She had an answer not two days later. 

A message written on white paper, in dark blue ink, closed with a sea green wax seal. 

Annabeth perched on her window seat, a flowing white nightgown pooling around her feet that she had pulled up to tuck underneath herself. Her grey eyes scanned the paper and she covered her mouth as a giggle escaped her lips. 

Only Percy would find humor in this situation. 

But the answer was clear. He was sending out messages to his royal friends, and planning a trip to Athens within the fortnight. Annabeth smiled to herself and hugged the letter close. 

After years she would finally see him, finally be in the presences of those sea green eyes she remembered so vividly.

Her next letter she had sent had also gotten a response. 

Thalia was behind her all the way and was working her brother as she wrote the letter. 

This left Annabeth planning. If she was about to have this meeting, meetings, she needed to know what she would say. So she got dressed and went to her mother. 

A light knock on her mother's study had a voice calling from inside. "Come in." Her mother's cold voice rang like a death knell in her blood. Annabeth walked in, her pink skirts swishing on the marble floor. 

Her mother's study had three walls covered by shelves of books, the black wood stark against the white walls. The rich dark wood of the massive desk in the middle of the study was carved with clawed feet. An owl with its talons spread wide on the front, and the columns at the sides feathered and lovingly crafted.  

"Yes?" Athena didn't even look up from her papers. The black dress she wore marking that she was still deep in mourning, and the trembling of her voice and red rimmed eyes she tried to hide proof that she had been crying before welcoming Annabeth into her space. 

Annabeth sat down in one of the two plush armchairs in front of her mother's desk.  

"Mother," She tried to word this in the right way. "are you okay?" 

That was the wrong thing to say. 

Athena's head snapped up, her braided hair jolting with the sudden movement. "Leave." 

"Mother, I'm just worried." She pleaded. "I know how much you love him and I know this is very hard for you." She reached her hand out, only to pull it back as Athena stood to her feet. 

"I will not have my own child patronizing me." The Queen spat, walking around the desk to meet Annabeth as she rose from the chair. "Get out." Annabeth opened her mouth, to try again. 

Smack. 

Annabeth's hand didn't even go to her burning cheek. She felt her skin turn red, her eyes start burning-not from emotional hurt but from the stinging lacing her skin. She could have stop it, could have grabbed her mother's hand and bent it back, made her feel pain for once. 

But that would show too much. 

Too much of her real self. 

He mother had a certain idea about her daughter. That her daughter wasn't as cunning as her older brother, that she wasn't half of the things he was. But Annabeth was so much more, for the only reason she had come in here was to get her mother to smack her. 

To make sure that the guards outside the slightly cracked door heard it all. 

As her eyes watered, she didn't stop the tears from falling. Twisting her face into cold and unfeeling as she turned from her mother and walked out. Only when she was a few steps down the hall did she let her shoulders hunch forward, let the guards see what they wanted as she shuffled down the hall to her rooms. 

Once her door was closed she rolled her eyes and wiped her cheeks. She opened her bathing chamber's door and grabbed a cloth. Running cold water over the white cloth she tended to her stinging cheek. 

Maybe her mother had been playing the game longer than she had, but she didn't even know that there was a game now. Athena had never thought much of her second born, putting all of her eggs in one basket with her first. 

That was to her chagrin. 

So Annabeth cleaned herself up, and got changed. It should be sufficiently spread throughout the castle that her mother slapped her, so maybe she would get angry? Someone gets angry when they are unjustly punished, right? 

It just so happens that Annabeth never gets angry. 

Even when she was little, she never threw fits. She was never a brat, had always been kind to everyone. And wary of royals. 

Annabeth walked down the hall once more. 

The guards that looked her way blinked in shock. 

At the hair in a simple ponytail. At the boots, laced to halfway up her calf. At the blue tunic, loose fitting and with the top two buttons undone. At the black pants, that hugged her body. 

At the belt with a dagger sitting in a sheath. 

Her face was pleasant, if not still a bit red. A small smile, as she tipped her head to whoever looked her way. As she walked down the hall she saw a servant lady struggling to carry everything in her arms. She was obviously doing the laundry. 

An unexpected, but not unwelcomed turn of events, that Annabeth would not waste. She smiled slightly bigger and walked over to the lady. 

"Let me help you out there." She chuckled and took the mass of balled up linens from her shaking arms. The girl couldn't have been more than twelve, skinny as a stick with black hair and smooth caramel colored skin.

She paled as she saw who was helping her. "Oh! Princess, you can't help me." She shook her head and tried to take the things back.

"I insist. And I'm sure you know I can be fairly suborn on things like this." She winked at the small girl. The girl blushed and dipped her head. "Where do you want these?"  

The servant girl led Annabeth to her cart down the hall. Annabeth dropped the bundle into the basket and smiled. "What else do you do here?" 

"U-Um . . . I-I-I . . . " She bit her fingernails and Annabeth smiled softly. "I help in the kitchens." 

"Well," Annabeth crossed her arms and tapped her chin. "How about you become my personal attendant? You're adorable and I simply can't have you keep lifting things three times your weight." The girl blinked up at her, in wonder and disbelief. "How about it?" 

"Oh! Yes! Yes Ma'am!" She bowed deeply and Annabeth chuckled again. 

"First, no bowing, I'm not a fan." She lifted the girl's chin up and pushed her shoulders back. "You can bow to the others, but don't let me catch you doing it to me." She held onto the girl's bony shoulders . . . so skinny. "Next, just call me Annabeth, my mother is Ma'am. Then, I need your name." 

"Uh-uh-Agnes." She stuttered out, toying with her dark hair braided over her shoulder. Amber eyes flicked to Annabeth then the floor and back again. 

"Well then Agnes," Annabeth smiled. "Finish up your duties today and starting tomorrow report to my room first thing." Another smile and she left the girl after patting the top of her head. She passed a nearby guard. "Help her carry these things," He stiffened as she ordered him. "and do watch your tongue and actions. I will not take nicely to anything happing to her." She whispered the last bit. 

Not a threat, but so he knew just what would happen if he slipped up. 

With that done she kept walking down the hall.