Hi all! I just raced through Sword of Summer and, like all of you I'm sure, when I got to the end and the chapter stopped before Annabeth and Chase could actually have that conversation (because of course it did), I kept imagining how it might go, and so I figured, why not write it down for y'all? (I'm sure this will get done a TON of times in the next few hours especially, but… meh.) So without further ado, here it is! Enjoy =)

P.S. I do not own anything written by Rick Riordan. I'm simply playing in his primordial Ginnungagap. =) Oh, and the beginning, in italics, comes directly from the book. Just a heads-up.

"Now spill," Annabeth commanded. "Tell me what's been going on. I promise I won't tell. I might even be able to help. I also promise that whatever's been going on with you, my life is weirder. It'll make yours look downright suburban."

I considered everything I'd been through- death and resurrection, fishing for the World Serpent, fighting with giants, running from monster squirrels, binding a wolf on a disappearing island.

"How much you want to bet?" I said.

"Bring it on, cousin."

"Lunch?" I suggested. "I know a great falafel place."

"You've got a bet," she said. "Let's hear what you've been up to."

"Oh, no," I said. "Your story is so amazing? You go first."

"Fine," she agreed. Her eyes sparkled, but not in a happy twinkly way… more in a I'm-about-to-blow-your-story-out-of-the-water way.

Maybe I should have gone first.

"I'm a daughter of Athena," Annabeth said abruptly from beside me.

Whoa.

What?

"I'm sorry," I said. "I could have sworn you just said Athena." Maybe she meant Hoenir, I thought, or… someone else's name who sounds like "Athena" but... isn't. I came up blank.

"I did," said Annabeth. She was giving me a look like, I didn't think you were this dumb. "Who's your godly parent?"

By now my brain was majorly in WHAT THE HELHEIM mode, but I heard the question. "Frey…?" I said weakly.

Now Annabeth's brows were furrowed, like, I didn't account for this in my calculations. What is the missing variable here? She squinted at me. I don't know what she was hoping to see. "Frey…" she muttered. "Where have I heard that before…" Then her eyes zeroed in on Jack, who was currently disguised as a pendant with the rune of Frey etched on it. Her eyes widened. "Norse…?" Her hands went up to her head and dug into her scalp. She started mumbling to herself, which was very uncharacteristic. "Why did it have to be Norse? I've already had my worldview shattered with that Egyptian crap… sorry, Sadie," she appeared to say to no one at all. I was now becoming seriously worried. I almost told her she was starting to look like Bag Lady Ran, but by a miracle of mental fortitude I held back.

She pulled herself together and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Okay," she decided. "Clearly this is going to take some more explanation than I thought. What is it with our family…" she sighed. "How about we stop by that falafel place and grab lunch- and I'll pay, because I'm your cool older cousin- and then we go back to my hotel room." Even though it was phrased as a request, I'm pretty sure it was an order. Those grey eyes could be really intimidating. I kept coming back to what she had said… I'm a daughter of Athena… Granted I didn't know much about Greek mythology, but if I had to pick anyone I knew to be the daughter of the goddess of (I was pretty sure) warcraft and battle strategy… Well.

I realized she was still waiting for an answer and also that, embarrassingly, I'd been staring into her eyes for waaaay longer than I should've been. Oops. "Um, yeah, sounds fine," I muttered.

We stood there for a few seconds.

"Magnus," said Annabeth in a voice that said you're testing my patience, "I don't know where the falafel place is. You have to lead the way." The you butt went unsaid… this time.

"Oh right," I said. Come on, Magnus, you can do this. You just led an effort to rebind Fenris Wolf. You can lead an effort to eat delicious falafel.

We set off for the falafel place.

Falafel in hand (which actually got paid for! I think Amir was in shock), we headed for Annabeth's hotel. It was pretty close by- either it was a coincidence or she'd been watching me. Not sure which I thought was more likely. We reached her room and she tucked her to-go falafel bag (which held an awful lot of falafel… I guess she was hungry?) under her arm and opened the door.

"Honey, I'm home!" she called with a smirk. Before I could get over my shock that there was apparently someone else in the room (and before my paranoia could go into overdrive), a guy appeared in that weird hallway thing all hotel rooms have before you get to the actual beds. He looked about the same age as Annabeth, so two or three years older than me, probably. He had black hair and green eyes and was pretty good-looking.

What? So I'm a guy. I can appreciate things like that.

"I still think I should have gone with you," the guy was saying. "I was worried." He looked at Annabeth with puppy dog eyes.

"Oh, shut up, Seaweed Brain," she rolled her eyes at him. Aside: His name was Seaweed Brain? Weirdest name I had ever heard. And I'd heard some weird ones. "You know I had to talk to Magnus alone," she continued. "And I got you falafel." She tossed the bag at him.

"Really? Sweet," Seaweed Brain exclaimed. He investigated the bag and pulled out a falafel, then popped it into his mouth. "Okay, this is really good," he admitted. "Are you sure this isn't falafel-flavored ambrosia?" Then he seemed to notice me hanging back behind Annabeth. His eyes darted between my cousin and me. He made the connection immediately. "Wait, is this him?" he asked. "I thought you were just gonna talk with him." He looked at her confusedly.

"Things are more complicated than I thought," she sighed, "so I figured I'd better bring him back here."

Seaweed Brain shook his head. "More complicated than we thought: I think those words accurately describe our whole lives," he complained. He moved out of the hallway to make room for me and Annabeth to go inside and set down the falafel bag. Annabeth snagged one on the way in and sat on one of the beds.

I closed the door behind me. For some reason I wasn't really nervous, even though I'd never met this guy before. He just seemed like he didn't have a malicious bone in his body. I don't know why.

"I'm Percy Jackson," said Seawe- no, apparently that wasn't his name. Weirdest nickname ever, then. "Annabeth's boyfriend." He was holding out his hand to me, so I shook it automatically. He had calluses on his hand. They were in the same places as the blisters I'd had on my left hand (for about two seconds before they were healed) from swordfighting during that first battle in Valhalla. So… a swordfighter then? It was a sign of the weirdness my life had turned into recently that I didn't even blink at the notion of a kid only a couple years older than me, a fellow member of the population of America, the laziest country in the world, could feasibly be an expert swordsman. Sigh. I did catch myself looking him over critically, as if older brother instincts had suddenly surfaced, which was awkward since I was younger than Annabeth anyway.

"Magnus Chase," I said, nodding at him.

"Nice to meet you," said Percy. He went and sat on the bed with Annabeth. I sat on the other one so we were all facing each other.

There was an awkward silence.

Annabeth and Percy were looking at each other, and seemed to be communicating by a combination of telepathy and strange gestures. I just sat there feeling like a third wheel.

Finally, Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Let's start over," she said. "I'm Annabeth, daughter of Athena." My eyes widened at this confirmation that I hadn't been hallucinating earlier.

"Oh," said Percy, "so he is the child of a god? What's so-" then he yelped as Annabeth hit him. "You're so violent, Wise Girl," he complained. Another super-weird nickname. How old were they when they invented these? Twelve?

"Um," said Percy with a sideways look at Annabeth, "Percy Jackson. Son of Poseidon." He looked at me a little defiantly, which I thought was weird- like he was expecting some kind of negative reaction. All I could manage was shock.

Annabeth gestured at me and raised her eyebrows imperiously. "I- ah," I said eloquently, "...Magnus Chase, son of-" I almost said Natalie. I missed Nidavellir, although I did not miss their obsession with listing the histories of their chairs and drinking goblets. "Son of Frey," I finished.

Percy looked confused. "Frey?" he asked. "I don't think I've ever heard of…"

Annabeth nudged him. "That's the point," she said pointedly. See what I did there? "Frey is Norse," she emphasized.

"Norse? But-" protested Percy. Then something appeared to dawn on him. "Oh, gods of Olympus," he moaned, running his hands down his face. Gods of Olympus? I thought. Okay, this is getting harder and harder to deny. "Another pantheon? We already discovered the Egyptian one! Even the Roman one, if you count that as separate! Are they all just hanging around?" He buried his face in his hands.

Annabeth rolled her eyes at his dramatics. "So, as you may have guessed," she said to me, "we're the children of Greek deities. Yes, they exist," she said as if to head me off. "I'm the child of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, crafts, and war tactics." I could so see that.

Percy sat up straighter. "My dad, Poseidon, is one of the Big Three," he explained, "the three most powerful gods. He's the god of the oceans and earthquakes." He grinned. "It kinda sucked at first," he explained, "because Zeus, Hades, and my dad all agreed not to have any more kids after WWII, so everyone at Camp Half-Blood hated me a little. The children of the Big Three tend to be bad news for the state of the world. But then I did a bunch of heroic stuff-" he rolled his eyes "- which as Annabeth would tell you is code for flying by the seat of my pants, surviving on her advice, and somehow coming out on top. But people seem pretty okay with me now."

I don't know why waking up in actual Valhalla after my death, having lived life as an atheist, inspired little more than some mild confusion and then quick acceptance, while this felt like it was rocking my world. I must have looked super-confused, because Annabeth took pity on me and said, "Magnus, tell us more about your godly parent. I have to admit," she said sheepishly, "I haven't done a whole lot of research into the Norse pantheon. That will change," she promised with a scary look in her eyes. "But for now I'll need you to explain everything."

Okay, I thought. I can do this. "My dad is Frey," I explained. I was a bit shaky at first, but moving into familiar territory (even if it had only been like a week and a half) was comforting. My voice got stronger. "He's the god of summer, fertility, and the balance between the extremes of heat and cold."

"He's not obsessed with cereal, is he?" Percy interjected.

"What? No, why?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.

"Well, he sounds kinda like the guy version of Demeter-"

"Female goddess of summer, crops, grain, that kind of thing," explained Annabeth, while shooting lasers out of her eyes at Percy, which he didn't see.

"-and I don't know what it is, but that lady is way too interested in cereal. One time, she…" Percy glanced at Annabeth, suddenly saw the looks she'd been shooting him, and trailed off. I didn't blame him… if Annabeth gave me a death stare like that, I'd shut up too.

"Go on, Magnus," she said with another look at her boyfriend.

"Okay, well, aside from that, I actually did die, you know," I admitted, looking away from Annabeth. She shifted on the bed and bit her lip. "But then my soul got plucked up by Sam, she's a Valkyrie, and now I'm an einheryi," I said uncomfortably.

"Oh, did you get something in your throat?" asked Percy. I liked the guy already.

"It means I died bravely trying to save others and now live in Valhalla as an immortal soldier of Odin waiting for Ragnarok," I explained in a rush. "So this me is kind of like… I don't know… Magnus 2.0?"

Percy and Annabeth suddenly looked really sympathetic, which was weird, as I'd been expecting disbelief or, alternatively, amazement and possibly jealousy.

"Dude," said Percy, "I'm sorry." He looked at Annabeth. "I turned down immortality once because I didn't want the people I loved to grow old without me. It sucks that you didn't even have a choice." He put an arm around Annabeth.

"Um… thanks?" I said. "I mean it's not too bad… I have some friends there, and Sam is great. Although now that she's off on super-secret Odin missions I'm not sure how often I'll see her…" I trailed off.

There was another awkward silence.

"Okay, enough sadness," I said. "Annabeth, you promised me an awesome story. I expect you to deliver."

Annabeth smiled at me. She had some falafel, and then took a deep breath.

"Wait, so you guys trekked across the entire country to find this... lightning... thing? And it was in your backpack the entire time and you didn't even know? And you almost died… how many times?"

"We lost track."

"And… how old were you?"

"Twelve."

"..."

"Wait, wait, so you snuck out on a quest? Hadn't you had enough with that bolt thingy?"

", The master bolt, and we had to go! It was important!"

"To the Bermuda Triangle?!"

"You don't understand."

"..."

"Well I'm glad you reconciled with your dad, at least… but… you mean there's ACTUALLY a guy who has to hold up the sky? And you guys did that? And you didn't die?"

Annabeth and Percy shared a look. They reached back at the same time and pulled forward locks of hair that were the same color grey. "We… had to sacrifice some of our life force," admitted Percy. "But it was worth it."

"No, I'm sorry," I said. "We have to stop now." I shook my head. "How old were you guys when you did this?"

Annabeth looked at Percy. "Fourteen-ish?" she guessed. Percy nodded.

"And how old are you guys now?" I asked weakly.

"Eighteen," said Percy.

"And I'm assuming you have plenty more death-defying stunts stuffed into those four years," I said.

"Definitely," nodded Annabeth.

"Last year, I lost my memory and was used as a pawn to unite the Greek and Roman demigod factions!" piped in Percy.

"Well, um," I said, not sure what to do with that last bit, "your stories are definitely crazier than mine. All I did this week was die, get resurrected, fish for Jormungand, fight with giant squirrels (and normal giants), and rebind Fenris Wolf." I paused. "Oh, and I made friends with a sentient sword named Jack."

"Who you've been ignoring this whole time," said Jack.

Annabeth and Percy jumped and then shared looks.

"Okay, now this, I gotta see," said Percy.

I tapped my pendant and Jack turned back into a sword floating next to me. "Hey," he said.

Percy's eyes widened for a second, then he grinned. "Hey," he said to my sword.

"Most people don't adjust that easily," I said to Percy. But he ignored me.

"Wanna fight?" He asked Jack. "I've never fought a sentient sword before." Looked like my feeling about him being a swordsman was right then.

"Um, he's pretty fast-" I warned, and at the same time Annabeth said, "Percy, don't you dare!" in her scariest voice. But it was too late.

"Come at me, bro!" said Jack. He flipped over in the air, like an invisible person was testing his balance.

Percy smiled and reached into his pocket, bringing out… a pen? Which then turned into a sword. I turned to Jack. "And you said a pen disguise was lame!" I whined.

He shrugged at me… as much as a sword can shrug. "It is! I'm gonna trash this guy and his lame pen-sword!"

"That's what you think," retorted Percy. "Bring it on!"

"With pleasure," said Jack.

They went at each other, and sparks flew. As Annabeth herded me out of the way, I couldn't keep the smile off my face. It looked like my actual family was just as crazy as my pseudo-family, but I didn't care. We had a lot to talk about, and I couldn't wait.

But first I had a duty to my sword.

"Come on, Jack, you can take him!" I yelled.

Annabeth, who had been glaring murderously at Percy, shot me an incredulous look. "You butt!" She said. "Don't encourage them!" Then she turned to the fight and shouted, "Come on Seaweed Brain! If you get beaten by a bodiless piece of metal I'll never let myself be seen with you again!"

Family. I smiled. It was pretty great.