cloud, as if in that sweet transition between waking and sleeping. Every breath fills him with the sleepy, lulling scent of flowers and the sweetness and her.

He can see her, standing a ways from him, silhouetted by the moonlight and she is so sweet, and perfect…

Calypso.

So close and so lovely—like a flower in a window box, assuring him that if he just forgets everything else…life would be perfect.

Dreamland, he is in. Not fully real, yet not fully false.

It is like he is in a different universe, separated completely from the plane he once resided on. So beautiful and surreal that it certainly cannot last…a dream that must disperse in the morning hours. He can feel it: like a nagging tug on the back of his mind, pulling him away from the realm of sleep and dreams back into his harsh reality.

Annabeth.

He can still feel her—like a slow ache, painful but real, reminding him she is still out there waiting for him.

Like a lingering kiss, he can still feel her.

Percy stands, his feet rooted to the sand, the water swirling about his ankles. Which direction to move his feet? Back to the warm soft bed and the promise of another careless day…or into the ocean, back home to all he left.

The wave crash and churn and he can feel their power. He closes his eyes, wondering what to do.

Inside his mind, he sways like the currents of the ocean, letting go, releasing himself to the power and wisdom of the ocean, trusting it to guide him to his destiny.

He takes a step and knows he is going home.

~fin~