Chapter 44: Third stage: Bargaining
[ Annabeth pov ]
It had been a while since Annabeth got on her knees, probably since Christina first got wounded in the fight against the dracaena. She remembered praying to her mother desperately for Christina to wake up fine, and it worked, so perhaps this time it would works as well. She stayed on her knees, praying to the different gods she knew of so that they would help Christina get better.
After two weeks of this, she began offering things instead, wondering if perhaps the gods weren't answering because she wasn't giving them anything in exchange. She had seen the people give offerings to the gods here at camp, setting aside part of their food on each meal to burn it for the gods.
'Please! If you help Christina I promise I will be a good girl! I won't say anything to offend you or to make you angry, so please help her!' she repeated over and over again in her head.
The two weeks passed and Christina was finally released from the infirmary, however she was... different. Annabeth, despite being young, was smart enough to understand that this was normal. The people from the infirmary, Chiron and even Luke had told her that Christina might be a bit different than usual, still... Annabeth didn't expect it to be his much.
Christina was erratic, to say the least. Her face grew cold, devoid of any emotion, however she would have wild mood swings, getting angry, sad, or scared for no apparent reason. Then there was also her conversations. Annabeth didn't understand who Christina was talking to, she didn't understand what was going on with her sister, and it hurt her so much.
Still, while the conversations and mood swings were bad, it was infinitely better than seeing her usual dead eyes as she stared into nothingness with a blank face. It remained Annabeth of the dolls she would often see from outside toy stores, beautiful dolls that had no life in them.
Around a week had passed since Christina's operation, meaning they had been here at camp for two weeks. By now Annabeth already knew where most places where and she even met some people, still it was nothing compared to Luke. Her brother learned every single location in camp on the first two days and spent the rest of the time meeting people, talking to others and making friends. Whenever he wasn't doing this, he was either practising his swordsmanship or just walking around, leaving Annabeth in charge of Christina's care.
Right now, Luke and her were taking Christina to cabin 9, where the people would see her and hopefully make her a pair of arms.
Naturally, Annabeth was slightly nervous. She didn't know anyone in cabin 9 so she couldn't help but wonder if they would even help them, however Luke calmed her down, saying that he already met some people from the cabin and that they were very nice.
"Hey, Chris." said Luke, making Christina, who was on his shoulders, focus her attention on him. "Do you have any special requests for your arms? Maybe we could have them painted pink or something." he continued saying with a smile.
Annabeth smiled a bit at his words and chose to support him in hopes of getting Christina to smile as well. "Yeah! Or maybe we could ask them to paint a red panda, you always wanted to see one, so like this they would be with you forever!"
Christina show a reaction at this, slowly moving her head in Annabeth's direction, however her eyes remained blank. "Yes..." she muttered. "Red pandas are cute."
Both Annabeth and Luke showed a surprised expression for a moment before smiling, it has been a while since Christina had spoken like that, so they were both excited to see some progress.
Eventually, they arrived to a relatively big cabin, more or less the size of a house. The cabin had a pretty strange appearance, being made out of bricks and with a smokestack coming out from it the cabin resembled more a factory than a house for children. Its door was more similar to a vault's door than the one of a cabin.
Luke looked at Annabeth and nodded, indicating her to knock on the door. Since he was carrying Christina on his back, Annabeth agreed and went to the door, were she knocked as hard as she could. Because of her small size, the knock wasn't as loud as she intended, however it did the job since soon enough a kid came out to greet them.
"Hey there." said Luke with a smile. "I talked to Cassius earlier for a favour, do you mind taking us to him?"
The boy looked at us for a moment and nodded. "Sure, come on in." he said, opening the door and letting us pass. "I would say sorry for the mess, but we don't really care about it so just be careful with where you step. Name's Charles by the way, what about you?" he asked.
"I am Luke, and this are Annabeth and Christina." replied Luke with a kind smile.
Annabeth looked a the boy and nodded, getting a nod back from him.
As they made their way through the house, Annabeth couldn't help but admire the different machines that were all around them. The overall appearance of the interior was not particularly nice, it looked more like a factory or a forge than anything else, however she could appreciate the amount of dedication they placed into inventing and building things, to the point were they didn't really care about anything else.
"Wait here." said Charles as they got in front of a door. "This is where we sleep so it would be better if you didn't come in, I will call Cassius."
Luke nodded in reply with a smile and stayed outside of the room with Annabeth and Christina, who had been looking around the cabin with more interest than she had shown anything this past days.
"It is prettier than I thought." said Christina, looking at a wall.
Annabeth smiled a bit, it had been a while since Christina started a conversation so this was definitely good! She was about to answer, however Christina shook her head and continued talking.
"That's not what I meant." she said, looking at an empty space and speaking as if there was someone there. "You know I like things like this, but I expected them to be uglier. This is surprisingly pretty."
Annabeth turned her sight towards Luke, who had Christina on her shoulders. He was looking at the armless girl with a sad expression while ignoring the ongoing conversation she was having with no one in particular.
Annabeth clenched her fists tightly. 'Please...' she thought. 'I will do anything! SO please help her get better...'
Soon enough, Christina finished speaking and continued to stare at the walls with a blank expression as silence filled the hallway they were in.
A few minutes later, Charles returned with a taller boy, who had a similar appearance to him.
"Hey there, Luke." said the new boy as soon as he arrived. "Is she the one you told me about?" he asked, pointing at Christina.
"Yes." replied Luke. "You told me you needed to take measurements for her arms, so here we are."
The boy nodded and looked at Annabeth. "Hey there kid." he said with a slight smile. "I am Cassius, you?"
"Annabeth." replied Annabeth. right now she wasn't precisely in the mood to talk, she would much rather have him make Christina's arms as fast as possible.
The boy simply nodded and focused on Christina for a second before turning around. "Follow me." he said as he began walking down the hall. "Charles will be helping me make her arms, so it will take less time than I initially told you, Luke."
Luke smiled a bit at Cassius' words. "Thanks." he said calmly. "How long will it be then?"
"Well, I initially thought it would take a month at best, but with Charles helping me it should be only around three weeks or so."
For a moment Annabeth showed a surprised expression, three weeks was still too long! However she quickly understood that they were making arms, which was undoubtedly something hard to do. She would also prefer if they focused on doing a good job rather than just making something to get the project out of the way, so it was very good.
It didn't take them long to arrive at a forge, where other kids were also working on different projects of their own.
Cassius moved to a forge in particular and sat on a table that was besides it. "Charles, get the measurements for the arms while I ask some questions to Luke."
Charles nodded and went in Christina's direction as Luke placed her down on a chair. He took out different instruments and began to bring them closer to Christina, who still showed no reaction.
"Hey, Annabeth." said Luke. "Do you mind helping him?"
Annabeth nodded and went in Charles' direction to help him. She could barely hear what Luke and Cassius were talking about, however she could make out some of the words they weer saying, and it appeared they were talking about the materials for the arms and the overall design.
Weekly Power Status
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