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Oh, Broken Mast Bay, where the balladeers play
And the spirits never sleep
Where the whispers call and the legends crawl
Through the veil of the ocean deep
Annabeth stepped off the ship, waving farewell to the Ramírez sisters at the helm. They’d been generous enough to give her a one-time ride on their ship to Broken Mast Bay, but told her after that she would be on her own.
Hoisting the sack that held all of her belongings on her shoulder, Annabeth set out to find a place that would be willing to put her up until she could find work somewhere.
Walking through the port, she noticed a small pub called The Dancing Mermaid . She eyed it thoughtfully for a moment, then shook her head and kept walking.
The night was still and the air was stale
And the stench of ale ran high
And it flowed from a pub across a cobblestone street
Where a sailor was passing by
Later that night, Annabeth found herself back at the pub. She had found an inn called the Waystation and the owner, Emmie, seemed kind enough.
After getting herself set up, she was drawn back to The Dancing Mermaid . She could have said it was because of the music spilling from the open door. She could have said it was because of the company there.
She could have said many things, but they would have been lies.
Annabeth knew full well why she was in the tavern, and she wasn’t about to lie to herself about it.
Oh, he drank his fill and he sang his song
As the room began to sway
Then he stumbled down the road to the water's edge
Of a place called "Broken Mast Bay"
Annabeth laughed, she danced, and she drank. She was able to lose herself in the revelry for a simple joyous moment, but it came to an end as all things must.
She spun under the arm of her dance partner, laughing until she caught sight of a dead man’s face in the side of her vision, freezing immediately.
Making her excuses to the mildly disgruntled and drunk man she’d been dancing with, Annabeth stumbled out of the pub.
Oh, Broken Mast Bay, where the balladeers play
And the spirits never sleep
Where the whispers call and the legends crawl
Through the veil of the ocean deep
She didn’t know where she was going, just away .
Her feet led her to the dock, where she sat down, her legs swaying as she stared at the night sky. Then a dinghy in the corner of her attention caught her attention as it bumped against the dock, almost like it was begging her to take it.
She stared at it with a cocked head, considering. It was a bad idea.
But when had that ever stopped her?
With a dizzy head and a daring heart
And a dinghy on the shore
In his drunken glee, he put out to sea
And he rowed to the "Mists of Nore".
As he rolled along, he could hear a song
From a voice so pure and clear
As Annabeth rowed out into the sea, fog rolled in around her. It wasn’t enough to deter the experienced sailor though, no matter how drunk she may have been.
She knew Broken Mast Bay, she had grown up in these waters. She wasn’t going to wreck, no matter how bad it may have looked to anyone else.
As she rowed, she started hearing an entrancing song. It was a man, singing in a language she didn’t know.
His voice rolled over the cloudy waters, rising and falling in a rhythmic, lyrical cadence.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, Annabeth turned the boat to the voice, rowing to find the other person out here.
Then a selkie rose right beside his boat
As her voice echoed in his ear
As Annabeth got closer, the voice became more distinct, and she felt almost hypnotized as she listened to it.
And then suddenly it was muffled, ringing out from all around her as if the ocean itself was singing.
Annabeth stopped rowing, something about the situation tickling the back of her drunken mind.
Leaning over the side of the boat, she got the shock of her life as a spotted blue seal with a jet-black coat leapt up out of the water, flying over her as it shifted midair to a young man wearing pants made out of some sort of leather.
He landed on the boat, rocking it back and forth. It would have tipped any other boat over, but she recognized what had happened, what he was. This was a selkie.
That…or she was drunk enough to be hallucinating.
Oh, Broken Mast Bay, where the balladeers play
And the spirits never sleep
Where the whispers call and the legends crawl
Through the veil of the ocean deep
“What-” Annabeth squinted. “Are you real? Or did the Stoll brothers at the bar spike my ale with something?”
The selkie laughed. “I’m real. If I’m not, then everyone is really good at lying to my face. Despite me apparently not being there.”
Annabeth snorted a laugh despite herself.
“Say, what’s a pretty thing like you doing all the way out here by yourself on a night like this?” The still-unnamed selkie cocked his head with curiosity.
“Come again?” said he, “how can this be?
Have I had too much to drink?”
“Not at all”, she sighed with a sparkle in her eyes
“I’m as true as the ocean is deep
Why sail alone, my sailor bold, on this quiet, moonlit night?"
The sailor gawked as she whispered soft,
“Please stay with me ‘til light”
Despite being drunk, Annabeth raised an eyebrow. “You realize how that sounds, right?”
It took a second, but horror dawned on the selkie’s face. “Wait, no, I swear I’m not like that. Consent King over here, purely vanilla.”
“And if I wanted more than vanilla?” Annabeth raised an eyebrow, a smirk twitching at the corner of her lips as she leaned forward in what she thought was a sultry manner. “What if I want some deep, dark chocolate?”
The selkie sputtered, turning bright red, before taking a deep breath and calming down. “Look, you’re clearly drunk, and my parents taught me better than to do anything with someone who’s drunk.”
“M’ not drunk.” Annabeth slurred her words as the arm she was leaning on buckled and she narrowly avoided faceplanting by the selkie catching her. “I just had a little to drink.”
The selkie shook his head with a small laugh. “I’ll get you back to the dock. If you want to come out and talk when you’re sober, my name is Percy.”
The last thing she knew was the selkie- Percy, slipping into the water as the boat started moving.
Oh, Broken Mast Bay, where the balladeers play
And the spirits never sleep
Where the whispers call and the legends crawl
Through the veil of the ocean deep
Annabeth woke up lying on the dock to someone shaking her angrily.
She blinked her eyes open blearily to see a man above her, his face twisted with rage.
“Finally, you’re awake. What’s the big idea, stealing my boat!?” The man asked, grabbing her shirt as he lifted her to eye level.
“Ah, sorry about that.” Annabeth rubbed her eyes blearily before fishing in her pockets for some change. “This enough to cover the price of the boat?”
The man looked suspiciously at her before snatching the coin and leaving down the dock.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Annabeth looked at the boat she had just semi-unintentionally acquired, memories of last night filtering back to her.
Raising her head, she looked at the bay curiously. Had that selkie- she vaguely remembered him saying his name was Percy- been real? She was going to find out.
She shed a tear as he slurred his words
Telling tales of life before
How his friends were swallowed in the treacherous swells
When they were claimed by the ocean floor
The next time Annabeth ventured out into Broken Mast Bay, she was wide awake and decidedly not drunk. She wanted to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating anything.
And to her surprise, she hadn’t been. The selkie was right there where she left him, and the two soon struck up a friendship.
Percy had an endless curiosity and kindness about him, although he was no sheltered, naive princess. He had seen the worst of humanity and yet he was still kind.
Annabeth didn’t know what made her trust him so quickly, but he had a way of getting her to open up.
Eventually, the conversation turned to their pasts. She found out his father had met his mothers on a beach they were honeymooning at, and he refused to elaborate when she asked.
“Annabeth.” Percy looked her dead in the eyes. “I do not want to picture what my dad did to get my mothers to let him join them.”
Fair enough, she supposed.
When it was her turn to share…she put it off as long as she could.
But eventually she opened up to the odd charm Percy possessed, and she found herself speaking of her friends.
Of Thalia and Luke, her captain and first mate. Of her friend Nico, always hiding in the shadows until his husband Will pulled him to the light. Of Rachel, her pseudo-rival on the ship. Of Grover, her childhood best friend.
How Luke had been tricked into betraying them, how they had all sunk beneath the waves in the ensuing fight with pirates. How she had been left alone on the sea, left to mourn by herself.
The entire time as the words pried themselves from her choked throat, Percy didn’t say anything. He just hugged her as their tears joined the ocean.
He wiped his eyes as the dawn advanced
On a tired, wakeless world
Then she left a gift in his calloused hand
‘Twas a pendant made of pearl
Eventually, it had to come to an end though. Annabeth couldn’t spend her entire life rowing out past the Mists to see Percy, and he had responsibilities at his home too.
The catalyst was when Annabeth was able to land a job with Captain La Rue, a notoriously harsh taskmaster, but one who didn’t care who you were or where you came from.
Percy reluctantly admitted that his dad had been dropping hints that he should come back home for a few weeks.
Neither one of them wanted to leave the other, but they knew they had to. They were young and with that youth came responsibilities, despite what their parents may claim.
Others could have been able to enjoy their younger years freely, but both Percy and Annabeth had heavy burdens on their shoulders.
At the end of their last meeting, Percy gave a pearl pendant to Annabeth.
“To remember me by.” He claimed with a playful smile as he turned to leave.
Annabeth didn’t know what possessed her to do it, but she grabbed his arm before he could jump off the boat, pulling him into a kiss.
“To remember me by.” She bashfully rubbed the back of her neck, a violent blush growing on her face as she refused to look Percy in the eyes.
She felt a gentle hand lifting up her chin, and she looked up to see Percy smiling softly at her as he took the pendant and whispered some words to it before giving it back.
“If you need something to keep you going when everything seems against you, hold this close.” Percy stepped back to the edge of the boat, a grin growing on his face. “And if you’re ever feeling alone, listen for my song on the winds of Broken Mast Bay.”
With that, he backflipped off the boat, shifting into a seal right before he plummeted into the ocean.
“Hold this close when the road feels long
And the waves don’t flow your way
When you feel alone, listen for my voice
On the winds of Broken Mast Bay”
Years passed for both of them. Annabeth earned her way to her own ship, growing to be the owner of a very successful trading company.
Percy became known far and wide among the selkies as a fair ruler of those under him, kind and merciful even to criminals.
They never forgot about each other. Annabeth kept the pendant, and Percy went to the surface to sing every night.
The years sailed on and the selkie’s song
Became a memory on the wind
And the gift she gave found a shallow grave
In a box where his memories lived
Until one day in the village square
He heard a voice that he once knew
When he turned around he saw the sparkle in her eyes
Annabeth sat back in the captain’s quarters of her personal ship, The Agoraea . She looked wistfully at the pendant in her hand, before placing it in a box and locking it up as she left.
Wandering through the streets of Broken Mast Bay, Annabeth smiled and nodded to the people she had befriended over the decades.
Stopping at a fountain, she looked up at it fondly as she remembered seeing it her first day in the port.
Then a familiar voice caught her attention, whipping her head around to stare into oh-too-familiar sea green eyes.
“Hey, Annabeth.” That impish smirk was the same as she remembered it. Percy had aged well, the silver lining his jet-black hair lending him a dignified air as his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. He was wearing surprisingly nice clothes, a leather coat over the top of all of it.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but was cut off by Annabeth crashing into him with a tight hug.
“I’ve missed you.” He gently said as he returned the hug.
“Old friend, I’ve been waiting for you”