An Undertow of Sand (Percy Jackson and the Cthulhu Mythos)

[Shujin]

Sorry for the delay, lots of things including my family blew up and I got really burned out of doing anything.

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction​

I'll be honest.

I fucked everything up.

When I say something like 'I fell into the Dreamlands,' I don't mean 'I fell from the sky of the Dreamlands.'

That would be super counterproductive.

There was something about the sensation of falling that really didn't play nice with Dreaming. Some half-forgotten survival instinct left over from the days when sleeping meant wandering the Night. Back then, if you ever felt yourself falling down while sleeping, you better wake the fuck up.

There really wasn't anything you could do about wandering too far, but at least that was usually painless.

Falling into the Pit wasn't.

Evolution was funny like that, right? It was crude, but effective as far as failsafes go. Hypnos was awesome and tried his best to keep everyone safe, but I know not even gods are perfect.

When I say 'I fell into the Dreamlands,' I mean I fell from the outside in. And in the Dreamlands, shit only makes logical sense when it feels like it. You can 'fall' in sideways, diagonally, backwards and Sam told me about this one time he fell in five minutes ago. Time isn't constant in the Dreamlands either. He met himself five minutes later and things got weird.

If you are like me who remembered half-way through that I had no idea where my apartment actually was, Morpheus wasn't there to be my GPS and promptly panicked like a blockhead, then you can fall in from the bottom up.

Of the ocean.

For the second time today, I found myself drowning.

My first reaction was to panic harder.

Don't do that.

If you do that, you're a moron.

The Dreamlands is the last place in the universe where you want to be feeling really strong, negative emotions like hatred or fear.

It starts messing with you. Getting into your head.

For that one second, I was back off shore of that cold beach right after Rhea intervened again. I could feel Artemis' broken bones grind under her fur as she was shocked awake. I could feel Luke's weight pulling me down into the dark depths. The cold saltwater burned as it invaded my nose and my lungs. And somehow, through it all, I could still feel Luke's blood on my face.

A Dream doesn't have to make logical sense.

Dreamlands, remember? I reminded myself. It was still hard, even when I knew. We made it. We're safe.

I was a sleeping mortal soul in the Dreamlands.

I don't need to breathe.

The burn in my chest faded away as I gulped down saltwater, trying to ignore the iron tinge.

I thought of Artemis, how the little auburn furball slept on her back with her paws in the air and mouth open in her wicker basket.

Not here.

The thrashing form in my hands vanished.

I thought of Luke, unconscious on the back of a lion as it padded past me, but breathing. He was just sleeping in his own guest room and Apollo had snuck him a bit of help. He was fine.

Not here.

I stopped sinking. The weight of his arms slipped off my shoulders and I still reflexively turned towards it, reaching out (no, no, no Luke!) to stop him from falling away.

There was nothing there.

I was alone, floating in the midst of pitch black waters. The water itself felt ridiculously heavy, like it was fighting every move I made and I was wearing weights. Good thing I was a soul. If my body was here, it would be crushed to a pulp.

I had no way of knowing how to get to the surface or even which direction was up. I wish it was as simple as just willing myself out of here, somehow, but it didn't work like that. Not from inside the Dreamlands.

Sam would tell you that it wouldn't work, because it wouldn't work. He's not dumb, but he's a cat. He likes to keep things simple. One of Sam's friends, Wilhelm, would say the Dreamlands was a reality that operated on its own set of rules and physics, like bizarro gravity. You could try something clever, like make a teleporter, but logic had mixed results here because the rules weren't the same as reality.

They just pretended to be.

Your teleporter might not work. You might blow up. It might work, but what comes out the other side isn't you. It will look like you for a few minutes and it would sound like you, but everyone could tell something was wrong. It was just some squiggly thing that had hollowed him out in transit and was wearing him like a meatsuit, trying to convince us it was safe to try out too -

Anyway.

Potato - remember him? Dog that used to be in charge of a mining town in the valley of the mountain range down south until everything went wrong.

Potato told me the Dreamlands were alive.

I believe him. I didn't want to think about what was lurking in its oceans.

I should think about it.

Not thinking about it was a good way to get eaten by whatever was lurking in this ocean.

Getting my sword back was probably a good idea.

I thought of Damocles.

Damocles was a beautiful bone sword. I thought of the way light reflected off the leaf shaped blade polished to an ivory shine. I thought of the silver-gold rippled edge of exposed marrow, the curved bronze cross guard and pommel with the horse hair dangling from the end of the long leather grip.

A twelve year old with a sword, you might be thinking. Against a sea monster while in the sea.

Sounds legit.

Don't count me out just yet. Damocles has a few tricks up its scabbard. It's the rule of 'like to like.' If you want to kill or destroy something, use something just like it.

My sword was made from bone.

Mom made it from the rib of an ancient sea monster, the Coinchenn. The same one that had killed the sea monster Cu Chulainn's dad, Lugh made his spear from. She didn't name it. I did. I don't think she liked my choice, but it was mine to make. Everyone remembers the sword. I named it after the man.

Damocles was my reminder not to want what I didn't have.

I had to be okay with being mortal.

With being just a demigod.

My sword settled in my hand.

It was glowing softly, lighting up the darkness around me. It did that sometimes and I could hear it sing, distorted as it was in the water which was, uh, new.

No, wait.

It sung when we met Aura, didn't it?

"Yeah," I burbled at it. I picked a piece of plastic off of its crossguard and brushed a bit of gravel and dead grass from the leather braids of its hilt. A congealed drop of luminescent gold blood, Aura's blood, peeled off the edge of the blade and floated away. "Missed you too?"

Damocles chimed.

I...you know what? I'm just going to roll with this.

This was probably Mom's fault.

"You wouldn't happen to know which way to the surface would you?"

It pulled at my arm.

"Gotcha."

I started swimming in that direction.

It took a bit to really get going, but only because I realized I was a moron after a minute, and made a little motorized scooter like you use for scuba diving to help me out.

It blew up, because I forgot about the water pressure.

You ever do something and it doesn't work and you just automatically try it again like this time it will work even if nothing changes, but you don't actually think that it will work. You just do it again because you're braindead. And it doesn't really register that it didn't work until it fails a second time?

It's not just me that does that. I refuse to believe that.

My second scooter blew up too.

My third scooter was a thick, bulky boy with armor and was more like an underwater jetski. I hooked Damocles on its side and got on my way.

It felt weird for a bit. This wasn't fun and games in the sun off the coast, but deep in a watery abyss. I could only see by the glo-stick impression my sword was doing and a small red LED on my scooter so I could locate it. It was cold down here.

It was actually kind of nice. It shouldn't be, but it was. I can't explain it.

I loved being in the water. Always have.

I started being able to see fish, mostly from the small glints of light from Damocles flashing off red skin and glowing bioluminescence. I got a little curious friend. He was long and thin, but almost completely see through with glowing blue spots along his spine and a face that looked like it'd been smashed into a door a few times. He had one bulbous eye that looked like it was covered in cataracts.

I think he was wondering about Damocles.

"Hey buddy."

He darted away and I felt a bit bad for scaring him off.

"Wait a second, don't go, it's okay." He hovered just out of reach. "I won't eat you."

He darted right back. This time, he was inspecting the red LED light in front of me by bumping into it. He must have liked what he saw, because his face split open vertically, spilling dozens of thin probling tendrils. Maybe he was trying to eat it.

"Trust me, you are way too ugly for sushi."

He was unable to eat my light and the tendrils retracted. He bobbed along, investigating my sword again.

My new friend is now named Swimothy.

"Race ya!"

I imagined my scooter going faster, but it was really hard seeing how fast I was going in the first place when everything was just water and darkness. So I just ended up using the fish as a benchmark and soon pulled ahead of him.

I like to think he was a bit surprised by the way he bobbed a bit, before he caught up.

"That's more like it." I smiled. I cautiously held out a hand, feeling it stream through the water.

He just as tentatively bumped it. "See? I'm not scary."

Swimothy the Fish abruptly turned tail and dimmed his lights, vanishing into the darkness.

"Good talk."

Guess he didn't agree with me.

It only took me a few seconds to notice that I wasn't seeing any other fish around any more.

Fuck.

Damocles immediately stopped its glo-stick impression which was probably a good idea that I didn't like at all, because the waters were still pitch black. I smothered the red LED with my hand.

I couldn't see anything.

The small bubbles and tiny murmur coming from my scooter suddenly felt dangerous. I could almost feel the hairs on the back of my body's neck stand up, like I was giving myself away to something searching these waters for prey. I swallowed down the bubble of fear and panic threatening to well up in my chest.

I was still a demigod of Fate and divinity was soul-deep.

Even here, I could feel doom approaching.

By the light of my scooter's LED, I picked up my sword. I briefly thought about making a lot of lights, so that I could at least see what was coming, but I...kind of really didn't want to see what was coming. I had Damocles, but only an idiot or the kid of a sea god would look forward to fighting underwater.

My sword was a last resort.

I was Dreaming, after all.

I willed a brand new Dream construct into existence around me.

I forgot about the water pressure.

My everything exploded into pain as I fell, like I was an expanding balloon trapped in a tightening vice. My joints felt like they were separating as my ears rang and just to add insult to injury, I slammed into a railing stomach first. I almost threw up as I slipped off down to a cold, hard metal floor. Screaming alarms and the screech of bending metal assaulted my eardrums along with what sounded a lot like high pressure streams of water forcing rivets out of place. I painfully coughed up saltwater.

"Ah, fuck," I coughed. I shook the water off and willed my soul dry.

Good thing Damocles had twisted in my hand just enough so I didn't cut myself on it or else that would have been embarrassing.

I stood up and had to cling to the railing that sucker punched me through a dizzy spell.

"I'm okay," I muttered. I hooked the sword back on the necklace I just expected to be on my neck, and it shrunk down to the little silver sword pendant.

"It's fine!" I yelled. I hiked up the metal stairs, hand on the railing my stomach had just gotten acquainted with. Don't implode, don't implode, water pressure is fine, I made a highly advanced technological achievement that can brave the ocean depths and it's not going to implode.

I froze when I hit the top of the steps, because, uh, I had the vague thought of making a submarine? My subconscious was weird, apparently. Maybe it was reacting to my fear? I trailed a cautious hand across the large copper colored cylinders of what I knew to be missile tubes. Everywhere I looked, there were heavy duty lights stolen from a Cold War bunker and signs written in Cyrillic giving me a headache and levers and ladders and hatches leading off into other areas of the submarine.

I expected a deep sea exploration module instead of the Red October. I saw one of those in the Smithsonian in Florida with my grandparents - the exploration vehicle, not Tom Clancy's Russian military submarine from Dad's favorite movie.

Sure, sea monster bad, but come on, brain.

I don't need a nuke.

I hope.

Who knows what a nuclear detonation would do in the Dreamlands?

I backed away from the missile tubes.

Alright.

So...

The Red October.

I can work with this.

Rise? I thought.

Go up.

Fast.

Please?

Nothing happened.

I've told you before, logic doesn't really work the way you think it does in the Dreamlands. Turns out 'I made the thing, so I control the thing' is too much logic sometimes, because your subconscious has more of a say than it should. Like when I tried to get rid of those baby pictures on the wall of my apartment so fucking Kronos wasn't going to get an eyeful of baby me wearing pants on my head, and I couldn't because my brain said no.

If I made the Red October...well, it was from a movie and movies...have actors maybe?

On cue, one of the closed hatches banged open behind me, making me jump as a dark haired man in uniform stepped in. As soon as he saw me, he jumped too, hand flying to his hip and I threw my hands up before I got shot.

"I didn't touch anything!"

He huffed, relaxing. "There you are, boy."

I heard English with a heavy Russian accent, but his mouth didn't fit the words like an obvious dub.

"Uh, yeah. Here I am." I checked myself over.

Human looking, just a bit hazy like my clothes were steaming hot.

Normal enough.

He strode past me to a lever on the wall that he pulled, and the hissing of gas and water faded. I tried to search for the leaks I could have sworn were just here a second ago…?

The crewman snatched a wired radio off the wall. "Missile chamber, contained. Found the VIP."

The intercom crackled. "Understood, report to command."

I cautiously lowered my hands. "Sorry."

I don't know what I was apologizing for.

"Come then," he said as he looked around like he was making sure I didn't actually touch anything. I didn't speak Russian, but there was this auto-translation thing the Dreamlands does. Sometimes. "The captain wants you in the control room."

"Sure, okay."

We trekked through narrow passages filled with pipes and lockboxes with bright red letters. He opened the hatches for me and the further we got, the more people I saw in dark uniforms, going about their business. I stumbled around a ladder into what looked like the control room, because it was a big space with people sitting in chairs in front of computer screens with headphones on, or looking at clipboards or thick manuals looking a lot like the bridge of a spaceship made in the 80s. There were a few pillars with peppermint colored bars to hold on to here for the standing plebs and there was even a partially enclosed compartment with command chairs within in the center. My mouth was hanging open when Sean Connery turned around with his golden bands glinting in the harsh white light.

"He didn't get very far, did he?" The actor said with his iconic drawl somehow sounding the same in Russian.

"No, sir," my guide said curtly, saluting.

"Hm."

This was fucking Sean Connery.

I shut my mouth, knowing I looked like an idiot. I bit my lip.

I had no idea what to say.

Did my subconscious make me a prisoner? Someone's bratty nephew they took on deployment for some reason?

Asking would be a little awkward.

"Sorry, sir." When in doubt, don't piss anyone off. I don't always follow my own advice, but that's just because I'm stupid.

Connery smirked. "We will see how long that apology is good for. Keep an eye on him."

"Yes, sir."

I was shuffled into a seat in the corner of the control room. My minder leaned against one of the rails nailed to the floor, pinning me with a gimlet stare. I smiled at him weakly.

"I won't go anywhere."

"You won't," he agreed.

Okay then.

I kicked my feet back and forth. There were a few low murmurs of conversation between crew members and a familiar face - I had no idea what his name was, but he was in Jurassic Park - who was probably the second in command as Captain Connery observed. There were enough flashing lights and moving green lines on enough screens to keep my attention occupied for a bit, but, uh…

I think my Dream was literally holding me hostage at the bottom of the ocean.

Which was...not great.

It's not like you can't wake up from the Dreamlands, you just have to be careful about it. Because 'you wake up from a Dream when you die' is a decree the Dream spirits follow because Hypnos likes mortals. If you want to play with the mortals in his realm, you follow the rules of the game.

Hypnos doesn't rule here.

If I did something dumb and someone pulled a gun on me, I was not going to have a good time. And even if I did wake up, Hypnos was gone.

I would be alone in the Night.

I opened my mouth just to say something when there was a shout.

"Captain, picking up something on the hydrophone - " a loud rumble reverberated through the hull of my Dream submarine, rattling the teeth in my mouth.

"Drive status," Connery barked as he crossed the room and the crew men sprung into action. "What are we hearing and where is it?"

So something was out there.

"We've had movement on the passive sonar, but it's not another ship - "

"It doesn't match any known signatures, sir."

"Caterpillar drive status is green, all functions normal."

"Replay that recording," Captain Connery pointed at a section of the computer screen from over the man's shoulder. I don't even know what the screens were showing, they were full of bending green lines, updating from the top down like a slow, pixelated waterfall. "Put it on the speakers."

The crewman nodded, pushing some papers away from his keyboard. There was a crackle as the speakers turned on.

Then there were some loud whooshing sounds of something swimming through water, but weird. Chaotic, almost. Like we were hearing a lot of things moving in different directions, but still somehow close together?

...tentacles?

The whooshing turned and then we heard what that vibration sounded like through the hydrophones.

It sounded like a whale call, if the whale came from this little suburb a bit north of the absolute bottom of Tartarus.

It was this tortured, screeching moan that sounded like something was dying, but it was the underlying clicking vibration that made my skin crawl as the sound got louder before dying off.

"That is not a whale, is it?" Sean Connery deadpanned.

"It's big," the crewman said quietly.

I didn't like the sound of that.

We were in a submarine.

The Captain stroked his beard thoughtfully. "But not a vessel. Perhaps we are in its territory and our stealth capabilities spooked it." He thought for a few moments longer. "Stay our course, rise to twelve hundred."

"Staying course," the - was it helmsman or pilot? - repeated as he pulled on the small black steering wheel. "Rising to twelve hundred."

I watched the guy listening to the hydrophones frown, leaning forward as he raised a hand to his headphones. A tension crept up my spine to the back of my neck.

Fuck.

I jumped up from my seat and shrugged off the heavy hand that came down on my shoulder, "It's hostile!"

Heads snapped towards me.

Sean Connery held up a hand warningly. "Sit down - "

"Captain - !"

It felt like a Boeing 747 crashed into us.

I grunted as I was slammed off my feet into the console next to me and my right arm screamed as it bent around the folded metal edge. The alarms were blaring again and everyone was shouting as the submarine itself felt like it was rolling onto its right side.

"Right full rudder, reverse starboard engine!" The Captain snapped out. His XO repeated the command as the submarine screamed, vents hissing vapour above our heads as red lights lit up on consoles and my arm throbbed unhappily.

"Are you injured?" My minder said under his breath as he clung to the rail bolted to the ground.

I gritted my teeth. "Not really."

"Where is it?" Connery barked when the rumbling stopped.

One of the crewmembers snapped his head up. "It's fast, sir, we have sustained damage to the arrays portside - "

"Find it!"

Under my feet, a high pitched ping rang out and then there was a cheep! A quieter, more consistent trilling continued long after the ping before finally tapering off.

The control room went quiet. Everyone had their ears peeled.

Piiiiiing….cheep!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a change on one of the screens. It was a classic sonar panel, like it was right out of a game of Battleship.

There was a very large dot right at the edge of its range.

Piiiing...cheep!

"Captain!"

"I see it," Sean Connery said with a calm I didn't feel. "Speed?"

Someone swore.

"Twenty knots, accelerating."

"Starboard the helm, ready torpedoes." The Captain leaned forward, brows furrowed as he stared like he could see through the hull of the submarine. "Prepare for evasive maneuvers."

Don't be afraid, I told myself. I ground my fingers into my hurt arm, just to chase away the numbness in my toes. Deep breaths. Calm. It was far too easy to fall into an emotional feedback loop here. The Dreamlands was the last place I wanted to lose my mind in. It will start messing with me. Getting into my head. Don't freeze. Don't panic. Don't be afraid.

Piiiiing….cheep!

Don't be afraid.

Or I'll end up creating my own nightmares.

Piiiing...cheep!

….

....

Like my mother.

 

[Shujin]

Long time, no see! I...highly recommend re-reading this entire thing because it has been a long time and that is my fault. It started with family drama where it had become apparent that my mother really can't live on her own anymore to illness and finally having to rebuild my computer. This is a short update as it is the last part of 3 of the already chopped up A Long Night chapter, but I am back at it. We'll have a normal sized chapter in two weeks. I have not forgotten you guys!

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction

​

I know what you're thinking.

He has nightmares of his mother?

Sometimes.

And maybe that sounds bad. Morpheus' brother Phobetor, the Frightener, wouldn't have anything to work with if you weren't scared of anything. Or anyone. And he taught his sprogs all of his tricks.

I get where you're coming from.

Kids aren't supposed to be scared of their parents.

But you gotta remember, I'm only half-human. The rules are different. We aren't the same.

I don't really Dream like most people. The minor dream spirits don't really…Hypnos, their boss (father - grandfather - great aunt's first cousin, whatever) was probably my next best friend right after Cliff and Sam. If you were a dream spirit, ensnaring me was kind of like playing a prank on the President's nephew while in the White House.

Awkward.

And don't quote me on this, but I think my familiarity with the Dreamlands was also a bit intimidating? There was nothing they could do that wasn't a pale reflection.

And I could tell.

I would take those pale reflections over the Dreamlands when it got its hooks in, though.

A dream is still a dream, no matter the power behind it.

Nightmares all work the same way.

It starts with being afraid.

Mom doesn't want to hurt me. I know it, Dad knows it, anyone who's interacted with her for a minute probably knows. Sam will admit it if you dangle tuna under his nose long enough.

What she wants doesn't mean much when she can't help it.

And nobody's perfect.

My mother is Fate. It takes a bit to sink in what that means and it kind of still gets me. I thought I had a handle on it and then I'm blindsided with the fact that Chaos is my grandfather. It's an open question how much that dude contributed to the making of the entire universe.

He's my grandpappy.

Think about that for a minute.

Mom is so far above me and my Dad that if she didn't ground herself by clinging to us with everything she had, her sense of Time meant she'd blink and hopefully we'd only been dead for a few centuries.

To put it another way, the Fates tried to get Mom to abort me once. And by that, I mean they tried to get Mom - to get Ananke, the personification of Fate to reconsider her demigod child. To have a moment of doubt. They just needed her to entertain the thought for a fraction of a second.

I'm mortal.

All it would have taken was a thought.

Really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

It still overwhelms Apollo sometimes that Dad went the extra mile and actually asked her to marry him (he gets super smug about it every time Apollo brings it up too).

Mom never has to say she loves us, because we know.

Mom doesn't want to hurt me.

But I know the difference between 'want to' and 'could' from 'would.'

She wasn't as careful with me as she should have been earlier. It's okay. It's only her third, maybe fourth, slip in twelve years. That's a pretty good track record if you ask me, but it also means I can't lie to myself and say it won't happen again.

It was easy to remember when I was awake, when my logical mind was in control with everything I knew to be true, that we were a family. We all fucked up at one time or another and we would fuck up again, but the important part was that we forgive each other and never stop doing our best. My mother loved me.

In my nightmares, she doesn't.

I don't have the power to summon my mother. The best I could get would be whatever my subconscious fears brought to life and it wouldn't be worth it. Not if I wanted to live through this. Logically speaking, I should have nothing to worry about but she's angry

Dreams don't have to make logical sense.

And dreams are what have the power here.

Piiing….cheep!

You could cut the tension with a sword as the pings of the sonar got closer and closer together. All of the servicemen were still and silent, eyes glued to their screens and dashboards covered in knobs, levers and dials with LED lights. Some seemed to look through their stations with a gaze that was a little off to the side as they waited, tensing and relaxing to the rhythm of their own breathing with their hands at ready.

I just tried to keep my inner four-year-old screaming for his mother quiet.

The First Mate was eyeing the Captain out of the corner of his eye. Connery was hunched over in his chair, murmuring under his breath.

Piing -

"FIRE!" The Captain snapped out.

-cheep!

I expected to hear or feel something that would tell me the torpedo was away, but there was just a beat of silence and then an almost bored sounding report from one of the men.

"Torpedo away."

Another checked his computer. "Target lock established. Three hundred meters."

My Russian babysitter hissed under his breath. "Will one be enough?"

Yeah…

Probably not.

The submarine pinged in agreement.

"If we were to - hypothetically - if we wanted to nuke it, how hard - " The officer gave me this look and the rest of the question died on my tongue.

It wasn't a dumb question, was it?

I thought it through.

Nuclear ballistic missiles - okay, so maybe they weren't known for precision exactly and trying to tag a sea monster with one while playing keep away sounded…

Yeah, okay.

A hypothetically bad idea.

So.

"Fingers crossed?" I offered weakly.

Piing…cheep!

Push comes to shove, just fire all the torpedoes. Every single one. Which was another way of saying fire an infinite number of torpedoes because I sure as hell didn't know how many missiles a tub like this usually carried. As long as submarines fire torpedoes held strong in my subconscious, nothing else mattered.

You know what?

Fuck it.

I elbowed my minder with my good arm. "Tell the Captain to fire all the torpedoes."

My babysitter opened his mouth just in time for Captain Sean Connery to jump to his feet, hand flying to the peppermint railing above his head.

"Caterpillar drive full reverse, up bubble sixty degrees!"

His First Mate repeated the command as the room spun into action, different voices calling out broken fragments of the captain's command and the deck under my feet had just begun to feel like it was tipping back when the shockwave hit.

I was thrown clear off my feet, right into my USSR chaperone who 'oofed' as I collided with his ribcage, nearly tumbling both of us right over the railing behind him. My arm screamed - definitely fractured - and I braced my spine and threw back my shoulders so that I didn't curl into myself in pain.

I was Dreaming. If I ignored it for long enough, I would forget I was injured and then I wouldn't be injured anymore.

"Tell me that was a hit!" Connery growled as he straightened, sounding like he was garbling small marbles.

"It was a hit," someone said immediately, eyes glued to their computer screen. "But we just barely avoided being rammed - "

"It's still moving!" His neighbor barked. "It's coming around for another pass."

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

D̴͕̚o̴̝͎̒́n̷̢̾'̴̢̜̃͋ť̸̪̬ ̷̳̫͐b̵̨́̕e̸̼̓ ̵̺̃ȁ̴̩̍f̶̠̉ŕ̵͇a̵̬̖͠ï̸̚ͅd̷͙͋̈

I was …starting to regret not springing for that sleepover with my cousins at the House of Night.

Which was really saying something, because that meant surviving a walk through Tartarus, not letting Nyx's domain drive me mad and worst of all, hanging out with Ethan's bitch of a mother.

Russian orders were flying over my head as I tried to think of something else, anything else, than how I felt like a sardine in a floating tin can.

With a hungry shark prowling outside.

"Can't we just leave?" I asked. It came out weak amidst all the shouting, but my babysitter heard me.

He steadied himself, gripping the rail with white knuckles. He gestured with his head, towards where one of the crew poured over large white sheets of paper decorated with waving, curling lines of different colors.

"We're trying."

"Just head for the surface - can't we just go up?" I was trying really hard not to sound like a whiny, terrified kid but…

I was a whiny, terrified kid.

I can admit that.

A muscle in my minder's jaw jumped. "We would die."

"What?"

His lips thinned. "We took refuge in a submarine volcanic chamber - "

We're in a cave.

My mind went blank for a second.

Then I thought of what would have happened if I had control over the Red October from the beginning and ignorantly made it rocket up as fast as it could go until it crunched against the cave ceiling -

The submarine shuddered, high pitched metal squealing burst from the walls as steam hissed from valves and the men started shouting louder.

I need to -

I'm going to die here.

I lurched forward, ducking under the babysitter's grab and bolted for the hatch out of the control room. I heard several people cry out behind me

"Boy!"

Metal walls, pipes and ladders passed by as I scrambled for - I don't know. I needed to think and come up with some kind of plan. Trying to make my way through underwater caverns in pitch darkness was a non-starter. Lights might as well be a sign that says 'Good with ketchup' and it would be stupid to think my current problem was the only monster in these waters.

But…if I could get into a narrow enough area it wouldn't be able to follow me…and if my next problem was smaller I could probably try to fight it with Damocles. Or maybe, I don't want to tag the sea monster with a missile, I want to get as close to the seafloor as I can fire and fire a nuke up to the cave ceiling and hope it breaks through -

The hatch behind me banged open.

I glanced over my shoulder and rolled my eyes when I saw that my babysitter had followed me into the guts of the submarine. Orange Cold War bunker lights were flashing off and on and I was pretty sure the sub was taking on water somewhere if the alarms meant anything.

I could fix it. I will fix it.

But fixing it won't solve everything.

"Do you mind?" I said waspishly. "It's not like I can leave."

"Have you considered punching it," the Russian said from behind me.

"Have you considered - " I started, turning back to him and he was looking at me when something took him over and I couldn't breathe. " - fucking…off."

There were shimmering hues backlit by stars in his eyes.

I couldn't say anything for a good fifteen seconds as I just stared at whatever was wearing my Russian babysitter's skin. I think I even swayed in place, suddenly dizzy.

His eyes looked like mine.

Like Mom's.

"...who?"

That's what I intended to say. I don't know if it even came out of my mouth.

"Guess," the god said as he ran his hand through dark hair that looked less like hair now and more like liquid shadows. He raised an eyebrow at me with the same crooked, trouble-maker smile I've seen on a goddess with grinding teeth for eyes before. "I've been told you're good at that."

"Erebus?" I whispered.

Piiing…cheep!

His head spun a full 360 degrees on his shoulders like some kind of spastic owl before his human guise fell apart.

Or maybe it would be more accurate to say it imploded.

His arms and legs were sucked into his crumpling torso as the navy blues of his uniform darkened until it looked like it was eating light, making my eyes drift as it became impossible to focus on the black hole that was my brother. He was - I thought he was a perfect sphere, but then my gaze wandered just a bit further and I saw there were reaching tendrils spotted with blue eyes burning like neutron stars radiating from his dizzying center. His limbs didn't look like they were in one piece, but were interrupted by empty space in between like they were stitches in reality and I could only see the parts that were on my side of the divide.

I could feel those parts though. He wasn't all here. The rest of him was…

Big.

"Woah," I said, awed. Sure, Mom made sure I looked like Dad and she always said he was handsome, but honestly?

"I want to look like you when I grow up."

I'm pretty sure my god brother laughed, even if the sound hit my ears backwards and dripped down the inside of my skull like oil.

If I didn't already know I was Dreaming, I would have pinched myself.

My brother!

My brother was here!

One of my immortal siblings was here!

HeLlo, Erebus said and his staticky voice pooled behind my eyes. Lii-ii-ii-tle BroTHER!

"Hey, man." I said with just the biggest grin ever, almost splitting my face in two. I checked my face to make sure it wasn't actually splitting in two. You never know. "What are you doing here? " I forced myself to take a breath before I ended up babbling or giggling. "Did you just want to check up on me?"

The Red October's active sonar ping rang out and then echoed back a few seconds later.

Erebus hummed and it ended in a screeching note of electronic sounding feedback.

It's time to come in, you guys, he said with the voice of a tired young woman. It's getting dark out - the voice hitched and changed to an old man with a Texan twang - out here in the countryside, away from the city lights, you can really see the stars, just small - a crackle and his voice changed again to something muffled over a bad quality radio signal. Small step for man, one…giant leap for mankind.

It took me a few seconds to puzzle that one out.

"Oh," I said. My smile shrunk. He's not like Mom. "Uh, in my defense, I thought it was an open door policy kind of thing - "

The slick in my skull sprouted teeth.

I flinched (he's not grading me, he's not Mom, it's okay) and reflexively threw the memory of Thanatos' casual invitation to the House of Night forward and out.

The teeth chewed on the memory.

Then Erebus sighed, sounding like a frumpy old woman. Oh, that boy!

He buzzed, undulating in space like bubbles of ink on water sinking beneath out of sight and then resurfacing, before he hit me with an incomprehensible feeling that felt tight and cold and grated and was maybe something like 'annoyed,' but I wasn't really sure?

I think I understand what's going on. Erebus wanted me to come to the House of Night. He either forgot to tell Thanatos that or the god of death didn't believe him, so I got the lame 'come if you feel like it or don't' instead of the offer of protection it was supposed to be.

My brother thought I was shitting all over the rules of hospitality and came to find out what the fuck, I know Mom taught you better than that.

Sheesh.

Good thing we're bros or this might have been a little awkward for me.

Or a lot awkward.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I said with a weak smile. 'I didn't know."

He's not like Mom.

He can pretend for a while and communicate, but I don't think he really understands.

Mom had always been pretty strict about introducing me to any of my 'cousins.' No matter how much I complained about humans, the answer was usually no. I thought they'd be just like Hypnos.

'When you are older,' she'd say. 'And less fragile.'

I didn't learn what demigod really meant until she left us on my seventh birthday. It's a bit like being the one finally realizing what the word 'bastard' meant and why you kept hearing people say it around you. Except worse.

I'm half-human. Erebus is my half-brother. I can die.

He probably doesn't know what that means.

I don't know if he's even capable of learning.

"I didn't - " The submarine's sonar pinged, reminding me I was somewhere I'd really rather not be. "You know, actually - "

It only took a second to echo back and that was all the warning I got.

I was thrown off my feet for the second time tonight as the submarine lurched. I twisted just enough to bring up my arm to save my head and couldn't help the pained gasp as my arm snapped completely on the valve.

Ow.

Better my arm than my head.

The alarms were ripping through my eyes, lights flickering on and off as water poured in. I watched the walls of the Red October buckle inwards like it had been caught in a vice that was slowly squeezing.

iT HunGErs, my brother mused, idly spinning as his own gravity well as the cold, salt water sloshed around my ankles. The Cold War lights flashed brilliant and orange one last time before they all winked out in a hiss of smoke and white sparks that red shifted as they streamed towards him. IT SlePT, it WOke aNd sTIll DReaMS. thrEAt. WhERe iS it? WHERE IS IT?

"Erebus," I wheezed, squinting into the dark. "Help me?"

Growing boys need their nutrition, he said in a patronizing, thin and reedy voice. If they want to grow big and strong.

"Uh, that's nice, but I'm the one on the menu!" The steel of the submarine was groaning, creaking and squealing with the staccato pops of breaking rivets. The hallway was becoming uncomfortably narrow. "Look, get me out of this and I - I'll owe you one and - "

Erebus shushed me with a slimy feeling that burned my lips and tongue.

Mother gave you too much and too little, he whispered as a small child with an echoing dark undertone lagging just a second behind that slithered into my left ear. (Too much, too little)

Beginning and end.

(Begin, end)

Success and failure both.

(Succeed. Fail)

Do not be afraid.

(Be very afraid.)

He was big.

In the crushed hallway of a Typhoon class Russian submarine with maybe half a foot of room to spare, I stood underneath the stare of a burning gas giant. I could feel him thinking. The weight of his concentration made bubbles in the Dreamlands, feeling a lot like pebbles and grit blown by a strong wind against my skin.

You are a slow learner, little brother, Erebus said, sounding just like he had at the start when he was teasing me with a crooked smile and human face. But THEY are not watching. I will loosen your shackles this time.

I had a flash of memory of my first night at Camp and the Oracle of Delphi screaming into my face.

Hear me, son of the Ruiner! Loosen the shackles and relinquish control!

"Erebus?" I asked, trying to keep myself from trembling as the giant burned darkly, eyeing me as if it could only tell I was there because it had just happened to notice a single molecule out of place and it was throwing everything off.

I've got no strings to hold me down, he sang, warbling. To make me fret, to make me frown.

Something touched my forehead.

It felt like my brain flipped upside down and then scattered, leaving a mote of consciousness dangling in an infinite expanse studded with wailing stars.

Next time, my brother hummed. Remember you hold the key.

I felt my Dream construct break apart like an older sibling casually smashing their younger brother's sand castle and the dark, cold waters rushed in. I choked - trying to remember - I am a soul in the Dreamlands, I don't need to breathe - but it was cold or was I on fire? It was hard to think, as if my neurons were stretched between those screaming stars in my head, flickers of light traveling back and forth as I opened hundreds of my burning green eyes and my back shivered as it struggled to open against the surge of water pressing in -

Going, Erebus said softly as I opened my mouth - but I don't have a mouth - and (divinity is soul deep). Going, he repeated, quieter. Going, going, going…

Gone, I thought in a burst of light.

 

[Shujin]

Previous chapter was rewritten due to feedback. Hopefully this is better

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction

​

Everything in the Dreamlands makes sense. Even the things that don't make sense.

Especially the things that don't make sense.

An old Prussian king lived in a quaint cottage on the top of a hill, surrounded by a jungle village where a tribe of short, dark people prospered in the shadow of four-eyed sentinel birds. Most of the time, it resembled a log cabin, but sometimes bits of an old palace design snuck in.

The orange tabby cat with a crook in his tail slammed the front door open and watched the home he was invading warp and twist at its presence until finally spitting out the old man coming down from a violent start.

Quite literally.

The Dreamlands were true to their name. A land of Dreams. And nightmares were Dreams too. Guard your fears jealously here, for they are not safe.

This nightmare was a shadowy humanoid figure with a revolver, smoking from the shot. The cat banished it with a flick of its tail, ears pressed forward in alarm when the old man fell against the wall, clutching at his bleeding chest with his good arm.

"Ah shit!" The cat yelped as it darted into the house. "I forgot! I forgot, I forgot, I forgot - " the cat chanted, half an apology. The house was already beginning to break down, swapping out a domestic reality for a crowded cobbled stone street in an old city where the old man feebly applied pressure on the gushing wound, staring up at his assassin.

"Willie." The animal snapped. "You are a mortal soul in the Dreamlands!"

The nightmare wavered and the man blinked.

"Come on," the cat needled, batting at the man with a paw. "You're not seriously going to die to your own fucking nightmare like a little bitch are - "

A trembling hand reached out and batted at the feline's ears.

"Thought not."

"Sam! You - " 'Willie' coughed. At first it was wet and hacking, but he deliberately coughed again, brow furrowed in concentration and this time it was dry. The nightmare with the gun disappeared like a popped soap bubble. The street took longer to disappear. Cobbled stone slowly became a shifting floor that couldn't decide what it was made out of, stone, wood or tile, but was absolutely certain that it was made out of floor. A tell tale sign of memories blurring together. The shadows of the faceless gawkers melted back into the walls. The flat surfaces gained and lost details, changing from wood to brick to plaster and back with various designs and patterns arriving and leaving, but at least they stayed in one place.

The austere house at the top of the hill was back in roughly the same size and shape as before. It even had the chimney and the appropriate number of windows. For a Dream construct, the home practically broadcasted the owner's dedication and focus.

The subconscious ruled in the Dreamlands. Every memory was given life here, everything you have experienced, everything you have learned, everything you thought you forgot. From past trauma to something as simple as word association. Keeping your reality focused. Keeping it still took decades of study for Dreamers.

Not that it meant much, to a cat.

Willie was still shite at poker.

Not his fault.

It hadn't even been invented until he was thirty two and a whole continent away.

"You damn little - "

"Sorry Willie, but help." The cat demanded.

"Wilhelm," the man corrected automatically, brushing rust red flakes off his shirt before pausing. "I - help? You came barging into my home - " He stared from underneath heavy brows snowy with age. "Help with what?"

"Finding Percy real quick."

"Finding…" The old man trailed off. "What?"

"You know him, black hair, sparkly eyes." The cat held out a front paw an impressive four inches above the man's shifting floor. "My midget human, 'bout this tall?"

"He's grown since I saw him last, surely. It's been - " He began, still a bit slow on the uptake. "Wait - what happened?" He asked, suddenly alarmed. "Is he hurt?"

"Worse," the cat said gravely and Wilhelm tensed, prepared. "He's fucking lost."

The old man stared, before rolling his eyes upwards before closing them. "Of course he is," he muttered. With a soft grunt, he pushed off his wall, good arm still wrapped protectively about his chest. "Of course he is."

They didn't talk about his bad arm.

It had been a divine gift.

No one worshiped the gods in the Dreamlands. Sometimes Dreamers didn't always understand why not. The shrines had power. The temples were all occupied. At times, you could see the massive forms lumbering across the horizon or crossing the sky. Compared to the Waking world, the gods were obvious and omnipresent. Worship was a natural conclusion.

However, worship here meant getting attention and getting attention was…

Complicated.

They didn't talk about his bad arm.

Wilhelm wanted to forget it and Sam wanted to let him.

"Where did you last see him?" Wilhelm said, all business.

Sam gave a cat shrug. "I don't have a clue where to begin, mate."

"But then - "

"I'm a cat," Sam stressed. "I have ears. And a nose. And fucking eyes. If I knew, I'd just go get his ass."

The man sighed. "Then how do you know he's lost?"

"His apartment wiggled," Sam replied as if that answered everything.

It didn't.

Wilhelm pinched the bridge of his nose. "Elaborate."

"It wiggles, or shivers or whatever when he gets Here," Sam said tightly, compulsively licking his right paw. "Gets more solid. And it did, but he didn't show up." There was a very real, trembling note of concern in its voice. "He wouldn't leave me behind to go explore someplace. He - he fucking knows better. He wouldn't."

"Very well," Wilhelm said softly and the cat ducked his head, turning away grumpily. "We will find him."

"We better," Sam huffed as it brushed past the old man deeper into the house. "So I can kill him for being fucking stupid."

Wilhelm made a sound, little more than a harsh exhale, but the cat still turned back to look at him, eyeing his twitching beard suspiciously.

"By all means, after you," Wilhelm said, eyes creased with amusement as he scratched his chin. "I will need my salts from the study and then -"

He was cut off by Sam's groan.

"Why can't you just chew on a bit of nip or hop on one foot for your magic like normal people?"

The irony was almost painful.

"Take it or leave it," he told the animal and it just grumbled.

Gathering the necessary ingredients was the work of a minute or two of collecting vials and carved wooden bowls holding crushed mineral rich sand or spices.

"This works better," Wilhelm was saying as he set his workbench. The cat perched on top of the stool right beside him, watching attentively. "Because it serves to narrow the focus and allows one to truly hold the spell. Wanting something to happen is not actually enough, this place needs to understand what you are trying to accomplish."

"That's…" The cat gave him a sideways look as the last of the saltpeter was poured into the copper cauldron filled with darkened water. "Sounds fucking risky."

"It is not asking for attention," Wilhelm rushed to reassure it as he picked up his ladle and made a slow clockwise stir. "The Dreamlands already responds to our very existence, what more can we demand of it? This is simply…focusing on its natural inclinations."

They both held their breath as an image appeared within the water, shimmering like a silver reflection. As swift as a bird in flight, the reflection in the water blurred over the forest to the pits of black and bubbling and crawling before it hit the wide, blue ocean.

"The fuck?" Sam leaned in until it was nearly dipping its nose into the picture.

"Perhaps he just went for a swim. He always did love the water…" Wilhelm trailed off when the reflection dove into the sea. Down past the dizzying colors and twisted creatures of the shallow waters.

Down into deeper, darker waters with three headed sharks and a sliding ocean shelf made of ash gray sand and small, gasping mouths exhaling yellow bubbles of poison.

Down until the last shreds of light have disappeared. When the window stopped, it did so with such abruptness that at first they couldn't tell it had stopped in a blur of movement and churning water. The window shook, spreading jagged, sharp ripples through the water of his cauldron before they saw them.

"Fuck!" He vaguely heard the cat exclaim. "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

He was staring, frozen until a sharp pain stabbing his wrong hand brought him back to himself. "I - what - "

"Turn it off!"

He upended the table.

The cat leapt away, yowling as dark water black as pitch splashed onto the ground. The liquid hissed, eating through the floor like acid until Wilhelm wrung it out of his Dream.

For a long moment afterwards, neither said a word.

Sam's right eye burned a brilliant bloody orange as the animal batted at its own face as if to pry the eyeball out of its skull.

It, too, had been a gift.

"Fucking…hate that." It rolled his neck like a pro-wrestler about to step into the ring and coughed. "'Kay, I'm getting him."

"Him?" Wilhelm repeated incredulously. "There was no him."

He could still see the fighting behemoths in his mind's eye, tearing into each other like wild beasts over food or territory. One a roiling, seething mass as big as a building; a undulating tail like flowing fabric ending in a needle sharp barb did nothing to soften the antediluvian horror of flailing, coiling tentacles of a sickly shade squirming and shifting in seemingly every direction even as it collapsed into itself like some gelatinous, fleshy slurry rolling down a hill.

Its opponent had the upper body vaguely resembling a dark winged hydra, proudly crested serpentine heads of gnashing teeth beneath the spines and grasping tendrils spilling from its back; it's lower body spilled from the lower jaw of one of the heads into a great open maw lined by vicious fangs of teeth, inky shadows leaking between them like saliva and where the throat would be, where the tongue should be, where a mouth wasn't was the abyss of space, populated only by a thousand burning green eyes as distant stars.

He hoped their spying hadn't been detected.

That would be…

Bad.

"Something must have gone wrong with the magic," he murmured. "They were - they were too close, a kind of gravitational pull on the search…" Wilhelm glanced up, just realizing he had been staring at the floor as he registered that Sam wasn't saying anything. "There was no him," he repeated optimistically. "Why would he be fighting a sea monster? And how would he have gotten to the bottom of the ocean anyway?"

The cat blinked slowly. "I think one of them…" It got quiet. "One of them was him."

Wilhelm stared and his stomach churned. "O - oh?"

"The eyebally one," the cat said with forced nonchalance. "He had eyes like that before."

He was not going to think about that.

Scheiße.

He was already thinking about it.

He'd known that boy since he had been too young for any sense of propriety, running around buck naked with his nappies on his head just because he could. His favorite word had been 'yeah' as an answer to everything, even when he meant no, and was always putting something in his mouth.

He didn't want to think about it.

"Are you…sure it's not some…distant relative of his through his mother or member of her court…" He stubbornly balled his right hand into a fist to stop himself from reflexively reaching for the dead (it's not dead) flesh of his left. The Dreamlands tried to latch onto that memory with its relentless greed, but oh, he's far too familiar with that nightmare to afford it even an ounce of power.

They don't talk about his bad arm.

Sam closed his eyes. After a long moment, it sighed. "Maybe."

"I will need something more personal, a connection to follow so we can be absolutely sure…"

He didn't know what they would do if a second attempt led them right back to the horrors beneath the ocean.

Try to keep the cat from getting itself killed, he supposed.

"Yeah," the cat said, subdued. "Okay. His place is not far, can grab something."

"Not far?" The old man paused in the act of shuffling on his overcoat, hat in hand. "So the reason you broke down my door as if you ran, half-mad across the entire continent was because…?"

"I fucking swear on me mum…" Sam groaned again. "I forgot you're a bitch about loud noises, alright?"

"I was shot!" Willie sputtered. "Nearly assassinated! Three times!"

"You got over it!"

"I most certainly did not - "

"And a fucking cold got you in the end!" The cat jeered as it bounded out the door, crooked tail standing proud.

Indeed, the boy's home wasn't far at all.

"I did not realize he was so close." Wilhelm said with an unasked question. The cat had led him, huffing and annoyed, right to the small valley on the edges of the jungle village he himself lived in. It was little more than a pure white box with a red door, its pristine colors surreal against the dirt ground and dry grass that surrounded it.

It was…surprisingly solid for a Dream construct.

"It moves," Sam said.

"It - " Wilhelm began and then stopped.

The cat marched right up to the red door and opened it with a flick of its tail. "Mind the gap," it called back from over its shoulder. "First step can be a doozy."

"But there aren't any stairs…?"

Reality blurred with a step.

"Wha - " The old man gasped as he found himself in a sterile white hallway lined with windows showing a view ten, maybe twenty stories up as if he hadn't just walked in from the ground. He turned around to see that the wooden red door had disappeared, replaced by a gunmetal gray gate with buttons on one side. There was no way this space would have fit inside the small hut he had stepped into. "How?"

"No idea." Sam huffed. "Lil fucker's bullshit."

A polished wood door led to an expensive looking living space with white leather couches, dark wood and glass furniture and white carpet. There was a fireplace and exotic looking flowering plants in every corner. A wall full of baby pictures was right by the entrance to what looked like the kitchen and behind a glass wall was a balcony with a pool, complete with a yellow rubber duck bobbing up and down in the water. Just like in the hallway, they were inexplicably high up off the ground as if on the top of a very tall building.

"It is so…" Wilhelm gently removed one of the pictures from the wall. It was a memory. A picnic scene with an exhausted, but happy handsome swarthy father beaming at the photographer like his every wish had come true. He had a proud hand on both of his boys, the older one blond and blue eyed with the father's curls and darker skin flashing a thumbs up and winking and the younger…He was a little younger than when Wilhelm saw him last. Five or six, black hair and shimmering eyes. He wasn't smiling at the camera, but up at his mother.

The woman was beautiful, pale and dark haired with a gently amused curl to her lips. Most of her was facing her husband and sons, but it was as if she had turned her head at the last second. Her black eyes stared unerringly into his own.

Everything was crisp.

Solid.

"This is impossible," Wilhelm whispered.

As if spurned by his disbelief, the picture frame faded from his hands only to reappear in its place on the wall.

"Bull. Shit," Sam repeated. "Don't think about it. Just find something."

There was a window that was not like the rest. It did not show the forest canopy with colorful four eyed birds flitting among the leaves. It was a black beach with sand of razor sharp obsidian shards and in the distance a tall black spire rose amid a starry sky that abruptly became dark and empty in the center. The shadow of some winged creature flew in circles around the tower.

He tore his eyes away.

"This…this is not the home of a Dreamer, is it?" Wilhelm said thickly. It was nearly indistinguishable from the Dreamlands itself.

Real.

"I said don't fucking think about it."

The old man ran a weary hand down his face.

"Too late," he said miserably.

"If it helps," Sam began in a reasonable kind of tone as it laid down in that indolent way of felines. "He's still a dumbass."

"That's not the point, you little - "

The door to the apartment clicked open and they both went still and silent as they watched Percy walk into his home.

The boy was filthy. Covered in streaks of an oily, gray substance, a bird's nest of black hair on top of his head, a dozen bleeding scratches underneath tears in his clothing and an impressive shiner on his left eye, swollen shut and leaking a molten silver. He was missing a pant leg and both shoes, trekking barefoot onto the wooden floor and leaking saltwater. An almost hysterical bubble of laughter welled up in Wilhelm's throat at the thought that he looked just like any other ten or eleven year old boy coming back from a scrap in the streets.

So it had been at least five years.

There was relief, that he was still the contrary little shit who had stared up at him in awe, his mouth in a small 'o' of surprise before blurting out, 'You're old!'

Then there was the shame that he had spent half a decade avoiding a child.

When they had first met, he had been horrified by the thought that children, barely more than infants, could find their way into the Dreamlands by accident. He feared he had found the answer to the inexplicable sudden death of sleeping young children. In his mind, the boy was basically an orphan, fending for himself in a strange, savage land.

But he had a mother.

Wilhelm cleared his throat. "Perseus."

The boy startled and Wilhelm held his breath as a hundred burning green eyes blinked open on the boy's form for a moment.

'He had eyes like that before,' Sam had said.

Mein Gott.

"Percy," was the muttered complaint. He blinked his good eye and the dark pupil was blown wide. "Heeeyy, Will! I haven't seen you in a while, man."

The prickling running up and down his bad arm (Percy had a mother) tightened the old man's smile. "Are you well?"

"You got fucked up," the cat translated.

"Uh, no. I mean, yeah?" Percy stared at them blankly, a small wrinkle of confusion forming on his brow as if he heard what they said, but didn't understand. "Maybe."

A shiver went down Wilhelm's spine and he could see it run down the cat's back as well. Something was wrong with him. His stomach sank and he fought not to take a few steps back.

"Like Carl?" He murmured deep in his throat, barely more than a breath of shaped air, trusting the sensitive ears of the cat to hear him.

(Carl was dead.

He had to be dead, because the thought that he was still in there - that he came out of the other end of the teleporter not completely hollowed out by what got him - was a terrible one. He didn't want to go through that again, but Dreams were not wishes. No matter how hard you tried.)

Sam did not reply, but instead rose to his feet, stretching out as cats do. First the front paws, claws out and wickedly gleaming and then the back legs. Perfectly nonchalant, but the fur along the back remained ruffled and slightly raised.

Sam was a blunt creature.

If he didn't attack now, that meant he didn't know who, or what, was in Percy's skin.

The boy was oblivious to the tension, an utterly punch-drunk smile spreading across his face. He'd always had an awkward, but endearing smile, but now the sight of the crowded mouth - more teeth than the human jaw could ever accommodate - curdled milk in Wilhelm's stomach.

"You should see the other guy." Percy declared.

They did.

"We did," Sam said, deliberately casual. Only the line of raised fur along his back gave it away as not being as relaxed as it seemed. "Fucking ugly bloke, what?"

"Noooo," Percy trailed off. He looked down at his hands and actually wiggled his toes as if he was counting them, like he needed to remind himself how many appendages the human body normally came with. Then he nodded to himself, coming to a decision. "Maybe a little."

Sam snorted.

Another too-wide smile. "Delicious too."

The cat's tail lashed back and forth as Wilhelm stood there like a stump, uncertain what he just heard.

"Why." The cat asked flatly. "Are you always putting shit in your fucking mouth."

The boy had the audacity to look smug.

"'I'm not a baby anymore, Sam'," the cat mocked in a high pitched voice. "'I don't bite anymore, Sam. I'm not teething anymore, Sam.' Fucking liar."

"Oh, come on, Sam, it was - just - I mean basically calamari…" He tried to explain -

But the animal wasn't having it. "Didn't you eat a fucking zombie a week or something ago."

What?

Percy sputtered.

Can they talk about the zombie thing?

"You - " One could see the boy blindly cast about for an argument and it was clear having to think was paining him. "You - uh, you can't tell me what to do!"

"The fuck I can't!" Sam hissed. "Fuck you - who was it that told me not to bite -"

The boy's head reared back in mock outrage, glee shining in his one good eye. "Because you never know where they've been!"

Wilhelm palmed his face.

That had to be Percy.

The cat went blank and still as a statue for a moment. "Did he just - ?" Not even waiting for Wilhelm to respond, it turned back on the boy, spitting. "You fucking hypocrite - "

"Sam, Sam it's okay," Percy attempted to sooth his cat with an odd, lopsided grin. Just an amused curl of one side of his mouth. "It's okay - you cat," he pointed with a trembling finger. "Me half-god." He blinked slowly. "Half. Haaaalf. Not one-eighth. Not demi but…"

His nose wrinkled as he swayed in place. His bad eye opened a sliver and whatever rested within that socket whispered.

…Maybe it wasn't Percy.

"Maybe demi but different demi." The boy looked at them expectantly. "You know?"

"Uh." Sam leaned away from him, wary again as a drop of blood from a star dripped down the boy's face. "I don't - I have no idea what the fuck -"

"My mom. Mom is -" Percy mimed his head exploding, complete with a bassy, reverberating whoosh and expanding smoke effects from his hands. Then he flapped his arms, desperate to explain whatever scattered thoughts were flitting back and forth in his head. "I can't - I won't die until I do!"

The cat stared, speechless.

"That…is rather how it works for most of us," Wilhelm pointed out gently, for lack of anything better to say.

Sam only tilted its head in Wilhelm's direction, unwilling to take its eyes off whatever was masquerading as the boy they knew. The casual gesture was punctuated by the agitated lashing of the cat's tail back and forth.

"Death is a process. It has to happen, mortality itself is a collection of factors that -"

"People die when killed," Sam cut in.

Wilhelm sighed. "Yes. Fine."

Now it was Percy's turn to stare at them, completely and utterly stumped. His mouth flapped open and closed, searching for the words, but Wilhelm could almost see the thoughts dribbling out of his ears until the boy gave up with a whiny,

"Oh."

Sam made a soft yowling sound. "Hoooow's about we have ourselves a bit of a lay down, hmm? Just a small kip."

Percy frowned. "I'm already sleeping."

"You're shaking," the cat replied flatly.

The boy blinked and looked down at himself again.

He was. Tremors were running up and down his slim frame like beetles burrowing into a carcass.

"I can just - "

"Sit.The Fuck. Down."

For a moment, Percy was about to argue. Wilhelm could see it in the stubborn jut of his chin, but then he twitched like a puppet jerked on its string, swayed again, then plopped down where he stood with a loud put upon sigh.

"Happy?" He grumbled as he sprawled across the wooden floor.

"Ecstatic." Wilhelm drawled in response before the cat bit the boy's nose off. He yelped when the apartment shifted around them, the foyer stretching to place the front door far away from them until they were deposited in the middle of the living room. There were no distortions or hints of instability.

The sheer ease of it all!

He snuck a glance at the boy stretching out on the floor, leaving smudges of red blood too bright and shining to be real on white carpet.

"My brain is floating out of my skull," Percy said suddenly, very seriously, staring up at the ceiling. "Are my ears still backwards? I think Erebus turned them backwards. And my asshole ran away."

"Fucking tragic, that is," Sam replied, also very serious.

They were not actually talking about his literal…?

"Does that make me constipated?"

They were.

"Only if you need to shit."

"No. But I can't poop without one, so I better not." The boy's brows furrowed. "I was hungry, but I lost - I'm losing my stomach, Sam."

"Better hold on to your hat then."

"Okay," Percy said, as if that made any sense at all. He wasn't even wearing - a black bowler hat appeared on the boy's head and Wilhelm about swallowed his tongue. "My brother said I need to eat."

The cat blinked. "Aren't your siblings jackasses?"

'Siblings?' Wilhelm mouthed, horrified.

He thought of the smiling blond boy from the photo-memory. There were more like him?

Percy huffed. "Only - only the triplets. Darkness is cool. He helped and then - and then there were some looking," he said, skipping train tracks. "Other gods. And they thought I was cool. And I was. Cool. I won. I cheated, with a volcano," He whispered loudly, as if imparting a great secret. "It woke up," and in the Dreamlands, that could very well be completely literal, "but I didn't die, so it was fine. Not dying was important. And I think I got asked out."

By what?

The boy gingerly rolled onto his side, giving them a heavy, one eyed look as if to ask them something very important. "It's not my fault mom's kids are good looking, right?"

"No," the old man said, completely bewildered.

"Right. Okay." Percy rolled onto his stomach and began to trace the swirling pale patterns in the rug. His hat was tipped rakishly, complete with a blood red feather sticking out of it. "I knew that. I'm too young for a girlfriend anyway."

He was …not going to touch that with a ten foot pole.

"We will get you a snack," Wilhelm offered, trying to escape.

"I could eat," Percy admitted. "Yeah, thanks." He lifted his head, throwing them a bright, hopeful smile. "Mom didn't really mean it, you know? She can't help it sometimes, but she was sorry!"

Wilhelm allowed himself to reach across to touch his bad arm. "I know."

"'Kay." He laid his head down again and his hat slid off. "We can be friends again, right?"

Wilhelm smiled weakly and shuffled the cat back into the next room when Percy's attention shifted to his hand as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. And perhaps it was. It was shifting under the attention, fingers merging together, twisting, becoming spindly, becoming smoke before hardening into a dark spine before relaxing back into a human boy's hand.

The heavy wooden door closed behind them with a satisfying click and he let out a sigh. "Verdict?"

"The stupid burns."

"Sam," Wilhelm scolded. "You know what I mean. Is he…" He shrugged his good shoulder in Percy's general direction and whispered out the corner of his mouth, trusting those cat ears to pick it up. "Well?"

"Tripping premium top fucking balls," the cat said. "But yeah, it's him."

He was assuming by the context that 'tripping balls' was another way of saying 'acting drugged.' He wasn't going to ask if he was correct. He's always been a little afraid of asking the cat what it was even saying since he learned that 'clap' was no longer just a word for smacking your hands together.

If it was Percy, he was just under the effect of some kind of hallucinogenic then…

Then…

He was dismayed by how little that actually solved.

Sam tilted its head, wiggling its right ear. "Not convinced he's alone in there. He's too fucking…"

It trailed off, searching for the words.

"Demigod," the old man ventured. "What do we do then?"

"Dunno," Sam said unhelpfully. Its tail lashed back and forth quickly. "If it were anyone else, I'd tell them to never put a fucking mushroom in their mouth ever again, but he's always mouthing shit and nothing ever fucking happens sooooo…" Sam glanced back at the door thoughtfully. And then shrugged. "Dunno."

"And when he wakes up from this Dream…?"

"He's a mortal soul in the Dreamlands, like you." Sam muttered. "You never really wake up, you just leave for a bit."

"I see," Wilhelm hummed.

It was true. You never do wake up from the Dreamlands.

He sighed as he had no ideas making themselves known either. "Well, I did say I would get him something to eat…"

The cat grumbled, turning towards the open doorway leading to what looked like the kitchen. "Right. Do something about the munchies…brat going to eat me out of house and home."

"Is this not his house and home?" Wilhelm asked mildly.

Sam shot him a dirty look.

And then it froze right outside the kitchen, its tail shot straight up, crook and all. "Fuck."

"Now what?" Wilhelm grumbled as he stepped past the animal…and stopped dead right at the door. "...what?"

The kitchen was a disaster.

There were cartoons and plastic bags holding previously frozen food that had been allowed to drip all over the counter top for hours, if not days. Streaks of multicolored brown goop had congealed on the white cupboard doors, right next to nauseatingly sweet, artificially fruity smelling puddles and bloody water from thawed meat pooled on the tiled floor.

The old man moved automatically. Most of it was driven by reflexive disgust at the mess, but he would be lying if he denied a sliver of concern over a black haired boy with a thousand eyes seeing all his spoiled ice cream.

"What even were you doing?" Wilhelm hissed, picking up the most intact packages - brightly colored plastic tubes with pictures of fruit on them - and rushed to the ice box.

"Shit, I had to do something with him - "

Him?

He opened the ice box.

He closed the ice box.

Wilhelm fell against the wall beside it and slowly slid down it, blueberry, raspberry and watermelon Pops!cle bags falling to the floor alongside him.

"There are body parts in the freezer," he said dully.

"Not my fault!" Sam protested immediately and for a moment, he foolishly dared to hope the cat had a reasonable explanation. "He fucking came like that!"

"Explain," he demanded.

The whole story didn't make any more sense.

"...he's got power, sure, but pop him in the noggin and his head fucking flies off. Ain't nothing fucking happening cut up like he is."

"Kronos," Wilhelm repeated in a dead voice. He was no academic in life, but he had been born into the last days of the Holy Roman Empire. There was no escaping that history. "Percy rescued the Titan Lord from the Pit and now he's on ice. Here!"

The cat blinked. "I just said that - "

Wilhelm reached out and swiped at the cat's ears, shutting it up. His head was beginning to spin unpleasantly (the pagan gods of the Waking world were real). "Is he conscious?"

The cat hesitated. "...no?"

He leaned away from the unassuming humming appliance. "You do not know?"

"He can't do anything!"

"Anything can happen in a Dream!"

They glared at each other.

Sam was the first to look away. "I could take him. If he fucked around."

He could take - ignoring the sheer arrogance of that statement, because Kronos was an immortal god and Sam was an orange tom cat: "This is Percy's home."

Sam spit at him, chops curled back into a savage snarl. "You don't get to bitch about his safety anymore. You fucking left, remember?"

His bad arm prickled uncomfortably as the shame came flooding back.

"You are right, of course," Wilhelm mumbled contritely.

"Damn straight." Sam sat proudly, ears bent back against his head. "Which is why he'll be staying with you."

"What!" The old man sputtered. "Absolutely not!"

"He'll be away from Percy."

"He's a pagan god."

"...Okay," Sam said slowly, clearly not understanding the problem. "But, in pieces. He can't do anything you can't handle, seriously."

"You don't know that!" Wilhelm snapped. "He's a god!" His breath was coming fast, too fast. He could feel the weight, foreign and cold, hanging off him as a gangrenous limb fit only to be amputated. He didn't look at his bad arm, he never looked at it if he could help it, because it would look back.

His bad arm was a divine gift.

As much as a replacement for what you took could be a gift.

No one worshiped the gods in the Dreamlands.

Percy, painfully young and absolutely horrified, hadn't realized that insisting - 'it was an accident! She didn't mean it! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!'

(People died.

He almost died and he did not know what would come after, this time)

- only made it worse.

"You don't know that," he repeated, softer.

"He was human once," Sam nearly whispered.

His breath caught.

His curiosity burned. Humans could ascend?

Truly?

There was a long moment of silence.

"I will consider it," Wilhelm said stiffly as he gathered up the popsicles back onto the counter and then he rooted around in the refrigerating unit. "Clean up your mess," he ordered. "I can handle a few sandwiches."

He almost couldn't handle a few sandwiches.

Nothing looked the way it should have. The bread was already sliced right out of the clear, crinkly package. As was the bacon, looking almost like a different cut of meat entirely, and he had to be walked through using the 'microwave' by the cat, because the stove had a lot more knobs than he was comfortable with.

The future was not convenient. It was confusing.

At least the lettuce head was familiar, as was the tomato, albeit far larger than he was used to.

The knives were tucked away. The wood block almost shoved into the corner on the far end of the counter, as if they were trying to hide away. He reached for the closest handle.

Something took hold of him.

'Is that what you think?' A man hissed into his ear. 'Is that what you fucking think!? Come 'ere!'

Blood splashed onto the counter as the back of his hand opened.

'Look! Look at it! It's not silver! It's not fucking gold! It's red! Like MINE!' The man was yelling through tears. The stink of alcohol was almost a physical slap to the face. 'Tell me again what Apollo said, you little shit. You bleed red! She left BOTH of us!'

He felt so very, very small.

A grain of sand on an infinite beach, battered by the waves. Lost and drowning.

'We're. Mortal!'

Then it was gone and the kitchen knives, quietly tucked away in the corner, were silent.

"Willie?"

The old Prussian king grabbed one of the 'paper towels' from the counter and cleaned up the red blood staining the white surface.

"I am well," he answered quietly.

The cat eyed him dubiously. "What the fuck was that?"

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I do not know."

Another memory, like the picture? A nightmare? Both or something in between?

He wanted to ask, but whatever it was, it felt like an old, private shame.

He was familiar enough with those.

They finished making the sandwiches.

Percy was waiting, more or less patiently, in the living room. A small, spinning galaxy was dancing between his fingers as he slouched on the white leather couch before a long glass table. No shoes. A dirty white button up shirt rolled up at the sleeves. A streak of molten tears was still leaking from his swollen eye.

Every inch a bored, young godling resting after a fight.

"BLTs?" Percy asked. "Nice."

"There's a Titan Lord in your ice box." Wilhelm tattled.

Sam glared at him.

"Uh." The boy blinked slowly, hand hovering over a sandwich as his good eye traveled over to the cat. "Zagreus? You didn't throw him back - " He paused. His face scrunched up. "Throwing someone into the Pit sounds like a war crime, Geneva cares about that. So we shouldn't, because 21st century, baby."

…What?

"High as fuck," Sam reminded him as a low hiss.

"Do you care about him being in your ice box?" Wilhelm stubbornly pushed on.

"My ice cream is in there," Percy responded and out of the corner of his eye, Wilhelm saw Sam flinch in the middle of stealing a piece of bacon. "But not really? He's not my problem and he doesn't want to be." Percy smiled guilelessly. "He's smart like that."

Wilhelm had absolutely no idea what to say.

He was saved from having to say anything by a loud, lingering honk. Percy's head whipped around.

"What was that?"

"The signal horn," Wilhelm supplied. "There is something of a market festival in the village today."

"We're near people?" The boy said abruptly. He stuffed the remainder of his sandwich into his mouth and stood up. "I wanna see, let's go!"

Sam bounded right at his heels.

If it pressed a little too long against his shins, a little too eager to keep it friend within its sights, no one said a word.

Wilhelm watched as Sam dug this cute little woven vest from the bottom shelf of the closet by the front door, shimmying into it. It had hooks on the side where Percy painstakingly perched leather pockets. Whoever made it for the animal had a sense of humor. It was decorated with a small orange cat chasing a red bird.

" - I ain't buying you shit," the cat was complaining as Percy tried and failed to clean his shirt. "Get your own fucking money."

"I'll pay you back."

"Do you remember N'ath?"

"Um."

"Because I remember fucking N'ath, you cheap bastard."

"Oy, my parents are married!" Percy barked a laugh. "Luke called me a koala once."

"Yes," it said immediately. "What the fuck's a koala?"

"Sam. Sam! Sam," Percy said. "I love you."

The cat recoiled. "You really are fucking flying, mate."

Eventually, they remembered him and both turned to regard the old man still sitting, nonplused on the sofa.

"Willie. Coming?"

"I have seen more than my fair share of market days," he declined, patting his knee. "Let me rest my legs a little longer."

Percy's smile softened. "Sure. Stay as long as you like."

And he did.

He went out on the balcony to smoke a bit of his favorite pipe, the earthy, bitter taste calming as he contemplated. The yellow duck floating in the pool was free of judgment and he watched it make laps in still water.

He went back inside and glanced over the wall of pictures.

They were all of a very young Percy, from a chubby cheeked baby to a six year birthday party. The blond boy was present only in the last few rows of memories. Sometimes he looked as young as ten, perhaps twelve years old and in others an older teenager or young man with the same features appeared.

Not mortal, then.

Could this be Apollo?

His eyes searched for the picnic photo-memory and it took him longer than it should have to find it.

Because it had changed.

The mother was now returning Percy's smile, a possessive, gentle hand trailing through his black hair, ignoring the photographer entirely.

It had changed.

Goosebumps broke out all over his skin and he hurried away.

The kitchen was just as he left it. After a moment of thought, he retrieved the plate of crumbs and put it in the sink. He busied himself cleaning up the remains of the mess, little stains left behind by the cat's half-assed effort. The knives were still in their dark corner. An echo of their cry (we're mortal!) wailed in his ears. But eventually…

Eventually.

He opened the ice box.

"Lord - " What had Percy called him? "Zagreus."

Something shifted.

He could feel it as the temperature dropped and the shadows lengthened.

The Titan of eld stirred.

"I have questions," he continued.

The deep voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Speak."

 

[Shujin]

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction
​

I laughed at Cliff for his 'superhero' Dreams.

We're besties, that means we're allowed to be assholes to each other sometimes.

Anyway, some random Dream spirit would manage to squirm through his wards and give him the most obvious, ridiculous Dreams. Ones where he was on top of the world, being awesome and rich and famous and all that jazz. I've heard everything from the Mist being gone and he was an actual dog-headed superhero to him being voted to Chief Lector of the House of Life, the head honcho of all the Egyptian magicians.

Yeah, right.

Then his alarm would go off and he'd remember that, actually, everything sucks! He had chores to rush, his half-finished homework to bullshit and if he didn't get up right now, he was going to be late for the school bus.

I didn't understand how he could let himself get suckered that badly. His disappointed grumbling was hilarious. Dreams were Dreams for a reason. What was the point of wishing they were real?

So.

I'm an idiot.

And a hypocrite!

I was the one who asked Morpheus to let me see my parents in a Dream when the Quest got to me. I hadn't known Mom'd actually be there when I asked. I was prepared to settle for a shade.

And I would have given anything for last night's Dream to be real.

I felt like I could take on the entire world, and every god on it at the same time. I had my cat buddy ready to kick ass with me, reconnected with an old friend and was allowed to forget about my Quest. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't afraid, because there was nothing to be afraid of. My big brother Darkness was there! I could feel his awareness of me the entire time, like I was worth something! I wasn't small and weak anymore! Mom had nothing to be ashamed of, because I was like him! Like all of them! I was -

I

I was

And then I woke up feeling like absolute, utter dogshit.

That had been tap danced on by someone in razor sharp stiletto heels.

Before they wiped me off on a wet curbside and threw me into a burning dumpster.

"Blarghable!"

It was worse than just waking up and remembering that Luke nearly died yesterday, my asshole rabbit party member was at fault for being her asshole self and that we had ten days to find where Ares' stashed the Master Bolt.

Way worse.

Because it was all that and I was fucking sick!

Every inch of me hurt with this tight, dry pain making me feel strangely bloated, like if I moved too much, I would tear out of my paper thin skin. I had a stuffy nose and a killer headache. I felt like I had a concussion. The world was tilting back and forth like I had water in my ears, my clothes were sticking to me with sweat because I needed out of this sauna that was my immune system and my stomach…

"Urghhuah!"

My stomach hated the ever living shit out of me.

I was hanging halfway off the bed, trying not to vomit all over my sheets and getting most of it on the hardwood floor and the yoga mat. And let me tell you, Rhea's lasagna and her chocolate chip cookies did not taste the same coming back up.

It also squirmed in my mouth.

I was blaming the lasagna.

"Guurgghah!"

Or maybe the cookies.

I also wouldn't put this past Alecto's cooking skills.

Mom's given me some questionable shit to eat before, sure. And maybe I had a habit of trying out stuff like those honey ants and fried greasy three-headed snake sticks I got Sam to buy for me, but nothing I ate in the Dreamlands counted!

None of it could move after being swallowed!

I want a refund!

I threw up again.

I don't know how long I spent upchucking, but the tank ran on empty pretty quick. Nothing but scorching bile and wriggling chunks I was starting to think were pieces of my intestines. I would not be surprised if I was actually spitting up my entire digestive system. The way my stomach ached and burned, twisting itself even tighter into knots, sending a sick flush right through my skull was not filling me with confidence.

I laid there, half off the bed, head hanging down hearing blood rush in my ears as I panted, coughing. The yoga mat was covered in what Sam would call a dog's breakfast. A thick slurry the color of kibble filled with mushy chunks and writhing bits of a gelatinous, sickly pale meat that I vaguely remembered eating.

At the bottom of an ocean.

I don't -

I don't know how that's a thing.

Damocles was the only thing capable of following me out of the Dreamlands. Because Mom made sure it could. Even now, it hung from my neck back in its place of honor as a silver pendant.

Nothing I eat in the Dreamlands counts.

This can't -

It's got to be Rhea's chocolate chip cookies. They were too good.

That's how you know they're evil.

The guest room door opened soundlessly as the star-spawn baker from hell poked her head in.

"Are you - " she started. I tilted my head just enough to see her out of the corner of my eye as I stared at the steaming pile of vomit. Or maybe it was smoking? I think the yoga mat was melting. We both watched as one of the flailing pieces, like a demented severed limb flopped its way under the bed.

I blinked slowly.

Um.

Okay.

Rhea pinched the bridge of her nose for a second.

"Why?" She asked me.

I wanted to answer that.

But I -

I got nothing.

I can't think straight and I have no clue.

"Right. I'll just - " Zeus' mom was honestly in a tie dyed belly shirt and blue sweatpants as she waved a hand in my general direction. I felt something in the world change as the smell of bile disappeared.

I could do that, I thought fuzzily.

I had done it.

"You're - I heard that? I think your brain is leaking," Rhea said.

It was just like when I fixed the tears in my couch because Sam hated scratching posts and authority. A simple exertion of will. I painfully flopped back onto my bed and feebly tried to kick my sheets off. My legs were noodles, so I didn't get very far. Everything I was wearing was sticking to me.

I had the thought.

Why don't I just do it right now?

Rhea barked. "Don't - !"

My stomach tore.

It felt like Zeus tagged me with a lightning bolt to the belly button. Pain seared right through the center of my navel to my spine, then crawled up it. Everything locked up. My limbs. My thoughts. My blood.

I couldn't even scream.

Rhea caught me as I fell off the bed.

The jolt of halted movement was all it took.

I threw up all over Apollo's grandmother.

Not my best moment.

Not gonna lie.

She stiffened and blew a harsh breath out her nose.

"...yup. Just like your sister," she said blandly before willing the mess off us.

I didn't even have the energy to cringe.

On a scale of one to ten, with one being 'miserable' and ten being 'doing great' I was at 'demigod shaped turd bucket.' So maybe a negative five. Aftershocks were making my fingers curl into twitching claws. I hurt all over. My fever was a billion degrees. I doubted I would be able to keep down water right now.

Am I dying? I thought slowly, draped all over Rhea.

Maybe?

Was my very first illness actually going to take me out?

Lame.

I tried to straighten, but from the way her hands hovered, purposeless around my shoulders, I wasn't doing a good job. I knew I was swaying in place, taking deep breaths to try to scrounge up some strength.

I opened my mouth to apologize for throwing up on her -

And then pressed my lips together when my stomach launched a surprise attack, sending a rush of burning bile to the back of my throat. Rhea's expression scrunched up in sympathy as she pressed a cool hand against my burning forehead. It took the edge off of the nausea, letting me swallow it back down.

"Easy, now," Rhea said softly as that smokeless fire swirled around the hand on my head. "Don't push yourself."

I leaned into that hand.

I knew she was trying to help me.

I knew that.

I still felt the heady rush of a greedy, molten tug in my gut as my stomach painfully snapped at her, like a starving dog offered a treat going for the whole bag instead.

She gently clapped back.

I say gently (and it had to be real gentle) because if the Matriarch of Swarms actually decided to metaphysically haul off and punch me in the gut? I'm not sure there would be enough of my soul left to complain to Mom about it.

Even if it definitely felt like she just hauled off and punched me in the gut.

My stomach cratered.

I bowled over as air rushed out of me in a harsh cough that was followed by a torrent of searing hot liquid iron. My hand flew to my mouth, because I didn't want to throw up on her again, but I couldn't hold it back.

I coughed again. Bright red blood dribbled through my fingers.

Oh.

Fuck.

I really am dying.

"Ah," Rhea said after a moment.

Then she picked me up.

Pain suddenly lanced down my back over my shoulder blades. My stomach was stitched shut into a cold ball of ice. My head felt like it had just spun right off my neck and some part of me, hurt and scared, lashed out like a dumbass.

I felt like I had just snapped a tripwire holding a ton of concrete blocks over my head.

The hairs on the back of my neck quivered as Rhea slowly raised an eyebrow at me. The hum of a thousand gossamer wings buzzed in the back of my head as I felt a rumble travel my bones, like something massive had just shifted right underneath my feet. The floors and walls of the unassuming light blue bungalow home actually buckled with just the threat of Rhea paying attention to me.

Attention I did not want!

At all.

I went limp like a puppy held up by the scruff.

"That's what I thought," the former Queen of the Gods snorted. "You're adorable."

I was never going to get any respect on this Quest.

Her home shifted around us as she took a step, transporting us from the guest room to the living room. The living room looked a bit better from earlier with my and Apollo's help. It was more blank, with the piles of newspapers and photo albums and collections of fine china mostly packed away into their cardboard boxes. The sewing table with the ruler attached to it and folded bolts of cloth and sewing machine was still there and so was the randomly placed ratty sofa, looking as if someone had just dropped a piece of doll house furniture into the room. Like every room in her house, there were lions. A pair was lounging on some flat boxes before a recliner chair.

Rhea slammed the door shut behind her with her foot.

Someone squawked in surprise.

"Wha - oh." That someone sounded a lot like Artemis. But, uh, she's currently a rabbit so it can't be her. I inclined my head, trying to take a look. "Is - what happened to him?"

"Domain sick," Rhea answered absently as she bumped one of her curious lions away with her hip. "Probably."

What?

Was that bad or do I just have a god cold?

I was set down into the blissfully cool reclining chair. Was this real leather? I burrowed into it as much as I could. Rhea tossed a feather-light sky blue duvet decorated with rainbows over me. My arm was immediately nudged by an ice-cold cat nose. Just flopping my hand on top of the fluff so I could pet the lion laying his head on my armrest was exhausting.

'Who's a good boy?' I mouthed at the lion, because my stomach was threatening to rebel if I put any more effort into it. He gave me that deadpan look cats do so well, but clearly the scritches were worth more than his pride.

Rhea flapped her hands in my direction, sending the bangles around her wrists clicking. "A real downer, but he can tough it out, I think."

"What?" The Artemis-sound-alike said blankly.

I felt like asking that too.

But I was just too strung out.

Miserable.

Thinking was hard.

The second lion shuffled a bit closer. A female, since she didn't have a mane, and there was a small auburn rabbit perched on her head as both of them stared at me.

I blinked, hard.

Nope.

Rabbit is still there.

Wow.

My fever must be bad.

The lioness huffed and actually rolled its eyes at me.

Rhea was already turning away, folding my Celtic shirt into a neat square with my jeans slung over her shoulder. I looked down at myself and weakly picked at the black silk chiton she replaced my clothes with. The blood on my hands was gone too.

I hadn't even felt her do it.

Come to think of it, I hadn't felt Nemesis swipe our train tickets either.

Mom graduated me from my Sensitivity lessons with a D- and just didn't want to tell me I sucked, apparently.

"What?" the rabbit said again and I could feel my eyes try to pop out of my head. The rabbit's nose was twitching, and it's mouth was moving a little, but it was more like the voice was being thrown into my ears rather than actually coming from it.

"Domain sickness," Rhea repeated, turning to the animals with raised eyebrows. She tossed my clothes into the air where they vanished. "You…do know what that is - "

"I know what it is!" The bunny snapped. "Why - he is mortal. That is not possible - "

"Ha!" It was Rhea's turn to cut the bunny off with a harsh bark of laughter. Her compound eyes shimmered blood red for a second, before settling back into emerald green. "And who are you," the Matriarch of Swarms asked slowly. There was ice in her voice and something more than a little cruel. "Has Selene's chariot gone to your head, that you would tell me what is and is not possible, child?"

The rabbit shrunk back.

Selene's chariot?

"Artemis?" I rasped in disbelief.

I saw that same disbelief mirrored in the rabbit's eyes as her head snapped towards me.

She was missing my jacket.

Maybe it was in the laundry. Blood and seawater are hell on fabrics.

"How - ?" She swung back to Rhea. "Are you - ?"

"No," Rhea hummed as she paced along the walls of the room, trailing symbols glowing with her smokeless fire along the paisley wallpaper. I could almost read them, like I had learned the language a long time ago and if I just thought about it for a few more minutes, it would all come rushing back. It's got to be some form of Greek, right?

"It seems he doesn't need help to speak, unlike you," she said, stepping over some of the boxes and around the easel in the corner. "Either he received leave or he is strong enough to resist."

What?

I searched the room with aching eyes until I found the window. My breath caught as my stomach twisted uncomfortably. Underneath the bamboo blinds and behind the glass was an abyss. I couldn't see even an inch beyond the walls of the house.

It was still Night.

I wanted to believe I'd only been Dreaming for an hour. Time is weird in the Dreamlands, right? A thousand years could pass in five minutes if you were unlucky. Wilhelm loses track all the time.

But I knew better.

"Strong enough - of course," the rabbit spat, her disbelief turned to anger. "Even now Fate mocks me. A boy I refused and her own personal perversion of divinity, her spawn."

My head pounded. "I'm not - "

"Save your lies for someone who would believe it!" Artemis snarled. Her ears were pinned back against her head, auburn fur bristling. "You think I did not notice how easily you shed your humanity when in danger?" But I - "Stop pretending! I do not require your pity!" The bunny was nearly hyperventilating. "What did you want from - "

The lioness tossed the rabbit off her head.

I bit my tongue as Artemis hit the beige carpet hard, rolling once before her former perch placed a heavy paw on her back.

I don't understand.

Was this about - about what I said on the beach?

"Ata…" the bunny squeaked, betrayed.

"Atalanta," Rhea said softly as she traced the windowsill with a burning finger. "Take her back to her room, if you would. And keep her there, until she decides to behave." The lioness obediently dropped its head, picking up the small woodland creature up within its massive jaws.

Artemis went very, very still between those teeth.

I don't blame her.

I turned to my lion buddy. If that was Atalanta, then was this one her dumbass boyfriend? Apollo said there was an IQ threshold and anyone that went out of their way to piss off a god just to get their rocks off fell far below it.

Can't argue with that.

I tilted my head questioningly.

He chuffed under my hand and then licked the leather arm rest. I gave him a narrow eyed look back.

Maybe not.

"But - " Artemis protested weakly.

Rhea turned away from her designs to regard the room with a cool look. She retraced her steps back around the room as the lioness padded to the door, rabbit in mouth.

"I - Grandmother, why - " The rabbit wiggled a little, prompting the lioness to pause.

"You disappoint me," was the simple reply. Rhea checked her work, completely dismissive. This wasn't Apollo's groovy grandmother speaking. This was the Queen. "I will not tell you how to treat your nephew, the son of Hermes," the boy Artemis said she refused. Luke. What did that mean? When did that even happen? "But this one is my cousin. You forget yourself."

That sparked a warm, fuzzy feeling in my chest that had nothing to do with my fever.

My cousins were awesome.

"It's okay," I croaked at Rhea. "I'm not offended."

In return, she tilted her head in my direction, but didn't spare Artemis a look. "But I am."

Ouch.

The rabbit blanched as the lioness trotted out of the room and the silence was allowed to hang for a moment.

I shifted in my recliner.

That had -

That had probably been about what I said on the beach.

'If he dies, you die.'

Now that I didn't have Luke's blood on me, I felt a little ashamed about threatening Artemis like that.

Because I knew Dad would be.

I guess I'm more like my mother than I thought.

"I had - " I began, trying to explain what the problem was. More for Rhea's sake than Artemis'. "On the beach, I - "

"I heard," Zeus' mother murmured. "As was your right."

"What?" I blurted out and regretted it as my head spiked with pain. My stomach roiled. This was her granddaughter we were talking about, an Olympian. "But I'm just - " The Queen of the Titans looked at me. The words 'a demigod' died in my mouth. I looked down at my hands again, half-expecting them to be painted red with my blood. "It was too far."

"Was it?" Rhea gently shooed my lion buddy away as she took a seat on the couch beside me. She reached for the table that hadn't been there a second ago to pick up a glass of water that also hadn't been there earlier. She passed it to me with a quiet, "Slowly."

I took a cold sip. It hurt going down.

"You have no idea what her punishment means, do you?" She asked.

"She's mortal," I said.

And a rabbit.

Maybe there was something more to it than Mom's terrible sense of humor?

Rhea blew out a breath like she was banishing the Titan Queen from the room. "Rabbits." She paused. My heart sank. "Rabbits are a species that do not need disease or starvation to turn to cannibalism."

She said it so easily.

Like it was an interesting factoid she read about in a magazine one day and not something she had personal history with.

My stomach twisted. I put the cup down.

Rhea studied me for a moment. "A mother rabbit when frightened, overwhelmed and… sometimes for no reason at all, will kill and eat her newly born young."

Artemis was the goddess of Childbirth.

All of her Names regarding children…

I felt like someone had just jabbed me in the throat. I could almost see Luke's wry grin and equally wry, 'What symbolism! Apropos, isn't it?'

If anyone could pass judgment on a god for - for dereliction of duty…

It would be Fate.

"Her transformation is an open invitation," Rhea continued, running a hand through her dark hair. "Fate's a bit unglued, this is the culprit, real 'will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest' energy, except they might actually be rewarded for it."

Like a pirate's black spot complete with a bounty.

A mark for death.

I wasn't stupid all the time.

My sisters, the Fates, gave Artemis that Domain just like they gave Apollo his Prophecy. They should have stepped in sooner. The Domains they grant are their responsibility. And if they slack off, our mother was the Supreme Court.

Which usually meant they could do whatever they wanted.

This was thousands of years in the making, and would have continued for thousands more because Mom didn't really care. I knew she would have continued not giving a shit until I was involved. The Quest could have chosen any god. Athena would have worked, she had a War Domain. Apollo's Archery might be able to swing something. Going on a Quest with Heracles or Nike would have been awesome.

Hindsight let me see the trap. I was twelve. Mom gave Artemis just enough rope to hang herself.

But Artemis didn't know that.

It was her final offense.

And Mom was not a forgive and forget kind of person.

This is why Nemesis and Khione did what they did. The Quest doesn't matter. Even if we succeeded, Mom had no intention of letting Artemis make it out alive. Ever. The only thing I could use to buy her life was my boon.

And I gave that to Luke so he could help me help her survive.

No wonder she didn't answer any of my pleas.

This is what fighting Fate feels like.

Like shit.

"Does she know?" I whispered.

"The former goddess of the Forest and all the wildlife within it, rabbits included," Rhea reminded me gently. There was that soft, pitying look again. "Fate was not subtle, not this time."

Yeah.

She knows.

I was going to ask if Zeus knew, but honestly, who cares if he knew the difference between 'probably will die' and 'definitely will die' when he made her go anyway.

Fuck him.

"But you - " I started, before I realized I was dumb. There were rules. If Erebus got in serious trouble, I couldn't do anything either. It'd have to be Mom. Real old school hierarchy setup, but. Gods. "You can't do anything."

Fuck.

I didn't let myself think about abandoning Artemis for too long, because I swore to give Luke my boon for helping me protect her. As long as Luke was onboard, I couldn't be seen trying to renege on it by sabotaging his efforts, because I swore I would.

Luke almost died.

Asking him to give up now?

The Styx was always watching.

I -

I think I fucked myself over.

The star-spawn paused and pinned me with a hard look that made my spine tingle.

"Can't?" She questioned me, deliberately light as she leaned her chin on a hand, propped up on the couch arm rest. "Not won't?"

"Uh," I said, taken aback. "Isn't the Pit - "

"Father still sleeps, yes," Rhea nodded.

Oh phew, I was worried for a second there.

"And you wouldn't ask your mom to petition my mom," I reasoned out loud. "Because…a lot of reasons?"

"Plenty," she drawled, amused.

Like I said, Rhea was loyal.

The Earth Mother hadn't been.

And also holds one hell of a grudge.

"So…"

"I do wonder what your mother has in mind for you," she said instead with iridescent compound eyes as she leaned in and flicked my nose with a finger. "You are just as right as you are wrong."

Um.

"I am not able to intercede on my granddaughter's behalf before the god within Fate, because that would never be an option." Huh? "I could only do that if Artemis was not Young." Her lips tugged into that almost smile she had when she heard my Prophecies. "And if I was not using the Name Rhea."

Oh.

God within Fate.

She means Mom's original Name. The First Name.

The Names of an Elder God were more like avatars. Sockpuppets. Mom calls them Masks, you get the idea. They are always there, but drawing attention to that is stupid and probably wouldn't end well. You gotta know what you're doing. They are probably using that Name for a reason, like not wanting to kill you by proximity damage and, if they're anything like Mom, also wouldn't appreciate the game being ruined.

So be polite and call them by their preferred pronouns.

There you go. Elder God Etiquette 101.

Elderquette.

"Qetesh can, perhaps, on the behalf of Selene's successor," Rhea said thoughtfully and the buzzing, humming undertone in her voice slid through my bones with hollow knives. You couldn't see the difference in her eyes, but you could feel it. Elder Gods were always there.

Even when asleep and Dreaming.

Especially when Dreaming.

"Athirat, maybe," she mused. "Or - ah, Cybele."

And I -

I was going to throw up again.

Rhea breathed in a sharp breath and the pressure disappeared. "Man. You are…hella sensitive, aren't you?"

"I - " I swallowed hard and nearly regretted those sips of water. "I don't think so?"

"More sensitive than Dionysus was, for sure," she said. Sections of the fiery writing on the walls of the room lit up and changed around, casting an eerie light on the cardboard boxes and the vine pattern in the beige carpet. "I'll keep that in mind. Don't worry, I'll have you back right cherry in a bit."

My head was spinning.

Was she just talking about demigod Dionysus in general or was he sick too when she met him?

"If I'm sick, then maybe Apollo - " I tried.

She shook her head. "The absolute last thing you need is more divine energy anywhere near your soul, hun."

That didn't sound great.

"Besides, he is of the sun." Her lips ticked up in a mirthless smile as she glanced at the dark window pointedly. "He is likely occupied."

I nodded weakly.

"Domain sick?"

"A failed apotheosis," she explained in words that made no sense, because she was talking about me. "Overextended divinity, so much so that it starts changing things." She crossed her arms and legs, absently. "And burning other things for fuel." Like mortality. "But you didn't have enough to keep it up."

"Oh," I whispered.

"Yeah, 'oh.'" She clucked her tongue. "If that's not what happened, whatever you did is close enough. Don't do it again. You might shatter."

Like Aphrodite did.

Rhea waved it off as she stood up, almost springing from the couch. "You can recover, one hundred percent. It's a drag, but burn out is temporary."

Breaking, not so much.

If it was, Aphrodite would be whole.

I guess that made more sense. I was mortal, and Artemis was surprised because she didn't know my brother gave me a boost. She thought Rhea was saying I did this to myself. I didn't. I guess Erebus did me a favor and it gave me a sugar high. This was the fallout.

The crash.

…

I probably shouldn't have eaten the sea monster.

"- this'll be your pad while you're here," Rhea was saying as I regretted every decision I made last night. "Bathroom is that door, kitchen is this door, boob tube - " a large flat screen TV appeared on the wall opposite me, complete with a flare of the writing on the wallpaper and a remote on the couch arm rest by me. I don't want to know why the television has a name like 'boob tube.' The 60s were weird.

"Sleep in the chair."

"And the…" I waved a weak arm at the walls.

"Suppressors," Rhea said bluntly. Like my room at Camp Half-Blood. "Keeps the ambience in check so I don't off you by accident. The excess has to go somewhere because I don't want you poppin' off, freaking out and blowing yourself up, you dig?"

That's fair.

"Gimme some skin if you understand, lil' cuz," she held out a hand. I grinned as I gave the Titan Queen a high five. The warm and fuzzies were back. Lil cuz. I could get addicted to meeting relatives that wanted me in their family tree. And weren't jerks. "Far out," she grinned back, all teeth. She ruffled my hair. "I wish your mother told me about you," she said wistfully. "I missed babysitting sprogs."

"I threw up on you," I quipped faintly.

"'Teia and Aether did the same. Weak stomachs," she quipped back with a sage nod. "Plagues all your mom's kids."

…the last time the Stele household heard from Aether, he was sleeping off the indigestion that came from eating a cold gas giant in the Boomerang Nebula.

Weak stomachs?

"Oy," I grunted.

She made a raspberry sound. "Just shout if you need anything. You're family, I'll hear you."

That fired a few of my neurons.

"That's why you heard Luke?" I asked quietly.

"That dropout?" Rhea blinked. "Nah, he - " She tilted her head, pausing. "He caught my attention."

A small lion cub darted into the room, looked around with big, blue eyes and then ran out again. His sibling tumbled in after him and decided to stay, trotting over to Rhea who picked her up and tucked her underneath her arm.

"Your voice might go away in an hour or two," she tossed out as she made her way to the door that led to the kitchen, tickling the cub underneath the chin. "But don't be surprised if it doesn't - " Rhea hesitated. This strange expression I couldn't read scrunching up her nose and brow. "Demigod."

The door shut behind her.

"'Kay," I whispered.

I lasted maybe three minutes sipping water before I figured out that I had no idea what you're supposed to do when sick. I don't think taking care of Dad when he had a bit too -

Oh shit, Dad!

I flung my hand out for my backpack. Hauling it up onto my lap left me feeling like I'd run a marathon, but I found my phone and money purse.

"Oh Iris, goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering." I fished out a gold drachma and tossed it into the enchanted rainbow.

The coin bounced on Rhea's beige carpet.

A lump lodged itself in my throat as the small rainbow silently hung in the air in front of me.

Right.

It's still Night.

She's…probably busy.

I swiped my thumb across the hieroglyph and the rainbow faded. I bit my lip and tried not to think about how Mom was too angry to think about me.

There was a chime, like someone just rang Rhea's doorbell.

A rainbow flickered in front of my face.

My heart leapt as an image appeared in it and then I regretted it when said image nearly burned out my eyeballs.

There was a giant coruscating flashing neon lights thing made of spinning discs, like someone had taken the idea of an astrolabe and a rave party and not only built a ten sided starfish out of it, but decided to glue golden butterfly wings to its back for good measure. It was bright, spitting sparks of blue lightning and looking at it did not do my head any favors.

"Oh crap!" The starfish said and then it was a person.

A gold butterfly winged…gorgon…mermaid…person standing before absolutely massive ebony wood and silver doors etched with art-deco, framed in a pitch black metal that matched my Stygian Iron dagger.

She had thin sea-green tentacles for hair lashing about a sharp featured emotionless face that looked more like a shark than a human, with sharp scales, fluttering gills and dappled patterns that slithered across her form. She glowed like a humanoid firefly and her three eyes were those spinning rings of neon colors.

"You - are fine." For a moment, her look changed again to a dark haired human woman with the gold butterfly wings and a shimmering tie dye toga with a silver shawl, but then she seemed to change her mind and just stayed fishy. Her hair-tentacles pointed at me. "You're Hypnos' little buddy, aren't cha?" she asked in a burbling, watery voice. "My bad, I assumed only gods would be able to call me."

She said it matter-of-factly, but I still felt like there was a question.

"Sorry," I said quickly. "I know you're busy. I just wanted to check up on my father."

She glanced back at the closed doors. "Yeah, I got a moment. Remind me who he is?"

"Dorian Stele, Manhattan."

There was a beat of silence and then she shook her head. "I'm sorry, those are some nasty wards around him and at least half of them are Mr. Apollo's. I probably could punch through them - "

"That's okay," I breathed, feeling like a weight had been lifted off my chest. Dad's fine. "I can talk to him later, just wanted to know he's okay."

Amphitrite's first cousin inclined her head. "Anyone else?"

I thought about it. I could call Camp Half-Blood? I don't know what to say though, besides 'not dead yet, but not for lack of trying.' I sure as hell wasn't going to spill the beans on Ares having the Master Bolt. Clarisse and Mark and Ryan of Ares Cabin were kind of friends. It would make them pariahs overnight.

Telling the Hunters about Artemis would just be cruel.

Hypnos was at his Mom's house, Sam had been sick and tired of my shit when I left and I doubt Iris could reach the Dreamlands anyway, I can just pray to Apollo and everybody else…

Wasn't Greek.

"Not unless you're doing cross-pantheon again."

She made a bubbling sound. "Not for another seven years, unfortunately."

I did the math.

It physically hurt.

"What happens in 2012?" I asked slowly.

That got me a wide shark toothed grin.

"Nothing!" Iris chirped.

Should I be worried?

I feel like I should be at least a little concerned.

…I'll worry about it after my Prophecy is up.

"Now, you really need to detox," the Messenger Goddess of the Rainbow lectured. "Water's nice," she pointed at my glass. "But green tea. Or lemon water. Eat lots of fruit, brown rice and some asparagus and kale, oh! Greek yogurt really helps cut down on the repeats and honestly? Go Vegan. I swear by it."

The rainbow blinked out.

Butch's mom…

…is odd.

I dialed Cliff next.

The high pitched squealing only sounded for a second before he picked up.

"You're fucking alive!" Was the first thing he said. "Now is this crap your fault or no? I have a bet riding on this."

That was the second thing my best friend said.

"Seriously?" I deadpanned.

"Absolutely."

"Cliff."

"Hey man, last thing I heard, you were asking about an experimental prototype teleport function because of the Rhamnousia and who's her mom again?"

The Night.

Even the Egyptians knew that messing with her kids was a game of Russian Roulette.

"This isn't my fault," I protested.

"Damn."

Just feel the love.

"How are you talking, by the way? We've got the Nome warded up the ass - "

"I'm…" I looked around my new 'pad' in Rhea's house. The lettering on the walls shimmered. "Someplace that's warded too."

"Cool. Stay there."

I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn't see it. "Duh."

"Just saying."

"This has nothing to do with Nemesis." I dragged us back on topic. "Her mom just…thought I was interesting a while back?" I didn't know how else to explain it. "And my mom…just found out and didn't like it?"

"So it is your fault!" Cliff said triumphantly.

In the background, someone swore colorfully. I could hear the thuds of frantic footfalls leave the room.

Guess I was on speakerphone.

"I didn't do anything!"

"If you didn't exist, would this be happening right now." He said it like he already knew the answer.

Because he did.

"That's not fair!"

"Yeah, so, two of them. At the same time. Just - "

"Blame my mother?" I offered.

"Oh, I will." Cliff made a whining noise. "I've been up for over twenty four hours thanks to someone calling me at unholy hours for random bullshit and then that same someone - "

"Oh my god, I get it! I'm sorry!"

"Yeah, yeah." I heard the rustling of paper. "But…look, I know you're on an errand for the Greeks, but if you get the chance - maaayyybeeee stop by? It's your birth mother. And Houy will vouch for you."

"Really?" I felt my stomach sink. "I'm Greek. In an Egyptian Nome."

That hasn't happened for…

A long time.

Cliff sighed. "Yeah."

"How bad is it?"

"Not as bad as it could be!"

That…really wasn't saying much.

"I mean, we're still panicking," he continued. "Have you seen the news?" He asked, like I wasn't on a cross country road trip for Olympus. With a time limit. "There's a bunch of people dying in their sleep and the White House press conference was held on a fucking whiteboard and passed notecards because people can't make noise. No one really knows what to do. The last time was before the House stuffed the gods into a fridge."

"That was kind of a shit decision." I sniffled as my stuffy nose got a little unstuffed by starting to run and dug a packet of kleenex out of my backpack.

Something about said shit decision was also giving me a fucking wild sense of deja vu.

Something about gods in a fridge.

'Don't." Cliff sighed again. "I've been hearing that from a dozen different people using different words and three different Egyptian dialects - " his voice picked up. "For the past twenty four hours! That I've been up - "

"Bye, Cliff," I said.

"Because someone - "

He was laughing when I hung up.

My friends.

Are just the worst kind of people.

I spent a little bit playing Golden Sun on my Gameboy and nibbling on a plate of flat bread and feta cheese that came out of nowhere. I did watch the news for a bit. He was right. It was all writing.

And I'm dyslexic.

A few lions wandered in and out of my room, like they were just checking to see if I was still miserable.

I was.

Just to make it clear how much this god flu was fucking me up, it took me another fifteen minutes before I realized: Rhea could not petition the god within Fate. But she never actually said she can't do anything for Artemis.

Or if she even wanted to.

I fell asleep at one point.

I think Rhea enchanted my chair without telling me, because the Dreaming part of my soul, what Cliff would call the ba, stayed put. Snugly tucked away in my mortal coil.

That was okay.

I understood.

Dreams aren't real, anyway. Not mortal ones. Not where it counts.

That's why they're called Dreams.

 

[Shujin]

As always, let me know if there are any problems and I'll try to fix it :< I'll be working on updating the character sheet tomorrow and update the chapter summary.

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction

​

I woke up like I was drowning.

Gasping for breath, flailing around, the whole nine yards. I felt trapped. I was suffocating. It lasted forever. It was over in a moment. Then I opened my eyes to Rhea's living room. There was a half-grown lion cub sitting on the couch next to me. He had a TV remote between his front paws, a plate of potato chips on the cushion next to him and an unimpressed look on his face. He was just starting to look fluffy around the neck, so I was confident it was a boy.

"Look." I told him. "It's been a rough couple of days."

The feline couch potato snorted as I scrubbed my face with a hand. I think I drooled in my sleep again. Yuck.

I still felt like a polished turd.

My skull was a throbbing radiator of heat, but at least it felt like it was firmly attached to my neck this time. Thinking was easier. My nose was still stuffy and my face still hurt. Everything hurt, like there was ice water in my bones. I was shivering. This spasm was pulling at the back of my right arm nonstop, making me feel like something was hitting my funny bone over and over. My stomach was quiet though. I wasn't going to call it a win. It felt hollow.

Empty.

The lion crunched on a few potato chips. Disney was on the TV, playing one of the new cartoons, American Dragon: Jake Long. There wasn't any sound coming from the speakers, but there were subtitles. I gave up trying to read fast enough for the scrolling after a couple of seconds.

If I wanted to torture myself, punching myself in the balls would be simpler.

"Danny Phantom is better." I adjusted my glasses.

The lion gave me the side eye as he shuffled his remote closer to his chest, like he was protecting it.

I held up my hands in surrender.

"Can I have a chip?" That got me another suspicious look, but eventually, he nosed the plate over. "Thanks."

He meowed back.

It was clearly a cat's meow, just with a decade of chain smoking at least four packs a day thrown on top.

There was a new glass of water with a lemon slice waiting for me on the small table by my reclining chair. My hands trembled as I picked it up so I moved slowly. My muscles still pulled and burned. I took a few sips and settled in to watch the inferior cartoon with the small-big cat anyway, because I'm a sucker for kids balancing supernatural forces and homework.

Relatable.

I couldn't hear a single thing any of the characters were saying, but it wasn't a bad watch. Middle school half dragon with a normal dad and dragon mom beating up bad guys and pulling tricks on a skateboard. I could see why my lion buddy was a fan of the new show. I had a lot of fun bitching about everything I didn't understand over his offended yowling. He was either trying to explain what was going on or he was telling me to fuck off, but I was sick and Rhea said this was my room, so there.

The commercial break revealed the TV had this fancy time table program showing what was next up on what channel. Teen Titans on Cartoon Network. We should watch that. I was just starting to get into explaining how it tied into DC's Justice League with my fellow junk food eater and cartoon watcher when Rhea busted into the room.

"Think fast!"

I didn't.

The thrown twinkie hit me right in the nose, then fell into my lap with a miserable sounding splat.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked.

Rhea blurted out, "What the fuck was that?"

I raised my eyebrows. Then I raised my hands out from under my blanket. They were still trembling. The overall awful had gone down, but now it was like I wasn't in complete control of my body with muscle spasms and twitches going every which way. Which meant the infamous demigod reflexes of mine?

They went fishing.

Check back later.

The Titan Queen's expression went blank for a moment. Then she sighed. Her head made a dull thunking sound as she slumped against the door frame.

"Domain sick, right," she remembered. "This is today, not…yesterday?" She didn't sound too sure. I'm not sure it was even her Trees of Random Foresight this time. The sun was still a no show.

I wasn't too worried about Apollo, but her orphanage and her duty was all Saulė, the Young goddess of the Baltic sun had.

"Yesterday," I confirmed.

"Or two days from now!" she said brightly (so maybe it was the trees). "I got it, I'm here, I saved you, the boy annnnnd…" Her eyes found the window and the darkness outside. I could see her good mood evaporate. "That. Yes."

I didn't feel like reminding her about Artemis.

"Who is…" Her brow furrowed. "Night and…?"

"Fate," we both said at the same time.

Rhea made a buzzing sound in her throat. "Should have known."

A second twinkie bounced off my cheek.

The lion barked.

"Laugh it up, buddy," I said.

I picked up my second twinkie as Rhea pulled a finger food platter out of thin air with olives, cheese, crackers, vegetables with some dip and cold meat cuts.

"Should have known?" I asked as she widened my small table, and I caught the flickering of the suppressors on the walls. "Are they feuding, or something?"

"Feuding?" Rhea asked. She looked amused at first, but then her face changed. "Not how mortals would understand," she allowed as she set the plate down and refilled our potato chips. She brushed the curious cub's nose away from my lunch and he lost interest when the commercial break ended. Back to the adventures of the American Dragon.

I felt pulled in three directions. The TV, Rhea and the plate with a rose vine pattern around the edges with bees. I couldn't help noticing, so at least my ADHD was still working.

Yay.

"But no, your mother's just a little shit."

I choked on my potato chip.

Rhea burst out laughing. A full on witch's cackle as I tried not to die. She threw herself onto the couch beside me and hugged the grumbling lion cub to her side. "Oh, she's got you fooled! I told you she deserved shits for kids!"

"Because she has a terrible sense of humor!" I came to my mother's defense. "Not for picking fights!"

"Amazing!" Rhea sounded thrilled. "How'd she manage to keep in the groove for so long?"

My mouth worked.

"In the groove?"

"You know, keep her cool." She gave the lion cub a noogie. "Stay calm?"

"Mom doesn't get angry?" I said, then reconsidered. "It takes a lot?"

"A lot," Rhea repeated incredulously. To add insult to injury, the cub was giving me a bewildered look too. "When things don't go as expected, your mother has the emotional maturity of a larva."

I had a hard time wrapping my head around that. Maybe I was just too mortal to understand. What was the definition of 'uncommon' to someone who had a lifespan in the millions of years?

Mom was Fate, right? Things being unexpected meant something was wrong.

Didn't it?

I knew Mom wasn't perfect, but I spent most of my life thinking she was. "But - "

"Literal baby," Rhea continued mercilessly. "For better or worse." She waved a hand as she leaned back against the couch and took the lion with her. He adjusted, laying half on her lap with his eyes still glued to the screen. "I will forever be grateful, her patronage is an honor, yadda yadda, but you should have seen her when Night decided she wanted your brother!" Rhea gossiped. "Flipped her fucking wig - sure, Night's a slut even by our standards - "

"That's my sister-in-law you're talking about," I said.

"She's my sister too," she countered dryly.

My brain tilted on an axis.

We haven't been talking about our mythological family trees.

I was, but I don't think Rhea is.

I have a lot of cousins and making the distinction between who is a cousin because they're the kid of someone who is actually related to me and who's a descendant of a Name everyone thinks is related to me is messy, because they are usually still related somehow. Some are human shaped and some aren't, doesn't matter.

The Greek pantheon isn't a family tree, it's a Celtic knot. I don't have a spreadsheet about who is my great nephew twice removed (thanks Annabeth) in my head like some people.

(Annabeth)

The Pit isn't Rhea's father, the god beneath it is her father. And he's the father of the god behind Night.

Rhea probably doesn't think of herself as Rhea, Greek Titaness of Legacy, Comfort and Motherhood. Goddess of the Mountain, the Great Mother, the Queen of the Gods.

It's just a Name, one of many.

Rhea wasn't calling me cousin how I used the word. She meant blood relation, at the highest level. When she said 'your mother,' she didn't mean The Morrigan. She didn't mean Ananke. The god beneath the Pit and the god within Fate were real siblings.

We're first cousins.

For real.

…why did Mom tell me she was a star-spawn?

"Night's calmed down some since your brother," Rhea admitted grudgingly.

My brain snapped back into place.

Holy shit, over two hundred kids with him, hundreds of hellhounds, another forty seven immortal spirits and a demigod is 'calmed down?'

"The way your mother reacted, you'd think she'd insulted grandfather."

"She's just protective." To be completely honest, Dad would probably react the same way. "And picky. High standards."

"Petty," Rhea corrected me. "Control freak."

"No," My mouth said automatically. Then I thought about it.

Describe the concept of Fate in two words.

"Well, yeah, okay."

Rhea sighed as she figured it out. "What'd you do?"

Why was everyone always assuming it was my fault?

"Nothing," I bit out. "Night thought I was interesting and she helped and Mom flipped out."

"Night thought you were…" Rhea trailed off and threw herself back, clapping a hand over her face. "No. No. I'm not doing this again, I am staying asleep, I don't care!"

Again?

"You care a little," I needled her.

"I don't care." She glared at me through her fingers. "Eat." She ordered. "That first," She pointed at my twinkies. "If you don't throw it up, you should be good."

I wanted to ask about what she meant by 'again,' but I knew a subject change when I heard one.

Most of the time.

I tore into the plastic. "Aren't you supposed to tell me I'll spoil my appetite?"

"Do I look like your mother?" Apollo's grandmother scoffed. "I won't tell if you don't."

I was really starting to wish Mom had let Rhea be my babysitter. My parents never understood the nutritional value of junk food. High fructose corn syrup, chemicals with long names and pure sugar, what's not to love?

Rhea bounced up and the leftover pieces of her furniture slid around the room, shoving everything against the wall beneath the TV and freeing up more space around the couch. She leaned over to check on my fever with the back of her hand and my new friend made a grumpy sound.

"Sorry," Rhea said automatically, moving out of his line of sight to the TV. Then she paused and gave the cub a wry look as a red teenage dragon with a green mohawk karate chopped the air triumphantly on the screen.

The lion's shoulders stiffened under her eyes.

She clucked her tongue. "Aren't you grounded?"

He mewed, but it definitely sounded like a whine.

I laughed at him.

I think he was hiding in here.

Rhea sighed.

"I'm not your mother either," she told the lion. "Keep the boys company and I won't say a word."

I swallowed my bite of twinkie. "Boys?"

My cousin did something to the main door into the room, making the writing on the walls light up with blood red light. There was a small twinge in my stomach as the door frame warped and expanded sideways like it was opening up for a sandwich. And then a bed scuttled through into the room on beetle legs with the bulbous eyes of a spider sticking out like tumors from the bottom with antennae waving from the posts. The small clicks of carapaced joints bending almost distracted me from Luke's still form under the white sheets. It made him look washed out.

Half ghost.

I sat up straight in my chair. "Is he - "

"He survived the night," Rhea shrugged and my chest tightened as I considered that maybe she meant the capital N Night instead. Luke had no way of knowing what was going on. Hypnos gave Hermes a part time job at one point. If Luke was used to Dreaming, I was hoping he inherited that Name too.

Maybe it helped.

"That's good." I breathed. "That's he's okay. Please tell me your furniture isn't bugs."

My cousin blinked.

"...no."

She had to think about it!

Suddenly, I was not okay with my recliner.

I slept in this thing!

"Panty waist." If she had pupils, I'm sure I would have seen her eyes roll. "That one I got in a garage sale. You're safe."

Thank God.

I relaxed back into the chair.

I eyed the couch.

The bed clicked its way to the other side of it, positioning itself to mirror my recliner as the eyes on the bottom jiggled, searching the floor. I counted twelve bug legs and eight bug eyes, five antennae and hundreds of these tendril things hanging off the side where the mattress should have been. They were tasting the air, curling in whenever they caught some dust.

"But why is it a bug?"

Rhea looked offended. "It's cute!"

"It's gross!"

Rhea jerked a thumb at herself with wide, innocent eyes and opened her mouth.

"No," I said. "Don't even." I pointed. "That still looks like half a normal bed. No."

Look.

I'm not shallow.

But I gotta draw the line somewhere.

With a title like Matriarch of Swarms, it should surprise no one that Rhea's base form was a giant bug. She was a pretty bug, don't get me wrong. Gem-like eyes, a shining bronze carapace and very nice wings. Everything was perfectly symmetrical. Looking at her felt like that first time you saw a butterfly land on a blooming flower.

At the time, none of the Elder Gods had human avatars. Rhea was the first. She didn't have to, she chose to.

I said Kronos was a dumb motherfucker and I meant it.

Dad would agree with me.

Aether's girlfriend Hemera crashed my birthday picnic last year. Mom gave her directions. And made sure Hemera didn't accidentally vaporize us. Pulsars, you know how it is. Anyway, Dad had some very nice compliments for her. Very smooth. I thought her eyes were great too. She had Erebus' dagger for me and Aether's stardust ball for Dad to try.

Actual stardust.

They found a tasty nebula with an aborted star and decided to share the treat with the mortal step-father. Because that's what happens when your frame of reference for modern day mortals is Dragon Ball Z.

Explaining would take too long.

Let's just say Aether's a bit confused, but he's trying.

When we got back to the car, he begged me to give him a year's warning if I ever wanted to date anyone with more than three eyes or non-human appendages. He was joking.

Mom said he wasn't.

But he was joking.

Rhea turned to the lion cub. "He's ridiculous."

The cub huffed at her.

"Don't you start."

Luke's bed settled. The insectoid features sunk back into wood grain, complete with a bed spring that was only a little rusted and a faded blue mattress.

"Happy?" Rhea said dryly.

"Not really."

Not being able to see what I knew was there actually made it worse.

"City boy," Rhea huffed, a little exasperated. She turned her head towards the TV and quiet, but understandable sounds began to drift out of the speakers. The cub purred, leaning in. "Try not to wake him, but if he does, make sure he stays put. He needs to get that excess divine energy out of his system."

I frowned and speared a piece of cheese and lamb on a toothpick. "Apollo's?"

"Mine."

"What's wrong with yours?" I winced as soon as I finished asking. Asking people 'what's wrong with you.' Even I knew that wasn't a good idea.

"Nothing." She raised an eyebrow at me and I winced again. This time what hit me in the face hard enough to sting was a Hostess chocolate cake. She cheated, but I deserved it.

I picked up the sugary snack. "I didn't mean it that way."

Rhea waved it off.

"Nothing," she repeated. She tilted her head slightly. "Our power, our being can overwhelm, even when we're trying to help. And he's only human." Her voice took on a classic Greek lilt as her eyes shined orange. "Exposure tends to change the exposed."

"So he's okay, you're just being careful?"

"Can't hurt," she shrugged. "He's healing well, though. You'll be back to it in a few days, trust me."

That's another thing about ADHD. Deadlines just aren't real until I'm staring one in the face. It made it easy to forget the clock was still ticking while I was watching TV and having fun. Khione used it to her advantage and that weakness was never going to go away.

Even if we were ready to tackle the Quest tomorrow, that left a little over nine days to track down where Ares' stashed the Master Bolt. While Night was still leaking into our reality. Hellhounds were bad enough. I don't want to know what else found its way through.

I fiddled with my lunch plate. "Just to…make sure." I swallowed. "You can't help our Quest, right?"

Her eyes were back to the sea green gem like shade as her lips twitched. "I'm not helping already?"

That's fair.

I'm an ungrateful fuck.

I raised my hands.

A wrapped donut beaned me in the forehead anyway.

"It's best if I don't," Rhea clicked her tongue. "It's been a while…" Apollo's reaction told me it had been a long while. "And just swooping in to help Poseidon of all people." She tilted her head back. "Even indirectly."

"Is that bad?" I asked slowly.

Rhea blinked slowly.

"He inherited my eyes," she said softly.

I didn't understand.

That mattered?

"It shouldn't." She read the question on my face. She tried to smile, but her lips turned down as she looked away. "It still fucking does. I made…mistakes with my youngest children. Out of ignorance. I fucked up a lot, if I'm going to be honest. Not all of them have been forgiven." Her nose wrinkled. "In hindsight, giving Zeus to your mother through Adrasteia to raise was also a bad idea."

I was going to protest.

But, honestly?

'Pull Out Your Soul If You Get Too Close' Adrasteia was Zeus' babysitter?

Yikes.

She done goofed.

"No," Rhea concluded firmly. "Afterwards, though? I'll consider doing - " She blew out a harsh breath and ran her hands through her long, dark hair, turning it wheat blonde. "Something. I'll think about it."

"It'll help," I said quietly.

"Will it?"

I don't know.

"My youngest children are a bunch of idiots," Rhea said matter of factly. "But you didn't hear it from me."

I cracked a grin. "Got it."

"Yell if you need anything," she said, turning to go after one last check of Luke, me and rubbing the lion's short, stubby ears. "Including Stallone."

I looked over at my fellow couch potato. His shoulders tensed again. I shrugged. "As in the actor?"

He meowed.

Better name than 'Widdle.'

"Rocky?"

Another meow. It sounded proud.

He should be.

He had good taste.

"Will Luke be able to talk?" I asked.

Rhea blinked, glancing at Luke.

"Good question. You -" She cut herself off and tossed something at me and this time I caught it. It was a simple necklace. A wooden lion pendant on a leather string. "Give him that."

I nodded, turning the lifelike small big cat over in my hands.

"This will blow over," Rhea said. "It has to blow over. It will blow over, Night will forget about this and pop out another sprog and your mother will get over herself." She shrugged. "Either that, or the world's ending."

There was a lot in between those two options that I didn't want to think about.

"You're not worried," I observed. I tossed the necklace onto the far side of the sofa, close enough for Luke to reach out and grab it from his bed. "Aren't you going to do something about it?"

"Why must I do anything?" Rhea buzzed, an odd little smile on her face. "With eyes like that, I thought you'd be familiar with your mother's favorite saying. Everything ends."

Mom did have a favorite saying. Everything comes to an end.

Eventually.

I forgot. Rhea was my cousin, but humans weren't really people to her.

They were defective.

She can't be as worried about my father as I was, because a fully realized Matriarch of Swarms in the flesh?

She'd kill him herself.

It was hard to concentrate on the cartoons after that. I ate what I could stomach and sipped my lemon water. Stallone let me scratch his chin during the commercials. Luke slept on. I was able to get out of my chair and stretch my legs a little.

Stallone escorted me to the bathroom because I think he was afraid I was going to fall down and break my neck. I came back and went to the window and opened the curtains up wide, so that I could look out into the void dominating the night sky.

No sun, no moon.

Gods fade, I reminded myself. Things rotted and broke down. People got sick and they got old. They got hurt. Nothing is forever.

I wrapped Rhea's pendant around Luke's wrist. As soon as it settled, he hissed and shifted around a little in his bed. I froze and kept my eyes on him, but it was a false alarm. I went back to my chair. Stallone made a deep, growling 'mmrp' sound. It sounded like a question.

"We're good," I said.

I took off my glasses. Without them, the house was an overgrown pile of rubble. Stallone was a big Lion King with his ribs exposed from the wound that killed him. Luke's ghost gasped as he stared at me, pleading, mouth moving with words no one could hear as something pulled the dark claw back through his chest.

Even stars die.

It wasn't comforting.

Mom? I threw out in her general direction. For a moment I thought…

No.

There was nothing.

_______________________​

Luke woke up like I did.

Gasping, panting like he had run a thousand miles at a sprint with his arms flailing like he was trying to ward something away. It scared me half to death. I actually dropped my Gameboy Advance and it bounced painfully off my knee then hit the floor with a thud.

Luke flinched at the sound. I think he tried to sit up, but pulled on his wound. He flinched again harder, almost convulsing, before he fell back into his bed.

"Luke?" I tried.

For too long, there was just his harsh breathing breaking into the soft murmurs of the television.

"Perce…?" He whispered. I don't know if he dropped the EE sound on purpose, or if all he could manage was the initial puff of air.

"Yeah, I'm here."

His lips moved soundlessly and my chest hurt.

"I'm alive," he gasped. "That's good."

"That's great."

"Yeah," he breathed.

Then he passed right back out.

The second time Luke woke up didn't really count. I don't think he was lucid.

I hoped he wasn't.

He was sitting up in his bed, one arm crossed over his chest to painfully clutch at the vivid blood red scar on his neck. He was very pale, almost see through and his blond hair was plastered over his scalp with sweat. Rhea had put him in a chiton too, this one a dark green with gold lions prancing on the collar.

"What were you thinking, Thalia?"

I don't look like a girl.

I don't think I do.

Alecto called me pretty but she was being mean.

I think.

Sam was never hearing about this.

"You blew off a god that wanted to help you?"

"Are you blaming me for not leaving you to die?" I threw my second twinkie at his head. He didn't catch it either. "I would have had to leave Art - Annabeth behind too and you know I couldn't do that!"

Luke made a frustrated sound, shaking his head back and forth. I don't know if I was imagining things, but his eyes didn't seem as blue as before. A paler, cloudy blue instead of sapphire.

"Fine," he grumbled. He inspected the twinkie. "Are we safe here?"

"This is Rhea's place," I told him. "She saved us."

His face went slack.

"Luke?"

He was silent. He laid back down and let out a shaky, watery sigh.

"She answered?" He said in a very small voice that cracked. The twinkie was crushed to a pulp in his fist. I regretted giving it to him. "She saved us?"

"She did," I said quietly.

His expression crumpled.

"The Queen of the Titans answers," Luke said, hiking his bed sheet up over his head as he turned away. "And my father won't."

"When did you ask her to help?" I asked. Now that I thought about it, didn't Rhea say she'd hear me because I was family, but Luke had to get her attention? I could still remember the rattling exhale in my ear before Luke said, 'Now would be good.'

She must have been prepared to answer him.

"Luke?"

He didn't answer.

Asleep again.

The third time Luke woke up, Stallone was kind of sitting on Artemis.

"Atalanta, please!" The bunny struggled from under the cub's front paws. Turns out, Atalanta, the former Arcadian princess, was Stallone's mom. She wised up to where he was spending his grounding. In hindsight, I should have expected it because Cartoon Network wasn't exactly standard practice in a zoo.

"You cannot still be holding Meleager against me - " A growl. "Fine! I apologize! Again. Get your son off me!"

In my defense, Sam's an ordinary tabby cat and he potty trained me.

I was two years old.

Mom had gotten into the habit of just vanishing my diapers when I needed to be changed and back then Dad was nonexistent.

Don't.

And don't tell me cats can't teleport either. I won't believe you.

I noticed Luke was awake when he made a confused noise. He was blinking owlishly with pale blue eyes as he slowly sat up. He was looking around the room with the flickering orange lettering on the walls, ratty sofa with two small cubs fighting over an equally ratty soccer ball on it and the big screen TV with one of the first episodes of Star Trek: Voyager playing like it was the first time he'd ever been inside of a house.

"Ignore Artemis," I said and ignored the indignant squawk of a rabbit who didn't like being groomed with a lion tongue. "She promised to behave."

Artemis shut up.

Luke looked even more confused. His eyes drifted over the lions and the rabbit before coming back to me. One of his hands drifted over his new scar. His voice was hoarse when he asked, "What happened?"

"You threw us out of a building," I deadpanned.

Luke blinked and then the corner of his mouth pulled into a self-satisfied smirk. "It worked, didn't it?"

I ignored that. "Rhea saved our asses."

He clearly didn't remember our last conversation. I was prepared for his emotions to take a hit again, but he just looked relieved. Maybe a little vindicated. He was a lot harder to read. I realized it was almost impossible to tell how deeply Luke felt until it all came out at once. He looked down at his chest and traced the ugly scar until it disappeared under his clothes.

"Hey, look, I match," Luke said darkly, briefly touching the scar on his face running down from his eye. "It's almost like Ladon didn't miss."

Wait.

What?

"Ladon?" I said, horrified. "When did you face that?"

Ladon, more commonly known to the Ancient Greeks as 'What The Actual Fuck' was this dragon - snake - lizard thing with literally one hundred heads, fifty tails, six legs tipped with obsidian claws, solid bronze scales, the deadliest venom on the planet, bad breath and the worst taste in goddesses.

Rhea says he got that from his father, Typhon and is convinced her nephew is only guarding that tree because he has a crush on Hera.

God knows why.

"Why'd you fight that?" If you stopped to count how many things would kill you, you'd be pretty much dead.

Luke smiled this razor thin smile that felt like it should cut someone. "I'm not surprised no one told you the details. It's rather embarrassing." He glanced at Artemis and the lions. I don't think he was talking about himself. "It was my Quest from Hermes, to steal a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides and return it to Olympus."

That was his Quest? The one he failed? The one that killed the previous Counselors of Ares and Athena?

Stealing from Hera?

"Weren't you sixteen?"

"I've been at Camp year-round for two years at that point. I had nothing but training and before that, I was surviving with Thalia until…you know," he reminded me, but that was not the point.

"He thought you could steal an apple at sixteen?" I was vaguely aware I was starting to hyperventilate. Everything was jumbled in my head. My thoughts were firing at a hundred miles per hour. That didn't make any sense. Everything I have ever learned about Hermes from Apollo, from meeting him when he ticketed my Mom and at Camp and how he left Luke, the strongest demigod at Camp Half-Blood in decades, if not centuries…

None of it made sense!

"Herakles was twenty seven!" I nearly shouted. "He needed help!"

"Exactly!" Luke said viciously. "After all the training I'd done, that was the best he could think up. A repeat. My heart wasn't in it." Then his face darkened. "Or maybe he was just trying to kill me."

I couldn't take it anymore.

I got up and in quick strides, I was at Luke's bed side. I reached out and grabbed his face.

"Percy - "

"Luke." I said, very seriously as he flailed. "Luuuuke."

"What?" He demanded, muffled as I pulled his cheeks.

"What happens…" I pinched his cheeks harder when he protested. "No. What happens if you eat the fucking golden apple!"

Hera would say her golden apple tree had been a wedding gift.

Technically.

And definitely not from Zeus. Because Odin knew arguing wouldn't do anyone any good and Iðunn, the Vanir of Eternity still had the rest of her garden. The apples were capable of giving a regular mortal a lifespan measured in millennia.

It could do more given to a demigod.

Luke froze.

"That's not - " He brushed my hands off. "I was supposed to take it back to Olympus," He snarled. "To come crawling on my knees for recognition and begging Hera not to smite me!"

Artemis made a sound.

I don't think she meant to, because she flinched as soon as our eyes fell on her.

"Artemis!" I barked. My stomach jumped, like it thought about doing something, but then went back to sleep. Stallone raised a paw and I snatched Artemis out from under him as she yelped. I held her in front of Luke's face, all four paws dangling with her ears flattened against her head. "Talk."

Her ears wiggled back and forth as she studied the hard, resentful snarl on Luke's face. She went limp, inflating like a rabbit balloon before letting it out in a wheezing bunny sigh.

"A successful thief keeps the spoils," she said softly. It wasn't official, but that was practically the oldest Law in the book. If you could take it, it's yours. From the soul of the deceased to the Master Bolt. "Hermes was punished for that Quest."

Luke froze again. His blue eyes went wide and there was confusion swimming in them.

"What - " He licked his lips. "What do you mean punished?"

"Do you not understand English?" She snarked and I shook her.

"Luke is your grandmother's guest, daughter of Zeus," I growled. I was not in the mood to entertain an asshat. "Behave."

In the background, Atalanta chuffed in approval as the bunny went limp again.

"The youngest of the Fates exposed him to the Inescapable," Artemis said dully and I felt my breath leave me in a whoosh. "The Quest could not be rescinded, but it would fail."

Luke looked up at me.

"What does that mean?"

"My sister," I began helplessly. Luke had no idea. The youngest of the Fate's threw Hermes at our sister? Atropos, the one who cuts the threads of life, punished Hermes.

For trying to make Luke immortal.

There was sulfur burning in the back of my throat.

The Fates were playing one of their games. They have never cared about anything else.

"She's…" I trailed off.

I shook the rabbit again.

"It is one of the worst punishments on Olympus," Artemis said automatically. "It is agony, every inch of you tears. A million knives slicing into you, flaying you and you can feel yourself hollow out." The monotonous tone of her voice drained my anger. I found myself gently putting her down on Luke's bed. Her silver eyes were unfocused. "You bleed, but you do not know from where. You scream with no voice. You cannot see it, but you can feel your pieces drift away."

I had the sinking feeling she was speaking from experience.

"Artemis?" I whispered.

Her eyes focused as she looked up at me.

Then she looked away.

"Athena was forbidden from assisting you," Artemis continued in a disinterested tone of voice.

Luke let out a strangled whisper. "What?"

Artemis' silver eyes found his blue. "My sister is not one for compassion, but she despises being in debt."

"Annabeth," Luke murmured. "Because I - I helped her daughter to Camp?"

"What else have you done of note?" Artemis sneered, but she dropped her head and ears as she hopped away from us to the end of the bed. And said in a much quieter voice, "I certainly did not."

Annabeth - Annabeth had been seven going on eight when she had been with Luke and Thalia on the streets, trying to make it to safety. Luke, the boy she refused.

Dereliction of duty.

I didn't like the picture my brain was putting together.

I felt sick.

"And knowing what I do now, I dodged an arrow!" Artemis chirped and Luke's fists clenched. "The Fates have their eye on you and it has never done anyone any favors getting in their way."

"You're lying," Luke declared.

"Why would I?" Artemis countered. "What reason have I to keep the secret? I can hardly be punished more."

Mom's judgment was final.

"Do you expect me to believe the only reason demigods are just abandoned is because the Fates told you to? Do I look that gullible?"

"Not all demigods," she said lazily. "Just you."

Luke's face flushed red, but then he thought of something. Or maybe he remembered something because then his eyes widened as his face went white. He turned to look at me, pleadingly, so much like his ghost it took my breath away.

He looked lost.

And like he was begging me to tell him it wasn't true.

I couldn't do that.

Nothing about Hermes' treatment of Luke made sense, until you considered the possibility that Hermes had no choice. And there was only one reason why Atropos, cutter of lifelines, would have an interest in keeping a random demigod mortal.

"The Fates - " I forced out of my mouth. "They are playing some kind of cruel game - I'm sorry, I don't know why they're like this - "

Artemis laughed at me.

"Have you forgotten who your mother is, boy?"

I turned on her, blood rushing in my ears, but when I went to take a step, Luke grabbed my arm. Rhea's lion charm dangled from his wrist.

He read it in my face.

There was only one reason Atropos would want to keep him mortal.

"The bathroom!" He gasped. His fingers dug into my arm. "I need - I need to - I'm going to - "

I pointed.

He bolted out of his bed.

As the door slammed behind him, I turned on Artemis.

"What is wrong with you!?" I yelled. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Stallone giving me worried looks.

"I merely did as you asked, my lord," Artemis spat. "It is hardly my fault you did not like the result."

"That's not what I mean and you know it," I hissed back.

"You cannot be so naïve as to not know what your mother did to me." Her voice hitched. "What this means!"

"So what?" I threw my hands up. "You're going to die, so you've got to be as bitter a cunt as you can imagine on your way out? Is that it?"

"Do not judge me - "

"You're supposed to be better!" I shouted.

Artemis shut her mouth with a click and her eyes went huge.

"You - you're supposed - " My chest hurt. It was hard to breathe. I was angry. At Mom. At myself. At Artemis. At Olympus. I was panicking because I was going to have to keep this rabbit with a death wish alive, but most of all, I was disappointed. "Apollo told me - "

I cut myself off.

Apollo told me a lot of things.

I had been a small little shit when I was younger and not in a good way. I didn't want mortal friends. I had no one but Apollo and a pet cat until Cliff nearly got me killed. I barely tolerated Dad and he tried. If my grandmother hadn't split Mom's lip with her knuckles, I don't think I would have liked my mortal grandparents either.

For a few years there, I was convinced Nana was an actual goddess and was just keeping it a secret.

I was a dumb kid.

Mom left.

On my seventh birthday, I failed a Test. A simple survival mission. Make it across New York State in time. I would get my birthday present and the whole weekend at the beach. It was supposed to be a graduation to the next stage of my training. The time limit was harsh, but we both knew I could do it.

But I met a street kid.

A demigod.

She didn't know. Brown haired with a large blue hoodie and tattered jeans and sneakers. A few years older than me and thought she was going crazy, being paranoid about being followed by monsters. She saw me kill the Cyclops and insisted on sticking around for a little bit. Just to the train station. By then, I already knew about Camp Half-Blood.

Would've. Could've. Should've.

I didn't.

By the time I changed my mind and went back to where I last saw her to see if I could help, she was already gone. The only thing I found was a blood stained large blue hoodie I hoped wasn't hers.

I still hope it wasn't.

I was four or five hours late.

Mom looked at me stumbling into the clearing like she didn't know who I was.

Then she was gone.

Dad got off work and got worried and came to find me. I'd been left in the woods and was too devastated to even think about moving. I kept hoping she would come back. I napped in a tree to keep out of reach of Hellhounds when it got too dark to see.

If Mom hadn't left and if Apollo hadn't practically moved in, crashing on the couch to help Dad who tried…

If Artemis hadn't come across a crying eight year old boy and his small shattered galaxy globe while looking for her brother. He hadn't been there, because he and the boy had an argument just before. That maybe Apollo only stayed because he was scared of punishment, not because he actually cared about anyone.

The boy's father had bought the globe for him because he knew what his son's favorite memories of his mother were. After an entire year of single parenting, he was still trying. And in a fit of rage and grief, the boy broke it because it wasn't like his Dreams. The stars were dull.

'Boy, why are you crying?'

It was fake.

'Sounds like your father cares for you very much. Not every child is so fortunate. Here.'

He regretted breaking it, because he knew it wouldn't bring his mother back.

'I will admit to being partial to images of the night sky, but there is still something missing…'

And Artemis thought to enchant the globe after she fixed it, to make it sparkle and spin and glow warmly like it was real, like he held actual pulsing stars in the palms of his hands.

'Ah. There we go.'

Just to make him feel better.

"I want to believe you're still the person that would fix a child's broken toy just because they were crying," I said painfully. "I want to believe that's the real you and you're just - " I waved an arm. "Just playing along with the worst of Olympus because you don't want to rock the boat or are just scared of the consequences or something and I know I'm being stupid!"

She didn't remember when I met her again.

"I know I'm being stupid."

But it meant the universe to me.

"I want to believe you're just scared," I whispered.

Artemis said nothing.

Fine.

I'm done.

I went back to my recliner. I picked my Gameboy Advance up off the floor and blew my nose. Very faintly, I could hear Luke in the bathroom. I don't know if he was crying or throwing up. I had just loaded my save back up when a small auburn furball with a white cotton boll tail and silver eyes whispered,

"Terrified."

 

[Shujin]

F.A.Q
Q: What version of Greek mythology are you using for this story?
A: Most is going to follow Homer and Hesiod as that is what Riordanverse is built around, however neither Homer nor Hesiod are complete compendiums of all the Greek gods that have ever been referenced. Plato, Herodotus, Apollodurus, Socrates etc have all had something to say on divine genealogy and the truth of the matter is certain cults, like that of the Eleusinian Mysteries were famous, infamous or otherwise widespread with roots going back to Mycenaean and Minoan periods and Orphism was widely studied. So what I'm saying is, I'm using all of them.

At the same time.

Q: What pantheons are going to appear in An Undertow of Sand?
A: The main ones are the Greco-Roman, Norse, Egyptian and Celtic, but there will be plenty of cameos from other major religions such as Mespotamian, Hinduism, Shinto, Aztec and Native American with mentions of many more. If it can fit and works, it'll be there. It doesn't even have to be IRL mythology. I'm using Bloodborne too!

Q: But that means there are multiple gods for the same thing, like the sun. How does that work? What does that mean for the universe?
A: In general, physics and science are right. Gravity is a thing, stars are hot balls of gas and we really do have neighboring galaxies. It's just that our sun and moon are special cases. For the most part, it's a collective effort. Pantheons prioritize their people first, but Young Gods are dependent on humanity as a whole.

Q: Which Lovecraft Gods are going to appear?
A: I'm going to be sticking mostly to H.P Lovecraft works with some branching into the 'Lovecraft Circle' of August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith to fill in some of the gaps. H.P Lovecraft takes precedence if there are any contradictory portrayals.

Q: I don't remember half of these myths in the story. Are they all true?
A: If you don't remember something, it is either obscure AF or I changed it. A big part of the Cthulhu Mythos is the unknown and the concealed. Myths are no exception to this and the concept of 'mythological drift' is an in-universe detail. So is syncretism. Mythology itself is a game of telephone spanning thousands of years. Things are going to be different and be forgotten, sometimes deliberately.


Glossary:

Elder God: This term describes a 'complete existence.' A god-like being that comes by its power and longevity naturally and independently of anything or anyone else. It does not mean all-powerful, it does mean that if all of humanity up and died tomorrow, this category of beings would be completely unaffected and may not even notice.

Power and being are one and the same, making strength a matter of inheritance, like blue eyes or red hair. It is not uncommon that weak children are killed or otherwise discarded. In this way, 'demigod' children are mainly defined by the status of their second parent being mortal, as most are either too weak to properly express their heritage or can no longer be called 'human' at all.

A Name of an Elder God does not require humanity's recognition and like the god itself, are avatars completely independent of belief. And vice versa, any Names Given by humanity to an Elder God need not be acknowledged, but veneration is always accepted.

Star-spawn: Subcategory of Elder God. This is used as a slur by Percy to mean 'lesser' as a combination of 'star' and 'spawn.' The Earth Mother, Gaia and her daughter Rhea are referred to as 'star-spawns.'

Alien: Subcategory of Elder God. These are Elder Gods that were uninvolved with the initial formation of the various pantheons of Earth. Either by being isolated, fringe elements or by arriving later.

Spawn: Just as Elder Gods are independent, spawns are the exact opposite, being heavily, critically dependent on their progenitor for their existence. Most spawns are extensions of their progenitors made for a purpose, not fully independent beings, but this is not absolute. Spawns may be unaware of their status as sleeper agents and their dependence has made them akin to divine leeches. The term 'star-spawn' refers to a being so dependent on their betters, they may as well be parasites.

Young God: This term describes a 'dependent existence.' A god-like being that comes by its power and longevity artificially, usually by stealing or being empowered by something or someone else. An example in the story is of The Feast, a ritual ascension of consumed Elder Gods that served as the origin for many pantheons such as the Norse and Greek.

A Young Name manifests as aspects of the deity, embodying differing personality traits. It is possible for an otherwise weak, neglected or abandoned child of an Elder God to grow into a Young God instead. They would gain the strength to be useful, at the cost of dependence on humanity. If humanity died tomorrow, the withdrawal for Young Gods would be severe and often fatal.

Old God: This term describes the evolved state of a Young God, in which said god ritually consumes another Young God and 'replaces' them. True ascension, in which this process is less like additive surgical grafts and more like gene therapy to make the power inherent, requires the aid of an Elder God. Theoretically, a well built Old God would survive the erasure of humanity with their strength mostly intact.

Domain: A metaphysical sphere of influence descriptor. Details to come.

Name: A word or set of words by which a deity is known as or referred to. A Given Name refers to a Name granted to a deity by human belief, as opposed to one granted at birth by a parent or self-defined. Titles are Names granted to a god by other deities, usually in acknowledgement of deed or status.

Symbol of Power: An object that serves to augment a deity's power as a representation of their godhood. These can be self-created by pouring one's divinity into an object for the purpose of shaping it. A nature god can enhance their combat abilities by making a sword, or a prophetess creating a throne to reinforce control. In this way, a Symbol of Power is a pseudo-Name.

Self-creation is a high risk option, as if it is stolen or given away, the deity is left with whatever they managed to spare. A less risky option is to have an object crafted, in which the crafter sacrifices some of their power to augment the user multiplicatively. However, crafters with knowledge and willingness are rare. This is an option exclusive to Young Gods.

Demigod: The offspring of gods defined by their second parent being a mortal.

Legacy: Descendants of gods that keep some semblance of power. Young God legacies are inert after the third generation. Elder God legacies can theoretically last forever.

Demi-alien: A subcategory of Legacy belonging to Selene, the 'Titaness' of Radiance, Insanity and the Moon. They are also referred to as 'clear-sighted,' being immune to the concealment and hypnotic properties of the Mist due to their tendency to develop additional 'eyes.' Too much insight, and a clear-sighted person can go rabid.

 

[Shujin]

Fingers crossed this isn't terrible >.<

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction​

Dinner was awkward.

Artemis had clammed up after her confession when Luke came out of the bathroom, curling into a miserable ball of fluff with a huge lion tongue cowlick.

Luke didn't say anything either.

Back at Camp, I was used to hearing how the son of Hermes was a good looking guy from just about everyone from Aphrodite Cabin (Don't let Silena get started. You will never hear the end of it). A lot from Apollo Cabin too, some from Hephaestus and anyone with eyes could see Annabeth of Athena was in denial. But right now, his brow was etching wrinkles into his forehead as he frowned, like he was forty eight instead of eighteen. He looked worn out, exhausted and angry and still too pale. The scar on his face was a deep groove as he thought hard about something painful with reddened eyes that were still a little puffy.

Luke didn't look like the college aged kid with a bright future in front of him right now. He looked like he had just crawled out of a bombed refugee camp and realized the war would never end.

I pretended not to notice.

A tiny plate with a brownie slid across the table Rhea had dragged from the kitchen into our room to bump my arm. I looked up at Rhea. She raised an eyebrow with a silent question and jerked her head towards Luke, who was mechanically shoving the stuffed grape leaves into his mouth. I don't think he was even tasting the dolmades.

We made an odd picture. Two boys in chitons and bare feet like we were LARPing the Trojan War sitting at Rhea's rickety, chewed on table with a stack of travel postcards from all over Europe in the center weighed down by a porcelain ballerina. The radio was playing some boring song from the 50s over the smell of steamed grape leaves stuffed with minced lamb and chocolate brownies. Rhea herself was wearing some kind of college hoodie with a flattened red C shape and the letters ST in the middle and jean capris. It reminded me of Corey, because he had a similar hoodie and it reminded of Khione too. The only goddess I knew with a college degree.

I shrugged at my cousin. "My sisters are cunts."

I was trying to be nonchalant about it, because I didn't know what else to do. It wasn't like I could walk outside, Challenge the Fates on Luke's behalf and then beat them up. I'd get destroyed.

Mom wouldn't lift a finger if I did something that stupid.

There were a lot of things Mom wouldn't do anything about.

Sulfur was still burning in the back of my throat. The first day of our Quest, in the backseat of Argus' van, I said those exact words to Luke and Artemis. 'The Fates are cunts.' The moon rabbit had been alarmed, shuffling away from me like she was trying to get out of the blast radius.

Luke had laughed.

A lot can change in just a few days.

"Ah," Rhea said, frowning. She looked like she wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

I took a bite of my brownie.

"Umph!" Holy shit, it was good. "Wow."

Rhea perked up. "You like?"

"Yeah." I took a bigger bite. There were nuts and this gentle honey taste against the chocolate alongside some raisins and the white frosting. "You should definitely give Mom the recipe."

"Ha!" Rhea barked. "Yeah, I - " Her face went blank, almost the exact same way Mom's did when she was surprised. Like the guiding intelligence had just checked out for a second. Luke was staring at me too with his best chipmunk impression, cheeks full of food.

"Sorry," Rhea huffed. "Say what?"

I swallowed my brownie bite. "You should give my mother the recipe?"

"Yeah," Rhea sighed, then quietly grumbled. "That's what I thought you said." She sighed again, resigned to her own curiosity. "Your mother bakes?"

"It's a recent thing," I reassured them both. "It started in honor of Martha Stewart's prison sentence for tax evasion. I know," I said to Luke's constipated expression. "It was Dad's idea, he talked her into it."

You heard right. Dad talked Mom into putting on an apron and everything. She's gotten pretty good at it too. He gets her sense of humor, even when it bothers him. And he always seems to know what to say to get her to do things she wouldn't otherwise even think of doing. He's already a lawyer, so he tries not to use his superpowers for evil.

His words, not mine.

If you're wondering, my father is some kind of idiot savant.

Or just an idiot.

If he had been there in that clearing, I like to think Mom would have never left.

Rhea's mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes turned purple as she looked at me like this was the first time we've met. "Your mother actually raised you?"

It was my turn to eye her.

Kronos said the same thing.

"Yeah," I muttered. "She still is."

"Huh." She looked like her worldview had shifted a few degrees to the south. "With what Name?"

I thought about not answering.

There had to be a reason the Greek pantheon didn't know about The Mórrígan. I could say something vague and I knew Rhea would still get it. She might even be expecting me to after she realized how far behind on his education Apollo was, but honestly?

I wasn't interested in keeping Luke in the dark about anything anymore. Between Olympus' revisionist history and neglect and my own family, he's had enough of that.

And maybe I didn't care as much about Mom's reasons.

I shrugged and picked at the dolmades still on my dinner plate. "Celtic."

"Celtic?" Rhea repeated incredulously. I watched Luke's blue eyes widen, and then narrow as he figured it out. "Isn't that the one with The Hunter - why would she even - never mind," Rhea said abruptly. She made this strange pained expression that looked a lot like Mom's Quantum Stupid face. Even with the bug eyes, you could really see the family resemblance.

"Answered my own question," Rhea groaned down at the kitchen table, hands pressed against her temples. "She's incapable of not being a shit."

"The Hunter?" I asked. They must be a pretty big deal if Rhea thought their presence in a pantheon was a deal breaker, but Mom never mentioned anyone like that.

Rhea didn't answer immediately. Her eyes shifted to a deep sapphire color as she picked up our dinner plates.

"The Hunter?" I pressed.

"Someone who really doesn't like your mother and strong enough to actually do something about it," she admitted and I reeled a little. Strong enough to do something about it is pretty damn strong. What kind of Hunter can stand up to Fate? "If she hasn't told you, then I guess there's safety in ignorance?"

"I guess," I muttered. I was used to that. Safety in ignorance. I only knew two of Mom's Names for my own safety, even if I knew of a third now. Her Egyptian one. The Black Pharaoh. "Did she do something to them? Are they feuding then?"

Mom was of the opinion that only cowards and the weak took their anger out on their enemies' children instead, but not everyone would agree with her. If a god gave a shit about their family at all, attacking their weaker consort or kids might look like a good idea. And if Mom was speaking from personal experience?

That was.

Not great.

"Fuck if I know," Rhea said unhelpfully. "Ask her?"

She disappeared back into the kitchen.

I nibbled on my brownie.

"You don't have two mothers," Luke said over the radio commercial and I cringed at the odd tone in his voice. "You have one."

"Yeah," I said quietly. I felt weirdly ashamed. "I have one."

'Luke seems okay with you,' I remembered Castor telling me way back when at Camp Half-Blood, right before he and his brother told me that the 'summer camp' for Greek half-bloods was an orphanage. That no one really had both of their parents. 'But he remembers his Pa walking out.'

Luke's lips curled into a faint sneer as he shoved his own brownie plate around a little. "So it was all sunshine and roses for you, then."

"She left once because I wasn't good enough. For a year." Well, I'm pathetic. Luke's Dad never came back and he just learned why and I'm whining about a single year? Why did I even say that?

"But, yeah," I finished lamely.

Even when she was gone, I still had Apollo that year. Being my big brother 24/7.

But his mortal alias Fred was only at Camp Half-Blood a few times a week for his own children.

Sunshine and roses.

Luke's pale blue eyes flickered over me. "She's the one who trained you, then?" When I nodded, he frowned harder. "I knew something was off. Too defensive for self-taught, better at dealing with opponents with more reach and strength than you."

"Her Celtic Name is a War goddess," I offered tentatively. "She uses a spear and magic."

"And too high of a pain tolerance," he finished. "You broke your arm the first time you broke the Climbing Wall."

I blinked.

"Uh, yeah?"

"You didn't notice until later."

I shrugged. "Heal fast."

Back home, if I really needed it, I could count on either Mom or Apollo to do something about my boo boos. Preferably before Dad freaked out and called 9-1-1.

Luke made a half-snorting sound that was more like a harsh exhale through his nose. "And did your mother train that into you too?"

I wasn't going to complain about it. If Mom hadn't taught me how to not freeze in a fight just because I got hurt, I would be dead at least four times over by now. She never went further than breaking my leg because I was too slow, but that was the last lesson on pain tolerance and she never did it again.

I shook my head, frowning. "Only when she had to."

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Only when she had to," he repeated softly. "You know, a lot of things about you make more sense now, but a lot still doesn't. If you are being raised by your mother, why is she making you learn how to fight monsters?"

I opened my mouth, but had to close it.

My first instinct was to say that I was a demigod. Killing monsters was what we do, so she made sure I was good at it.

But why?

It wasn't like Mom needed me to protect her.

'What need does She Who Stalks Stars have of this dirt?' Kronos had asked me.

I don't know.

I punched Grover my first day at Camp. We're cool now, but at the time, I was angry at being confiscated by Hermes like some kind of Olympus Child Protection Services case. I didn't need protection, I thought then. I had my mother.

But she did make me fight monsters.

And this one undead Egyptian sorcerer jerkass.

Long story.

It's how I met Cliff.

Luke poked at his dinner. "Demigods are always hunted by monsters and your mother - "

"Only Olympic demigods!" I blurted out.

His eyes snapped up to me.

The Curse of Lamia, the nasty piece of work cast by a monster child of Hecate, the Titaness of Magic is what lets nature spirits and monsters sniff Greek half-bloods out from the middle of a crowd. It was Hera's version of mercy. She washes her hands of Olympic demigods forever. The mortal relatives were off limits. No more divine revenge on the affront to her Domain, but if the half-blood was not strong enough, fast enough, lucky enough…

They'll die anyway.

Olympic demigods.

Time. The Night. The Pit.

Fate.

They are above Olympus.

The Curse should have meant nothing to me, but I've been chased by way too many Hellhounds, Cyclops and demon birds for that to be true. And even if there was something funky going on with the Curse, it should have been trivial for Mom to get rid of it. Through magic of her own or just brute force.

Mom plans ahead, but that doesn't mean I know what those plans are.

"Only Olympic demigods," Luke said slowly in a very, very quiet tone of voice. "...only us."

I sat in my chair stiffly, mangling my napkin. I couldn't think of anything to say that would help.

"Maybe some of them…care," Luke drawled finally. "But that doesn't mean it's for the right reasons, or that they care like they should. My father - " His voice broke for a split second. "I had to blackmail him into helping the rest of his children in our Cabin while I was gone - " He was almost panting as his face flooded with hurt. "I had - I had to - " He savagely bit into a dolmades and mumbled. "He's still a piece of shit."

"Are we talking about my children?" Rhea asked as she came back from the kitchen, balancing a tray of drinks. "Because my bad."

"Grandchildren," Luke corrected her sullenly.

"I take it back." Rhea said immediately and refilled his dinner plate. "Not my fault, innocent until proven guilty."

"You're a little guilty," I said, just to be a little shit.

I really wasn't looking forward to having to travel the whole United States looking for a fucking god weapon during the Night with one demigod and a rabbit.

Yeah, Rhea was helping, but…

That wrapped donut still stung.

My cousin gave me the stink eye. "My children had no choice in how they were raised, but they should know better in how they treat their children. I made sure they knew." She passed me the drink, some kind of punch, but I could tell Luke's had nectar mixed in. "Especially Hera."

Rhea didn't sound angry, just disappointed.

"You tried?" Luke sounded surprised.

"I fucking tried!" Zeus' mother threw up her hands. The drink tray went flying and disappeared before it hit the wall. "Advice, warnings, fostering, throwing problem grandchildren at other people when I couldn't figure out their shit, everything. Didn't I?" Rhea turned her head and her voice had a sudden deep hum running underneath it that rattled my bones and made my stomach clench painfully. "Artemis."

The moon rabbit on the floor flinched, before slowly uncurling from her ball.

"You did," the rabbit croaked.

"And now Selene's dead," Rhea said tersely and Artemis flinched again. That made me wonder if Artemis' inheritance was a sore spot for the Titan Queen. Rhea didn't say she couldn't do anything for Artemis and she'd used Selene against the rabbit before. "Maybe. Probably."

"Maybe?" I repeated incredulously.

Artemis had the chariot and the new duty as a mirror of our sun, but the previous Titaness of Radiance, Insanity and the Moon Selene's calcified corpse still hung around in our night sky. Most of her really was a crater-scarred orb of rock and bone dust. The Mist didn't need to do much, but on a full moon, sometimes I looked up and could see right into her open eye.

I didn't do that often.

"Nobody knows," Rhea answered, sounding tired. Luke was looking back and forth between us. As the saying goes, there was a story there. I knew of it, but didn't really know it.

Apollo didn't like talking about how they got their chariots. He would always blame the Romans, but we both know that wasn't true.

"What happened, happened, but even as - " Rhea made a vague waving motion around her head with a hand. "Gone, she still did right by a Young goddess of the Hunt in the end." Rhea's voice was tight and sad, her eyes turning a poisonous yellow color. "Just because I asked her to."

"...I'm sorry," Artemis whispered.

Luke choked on his drink as Rhea's eyebrows flew up into her dark hairline.

"...what?"

"I'm sorry," Artemis said, louder, but not stronger. The former goddess' voice was so brittle, like she was about to cry and her small form was trembling. "I - I am sorry. You tried, you warned me about my Domain and I didn't listen and I don't - I don't - " Big, fat tears welled up in the rabbit's eyes. "I don't want to die."

Artemis sniffled.

"I - I don't want - I'm so sorry! I tried to be better!" Artemis cried as Rhea looked more and more disappointed. "I was getting better! I don't want to die! I'm not - I'm not ready. I tried. Why - why doesn't it matter?"

"Oh," her grandmother finally breathed out, softly walking over to scoop the rabbit up in her arms. "You poor, naive child…"

"I don't want to go - " The rabbit's paws gripped the hoodie desperately. "Please, I don't want to go, I tried, I'm not ready! Μάμμη!" She cried out, slipping completely into Ancient Greek. Grandma. "I don't want to go! I'm not ready for it to end!"

Everything ends, I thought.

Rhea left the room, whispering gently as Artemis openly sobbed into her college hoodie.

I don't want to go!

Luke let out a shaky snort. "No wonder she usually looks like she's twelve."

"I resemble that remark," I said.

"Mhm."

"Oy."

I threw my crumpled napkin at him.

I don't want to go!

Luke slowly started on his plate of seconds, taking sips of his drink between bites. I guess he had been starving, being unconscious for over a day. He needed the resources. I felt something nudge my arm from the opposite side and when I looked down, Atalanta was at my elbow. The lion's sorrowful golden eyes looked at me for a long moment.

I don't know what she was trying to tell me and I don't know what I wanted her to say either. The moment passed and she slowly herded her stubborn cubs from the room.

I don't want to go!

I pushed my brownie plate away. I didn't feel like finishing it.

Luke had finished eating and drained his cup by the time Rhea came back sans bunny.

"Sleeping," she said shortly with a complicated expression on her face. "How's your arm doing?" She asked Luke. "Range of motion?"

He windmilled his arm for her, wincing when he tried to lift his arm over his shoulder. After the nectar, the ugly scar had healed a bit so it was more of an angry dark pink ropy scar instead of a blood red line of scabbing and ripped skin.

Rhea made a clicking sound as she knelt by him. The writing on the walls lit up as that smokeless fire flickered at the ends of her fingers. My stomach felt like someone had dropped a rock into it. I held my breath on reflex, but I wasn't going to throw up. Hopefully, that meant I was getting over my god flu.

" - and when you meet him again," Rhea was telling Luke quietly as she reopened a part of his shoulder wound. "You can report that my debt has been paid. One intervention, as agreed."

"I can still - "

"I am not my father, taking advantage of desperation." She cut off his whispered protest. "A vow like that isn't until the end of your life."

I wondered what they were talking about. I almost asked, but my Nana went through a lot of effort making sure I had a basic sometimes-working filter on my ADHD mouth.

Unlike my mother.

If it wasn't any of my business, then it wasn't any of my business. I was guessing it had something to do with how he was able to get Rhea to help. I was family, but Luke had to get her attention. I was still curious, but watching him look away from her, clenching his fists, I didn't want to push him.

"Ah ha," Rhea exclaimed and pulled something from his shoulder. At first, I thought that maybe she extracted a bone fragment that was giving him trouble, but what she pulled out was long, thin, black as midnight. Pinched between her fingers, it looked like it was breathing. I think it even wriggled.

"What is that?" Luke looked spooked. I didn't blame him. It looked nasty and it had been in his shoulder.

"Hm?" Rhea said absently as she stood up, inspecting the black splinter. "Hair off the dog that bit you, pretty sure," she said, looking a bit disgusted. "Desecrated as they are, the Hunters still remember how to hunt."

Ice ran down my spine.

"It's Night," I said immediately and alarm flashed over Luke's face. "It - she can't just use the darkness to get here, can she?"

Because if Mom throwing a tantrum at Night meant that our safety net actually meant nothing…

I was going to be furious.

Rhea's lips pursed.

"Only those of my sister have that ability, so I'm gonna say no." She waved a hand and our clothes, clean and folded, fell onto the table in front of us. "But you should leave, sooner rather than later. I will keep this here, but I don't expect it to fool her for long."

"Thank you," Luke said sincerely, reaching out for his red vest and jeans. "For everything, Lady Rhea."

"Yeah, well." The Titan Queen shrugged "It's the least I can do. And - " She gave us a sad, resigned smile. "I would appreciate it, if you can give my granddaughter an hour to…recover."

"We can do that," I said quickly, ahead of Luke.

I thought he was going to refuse. I think he wanted to, but pressed his lips together before letting out an exasperated sigh, "Yeah, sure. We can sleep after the sun comes up, or something."

Oh, I thought.

Rhea raised an eyebrow at me and jerked her head towards Luke as a silent question.

Shit.

"Right…" I began slowly. Luke had absolutely no idea. "About that."

I floundered.

I had an hour to cram all the relevant information I learned over twelve years into Luke's head before we walked out that door and got ourselves killed.

My cousin snorted and abandoned me, leaving the room with a mocking wiggle of her fingers as Luke looked at me expectantly.

"About what? The sun?"

"I - okay." Don't panic. First rule. Don't panic. I dragged a hand down my face. Where do I even begin? "My mother and my - " Sister-in-law, cousin, aunt? Aunt. Aunty Nyx.

…would Tartarus let me call him Uncle?

Focus.

Important shit first:

It's not my fault.

"My mother and Aunt Night are mad at each other so Night's more active. Paying attention. That's making her realm bleed through so the sun - " I rushed through the rest. "The sun isn't going to rise until she…stops that?"

Luke stared at me blankly. Then he glanced behind me towards the window. "So when you say Night…"

"The protogenoi." The Primordial Night. "It means - it means a lot more monsters and I'm not talking about Night's Hellhound pups." I licked my lips. Fuck, Mom. You couldn't just let it go? I'm fine.

Why couldn't you let it go?

"Ancient monsters. From the Pit and beyond slipping through the cracks. It's affecting the mortals too." I pointed at his wrist where the lion charm dangled. "Rhea gave you that so you could talk - remember when Mom Claimed me and the sound kind of died?"

He nodded jerkily.

"Yeah, but for everyone. And we're going to have to be real careful with sleeping, because Hypnos is grounded so if you wander too far, something will eat you and if you ever feel yourself falling down while sleeping - "

"I better wake up," Luke said shakily. His blue eyes were starting to widen with fear. "I know. The Pit - " He swallowed thickly. "I know."

"Okay." I tried to swallow my heart back down. "Okay." Most people just jerk awake by instinct. If Luke knows without being told that falling down in your sleep meant you reached the Pit… "How good are you at Dreaming?"

"I can control it." Some emotion flashed over his face. Then he slowly continued. "Travel a bit. Change shape. Evade the Dream spirits."

Hermes Oneiropompus, Conductor of Dreams. Luke was up to five Names inherited from his father, but at least now I knew why. Hermes wanted Luke.

He just wasn't allowed to keep him.

"So if I say 'stay close to me' while you're Dreaming, you can?"

"I can," he said quietly.

"Good." I found myself rubbing the back of my neck.

Some of the things I learned, like Wards and Signs, weren't something I needed to use just to get rid of some man-eating sheep. Most monsters were far too stupid and weak to do more than hit you really hard with something. Or bite you. A rare few, like sirens or Artemis' former Hunter, could do more, but the average monster wasn't something you needed to Ward your soul from.

You just needed to worry about them killing you.

Big difference.

And Signs?

Signs only worked on those that weren't native to this reality.

In Dungeons and Dragons terms, they were variations of the Dismissal spell on Outsiders. Force one extraplanar creature right the fuck back home with a Will saving throw.

Or at least make it wish it was back home.

I was going to need them now. I found myself wondering what Mom foresaw me needing them for, but if I started going down that rabbit hole (did Mom know she wouldn't know what Night did and anticipated losing her temper by being surprised? How?) I don't think I'd come up for air anytime soon.

Here's to hoping Mom didn't pass me with a D- on those like she did my Sensitivity.

Because that would suck.

A lot.

"What kind of monsters can we expect?"

"I… can't answer that," I admitted painfully. "We can come across anything from the Pit and with the Stirring going on - "

"What?" Luke asked sharply.

I blinked.

Holy shit, they weren't even taught about that?

But fighting monsters is what demigods do.
.
"The Stirring. Great Stirring, whatever." I flapped my hand. "The Pit kind of…turns over in his sleep or something every ten or so thousand years. Monsters that haven't even been seen in eight or twelve thousand years start reforming and can find ways out to the surface."

Luke had an unreadable look on his face as he stared at me.

"...and that's happening now?"

"It'll reach a peak in…" I tried to remember my mother's timeline for my Uncle Pit. Shit. I can't. Soon. "Maybe five years? Some monsters start reforming early. I don't know how early, but just - be prepared for it?" Luke's face was pinched and he was clutching his clothes to him with white knuckles. "And not all monsters come from the Pit either," I finished quietly. "There are other pantheons, remember?"

A muscle jumped in his jaw. He remembered.

Greek monsters hunted Olympic demigods thanks to the Curse. That didn't mean the demigods of other pantheons were safe from the horrors of their own mythology. Or that we were safe from them.

"I can't tell you what to expect."

For a long while, we just stared at each other.

"Ok-ay." Luke's voice cracked. His blank mask crumbled as he bent over the table, a death grip on his red vest and yellow fanny pack, until he was just an overwhelmed demigod realizing how far in over his head he really was. "I - just - just give me a few minutes. Please."

I jumped up from the table like my seat was on fire.

"Sure, I'll just be - uh, over there."

I escaped to the other side of the room. Turning on the TV or playing my Gameboy did not appeal to me right now. My throat was still burning. My stomach didn't feel great. It felt like it was trying to open, but it had been stitched shut. I found myself looking out the window instead. Maybe I was hoping that Night had proved herself more responsible than my mother in the past half hour and I wouldn't have a bunch of bullshit ahead of me.

Wishful thinking.

The night sky was still a void. The lights from the house only extended just enough to show impossibly dark shadows of Rhea's crap still in her front yard and driveway.

Fuck.

I had a bunch of bullshit ahead of me.

When we returned to Olympus with the Master Bolt, I was absolutely going to make Zeus bleed for it.

When.

Think positive.

I let the curtains fall back into place -

Wait.

I opened the curtain again. I thought I saw movement. I expected some kind of monster to be probing the edges of Rhea's barrier wards. I half-expected to see Aura's ugly, pissed off mug out there, because that was my luck.

Instead, a small black bird fluttered into the square of light spilling weakly from the window.

A raven.

Its black beak clacked noiselessly and I watched a third eye open up on its forehead.

"Mom?" I whispered.

It stretched its wings triumphantly and bobbed its head. Then it hopped out of sight.

I scrambled back from the window.

Mom.

I ran out of the room in a mad dash for the front door. I passed Rhea who had something in her hands and maybe she tried to say something, but I wasn't paying attention. I yanked the door open and maybe it had been locked because I heard something break before my bare feet hit the concrete front step.

"Lil cuz, what's - " Rhea gasped as the black haired woman stepped into the light. The Titan Queen immediately threw herself to the ground. Hands outstretched as if begging for mercy, face down.

"Great One," she breathed.

Mom looked the same way she always did. Pale with freckles across the bridge of her nose, long dark feathered hair that went down to her back. The Morrigan was just in a white blouse and slim jeans with dress shoes. A silver pendant hung from her neck.

But something was still wrong.

It was her eyes, I realized after a second of staring. Where I once saw a fractal gaze of violent death, there was nothing. As if her eye sockets were empty. There were stars in them.

The Names of an Elder God were avatars. They were always there.

"Mom?" I ventured, taking a step forward.

She recoiled.

"...who interfered this time," she said distantly, an unreadable expression on her face.

I was suddenly terrified for my half-brother, Erebus.

"Mom - Mom don't be mad, he helped - "

"He." She looked at me like she was seeing right through me. "He?" She hissed. "You will tell me who - "

I risked talking over her. "He helped, I would have died if he didn't - "

"I take my eyes off you for a second - "

"It's been two days!" I yelled at her and Mom stopped mid tirade. "It's been - Rhea," I turned to my cousin and a sick feeling coiled in my stomach when she flinched away from me. "How long has it - " Why was she still on the ground? "You can stand up," I said quickly. "Please stand up."

It reminded me of that first night at Camp Half-Blood, with all the Campers and Dionysus, god of Olympus being made to bow.

Mom was looking at me like she didn't know who I was.

My throat was tight.

"Rhea's my cousin," I pointed out weakly. "My first cousin. She can stand."

My words hung in the air between us like a dead cat. I watched my mother's brow wrinkle slightly as the stars in her eyes flared, and then dulled. A few winked out.

Mom tilted her head towards the Matriarch of Swarms.

"You can stand," she told her softly. At first Rhea's hands pulled back. She froze, or maybe she was waiting for a reaction and when nothing happened, she sat up. I didn't like the bewildered, fearful look she was giving me.

"I have a very…" Mom's lips turned up in a strange smile. "...compassionate son."

"You must have broken a few laws of nature birthing him." Rhea quipped. She immediately flinched, looking like she was a second from throwing herself back onto the ground.

The Mórrígan smiled wider. "You have… no idea."

"Um," I said.

"Of course," Mom nodded at me like I said something profound. "I will inform your father of your change in status. He'll be overjoyed."

Rhea flushed red and then went white as all the blood drained from her face.

I'm guessing that's a bad thing.

"Wait, Mom - "

"Do you still want it?" It was her turn to talk over me. Her voice was like silk as she took a step closer. I fought the urge to go right back into the house and she wasn't even looking at me. "You have distinguished yourself in that mess a while back, haven't you? You have helped my son and that deserves…something, doesn't it? You already have my patronage. Your father's. And you know your place."

"Mom!" My sharp tone cut through the strange tension. My mother blinked slowly and then stepped back.

"If I may?" Rhea wasted no time in asking.

"Go."

I was left alone on the front step.

My heart was jack hammering. I was a strange kind of numb. I was feeling a lot of things, but they only registered as flashes of emotion breaking out of this high strung fight or flight adrenaline rush and I hadn't chosen one yet. I didn't want to run. This was my mother.

"It's been two days."

And I've had enough of her shit.

I chose fight.

"You nearly threw me into the Beyond when you got mad and abandoned me for two days. I prayed to you and you didn't answer. For two days."

Mom's face fell.

"I…I didn't - "

"Mean to, I know." I said. "But you still did it." An ugly suspicion rose in my mind. "I bet you didn't even check on Dad either."

Her head jerked in a strange way, like she forgot her body had a spine for a second. The thumb on her right hand started twisting her wedding ring. "He's…he should be - "

"It's okay. He was home. I'm sure Apollo picked up the slack."

She eyed me warily.

"You are…angry with me."

"Fucking furious," I bit out. "You know about Luke, don't you?"

"Yes," Mom said easily. She didn't need to ask what I was talking about and that just made me angrier. "It would be impossible not to." Mom almost smiled. "Sloppy work. Your sisters cut some corners. Overreached."

'I suppose it had to happen eventually,' Rhea had said when she heard the Great Prophecy. 'An overreach.'

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You say that," Mom said slowly. "As if you expected me to care about dust."

It was different with Mom. The expectation for gods like Artemis or Apollo to be human just wasn't there. Most of the time, she followed Dad's moral compass. But sometimes, I got the feeling that she was like a sentient black hole aping right from wrong.

She knows I noticed.

"You sisters' machinations only concern me when they involve you."

I was almost too angry to be confused. "But - I drew a Prophecy. Hermes, God of Thieves card." Mom didn't say anything. She just watched me and I felt my confidence wither a little. "You gave me a Quest."

A very small frown formed on her face.

"You needed a thief. Their plans for the demigod of Hermes are irrelevant," she said softly and I felt my stomach drop. "You could have argued for his father. He has immortal children that could have taken his place. Prophecies mean what you think they mean." Her star-filled gaze pierced right through me. "It would have made no difference to me."

"I gave him my boon," I said like I was swinging a sword at her head. "By the way."

Her eyes narrowed immediately. "When?"

I only got a few words into the explanation of 'after getting off Nemesis' crazy train and the monster attack' before Mom let out a frustrated half-scream, stalking first in one direction and then back in angry pacing.

"That is - that is fine," she gritted out with clenched teeth. "I should have expected it after you changed things when you turned seven. It's fine. That's…minor, really. I can adjust. We have time! I can - "

"Mom," I stopped her. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She opened her mouth, but I held up a hand and stepped off the concrete front step.

"You've got - I know you've got some kind of plan," I continued. "Some kind of roadmap or goal and I have no idea what it is. You need me to do something, but I'm left in the dark and you just - you flipped your shit over the Night - "

The stars in her eyes flared. "She interfered - "

"Why does that matter - "

"She ruined everything!" Mom spun on her heel, flinging her hands out like she was going to wring Night's neck all over again. "She altered the very composition of your soul, curbed your appetite! And I needed - "

Sudden silence.

I felt like there was supposed to be a cartoon record scratch right now, but I wasn't laughing.

"Needed?"

A shudder ran up and down Mom's back.

"Yes," she whispered. Her shoulders shook. "...walk with me." She started walking.

I followed, uneasy.

Needed.

She led us down the overgrown gravel road leading from Rhea's house down to the cold Mississippi beach. Without the sun, there was a cold wind blowing, making me break out in goosebumps. It didn't feel like it was the middle of June. I could only see by the soft light coming off my mother's silver pendant. Before everything, it wouldn't have mattered that it was Night and we were in a strange place and I was (weirdly) sick, because I knew Mom would keep me safe.

My chest hurt, like something deep inside was breaking apart.

We stopped at the shore.

"Mom?" I asked as she picked up a pebble and flung it out onto the cold, dark waves.

"When you were born," she began. "You exceeded my wildest hopes. You could never disappoint me, not even in failure."

It wasn't as comforting as the first time I heard her say that. I frowned, wondering where she was going with this. "Because I took after granddad."

"I could not be more pleased with you," she whispered, still looking out at the water. "Adrasteia was my first child. She was made for a purpose and without me she will cease to exist."

"She's - " I started, surprised.

"Yes."

I swallowed, hard. Mom kept my eldest sibling alive like a cat keeps a tick alive. I heard from Erebus and Aether. The Fates tried to have me killed, twice. My eldest sibling had always been a mystery. She Named Athena, but that was it. In the divine world, I don't think she even counted as a separate sentient being. More like a semi-independent Name. It was where the term 'star-spawn' came from.

Not a person.

I'm not a spawn.

But Adrasteia is.

"She inherited all the wrong things, or perhaps, it was not possible for her to inherit the right things. She failed me." Mom threw another stone. "I tried again. True children, split into three to limit their strength." She sighed, shoulders slumping. "And it turns out, I needn't have bothered with that."

"Mom - "

She shushed me.

"I turned to Time, so that wouldn't happen again, and it didn't. Erebus was a disappointment in other ways, an even split between the two of us in inheritance. Useless," she snarled. "A sweet child. Also an utter waste - but Aether." Her voice picked up as she found another rock and rolled it around in her hands. "Aether took after your grandfather too. Brilliantly. Strong and free."

Her face twisted.

"And impatient." She glanced at me, uncomfortable. "Put me off birthing any more children for a very long time."

I was so amazed by Mom actually bothering to filter that I had to ask.

"What did he do?"

"Ate his way out."

"Oh."

I regret asking.

"Yes…" Her eyes turned away. "And then there is you, my perfect little boy."

I clenched my jaw.

I wasn't stupid.

She didn't mean 'perfect' as a form of endearment this time.

Maybe she never did.

She had my siblings for a reason. She wanted them to be a certain way. She had me for a reason.

"Why did you have me?" I asked quietly.

Mom let out a long, weary sounding sigh. The waves rolled in soundlessly and drained back out.

"What am I, Perseus?" she asked, just as quietly.

"Fate."

"Hm." It was almost a soft snort. "A half-blood child of the eldest gods," she quoted. "And Prophecies always come true."

I felt like my heart had a wooden splinter shoved right through it.

"You had to have me?"

"Oh, Percy," she said quickly, kneeling down in front of me and gripping me around the shoulders. "I chose you. You would have always been mine, but I. Chose. I did not have to raise you, I wanted to. I chose Dorian for you."

A piece of my stomach unclenched. I could have been like the orphans at Camp Half-Blood, but she decided against it. She wanted Dorian Stele to be my father.

I was still reeling.

I always thought I was born because Mom wanted a family with Dad. Maybe she still did, she just didn't have a choice about wanting it. It felt like I'd been told I was a rape baby. Mom always said I was more important to her, but I didn't know what to think.

"You - you don't love him?"

I still don't know how Dorian Stele met Ananke.

A weak smile curled her lips. "He makes it easier to be who I need to be for you." She glanced at her right hand and the platinum wedding ring with a celtic knot holding the pink diamond. "So very, very easy…Too easy." She slumped further. "But how can I?" She whispered, heartbroken. "I have witnessed trillions of mortal lives end, Percy. Humanity has degraded to the point that not even their souls last forever."

"Can you just fix it?" I tried. "For him, at least?"

She shook her head. "I've never done it before. If I tried and got it wrong, his soul might still not be able to take it, but he won't be able to die."

She made a face.

"Best case scenario: he goes irrevocably mad eventually."

Swallowing hurt. Breathing hurt.

Dad loved Mom. She couldn't quite bring herself to truly love him back.

Because she would lose him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "You were under the impression that I am all powerful and could never be wrong." She dragged her eyes back up to mine and raised that hand to the side of my face. "I wish that were true."

She took my sunglasses off and I met my mother's star filled gaze with my own.

She didn't have a ghost.

She had chains.

Shackles made out of molten stardust, moonlight and the bent, warped edges of reality dug into her painfully, weighing her down.

Prophecies always come true.

"You don't have free will," I whispered, horrified.

"I chose you," Mom said hotly, offended, but her gaze slid away, ashamed.

My head spun.

Mom couldn't free herself.

Aether took after our grandfather. Strong and free.

Adrasteia. Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos. Erebus. They were all here on Earth, but Aether was out traveling the stars.

I took after our grandfather.

And she always told me I chose my own destiny.

"You need me to free - "

She rushed to cover my mouth with her hand. "Don't say it."

"Who did this to you?" I mumbled into her palm. I tried to think. Nyx said they had enemies. "Was it - was it The Hunter?"

"It doesn't matter." She sighed, and rested her forehead on my left shoulder. "I planned for you to grow as strong as you could as fast as possible. Demigods are flexible, to a point. Your other inherited talents are nothing compared to what you inherited from Father. If you were forced to rely on your hunger to overcome greater and greater challenges then, perhaps…"

She trailed off.

"I had it all planned out," she said bitterly. "But I've made a real mess of things, haven't I? I failed you."

All this time. I thought I was a failure because I wasn't able to figure out my abilities, but the reason why she was never disappointed in me was because I wasn't supposed to figure them out. She directed Apollo to us for a reason. All the training was because she planned on putting me through the dangerous life of a normal demigod, not because it was truly necessary. All of the tests were to prepare me for a role.

But at the same time...

She knew I would be found by Olympus and made sure we had our Third Fridays just so I could have a happy last day and be able to be there for Dad. Apollo trained me, but he also learned how to be a better person. He still wasn't stellar, but he was visiting his kids. Had been for years. He was more responsible with his Prophecy Domain, reconciling with some of his Oracles. His twin sister had even noticed. My being at Camp let all the half-bloods know that they were being lied to, and even some of the younger Young Gods were learning. My upbringing meant I could not only change Camp, but that I wanted to.

If Mom was a control freak, manipulating everything, I couldn't just blame her for all the bad things in my life. She chose me.

"I wish you told me sooner," I admitted.

"I do too," she huffed. "I am proud of you. Always will be, no matter what you choose to do. I have waited this long."

I bit my lip.

Mom didn't have a ghost.

She had chains.

If Mom didn't have free will, how much of anything was truly her fault?

"What do I need to do?"

"You can choose your own destiny," Mom said quietly. "But Prophecies. Always. Come true."

The contradiction jumped out at me instantly.

My blood froze.

"No."

I could feel her shake her head against my collarbone.

"No. I can't fight you - Mom. I can't."

"You can't," she agreed, pulling me into a full hug. "But you might survive. I want you to survive."

I hugged her back like she was going to disappear.

A thousand thoughts were crashing together in my head. It was weird. The existential dread that you'd think I'd be living with since Apollo told me I might die when I turned sixteen never turned up. But the thought of going against my mother felt like I had just put on a pair of cement shoes at the edge of the harbor.

When she pulled back, her eyes fell down to my gut. "I should remove what Night did to you," she said thoughtfully. "Someone has already altered it." A small, but proud smile brightened her face. "But you are doing so well. You've already outgrown my ability to predict you."

She couldn't see the gossamer thread of stardust light up as she spoke, strangling her. I wanted to reach for it.

To rip it off her even if I had to use my fucking teeth.

"You can do this," Mom said very quietly. "You will never disappoint me. But say the word, and I will take you home."

It's everything and everyone else that would go to shit.

I shook my head.

If there was some way to save Luke. To take Zeus to the cleaners and make things better for the Camp. To free my mother.

I had to try.

I chose my own destiny.

Mom smiled, a triumphant light in her starry eyes.

"I do love you, Percy." My heart felt like it would burst. It was the first time she has ever said it out loud in my entire life. And Mom can't lie. "I will…apologize to Night." She smiled ruefully. "I will hate every millisecond, but I will. With any luck, it will help."

"And you won't leave me again?"

"I will not abandon you," Mom said gently. "If you need help, I will hear you. I promise. And in the end, when all is said and done, we will be just like Father and I. Everything I have will be yours. We'll travel the cosmos together." She planted a kiss in my hair and placed my glasses back on my nose. "Absolutely inseparable. We will witness it all until the end of time itself."

Then she smiled with that curl at the corner of her mouth and her voice picked up that Irish lilt that told me she was quoting something or something. "And with strange eons even death may die."

I felt settled in a way I haven't since I met Kronos. I knew what this was all for and I wanted to believe her. My mother loved me. She can't lie.

But I've learned enough these past few days to know that didn't mean she always told the truth either.

"Where's that from?"

"An amusing man I met once. Selene's legacy is one that keeps on giving. It's in the blood, you see." She let out a thoughtful hum. "I believe he wrote a few books."

And in a flutter of black feathers, she was gone. A raven clawed for the sky as it soared over the dark ocean, cackling.

---

"Flashlights."

"Check."

I clipped the small flashlight to one of the belt hooks on my jeans for easy grabbing and chucked the other one into the front pocket of my backpack.

"Batteries."

"Tons."

Luke was staring at the Duracell D battery packs in his hands like they were going to explode. He volunteered to be in charge of Rhea's swivel electronic torchlight, so it was too late to complain now.

"Brownies."

"Delicious."

Artemis was quietly munching on one in her red sweater with the hood pulled up. Her ears were sticking out of the holes and a lion charm dangled off her cat collar.

"Clean underwear."

"Freshly laundered."

Rhea snorted at me as I smirked cheekily at her. "You are a little shit, cuz."

"Percy," I said.

I had never introduced myself, because I was a brat who thought labels mattered. My eldest sibling was a spawn. Rhea was my first cousin.

"Percy Stele."

Her smile was soft enough to make me feel bad for waiting so long. "I'd introduce myself properly, but eh - "

"Mortal."

"Right. Head might explode." We grinned at each other. "Compass?"

"Know how it works." I held up the analog watch with the clock face and compass encased in titanium on a tough cord on a carabiner. It looked like something you'd expect a sailor to have. And without a sunrise or set, it would definitely help if we couldn't hitchhike.

"That's it then," she said softly. She glanced down at the rabbit and drifted over Luke before meeting my eyes again. She looked like she wanted to say something, but thought better of it at the last second, leaving her to lamely wish us, "Good luck."

"Thanks."

We were off. It felt a lot different from our first few steps out of Camp Half-Blood and it wasn't just because the sky was pitch black.

"Nine days," Luke said, turning on his flashlight. Artemis was stuffed in his vest, hiding from the world.

"Yeah," I muttered. "Guess we better hope Khione was right - "

A cold wind blew past us.

Luke and I stopped walking.

"You don't think - ?" He stopped and we could both hear what sounded a lot like horses milling around. "No way."

I ran ahead of him.

There at the end of the overgrown gravel road, two huge white horses nibbled on the grass poking up through the pebbles and sand with golden saddles on their back with ice blue reigns. I could see white and blue envelopes tied with blue ribbon to each of their manes.

"Thracians," I breathed. I used my considerable talent at pacifying bitchy horse-pigeons at Camp to approach one without getting mulekicked and untied the letter.

Mine was a simple message written in Greek:

'Anywhere a cold wind can go, so can I.' - Khione

Luke's must have been longer, because he was still reading when I looked up. He lifted his head suddenly and then pulled out his Dad's lighter. I watched him burn the letter.

"What was that?"

"An apology," he said shortly. He let the ashes drop as he upended the envelope and shook a silver ring out into his hand.

"Woah." It wasn't all silver, but alternating bands of silver and what looked like carved ice. I could feel Khione's signature cold energy drifting off it. "That's some apology."

Young gods were notoriously stingy with divine gifts, because even though it was a tiny amount, it was still a permanent investment. Once it was gone, it was gone.

"Should I wear it?" Luke asked me.

"It doesn't feel cursed," I said.

"It's not," he agreed. "I'd be able to tell."

Jesus.

What Name was that one from?

"Well, we kind of need all the help we could get?"

His expression shuttered.

"Yeah." He fit it on his middle finger and his eyes immediately tried to pop out of his head.

"What - what does it do?"

"Wind currents. Air flow." Luke said, sounding awed. He was looking around slowly like he was wearing night vision goggles. "I can see the wind."

I usually don't pray to other gods.

Khione Thrêikion.

But she deserved one.

Thanks.

A chilly breeze ruffled my hair.

"You know this means I'm right," I said as I put my foot in the stirrup. Damn, this boy is huge. My balls were not going to thank me for this later.

"What?" Luke's head swiveled towards me, bewildered.

"This is why I don't hold murder attempts against people."

Luke paused in mounting his own horse. "No."

"If I held a little attempted murder against everybody - "

"That still doesn't make it normal!"

"I'm just saying!"

Thracian horses straight from Boreas' stables were capable of going 0 to 75mph in about three seconds.

Next stop: Compton, California.

And after we found the Master Bolt, I was going to break a Prophecy.

Here's to hoping it's not going to bite me in the ass.

'A half-blood child of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds
And see the world in endless sleep, the hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze'
- The Oracle of Delphi. The Great Prophecy to Olympus, Sept 13th 1945

​

 

[Shujin]

Hermes​

Hermes let the image of his son racing away on the back of a purebred Thracian fade from his mind's eye as he stepped into the circle. It was a crumbling mosaic too badly damaged to tell what it had been anymore. He cleared his throat.

Aphrodite dropped the magazine and threw up her hands as soon as she saw him.

"Please tell me you're here to - "

"No," Hermes said with a handsome smile.

"Ugh." The goddess dropped back into the seat she had only just begun to rise from, rolling her eyes. "Then you're useless." She willed her magazine back into her hands, flipped to the exact same page she'd left on. "Go away."

"Wish I could," he said honestly.

Looking at her hurt.

She had May's wavy blonde hair, and it was even threatening to frizz in the damp air just like it should. The upturned nose, prominent cheekbones and small ears were hers, although he thought the natural slant to the pouting mouth belonged to someone else. It was familiar, that and the pointed chin, but he couldn't remember right now. He didn't want to, really. The eyes were all May, though. They even echoed like hers. The ones in her skull and on her spine reflecting back through the ones in her face, making them shine. Eyes and eyes and eyes…

All she had wanted was to do something good with her Sight.

For a goddess of Love, Aphrodite was always the last person anyone who'd loved and lost wanted to see.

He looked away.

"Anything worth mentioning?" He asked, before his phone rang. "Hang on."

'I have Demeter on line three,' Martha said.

"Not now," Hermes replied. "Tell her to leave a message."

'The last time you put her off, all of our packages for delivery sprouted thorns.'

"I'm not doing delivery, right now," he snipped back. "Door keeping. And singular. Tell her she's on the list."

His pocket vibrated again.

'Can I tell Frigg to fu - '

"No!" He cut George off. Holy Zeus, no. That woman scared him. "Redirect her to Iris, please."

Sometimes, he hated his job.

Iris didn't get it. She hadn't been demoted, it was a lateral move. And no, being able to go to new and exciting locales with the full backing of Olympus was not a bonus. Because no one was thrilled to see someone from Olympus anymore and this was the new and exciting locale.

A large, dark underground cavern.

Well, he supposed dark wasn't new. It was hard finding someplace that wasn't dark right now, but this was more than just the absence of light. It was more of a feeling, then anything. The large red doors were not barred or otherwise secured aside from an ornate and complicated looking Assyrian lock that made his fingers twitch.

He found himself frowning. At first, he thought it was just because he'd seen hundreds of dark caverns, Styx, he'd been born in one, but… the detailing on the columns and the type of brazier in the corner…the doors.

Was this even Greek? It looked…he was reminded of Alexander's former empire and he didn't like it.

"I have no idea where I am," he realized. How had that happened?

"You wouldn't," Aphrodite said dully, turning the page, bored of his presence already. "This isn't a place. There were a few cracks," she said and waved off his alarm with a flip of her long blonde hair. "That's hardly worth bothering about, really, although give it another moment to realize you're here - "

There was a pulse. It was little more than an uncomfortable feeling like his heart had just skipped a beat or turned over in his chest.

'Hermes?' May's voice called, sounding slightly muffled on the edges, like she was speaking through a keyhole. His eyes snapped to the red doors. 'Is that - are you out there?'

What - he reeled. He hid her. They didn't find her - they didn't know - The sudden terror had him casting his mind back to the white Colonial house in an ordinary, American suburb -

May's voice sobbed. 'Oh, I'm so sorry, Hermes. I wanted it to work - babe, I wanted it to work so bad…'

He didn't tell her that story so she could apply!

He took an unsteady step towards the doors. Why was she willing to risk it all to try to become the Oracle of Delphi? Luke had been so young - they had time…

'I'm so sorry! Where's Luke?' May wailed. 'He ran! Oh, my baby boy. I'm sorry - I don't want to be trapped in here - Hermes please!'

Trapped?

It was enough to snap him out of it.

May hasn't been herself for over a decade. Not sane. Barely human. And no one would have bothered to lock her away in a dungeon deep like this. They would just put her down.

First was the relief. It wasn't May.

Then came the rage.

"Hup bup bup," a well manicured hand pressed against his chest, stopping him in his tracks completely. "And you, don't make me come in there."

For a moment, he was confused. He wasn't weak. He was whole. All of his Names in one place, the weight of them heavy enough to send ripples throughout a three dimensional reality as he forced it to move around him. He pressed a little and found not a single ounce of give. He slowly turned his eyes to the obstacle.

"No," Aphrodite said. Her eyes were a steel blue now, the color of a reflection off freshly tempered metal. The ripples hit her form and broke. What was he seeing?

"That's exactly what it wants and if you break anything - " Her voice rose in that tell tale whine that had him already cringing. "I'm going to have to fix it and you know how much I hate responsibility!"

Hermes sputtered.

"Honestly." She rolled her eyes and shoved him back with little more than a flexing of the fingers she had on his chest. "Blast first and ask questions never, just what did I see in you?"

Hermes' mouth opened, then closed, strangely hurt that he lost out in a comparison to Ares, of all people. He tried, "I'm very handsome."

"True." Aphrodite admitted as she idly inspected her nails.

He felt like he should have whiplash.

"Come on," she needled him. "Did you really think I'm wasting the best hours of my life in this dump for fun?" She flapped a hand as he tried to wrap his brain around a crisis of this magnitude being anyone's best hours of their life. "Because trust, I am not."

He almost needled her back that Athena was the goddess of Wisdom for a reason… He almost needled her back. His anger finished draining as Hermes paused.

He wasn't weak. Even his father would have spent a bit more effort holding him back.

"What?" Aphrodite demanded. Her brows were furrowed in her signature annoyed pouting and her eyes remained wide and guileless.

He eyed the goddess warily.

"Oh, that?" Aphrodite turned to indicate the doors. "It was nothing you did, honestly, I'd be more concerned if you didn't have a reaction to it."

He swallowed thickly. "It sounded like - "

"Someone you love." Aphrodite swooned, spinning in a little, giddy circle with the back of her hand against her forehead and everything. "No wonder they have to hide this here, can you imagine if just anyone can hear it? The most powerful force in the cosmos is love…and no one ever believes me!"

"And you're safe because you don't love anyone?"

Aphrodite gasped in outrage, whirling on him. "How dare you! I love everyone equally!"

"Athena."

"I'd love her head on a stick!"

And something in his gut was still whispering:

Liar, liar, liar.

Aphrodite was old.

His father had cast the tie breaking vote to give her full rights and privileges as a god of the Greek pantheon, but that was well before his time. She was a terrific lay, fun mother and was very good at defusing people. Being non-threatening.

He'd noticed when the Fates came for their daughter, Tyche, the goddess of Fortune.

He still doesn't know what they said to her, but Tyche always managed to talk a whole lot without saying anything about it. Aphrodite raised their daughter and now Tyche was a goddess that knew just what she needed to say to convince everyone that Fortune wasn't dangerous. She had to have gotten it from her mother, because no one let him get away with anything anymore.

Tyche was just under a few Fated restrictions so she wouldn't interfere, is all.

He might have bought it, if he wasn't himself. Thief covered the grifters, the conmen, the cheats and embezzlers. The intersection with Commerce drew in the insider traders, the price gougers and the anti-trust. Someone who always wins, wasn't lucky.

They were rigging the game.

Four days ago, he learned he had never known how to swear an Oath on the River Styx.

He should be asking a lot more questions.

"What's in there?" He asked instead.

Aphrodite pulled on a lock of wavy blonde hair, shifting her weight from one foot to another, cocking a hip. "You know leucrota, yes?"

Hermes swallowed what tasted like pure bile.

They were monsters with the bodies of red-furred lions with the hooves of a horse and heads that looked like a cross between a horse and wolf, glowing red eyes and instead of teeth, their jaws were fitted with two solid plates of bone that clacked together. They were good mimics of voices, luring in the unaware.

It was something like a secondhand memory. That thing your mind does when you see your care keys and you aren't reminded of the last time you lost them, but of the time you got so drunk you had to take a taxi home, maybe you hit on the fat cabbie and then spent the rest of the night locked in the bathroom crying.

Not that he had any personal experience with that.

The point is, his mind jumped to the one time leucrota were hellbent on killing his son, Luke. He had been so much younger, running through the halls of an old mansion belonging to a cursed son of Apollo with the daughter of Zeus when he ran into an older blond man the boy instantly recognized as a god.

'He's your son, isn't he? How could you - what kind of father are you? He doesn't deserve this! He just wanted to save someone!'

He couldn't look Apollo in the face without feeling the urge to punch him for a year after.

"I know leucrota," Hermes said darkly.

Why was he allowed?

What made him so special he could overturn his son's cursed fate decades later without getting ruined?

"Well, that," Aphrodite jerked a thumb back at the large red doors. "Is their progenitor."

He looked over her shoulder. "Does it have a Name?"

"Yes."

He understood.

Aphrodite was old.

If he broke the doors, she would fix them. She took it for granted that she would not only know how, but could. That it was expected of her to. While contributing to the protection of all the Camps and Olympus and guarding this Door as a singular being.

And she did hate responsibility.

All of that just didn't count.

"Crocotta are from north Africa," he probed lightly. "India."

She rolled her eyes again before giving him a flat, unamused stare. He could hear the 'bitch, please.'

"The complex is secure, everything works, honestly if you're not here to relieve me -" Aphrodite absently adjusted the way her jean jacket fit over the pink blouse that had sparkling silver Beautiful, baby written on it. Her face brightened. "Actually a quickie would - "

"No," Hermes said with another handsome smile. Not when she looked like that. It would just flay his heart wide open. "I'll just - "

The coral, pearl and seastone walls of Atlantis blinked into existence around him.

" - go," he burbled underwater.

He was answered with attempted murder.

"Woah! Woah!" He danced out of the way of gleaming bone spear tips. To their credit, it only took the merman guards a second to realize that he wasn't an intruder, just an idiot.

He should have known they'd be jumpy. Everyone was.

Well, maybe not Aphrodite.

"Sorry, sorry," He showed off his Iphone. Its commercial release was in two years, but since when did that matter to him? "Official business," he said, swirling the phone and its snake antennae around his head.

'I'm going to be sick,' George, the left snake head, complained.

'Not on me!' Martha, the right, snapped at him.

Hermes ignored them both and tried out a winning smile.

The guards glanced at each other. The right fish man had an entire conversation with his eyes, gills and right shoulder, but Hermes could tell the left shark man understood maybe a quarter of it. They both shrugged at him, decked out in sea green scaled battle armor. Then left held up a small signpost made out of small sea coral and anemone.

'Lord Hermes,' it said in the pink words of blooming anemone. He almost laughed, but then he remembered.

Oh right.

Not everyone could talk.

Left's sign flipped around. 'If you seek our Lord, he is overseeing defenses.' Makes sense. They had their own Camp too, didn't they. The sign flipped back and there was new writing. 'We can summon an escort.'

"I was hoping I could talk to Queen Amphitrite, actually," Hermes tried and watched them both frown. But they were fish. Mermen, whatever. They didn't have lips, so it was more like their bared teeth showed even more pearly white sharp. "Just a short report and then I'll be out of her hair, promise!"

The guards shared another glance, but they stepped back to the opposite side of the double sided palace doors. They couldn't be anymore different from the doors to the Olympian Assembly or even the Doors of Death. Those had Grecian mosaics, heroic scenes and legends etched into them of their history. These were crafted to look like the interlocking tentacles or limbs of some massive sea creature reluctantly prying open from the bottom, still staying stubbornly closed at the top. The hallway past the doors kept the image going, being circular and lined with pale curving columns like ribs as if visitors were walking right into its gullet. He hoped he was just imagining the contractions rippling through the slick, blood red walls.

The Elder Cyclops and Olympus. Erebus and Uncle Dead's House in the Underworld. It made him wonder, and not the first time, who built the halls of Atlantis.

He was let into the throne room with little fanfare and he felt it the moment the Queen of Atlantis noticed him. May liked calling it his Thief Sense. That feeling you get when your foot nudges a trip wire, when you spot a camera looking your way, when a guard dog stops and sniffs the air.

Poseidon's wife wore a stunningly beautiful woman with black hair tied back under a silk net of pearls on a clamshell throne and this time the circlet on her brow was made up of white starfish. A long teal fishtail flowed out from under her green and gold dress, fins idly moving with the current. She was dark skinned with regal cheekbones, straight nose and full mouth. The talk on Olympus was that she was a kind and gentle goddess.

They had the benefit of distance.

The eldest granddaughter of Pontus was kind enough, he supposed. Maybe if her sea monster kids weren't a dime a dozen compared to the four proper gods, he'd feel better about it.

One word: Charybdis.

As for gentle?

People couldn't tell the difference between genuine gentleness and ever present caution.

"Hermes," Amphitrite said. He would never like the meticulous way she said Names. Made his soul itch. "And what does Olympus want from me?"

He sketched out his best diplomatic bow. "Queen Amphitrite."

Technically, he wasn't supposed to. He was the Messenger of the Gods of Olympus. On the clock, he carried the full authority of his father, Zeus Olympios. It was a fact that Atlantis was under Olympic rule.

His father's Master Bolt was still missing and Hermes knew better than anyone stealing it wouldn't have been hard. Piss easy actually, for anyone who isn't a god. While he didn't think Atlantis needed to steal it, he wondered if that fact was close to overstaying its welcome.

He hoped not.

Uncle Sea was powerful, but his Queen was dangerous.

He wasn't even talking about her grandparents.

Either set.

"Just…asking if anything has changed down here," he offered as nonchalantly as he could. Looking into her eyes was uncomfortable, even for him. "Anything to worry about?"

The corner of Amphitrite's supple lips pulled up.

"Athena remembers," she said thoughtfully. Hermes bit his lip so he didn't blurt out that it was a request from Zeus.

But.

Yeah, it was Athena's idea. His dad deserves some credit for recognizing a good idea when he heard one, right? If one primordial was mucking things up, better make sure other massive headaches weren't getting any funny ideas.

"I had wondered."

Hermes patiently waited out the pause.

"The stars are not right. However, three of grandfather's lowest circuit are unaccounted for."

Yikes, Hermes thought. Weren't they all supposed to be dead in that sunken city of theirs? Or was it sleeping?

Or both?

"We are tracking them and do not require assistance at this time," Amphitrite offered. "She will know what that means."

"Thank you," he bowed again.

"Do not thank me," Uncle Sea's wife said mildly with a small wave of a hand. "The sea takes care of its own. I would have you remind her of this." Amphitrite paused. "And perhaps suggest that her preoccupation with forewarning has reached a limit."

Hermes frowned. "Forewarned is forearmed?"

He didn't mean for it to come out like a question.

The Queen of Atlantis studied him, making him shift in place. "Ah," she said softly and he felt his stomach sink. "You are under the impression that if one such as grandfather arose, or if the Night found our existence offensive, Olympus would be able to defend itself."

He waited for her to finish, but she didn't say anything.

"Oh," Hermes said quietly.

Maybe Hecate had the right idea. He kind of felt like praying right now.

Maybe not to the Serpent.

He could still remember the titanic weight of the Serpent's attention before Apollo's altar; cold, caustic and utterly uncaring. And maybe not Buddhism either. Iris tried to explain it to him once, but it just made his head hurt. The Hindus terrified him, so that was a no.

Hecate's White God?

Would he have to apologize for all his bellyaching over the past two millennia first?

Because he did a lot of it.

"Thank you. I won't darken your doorstep - " The last thing he saw of Atlantis was Amphitrite's blazing eyes as she tilted her head in dismissal.

Hello, Delphi, Greece.

" - any longer," Hermes whispered. He breathed in the air of the Old World from the top seats of Apollo's Theater. Time had worn them down to crumbling bricks baked pale gray by the sun, but at least it was mostly intact. It was recognizable. He dreaded the day when it would no longer be. The mortals had just gotten around to reclaiming Hephaestus' temple for study sometime before that silly war they had in Europe and the Oracle of Delphi no longer called Greece home.

Well, he guessed it called nowhere home now, because it was in the stomach of a demigod.

Good riddance.

"Alright," he said loudly as he approached the wheat blonde woman sitting on one of the Theater seats, making a daisy chain in the dark. "I'm here, sorry for making you wait, Aunt Demeter." The second eldest Kronide started a little, before she put the flowers down and crossed her arms, pinning him with a stern look. Hermes held up his hands in surrender.

'Told you,' Martha snarked.

"I'm here now. You wanted to speak with me?"

"Yes." Demeter nodded sharply. "If I had the choice, I would absolutely do it again. Give up on Kore? Over my dead body."

Hermes blinked.

"What?"

He was missing something.

"This is Delphi," Demeter said.

"I…know that."

"The Navel of the Earth."

"Know that too."

The Earth Mother was imprisoned here.

Demeter's face made a pained expression. "It's cracked."

"I - " Hermes stopped. "Oh dear."

His aunt wrung her hands. "I thought I fixed it after Kore finally left that no-good brute for just five minutes - "

"Demeter."

His aunt huffed. "I might have understated the damage I did to the prison," she said quickly. "Just a little! Turns out, it was more of a symbiotic relationship than I thought - really, it wasn't like it was even my fault - "

"You just said you would do it again," Hermes pointed out.

"Yes, well," Demeter began, looking a bit hunted. "Mother helped put things back to rights and that should have been the end of it."

Rhea?

"Maybe we should have known after that bit of trouble in Alaska a little while ago. Hera's hiding something - don't tell me she isn't, but Alaska? You just know the daughter-stealing ruffian was just asking for it - "

"Can't grandmother help us fix it now?" He didn't need this. None of them needed this. "The Questers came across her recently." Before everything went to shit. "I think she wants the Earth Mother back just as much as we do."

Which was not at all.

Demeter frowned and instead of talking about anything to do with the protogenoi that hated them getting free, asked, "What Quest?"

"The one for father's Master Bolt."

"Oh, that old thing?"

Hermes boggled.

"I thought Artemis found it?" Demeter looked at him expectantly with mismatched eyes as if he had just forgotten her second favorite had taken care of the problem already. "No?" She frowned harder before flapping both hands at him. "Don't look at me like that - you know I don't pay attention to these kinds of things. It's summer!"

"The Bolt was stolen at the Winter Solstice." Even as it came out of his mouth, he knew it wouldn't help. Winter Solstice was the only time of the year Hades was invited to Olympus and when it came to the Lord of the Underworld, his aunt had two modes: Bitch and Nag.

Her round face predictably darkened.

"Rhea fix Earth Mother's prison!" He said quickly.

"Without turning around and killing us all, maybe," Demeter said absently and Hermes reeled. "Well, maybe Geb - oh no, wait, the Egyptians are still useless, aren't they? What is Ra doing - "

"Demeter," Hermes croaked.

The Earth Mother's Warden blinked at him. "Do you remember the Byzantine?"

"No," he said, bewildered.

No one on Olympus remembered the Byzantine, not even Demeter, because humanity just up and threw them away long before Rome collapsed. They didn't Fade, but he supposed they might have slept. Dreamed.

Hermes paused.

Aphrodite remembered.

"Your grandmother is putting herself through that so that she doesn't cleanse the world of mortals."

Hermes' world tilted. "What? Why?"

"So she doesn't cleanse the world of mortals," Demeter repeated slowly at him, as if he was the one who didn't understand plain Greek. "They really are much alike," she said in this very reasonable tone. "Like Mother, like daughter as I always say. All you have to do is listen to them talk for a bit - "

"The Earth Mother is talking to you?"

"I am Her Warden," Demeter said. "Even the mortals figured out that solitary confinement was cruel."

Hermes stared.

"And throwing the pieces of your father into the Pit was just a little unfortunate?"

"For the record," Demeter said loudly, offended. "Hestia and I argued against that, but we all knew he was awful, no chance of changing his mind. Self-defense."

Hermes continued staring.

"Oh, She won't change," his aunt finally admitted. "But it's symbiotic. She is learning from me."

"That's - that's bad."

"It is."

A flower bloomed within her empty right eye socket, the long thin blood red petals unfolding like shapes within a kaleidoscope.

And it bloomed and bloomed and bloomed.

"Thank you for telling me, Aunt Demeter," Hermes said stiffly.

Demeter beamed at him.

"Of course, dear." She motioned for him to step closer so she could put her finished daisy chain crown on his head. "And I'll make sure you have plenty of those wheaties that you like so much," she promised as he smiled weakly. "Be careful running around in the dark, now."

He nodded. "You know me, Aunty. I'm always - "

Cold wind slapped him in the face. "- careful."

The god of the North Wind lowered his newspaper just enough to squint at him from over the pages. He was wearing a snow suit as usual with icicles clinging to his pale beard and eyebrows. Hermes glanced around and saw that he was…not where he was expecting. His inner GPS was telling him he was in Quebec, Canada and it certainly looked like it. He could still see The Edge from the icy penthouse's windows as a shimmering aurora borealis barrier separating their world from the land beyond the gods.

He didn't mean 'beyond' as in they couldn't go there. He meant 'beyond' as in they shouldn't.

It was a land where even gods were prey.

"How is the barrier holding up?" Hermes asked, looking up over the reflective Art Deco ice desk.

Boreas' eyes narrowed into slits.

Ugh.

Dealing with the Four Winds always felt like trying to teach a demigod common sense.

"Athena's checking?" He tried instead.

"Intact," Boreas grunted.

"I'm only asking because if you haven't noti - wait, what?" Hermes' mind spun.

He just saved himself an hour.

Holy Zeus.

"I - thank you."

A grunt.

Hermes hesitated, but then he decided to just go for it. A god only lives once. "And I would like to thank your daughter for her help on my son's Quest."

Boreas' eyes flashed back up to him as the god reared up, rising from his seat with his purple wings flaring behind him like an enraged stallion. "Khione hardly needs your gratitude, son of Zeus."

Hermes deflated.

May was a good person. And through her, he had come to realize that he…

He wasn't.

Maybe he could blame his upbringing. His mother didn't exactly want him after all, but his father did. And maybe Zeus wasn't the best role model around, but he'd been doomed from the start. Thieves were used to taking what they wanted. That was the point. But those were pathetic excuses.

He wasn't a good person. Even now, he found it difficult to care. There were things he regretted though. Hurting Khione was one of them. She didn't deserve it. Maybe no one did.

He was glad Luke took after his mother.

For them, he'll try.

"I know." He said quietly. He tossed one of his business cards onto the god's desk. "She has it anyway. If she needs anything…" He finished hopefully.

Boreas' gaze cut through him, but eventually, the god sat back down. Hermes counted it as a win that he didn't just blow the card away.

"Get out."

He went.

A few more visitations, both Greek and not, and he found himself revisiting the Old World. Or rather, the outskirts of it. He already had his hands up in surrender when the one he wanted to visit noticed him, which was damn quick.

Heracles wasn't called the greatest hero in Greek history for nothing.

"Oh, it's you."

"I'm flattered," Hermes said.

His elder half-brother rolled his eyes as he leaned on his club, looking down on him.

Because he was very tall.

Hermes was actually kind of jealous. If he tried to make himself look that tall without going full god form, he'd look ridiculous.

"What do you want?" Heracles raised a skeptical eyebrow.

He had their father's black hair and was rocking the stubble look Apollo could never pull off. His eyes were an electric blue, also like their father's, but up close, Hermes could see that they echoed. Like May's.

"I can't leave my post, so if you're expecting me to do some stupid errand for you - "

"No, I - " Hermes was beginning to regret visiting. "Nothing like that. I just - "

He looked out over the island. The Pillars of Hercules loomed in the distance, jutting out over the sea like swollen fingers.

"What was Athena like as King?"

Heracles' eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

"Humor me," Hermes begged. "I don't - I don't know anything. Apparently."

Heracles scratched at the small scar on his stubbled chin, then sighed. "Exactly the same as she is now," he said and Hermes frowned. "You know that thing she does where she expects you to follow her train of thought, but she's crap at talking to people she thinks aren't complete imbeciles, so you don't get the memo and she looks at you like you're stupid anyway?"

"Oh yeah."

"Hate that," Heracles said. "My King or not."

The god of Heroism swung his club, knocking some white sand off his bare feet.

"I understand, you know," he said. "You've learned that you had it wrong this entire time and now you're lost."

I'm not, Hermes thought, but he couldn't quite make the words come out of his mouth.

"You are," Heracles said. "And you're looking around, hoping that this crushed feeling you have is because the world changed recently without having the damn decency to tell you about it. But it hasn't changed at all."

There was a painful lump in Hermes' throat.

"You did," Heracles finished.

"What do I do?" Hermes asked.

"I rebelled." Hermes cringed and his brother sighed. "Styx, I don't know. What do you want?"

Hermes didn't even have to think about it.

"I want my son Luke to have a future."

"A demigod?" Heracles asked knowingly. "Good luck with that, the laws haven't been changed - "

"He's not - " Hermes scuffed at the sand with a foot. "I've been looking for loopholes and it - it brought me to you," he confessed.

Heracles straightened.

"My way wasn't exactly…ideal," he said slowly.

"Not that."

His brother went still.

"His mother - May was clear-sighted. Badly." Hermes said quickly. "I know what that means."

"Aren't those records sealed?"

"Thief."

"How badly?" Heracles finally asked flatly.

"She could See - " He made a vague gesture in the air with his hands. "Diagonal. The Could Be." The way Apollo had explained it to him, the Could Be could be changed. If you told someone else, if you made a different decision, if you ignored it. It was Fool's Gold to the real thing, but that didn't necessarily mean it wouldn't come true. It just wasn't inevitable.

A False Prophecy.

All she wanted was to be able to do some good with her Sight.

That was all.

"And I invested a lot in him. My son." Hermes hesitated. "I gave him everything."

Finally saying it out loud felt like lancing a boil. He wasn't ashamed, he realized. Every single one of his Names was Luke's father and he wasn't ashamed of giving a mortal so much.

My son.

"He can - he can do something I can't. And I tried."

He demonstrated, wrapping the mantle of Thief around him and reaching for that one spot in the center, that one tiny, tiny place that felt like what he felt in Luke. Thieves stole things, but the concept was far too tied to stealing the material. Things of perceived value. Things you could pickpocket, grab, swindle and cheat out of someone else.

What he felt in Luke felt far more pure. Something that felt like Steal, but reaching for it felt like his heart would burst.

He let it go, huffing and puffing.

Exhausted.

"I see," Heracles said softly. Hermes looked up, but his face could have been carved from the stone of his Pillars. "An emergent daimones if you could argue it, perhaps," he mused and Hermes' heart leapt. Daimones, like their Nymphai counterparts, could live on Olympus. "But it's more likely he'd be destroyed."

"No!" Hermes shouted.

The god of Heroism raised an eyebrow. "Children with the clear-sighted used to be outlawed for a reason," he said mildly.

"But - "

"Like I said, my way isn't ideal."

The last time he felt this small, he realized he had never known how to swear an Oath on the Styx.

"Thank you for your time," Hermes managed to choke out.

"Hm." Heracles roughly nudged his right shoulder in an awkward, comforting gesture. "Sorry."

"...I am too."

Returning to Olympus was no relief. The golden streets were washed out pale gold without sunlight and the great palaces looked like condemned buildings against the void of the Night sky. Various immortals of all kinds wandered the streets, because life goes on.

Until it ends.

He reported to Athena and it was just as Heracles said. He could see it now, the way she asked for clarification and the way she looked to the side when she was thinking, like there were puzzle pieces tumbling around in her skull.

He looked the former King of the Gods of Olympus in the face and felt…

"Troubling." Her brow furrowed. "My preoccupation with forewarning," she scoffed. "The Earth Mother we can do something about, at least." Her eyes went through every color of the rainbow as she glanced up at the Night sky. "One last thing," Athena said in her sharp, cold way. "Your conversation with Heracles."

"You heard?" He nearly screamed, mortified.

Athena actually paused. He could see her make the effort to step back and lower her head as her expression softened. "Around Herakles, I always listen to my Name. Even if I cannot respond."

Like she was his divine parent.

Hermes' mouth opened, and then he closed it.

"This surprises you."

"Yes," he admitted. He supposed if there was any child her pride would gladly call her own if she could, it would be the greatest hero in Greek history. "Yes, it does."

"A habit from his, let's call it accident-prone ways and the Giant War," she explained, a quicksilver smile flashing over her face. "Boy could get into trouble standing still. I saw no reason to stop."

He wondered how Heracles felt about still being called 'boy.'

"I merely wished to reassure you that I will say nothing about it, and if you wished to have it argued - " Her iridescent eyes searched his face. "It would be best to approach Demeter of Sacred Law."

Hermes nodded sharply.

Athena owed Luke.

Well, in for the penny, in for the pound. "What was grandfather like?"

Gods only live once.

He should coin the phrase.

GOLO?

No, if he wanted to make it a thing, it's got to be more inclusive.

"Pragmatic. Efficient." Athena said immediately. If she was caught off guard by his sudden interest in the Titan Lord, she didn't show it. "Do not forget, the Golden still live within the fields of Elysium and they welcomed his return. However," she said thoughtfully. "It was also true that he is still an enemy of Olympus, no matter his role. He was bitter. Resentful. Scornful. Furious."

She paused.

"Grieving."

Hermes finished his rounds, all of the Doors under his jurisdiction pressing like hot brands at the back of his mind. Where was Thanatos when you needed him? The Lake of Lerna. The Doors of Death. Acheron. The Grove of Arcadia. He stopped at the last for a moment.

It was deep in the heart of the Amazon. The smoke of a nearby slash-and-burn tickled his nose.

His heart ached.

These trees used to be Pan's pride and joy, but now they were covered in cancerous-looking growths and clumps of bleeding fungi. Places where the gnarled, dark ash colored bark fell away revealed silvery lines like spiderwebs or veins on the wood, crawling with mutated insects and worms. In a jungle like this, there wouldn't be much flora anyway. He both hates and loves that he knows that.

The sickly sweet smell wafting from the rotting ground tells him enough.

He thought about it for a second. One of the ward stones wasn't far. All it would take was a crack and a gap in the Mist so mortal greed would find the grove…No, it wasn't worth it, he thought then, running a hand through the curls of his black hair. It wasn't worth it.

And it wasn't their fault.

The mortal need to destroy their environment was a poison they leached from the Black Goat first, not the other way around.

He threw a stone.

Startled, bloodshot eyes opened all over the dark trees as twisted roots ripped themselves up from the ground, flailing.

The dryads were restless.

It was his decision not to tell the satyrs about his son, Pan, not even when they made that ridiculous Cloven Council thing a while back with their searcher's licenses. Dionysus didn't care and it wasn't Hermes' fault they were so stubborn about it. And it wasn't like he knew where he was now, so it wasn't as if their search was futile.

Just meaningless.

Why couldn't he save anyone he loved?

He smelled smoke.

Hermes stepped away.

He had work to do.

 

[Shujin]

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction​

"On your left!"

I was swinging my sword before Luke even finished shouting. The hairs on the back of my neck had already been screaming the warning. Damocles fine tuned my aim, but I already had a vague hunch of where the danger was, even though I couldn't hear it coming. I was getting really good at listening to my sixth sense. I didn't have to see what the monster even was this time.

Spidey Sense?

Super cool.

What's not cool is all these monsters out to kill us. I was getting a sinking feeling in my stomach that it was only a matter of time before we ran into something we couldn't handle.

There was the impact vibration of my sword hitting something, a sound like a sigh, and then Luke's flashlight catching the gleam of dissipating ruby dust as he swiveled it around in a vote of no confidence to make sure I didn't just die on him.

Red essence. What was that, Native American?

Aztec?

Both?

We got ambushed an hour out from Rhea's place by some Greek poison harpies of pestilence and violent deaths, the Keres. I tried to talk them out of it because we were first cousins once removed (Nyx. Just. Nyx) but spirits being rational was an oxymoron. We didn't even try to fight. We just ran. Their venom can't be cured by anything less than divine intervention.

Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to have to crawl back to Rhea a few hours after leaving and just be like,

'Never mind. We're the worst heroes in the history of ever. Please help.'

And it didn't stop there.

We were hounded by these flying shrunken head things (Voodoo?) as we passed Baton Rouge, some Draugr (Norse undead) were picketing one of the highways, Lethifolds (black cloak thing) from Harry Potter are real and to top it off, we got chased by a pack of Hellhounds (this is stupid) that wouldn't take 'bad dog' for an answer all the way across the Louisianan border.

I expected it, so just getting attacked wasn't the problem. It was what was doing the attacking half the time that was the problem.

Nemesis said I'd be getting attacked by less of her mother's kids!

Obviously, my niece lied to me.

My next postcard over the holidays to Erebus about that little spoiled brat of his was going to be spicy.

"Good?" Luke yelled.

"Good!" I called back and then we both went silent again as the hooves of our Thracian horses pounded the ground like the fall of icy hail on a roof. We weren't ignoring each other or anything. It's just that carrying on a conversation on galloping horseback was way harder than you'd think.

The plan we hatched with Rhea was to find the highway and follow the interstate all the way to the West Coast. It wasn't the most elaborate plan in the world, but it would get the job done. It would let us stick close enough to cities so we wouldn't have to hunt for food and keep our nights sleeping outside down to the bare minimum.

Because we really didn't want to sleep outside.

And we wouldn't get lost.

America is huge. I'm pretty sure I could fit at least fifty Greece in the 48 states. No wonder the Migration when the Greeks and Norse moved over from Europe ended up a huge mess with everything everywhere. If we tried to cut corners off the main road into the forests and swamps of the southern United States, we could end up wandering into anything from a Greek god's junkyard to an Aztec god's favorite basketball court.

Both of those were bad news.

And doing that during the Night was called being dumb.

And suicidal.

But mostly dumb.

I knew how to ward against the various species of soul eaters, but without four walls, a roof and humanity around, anything at all might decide to just kill us instead.

I heard there were alligators down here!

Talk about spooky.

It was a good thing these Thracians were magic horses who could tell where they were going, because we sure couldn't. The scenery was just a blur of dark silhouettes on a dark background made out of dark darkness.

Imagine if walking outside was like locking yourself in a closet. There was a sliver of light coming through the bottom of the door, but it only lit up its immediate surroundings like it was also afraid of the dark.

That's how it was for Luke.

All we had was the light of our flashlights and at the speed we were going, hitting a tree branch would probably break my neck.

I could still see a little. Godly eyes, remember? I'm only half-god so there's some physical structure, but my irises are just an aurora borealis with stars within. It would be kind of annoying talking to Apollo with the sun shining out of his eyes and then being half-blind for a few minutes every time, right? I couldn't even imagine having to adjust to putting on my sunglasses beyond 'I see dead people and now I don't.'

I still felt blind.

I was relying on my peripheral vision and that was more movement sensing than actual sight because I had to stare at my flashlight before looking around so the Night would stop changing things on me.

You ever enter a room and you can immediately tell that something is not where it should be, even if you're not sure what moved?

The Night was messing with my eyes. Hiding things from me. Blurring the shapes and shadows I could faintly see in the distance into a solid wall of black like it was trying to swallow it into the same void as the sky above. Looking into my flashlight felt like peeling scales off my eyes. Uncomfortable. Itchy. A headache was starting to pound right in the middle of my forehead.

I kept doing it.

The very thought of not seeing what was really there spooked me a little. The thought that Night's passive presence was capable of doing that to me scared me even more.

I have godly eyes.

That was the problem with conceptual bullshit.

It's bullshit.

"Merging!" Luke called back and I leaned forward in my saddle as the empty road we were on led into a wide eight lane highway. This was eastern Texas. We just got here and I can already tell the state was like most states in America: a patchwork of 'modern civilization' and 'bumfuck nowhere at all.'

No inbetween.

The road was mostly empty, which made sense. There was a bit of an emergency going on right now. That didn't mean there was no one, which also made sense because good luck getting people to stop their lives unless the emergency was the type that would stop their lives for them. By killing them.

And maybe not even then.

Mortals were weird sometimes.

We pulled up beside an eighteen wheeler with a giant advertisement for fresh vegetables on the side. The driver was a bored looking thirty something with a red baseball cap and a lit cigarette. I expected music or the radio, but then I remembered that his tires burning rubber on the highway was silent for a reason. No wonder he looks half-asleep. He checked his side-mirror.

I waved at him.

He nodded politely and his eyes turned back to the road. Then I saw his eyes snap back in a double take, choking on cigarette smoke as his truck swerved away from us and his eyes bugged. He stared disbelievingly as Luke pulled up even and then pulled ahead. I was next and I waved at him again.

"Don't bait the mortals!" Luke had eyes on the back of his head.

"Make me!"

Our new trucker friend mouthed something as we sped past him. He wasn't clear-sighted. I don't think so anyway. He could see us. You would think the Mist would serve up something normal, so we didn't blow any mortal minds.

We're on horses.

Horses are normal.

Even if we're going at least 85MPH on pure white sparkle ponies with golden saddles trailing bright, flashing snowflakes and icy blue bridles. All they were missing were the flashing neon rainbow colors LED lights braided into their manes. It didn't matter that they were technically Khione's nieces and nephews a couple times removed. (Don't ask. Gods are gonna god.)

Still horses.

There's a reason why Chiron doesn't just walk around without his Tardis wheelchair in the middle of New York and satyrs like Grover tend to wear baggy pants over their goat legs and hide their horns.

The Mist isn't going to hide that shit. It has better things to do.

Like hosting Mt. Olympus above the Empire State building in New York City, protecting the mortals from monsters or making sure they can't see the Doors they really shouldn't open.

You can only stretch the top layer of reality so much before it starts to tear. Where do you think modern day ghost stories, monster and UFO sightings come from? It's not all from the clear-sighted, I can tell you that. The Mist is what separates the 'normal' world from the mythological, but it's not a hard barrier you could bounce off of. It just hides what is truly there and it's not perfect. The Mist will only do so much, because this is the reality we both live in, whether you're aware of it or not.

I'm not saying every dude in a wheelchair is a centaur and most likely that baggy shirt isn't hiding anything but a beer gut. But the next time you see something off or hear a sound you shouldn't be hearing, before you convince yourself it was nothing but your imagination, maybe what's actually happening is that you've got one foot on the other side. Way back when, the Mist didn't have to hide anything from humanity. We saw it all.

Some things, the Mist still won't hide.

Can't hide.

Our trucker buddy will just have to get over it. Regale some friends over a few beers. Tell his grandkids about the time some white horses carrying a couple of kids and a rabbit outran his truck on the highway to Houston, TX.

The truck's headlights lit up a good portion of the road ahead of us for a while. He must have been using a high beam, but eventually we lost him when he turned off onto an exit. The darkness closed in, barely held at bay by just the thin beams of our flashlights again.

We rode on.

I was right.

My balls were already not thanking me.

Viciously.

I awkwardly tried to adjust in the saddle and my horse made a snorting sound, turning his head to eye me.

"Sorry, Seabiscuit." I told him. That's not his name, but until he is able to tell me otherwise, he's Seabiscuit. "Not really a long distance rider."

He snorted again.

As if the universe, or maybe just Mom, wanted to remind me that safer on the road did not mean safe, the hairs on the back of my neck shivered just as the terrain evened out and we hit a flat plain. We were still alone on the road. I held my reins hard enough to make my hands ache as I looked around as best I could through the rolling motions of a horse at full gallop.

Aside from a signpost advertising a nearby rest stop, there was nothing but farmland dotted with trees for miles around.

Almost nothing.

A shadow in the distance the size of a big house stood up on four legs.

"You can't tire, right?" I whispered to my horse as I side-eyed whatever that thing was. It looked like a hunchbacked wolf with stiff bristles like a steel brush for fur and I really didn't like what it would mean if I could see details, but it was a mile away and still looked that big.

We're mortal.

Some monsters Mom warned me about would even consider gods prey.

My horse huffed and turned his head just enough to let me know that he saw it too.

"Right." I nodded to myself and made one last adjustment as the hairs on the back of my neck slowly began to stand. "Time to earn your paycheck."

He made a half-braying coughing noise that was probably him asking 'what paycheck' and a few extras.

"Language," I said. I didn't have to speak horse to know there was some cursing in there. "Don't worry, I'll talk with your manager."

The wolf turned.

There was a long moment where I was hoping it didn't hear us, but my luck is not that good, so maybe it heard us or saw us but was just going to let us go and then I thought, well maybe it doesn't even have eyes, that's a thing -

Burning orange orbs like hot coals lit up as the bristles of its 'fur' grew about 10 feet until it was a mass of vaguely wolf shaped tendrils looking right at us.

It has eyes.

"Uh, Luke - !"

The wolf howled.

It was a mournful echoing sound that seemed to bounce off non-existent hills. I expected to hear a bunch of answering calls from the hunting party because that was our luck so far, but there was nothing but that lonely note.

I didn't relax.

It if wanted to come after us, assuming it would have to physically walk would get me killed.

Luke slowed his horse so that he was only a bit ahead of me. In the light of his electronic torch, his pupils had a strange reddish glow to them as he looked back. It was like reality had just taken a picture of him with the flash on and the bloody coloring of the back of his eyeballs were reflecting back. I thought that was unique to photos, but I guess not?

Artemis had her head poking out of his vest with her ears flattened back completely and silver eyes gleaming.

"What was that?" Luke hissed quietly.

"Trouble?" I offered.

I have no idea what Squiggle Wolf was.

That was already getting old.

I know, I know.

I'm twelve. Can't know everything about everybody.

Still annoying.

"Right," Luke said, rolling his eyes. "Rest stop isn't far." Our horses were quick on the uptake, or maybe they didn't like the wolf anymore than we did, because they immediately started to slow down a little as they veered to the right so that they could take the next exit. "If we can just - "

A bolt of warning shot down my spine.

And then something tried to rip my soul right out of my body.

Imagine you're an onion and something was tearing you away, layer by layer as your soul wells up from the center like blood from a wound. It felt just like it did when Mom brought my sliver of divinity to the surface. I knew the feeling.

Like an immune system that already had a vaccine, my soul fought back.

Divinity was soul-deep.

My stomach ruptured.

(Don't freeze. If you freeze, you die and it sounded like Mom)

All of the air in my lungs rushed out with the scream I tried to bite back - the Sign, make the Sign! (Don't freeze. Don't freeze) the sick heat in my chest came with it, coating my tongue with the taste of iron as I desperately tried not to fall off the horse -

Damocles was in my hand as Luke cried out, the horses bellowed and Artemis screamed and my sword was singing a wordless song I knew as I slashed it through the air.

Luke stole something from me -

it's fine, he can have it

The Night lit up, blinding, with the shifting green-gold burning eye in its twisted star. I wasn't prepared to feel everything that I was just rebel against it. Searing tears started running down my face as my eyes burned and I knew they weren't made of water. The grip on my soul let go.

The symbol winked out with nothing else happening.

Oh, a native, I thought dimly.

Well, fuck.

The pavement of the highway was tearing itself up behind us as the wolf approached like the tremors of an unfelt and unheard earthquake. I held onto the reins with everything I had as a cold, sick feeling wind raked at my back like it was made out of knives -

A cold wind.

"Khione!" I yelled out, feeling my throat tear as my stomach tried to eject my guts onto the road.

I didn't even see what hit me.

My left leg snapped a split second before the ribs of my horse caved in as we went flying. I knew how to fall. And my experience with angry horse-pigeons at Camp told me that this was going to hurt bad.

Khione's nephew tried to protect me.

Twisting around so his hundreds of pounds didn't fall on me, but it didn't quite make it. The only reason I didn't just die on impact was because we didn't hit the tarmac, but collided with a deep pile of snow.

she answered

I don't know if the wet snap I heard was my ride's foreleg or its neck. I hoped it was just a leg even as my entire body screamed with my own problems. We hit snow, rattling my skeleton as we plowed right through it but, eventually it ran out and became tarmac.

The only thing worse than a rug burn was a pavement burn.

I was spared from the worst of it, but we were still going pretty fast. My shirt silently ripped as I hit the gravelly pavement. A fire raced over my skin and I'm pretty sure I just left a shiny wet streak of skin and blood.

I had just stopped rolling when a massive black claw slammed into the ground an inch from my nose.

I looked up.

And up.

And up.

Looming far above the streetlamp I'd found myself under was the Squiggle Wolf, peering down at me with two burning orange eyes that had three pupils in each one like it actually had six eyes that had just merged.

It exhaled and the stink of rotten meat slapped me in the face.

"Yeah?" I demanded. It had happened too fast for me to feel anything but anger. This was it? After everything? "What the fuck do you want?"

The light in its eyes flared and hooked needles of a savage, bloodthirsty glee prickled my brain.

"Please do not antagonize the Amarok," Khione's cold, dry voice came from somewhere behind me, sounding exasperated and I think my heart skipped a beat. A second later I told myself she just sent her voice and I was being ridiculous. "It was only playing."

It was only -

That just made me angrier.

I nearly died to a literal 'dog chases the car down the highway' moment?

"So you're not an enemy," I told the giant wolf slowly. "You're just an asshole."

Khione sighed as the wolf growled softly at me. "What did I just say?"

I tried to breathe (because I could breathe, I'm alive) and felt everything light up in agony.

I glared up. "It tried to rip my soul out."

"Yes, well," she allowed. "It does that. A little tug to see who is worthy of being prey."

So at best, it would leave normal people alone, but anyone who could defend themselves against 'a little tug' were up shit creek without a paddle. At worst, normal people would just hear a wolf howl and then drop dead.

I knew I had a bunch of bullshit ahead of me on this Quest.

"Luke?" I asked immediately.

"Unharmed," Khione said neutrally. "And I would love to know how he did it."

Are we ignoring the giant tentacle murder dog?

"Horse?" I felt his ribs cave in. I was expecting bad news.

"Immortal."

"Oh."

Didn't even make the top twenty of weird Greek shit.

"I don't know if you have the worst or the best luck in the world," Khione mused. "Definitely the most absurd."

We're ignoring the giant tentacle murder dog.

"Giant tentacle murder dog," I pointed out. Who still wasn't killing me. It was just watching. I didn't try to sit up in case it was like a cat and was just waiting for me to twitch. "Looking like the worst."

And absurd.

"Is it?" Khione's voice said and then I heard the crunch of someone walking closer. The footsteps rounded my head and the goddess of Ice and Snow walked into my line of sight wearing hiking boots and a light blue poncho rimmed in white. Her eyes were locked on the monster and she looked like she wanted to smile. "Because this is a perfect alibi."

My mind went blank for a second.

She didn't just send her voice.

She came to help.

"But Artemis…"

"Is still alive, unfortunately," Khione said coldly. She still looked like Snow White, but one that came from a college campus instead of a fairy tale. More naturally colored with braids in her black hair and diamond earrings. "You denied me."

"Uh, yeah," I said dumbly. "About that…" I gulped. "I'd apologize, but I'd be lying."

Khione actually smiled briefly. "I know."

The monster loomed over us, a hulking shadow haunting just outside of the weak light cast by a comically small looking flickering street light. It had slowly started looking less and less like a wolf at some point and looked more like something my mind automatically tried to reject and cling to simultaneously. My brain kept saying 'wolf' but my eyes were seeing something that looked like the physical manifestation of a black noise with burning orange eyes.

The concept of a predator bound up in something that wriggled and vibrated every which way, tasting the air and encircling the ground around us, digging into the tarmac to uproot chunks that just had an inky blackness underneath instead of dirt.

Khione stepped between me and the monster with her hands up, like she was trying to approach a hissy cat. A cold, numbing sensation swept over me, taking away the fire burning my right arm and back and letting my broken leg not scream quite as loud. I couldn't help the sigh of relief.

"You are very far from home," Khione said softly. She didn't flinch when it snapped at her, even though the force of it actually displaced enough air for me to feel it. She stepped even closer to it, gently chiding,"Don't be like that."

"Uh, Khione?" I said as she came close enough to pet the thing.

Monsters that messed with souls were kind of a Code Red the world over.

Gods have souls too.

"The Amarok is an Inuit legend from the Arctic Circle," Khione said almost absently. "The lone wolf that stalks the night, testing all that brave the darkness." She almost cooed at the thing. "And this was a test, wasn't it?"

The light in the wolf's burning eyes lit up as the needle hooks in my brain of a primal curiosity-amusement-anticipation dug in.

I fucking hate tests.

I snarled at it. "Still an asshole."

The goddess gave me an exasperated look. "Do you want it to kill you?"

"Can it?" I challenged. "Isn't it afraid of the light?"

"Of course not," Khione said immediately, almost offended. "I told you. It's playing."

I looked at the 'wolf' again and some of my anger turned to unease.

This wasn't a monster living under the watchful eye of Olympus or some other pantheon. It followed no one's orders, not even those of my sisters, the Fates. Maybe it didn't even care about the Mist. It had no rules, but the ones it chose. Like how the Morrigan bled the silver of Eiocha just like Apollo bled the gold of Phanes, but Mom was not a Celtic Young God.

She was only pretending to be.

"It's playing," Khione repeated slowly. "But the game is not over, is it? This one is not going anywhere," she said in a low tone as her attention returned to the monster. "The hunt was over too soon. The fun is over. You need something else to chase. Something that smells familiar, like ice and snow and blood, don't you?"

Something changed in Khione. For a moment, I saw double, but the second copy was more movement and light than anything physical. I almost thought I imagined it. A chilly breeze picked up and then the monster's eyes snapped around.

"Yes, that's it. Go on," Khione purred.

Her voice was resonating in my skull as something soft and very cold, replacing the needle hooks with a restless fascination. I caught myself leaning forward towards her when my ribs ground together. I wanted to stand up, even though I knew my leg was broken.

Khione gave the monster a small, indulgent smile.

"Catch me."

The wolf howled happily and then it just dissolved. An invisible force tore up the pavement right back out into the darkness, leaving big chunks jutting upwards over nothingness reminding me of the broken ice and dark waters of the St. Lawrence river in Quebec City.

I let my head fall back onto the tarmac and stared up at the Night sky. My left leg is super broken, my shoulder is not great and neither is my right arm. If my ribs aren't broken, they are at least fractured and I could smell the blood where I met the ground. If I was lucky, the friction burn only looked like tenderized meat.

Four and a half hours.

That was how long it took for my next near death experience.

The Night didn't fuck around.

I had to be saved again.

Mom, I prayed. Are you sure I can do this?

I expected silence with the subtle signs I thought she'd been using to answer me since the Quest started. Instead, I felt her. Gentle and reassuring with a wry twist at the end. Like she was saying what she believed wasn't important.

I choose my own destiny. Say the word and I can come home.

I breathed in ashy smelling air and finally looked around now that the wolf wasn't in the way. It looked like we had made it to the rest stop Luke mentioned.

Barely.

I was right on the edge where the road blended into the parking lot decked out in rows of lit street lights with two dark eighteen wheeler trucks and a few cars parked outside the building. There were a few curious faces peering out the windows, probably reacting to hearing a wolf howling nearby, but no one ventured outside.

"It's gone," Khione said at the shadow of a puke yellow dingy SUV parked a few spaces away.

Two sparkle ponies, one a lot more beat up than the other, a demigod and a rabbit faded back into view like someone pulled off a blanket.

"Uh," I stared. "Luke. You've got a bit of - " I raised my hand to demonstrate on my own face, trying to sit up, but Khione caught it and pushed me back down.

"Just tell me you're not injured enough and I'll oblige you," she said shortly. "All I did was numb the pain," but her eyes were on Luke too. "That certainly isn't yours."

"No," Luke's voice said thinly. There was a whistle to his voice like he had some kind of a lisp or a serpent's tongue. "It isn't."

My first thought on seeing him was, oh, it's Two-Face from Batman, Harvey Dent. With his blond hair and blue eye, he could pull it off. It's just that the other face of Luke's villainous lawyer from DC was Venom, the alien symbiote from Marvel.

I searched for something to say that wasn't pointing out how the right side of his face was weirding me out a bit. "How'd you do that?"

The left corner of his mouth quirked while the right sneered with serrated teeth. "Sneaking."

He turned on his heel and faded away, before fading back. He made a limp wave with his free hand as a half-hearted 'ta-da.' He led the horses over, Artemis still clutched to his chest and the human side of his face looked uncomfortable.

Khione clucked her tongue. "Don't play the coward now, son of Hermes."

Luke blew out a breath.

"Sorry," He said almost sheepishly as his third eye on his forehead closed up like it had never been there and the black reptilian scales with bioluminescent vestigial eyes dripped down the right side of his face like black ink leaving normal human skin behind. It pooled in the open hand he held out to me as he crouched down. "I panicked. I didn't know what was happening and it hurt and I just grabbed it from you."

When had -

What -

From me?

I stared.

"You can see more than I can," Luke weakly defended himself. "And that monster from before didn't seem to hurt you as much, so I thought - if I had a little of that - " he cut himself off. "I tried to be quick because I didn't want to distract you - "

"It's fine," I said automatically.

It was more than knowledge, or skills. Luke didn't even have to know what exactly he was swiping to take it for himself.

What the hell did he steal?

'Essence of Elder God?'

Khione's swirling eyes sharpened a little as she idly inspected the dark smoky ball dotted with burning green eyes in his hand that looked a lot like my Dream form.

"Is there a limit to what you can steal?" Khione asked slowly.

Luke shot a dark look at her.

"Is there a limit to what my father can steal?" He asked back mockingly.

"Yes," she said seriously, taking him aback. She raised a finger to her lips in the universal 'be quiet' gesture as her eyes pointedly looked down at his outstretched hand and then back up.

Luke's brows furrowed as he dropped the ball on me. My stomach lurched a little, like it was trying to roll over, but nothing else happened. Luke set Artemis down on the gravelly ground. The bunny immediately belly flopped next to me, looking like it had crawled through World War I trenches. Patches of fur were missing from her hindquarters with oozing sores.

Khione ignored her.

Luke didn't.

"Why didn't you say anything?" He said, exasperated, as he dug into his fashion disaster yellow fanny pack for ambrosia squares.

"It does not matter," Artemis said quietly, sullen. She squeaked when Luke gently cuffed her upside the head.

"You could have at least said it was blood because you were chafing on the ride," he grumped. "I thought you peed on me."

Her ears flattened against her head immediately.

"Maybe I should have - " and they began to bicker like children in the cramped backseat of a car on the way to Disneyworld.

Khione caught my eye and rolled hers at me.

They were distracting.

I don't think they were even snowflakes anymore. Ice shards made fractal dizzying patterns that endlessly looped back to crumble into themselves, like there was a tiny blackhole in the middle.

She noticed me looking and smiled. "You can see that."

I could feel my face heat up from being caught staring. "Yeah, I - argh!"

Khione mercilessly twisted my broken leg back into place.

I rolled around a little, trying to blink stars out of my eyes, but the adrenaline was long gone and the fresh wave of pain was overwhelming. The cool hand against the side of my face didn't help with trying to stay awake and neither did the ambrosia square someone stuffed in my mouth mid-curse.

It tasted like Nana's baklava dessert. Warm, and full of honey.

"Rest," Khione said. "You're safe for now. You can rest."

I can rest.

Okay.

My brain had already checked out when my mouth remembered something.

"Seabiscuit wants a raise," I said.

The cold hand on my face pulled back.

"What?" Khione said.

"The horse," I explained.

Luke snorted. I think the horse did too (or maybe Luke didn't do anything and it was just the horse) but I was kind of out of it.

"He earned it."

I passed out.

Unconsciousness is not Sleep. Your soul usually isn't suicidal. The Dreaming part of it up and ditching your body every time you get knocked out by something and are probably still in danger or hurt would be dumb. That's why you try to wake up from being unconscious as soon as you can and if you are too hurt to, then you sleep so you could heal.

It's not perfect, but when is anything?

Or anyone.

I didn't Dream.

When I woke up, it took me two seconds to realize that we were inside the miniature tourist trap and food court that was the rest stop. This one was boasting something called a Sonic Drive restaurant where I was stuffed in a booth and through the glass windows I could see the souvenir shop on the other side of the wide foyer. On the table across from me, Artemis was munching on blades of hay in a bowl. One of the workers behind the food counter kept looking over at our table with an absolutely sappy look on his face.

Guess he was a bunny person.

"Ugh." I rubbed my face. "How long was I out?"

Artemis ears flicked back and forth. She muttered and that's when I realized her lion charm was missing.

"What happened to - " I narrowed my eyes. Artemis was left alone with Luke and Khione. "Did you bite someone?"

The rabbit looked offended.

"You bit someone."

She looked away, sulking.

I sighed. "What's wrong with you."

It wasn't a question, because I didn't want to know.

I stretched a little, testing to see how much I had healed. The answer was most of it. There was a cast made of ice on my leg and my shirt no longer had a hole the size of Montana in it, so Khione must have cleaned me up a bit. My skin there was still a bit tender, so I must have been scraped pretty bad if I could still feel it when I couldn't feel my wrenched shoulder anymore.

I've always healed fast and having a full ambrosia square definitely helped. The food of gods was good for that if you had enough divinity to not just burst into flame.

It -

Wait.

"You can eat ambrosia," I said to Artemis who looked back at me with silver eyes. Her little sweater was folded up in a tiny square next to her, probably so her injuries could be looked at. Sure enough, she was still bald in some places, but the bleeding sores were gone already. Her burst eardrums were healed that way too, back when we first met Aura, Corey and his dog Bradley.

That seemed like forever ago.

Artemis nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"It's just - " I tried to get my thoughts in order. "I thought Mom took everything, made you a normal rabbit."

Normal rabbits don't have silver eyes either, I thought then.

There was something I'm missing.

If Mom just wanted to hand Artemis a length of rope to hang herself with, she could have done that at any time. If it had to be now, assigning the Quest to Zoe Nightshade or Sipriotes of the goddess' senior Hunters would have still compelled Apollo's twin to come to Camp Half-Blood.

But Artemis is on a Quest.

When mortals were allowed to break divine rules.

Her ears dropped a little. Maybe she was thinking, but bunny faces don't do many expressions that aren't 'mad' and 'mad cute.'

Was I reading too much into this?

The rules were enforced by my sisters, the Fates. Mom had nothing to do with it. But…

Mom is not perfect. And not all-powerful.

Artemis is still Rhea's granddaughter and maybe that can't be taken away as easily as the blood of Phanes could be. A few months ago, the thought that Mom can't do something would have been close to blasphemy. Since I first got taken by Hermes and shoved into Camp Half-Blood, I've learned otherwise.

Mom can't lie, not won't.

Am I reading too much into this?

Movement in the corner of my eye had my head snapping in that direction. The guy I saw behind the counter jumped and held out the tray he was holding like it was an offering.

Guess I was still jumpy.

"Yer sis ordered for ya 'ready," he said with a hopeful smile and Texan twang. I stared at him for a moment.

How was he talking?

That's when I noticed the simple silvery charm bracelet he had on with a small snowflake charm.

Words were wind.

He was the wiry, bearded type that looked like he lived on a diet of coffee, biscottos and spite with fluffy brown hair under his beanie and brown eyes that were a little bloodshot.

I took the tray.

"Thanks, man."

"Nuthin' of it!" He said brightly and it looked like it broke something in him. "Let me know if you need in'thang, extra napkins, some sauce packets, cutlery?" He asked like he was a restaurant waiter.

"Uh." I looked down at my food. The wrapper proudly proclaimed I got a SuperSONIC Bacon Cheeseburger with Chili. Fries and a Coke. "I'm good?"

"Change your mind, caw may." He gave me a stern kind of look. "Noelle didn't want you walkin' around on that leg, you've fixin' to go to Houston, you got a ways, aite?"

Noelle?

I get it.

Like the Christmas song.

Way better than Fred as far as mortal aliases go. Morrigan isn't even on the list, because clearly Mom didn't give a shit about hiding anything at all.

"Alright," I said.

"The rabbit hers or yers?" The guy looked like he wanted to pet the bunny for a second, but Artemis' narrow eyed look stopped him.

"Luke's," I smirked as Artemis glared at me. "Couldn't leave her all by herself home alone. Who knows what could happen to her?"

She might decide to murder Fate's demigod.

"Oh. Him." The dude's face tightened. "Don't look like a rabbit guy."

He's not.

"She's a rescue and he's a bleeding heart," I said drily.

Artemis glared harder.

I booped her nose and she reared back like I was a leper.

Or just had boy cooties.

"She's a bit of a bitch, though."

The best part was that it was true. Luke cared about Camp Half-Blood and having Mom's boon to clean up the shithole that was Olympus and that was keeping Artemis alive.

The food guy eyed the bald patches in her fur, coming to the completely wrong conclusion.

"Ye, some rescues are hef-feral til they learn to trust ya, 'specially if they were sick or 'bused. Fear begets fear, gotta teach them to stop being 'fraid first 'fore they improve."

The rabbit shrunk.

"Hey, your name?"

"Ah," He pulled at his name tag that had curled up, only half of the adhesive sticking to his shirt. It read 'J.D.' "It doesn't stand for in'thang," he said, sheepishly. "Just Jaydee."

"Percy," I said.

"Percy and Noelle," he mused out loud. "From Louisiana?"

I was saved from having to answer that (what was in Louisiana?) by the other two members of our Quest party triumphantly returning with a bag of vending machine snacks, a clean shirt without rabbit blood, a white cowboy hat and one of those travel brochures that unfolded into a map of the United States roads.

"Percy," Khione flashed a small smile as she handed the map to Luke, who switched the bag of goodies over to his other hand so he could take it. "Glad to see you awake."

I raised my Coke in greeting. "How long was I out?"

She took a step back and looked up. I was confused until I realized there was a clock on the wall above me. That just reminded me that I had Rhea's sailor compass clock and could have just made a guess myself instead of asking.

"Forty minutes, roughly." She set her white cowboy hat on the table. Luke tossed me my sword pendant and I snatched it out of the air. "I did find something I like, Jaydee," she addressed the food guy who smiled helplessly at her. "Thank you."

"Yes'm," he said in an odd high pitched voice. "Need in'thang else?"

Luke slid into the booth opposite me, rolling his eyes. He offered Artemis a few roasted peanuts as Khione talked the guy around to leaving us alone.

"You feeling okay - after taking - " I made a vague gesture around my head with some fries.

"Why wouldn't I?" Luke said with a small frown. "I gave it back."

I have no idea.

I know I still have too many teeth, even after Mom got rid of my other sets. My spine sticks out and isn't shaped right and I have some extra organs and ribs. I have godly eyes and my body tried to make up for that by developing a few extras inside.

The Mist half-heartedly tries to hide what I called 'cousiny' traits just like it hides monsters and that told me enough. I'm not a monster. Neither is Clovis or Ethan.

But the children of the Pit and the Night were.

"Never mind then," I said.

He shrugged, eyeing me and popped some fries into his mouth. I didn't even notice him taking them and I was looking right at him. He winked back.

Luke was kind of scary.

I pointed at our pet rabbit. "Who'd she bite?"

Luke's good mood evaporated. He held up fingers I just noticed were bandaged. The story unfolded before me. They were arguing when I passed out. Probably kept arguing. Artemis bit him.

So he stole her voice.

"Can you not," I tried, speaking to both of them.

"She makes it very hard," Luke said and Artemis huffed.

I stared at him until he caved, clipping the lion charm back onto the rabbit's cat collar.

"Thank you," Artemis said stiffly.

"Mhm."

"Finally," Khione sighed as she came back to our table. She took a seat next to me holding a double chocolate cookie. "Could not take a hint."

"You literally told him you have magic," Luke pointed out unsympathetically.

"That has absolutely nothing to do with it," Khione said in a very, very dry tone of voice. "And you know it."

I have no idea what they are talking about.

"You tell everyone about you?" I asked instead. "And you said we were siblings?"

"Mortals tend to assume attractive people arriving together are related if they share any feature at all," she explained, fingering a lock of her black hair. "The same way they'll assume two people in the same room of the same race are related."

I blinked.

"Is thermodynamics the only thing you have a degree in?"

"No," Khione flashed a small smile. Before any of us could respond to that, she snatched the map back from Luke and spread it out on the table. "Houston should be your next stop," she said, pointing it out on the map. "We'll have to find someone or something willing to escort you the rest of the way through New Mexico and Arizona."

"You can't?" Luke asked.

"I shouldn't," Khione corrected him gently. "Olympus is currently on lockdown. We are advised to remain singular beings and we cannot rely on traditional borders and habitats during the Night." She pursed her lips. "The Amarok told me that much."

"You said it was a perfect alibi," I remembered.

"I am leading it back north," Khione said simply. "After the Migration, father and his brothers did not simply bulldoze their way in."

The way she said that gave me the impression others did. I wondered if it had anything to do with the classifications Hermes gave out when he was ticketing Mom. The Celts didn't exactly Migrate, like the Greek and Norse did. They were more like the Egyptians with their Nomes all over the place, but less centralized into Sidh sites.

I never really thought about how many toes the Greek and Norse stepped on coming over like they did.

"Alliances were made. It is a non-Olympic matter I am qualified to deal with and dangerous enough that everyone would assume I would be singular to do so. If any had a reason to check where the minor goddess of my father was - " Khione smiled a small, dangerous looking smile. "I would only be doing my duty."

That was what I saw earlier, I realized. Khione split off a Name. One for the wolf to chase, so the rest of her could help us here.

Artemis raised her head. "...why are you here then?"

Khione gave her a blank look. Then it turned to something that it was almost pitying. "Has it been so long since you answered a plea for help that you forgot what it looks like?"

"No, I - " The rabbit's ears flicked back and forth. "I am still alive."

"I noticed," Khione said flatly.

I winced.

"We talked it over," Luke volunteered, leaning a bit over the table. He and Khione glanced at each other with an unreadable look. "She's officially giving you help, Percy. And only you." He put on his father's crooked smile. "I'll just have to wing it as best I can, eh?"

I opened my mouth to protest, but then I remembered.

Luke is supposed to die. Hermes was punished and Athena was forbidden from helping him on his Quest.

"Are you on some kind of blacklist?" I asked him. "Because that's bullshit."

He shrugged a shoulder like it was no big deal, but I was there when he looked at me, hoping I could tell him it wasn't true.

"Can you blame anyone for not wanting to risk it?" He said darkly and Artemis flinched.

"I am abiding by the rules, to the letter," Khione said carefully. "I may not be a Messenger, but the wind does not need permission to travel. And the weather - well, it changes all the time." Her face twisted a little. "If your sisters object to their little brother getting legal aid, they are free to do something about it whenever they want."

There was a term Dad used to describe what Khione was doing. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was basically following all the rules in just the right way to not get in trouble and still piss people off.

She tapped a slim finger on Houston, TX. "Safety in numbers is necessary if I don't want to draw attention to myself or you." She gave me an uncomfortable look. "...you don't want to meet a wendigo. I don't want to meet a wendigo."

I will absolutely take her word for it.

"So get to Houston, get someone to give us a lift or carpool," I summarized. "Any Greeks there?"

"No," Artemis and Khione said at the same time.

Well, that's great.

"Thank you for this," I told Khione. "I owe you a big one."

The goddess' face lit up. The ice shards in her eyes unfolding and crumbling from their center like eleventh dimensional rose petals. The effect was breathtaking, but some small part of my mind was wondering what it meant when a god's eyes could change.

"I will hold you to that," Khione warned me lightly, waving her cookie.

Artemis took a tiny step forward on her little paws. "I…also owe you."

Khione's smile withered. "I am certainly not doing it for you."

"But you are aiding Olympus," Artemis ventured quietly. An ugly look was on the goddess of Ice and Snow's face for a moment and then she tilted her head back like she was asking someone for patience.

"Is this really the time for your 'daughter of the First Throne' nonsense when you don't even have - "

"Not - not that either," Artemis interrupted her. The rabbit looked around uncomfortably. "Can - May I talk to you…outside?" Artemis said with her voice getting quieter and quieter. "Or…something…"

"If it isn't something you can say with witnesses, it isn't something I will believe," Khione said archedly with a skeptical raised eyebrow.

Artemis went silent.

Khione scoffed and nibbled at her cookie. Luke stole a few more of my french fries as I worked on my Bacon Chili Cheeseburger and can I just say, it wasn't bad at all. Strange, but not bad. Luke stole more french fries until I told him to get his own. Apparently, Khione had a debit card too, so I didn't even need to use mine for his Chili Cheese dog and fries.

I had just finished my nectar-infused Coke when Artemis spoke up again.

"You had a baby girl once."

Khione went very still.

Luke leaned all the way back into his booth as if he could melt into it and get out of the line of fire. I wanted to do the same thing.

The song in her eyes was back, making the ice shards chaotically collide in a mesmerizing dance.

"Choose your next words very carefully," Khione said softly.

"I intervened!" Artemis blurted out and then her small form was wracked by a full body wince. "I - tried to intervene."

There was a sound like a massive frozen over lake had just cracked and the edges of Khione's form blurred, then sharpened back up. I fought the urge to scoot away from her. A couple of inches wasn't going to make a difference if she lost control of her divine form right next to me. I couldn't even run, she had me boxed in unless I dove over the table.

"You…" Khione whispered. "Tried."

"I wronged you," Artemis said in a very small voice. "I was just so angry - but I knew it was wrong. I owed you. So I tried."

"A life for a life," Khione murmured.

"I thought it would work," Artemis pleaded. "It should have worked."

"It didn't."

"No," Artemis moaned. "It did not."

Khione looked over the rabbit coldly. "You were punished?"

"Yes," Artemis answered quietly and suddenly, I knew Artemis had been talking about what Mom's spawn my eldest sister was like from personal experience. "I thought - " She swallowed loudly. "I do not know what I was thinking. I wanted to tell you, but I - "

The bunny shrunk into a little ball.

"Could not?" She offered pathetically.

"You couldn't?" Khione said abruptly. "You couldn't?"

A wave of the goddess' hand saw the food guy forget about coming over at her raised voice, eyes going dull as he made an about face and marched back into the kitchen as Khione rose from her seat to loom over the rabbit on the table.

I wondered if I should make a break for it.

"My daughter suffered and you let me believe it was my fault!"

Another crack rang out and then the song in her eyes changed. Khione shook her head. Her hand raised to her temple like she had a sudden headache.

"No - no, of course, it makes perfect sense. Why am I - why am I surprised?" She sounded breathless. "Why do I - Olympus has always been full to - to bursting with lessons only suffering can teach." Khione whirled on me and I jumped. "Percy. I will ward the building so you can sleep here, but if you wish to press on, I can't - " She struggled to get the words out. "I - I can't - "

Another crack of ice.

"Luke, stay alive. Artemis. I will enjoy watching you die."

Then she was gone.

For a long moment, no one said anything.

Then Luke took a loud, obnoxious sip of his soda.

"So you not only screwed over everyone you know, but some people you screwed over multiple times," he said. "I'm in awe."

Artemis sighed.

"Why?" I asked.

I didn't have to explain what I was asking.

"Pride," she answered. "Shame? Or maybe I was just afraid to say anything…" she said quietly. "Your sisters are like your mother. There is always just enough ambiguity, just enough give, just enough rope so that we think we can fight it, but it never means what we think it does. And… this time?" She asked herself, almost wonderingly. "I can hardly be punished more."

She hopped over to the edge of the table and then down into the seat, disappearing from view.

"It was a secret I did not want to die with. That is all."

No, I thought. That wasn't the kind of secret I would want to take to my grave either.

I stood up. My leg complained, but I could walk.

"We'll stay the night," I said.

Luke eyed me.

"Deadline," he said gently.

Damn it.

He blew out a breath.

"Yeah, I get it." He looked down at the rabbit next to him. "I've been thinking. If your mother told the Fates to do something, they'd have to do it, right?"

"Yeah."

She just usually doesn't care to.

He nodded thoughtfully. "...it's only about an hour to Houston. Stopping here…"

My hands clenched into fists, but I nodded. "Fifteen minutes?"

"Sure." He got up and stretched, then started to clean up our trays.

I picked up Khione's white cowboy hat and limped outside.

In the back of an old pick up truck, I found a goddess.

"I am afraid I will not be good company," Khione said quietly.

"You don't have to be," I said, hoping I could help even a little by just being here. I climbed into the truck and sat next to her. My leg ached. It wasn't the most comfortable seat in the world, but I could deal with it. I set the white hat down between us. "It's okay."

"It's not," she said and I winced.

Yeah. It wasn't.

"I thought my armor of ice was perfect," Khione said softly. "Flawless. I told myself they would make a mistake. They would weaken. I can wait." She shifted around a little and idly picked up her hat. I heard her whisper, "I hate them."

I looked around the parking lot and tried not to think about a certain Great Prophecy and how one of the choices was to raze.

"And it seems the beloved daughter does not even need a bow and arrow to pierce right through my heart." Her hand raised to her chest and I knew that under her fingers was her scar. "After all these years - " she let out a soft gasp I tried to ignore. "They can still hurt me."

I don't know if she was talking about the Olympians.

Or my older sisters.

"...it's not my fault," Khione said brokenly, as if just realizing it all over again. "None of it was."

Mom, I prayed. If you won't, or can't, do anything about the Fates.

I will.

Her response was carefully, almost painfully, neutral. It was not a yes.

It also wasn't a no.

If I was going to break a Prophecy, it only made sense that I'd have to go through the Prophecy makers first. I wondered what that said about Mom, that the idea didn't bother her.

It didn't bother me.

All this time, I've assumed that I was just like any other Olympic demigod. Just as strong or important. But if I was, nothing about Mom's plans for me made sense. Mom put me on a Quest, where mortals were allowed to break the rules. By their own decrees, the Fates couldn't stop me.

I was not an Olympic demigod.

Maybe I should flex some diplomatic immunity. Mom had plans for me. I knew there would be consequences. Things Mom hasn't told me or won't tell me, but if she was willing to lend me the weight of her Name, then a lot could change. This might all blow up in my face. My only other choice was to do nothing. To keep the status quo and only do little things that wouldn't rock the boat too hard, to preserve.

Either way I was beginning to realize was a problem. It was one thing to say it or decide to do it. It was another to actually do it.

How do you break a Prophecy that was multiple choice?

And at the end of it all…

Something cold hit my nose. I looked up.

It was snowing.

Large snowflakes fell from a pitch black sky in the middle of June. The light from the streetlamps reflecting off the snow made it look like there were thousands of tiny, sparkling falling stars drifting lazily down to earth. Beside me, Khione shuddered, a tiny hitched gasp and she curled into herself, but she didn't cry.

I'm only half-human, I thought, but maybe that was the wrong way to think.

I'm also half-god.

I can do this.

Snow fell on my face and the tarmac and the truck.

The flakes melted instantly into cold droplets of water and fell to the ground in icy tears.

 

[Shujin]

THE DEMIGOD had the same tell as his father.

She would be the first to admit that he was a handsome boy in that familiar sharp edged, arrogant way. His mother must have given him that hair and nose, but everything else was his father. It was too bad Hermes' pretty head was one she wanted separated from his neck and it took everything in her to not let the spark of hatred burn.

Be ice.

It was in the minute twitching of his fingers. To their credit, it could have meant anything. The desire to draw a weapon, to strangle, to indicate in a direction, to steal…which is why she never bothered trying to decipher what it meant.

Luke Castellan, like his father, suppressed and hid the wrong things.

The faint crackle and pop as the surveillance cameras watching them died could have been caused by a number of different things, but Khione was a goddess. The way the top layer of reality inverted into a spike right through the mechanical innards might as well have been a bugle horn. She didn't have to look around the tourist trap to know that they were out of earshot and out of sight of mortals -

- that white cowboy hat was nice, actually. There were even little light blue buffalo prancing along the hat band! That was adorable. She could make a copy, of course, but having something that wasn't cold was appealing, once in a while. She set it on her head and turned around.

There was a sword at her throat.

She almost rolled her eyes.

Mortals.

The next Ice Age could not come fast enough.

"My criminal justice degree feels compelled to inform you that this is criminal assault in Texas," she tried.

The demigod's cloudy blue eyes (they changed, she noted. Has someone been exposed?) were hard as he spat out, "What do you want?"

Khione stared at him for a second. "You cannot possibly be this dense."

She could tolerate one oblivious demigod, but two would be pushing it.

Apparently, she was, in fact, dealing with two of them, because the demigod of Hermes simply edged his blade closer to her neck. And he would do it too, she could tell. If she took too deep a breath now, it might cut.

She inclined her head. "Immortal goddess."

He tilted the flat of the blade towards her and the fluorescent lights shined off the threads of greenish white crystal spreading through the centre of the sword like the thin branches of a tree.

"Adamantine."

She didn't need to spend even a second wondering how Hermes got his hands on the dangerous material (Thief), but she did make a mental note that this demigod was worth more to his father than most.

A lot more.

No wonder Hermes offered a favour. She was glad the boy wasn't dead yet, even if he had the same darkly mocking smile his father had.

"You won't be healing from this one," he finished grimly.

…Now she was curious.

'Won't I?' she wondered inwardly and let the question echo. There was a faint feeling of question from within. 'Cut forever,' she thought next and in her mind's eye an image of a flowering tree branch was cut off and the leftover stump withered away. The feeling turned to reproach and the stump bloomed again right through the rot.

"Won't I?" She asked out loud with what she knew was an inappropriate amount of glee. She adored her new mother, truly. Way more useful than her birth one ever was. "You can break the ice," she admitted easily. "Temporarily."

It cost her nothing to admit it. Ice could break. Has broken. Denying it was useless. There was nothing she needed to protect herself from here. He was just like all the rest of his type. Only capable of envisioning a god as something simultaneously powerful enough to own all the ills of mankind, but weak enough to punish for it.

He had a warrior's sense. She had seen enough men prancing before her in an effort to impress to be able to discern the wheat from the chaff. He was wary now. For a moment, she thought perhaps her eyes had given it away, but he couldn't even see through the Mist, could he?

It didn't matter.

"All ice needs is water."

The human body is sixty percent water.

"And cold."

The boy cursed as his outstretched arm froze all the way through.

He was quick.

Even through what must have been excruciating pain and unresponsive muscles, he flipped his sword into his other hand. She watched him swing the blade right through her neck. Her visage didn't respond besides raising an eyebrow as the sword passed through harmlessly. One of the symptoms of hypothermia was hallucinations. He immediately turned with a vicious backswing -

The blade glanced off the wall of ice that hadn't been there a second before because in the end, it was just metal. Snarling, he spun again and tired of the pirouetting, Khione froze his penis.

Everyone knows frostbite takes the extremities first.

The boy's eyes bugged as he soundlessly dropped to his knees.

He really did look too much like Hermes. She should know better than to let her wishful thinking slip through.

"You are fortunate I went to medical school," she mused as she came back from the counter, a newly purchased white cowboy hat on her head and slowly knelt down in front of him. She just as slowly reversed the freezing. Revelling a little, in the fact that she could reverse it, now that mortal understanding of their own physical limitations allowed for it.

The demigod glared up at her with tears in his eyes. Khione let herself smile at him. "Or maybe not."

"How many degrees do you have?" The demigod demanded, a bit high pitched.

"Enough."

She was especially proud of the latest one in physics, because it was incredibly useful, very interesting and finishing that doctorate was a bitch and a half she never wanted to do again.

Unfortunately, she probably would have to do it again in a century or two.

"I won't kill you," she reassured the wretch. She would have liked to make him beg for it, but she was not here to make enemies and he was unlikely to do it. Even if killing him wouldn't have been a step too far for the rules. "I don't want to and I don't care that you stole the Master Bolt."

His eyes searched her face. To prove her words, she took the lingering pain away as well. The cold deadened nerve endings.

Slowly, almost too slowly, the demigod relaxed.

"Of course not," he drawled. "You'd have to explain to Percy what you did with the body."

Khione smiled winningly at him. So he wasn't that dense, just paranoid.

"Because you're a dirty traitor, obviously. You even tried to sabotage the whole thing by attacking me in a souvenir shop when all I wanted was a hat," she mock chided him. "There won't be a next time."

It wasn't a question.

"No," the mortal said quietly. "There won't."

She let him get up and checked over her work. For obvious reasons, she wasn't as used to using her abilities to take the cold away. There was a little subdermal bruising, but demigods did heal rather quickly compared to more mundane mortals. It would be fine, no permanent damage. Good. He was useful and she would like to keep it that way.

"I am curious, though." She stepped in close and absently fixed his vest collar. He tensed for a second, but the moment passed and he just watched her with lidded eyes. "Is change enough? Or would you rather Olympus burns?"

"Which one for you?" He ventured cautiously.

"The second," she said coldly. "But…it doesn't matter, does it?" The collar fixed, she let her hands run down to smooth over the creases in the red vest before pulling away. "The son of Fate seems the compassionate type, but at least he has the power to actually do something about it."

She doubted Olympus even had the capability to truly change, but she would wait and see. She could be patient. If it proved that it couldn't? She hoped Fate's demigod turned out to be a truly just man.

"You don't have to put yourself at risk like this," he said, feeling out her conviction.

"Yes, I do," she said immediately. "The moment the shock of his Claiming dissipates, every god on that mountain will realise exactly what he is. They might get ideas," she said in a low tone. "And I can't have that."

His face scrunched up.

She scoffed. "Don't pretend that's not what you want him for."

The demigod's eyes averted. There was shame there, she thought. Someone was having second thoughts, but what about?

It didn't matter.

Whatever he had doubts about, it wasn't about this. She could see the moment he decided she was a potential ally and trusted a little.

"He gave me…his boon." The mortal's cloudy blue eyes swung back. "From his mother."

Khione's mind went blank for a second.

"From…his mother," she repeated. "From his mother?"

Gods giving a mortal any kind of IOU was almost unheard of, and to have one from Ananke herself?

Amazing.

Also terrifying, yes.

"He's only good for it if the rabbit survives," he said with a grimace and Khione turned completely away from him to bite her thumb so she wouldn't scream.

"That's…fine," she managed to say around the sweet golden blood in her mouth.

It wasn't. It wasn't, it wasn't!

"The best I can do is help the Quest in general succeed - " Because she could not stomach the thought of actually lifting a finger to help Artemis do anything. " - we can say I'm just helping the son of Fate. Officially."

"Officially," the demigod repeated dutifully.

She turned back to him. "And unofficially, if you need to cover your tracks so our mutual friend doesn't know, you have options."

"The god of War knows," he reminded her.

"The god of War is a brute that the goddess of Love has on a long leash," Khione said shortly. "If you can talk him into letting you go and keeping the Bolt, then believe that I am capable of much more." She tilted her head. "Besides, he kept it for this long. If he tells, who will believe him?"

The demigod waved a hand.

"He has the Helm too," he said airily, a challenging look in his eyes.

The Helm…of Darkness?

Hades' Symbol of Power that turned the wearer completely invisible and completely undetectable.

On a demigod of Hermes, god of Thieves.

Who just stole from Olympus.

"You…are an idiot," Khione hissed at the wretch. "If you had the Helm, why didn't you wear it instead of fighting the god of War?"

Fighting and losing.

The demigod's face twisted.

"The Helm was booby trapped to the Pit and back. I didn't have the time to disarm it all and thinking straight while escaping Olympus was…hard," he finished lamely and she revised her understanding of the situation.

At first, she had thought there was some unnamed god acting as his patron. How else would a mere demigod get the actual gumption to steal the Master Bolt of Zeus? A mastermind waiting for Camp Half-Blood field trip during the Winter Solstice to direct a demigod of the god of Thieves into the perfect theft that would set the Olympians against each other. It would allow for them to approach allies and consolidate power while Olympus were distracted.

Now she knew this boy was as much of an imbecile as his father.

"Don't worry," Khione said drily. "I'll treat you just like my brothers and be sure to do all the thinking for you."

"Hilarious," the demigod deadpanned.

"One last thing," she said and watched his eyebrows raise. "Steal from me."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it."

The boy sighed. There was movement a layer beneath the top and she could see a ghostly luminescent white silhouette covered in mouths with long prehensile tongues reach out of his body -

There was a crackling sound as they sprang apart, stung.

"Did you just punch me with your soul?" Khione asked incredulously.

"I was trying to steal something! Like you asked!" The mortal protested, then his brows furrowed. "How'd you do that?"

How did she do that?

How the everloving fuck

Be ice.

"...I was expecting it," she managed to say. "And gods have more awareness and control over our soul."

Such as it was.

Her mother called them 'Hollow' and she was not wrong.

"Be careful with that. In how you use it and in who knows you can," she warned him, because he was useful and she would like to keep it that way. "The wrong person will make you pay for it."

And maybe she was speaking from personal experience.

She watched his face flood with understanding.

"...Percy let me take a bit," the demigod said quietly as his eyes averted again.

"He's a kind boy, isn't he?" Khione let herself smile as she looped her arm around his and dragged him to the counter where he hesitantly picked out a silk handkerchief at her urging. It was in that vintage style with the state's flower, the bluebonnet and a decoratively cursive red 'Texas' on it. She was surprised. It didn't seem like his style.

"For my mother," he murmured, eyes lowered.

The mortal woman at the counter remained completely ignorant as she congratulated Khione on having such a handsome, thoughtful boyfriend in hastily scrawled writing. The boy's answering smile was faint, but passable as Khione simply compelled the woman to not ask too many questions.

They got a map, discussed their options and she carefully talked around the issue of Roman demigods in California. That one enforcement would not let go if she let it slip, but she said enough to make him suspicious that Olympus was 'hiding' something there unrelated to Ares' temple or the ruins of Mt. Othrys.

He had been to the latter before. It was where he got the scar on his face.

At the vending machine, he punched the buttons like the contraption had personally wronged him.

"It's Luke," he said forcefully.

"Pardon?" Khione turned back to him.

"My name is Luke," he said. "Maybe I can't see you like Percy can, but it's still in your eyes. It's not 'mortal.' It's not 'demigod.' It's Luke."

She opened her mouth and then closed it, honestly speechless.

And a sick, hot flush was welling up under her cheeks that she hadn't felt in centuries.

"Of course, f - forgive me." She cursed her tongue for the falter, but he didn't seem to notice as his shoulders dropped a bit of their tension and he collected the snacks as they dropped. She supposed she should be pleased he was comfortable enough to confront her. She would do him this courtesy. They were allies, after all and he was not bad company.

(they kept calling me girl) ​

It was not the same!​

She felt sick.

She quickly offered the feeling to her mother and it was quickly taken.

Too quickly.

She could feel it cut away this time instead of a gentle fading, leaving behind an empty, hollow feeling that she didn't like. It made her…wonder what it was exactly that she was giving away. The next feeling was one of an apology and she forgave her mother.

She was just restless due to the confluence of events. The Pit was stirring and for the first time, it was happening at the same time as the Night fell. She would not be surprised to hear that there was movement in the ocean depths so of course the earth would yearn to follow suit.

Not yet, though.

Just before they returned to the cafeteria, the demig Luke stopped her.

"So, we're good?"

Khione stared at him blankly.

"Yes?" She frowned. "I can't think of a reason why we would not be?"

His face slackened. "Criminal assault in Texas?"

She frowned harder. "We both agreed that wouldn't happen again."

"That's it? No hard feelings?"

"Immortal goddess?"

They stared at each other.

"So someone can just leave you to die - "

"Wait." Several things clicked into place for her. His paranoia and hostility. "Were you still holding that against me?" He stared at her, baffled. She huffed, almost offended now. "I gave you a reconciliation gift! What more do you want?"

Luke threw his head back and stared at the ceiling of the Chambers County Rest Area like it held the meaning to life.

"I get it," he said eventually. "Gods are insane."

"No," she countered as she eyed the map, mentally marking out godly territory. "Mortals are. It's all that dying you do."

Percy was awake. At first, he looked confused when he saw her, but she could see the moment he remembered that she came to help because his face then lit up. She felt a heady thrum of vindication and internally sighed wistfully.

He was going to be a beautiful man in a few years.

Mother did not approve, but Khione hadn't spent the time convincing her that the enemy of your enemy was a tool to be used to just give up on what she wanted.

She was less thrilled to see a certain furball again and even as annoying as it was, she welcomed the food clerk's efforts to get her attention.

Yes, it was technically against the rules to let mortals know about her. Olympus had a standing policy of non-interference in mortal affairs outside their Domains. Saying she had magic probably wouldn't fool any enforcement, but it also wasn't actionable.

And according to Olympus, she could tell this man whatever she wanted in order to fuck him. Leaving this man with a demigod to raise alone did not count as 'interference in mortal affairs' and bastards were not afforded any rights. If you were to ask, you would be told that the country they were in, America did the same thing.

Who were you to judge?

Canada did not.

Except for Nova Scotia, but no one cared about Nova Scotia.

Sometimes, she wondered who they were trying to fool. Either they were following the mortals, or they weren't.

…enough stalling.

It would be fine. She was a rabbit.

There was nothing Artemis could do to her anymore.

---

She was wrong.​

---

The ice had broken again.

She couldn't do it.

She supposed Greek heroes were used to leaving their women behind for one reason or another, but being that woman for a completely oblivious demigod was both a novel and horrid feeling. Either men knew what she wanted or they didn't care.

She hesitated at giving the emotion to her mother. Some wretched part of her wasn't ready to let it go.

She vividly remembered her own pleading, her voice breaking, the rocks digging into her knees as she begged for the only child she had actually wanted. She had stopped asking for her daughter's life (what did I do? who have i wronged? what choice should i have made, please) and now was just asking for it to end.

The Fates denied her.

In their own words, some lessons only suffering could teach.

But she wasn't the one they were punishing with failure. After all these years searching for a reason, a rationale (the terror always came, choking. if she did not care about them, they couldn't be used against her), or some kind of sign that the lightning would not strike twice and burn it all down again.

But it wasn't her fault.

Her senses followed them out of the rest stop, resuming their journey. Artemis was a dull grey blob of insignificance, only distinguishable from a plant by the spark of silver deep within. Luke was a sharp purple haze, the same colour as most demigods of their pantheon, but there was a creeping dark blue colour that shot straight through his core.

Percy's was slumbering. A lazily smouldering dark pit that felt like it was just biding its time until it could finally set ablaze and devour everything in sight.

She pulled her senses back, annoyed at herself for lingering on him. On the warmth. It was a bad habit. When would she learn? Even a dog could only reach out so many times, before it preferred the cold.

Fire always burns.

He would be ridiculously influential. She had seen the dark wings from his shadow contemptuously bat Aura away. He would be strong.

(he's kind)​

And what would kind get me?​

She ignored that little voice inside.

The meek do not only inherit nothing, they are robbed. The unjust will always have the initiative. The weak can accomplish only as much as the strong allow and the good is notoriously slow at coming to the worthy. If it ever arrives at all. Perhaps another plane, another state of existence supped on kindness instead of apathy, but if one such as that existed, it was not this one.

There was nothing inherently good about living.

She wished there was.

But that was the truth of things. She need only look as far as the ones who decided it would be so, to see it would never change. It took longer than she would care to admit, but she learned.

She learned.

This is what Olympus made of her. It would be inconsiderate not to let them enjoy the hard earned fruits of their labour. Now, if only she could keep her heart hard and cold and just do what needed to be done, she would be able to enjoy every second of it as well.

The Hollow Gods grow quickly. Perhaps that was why she was having such a difficult time putting her childhood down like the pathetic creature it was after all these years. That little voice inside had grown quiet, but not completely silent.

It was fine.

She could wait.

And one day.

Soon.

The girl she had been would no longer have the strength to break the ice with her pain and compassion, but would

Finally!​

drown.