Hardening Days 1/1
Originally posted by sofipitch at Challenge 6, Percy Jackson, Spicy: Water
Title: Hardening Days
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Author: penname or LJ account name
Words: 624
Rating: PGish
Summary: Thalia, Annabeth, and Luke
Warnings: I’m guessing spoilers (it’s been awhile…)
It had been hard to keep spirits up, most of what they went through was horrible and the only thing that kept them going is the wonderful dream of what they would arrive to at Camp Half-Blood. To keep their energy up they tried to focus on progress and how close they were to New York. But still, some nights were obviously better than others. Sometimes they would go for days at a time without encountering a single monster. One time they went an entire week without a single monster finding them. The next week after that they were chased by a hellhound for a full six hours. Despite fatigue, once they had finally killed it no one slept for the next two hours, fearing being under the pursuit of something else. Annabeth was shivering for hours, but her eyelids never drifted downwards. Those were bad nights, the ones marked with monsters.
Good nights were not only marked by lack of monsters, but also by food. All of them were skinny, but had developed muscles from all the running they were doing. The only thing adults on the street had to question about them was the often dirty and ragged state of their clothing and the greasiness their hair had been left to. They would be left alone often enough for them to steal any necessary food from stores or money from woman’s purses. They had almost perfectly perfected the art of shoplifting canned or packaged goods from gas stations and convenience stores. It was so poor and miserable for them to have to resort to such measure; so different from the heroic and brave demigods they had heard of. Now those icon’s lives only seemed like fantasies covering the truth of a demigod’s unfortunate lifestyle. But with a stomach full of canned peaches and nuts, who could complain.
Thalia especially appreciated nights in which they could stop at a gas station with private, one toilet, one sink bathrooms, in which she could clean her hair and arms without looking to strange. You just couldn’t do that at normal bathrooms without other people staring. Thalia had cut back her hair so that it wouldn’t be a hassle to take care of, but Annabeth had just refused to even have scissors come near her hair. Thalia tied it up in a long braid that ran down her back to get it out of the way, but after a few weeks, it looked oily and would only hold to Annabeth’s back like a wet towel. It didn’t matter how often they ran it through water if there was no shampoo of any kind to fix it. She then agreed to have it cut back. The bob wasn’t very flattering to her complexion, but nor was the dirt and blood stained clothing. They understood at that moment that all that counted was survival.
Their journey wasn’t heroic and all they wanted was to get to the magical camp their parents had all once told them about. Although all of them had run away in anger, Luke’s faith in the gods waned more than Thalia and Annabeth’s, but they had all run away for different reasons. Luke was even reluctant to go to a place where he would have to worship his father, but if that’s what it took to for once have a full stomach, he would go do anything. But there was one thing that they were all sure of by the time they had stepped across the New York boarder was that unlike all the myths and stories, no help would come from the gods above. The journey had been made alone. And despite everything, Luke knew that they had made it with just that.
Title: Hardening Days
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Author: penname or LJ account name
Words: 624
Rating: PGish
Summary: Thalia, Annabeth, and Luke
Warnings: I’m guessing spoilers (it’s been awhile…)
It had been hard to keep spirits up, most of what they went through was horrible and the only thing that kept them going is the wonderful dream of what they would arrive to at Camp Half-Blood. To keep their energy up they tried to focus on progress and how close they were to New York. But still, some nights were obviously better than others. Sometimes they would go for days at a time without encountering a single monster. One time they went an entire week without a single monster finding them. The next week after that they were chased by a hellhound for a full six hours. Despite fatigue, once they had finally killed it no one slept for the next two hours, fearing being under the pursuit of something else. Annabeth was shivering for hours, but her eyelids never drifted downwards. Those were bad nights, the ones marked with monsters.
Good nights were not only marked by lack of monsters, but also by food. All of them were skinny, but had developed muscles from all the running they were doing. The only thing adults on the street had to question about them was the often dirty and ragged state of their clothing and the greasiness their hair had been left to. They would be left alone often enough for them to steal any necessary food from stores or money from woman’s purses. They had almost perfectly perfected the art of shoplifting canned or packaged goods from gas stations and convenience stores. It was so poor and miserable for them to have to resort to such measure; so different from the heroic and brave demigods they had heard of. Now those icon’s lives only seemed like fantasies covering the truth of a demigod’s unfortunate lifestyle. But with a stomach full of canned peaches and nuts, who could complain.
Thalia especially appreciated nights in which they could stop at a gas station with private, one toilet, one sink bathrooms, in which she could clean her hair and arms without looking to strange. You just couldn’t do that at normal bathrooms without other people staring. Thalia had cut back her hair so that it wouldn’t be a hassle to take care of, but Annabeth had just refused to even have scissors come near her hair. Thalia tied it up in a long braid that ran down her back to get it out of the way, but after a few weeks, it looked oily and would only hold to Annabeth’s back like a wet towel. It didn’t matter how often they ran it through water if there was no shampoo of any kind to fix it. She then agreed to have it cut back. The bob wasn’t very flattering to her complexion, but nor was the dirt and blood stained clothing. They understood at that moment that all that counted was survival.
Their journey wasn’t heroic and all they wanted was to get to the magical camp their parents had all once told them about. Although all of them had run away in anger, Luke’s faith in the gods waned more than Thalia and Annabeth’s, but they had all run away for different reasons. Luke was even reluctant to go to a place where he would have to worship his father, but if that’s what it took to for once have a full stomach, he would go do anything. But there was one thing that they were all sure of by the time they had stepped across the New York boarder was that unlike all the myths and stories, no help would come from the gods above. The journey had been made alone. And despite everything, Luke knew that they had made it with just that.