abraxaslogs | open | excuse my ego, can't go incognito

[ honestly, even other demigods probably shouldn't compare themselves to annabeth. she's been training since she was seven, and her quest count is higher than most campers, alongside two great prophecies under her belt and multiple save the worlds. she's a high bar! not that she has any sense of wilhelm thinking along those lines. but she's definitely used to getting thrown into dangerous situations like she's been thrown at abraxas. ]

I've come up against a drakon before, though I wasn't the one who ultimately killed it. [ she thinks about clarisse and damasen both, and the drakon bone sword she wishes came with her here. ]

Demonic dogs, like, Hellhounds? [ she notes the monsters in nocwich before stepping through the door with a brief nod of thanks. once she's in, she immediately looks around to take in the layout of the carriage house, both because she hasn't been inside it yet and to preemptively look for the bikes. ] We fight a lot of monsters back home. It's good there don't seem to be as many here.

[His eyebrows pop up, when Annabeth mentions the drakon, as if to say it's impressive even if she didn't land the killing blow. Once they're inside, the bikes are tucked into the corner by the door. He thinks a bike rack outside would be more convenient, but apparently the court officials have deemed the bikes too shocking and unsightly in their novelty, and so they stay hidden while not in use. Whatever.]

I guess so? I don't know what they were called, but they were fast as hell.

[Pun unintended, actually. Grabbing one bike by the handlebars, he wheels it over for her.]

Hey, if you ever miss fighting monsters, you can check out the hunting grounds in Nocwich. They let you rent weapons, and there are special eyedrops that help you see better in the dark.

It was the Lydian Drakon. My friend Clarisse killed it in the end. [ she doesn't miss his expression, but it feels weird. when did annabeth reach the point in her life where the drakon in the battle of manhattan starts to pale in comparison? but she supposes when her new bar is the sight of the literal tartarus itself rising and swirling to face her and percy specifically, everything else feels... smaller. it was an enemy she couldn't fight. at least a drakon is killable. ]

Our Hellhounds are pretty fast, but they can travel through shadows and have glowing red eyes.

[ she takes the bike, looking it over with a critical eye and remembering all he said before about the changes needed to avoid thorne freaking out over technology. she's distracted by it for a moment, and it takes some time before what he says wholly sinks in. ]

[ flatly: ] I don't miss it. I'm restless, but it's nice to get away from it too, even if the eyedrops and rentable weapons sound pretty useful.

[ she pats the handlebars. ] So, are we supposed to ride them out of sight? On a trail? Wouldn't want to scandalize the locals.

[He suggested the hunting woods as a joke mostly, so he shrugs as he claims the second bike for himself. He imagines that if you're used to fending off monsters all the time, coming here must feel like a vacation. Despite whatever weird magical nonsense the Singularity throws at them. In that other life, he'd hunted down demigod spawn out of a sense of duty, but now that he's back to his regular old self he has no plans to go looking for a fight.]

I ride around town all the time to make deliveries. I get some weird looks, but nobody, like, faints or goes into hysterics or anything.

[Outside the carriage house now, Wilhelm considers their options.]

The trails aren't paved, but I guess we could test the bikes' off-road capability. [He points a look at Annabeth.] Depending on how adventurous you're feeling.

[ she supposes if she ever needs a way to really expel some energy, she can keep the woods in mind - but she's been enjoying the reprieve from monster fighting lately. a small mercy in the face of abraxas's other kinds of chaos. ]

Maybe you'll slowly build them up to getting used to it and the bike market can expand.

[ annabeth gets a bit of a determined look on her face, mulling it over for a few moments before she nods, once and curt. ] Let's off-road it. But take me to a regular trail first, so I can get a sense of how these weirdo bikes work.

[ she will continue to be judgey of the way thorne forced the bikes into being slightly off. she definitely wants to be adventurous (see: distracted) but she will make sure she knows how to handle the way this bike model works first. ] Lead the way.

[That's what Wilhelm hopes — that the locals grow accustomed to the strange vehicles, maybe even enough to start dreaming of having their own. Then the acceptance of bikes could pave the way for cars someday down the road. Even if it's a goofy, old-fashioned version of a car, it's something.

He nods at Annabeth's decision, breaking into a grin. The best way to go about this, he thinks, is to take a lap around the gardens first. Most of the paths are paved with stone or made of hardpacked dirt that will allow for an easy ride. They'll just have to avoid the gravel paths. Swinging his leg over the bike, he motions for her to follow with a cant of his head.]

Come on.

[And they're off! To Viktor's credit, the gears work smoothly, and though the wooden wheels clatter on the flagstones, the frame absorbs most of the bouncing.]

[ she follows suit and gets as comfortable as she can on the bike, following wilhelm out of the carriage house. the wooden wheels are odd, but not terrible - she's driven chariots with wheels of bronze, so rubber isn't her only vehicle experience. ]

[ the thing about annabeth is she's a very fast learner by nature. literally. children of athena are very quick to pick up new things. and given she already knows how to ride a bike, it doesn't take her long to get an understanding of the differences. it helps too that she is simply determined to do it well. ]

[ it's fun, she thinks, as he takes them towards the gardens. ]

Who did you say made these?

[Wilhelm has gotten used to the idiosyncrasies of the bikes, and developed a newfound appreciation for cycling in general. Even before he arrived in this world, it had been a while since he last rode a bike. When you have an older brother with a Ferrari, the thrill of zooming around on two wheels quickly gets relegated to the realm of things left behind in childhood. But here, it's made new and exciting all over again.]

Viktor. He's over in the Free Cities. I don't know him that well, but he's friends with Kyle. They sort of collaborated on this.

[The path takes them around a pond, at the center of which a fountain sprays water into the air in elegant arcs. Perfectly manicured shrubs, smooth white stones, and lush flowers surround the edges of the water.]

[ she periodically picks up speed then slows down, if only to test the brakes and acceleration. she has a feeling she's gonna need it once they got on the more beaten track. she's never driven a car personally, and her most frequent automobile experiences are camp transport vans and paul's prius - a bike is far more familiar, even with the variety in style. ]

How'd they get them here then, if he's in the Free Cities?

[ as they cycle around the pond, annabeth takes in the sight of it all. it's pretty, but she can tell just from looking at it that it's simply designed to be that way. she can't blame the castle, and she's not surprised by it, but each plant and structure is placed particularly in such a perfect way she can't help but try to study it along the ride. she can multitask, she just may end up missing bits and pieces of what wilhelm says. ]

[It's hard to really pick up speed in the gardens. Most of the paths are meandering, being that their purpose is not to get you from one place to another but to let you enjoy the scenery, and only wide enough to accommodate two people walking abreast. Then again, it's hard out in the city too. There's no such thing as bike lanes, or any lanes really. Carriages and carts and people fill the roads going every which way.]

Okay, technically he designed them and built a prototype, and he passed the blueprints onto Kyle. Kyle found workers here to actually make them.

[He's pretty sure that's how it happened, anyway.]

[ there might not be speed, but there's enough of a trail that annabeth starts to feel pretty comfortable on the bike. the longer they rove around the garden, the easier she finds it. perhaps the expression about never forgetting how to ride it applies even with structural changes to the bike. ]

[ still, there's a bit of delay in her response to wilhelm's explanation, born mostly out of the way she stares a little too long at the statuary between shrubbery, and the way it angles against the wall. ]

Oh. That makes sense. And it matches why they wouldn't let them use rubber here, given the Free Cities don't seem as reluctant towards innovation. [ she steers around a curve, then nods again, half to her self. ]

Okay. Let's move this show off road.

[The delay in her response is understandable, given that there's so much to look at, and so many curves in the path to keep track of. It doesn't help that they have to call back and forth to each other, unable to pedal side by side. But he doesn't mind the stretches when they're not talking. The garden is a familiar companion by now.

When Annabeth announces that she's ready for the trails, Wilhelm throws her a grin.]

Okay. Let's go.

[First, they have to get to the castle's back gate — which they were already vaguely heading toward anyway, but now they can cut across a more direct route. From there, it's a short intermission on the road before they can veer off onto a trail. To one side stretches a rolling meadow dotted with wildflowers; copses of trees start to thicken into forest on the other. Here, the dirt is hard-packed beneath their bike wheels, interrupted by occasional tree roots and rocks.]

Nice to get out of the castle, isn't it?

[ her distractability when it comes to design is high tier, especially in those moments where she doesn't even realize it's happening to her. she'll have to come back to the garden more, she thinks, if only to study it more carefully. ]

[ she finds herself grinning back as she follows after wilhelm out of the garden and outside the castle. there's a lot she likes to look at inside - again, see her bias towards design, and her attachment towards the library - but annabeth also loves to be outdoors. leaving the castle itself is a bonus. ]

[ this is nice. after the nonsense that was being a god, this silly little bout of bike riding is grounding. once they hit the dirt trail, annabeth picks up speed. ]

I should really do it more often. Can I take the bike out whenever?

[The last time he came out this way, the ground was blanketed in snow which he flew over in a horse-drawn sleigh. He used to ride the trails on horseback sometimes, when the spinning of his mind gave way to a restlessness in his blood, and the castle gardens felt too cabined to hold everything he was thinking. Then two winters ago, he'd gotten abducted out in these woods. For months afterward Wilhelm had a hard time feeling safe anywhere outside the castle walls.

Even now, he finds himself glancing suspiciously at the shadows between trees, and reminding himself that Josselyn is dead, her deranged followers rotting in prison.]

There's no rule against it. As long as none of the couriers need them, but our schedules are pretty flexible.

[Being that...they make their own schedules and routes. And not all of them use the bikes anyway. Now he's thinking about Kelson again, who had adamantly refused his offer to teach him how to ride.]

[ if she was being a little more mindful, if she wasn't giving in so wholly to her desire to be distracted from her own thoughts, annabeth might have noticed more clearly the way wilhelm watches the forest. casing her surroundings is an action she's all too familiar with herself. ]

[ she's doing it now - glancing out at the woods, listening and making sure nothing's about to jump out - but she's doing so with a little more carelessness in the sense that she's trying to focus more on the bike. she's not afraid of anything out here, even if there's always a chance she should be. ]

I'd ask what gets delivered here besides letters but I suppose it's still at the very least frowned upon if not illegal to go through mail.

[ her bike stumbles over a particularly big root and it throws the balance off, but she leans away from the tilt of it and manages to keep it upright. it does not seem to make her want to slow down. ]

I thought we didn't need to get jobs here.

[Wilhelm can't spare too much time staring into the woods, checking the shadows for movement. There's the trail to contend with. It wasn't made with wheels in mind — that's what the road is supposed to be for. Stray rocks and roots, which are no matter for a horse to bound over without breaking stride, create an obstacle course for bikes. He has to swerve to avoid a ridge where a large flat rock pokes out of the worn earth.]

No, but it's nice to have the extra cash. Otherwise you're relying on the castle for everything. [Throwing his head back, flipping his hair with obvious facetiousness, he adds:] How else could I afford my luxurious lifestyle?

[But it's true he has little trouble finding things to spend his money on... He definitely doesn't miss being broke, back before he picked up the courier gig. Back when the crown was stingier with their coffers, and the only way he had to make a few coins was picking up odd jobs around town.]

[ luckily, the ability to focus on multiple things happening at once comes easily to her, and while it's not too crazy in the woods on this trail, she's able to keep note of the forest and the way forward fairly well. ]

[ annabeth lets out a short laugh at the luxurious lifestyle remark. ]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure delivering packages lets you roll in the money.

[ but still, it's probably not a bad job to have, if she ever decided to pick one up here. right now she is enjoying a lack of responsibility more than she probably should be, even though he's right about the idea of having to rely on the castle for too much. she doesn't think she wants to stay that way forever. ]

I haven't really had a job before, much less something more medieval. [ she's barely been around for school lately, how is she supposed to hold a job down?? ]

[No, it's not a bad job to have at all. A few days a week, he spends his afternoon biking around until his messenger bag is depleted of letters and parcels. With housing and food covered by the castle, all of his wages get funneled into fun things, like a round of drinks at the Mute Lute or a new color of nail polish. It feels like freedom.]

I never really had a job before either. It's a lot better now that we have the bikes. When I started, I had to do it on foot. And it was winter.

[Despite his complaints, Wilhelm hadn't minded it so much. Fall ushers in bad memories, and as the months hunch into winter those ghosts linger cold and thick. The job got him out of the castle, gave him something else to focus on.

As the trail bends into the woods, it narrows. The ground stays well-worn beneath their wheels, but the underbrush encroaches on the edges of the path.]

Hey, they're holding up alright.

[The bikes, he means, on this off-road test.]

[ it's job possibility she files away, for now. she can deliver mail. how easy is that?? the cold wouldn't even get to her too much, she thinks, whether or not that stays the truth. she'll just prepare herself for it. not that she wants to be here until another round of winter. ]

That's what jackets are for. [ a beat. ] Or cloaks? Is that more the style here?

[ she is impressed by the bikes so far, happy they're holding up, and already thinking about the next time she'll take one out. she should not also be thinking about bringing a greater challenge to them, but she's considering it. it's hard to go as fast as she'd like to with the underbrush growing as it is now, but it presents a different challenge she can roll with. no pun intended. ]

I'll admit it, I'm surprised and a little impressed. But I guess the earliest bikes might not have had rubber use either.

Either. Or both, when it gets really cold.

[In the jackets versus cloaks matter. Winter feels a long way off with summer heat hanging thickly around them, but while Annabeth tentatively prepares for a change in seasons she hopes she's gone by, Wilhelm takes it as an inevitability that he'll still be around. This is his life now, and this is his home now.

As the trail skirts around a large boulder, and he stretches his arm out to drag his fingers over its rough face, he chuckles.]

I'm just glad they're not falling apart. I'd hate to have to explain that to Viktor.

[ does she want a cloak now? maybe. she is but seventeen and could be persuaded that a cool cloak might be fun. ]

I could probably try to fix them, if they break. But so far it doesn't look like that'll be a problem.

[ she steers her bike around a large rock in the trail. she wants to test them, not actively try to break them. ]

Anywhere we could go a little faster with these now?

[Correct, cloaks are fucking sweet. Wilhelm has had two years to get used to Thornean fashion. He used to feel like an actor in a play, putting on all this ye olde stuff, but now he can appreciate the style — and the advantages it offers.

As for her question, he scans their surroundings, trying to recall the lay of the land.]

I think there's a hill coming up, after we get past the trees. [He shoots her a grin.] I'll race you down it.

[ annabeth squints over into the trees where wilhelm does, trying to get a sense of the path ahead herself. it does look like they're approaching a bit of a downward incline. ]

You're gonna lose.

[ and that's all she says before she immediately launches into the race, without waiting for a ready-set-go or countdown of any kind. she starts pedaling much faster, perhaps a little recklessly in her goal to pass him before he even realizes, but all the more determined to win. ]

open | excuse my ego, can't go incognito

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wrap soon?

yes that works!

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