Chapter Text
Captain Annabeth Chase is one of the most feared names on the high seas. Legend has it she gained her first command after shooting her ex-lover dead for abandoning her for another woman. Renowned for her aim with the pistol and skills with a blade, experienced soldiers will drop their blades and run when they see gray sails on the horizon.
Percy Jackson, son of a long line of fishermen, is pretty much a nobody in his hometown. He brings in an average bounty day in and day out, and most would struggle to tell you anything more exceptional about him other than that he lives alone with his mother and younger sister at the cliffs on the edge of town.
Neither story is truth.
Salty sea spray slapped Percy straight in the face, startling him from the near-sleep state he’d been in. He shook his head, bringing himself the rest of the way from the realm of dreams. It wouldn’t do to lose control of his boat so close to shore.
He tightened his control over the lines, and checked his haul. It would be enough to feed his mother and sister.
In the distance, Percy noticed sails against the gray winter sky. They were difficult to pick out as far away as they were, so close to the color of the clouds.
“Huh, odd color, that.” Percy muttered to himself, and thought no further of it. After all, there were never any pirates in this part of the sea, and he was hardly in any danger from them anyway, especially this close to shore.
Annabeth frowned at the small fishing town before her. When she could, she avoided raiding small settlements like these. Sustenance living rarely left these people with anything worth the time, effort, and danger in a raid; it simply wasn’t practical. About the only value in them was spreading her legend and name.
She sighed and collapsed her spyglass, turning to the woman beside her. Despite their recent success, she still wore a haphazard mishmash of clothes raided from various ships, all under a long black coat. Annabeth didn’t care much for fashion, but the knowledge that had been unwillingly imparted to her was screaming quietly at her old friend’s outfit.
“We’ll be leaving them alone then, Captain?” Thalia asked.
Annabeth nodded. Her first mate, a woman who now was nearly a sister to her, had known her for many years. Thalia could read her like an open book.
“You’re mighty soft, then,” Thalia said.
From any other, it would be a challenge, a doubt that she held the fire needed to lead a pirate crew, but from Thalia, it was a gentle ribbing.
“No profit to be had in shaking fishermen down for every last gold coin. Their precious trading companies do enough already.” Annabeth refuted. “We’ll stow our sails for white and set in for trade. We could use the supplies, and it wouldn’t hurt to let off some of our recent gains for more marketable options we can spend elsewhere. And I'm certainly not the only one who could do with shore leave.”
“Leo?” Thalia asked, a teasing grin on her face.
“Leo,” Annabeth admitted. “And myself, you, and nearly everyone aboard this boat.”
Thalia nodded, conceding the point. The months they'd spent sailing here had worn on them all, and they both knew that.
Percy hauled the last of his catch that was going to market into Conner’s shop. He didn’t trust most fishmongers, but the Stoll brothers had always done fairly by him, and he definitely didn’t have the personality for hawking fish.
A dark wispy haze rose into the sky above an orange glow to the east. Sunrise it was not, for it was far too late in the day for that to be the cause of the glow.
His heart caught in his throat. That fire was in the same direction as his mother’s house.
Percy dropped the remainder of his catch back into the boat. He'd deal with it later, he needed to get back now. If there was a mob and a fire already, he didn't know if he could stop them before something happened to his family.
The town was aflame, and it wasn’t even her fault. Best she could tell, something had happened near the blacksmith’s almost on the edge of town, and the fire had quickly spread between the highly flammable buildings, torching quite a few buildings. She doubted the town would recover from this anytime soon.
“Hey, Captain, you didn’t tell me that we’d be burning this place! I should’ve brought my matches!” One of her drunken crewmembers shouted.
Every eye in the place turned to her.
She would see the man flogged for that slip of the tongue. She was pragmatic about her raids, yes, but that didn’t mean she held with being soft with her sailors. That one would learn his lesson, or his sailing would come to a short and sudden stop.
“Pirate!” cried a man in an offensively white suit. “Guards! Get them! They must have started this fire!”
Gods above, she hated his voice already.
In reply, she drew one of her pistols and fired, intentionally shooting the ostentatious hat off his head.
“Fight me if you wish, but know that you would stand against Captain Annabeth Chase of the Gray Owl,” she declared, hoping to terrify the guards and populace long enough to make her getaway.
It worked, and she sprinted for the docks, firing a second shot as a signal to the rest of her crew to retreat to the ship. This village simply wasn’t worth the trouble of putting down the guardsmen and any idiots who felt like playing hero. She knew they wouldn’t have anything worth taking, especially after seeing it directly, rather than just through her spyglass.
During his mad sprint towards his mother’s house, Percy passed a gorgeous woman in sailor’s clothing, long blonde hair tied up tightly behind her. The quality and style of her jacket indicated she was likely a ship’s captain, if he had to guess. Strangely, as he neared, she reached towards the pistols she wore around her waist, as if she expected him to fight her. Whatever had her fleeing, however, he kept on the speed.
Percy knew he wasn’t exactly the best sprinter, but adrenaline fueled him beyond his normal limits. He didn’t so much as stop to take a breath all the way from the docks until he reached his mothers house, intact and evidently untouched by the fire.
“Mom!” He shouted with the last of his breath, slamming a fist against the door.
“Percy? What happened?” Sally asked as she answered the door.
“Fire, in town.” He gasped out. “Thought it might be a mob that had come for you and ‘Stella.”
“Percy, we’re fine. In twenty years, not a soul has questioned the story I gave about your father,” Sally reprimanded him gently, kissing the top of his head. “We’re safe here.”
“I know, I just – I worry, that’s all.”
“We weren’t even home when the fire started, anyway. Poor Charlie’s forge caught fire, and the fire spread to some of the neighboring houses.”
“Just call him Beckendorf, Mom,” Percy said. “Everyone else does.”
“As I was saying, poor Charlie's forge caught fire,” Sally repeated herself with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Of all the villagers, she was the only one aside from his girlfriend to call Charles Beckendorf by anything other than his last name. In the years since his arrival, she was the only one to keep doing it. “I don't know what exactly happened, but Octavian accused some strange sailor of starting the fires.”
“Oh gods, Octavian,” Percy groused. “Not again.”
“Percy,” Sally chided again.
“I know, Mom, I know.” Percy said.
“If you ask me, it was obvious it wasn't her, just from her surprise at the blaze, but of course nobody did. She fired a pistol at him, but she missed, hitting his hat.”
“Did you catch her name? What she looked like, maybe?” Percy asked. His mom was the best person in the world, hands down, but she was a little too prone to believing the best in anyone, even himself.
“Oh, yes, she shouted that she was Captain Annabeth Chase as she fled.”
Percy felt his face drain of color. He'd thought her nothing more than a tall tale used by Navy sailors more full of alcohol than sense to sound far more brave than they really were.
“Oh. Oh Gods,” Percy swore once again.
“Leo Valdez, do you realize what you’ve done?” Annabeth demanded.
“I mean, I fucked up, yeah, but I don't see what you have to be so shouty for,” Leo muttered, evidently nursing a hangover, going by the way he only wore a stained linen shirt and breeches as he stumbled before her.
Leo was one of her newest crew members, and a brilliant inventor, but he had a big mouth that only grew bigger when he had any amount of alcohol in him.
“The Triumvirate Trading Company owns most of that town, Mr. Valdez. Whether or not we truly set that fire won't matter to them. They'll see us all hanged just for the image of it. I didn't want us to gain this kind of heat here. We needed to let things cool for a few months and winter in a port that didn't care enough to ask too many questions.”
Leo at the very least had the grace to look apologetic. “Oh.”
“Oh indeed. Ten lashes, Ms Grace.”
“Yes, Captain,” Thalia said, her face stony. Neither of them liked the punishment, but they both knew how necessary it was. Similarly, Thalia also knew how little either of them could afford to show disunity. It would be a hard, long voyage back to safe waters, and crew morale was paramount.
Isolated sailors got hungry. Hungry for better food than hardtack and rations, hungry for better company than the thirty others they were trapped with. Hungry sailors got desperate. And desperate people did stupid, stupid things.
Leo’s expression told her he’d never been flogged before. Hopefully, she’d never need to flog him again, but he needed to learn to heed her orders to the letter.
As usual, by the time Percy made it to the town hall the next morning, Octavian had worked himself into an apoplectic fit. A Triumvirate Trading Company representative was there sporting an ostentatious blue coat with golden filigree and tassels, nodding along with every insane thing spewing from his mouth.
Percy dragged a hand down his face. This was going to turn into a whole problem. If they were going to stick around, then they might monitor the fishing output of all the boats in town. And if they did that, then they might notice just how much of his catch made it to the market. And how much didn’t.
“Octavian, would you shut the fuck up?” Percy asked. He hadn’t been fond of the now mayor when they were children, and he still wasn’t now. “It wasn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be, and there’s no need to waste anyone’s time listening to your drivel.”
Octavian sputtered. “Mr. Jackson! This is wholly undignified! A pirate raid on our home, and you call it nothing bad?”
“It wasn’t a raid, Octavian, it was a shitty accident. Beckendorf’s forge caught fire because a customer distracted him. Three homes burned, but no one died, because it wasn’t a pirate raid. Nothing was taken. Besides, if she even was who she claimed to be, then she wasn’t here for a raid. She sailed into port with white sails, not gray ones.”
“And how do you know that, Perseus?” Octavian spat.
“Oh come on, Octavian, everyone knows that. Spend half an hour in any bar when a ship comes through, and you’ll hear Trading Company or Royal Navy sailors spouting the same old tales of the Gray Owl and her Gray sails coming to burn a port. It’s a fear factor thing. If everyone’s run screaming from the sight of your sails, it’s that much easier to loot their stuff.”
“Mr. Jackson, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me,” the Company representative said, stepping forward.
“No the fuck I won’t,” Percy spat. “Not unless you’ve got some army with you I don’t see. I’m just a fisherman, and you have no legal right to apprehend me, unless I’ve broken a contract with you, which I haven’t, because I’m not dumb enough to sign a deal with you.”
“You are wanted for questioning in relation to the actions of one Annabeth Chase, who herself is wanted by the Company for Piracy, Theft of Cargo, Waylaid Cargo, Treason, and Blasphemy against God. Do you deny these charges or your relevance to them, Mr. Jackson?” the Company representative asked.
Starting a fight was risky, but he didn’t have any choice. He couldn’t afford to be in their custody.
“Bite me,” Percy said.
“Boys, grab him,” the Company representative said.
Two giant men rose from the crowd. Percy wasn’t sure exactly how tall they were, but definitely taller than he was. They were built too, and hairy to the point they almost looked more like bears than men. If not for the ridiculously undersized uniforms they wore, he might have even mistaken them for the creatures.
Percy slipped his left foot back and bent his knees just enough to get stable footing. It would certainly be a challenge, but he could win this fight. He wouldn’t go with them, he couldn’t.
Annabeth frowned at her astral navigation charts. With the cloud cover as bad as it had been for days, they would likely struggle to keep a good reckoning of their position, unless those clouds broke, soon. Unfortunately, this was unlikely, given the winter weather patterns in this sea.
She was so focused on the problem of charting their course out of the Company’s home waters and back into safer seas that she didn’t notice someone else entering the room until hands snaked under her jacket and along her waistcoat.
“Hello, love,” Piper said.
“Not now, Piper,” she replied, brushing her hand off absentmindedly.
“Come now, Annabeth,” the former prostitute replied. “I know you need it, after the day you’ve had.”
“I need to get us out of this, Pipes,” she said, the pet name slipping from her mouth like water from a skin.
Annabeth could feel the disappointed frown on her sometimes lover’s face without even looking up.
“The crew’s restless after Leo’s flogging. You were already in a bad mood after barely getting away from that village with everyone on board, and then you had to force Thalia to flog him. I know how much you detest the practice.” Piper was, at this point, practically draped over her back. “But there’s still something else bothering you, too.”
“There was a friend in that village I wanted to see, but I didn’t get the chance to make it to him,” Annabeth said.
“Come to bed with me, Cap’n, darling,” Piper said, affecting a breathy voice purely to force a laugh out of her. It almost worked.
“I need to get this right,” Annabeth said.
“Which you won’t, if you’re as tired and frustrated as you are currently. Come to bed with me, and we’ll sleep. I’ll hold you tight, and in the morning, you can save us all.”
Annabeth sighed once more. Piper wasn’t wrong. She could feel her exhaustion from her bones to her eyes. “Fine. Three hours.”
She finally looked up from her charts, and to her total lack of surprise, Piper was wearing one of her dresses that were less practical for the high seas, but that she knew enhanced her figure.
“Five,” Piper argued, already pulling them both to the door. “And you’ll eat after.”
“Maybe,” Annabeth conceded.
“Mom, Grab Estelle, we need to go now!” Percy shouted as soon as he was through the door.
“Percy? What happened?” Sally asked.
“The Company is after me. We need to go,” Percy said.
“Oh, Percy.”
“Mom, I know it sucks, but we can’t stay here. They don’t know the truth, not yet, but they can’t get you or Estelle. We need to go.”
“Alright,” Sally said.
As quickly as they could, Percy helped his mother get his baby sister ready to go, grabbing only the essentials – an old knife for self defense, a day’s worth of food.
“Where’re you going with Momma, Percy?” Estelle asked.
“We’re going on a little trip, all three of us, Guppy,” Percy said.
Estelle gasped. “Where! Where are we going?”
“We’re going out to the sea. Bad people are after me and Mom, so we gotta be real quick though, okay? Things might be scary for a while, but they’ll get better.”
“I won’t be scared,” Estelle promised. “I’ll be in the sea.”
Percy smiled and ruffled his baby sister’s hair. “Then let’s get ourselves ready to go before Mom, so we can race her to the shore.”
Estelle nodded, and ran off to grab the things she would bring with her. They’d never needed to use them, but Sally had instilled them both in packing bug-out bags from a very young age. Percy grabbed his from where it rested by the door, and waited for his sister and mother to get ready to go.
Just as he was getting ready to remind Estelle they really needed to go, Sally and Estelle both made their way to the door.
The three of them climbed down the narrow path from their cliffside shack to the water level. Percy was the first one to step into the water, and hesitantly, Estelle followed him for the first few steps before she hesitated as the water reached her waistline.
Percy grabbed Estelle’s hands with his.
“Just take a few more steps, ‘Stella,” Percy said. “Just keep breathing, in and out.”
“But – but won’t it hurt?” Estelle asked.
“Not the slightest,” Percy said. “It’ll feel completely natural. I’ll be holding your hand the whole time, and it’ll feel just like breathing on land.”
On the shore, Sally hesitated just before the surf. Percy knew it had been a very long time since she’d been in the water like this before.
Shouts rang out from the top of the cliffside, and his mom steeled herself, before leaping into the waves beside him and his sister.
Percy let himself fall below the waves, and let his mother’s nature come to the fore once again.