arranged on the table before Percy was a vibrant assortment of beach-themed treasures; mismatched shells strung together to make a chunky necklace, dried sea stars in various sizes, & a few lucky sand dollars made up the bundle. however, the ‘beach’ element wasn’t the only consistent thing across all the items, for Ari ( with the help of a few other kind demigods aboard the Argo II ) had carefully painted each one a different shade of blue. Ari looked up at Percy with twinkling, excited eyes, hoping he would love his special birthday gift.
“ha … happy merry birthday, Pissy!” Ari said brightly, holding onto the edge of the table to keep herself stable as she jovially bounced on her toes. “fff … for you!”
@earthssprout || “belated” bday shenanigans (bc winnie sent this in on time but i'm slow so it's on me asdjgjk)
So, look, kids Percy's age had typically “grown out” of themed gifts.
Y'know, for example, how a pretty decent percentage of little girls apparently had a “horse girl phase” that all their parties had to be centered around, but they eventually moved on (Would Ari ever have one of those?); or how your favorite color was practically a personality trait (along with your favorite food, whether you liked cats or dogs [never both; unacceptable], what team you rooted for in literally any sport [ . . . but that extended to the adults, too]). Thing is, at some point, a kid's interests became a bit more complex than just “dog goes woof, so I obsess over dog” . . .
Or, okay, “Mom started making everything blue just to spite my dumb step-dad, so now I obsess over the color blue.”
Or, “Yeah, my dad's the sea god, so my entire personality needs to be surfer boy chic.”
See, good thing “Percy” and “typical” weren't on the same page. (And the alphabet wasn't changing anytime soon to alter that.)
When he saw the assortment of gifts laid out across the table, he might as well have been living his best “horse girl” dreams, thriving in the “Yes, my favorite color is blue and I'm owning it” vibes, basking in the “I'm the son of Poseidon” spotlight. But maybe what really sold the whole thing, what really made it all the more special, was seeing the excited little girl who went to all the trouble to do this for him.
Yeah.
That had to be it.
That had to be why Percy found himself grinning like he was in the middle of a sugar high after too much cake. (He hoped that'd be the literal case soon.)
“Whoa, seriously? Did you do all of this?” Percy was pretty sure she couldn't have. (But he was also pretty sure he was prone to underestimating her.) He'd happily give her all the credit, either way. “That's so cool. Everything turned out amazing.” And he spent a few moments rolling the painted seashells over in his fingers, eventually donning that necklace as proudly as if it bore his beads from camp.
While he continued to fiddle with one of the cowrie shells—ignoring that the weight of everything on the necklace wasn't exactly distributed evenly—Percy wandered over to Ari's side. His free hand extended around her little shoulders, tugged her against his hip in half of a hug. “Thanks, Ari. I mean it,” he said. “These shells are officially the best I've ever seen.”
