Captivating Eyes

"Trickery," Annabeth decided. "We can't beat him by force, so we'll have to use trickery."

"Okay," Percy said. "What trick?'

"I haven't figured that part out yet."

"Great."

"Shut up, she's thinking!" Y/N scolded.

"Polyphemus will have to move the rock to let the sheep inside." Annabeth told.

"At sunset," Percy said. "Which is when he'll marry Clarisse and have Grover for dinner. I'm not sure which is grosser."

"I could get inside," she said, "invisibly. And Y/N could climb up a tree as a backup incase."

"What about me?"

"The sheep," Annabeth mused. She gave him one of those sly looks that always made him wary. "How much do you like sheep?"

"Just don't let go!" Annabeth said, standing invisibly somewhere off to his right.

That was Annabeth's idea. Percy had sneak in and he was going to do that by hiding under a sheep, hanging onto it's thick wool. It wasn't that harsh on the sheep because of it's huge size and it had enough wool for Percy to tie it around his hands and make a handle out of it.

The sun was going down. The flock dutifully began trudging back up the slopes toward the cave on the Cyclops' command.

"This is it!" Annabeth whispered. "I'll be close by. Don't worry."

Percy made a silent promise to the gods that if he survived this, he'd tell Annabeth she was a genius. The frightening thing was, he knew the gods would hold him to it.

And just like that, he was in the cave.

Percy could see the last of the sheep coming inside. If Annabeth didn't pull off her distraction soon...

The Cyclops was about to roll the stone back into place, when from somewhere outside Annabeth shouted, "Hello, ugly!"

Polyphemus stiffened. "Who said that?"

"Nobody!" Annabeth yelled.

That got exactly the reaction she'd been hoping for. The monster's face turned red with rage.

"Nobody!" Polyphemus yelled back. "I remember you!"

"You're too stupid to remember anybody," Annabeth taunted. "Much less Nobody."

Polyphemus bellowed furiously, grabbed the nearest boulder (which happened to be his front door) and threw it toward the sound of Annabeth's voice. The rock smashed into a thousand fragments. Y/N quietly watched the Cyclops move around furiously from down the hill, her aim was ready. If by chance Annabeth got caught, she would use her arrow to attack him. It would surely give her some time to escape. And she really hoped Percy would also be done by then.

For a terrible moment, there was silence. Then Annabeth shouted, "You haven't learned to throw any better, either!"

Polyphemus howled. "Come here! Let me kill you, Nobody!"

"You can't kill Nobody, you stupid oaf," she taunted. "Come find me!"

Polyphemus barreled down the hill toward her voice, closing towards where Y/N hid.

Now, the "Nobody" thing wouldn't have made sense to anybody, but if explained properly it would definitely pass as a brilliant idea. It was the name Odysseus had used to trick Polyphemus centuries ago, right before he poked the Cyclops's eye out with a large hot stick. Annabeth had figured Polyphemus would still have a grudge about that name, and she was right. In his frenzy to find his old enemy, he forgot about resealing the cave entrance. Apparently, he didn't even stop to consider that Annabeth's voice was female, whereas the first Nobody had been male. On the other hand, he'd wanted to marry Grover, so he couldn't have been all that bright about the whole male/female thing.

What probably felt like a few minutes for Percy, felt like hours to Annabeth and Y/N. She continued distracting him while he threw boulders at her. Y/N had to jump to another tree once, as his rock almost hit her. She was drawing an arrow for too long, her muscles were starting to ache. All of a sudden she heard an explosion, followed by a scream. It was Annabeth crying out in fear.

"I got Nobody!" Polyphemus gloated.

The Cyclops, grinning wickedly, holding up empty air. The monster shook his fist, and a baseball cap fluttered to the ground. There was Annabeth, hanging upside down by her legs.

"Hah!" the Cyclops said. "Nasty invisible girl! Already got feisty one for wife. Means you gotta be grilled with mango chutney!"

Annabeth struggled, but she looked dazed. She had a nasty cut on her forehead. Y/N immediately shot an arrow at him which got stuck on his shoulder.

She wasn't exactly aiming for his head. That was the problem. Why was she hesitating to kill someone? Percy and Annabeth could've done this in the blink of an eye. She hesitated for a moment and shot two arrows in a row - on his arm and leg. He shouted in anger and opened up his fist, hands going straight to take out the arrows.

She saw Annabeth drop down on her back, and wincing in pain. Polyphemus seemed to notice her again and tried to grab her.

Y/N this time shot another arrow at him, shouting his name. It caught his attention, while Annabeth immediately put on her cap, and got invisible again. Annabeth was safe.

But now she wasn't . The Cyclops noticed her, and even with her quick reflexes, she could only jump from one branch to another. Soon enough Polyphemus got a hold of her.

"Nobody!" he shouted. Clearly he had difficulty in recognising with one of his eye. As Y/N was struggling to get out of his grip and thrashing around.

"I'll rush him," Percy whispered to Clarisse. Hearing Annabeth's scream they rushed out of the cave. Ofcourse, Y/N successfully took care of it and managed to protect Annabeth, but then they saw her getting caught as well. A sense of desperation covered his chest, as he wanted nothing but to get her away from Polyphemus, at any cost. He said, "Our ship is around the back of the island. You and Grover-"

"No way," they said at the same time. Clarisse had armed herself with a highly collectible rams-horn spear from the Cyclops's cave. Grover had found a sheep's thigh bone, which he didn't look too happy about, but he was gripping it like a club, ready to attack.

"We'll take him together," Clarisse growled.

"Yeah," Grover said. Then he blinked, like he couldn't believe he'd just agreed with Clarisse about something.

"All right," Percy said. "Attack plan Macedonia."

They nodded. We'd all taken the same training courses at Camp Half-Blood. They knew what he was talking about. They would sneak around either side and attack the Cyclops from the flanks while he held his attention in the front.

Percy hefted his sword and shouted, "Hey, Ugly!"

The giant whirled toward him. "Another one? Who are you?"

"Put down my friend. I'm the one who insulted you."

"You are Nobody?"

"That's right, you smelly bucket of nose drool! I'm Nobody and I'm proud of it! Now, put her down and get over here. I want to stab your eye out again."

"RAAAR!" he bellowed.

The good news: he dropped Y/N. The bad news: he dropped her headfirst onto the rocks, where she lay motionless as a rag doll.

As she lied there, motionless and dizzy, she could make out only a bit of what was going on. She could see Percy and Clarisse handling the cyclops, and then felt herself move. It was Annabeth, still wearing her invisible cap, trying to pick her up muttering words in a quivering voice, which she found hard to comprehend in her state. She was finally picked up properly when Grover came to help.

Out of the corner of his eye, Percy saw Grover and Annabeth carrying Y/N across the rope bridge. It wouldn't have been his first choice, given the man-eating sheep on the other side, but at the moment that looked better than this side of the chasm, and it gave him an idea.

"Fall back!" he told Clarisse.

She rolled away as the Cyclops's fist smashed the olive tree beside her.

They ran for the bridge, Polyphemus right behind them. He was cut up and hobbling from so many wounds, but all they'd done was slow him down and make him mad.

Halfway down the path to the beach, standing completely unharmed in the midst of a flock of killer sheep, was an old friend.

"Bad Polyphemus," Tyson said. "Not all Cyclopes as nice as we look."

Tyson gave them the short version: Rainbow the hippocampus-who'd apparently been following them ever since the Long Island Sound, waiting for Tyson to play with him - had found Tyson sinking beneath the wreckage of the CSS Birmingham and pulled him to safety. He and Tyson had been searching the Sea of Monsters ever since, trying to find them, until Tyson caught the scent of sheep and found this island.

Percy wanted to hug the big oaf, except he was standing in the middle of killer sheep. "Tyson, thank the gods. Y/N is hurt!"

"You thank the gods she is hurt?" he asked, puzzled.

"No!" he knelt beside her and was worried sick by what he saw. Annabeth took off her cap muttering, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. If only I had my sword with me!" He noticed the gash on her forehead. He was relieved she looked fine but....Y/N. He found his heart feeling heavy with each passing second. The side of her head was covered in blood. It was worse than he expected. Her skin was pale and clammy. But Y/N looked awake, thankfully. He noticed her eyes opening and shutting lazily, as if she was trying to figure out what was going on.

Grover and Percy exchanged nervous looks. Then an idea came to him. "Tyson, the Fleece. Can you get it for me?"

"Which one?" Tyson said, looking around at the hundreds of sheep.

"In the tree!" he said. "The gold one!"

"Oh. Pretty. Yes."

Tyson lumbered over, careful not to step on the sheep. He reached up and lifted the Fleece off its branch. Immediately the leaves on the oak tree turned yellow. Tyson started wading back toward Percy, as the other yelled, "No time! Throw it!"

The gold ram skin sailed through the air like a glittering shag Frisbee. He caught it with a grunt. It was heavier than he'd expected-sixty or seventy pounds of precious gold wool.

"Good- good idea," Annabeth muttered.

Percy spread it over Y/N, covering everything but her face, and prayed silently to all the gods he could think of, even the ones he didn't like.

Please. Please.

The color returned to her face. Her eyelids fluttered open, properly now. The wound on her head began to close. She saw Grover and said weakly, "Mrs. Polyphemus? Or..."

Grover grinned. "No. My friends talked me out of it."

"Y/N," Percy said, "just lay still."

"Shut up," she said, weakly, "Don't tell me what to do." She looked a lot better. In fact, she shimmered with health, as if someone had injected her with glitter.

Meanwhile, Tyson was starting to have trouble with the sheep. "Down!" he told them as they tried to climb him, looking for food. A few were sniffing in their direction. "No, sheepies. This way! Come here!" They heeded him, but it was obvious they were hungry, and they were starting to realize Tyson didn't have any treats for them. They wouldn't hold out forever with so much fresh meat nearby.

"We have to go," Percy said. "Our ship is..." The Queen Anne's Revenge was a very long way away. The shortest route was across the chasm, and they'd just destroyed the only bridge. The only other possibility was through the sheep.

"Tyson," he called, "can you lead the flock as far away as possible?"

"The sheep want food."

"I know! They want people food! Just lead them away from the path. Give us time to get to the beach. Then join us there."

Tyson looked doubtful, but he whistled. "Come, sheepies! Um, people food this way!"

He jogged off into the meadow, the sheep in pursuit.

"Keep the Fleece around you," he told Y/N. "Just in case you're not fully healed yet. Can you stand?"

She tried, but her face turned pale again. "Ohh. Not fully healed. Well how the fuck does a healer heal herself? Ugh.."

Percy chuckled hearing her. She still somehow managed to keep her sense of humor intact. Y/N felt his hands cover her cheeks as she looked up at him. She found his eyes captivating. There was something strange about how his eyes looked. Well, it's more about what his eyes spoke. Like they were the only ones to know about something.

Something that she was supposed to know - correction, both of them were supposed to know. She felt like something like this happened before. Well, not her getting thrashed like this but...Percy.

Him being this close.

Clarisse dropped next to her and felt her chest, which made her gasp breaking her train of thoughts. Maybe, it was just her overthinking because of the condition she was in.

"Ribs broken," Clarisse said. "They're mending, but definitely broken."

"How can you tell?" Percy asked.

Clarisse glared at him. "Because I've broken a few, runt! I'll have to carry her."

Before he could argue, Clarisse picked up Y/N like a sack of flour and lugged her down to the beach. Grover and Percy followed.

As soon as they got to the edge of the water, Percy concentrated on the Queen Anne's Revenge. He willed it to raise anchor and come to him. After a few anxious minutes, they saw the ship rounding the tip of the island.

"Incoming!" Tyson yelled. He was bounding down the path to join them, the sheep about fifty yards behind, bleating in frustration as their Cyclops friend ran away without feeding them.

"They probably won't follow us into the water," Percy told the others. "All we have to do is swim for the ship."

"With Y/N like this?" Clarisse protested.

"Maybe if you take her head and I take her legs, and then swim together-" Annabeth tried to come up with a plan hastily.

"We can do it," Percy insisted. He was starting to feel confident again. Afterall, he was back in his home turf - the sea. "Once we get to the ship, we're home free."

They almost made it, too.

They were just wading past the entrance to the ravine, when they heard a tremendous roar and saw Polyphemus, scraped up and bruised but still very much alive, his baby-blue wedding outfit in tatters, splashing toward them with a boulder in each hand.