Here is chapter 2.

As our laughter dies down I realize what me and Reyna must look like to Percy and his friend. Both of us are soaked to the skin, I look down at my dress and can feel a blush creeping into my cheeks. My dress clings to me like a second skin. The fabric is so wet that if the water was much deeper the sheer weight of my dress would drown me.

"We need to figure out what to do with both of you," my blood runs cold at the words of Percy's friend.

"Grover,:" Percy cuts in his voice urgent, "the shell." Grovers eyes light up with comprehension. The shell? What the heck is the shell?

"Percy you know that's risky." Grover warns him.

"It may be the only option," Percy pleads. My eyes meet Reyna's and I can tell that she too is clueless.

"Um, sorry, but what exactly is 'the shell'?" I ask.

"Well, when we have to make a sailor forget that he ever saw a merman we use the shell. It makes them not recall what happened-"

"Yeah, but the problem is, the shell is extremely dangerous. Sometimes it wipes away the last few minutes. If something goes wrong though, the power of the shell could overload and you could forget anywhere from hours, to years of your life," Grover interrupts Percy, "you can understand my hesitation to use something so risky on the Kings daughter, one false move and we could have us another war on our hands."

"Why do we need to forget this, I promise I won't tell."

"I can't take that chance, Percy's voice sounds from behind me. Before I can whirl around I feel a cool object pressed to the back of my head.

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Percy's POV

As soon as I take the shell away from Annabeth's face I toss Grover the shell so he can do the same to her friend. Grover's face is twisted with regret, but he still places the shell to the side of the girls face. In an instant Annabeth collapses into my arms. I hold her up untill she begins to stir. When I see her head begin to move around I make sure that she's stable ob her own feet. I signal to Grover to let go of Reyna. He does immeadiatly and we swim farther out into the water. I submerge myself up to my eyes.

"What happened?" I can hear Annabeth's musical voice carry out across the water. I see her move closer to Reyna and I can't make out what they are saying. Both looking confused they begin to move towards the shore. Just as they both reach the shore Annabeth looks over her shoulder, her eyes scan the water and land upon me. I try to fully submerge but it is too late. Her eyes grow wide and I see her mouth open in a gasp. I turn my head to look at Grover, it seems as if he hasn't noticed Annabeth or her reaction.

We watch both of the girls, walk all the way to where the paved road begins. No one speaks for a while. Finally Grover turns to me with an angry look.

"Gods Percy, that was way too close, why would you even think of going near the humans. They have done nothing but kill our people. You of all people should know that. Honestly Perce, if it weren't for that shell we may have had to kill those girls." My heart wrenches when he says the word kill.

"I didn't mean to get so close, it just happened. I've never seen humans so close before. They looked so different with their legs and no tails. I just had to see what they were like, I did not even realize that I was two feet away until she looked at me." With her wide grey eyes.

Grover sighs, and shakes his head at me. A smile tugs on the corners of his mouth though.

"You still need to be careful though, now that you've seen a human you have to forget about them." I knew Grover was right, but I felt now that I had seen a human all I wanted to do was see another.

"Alright I promise I won't go looking for anymore humans." We mer people can't lie, but this was not a lie. You could look at it as a half truth, I would not seek out any new people, but that didn't mean I couldn't revisit the one that I already knew existed.

"Good now let's just forget this ever happened." Grover suggested. I nodded my head.

"Come on, we have to get back to the palace soon, I'll race you!" I challenged him. Not waiting I took off farther out into the ocean, my tail quickly propelled me through the water. Fish and sea creatures stopped in their path to bow down to me, I liked being the son of Poseidon, but I would never get used to the whole bowing and "oh sire" part of my life. I guess that's part of the reason why Annabeth seemed so interesting to me, I read that the king is basically the Poseidon of land. I think with her being the king's daughter she would understand what it feels like to have all of that extra attention.

As we reached the outskirts of the town I began to slow down, not wanting Poseidon to see me and scold me for "Swimming around like a child". I was already over a century old I "should" know better.

"Percy come here my boy," my father called as Grover and I passed through the archway of the large coral doors of the palace.

"Yes father?" I asked cautiously"

"Your brother Triton is planning on going on another hunting trip with me, I would like to also extend the invitation out to you." I sighed, the hunting trips could be very dull.

"I'm sorry, but I won't be able to attend, I have to catch up on my studies," again it wasn't a lie, I would merely be studying how the humans interacted. Poseidon shot me a look, but nodded his head, dismissing me. I bow and exited the palace foyer as quickly as possible.

I pass the threshold of the library when I heard Trition's voice from behind me.

"Percy, why can't you go on the hunting trip? Now it'll be just father and me and we both know how controlling he is when we're on the trips." Triton whines, sounding like a guppy.

"I already told him, I have to study."

"Since when? You haven't cracked open a book since you were thirty. Why the sudden interest?"

"No I was just looking for a good summer read."

Triton gives me a knowing smile but says, "Okay, well, I hope you find a good book little brother." With that he leaves the library and I am left by myself, the large room spans behind me, filled with many books thousands of years old. I'm not quite sure how, the books are able to stay in the salty water without being destroyed, but I figure it is similar to the way that my fingers can be in the water without being wrinkly.

I glide towards the west wing of the library. This is the section that holds most of the history of our people. I never fought any humans seeing as I was born a good fifty years after the war. So I have to look up any journals that soldiers kept during the fighting. The history section is sorted by year and then by events, I search within the years of the war for any data collected about the humans. My eyes caught on a leatherbound green book with gold etching identifying the book as "Weakness of the enemy". It seemed promising, even if it only liked to talk about weaknesses of the humans at least it talked about them. I take the book and swim over to the nearest coral table. The spine crackles as I open the cover. I read the title page and discover that the book was written by our war tactics officer, Chiron. It felt almost like invading his privacy, I stole my courage and turned the page.

Human's are very much like us, the cause of them wanting to attack us still remains unknown. Many believe that they are threatened by our presence. Others theorize that the humans feel as if we are too different for their liking.

"Too different?" Is that why Annabeth began to scream when she saw me? Was she repulsed by the sight of me? Did she think I was something disgusting? I looked down at my long sleek tail. Did I remind her of a fish? Do all the humans think were disgusting. I run over the few moments I spent with Annabeth her face registered shock, but did it also hold disgust? The one emotion that was most prominent was fear. Does Annabeth think I would hurt her. The thought of hurting her made my chest ache. I had no idea why. I had killed before. No humans but other merman. When skirmishes between Poseidon and Oceanis began to escalate, Poseidon sent me out to one of the battle. I killed others of my kind, and felt no pain in doing so, but this didn't explain why it hurt to think about harming let alone killing Annabeth. I looked back down at my book trying to suppress all of my emotions that had risen to the surface. My eyes skimmed the surface until they landed on something very interesting.

Humans have been observed to arrange unions. The arrangements are not picked by the mates but by the parents. It is believed that wealth is gained by one of the parties. My brain take several minutes to comprehend this. An arranged marriage seemed like something terrible. Mer people would shudder at the thought of being tied to someone, who you had no say in choosing, for the rest of eternity. Although humans do not even live a fraction of the time that we do, it still would seem as punishment to be tied to another, whom you did not choose. Mer people believe that our souls are split into two, and that the other half wanders the ocean and in some rare cases the land. Many times a perfect soulmate can be found by the tale. No two tales are the same, because no two souls are the same, but soulmates are two parts of a whole. When a solemate see's their other half's tale they know instantly. We will wait hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before finding our other half. Although it may take millennia to find 'the one' you would never hear a pair of soulmates complain. They will only speak of the unconditional love that they feel for their other half. My father and mother are soul mates. They meet over 350 years ago and haven't left each others sides since then. Triton and I are their only sons even if we are fifty years apart.

One famous tale told to the little guppies, is the story of Ariel. A daughter of Oceanis she was said to have given up her tail to be with her other half. The idea of how much she loved him astounds me, I knew that love could drive a mermaid to extreme measures, but this was a devotion she was willing to die for going to the surface and staying will ultimately kill a mer person, they will live a short life, a human life.

My tail decides to carry me across the palace without my consent. Before I knew it I was floating into the entrance hall, pushing the doors open. My mind doesn't even process what I'm doing until my head breaks the surface of the azure blue water. I can feel my gills begin to close up and I draw in a shaky breath. The first few breaths above water are always a struggle. Finally my lungs become used to the steady rhythm of in and out.

I quickly swim towards the shore. Farther down the shoreline from where Annabeth was swimming I can see a shape that looks like my fathers castle, but minus the water. I swim towards the structure. Tall spirals rise out of the top of the building. Surrounding the castle there are many different plants. Bright greens and pink stand out against the dark grey stone of the castle. I swim closer towards the shore so that I am just on the border edge of all the colorful plants. Even with my inhumanly strong nose it is hard for me to smell the subtle fragrance that the plants give off. It is a nice change seeing as how coral doesn't have a scent.

I can see a figure open a set of wooden doors across the garden. It looks as if the figure has curly blonde hair, my mind immediately thinks of Annabeth. The person closes the doors behind them and turns towards the ocean. From this distance I am sure it is a woman, as the figure draws near and my breath catches in my throat. It is Annabeth. By the time my heart rate has returned to normal, she has already made her way to the edge of the garden that borders the sea. I instinctively slide my head farther under the water. She looks past me out to the sun that is beginning to set, filling the sky with vibrant shades of red and orange. Her eyes skim the water as if she is looking for something. Or someone. It can't be though, the shell was supposed to wipe out all of her memories of Grover and I. I have nearly convinced myself of this when she says just one word… "Percy" My head quickly emerges from the water before I am conscious of my own actions. My brain catches up with my body and I submerge myself, hoping against all odds, that my temporary lapse has gone unnoticed. A god must be looking out for me today because she pays me no attention, I let out a sigh of relief. Her eyes do scan the water though, as if she is looking for me.

Annabeth startles at the sound of a door slamming behind her.

Out walks a man older that her, his hair is a light brown, but he has the same grey eyes as Annabeth. As he approaches she smiles at him.

"I have escaped from the clutches of the senate." Annabeth's laugh rings out.

"How did father not notice, he has been tightening the noose on both of us, you to take over, and I to be married to the highest bidder." Those words weigh me down more than two tons of rocks ever could. Married off?

"Now you know that's not true-"

"But it is Malcolm, I have heard him speaking with the advisors. They say marriage, would be the best thing, they say use me for all I'm worth, marry me off for money or marry me off for peace with another kingdom. And the worst part is, he will, he will marry me off to anyone he pleases. It doesn't matter what I think." Her smile is long gone. In its place sits a sad look.

"I'm sorry," Malcolm says looking down.

"PRomise me something," she begs, "Promise me you will fight for me, when he wants to marry me, I don't want to marry someone I don't love, promise me that you'll stall him. Maybe give me sometime to decide if he's the right one, or if I should send him back on the next boat to Athens." That boat sounds pretty nice, maybe I can even sink it.

"I swear on my honor that you will not be married without your consent. But right now I must be the bearer of bad news. Father has a visiting diplomat, and he wants you to meet him"

"How old?" she asks quietly.

"Not very.."

"How old Malcolm?" she repeats this time more forcefully.

"Fifty two." Fifty two, thats not too old, fifty two is actually quite young.

"For Gods' sake, does he expect me to marry my own grandfather? Fifty two? I am not yet even twenty, and he expects me to be matched with a man twice my age?"

Not yet twenty? How long do humans live? Surely it is shorter than the several hundred years we thought that they lived. For she would still be considered a child, she is far to young to be bonded. Even if a merman meets his soulmate young in life they generally wait till they are at least fifty.

"Please just go meet him to please father."

"Fine, but only because I know he's going home on the next boat back to Athens," Annabeth jokes. She takes Malcolm's arm and they walk back into the castle, the doors shutting soundly behind them.

I sit there for several minutes trying to understand what I just heard. Humans force others into marriage. I wouldn't even wish that on my worst enemy. How could her father condemn her to that kind of a life? Did he really hate her that much. Out of all my thoughts came one solution, I had to save this girl from this fate, anything else would feel wrong, it would make me feel like I was losing a piece of myself. Maybe Annabeth was my soulmate, maybe I didn't need a tale to tell me that. But one thing's for sure, I will need help to save her.

Please review! It would make my day

Sorry it has been like 9 months. I just got busy with school and kinda stopped updating. But the good news is, now that summer is coming soon I will have hours to write and update for all of you. I sincerely hope that you like the chapter, please review I love all of your imput on the story.

Thank you for for your readership it means so much too me.

Field of Lies