Okay so here's my final contest entry for Battle of the Fandoms. This round's prompt is: Annabeth and Percy's death and getting judged to go to the underworld. It should be under 3-4K words, because there are so many authors.

Dedication: Lunknowl who came up with the contest idea and was impossibly patient with me and my scrambled up contest entries. Go look it up on her profile- it's some pretty good stuff going on.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters shown below.

Where the Path May Lead

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Very well," one of the ghosts said. "But just you know: for a daughter of Athena, your decision wasn't very wise. We're overbooked since the war- rebirth operations haven't occurred in months! Places are limited everywhere, especially since we just forwarded all the warriors to the pricy districts, and you just turned down the last spot in Elysium. You won't be able to change your mind in the next hundred years girl, it takes forever to apply for a new judgement…"

Annabeth swallowed. It made her throat hurt- although her body was already in so much pain…

But she didn't let the judges get to her head. She'd made her decision. She didn't want to go to Elysium if she'd be there alone. She didn't want to go to Elysium if another hero wouldn't be able to. That was final.

"Can I wait outside before being led to Asphodel?" Annabeth asked. "Just for a minute?"

The three judges looked at each other briefly before Minos gave her a small nod. Two ghouls swept her off her feet and dragged her in a small court yard outside. There was a passage leading directly out into the rest of the Underworld, and a sign pointing the newly dead in the right direction. Elysium, Asphodel, the Isles, the Fields of punishment- and a reminder that anyone who tried to stray from their supposed path wouldn't be able to, and would be sent to Tartarus if they had any godly blood in them as they did. You should know better than ignore orders from the Lord of the Dead when ichor flowed through your veins. Especially if you were already dead.

Instead of going forwards she sat down on one of the park benches. Gems staging as flowers loomed over her. It wasn't quiet in hell, it was very noisy. The whispering sounds of souls trying to do the most human thing –communicate- when they were no longer human. The screams of the tortured. The music of the blessed. The rush of the Underworld's five major rivers…

She cupper her knees with her hands and tried to calm herself down. Looking at the paths reminded her of a poem, and so like her dad did to calm her down as a child, she whispered the words to herself. Familiarity was good in this strange place. She'd been to Hades' before, but never as a dead soul. Never.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

She gave up on Robert Frost's poem nearly immediately.

Looking at the paths was also painful when she thought about where they led- what she'd turned down vs. what she could have had. Elysium, the city of dreams since she was a child. It was not as painful as remembering her father though...

Oh gods, she thought in horror. What is he going to say? Who's going to tell him? Is he going to know how I died? He doesn't need to know how much blood was involved. Oh gods, oh gods. This is disastrous.

Annabeth drummed her feet against the ground and tried to keep her thoughts and emotions even. But even with what? She didn't know. She was dead. Stability and any other human concept shouldn't be vivid or important to her. It should be leaking out of her as she sat there, in the Underworld on that bench under those flowers. Maybe in a thousand years she wouldn't even have a concept of herself as a person... It made her shiver. Her worst nightmares come to life- being a vegetative being.

She put her head between her knees and breathed deeply, staling her walk to Asphodel, messing with time like she wished that she could mess with the universe.

And finally the big door of the dead opened as the ghouls led another soul through. And she recognized him right away. The black had leaked from his hair like dried up ink, the green vanished from his eyes as if they'd withered and died… But it was still Percy- his face, his shapes, his build, his arms...

"Seaweed Brain," she gasped when she saw him.

He turned to her and his eyes widened. "Annabeth!"

They tried to touch –hug, kiss, hold hands, fall in each other's arms, touch hair- but the ghouls forbade it.

"Annabeth! What are you doing here?" Percy said. "I thought that you were way back in the line!"

"No, I was right in front of you," Annabeth said.

"Oh." Percy said. "Well, why are you still here?"

"They gave me a second to compose myself."

"Wouldn't it be nicer to compose yourself in Elysium, Wise Girl?"

"Didn't they tell you? There was only one spot left, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said. "I didn't… I left it there. I thought that…" Her heart squeezed when she'd finally realized what she'd done. She was like that. The right thing came easily but as soon as she felt the effects emotionally –not just rationally looked it over from an intellectual perspective- she lost it. She took a deep breath. "Well, you're too hyperactive for Asphodel now aren't you?"

"But… I thought that you were in the back of the line…" Percy said. "And… And I didn't think that they let you draw, and from what Hazel told us there aren't many books in Elysium so I… I didn't think that I should take the last place there..."

"Wait- you're going to Asphodel?" Annabeth said.

"Not at this rate," the ghoul muttered.

Annabeth went on, "Even after all that Hazel said about it? The cold, the despair, the loneliness, the boredom, the…"

"I wouldn't send you there," Percy said.

The realization sunk in for both of them.

"Maybe Asphodel will be decent, then." Annabeth said. "We can stray from the myths. Maybe just this once."

This time the ghouls couldn't stop them from burying their heads in each other's hair.