Percy hummed, drifting in the water of the river. His fingers curled lazily, slowly guiding the water to curl around trash and sweep it out of the river.
He'd come to a decision over the summer while Triton was gone, a new goal to work towards.
Well, not really new , but a goal he'd been ignoring.
He was gonna learn how to pull water out of plants.
Katara learned it in season three, it was a hard skill, but Percy was determined to figure it out.
And once he learned that, he was gonna pull water from the air too!
Water was everywhere, Percy would never be without a weapon.
He had a small tiny minor problem though.
He didn't have any plants.
He lived in the middle of a big city, so while there were plants… none were in the little nooks that would allow him to work with the plants and practice like he needed to.
He tried asking Triton about it, but he'd just frowned and told Percy he didn't need to worry about that yet. He then declared it was time to practice more with his trident.
Percy didn't understand Triton's obsession with tridents, but it made him happy, so Percy was learning to use a trident.
It was kinda fun, even though Triton kept kicking his butt.
OO OO OO OO
Percy found a solution a few days later. In central park there were a lot of plants, and he'd managed to find a little hidden grove to practice!
Unfortunately… it was slow going.
He could feel the water in the plants if he focused hard enough, curling lines of water dashing through the plants, but pulling it out… that was a whole 'nother matter.
He was beginning to get frustrated, how did Master Katara do this so easily?
Well… he supposed it was really the crazy evil blood lady that did it more…
But Master Katara still figured it out! She was so cool, so much more powerful than Percy was now and she'd done all that in just a year. He'd already been training for over a year and still hadn't gotten anywhere near her power.
But he would reach her level one day, maybe even surpass it.
He'd rewatched the show (again) and had come to the conclusion that he was about as strong as mid to late season one Katara. He could do some of the things that she couldn't then, but also couldn't do some of the things she could.
He would improve though, just like her, and become the best waterbender ever!
OO OO OO OO
In the end, it took over a month.
A month of slipping to Central Park for a couple of hours after school before continuing to the river.
A month of nudging, yanking, and yelling at the plants to get water while receiving nothing.
A month of frustration and almost giving up. If not for Master Katara, he might've done so.
It took forever, so much longer than it took Master Katara, but finally, finally, he managed to pull a thread of water out of a plant.
He stared in delight at the little orb of water he'd drawn from the bush in front of him.
He'd done it.
It wasn't much, and it took him a lot of concentration, but he'd finally managed it.
He couldn't wait to show Triton!
OO OO OO OO
Two months before the winter solstice Percy found out it was a big deal. Triton had told him he had stuff to do around then, but would stop by briefly on the solstice.
Triton said it was a holiday in the sea as they were celebrating the longest night. He didn't really get into much detail about it though, so Percy decided to research the land traditions to learn more (thank you library).
Apparently the winter solstice was a time of renewal and darkness, and a big holiday for a lot of cultures. He wondered if there was a specific way to celebrate it in the sea but Triton told him it was fine.
More research revealed that most cultures and religions celebrated it differently. Triton wouldn't tell Percy more about it, and wouldn't really answer Percy's questions about if he followed any religion. Percy had no idea how Triton would celebrate it, and there were so many ways!
He'd just have to make his own way of celebrating it until he learned more.
And well… Triton wouldn't tell Percy when his birthday was, so Percy needed a day to give him presents anyways. The Solstice would work fine for that.
Triton couldn't complain, Percy didn't have any other time to give him a gift!
Oh! And in his research he also learned about the equinoxes, so he'd use that against Triton too.
Triton was going to get a present for all of them! And he'd try to do the presents in the ways most cultures seemed to go with to increase his chances of getting something right.
Take that, you dumb merman.
OO OO OO OO
Percy showcased his ability to pull water out of plants to Triton and preened when Triton congratulated him.
Though he'd studied Percy for a long moment before that, he seemed impressed.
Then Triton decided that if Percy was going to practice that skill, he should really practice it.
Percy was given homework: get faster at drawing out water, learn to do it with all different plants with varying water levels, learn how to do it discreetly, and once he'd managed all of that, learn how to draw water out of other things, including dirt.
Percy decided Triton was a slavedriver.
OO OO OO OO
Triton beat his present.
Percy wasn't able to buy anything, despite the money he'd gotten from cleaning the river he was still pretty broke since he had to give a decent amount of it to Gabe. And on top of that, waterproof stuff was expensive.
So Percy had decided to try and make a gift for Triton.
He'd learned a lot from the scrolls Triton got him, and he knew bracelets and arm-bands were a big part of undersea culture. So he decided to make Triton a bracelet.
Triton had gotten him one, and he really wanted to show he cared for Triton just as much!
First he'd found a sparkly rock (and a bunch of less pretty ones) and used water to erode it, trying to mimic Toph in shaping the rock.
Slowly it formed a trident, like what Triton used.
It took forever . Like- over a month really. He was glad he'd been so excited to start he'd just started immediately, otherwise it never would've gotten done in time. But at the end of all that work the sparkly trident charm was complete.
After he had the charm, he went out and bought some waterproof cords, in green, blue, and yellow (they didn't have gold). Then he went to the library and watched some videos online to learn how to weave the cords into a bracelet, and put the trident charm on it.
That took awhile too, he kept messing it up and had a few hopelessly tangled cord piles stuffed in a drawer in his room.
In the end he was very pleased with his gift.
At least until Triton handed him his present, the charm promised at his birthday.
It was a gleaming bronze trident charm that Triton clipped onto Percy's bracelet from his birthday.
Percy had admired it, it sparkled, and then Triton told him to tug on it.
He had a little smirk on his face as Percy did so and Percy almost shrieked as the charm expanded into a shining life size trident.
"It's just a trainee one," Triton said. "Though still deadly if put to use. You're too young, and small, for a full sized one. It's tradition to give you a battle ready weapon once your thirteenth Veruo has passed."
Percy stared at the trident in awe, it was amazing and shining and sharp and wow. And he was getting another one one day? An even better one? That sounded amazing.
The point of this was to say that Percy's gift was nowhere near as good as Tritons.
He gave it to Triton anyway, better something mediocre than nothing at all. He was going to make it up next year though.
Triton seemed surprised at the gift, his eyes widening when he saw the bracelet.
"I'm sorry," Percy mumbled. "I know it's not as good as what you got me and-"
"It's a bracelet?" Triton asked, interrupting Percy.
Percy hesitated, should he have not given a bracelet? He knew they had meaning but… he thought Triton was a good friend (his only friend) and he'd given Percy a bracelet so…
"It is…"
Triton nodded, then slipped it on his wrist. A small twist of his fingers and it tightened to fit his wrist perfectly.
"Thank you, Percy."
Percy perked up, "Do you… do you like it?"
"I do," he said. "Did you make it?"
He grinned and nodded.
"Words, Percy," Triton chided gently.
Percy nodded again, "Yeah, I made it. I wanted to use gold thread but I couldn't find any, so I used yellow."
Triton's fingers brushed over the bracelet, "It's fine, I like it a lot. Thank you, I'll treasure it."
Percy beamed.
OO OO OO OO
School was unfortunately still boring, worse than boring really.
Triton had taken pity on Percy and given him extra assignments. Which might've sounded like a punishment, but it was far better than the actual school assignments.
He had to read myths on various religions, undersea stories, and history. He was given some pieces to write out, matching assignments, and essays.
He had to learn the many different branches of sea magic, along with their strengths and weaknesses.
He had to be able to name all the major generals of the sea along with the rulers of each kingdom of the sea that fell under Poseidon (the ruler of the oceans as a whole).
He needed to know the areas that were safe for travel and the areas that were not, along with how to keep safe in all of them.
He needed to know the allies, the opponents, the conflicts, and the treaties in place.
He was given lectures on proper manners and etiquette until he was able to act like the perfect proper prince whenever Triton demanded it.
He had to learn everything about the sea until it seemed as if he were born and raised in the sea.
Compared to all the things he was learning from Triton (who always made it fun and interesting and made sure that he understood it before moving on) school was boring.
His grades were dropping more but he couldn't help it. How was he supposed to focus in school when he could be doing sea stuff?
Besides, Triton was a much more interesting teacher.
OO OO OO OO
Triton declared that Percy needed to know more advanced math and Percy almost flooded the river in response.
It was an accident of course.
Percy would never flood the river on purpose.
But Percy sucked at math and hated it with the passion of a thousand suns.
Triton insisted though, saying that it was necessary for finances and more advanced magic in the future. Plus other "important matters".
It sounded incredibly boring.
But Percy should've had some faith in Triton, he always managed to make it more fun.
For one, the numbers were written in Halmaheran, which was great because it was so much easier to read Halmaheran. Unlike English (or Spanish he'd learned) the letters and numbers never moved. They stayed nice and still and easy to read.
And Triton didn't just make Percy learn boring equations and methods. He first helped Percy with his current math, then made things fun.
Percy got to learn some cool number codes! But to figure out what the messages said he had to first solve for some missing numbers.
The messages were always really interesting and Percy looked forward to figuring them out.
It was so much better than the nonsense in school.
And whenever Percy struggled Triton would walk him through it, Percy always got praised for succeeding too.
When Percy was with Triton he actually felt smart, like he could do things right and wasn't just some dumb dyslexic, ADHD, troublemaker kid.
And as a bonus Percy was now improving in math class in school, Triton was working him ahead and making it fun and somehow Percy understood it all so much better.
Though he did have to keep erasing the Halmaheran numbers and changing them to the stupid English ones. And sometimes he accidentally mixed up the numbers in the questions or the words in the word problems got all mixed up… but he was doing much better now.
At least he was no longer flunking.
OO OO OO OO
Percy came to the conclusion that making sand dollars was hard. It took him weeks to make something even passable as a sand dollar.
It didn't actually… do what it was supposed to in terms of purifying things… but it was shaped right.
It was exhausting though, it took so much concentration and energy. He could only make one or two a day and always slept deeply those nights.
All of his failures were broken into the river, he hoped it would help purify it even a little.
He saved his best failure to give Triton for the Spring Equinox, along with a pottery cup he'd painted in art class with waves and flowers.
Triton had been very surprised, and something else… but Percy couldn't figure out what the look meant.
Triton told him the sand dollar was very good, especially for his age, and he really liked the cup.
Percy was determined to get amazing at the sand dollars, Triton would be awed by his skills one day.
OO OO OO OO
Percy was expelled again. How was it his fault that the saber tooth tiger bones in the museum collapsed?
Just cause he was standing there didn't mean he did it!
Stupid weird stuff in the museum, he was just lucky the museum decided to "not press charges on account of his age" even though he didn't actually do anything .
That didn't stop him from snagging a tooth though cause, come on, it was right there. And it was cool! And he was sure no one noticed.
Triton was mad at his school again, it was nice to have someone mad for him and not at him. But it was really okay, Percy was used to being expelled.
Triton took the new free time Percy now had to drill him in more history and start teaching him about weapons other than the trident, starting with a knife.
And he gave Percy more homework.
Wasn't that exciting?
OO OO OO OO
It was now July, and Triton was gone for more Veruo stuff. And in turn, the scary water guys were back.
This time they didn't leave when he looked at them.
Nor did they leave when he drifted towards them.
Nor did they leave when he hovered in front of them, building up his nerves to speak.
Before he could speak, they did.
"What do you want, Godling?"
…
"What?"