Daughter of the Sea

Hi, my name is Perseus Jackson.

Or, at least, it was. This is the story of how that changed, among other things.

It all started when I got turned into a guinea pig by a spa owner.

Why was this spa owner turning me into a guinea pig? No clue, something about men being pigs. Looking back, I can kind of see where she was coming from. Doesn’t change the fact that most people would take issue, rightfully so, from being turned into a guinea pig. I know I did.

So here I was, Annabeth and I having gotten off a beat-up Confederate lifeboat. We were in the middle of the Sea of Monsters, AKA the Bermuda Triangle. Makes sense, right? Inexplicably, in the middle of all of this was this spa, C.C.’s Spa and Resort. It was massive, and some of the boats at the docks were downright weird, such as the old sailing ship, or the literal German U-Boat. I assumed they were replicas. We were led into the spa by this lady with a clipboard. Lounging around pools were a whole bunch of girls, seeming to range from around our own age (about 13 or so) up to their 40s. There were even tigers lounging about. There were, however, no men.

And yes, I do not consider myself to be a man. I hadn’t accepted that at the time though.

“Where are all the guys?” I asked.

“You’ll meet them soon,” the lady said.

And with that, we continued in silence.

The lady led us to a large room. One wall was made entirely of windows, the opposite covered in mirrors, giving the room a feeling as if it went on forever.

What really got my attention was the woman in the room. She sat at a loom, weaving an elegant design. She was singing, this beautiful, but also somewhat sad, song. It made me feel almost weightless. She seemed almost ageless, and she was seriously pretty. I felt this weird feeling in my gut, but at the time I had no idea what it was. I know now.

It was jealousy. I wanted to be that pretty.

Of course, I would not have realised this then. It’s a funny thing, being this deep in the closet.

She immediately focused on Annabeth. “You, my dear, have the makings of a sorceress.” And she was led out of the room by the lady with the clipboard, Hylla, according to the woman who I assumed was C. C.

And then she focused on me. The look on her face seemed disdainful. As if I was simply something she scraped off her shoe.

And honestly? I felt like it under her gaze. I felt inadequate.

And then she directed my attention to my reflection. Without really saying much, she was so easily able to direct my full attention to the various minor imperfections of myself.

And then she dropped a curtain over the mirrors. I was confused, briefly, before the curtain shimmered, showing a reflection of me. Except it wasn’t really a reflection. It was me, but not me. All those minor faults were gone… and yet… I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but something about the image felt off. It felt fake.

And still, she had me nodding along. Had me saying that ‘yes, this is what I want.’ Meanwhile, in the back of my head, there was a voice screaming that no, that was not what I wanted. But C. C.’s words silenced this voice.

She handed me a glass of water and mixed in some powder, changing the liquid to bright red.

“Drink this.”

“Will this,” I pointed at the not-reflection, “do that.”

She nodded. “Simply drink this every day. Simple diet. A bit of exercise. You’ll see results in no time.”

I clamped down on that voice, which had started back up, screaming at me to not drink it. That that version of me was not only not what I wanted, it was straight up wrong. A step in the complete opposite direction of what I wanted.

I drank.

Immediately, I felt a burning sensation in my gut. I doubled over in pain.

“See Percy,” C. C. said, dropping the curtain, “you’re turning into your true self.”

But something was wrong. Fur was sprouting all over my body, my hands shriveled into small claws, and I got smaller and smaller. And then darkness.

No, I didn’t die. I was simply buried in my own clothes.

And then I felt giant hands grabbing me, lifting me up, and I found myself staring into the giant face of C. C. Except, of course, her face wasn’t what was giant. I was just tiny. She faced me towards the mirrors.

In the mirror, I saw C. C, beautiful as ever, and in her hands was a small, furry rodent. I twisted. The rodent twisted. I was…

“A guinea pig,” C. C. said. “You see, Percy? Men are pigs. I used to turn them into real pigs, but this is much better. They were so big and smelly and difficult, much like they were before. This way is much better.”

I squirmed and tried to call for help, but all the came out was squealing noises.

“None of that, Percy.”

And that’s how I found myself in a cage with a bunch of very mean looking guinea pigs.

And that’s when Annabeth arrived.

“C. C?”

C. C. cursed and kicked my clothes under her loom.

Annabeth came in through the door.

“Where’ Percy?” she asked.

“He’s undergoing one of our treatments.”

Annabeth saw right through her, however. Of course, she did. She immediately deduced who C. C. was. Circe, the sorceress. She requested some privacy to say good-bye.

As soon as C. C. left the room, she knelt by the cage. “Alright, which one of you is it?”

I started squealing my little head off, but so did all the others.

Annabeth swore under her breath and stood up. She quickly looked around the room, and easily spotted my jeans poking out from under the loom. She went to search the pockets.

Yes! I thought. Just grab Riptide.

But she did not, in fact, grab Riptide. Instead, she pulled out the bottle of Hermes’ multivitamins and popped one into her mouth.

Just then, C. C. returned, flanked by a couple of attendants. “Alright, what’s your decision?”

“This.” Annabeth brandished her knife at them.

C. C. laughed. “A knife against my magic?” She and her attendants raised their hands towards her. “What should we turn you into? Something small and ill-tempered? A shrew!”

Magic blasted out of their palms, covering Annabeth. When it receded, however, Annabeth was still Annabeth, only angrier.

She lunged at C. C, holding her knife up to her throat. “How about a tiger? With her claws at your throat?”

C. C. looked shocked. “How?”

Annabeth held up the bottle.

“Curse Hermes and his multivitamins! Those are such a fad! They do nothing for you!”

Annabeth dragged C. C. over to the cage and knocked the top off.

“No, wait!”

But Annabeth had already emptied the bottle into the cage.

I was the first to get to a vitamin, but the others quickly joined me to check out this new treat.

Instantly, I started feeling a warm feeling in my gut, significantly more pleasant than my previous transformation. The vitamin was getting smaller in my hands, or really, I was getting larger. And then – BANG! The cage exploded. I was human again, thankfully back in my clothes somehow. I didn’t question it.

And that is when it happened. The transformation continued. My hair grew until it reached my shoulders, and while I couldn’t exactly see what was going on, I could feel my body shifting, changing. Once the feeling stopped, I chanced a glance in the mirrors.

Staring back at me, along with a bunch of rather dirty looking men, one with a very impressive beard, was a girl who was sprawled on the floor exactly where I should have been. When I turned my head, so did she. I raised my hand to brush some of my now much longer hair out of my face, and so did the girl.

This girl was me.

I was the girl.

I didn’t have time to think about this.

Annabeth rushed over to me, dragging me up to my feet. She did a double take.

“What the…” she trailed off, then looked at the other former guinea pigs. “I know you. You’re Edward Teach, son of Ares.”

“Aye, lass!” The man with the beard said. “But most just call me Blackbeard.”

Annabeth frowned. “But didn’t you get beheaded?”

The man, Blackbeard, apparently, laughed. “That I did! But I got better. And now I mean to find meself a big stick a celery! Aaarrgh!”

Annabeth turned back to me.

“Time to go,” I said, my voice coming out slightly higher than I was used to, though whether that was from nerves or my spontaneous transformation into a girl, I did not know (although it was a bit of both, as it turns out).

We sprinted down the stairs that had led to C. C.’s room and through the spa, bursting back out onto the docks. We wondered what to do, we could not just take the beat-up lifeboat we had been in earlier.

“There!” I said, pointing at the old sailing ship. I had no idea why, but somehow, I knew an old sailing ship was perfect for me. We sprinted towards it, up the gangplank, and onboard.

“Aaargh! Those scallywags are a-boardin’ me vessel! Get ‘em lads!”

Annabeth looked at me in panic.

I concentrated, feeling the subtle sway of the deck beneath me, smelling the salty see air.

Suddenly the word came to me. “Mizzenmast!” I shouted.

Annabeth looked at me like I was insane, but the ship instantly sprung into action under my command. The gangplank was brought up, the sails unfurled, the mooring undone, and within seconds, the ship, with us on board, was underway. Very soon, the spa was just a spec in the distance.

Once the adrenaline from our escape had worn off, Annabeth stumbled over to where I was, looking queasy. Her eyes, however, made it clear that she wanted to talk.

“Thanks,” I said.

She pursed her lips. “Percy, I-“ She cut herself off.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Annabeth frowned. “Neither do I… you just… turned into a girl. Didn’t even know those vitamins could do that. Spontaneous gender change, that is.”

I shrugged. “They didn’t change you. Or those pirates.”

Annabeth sighed. “That’s the most baffling part. If maybe it turned all those pirates into women, sure. It would still make sense why it didn’t change me, since I’m already a girl. But no, it just did that to you.”

“Maybe I just got the odd pill out?”

“Maybe…”

We sailed in silence for a little while, Annabeth staring resolutely at the horizon.

I patted my pockets, sighing in relief when I felt Riptide still in there. Alongside it, however, was the vitamin bottle. I pulled it out. “Maybe if you looked at the ingredients you could figure it out.” I handed it to Annabeth.

She looked at it, reading over the label. “Everything you need to feel like yourself again,” she read. “Huh.” She turned it over to look at the ingredients and nutritional facts. “100% your daily requirements of… all vitamins. Well that makes sense, actually.” She continued reading. “Damn, these ingredients are no joke. I don’t even recognize some of these. Let’s see… we have Nectar and Ambrosia. Uh, there’s some powdered unicorn horn mixed in, not sure what that’s supposed to be doing. And… di immortales.” She sucked in a breath. “Gorgon’s blood?!” She looked up from the bottle at me. “That’s… super hard to get. And insanely effective.”

“What does Gorgon blood do?” I asked.

Annabeth turned back to watch the horizon, likely wanting to alleviate seasickness. “Well, Gorgon’s blood is rather risky. It depends. From one side of the body, left, if I recall, it is a deadly poison and will cause an excruciatingly painful death. From the other side, it can heal basically anything. And I do mean anything. Blind since birth? Not anymore. Missing a limb? Regrown. Seconds from death? Not a chance. And Hermes just gave these to you with nothing but a request to talk to Luke for him. That’s… wow.”

“But nothing in there would turn me into a girl?”

Annabeth shook her head. “Not that I know of. I know that according to some legends, unicorns prefer girls, so maybe the unicorn horn, but that’s just pure guesswork.”

“Maybe we could ask Chiron,” I said.

Annabeth grimaced, “if he ever is able to return to camp.”

I sighed. “Right. Yeah. That. Well, we could Iris Message him.”

“We could, yeah.” Annabeth grimaced and stood up. “Do that later, I need to go lie down.”

And with that, she went below decks, leaving me alone.

I continued to sail the ship in silence.