Memories 38 + 39

[divinewisdom]

38 / Significant Neutral
Keep it simple. (MoA 17)
Kitsune, Day 279. Dog's tooth on a thong; prick self to view. [1/3]

Annabeth is cheering Hazel up when Frank bursts in and tells them to take off -- of course, they worry about Percy, but he's up on deck, just fine. The ship takes off, though Frank is sort of freaking out and Annabeth gets annoyed that he can't make any sense. They set course for Charleston, and Percy and Frank explain what happened in the Georgia Aquarium, how they were trapped in an aquatic cage and had to break the glass to get out, etc etc. Coach Hedge interjects with important things like AND THEN I KICKED HIM!! Annabeth is glad that he's forgotten about her and Percy spending the night in the stables, but it sounds like they're in deep trouble.

Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger. “A bounty on our heads...as if we didn’t attract enough monsters already.”

“Do we get wanted posters?” Leo asked. “And do they have our bounties, like, broken down on a price list?”

Hazel wrinkled her nose. “What are you talking about?”

“Just curious how much I’m going for these days,” Leo said. “I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe...but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks?”

“Hey!” Frank complained.

“Knock it off,” Annabeth ordered. “At least we know our next step is to go to Charleston, to find this map.” Piper leaned against the control panel. She’d done her braid with white feathers today, which looked good with her dark brown hair. Annabeth wondered how she found the time. Annabeth could barely remember to brush her hair.

“A map,” Piper said. “But a map to what?”

“The Mark of Athena.” Percy looked cautiously at Annabeth, like he was afraid he’d overstepped. She must have been putting out a strong I don’t want to talk about it vibe.

“Whatever that is,” he continued. “We know it leads to something important in Rome, something that might heal the rift between the Romans and Greeks.”

“The giants’ bane,” Hazel added.

Percy nodded. “And in my dream, the twin giants said something about a statue.”

“Um...” Frank rolled his not-exactly-Chinese handcuffs between his fingers. “According to Phorcys, we’d have to be insane to try to find it. But what is it?”

Everyone looked at Annabeth. Her scalp tingled, as if the thoughts in her brain were agitating to get out: a statue...Athena...Greek and Roman, her nightmares, and her argument with her mom. She saw how the pieces were coming together, but she couldn’t believe it was true. The answer was too big, too important, and much too scary.

She noticed Jason studying her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and didn’t like it any more than she did. Again she couldn’t help but wonder: Why does this guy make me so nervous? Is he really on my side? Or maybe that was her mom talking....

“I—I’m close to an answer,” she said. “I’ll know more if we find this map. Jason, the way you reacted to the name Charleston...have you been there before?”

Jason glanced uneasily at Piper, though Annabeth wasn’t sure why.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Reyna and I did a quest there about a year ago. We were salvaging Imperial gold weapons from the C.S.S. Hunley.”

“The what?” Piper asked.

“Whoa!” Leo said. “That’s the first successful military submarine. From the Civil War. I always wanted to see that.”

“It was designed by Roman demigods,” Jason said. “It held a secret stash of Imperial gold torpedoes—until we rescued them and brought them back to Camp Jupiter.”

Hazel crossed her arms. “So the Romans fought on the Confederate side? As a girl whose grandmother was a slave, can I just say...not cool?”

Jason put his hands in front of him, palms up. “I personally was not alive then. And it wasn’t all Greeks on one side and all Romans on the other. But, yes. Not cool. Sometimes demigods make bad choices.” He looked sheepishly at Hazel. “Like sometimes we’re too suspicious. And we speak without thinking.”

Hazel stared at him. Slowly it seemed to dawn on her that he was apologizing.

Jason elbowed Leo.

“Ow!” Leo yelped. “I mean, yeah...bad choices. Like not trusting people’s brothers who, you know, might need saving. Hypothetically speaking.”

Hazel pursed her lips. “Fine. Back to Charleston. Are you saying we should check that submarine again?”

Jason shrugged. “Well...I can think of two places in Charleston we might search. The museum where they keep the Hunley—that’s one of them. It has a lot of relics from the Civil War. A map could be hidden in one. I know the layout. I could lead a team inside.”

“I’ll go,” Leo said. “That sounds cool.” Jason nodded. He turned to Frank, who was trying to pull his fingers out of the Chinese handcuffs.

“You should come too, Frank. We might need you.”

Frank looked surprised. “Why? Not like I was much good at that aquarium.”

“You did fine,” Percy assured him. “It took all three of us to break that glass.”

“Besides, you’re a child of Mars,” Jason said. “The ghosts of defeated causes are bound to serve you. And the museum in Charleston has plenty of Confederate ghosts. We’ll need you to keep them in line.”

Frank gulped. Annabeth remembered Percy’s comment about Frank turning into a giant goldfish, and she resisted the urge to smile. She would never be able to look at the big guy again without seeing him as a koi.

“Okay.” Frank relented. “Sure.” He frowned at his fingers, trying to pull them out of the trap. “Uh, how do you—?”

Leo chuckled. “Man, you’ve never seen those before? There’s a simple trick to getting out.” Frank tugged again with no luck. Even Hazel was trying not to laugh. Frank grimaced with concentration. Suddenly, he disappeared. On the deck where he’d been standing, a green iguana crouched next to an empty set of Chinese handcuffs.

“Well done, Frank Zhang,” Leo said dryly, doing his impression of Chiron the centaur. “That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas.”

Then Frank is embarrassed. They continue to discuss the Charleston situation -- they also need to go to the Battery, where there is this ghost that only talks to women. So they decide it's a GIRL PARTY!! and Hazel, Piper and Annabeth will go. That leaves Percy alone on the ship, which Annabeth concludes is a bad "caring Girlfriend" move. But he seems to be fine with it, so they set these plans in stone.

The Romans are in pursuit and they only have four days to get to Rome and save Nico from dying. Leo sends out a decoy for the ship in order to attempt to get them to be confused. Unfortunately, it was Frank's last pair of pants :( Oh well. Later, after Percy has passed out, Annabeth searches her laptop looking for something helpful in vain (though her laptop is so cool -- it can do pretty much anything), and eventually just settles on looking sadly on the Parthenon in Greece in 3D rendering and thinking back to her and her mother's argument. She's finally figured it out in her head, but she hopes that she's entirely wrong.

Finally Frank interrupts her reverie. We get a bit of a tour of Annabeth's room -- picture of her dad in his plane, her Yankees baseball cap (which she tries on every morning to see if it'll work, even though it doesn't now), clean and simple.

“So...Frank,” she ventured. “What can I do for you?” Out of all the kids on the ship, Frank was the one she thought least likely to pay her a visit. She didn’t feel any less confused when he blushed and pulled his Chinese handcuffs out of his pocket.

“I don’t like being in the dark about this,” he muttered. “Could you show me the trick? I didn’t feel comfortable asking anyone else.”

Annabeth processed his words with a slight delay. Wait...Frank was asking her for help? Then it dawned on her: of course, Frank was embarrassed. Leo had been razzing him pretty hard. Nobody liked being a laughingstock. Frank’s determined expression said he never wanted that to happen again. He wanted to understand the puzzle, without the iguana solution. Annabeth felt strangely honored. Frank trusted her not to make fun of him. Besides, she had a soft spot for anyone who was seeking knowledge—even about something as simple as Chinese handcuffs.

She patted the bunk next to her. “Absolutely. Sit down.”

And then she accidentally makes this discussion way more complicated!! Because she doesn't need to do an infrared scan just to tell him that to get the pressure to lighten up, you push your fingers closer together.

“Oh.” Frank tried it. It worked. “Thanks, but... couldn’t you have just shown me on the handcuffs without the 3-D program and the calculations?”

Annabeth hesitated. Sometimes wisdom came from strange places, even from giant teenaged goldfish. “I guess you’re right. That was silly. I learned something too.”

Frank tried the handcuffs again. “It’s easy when you know the solution.”

“Many of the best traps are simple,” Annabeth said. “You just have to think about it, and hope your victim doesn’t.”

Frank nodded. He seemed reluctant to leave.

“You know,” Annabeth said, “Leo doesn’t intend to be mean. He’s just got a big mouth. When people make him nervous, he uses humor as a defense.”

Frank frowned. “Why would I make him nervous?”

“You’re twice his size. You can turn into a dragon.” And Hazel likes you, Annabeth thought, though she didn’t say that.

Frank didn’t look convinced. “Leo can summon fire.” He twisted the handcuffs. “Annabeth...sometime, maybe could you help me with another problem that’s not so simple? I’ve got...I guess you’d call it an Achilles’ heel.”

Annabeth felt like she’d just had a drink of Roman hot chocolate. She’d never really gotten the term warm and fuzzy, but Frank gave her that sensation. He was just a big teddy bear. She could see why Hazel liked him. “I’d be happy to,” she said. “Does anyone else know about this Achilles’ heel?”

“Percy and Hazel,” he said. “That’s it. Percy...he’s a really good guy. I would follow him anywhere. Thought you should know.”

Annabeth patted his arm. “Percy has a knack for picking good friends. Like you. But, Frank, you can trust anyone on this ship. Even Leo. We’re all a team. We have to trust each other.”

“I—I suppose.”

“So what’s the weakness you’re worried about?”

The dinner bell sounded, and Frank jumped.

“Maybe...maybe later,” he said. “It’s hard to talk about. But thanks, Annabeth.” He held up the Chinese handcuffs. “Keep it simple.”

Effects:
• Unlocked: knowledge that Hazel has a crush on Frank, and that Frank is bullied a little by Leo, who feels insecure around him! Also now has rudimentary knowledge of the Frank - Hazel - Leo love triangle that seems to be popping up.
+100 I feel silly when I get way too overcomplicated
+100000 I WANT THAT LAPTOP WHY WOULD IT BE IMPOSSIBLE TO GET IN AATHER
+500 Percy dere //// percy percy everyone loves percy i love him too
+50 appreciation for dad
+100 I want my baseball cap to work 8(
+50 confusion over what's going on why are we in Georgia to get information and why are these people against us?? Gaia why?
+100 confusion in general over why Nico is going to die

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Annabeth now knows what the full quest is that she already knows she goes on. She must go on a quest for the Athena Parthenos, the lost statue of the Parthenon, which was stolen by the Romans. And she must fight Arachne -- or at least, if not fight her, figure out a way to get around her. This is very important, because she's terrified! But she already knows she goes ANYWAY, even though she's so terrified, which means once she takes this memory she'll have a lot of confidence in her ability to continue even when terrified.
---

39 / Significant Neutral
Wandering through Rome with Percy, Gregory Peck, and Audrey Hepburn. (MoA 32)
Hatter, Day 281. Trading card - give it away to let them view it, then take it back to finally view for yourself. One use.

Under different circumstances, wandering through Rome with Annabeth would have been pretty awesome. They held hands as they navigated the winding streets, dodging cars and crazy Vespa drivers, squeezing through mobs of tourists, and wading through oceans of pigeons. The day warmed up quickly. Once they got away from the car exhaust on the main roads, the air smelled of baking bread and freshly cut flowers.

They aimed for the Colosseum because that was an easy landmark, but getting there proved harder than Percy anticipated. As big and confusing as the city had looked from above, it was even more so on the ground. Several times they got lost on dead-end streets. They found beautiful fountains and huge monuments by accident. Annabeth commented on the architecture, but Percy kept his eyes open for other things. Once he spotted a glowing purple ghost—a Lar—glaring at them from the window of an apartment building. Another time he saw a white-robed woman—maybe a nymph or a goddess —holding a wicked-looking knife, slipping between ruined columns in a public park. Nothing attacked them, but Percy felt like they were being watched, and the watchers were not friendly.

Finally they reached the Colosseum, where a dozen guys in cheap gladiator costumes were scuffling with the police—plastic swords versus batons. Percy wasn’t sure what that was about, but he and Annabeth decided to keep walking. Sometimes mortals were even stranger than monsters.
They made their way west, stopping every once in a while to ask directions to the river. Percy hadn’t considered that—duh—people in Italy spoke Italian, while he did not. As it turned out, though, that wasn’t much of a problem. The few times someone approached them on the street and asked a question, Percy just looked at them in confusion, and they switched to English. Next discovery: the Italians used euros, and Percy didn’t have any. He regretted this as soon as he found a tourist shop that sold sodas. By then it was almost noon, getting really hot, and Percy was starting to wish he had a trireme filled with Diet Coke.

Annabeth solved the problem. She dug around in her backpack, brought out Daedalus’s laptop, and typed in a few commands. A plastic card ejected from a slot in the side. Annabeth waved it triumphantly. “International credit card. For emergencies.”

Percy stared at her in amazement. “How did you—? No. Never mind. I don’t want to know. Just keep being awesome.”

Percy and Annabeth reach the Tiber River (finally!) and start looking around. Annabeth knows this is the place where she's supposed to go for her quest, but they can't quite figure it out. So they decide to have lunch, where Percy insults the waiter by asking for Coke with ice and a pizza with slices. Annabeth is much more chic (all the time, every day) and casually informs Percy of his faux pas. Then they hold hands like cuties and Percy has a whole paragraph talking about how luminous her eyes are in the sunlight (it's true). Annabeth tells Percy that swords can't save every situation, and tells him to stop worrying about Chrysaor. Then she tells him to trust her about saving the Athena Parthenos on her own! And they eat. Percy's pizza is terrible.

“You’ll have to trust me,” Annabeth said. Percy almost thought she was talking to her sandwich, because she didn’t meet his eyes. “You’ve got to believe I’ll come back.”

He swallowed another bite. “I believe in you. That’s not the problem. But come back from where?” The sound of a Vespa interrupted them. Percy looked along the riverfront and did a double take. The motor scooter was an old-fashioned model: big and baby blue. The driver was a guy in a silky gray suit.

Behind him sat a younger woman with a headscarf, her hands around the man’s waist. They weaved between café tables and puttered to a stop next to Percy and Annabeth.

“Why, hello,” the man said. His voice was deep, almost croaky, like a movie actor’s. His hair was short and greased back from his craggy face. He was handsome in a 1950s dad-on-television way. Even his clothes seemed old-fashioned. When he stepped off his bike, the waistline of his slacks was way higher than normal, but somehow he still managed to look manly and stylish and not like a total goober. Percy had trouble guessing his age—maybe thirty-something, though the man’s fashion and manner seemed grandfatherish.

The woman slid off the bike. “We’ve had the most lovely morning,” she said breathlessly.
She looked about twenty-one, also dressed in an old-fashioned style. Her ankle-length marigold skirt and white blouse were pinched together with a large leather belt, giving her the narrowest waist Percy had ever seen. When she removed her scarf, her short wavy black hair bounced into perfect shape. She had dark playful eyes and a brilliant smile. Percy had seen naiads that looked less pixieish than this lady.

Annabeth’s sandwich fell out of her hands. “Oh, gods. How—how... ?”

She seemed so stunned that Percy figured he ought to know these two.

“You guys do look familiar,” he decided. He thought he might have seen their faces on television. It seemed like they were from an old show, but that couldn’t be right. They hadn’t aged at all. Nevertheless, he pointed at the guy and took a guess. “Are you that guy on Mad Men?”

“Percy!” Annabeth looked horrified. “What?” he protested. “I don’t watch a lot of TV.”

“That’s Gregory Peck!” Annabeth’s eyes were wide, and her mouth kept falling open. “And...oh gods! Audrey Hepburn! I know this movie. Roman Holiday. But that was from the 1950s. How—?”

“Oh, my dear!” The woman twirled like an air spirit and sat down at their table. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else! My name is Rhea Silvia. I was the mother to Romulus and Remus, thousands of years ago. But you’re so kind to think I look as young as the 1950s. And this is my husband...”

“Tiberinus,” said Gregory Peck, thrusting out his hand to Percy in a manly way. “God of the River Tiber.”

THESE GUYS HELP ATHENA KIDS START THEIR QUEST! So Annabeth hands them her letter of recommendation and they're on their way. Kind of. Percy feels horrible, so does she, she's terrified. She's going off alone.

Percy gripped Annabeth’s hand—probably a little too tight. “Tiberinus, let me go with her. Just a little farther.”

Rhea Silvia laughed sweetly. “But you can’t, silly boy. You must return to your ship and gather your other friends. Confront the giants! The way will appear in your friend Piper’s knife. Annabeth has a different path. She must walk alone.”

“Indeed,” Tiberinus said. “Annabeth must face the guardian of the shrine by herself. It is the only way. And Percy Jackson, you have less time than you realized to rescue your friend in the jar. You must hurry.”

Percy’s pizza felt like a cement lump in his stomach. “But—”

“It’s all right, Percy.” Annabeth squeezed his hand. “I need to do this.” He started to protest. Her expression stopped him. She was terrified but doing her best to hide it—for his sake. If he tried to argue, he would only make things harder for her. Or worse, he might convince her to stay. Then she would have to live with the knowledge that she’d backed down from her biggest challenge... assuming that they survived at all, with Rome about to get leveled and Gaea about to rise and destroy the world. The Athena statue held the key to defeating the giants. Percy didn’t know why or how, but Annabeth was the only one who could find it. “You’re right,” he said, forcing out the words. “Be safe.” Rhea Silvia giggled like it was a ridiculous comment.

“Safe? Not at all! But necessary. Come, Annabeth, my dear. We will show you where your path starts. After that, you’re on your own.”

Annabeth kissed Percy. She hesitated, like she was wondering what else to say. Then she shouldered her backpack and climbed on the back of the scooter.

Effects:
+100 terror about going out on her own
+1000 terror of the quest of the Mark of Athena
+5000 I miss Percy why isn't he here :(
-100 desire to go to Rome again
+300 confusion. Not only on the level of "what is this quest," but also she's missing the story of the Athena Parthenos, so the significance is lost (even if the magnitude isn't). She's also confused because she hasn't heard the entire Mark of Athena prophecy yet, so she's not sure why she has to go by herself, other than her mom went a little crazy.
+500 I want that laptop here :T
• Unlocked: knowledge of the history of Rome!
• Unlocked: even more Percy dere I know.
• Unlocked: knowledge of sappy traditional romantic comedies! And their actors!
• Unlocked: knowledge that the Laptop does AMAZING THINGS.
- Basically this is just a very important memory for her because it outlines the gravity of what she's currently (or more currently) doing without giving all of the side plot things away. This is part of what she's embarking on in the recent past and that's important to remember, because it must tie in somehow to the prophecy of the seven, which she just learned about. She also now knows that someone is in a jar, and that Percy and Piper and their friends have to help him.