A/N: This fic has been kicking around in my WIP folder for nearly a year. I thought it was about time I finish it off, especially since it's Annabeth's birthday today! Happy birthday to my favourite demigod!
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Quest
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When she is seven and the newest camper at Camp Half-Blood, Annabeth watches Flavian Barkwith return successfully from a quest to slay a giant sea serpent and retrieve his father's silver swan. The campers raise him on their shoulders to carry him to the amphitheatre, where they all burn the golden shroud that was made for him.
Flavian is tall and athletic, with dark, wavy hair and a tanned, handsome face, and he looks every inch a hero. It is the first time Annabeth realises that a fight can be won, that one can stand triumphant over the forces of darkness.
It doesn't have to be like Thalia.
A quest seems to be this magical incubator for heroes. And she can't wait for her chance to lead one herself.
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When she is eight and a year more knowledgeable about the history and traditions of Camp Half-Blood, Annabeth can spout details about decades of quests from memory. She has made it her business to find out everything she can about questing—pestering Chiron about the heroes he's trained since the beginning of time, begging older campers for stories of their adventures, scouring books in spite of her struggles with reading.
She could tell you how Perseus slaughtered the gorgon Medusa, or how Atalanta speared the Calydonian boar (she loves that heroism doesn't discriminate: girls are every bit as capable as boys). She knows that Flavian Barkwith hypnotised his sea serpent by lulling it to sleep with a magical lyre and setting it on fire (because slicing the head off a hydra only makes two grow back). She has catalogued years of quests—the triumphs and the failures—and could tell you the pitfalls that lead to disaster.
(She could also tell you about the architecture on Medusa's native Cisthene, or the design of temples on Atalanta's hometown Argos, and the details of various other amazing creations around the world, but that's just a bonus. You never know when it might come in handy.)
Christy Askoll calls her a little nuisance when she offers up everything she's learned about taming a Hippogriff, but the daughter of Hephaestus has to eat her words when it is Annabeth's advice and not her own forged weapons that prevent her from being sliced and diced by the beast.
Annabeth knows then that the key to leading a successful quest is being prepared: a fitting task for a daughter of Athena.
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When she is nine and asks if she can lead a quest, the other campers laugh at Annabeth. She is tiny at that age, still the smallest among them, and no one takes her seriously when she insists that she could handle it.
She shuts everyone up when she beats Brogan Whitlock in a duel, using her speed and agility to get around him and bring her trusty bronze dagger to his throat. Everyone is too stunned to clap, except for Luke, who whistles and shouts, 'Awesome, Annabeth!'
His praise drowns out the glare Brogan sends her, and she couldn't care less that she's made an enemy of the son of Ares.
But Brogan has the last laugh when he gets the quest that year. Annabeth grits her teeth and vows that next time, next year, it will be her turn.
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When she is ten and begs for her chance to join a quest, Annabeth is let down by her best friend in the world. Luke's father sets him the task of retrieving a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides—a challenge equal to the great Heracles himself—and as per tradition, he chooses two companions.
It should be her. Luke knows how much she wants this and he's seen how well she can fight. But he picks Tyler Grayson and Abby Markoff, and Annabeth feels deeply, bitterly betrayed.
She storms up to the Great House, determined to get her own quest from the Oracle, but instead, all she receives is a dusted-off prophecy from the 1940s, and Chiron's pronouncement that she won't have a quest until some undetermined time in the future.
When Luke returns alone a month later, scarred and bitter with failure and the loss of his companions, Annabeth is devastated for him, but she also can't help the burning conviction that if she'd been the one to go with him, things could have been different.
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When she is eleven, nobody gets a quest at all.
'Given the events of recent years,' Chiron announces, and although he doesn't look at anyone in particular, Annabeth notices how every camper's eyes dart towards Luke and then scurry away, 'I have convinced the gods that it would be prudent to hold off on the issuing of any quests for the time being.'
A wave of murmurs ripple across the tables, ranging from relief (mostly Aphrodite and Demeter) to outrage—Ares is loudest, although Annabeth feels like she could out-yell any of them if she were to focus on the injustic of it all—no quests, no chance to prove herself … what is Chiron thinking? Instead, she looks over at the Hermes table, where Luke sits very quietly, the only one not muttering about Chiron's edict. His friends are all carefully avoiding looking at him.
Luke's face may as well be carved from the same stone as their dining tables. Annabeth can't read the expression in his eyes. The deep scar the dragon left on his face last year turns him into someone different, a defeated warrior, cold and distant. She can't tell what he thinks of Chiron's announcement.
He doesn't meet her eyes.
That summer seems to stretch out impossibly slowly, too long and languid without a quest to spice up the routine of their daily activities. Even capture the flag starts to feel a little stale.
Chiron—perhaps in an effort to inject some festivity into the summer session—invites his relatives to visit, a move which he promptly regrets (at least Annabeth thinks he must) when they insist on throwing a prom for the campers.
The Aphrodite cabin goes wild. The Apollo campers spend a week mixing up antidotes to love charms and potions that the Hermes kids have been merrily sneaking into people's food (Annabeth almost considers sneaking one to Luke). Hephaestus's lot shut themselves in the forges until the madness ends. Mr D, with a long-suffering sigh, produces plenty of punch for the dance, which takes place in their usual campfire spot.
Annabeth sneaks away from the amphitheatre and makes her way up Half-Blood Hill, where Thalia's tree stands proudly, pine leaves rustling soothingly in the wind. Annabeth places her hand on the bark and gazes out into the distance. Somewhere, under the same constellations, a kid marked by a prophecy is waiting, like her, to fulfil its charge. Chiron may have put a moratorium on quests for now, but once that prophecy is set in motion, he'll have to let her go.
Soon, the leaves seem to whisper to her. It won't be long now.
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When she is twelve and so tired of waiting, Annabeth's special half-blood finally arrives. At last, Chiron gives her permission to accompany a quest. Her heart is full to bursting as they set off.
But nothing goes as it should. Percy Jackson is an insufferable idiot with kelp for brains and she has to tell him everything, and he manages to tick off all the gods, so it must be his fault that their plans keep going wrong (because Annabeth is a good planner, and she's studied and prepared for this for years) and they're flying by the seat of their pants half the time, which just feels wrong. This isn't how a quest is meant to go, is it?
Yet somehow they escape monster after monster, and after they've saved each other's lives tens or dozens of times (Annabeth's lost count), Annabeth realises improvising isn't the worst thing after all. And the son of Poseidon is pretty good at it.
Percy is also funny (not that she'll admit it) and brave (challenging Ares might be a dumb-ass thing to do, but it also takes a yard of guts) and loyal (though it takes her a while to recognise his actions on the bus out of New York as such). And he doesn't look at her like she's a kid who needs to be protected, but an equal, important member of his team. Like someone he needs.
And Annabeth wants to be that someone he can depend on.
('Because you're my friend, Seaweed Brain.')
When they finally make it through the twists and turns of a mission which wasn't as straightforward as she thought it should have been, she feels like she can no longer remember a time that they weren't friends.
(Was it really only a week ago?)
Later in the summer, she sits on a blanket under a spectacular array of fireworks and watches fondly while Percy skips stones in the surf and Grover plays So, Yesterday for them one last time before he leaves on his search for Pan. She never would have imagined questing with either of them, but now she can't picture doing it without them.
When she gets to lead her own quest, she knows she won't even have to think twice to pick her companions.
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When she is thirteen and the quest she proposes to save Camp Half-Blood is given to Clarisse, Annabeth takes matters into her own hands: she and Percy run off to find Grover and the Golden Fleece themselves, and for the first time, Annabeth realises the power of deciding her own destiny.
When the time comes for the heroic return to camp, Annabeth doesn't even feel the slightest twinge of jealous or possessiveness when they hand the Fleece over to Clarisse to take home. She doesn't need the glory, she realises. The honour of the quest is in saving that which needs to be saved.
Annabeth feels proud enough just to be a saviour.
But then she becomes the subject of a quest herself: betrayed by her oldest friend, crushed under the weight of the sky, held captive and close to death until the heroes of the quest arrive.
She's never been so happy to see Percy Jackson, but she's also never been so humiliated. She is Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, not some damsel in distress in need of rescuing.
Except, of course, that is what she's become.
Never again, Annabeth promises herself. She won't be fooled and trapped and held hostage waiting for a white knight to come along, even if the stalwart hero in question makes her blush and her heartbeat quicken when he asks her to dance.
Next time, she's going to be the one doing the rescuing, thank you very much.
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When she is fourteen and finally handed a quest to lead, Annabeth realises that the single mission that has been her burning ambition since she was seven no longer defines her. She understands now what she didn't at seven, at ten, at twelve: that a quest isn't about glory, or pride, or even proving oneself. A true hero undertakes a quest because she has to.
And someone has to descend into the Labyrinth and find Daedalus (find Luke, her mind whispers), convince him not to let Kronos's army have Ariadne's thread (convince Luke to come back).
But every twist in the maze seems to bring a new horror. The Labyrinth is alive and it whispers to all of them, tearing apart the group she carefully chose to accompany her.
They lose Grover and Tyson to the seductive promise of Pan. And then she loses Percy to a volcanic eruption in the heart of the Labyrinth.
The pain of losing Percy is almost enough to make Annabeth switch sides herself as she stumbles, choking on her own tears, back into camp. Because how could the gods—the same ones whom they are running quests for; their parents—let something like that happen?
Is this how Luke felt when he returned, sans companions and sans victory?
She is just coming to terms with her failure and her loss when Percy gate-crashes his own funeral and resuscitates both her heart and her quest.
And the rest of her quest prophecy unfolds after all, but Annabeth is never quite sure if she succeeded or failed ultimately. She finds Daedalus, but is too late to persuade him to hold back Ariadne's thread; yet she convinces him to return to fight for Camp Half-Blood. The lines of the prophecy play out—none of them quite as expected, but heartbreakingly accurate all the same.
They found the Lost One, but lost him just as quickly. Minos played his hand, but young Nico di Angelo was the one to lay claim to the ghostly power of the Underworld. She didn't die, but an ancient genius gave his life to save the camp.
Percy didn't die, but Luke (oh, Luke) is worse than dead.
And she can't shake the feeling that it's all her fault.
Her quest, her choice, her responsibility.
(Choose, whispers Janus in her ear.)
At the end of her quest, Annabeth still doesn't know if she has it in her to make the wisest choice.
(Especially not when a single choice shall end his days.)
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Annabeth Chase spent half her life wishing for a quest before she got one. If she could go back and speak to her younger self, this is what she would tell her:
You never really 'get' a quest—the quest finds you.
Always, always have a plan—but always, always be prepared for that plan to go wrong, too.
The most important thing about questing is who you take with you. Choose carefully, because you're gonna need to depend on them to save your ass at some point.
And to be honest, you don't really need a quest. Because what is life but a big quest where any clues you might have about what's coming are as murky and unpredictable as the Oracle's prophecies?
And like any good quester knows, you need three things to successfully navigate a quest: a prophecy, a plan, and a damn good team.
Maybe the first and the second don't always work out so well, but the last—well, if you get that one right …
If Annabeth Chase could tell her seven-year-old self one thing about quests, it would be that the person you take with you could very well be the one you keep beside you for life.