Though there may be some mental issues from it, but as an Old God Aphrodite would have those a lot less because she is an Old God sponsored by Fate. Also I think her divinity type is from her native pantheon still because eating gods doesn't change your type of divinity.
An Undertow of Sand (Percy Jackson and the Cthulhu Mythos)
- Thread starter Shujin
- Start date
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
So... Who gets to tell her about all the car chases in her future?
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Car chases? @.@
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
I mean, it stands to reason doesn't it? She's a sitting duck on her feet, but she'd be a devil mounted on a horse or chariot. Dramatically speaking that's reasonably translatable to cars, vans, etc - it's still deeds of mounted/vehicular heroism. And if she's called to a quest, it's because her talents will be needed. Her mounted/vehicular talents.
Ergo, if Silena is called to a quest, it's because that quest is going to involve, and need someone who's good at, thrilling heroics involving riding or driving. Thus, car chases.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Mainly riding/charioteer since it's not quite the Riding skill for Servants from the Fate series, but anything involving horses. Unfortunately no Silena, daughter of Aphrodite, Getaway Driver any time soon, I don't think. Unless she's the getaway driver for Amish using horse and buggy.
Gideon020
Really in the mood for ribs.
Now you've just jinxed it. XD
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Only if she rides and drives from the roof like it's the world's most unsafe chariot.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Poseidon and Hephestus team up >:3
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
You can make an argument for it working on jet skis! That's kind of like riding a chariot, right?
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
Tbh like, to be serious for a moment, this kind of shines a light on why I think the answer is lame, because my reaction is mainly, 'no, not really'. The mechanical process of using jetskis is somewhat closer to riding a chariot in how you sit and what motions your body performs, but the dramatic/mythological role is completely different, and if you're talking about gods, demigods, and heroic deeds, I feel like the latter is what matters more? If Silena's heritage makes her supernally skilled with horses and chariots, then that should translate to the equivalent modes of transportation today, the things that fill similar societal roles in both practical function and cultural presence. And that's... That's cars and bikes, obviously.
Not to say I don't understand your perspective. This is much more the kind of thing that like, Scion or Exalted would do, translating heroic skills to the modern day according to their associations rather than the mechanics. Being a greek demigod gave canon Percy a talent for ancient greek weapons, he wasn't running around with a Celestial Bronze Glock 21.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Pretty much. Unfortunately PJO canon somewhat half-asses it, but for the most part the Ancient Greek gods are Ancient Greek gods only. 'Modern' gods don't exist. I'm just trying to reimagine canon, instead of changing canon if that makes sense. Sorry
This may be kinda off topic, but in pjo it's kinda a thing that gods need mortals. But presumably the titans and the gods predate humans based on myths. So like wtf? That's one thing I like about this story it's pretty clear, young gods need mortals, but if someone like rhea sneezed wrong woke up and offed all the mortals or a planet eating being came along and gobbled the planet up beings like nyx probaply wouldn't even notice but any young god who managed to avoid rhea/being eaten would be screwed.
Which leads me to my second question, we know fate is a big thing and that it's pretty much unavoidable and Luke will die in an incredibly specific way at a predetermined time. Does that mean if in the hypothetical and unlikely case that a meteor large enough to destroy earth with giant god be gone barriers to prevent godly interference barrels down on them thst fate will tweak things so it misses earth? Or will the fact that Luke has to die in that incredibly specific way not be enough? Or since there are multiple pantheons what if one pantheon has an end of time prophecy that comes true which one takes precedence? Does the apocalypse get pushed back till all other prophecies are fulfilled?
Which leads me to my second question, we know fate is a big thing and that it's pretty much unavoidable and Luke will die in an incredibly specific way at a predetermined time. Does that mean if in the hypothetical and unlikely case that a meteor large enough to destroy earth with giant god be gone barriers to prevent godly interference barrels down on them thst fate will tweak things so it misses earth? Or will the fact that Luke has to die in that incredibly specific way not be enough? Or since there are multiple pantheons what if one pantheon has an end of time prophecy that comes true which one takes precedence? Does the apocalypse get pushed back till all other prophecies are fulfilled?
There are beings who are immune to Fate such as recently Percy as well as Aether, there is also the possibility of other Gods stepping in and stopping something like that such as the Hindus. Also because of Percy's fate shifting thing his way of death has already changed see chapter 1.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Something like Luke's Fate is an active thing. Percy's sisters worked to set it up, which means anything that can overrule them can change it. Prophecies must come true, but what doesn't have to come true is Luke's part in it.
Most apocalypse prophecies also explicitly include survivors, such as Ragnarök while the Hindu end of times comes with the heat death of the universe so there's a LOT of wiggle room. Not to mention, not all myths are true, especially for younger myths such as the Sermon of the Seven Suns of Buddhism. It may be True, or it may be a Could Be, not inevitable.
- Location
- Brazil
You have to remember that Ananke is Fate and that she is Nyarlathotep; she is an Outer God, existing beyond the universe. When you are dealing with a being of this scale, the implication is that the meteor would not be hauling towards Earth in the first place, not in the "this event is extremely unlikely to happen" sense, but in a "the chain of events that would lead this event to happen impossible to come to be" sense.
When you are talking about Fate you have to think about it like the Behelits in Berserk: If a Behelit is meant for you, then you will have it at the right moment, even if you threw it away in the most isolated place possible, it will find its way back to you; if it is not meant for you, you will lose it one way or another, no matter how well you guard it, someone will take it, even if it is from your corpse. The Behelits are not teleporting, nor are they really twisting things, so that the events that lead to this outcome happen, but rather, the events that lead to this outcome were always meant to happen, nothing is being twisted, it is simply the way things were supposed to go. The only way to truly know if a Behelit was meant for you is to have it with you at the right moment, regardless of the circumstances.
Likewise, an Apocalypse, suposing it happens, could be: a) partial, affecting one specific pantheon, or one specific group of people, or one specific geografic region, or one specific cultural structure, but being truly all-encompassing; b) simultanious, that is, diferent prophecies of apocalypse from different pantheons both come true seamlessly at the same time, in such a way, that were it not for the different prophecies, no-one would be able separete the events that took place from each other. I don't think it makes sense to talk about an apocalypse taking precedence over the other, because it implies one will override the other, but the way I see it, when we are dealing with Fate and Prophecies as part of reality, then if an apocalypse is meant to happen, then it will happen. And if multiple apocalypses are meant to happen, then they will all happen, one way or another.
Edit: Ninja'd by the author
There is also this whole deal with The Could Be and False prophecies which has been mentioned before, am real interested in learning about that as well as the other metaphysics in regards to Fate. Plus learning about Percy's metaphysics as the story progresses is really neat.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Indeed, there are a few things scattered here and there in the Camp Half-Blood Tales and the main story, but the Fates Restricted Tyche, goddess of Fortune. Percy uses card tarot for his readings and tells us Prophecy and Probability Don't Get Along. He mentions Ouranos and False Prophecies and Hermes expands on the Could Be and True Sight.
It is interesting with the whole Prophecy and Probability not getting along since Percy has power over both. Also with the whole Fates restricting Tyche it makes me wonder who else they have done that to.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
I thought I hinted at it pretty heavily. Tyche has a mother, after all.
Oh it was hinted pretty heavily, Aphrodite has a lot of names and domains and she is one of the few entities that may have an overlap of Prophecy and Probability. Or is it more the case that Tyche is just a "mutant" child of Aphrodite but a god as well with weird domains?
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
The former. Tyche got Fortune from somewhere and it certainly wasn't from Hermes.
We Hired Ghost Rider On the Fly: Apollo
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
A voice in my head
I didn't do nuthin' wrong
Crisis awaits me
Gah!
Who the - what the Hades are you? How'd you - why are you - this shouldn't be happening.
"Greek!"
Give me a second.
"How kind of you to notice through that squint of yours, Chinese."
What?
Oh. No.
I'm not being racist.
I am being an asshole. It's a subtle, but important difference. The former is being an idiot because bigot. The latter is because I'm Greek, Xihe is not here and I'm this close to doing something unwise to Taiyang's face.
It's been a long four days.
"So you all gotta hold the fort, Prophecy is acting up like whoa! Saule, darling, can you - great. It shouldn't take too long, five minutes? Five minutes, might be five decades, you know how it is. Ciao!"
Whew.
Did I get clear?
Don't answer that. You better not have any way of knowing and we are talking about gods here. A spiteful, contrary bunch. I should know!
I think I'm good, no one likes it when Prophecy Domains act up.
No one.
It's like a steaming wet turd dropped in the middle of the dance floor. It stinks up the whole place. You can't ignore it, because you might put your foot in it and then it'll get everywhere and if you just leave it to dry, you'll never get it out of the carpet so someone's gotta clean it up.
So.
Let's talk.
Well, you're pretty funny looking, aren't you…you haven't, perhaps, maybe, possibly dislodged yourself from this bizarre young little proto-demigod hybrid I-don't-know-what-he-is-person-thing?
Perseus Stele?
Crap.
I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to be wrong and I'm not and I don't know how to feel about that.
I bet he just rolled with it too. Because that boy wouldn't know normal if it actually bit him in the ass annnnnnd you shouldn't be here, but you are, which means something has gone very wrong somewhere!
And I have no idea what or when!
Fuck.
Story of my life.
Alright.
Fine.
Since I have decided against burning you out of my divinity…
Hi.
Whoever and whatever you are.
Don't tell me.
If I don't know by now, I'm not supposed to. That's how this works. I am the great, powerful, handsome and awesome Phoebus Apollon! Tremble before my glory! The Greek god of the Sun and a bunch of other things that aren't important right now.
Except Prophecy.
That one's important.
Unfortunately.
Hold on. That gives me an idea.
You're coming along, of course. How'd Percy do this? Since you're…you.
…I can do that.
There is nothing I love talking about more than myself!
My next stop was on my grandmother's front door step.
It was somewhere in Mississippi, I don't know exactly where. I can barely tell the difference between Manhattan and Queens. And I live in that city. Don't give me that - The Sun Sees All and the Sun also has a Terrible Sense of Geography, do I look like Hermes to you? I am much more handsome. And the geopolitical realities of what piece of land on a single planet belongs to what made up country or is named whatever to which government or the longitude and latitude coordinates - that matters to Travelers.
The "geography" crammed into my skull is on a more interstellar scale.
I raised my hand to knock on the normal looking front door, but it opened before I could touch it.
There, standing before me in all her polka dot bathrobe and pink slippers glory was the former Queen of the Gods of Mt. Othrys.
You don't know how weird this is.
I always imagined my grandmother to be like a female version of my father. Her husband was evil, five of her kids had been eaten and when all was said and done, she pulled a Switzerland with Okeanos and stayed out of the way. I'd give this woman good odds on a solo assault on Olympus itself and she did nothing with that strength. My father and my uncles loved her, but her daughters were noticeably cooler on the subject. I imagined this incomprehensible, arrogant, powerful distant figure with Uncle Sea's eyes, my father's face and Hera's sneer. Instead, I got Flower Power, lessons on strategic drug use and the really unfortunate knowledge that the elder Olympians had a step-father in Bob Marley.
"Well," my grandmother Rhea blinked owlishly at me. I think she could see you. "Shit."
She can definitely see you.
"Help." I was not begging, but it was a close call.
"Yeah." She sounded - and looked - despondent. It was a familiar kind of misery. The one where you hoped you were wrong about something and had to admit that you weren't. It wasn't actually a Prophecy thing, but it might as well be.
"Motherfucking - I hate her," Rhea muttered as she turned right around and went back into her house. For lack of better options, I followed. "I fucking hate her - I was done. I'm asleep."
"I'm sorry?" I didn't want to admit I had no idea what was going on, but, well. If I said otherwise, I'd be lying. Can't do that, I'm the God of Truth!
That was a lie.
I can lie, but I don't like doing it. That's the Honest to Me Truth.
I don't like apologizing either, but when confronted with someone that can splatter me like a bug on a windshield with an ounce of concentration I found saying my condolences much easier to do.
I'm a golden immortal, but some things not even I want to test the limits of.
"This is Her fault." You could hear the capital H as Rhea puttered around her house like an over-caffeinated mouse. I was starting to think the 'her' was Percy's mother. Which was fair, honestly, I'm not about to pretend I haven't cursed Her Name once or twice. Even us gods could feel like ants under a microscope sometimes. Shocking, I know. Rhea's pride of lions lazed about, watching the goddess blow through her house, finding her car keys, grabbing her purse. I don't know why she was bothering physically getting the items. I never did if I could get away with it. Perks of godhood, never losing your car keys for more than five seconds.
"I should have known," she grumbled. "I should have burned those fucking trees the second time around - argh!"
"Whoa!" I jumped back with my divine reflexes as a piece of pottery whipped past me to shatter against the wall. I knew from the way the pottery broke and not the state of Mississippi that she was still restraining herself. I was reminded of the many, many temper tantrums of my siblings whenever we were ordered around. I was always dignified about it, as I am with everything I do, but being bossed around by someone you knew didn't care much beyond their orders and not being able to do anything about it was, as Percy would say:
It sucks.
"I don't understand," I risked saying. "What's the problem exactly?"
Every lion in the room turned their deadpan cat stares onto me.
"Aside from everything."
Rhea snorted. She ran a hand through her hair that was currently a platinum blonde color I've only seen on her daughters Hera and Demeter before. In a blink of an eye, the hungover free loving hippie was replaced by a hungover snowbird who looked like she was hating her retirement years.
"The problem is that she fucking got me."
That explained absolutely nothing.
Neither did being dragged halfway across the country with a grumpy lion cub, a potted bonsai tree and the Beatles' music in the passenger seat of a Greek Mystery Machine. It was god travel, obviously, so instead of taking hours it only took a couple of seconds to travel hundreds of miles.
I can confidently say, with 100% certainty, that I have no idea what's going on.
Being confidently wrong is one of my many talents!
Our destination was all the way back to the East Coast and somewhere in the North East. I only recognized where we were by the echoes of our first failed attempt at moving to the Americas with Olympus.
"Washington, D.C?"
"Close," my grandmother grunted. "Takoma Park."
"And we're here…why?"
"To shut my goddamn trees up." She winced like a bugle horn was blowing right into her ear, making me remember that she wasn't just my grandmother, ex-wife of the one of the Worst Dads in History, but also the patron of the Grove of Dodona. The fifth Greek Oracle spirit, possessing a bunch of trees and completely out of my control. I don't think even The Fates controlled it, but I wasn't going to say so out loud. I turned around in my seat to give the potted bonsai tree a suspicious look.
The confirmation that we were following vague Prophecies did not fill me with good feelings. I've been on the wrong end of those more than once and had the unenviable job of telling others they were on the wrong end of one, even if they always tried to test my word, or never believed me. Some of them, my own children.
I got tired of that.
True Sight was not something I passed on to my mortal children anymore. It was a fine line to walk. If I invested too much, they always had the prophetic talent, no matter what I did.
Kassandra had the last laugh in the end, a cruel and beautiful one, just like her. She was no Helen of Troy, Nur Jahan or Beyonce, but Cleopatra proved that you didn't have to be the prettiest woman in the room to ruin everything.
I looked out of the window. There beyond the Mystery Machine was a boring suburb dominated by large, classical houses arranged in a half-circle facing the cul de sac. Rhea didn't seem to be in any hurry now that we were here, and it became obvious why not as the front door to one of the homes opened. A girl no older than fourteen came out, walking right towards us with quick, agitated steps. I could see that she was a redhead with shining green eyes. I recognized the endless reflection within those eyes. Hard not to, I had a half-brother with eyes like those and for far too long, my twin did too.
"The lion lady," she breathed as soon as she was within earshot. She can talk. I revised my age estimate down a few years to a tall twelve. Or maybe an average twelve. I don't know. I have a bad frame of reference. Percy is a midget.
"Saw me coming, did you?" Rhea said in response. "Bet you saw a lot of things recently, right?"
What?
"What?" My voice came out bewildered and confused.
"What?" The girl said, taken aback. "You know about that? About the dreams? What they mean?"
Dreams?
Prophetic ones, if she could see us coming before I even knew what I was doing here. So she was that kind of clear-sighted. I was beginning to get an idea of what was going on here and I didn't like it.
"Excuse me." I raised my hand. "Who is she?"
The girl inclined her chin boldly. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare."
She said it like I was supposed to know the name, but what are random mortal names to me? Congratulations, maybe your life wasn't a complete waste of time?
What'd you want, a cookie?
"Does this have anything to do with the Pythia?" I asked my second and infinitely more vital question.
The horn honked as Rhea slammed a hand down on it. "Dammit, if you knew Pythia was gone, why didn't you - "
"Percy is - "
"Not an Oracle spirit," Rhea clicked at me and it was only my divine nature that let me understand what she was saying.
"But an Oracle still," I tried. I was a little spooked. "He ate it. And we're still getting Prophecies, which is the important part? Besides, Pythia belonged to the Fates and he's their brother and his mother is You-Know-Who and don't tell me he broke it," I finished quickly. I wanted to be wrong. "Tell me that snake is still in Tartarus too."
"I don't know," my grandmother said slowly. My heart sank. "But something has changed." She glanced out the window past me at the frizzy red haired girl staring at us with shining eyes. "I do know that there is much you don't know about what you're seeing. If you want to know - "
"I do," the girl blurted out. She bit her lip. It was adorable. "I want to know. Please."
Rhea jerked her head and then we were off again in the Mystery Machine. With a grumpy lion cub, a clear-sighted girl holding the potted bonsai in the back seat and an acoustic guitar. I really should question pubescent girls being willing to get into the back of a van with strangers based on some cryptic messages, but that was called being a responsible adult.
I have spent millennia trying to avoid that as much as possible.
I was trying something a bit new this century, but old habits were hard to break. I was too caught up in my own thoughts. My stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself. Out of my four, the Spirit of Delphi of Pythia was important. Not the least of which is the fact that I had a Name tied to it.
You know about Names, right?
Good.
Suffice to say, I had a vested interest in not losing it, never mind that every mortal within Olympus' sphere of influence also has a vested interest in my not losing it. It would not be pleasant for them either, but my anguish was much more important. Through absolutely no fault of my own, my Oracle of Delphi got herself nommed. Don't ask me what she was thinking poking at the mini-abomination, because I don't know. I only found out after it was already gone.
My great destiny, my reward for my epic defeat of the mighty Python had its remains flushed down the toilet of Camp Half-Blood approximately 11 hours after becoming a midnight snack for a demigod of Fate.
Humiliating.
Better her than me!
No one likes hearing a Prophecy, but believe you me, not hearing a Prophecy would be worse.
It's like a massive game of Minesweeper. The word of an Oracle is like a revealed space on the board. It might be terrible, it might be good, but at least you know about it. Without them, any move you make can trip over a Prophecy you didn't know was there, ready to blow just under the surface. Prophecies can be planned for, prepared for, perhaps even manipulated. A world with no Oracles was one with no say at all in their own Fate. You might as well not even have a future.
Just an End.
I thought we were going right back to Mississippi, but I was sadly mistaken. Instead, the van sputtered to a rolling stop in front of a place I knew very well.
The Penn Museum.
It was actually very clever of me. An Ancient Greece exhibit right in the middle of Philadelphia. Categorized and logged as just another exhibit was a certain clay jar holding the infamous Oracle of Cumae. Get it?
Philadelphia?
Don't believe any of the reviews on RateMyOracle, they are horribly biased and Sibyl's hotness rating was thousands of years out of date. I sent a more accurate one, but can you believe that it got curated out as being 'needlessly provocative?'
Her bone-dust-in-a-jar-ness was not my fault.
Okay, it was a little my fault, but she deserved it.
I may have overreacted a tad.
She hates my guts and I'm still bitter, but we were working on it. In fact, just last month, we had a nice chat where she told me that actually, she never liked my hair and I told her that I lied a few thousand years back. That favorite blue dress of hers was hideous and made her look fat. We had to clear the air, and being truthful is important. I had some hope. Sure, usually being cursed to Hades and back is a deal breaker, but she never got around to rejecting my proposal after the fact, so there's still a chance!
But it was starting to look like closing that chapter of my love life was going to have to wait, because there on the stand where the elaborate Grecian vase that used to house my Oracle was empty.
I made a high-pitched - but still manly - sound. "Someone stole her?"
"Alright," my grandmother said. She worried at her bottom lip. "This is bad."
"Thank you for stating the obvious!" I snapped back. I didn't even feel it happen. That was good, because that meant she was still around somewhere. I would know if she was destroyed, just like I felt it when Percy ate the Oracle of Delphi.
Somehow.
It was bad because the trail was cold. There wasn't a trace of divine energy other than ours around. I almost couldn't believe this was happening to me. My fortune turned on a dime.
"I can't even start looking!" I continued, aghast. "The Sun - "
"I'll handle it," Rhea interrupted me. Her human looking avatar was looking up at the ceiling, thoughtful, head tilted to the right like she was straining to hear a song or whisper from far away. "Delphi gets got and so does Cumae within the month? That's not a coincidence."
"It could be," I hoped.
"It ain't."
I could see where my sister got her lovely disposition at parties from.
"Then Trophonius - " I began.
"I'll protect him."
I'll be honest. I had almost literally forgotten he even existed the past thousand years. He's never been a successful prophetic franchise and success is what matters! No one was going to paint vases and commission clay action figures of an Oracle that has an 80% chance of driving the petitioner insane or worse. But at the end of the day, he's still all I have left of my son. I have been forced to acknowledge that should mean something to me. I blame the most uppity, presumptuous mortal I have ever met, Dorian Stele for the fact that it does mean something to me.
I'm not saying I care about what Dorian says, but I must admit he gives good advice from time to time.
Sometimes I wish I had a father like him growing up.
That usually lasts about five minutes.
But it happens.
Rhea's compound eyes turned a lovely monarch purple color. "How is the Sun holding up, by the way?"
"It's holding," I said sourly. Dozens of faces that I should have seen there, I don't. Because they were gone, because they were dead, because they were just too weak to contribute. "I should be getting back."
"Bless the girl first."
I am not ashamed to admit I nearly gave myself whiplash turning back around. "What? I don't - "
"She's clear-sighted." Rhea shrugged. "Really badly. Legacy of Selene." She waved a hand at me. "Legacy of Helios."
That was a bit of a stretch. You can't steal legacies.
...yeah, Percy doesn't know that bit, but he suspects. If you asked me a year ago, I would have denied it to my dying breath (and I'm immortal), but I can admit it. Just to you. I stole it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Helios was way too Old School to understand. I wasn't willing to watch my sister suffer her inheritance alone. I understood what Rhea was asking me to do. I thought she was telling me to try to make the girl - Rachel - one of my Oracles anyway, without a spirit and that wouldn't have ended well. I still wasn't sure about this, or that it would work, but I saw no real harm in trying.
"Don't push her," I warned the Titan Queen. I was completely aware that my Oracles - and me - were vastly more important than some mortal waif off the street, but that didn't mean I had to be an ass. If she could help, then there is no point in making it be an unnecessary sacrifice.
Artemis hated putting down the young.
There was no good way to tell my grandmother 'No' though.
Bug. Splat. Windshield.
To my relief, Rhea held up her hands in surrender. "I won't."
The blessing was simple enough. Once I got back to the Mystery Machine, it was just a question of concentration, separation and the fine delicate balance of not lighting the poor girl up like a Christmas tree. The blessing was all Sun. Rachel Dare gaped for a moment at the golden glow surrounding her. "I have no idea what it will allow you to do," I admitted. Mortals had this annoying tendency to be completely predictable until they weren't. "But it should help."
"It will," the girl said with such utter conviction it even made a shiver go down my spine. "There's someone else we need to get." She turned towards Rhea. "He's in Canada, I think in Montreal."
"Question." I had to speak up before I was dragged off on this wild goose chase. "Is this going to get this thing out of my head?"
Rachel shot me an alarmed look.
No offense, but you're weirding me out. I'm not exorcising you or anything, but I did not sign up for this and you're killing my groove just lurking in the background of my mind like this.
Why you little -
If you like Percy so much, why don't you go back to him?
"Probably not," Rhea admitted. Which was great. "But it's a symptom of the disease that hasn't struck yet, you dig?"
"No," I said. "No I don't dig."
"It's an echo," Rachel said quietly. "Something big is coming and this is our warning to prepare for it."
I sucked air in through my teeth.
And that was my cue to get out of this universe.
"Should I split attention?"
"Are you able to, man?" Rhea asked me curiously.
It was going to be hard. The last time I was able to, but that was millennia ago. It was bad enough singular, but I had two equally important responsibilities pulling me in different directions. I was the God of Prophecy. It was my Oracle that was missing, someone was moving against my pantheon and the only way this could get even more in my lane is if the Sun was involved in this nefarious scheme somehow.
But that just answered my own question.
You being in my head is a warning. One that I heeded. The Sun needs me right now.
Saule was covering for me.
"I can't," I realized sadly.
"Eh, don't sweat it," Rhea quipped with a lopsided smile. "I am now officially off my fucking ass. If something is after the Oracles, I don't want them to succeed. Because I am one."
There was that.
Some idiot with delusions of grandeur waking the Matriarch of Swarms, thinking the Grove of Dodona was just another Oracle spirit would doom us all to a live reenactment of Starship Troopers. It would be worse if they actually knew what she was and was trying to do it on purpose.
I hoped that wasn't true.
"If - if you need anything…" I trailed off. The Sun was holding for now, but it wouldn't hold indefinitely.
My grandmother studied me, the kind of look that could make a young god wonder if they accidentally misplaced a temple again or forgot to zip up their fly.
"Get going," she said softly. I wondered what she saw in me from that little staring contest, but staying to find out was a waste of time.
I got.
Everything is shit
The sun's a giant spaceship
This is Percy's fault
As soon as I started adding my strength to the Sun again, the burn started. It was a nice, soothing feeling of 'help, I fell into a pool of lava.'
Planet side, if you looked up at the sky you would see a whole lot of nothing. At all. How good you are at seeing through the Mist (or how bad the Mist is at hiding it) determines how much of that nothing you can see into, but that's about it.
From this side of things?
Boiling dark eyeball and gnashing mouth soup of black nothing chomping and chowing down on the Sun's radiance.
If it weren't for us Sun gods, the Sun would have ceased to exist in a couple of hours and I'm not entirely sure the very concept of Light itself wouldn't have followed. I want to say that's what will happen, but the Night doesn't operate on the same rules we do.
Things get really fuzzy when the two systems intersect.
I hurried back to my spot. That being on the North end of a massive chamber within the cocoon of our influence in the cold dark of space.
The sun's a spaceship. It's got shields, seven stories of personal rooms, windows and command center and all. One of the many vimanas made throughout history. The Sun has been through some shit, so we've got a whole system for how we do this. It's easier if you can sit in one spot and, well, meditate? Distract yourself from the pain without diminishing your contribution. Some of us are better at it than others.
I don't have ADHD.
No matter what anyone says. Gods don't get mortal disorders, it's just some vestigial hyperactive 13th sense inherited from Rhea seeking a hive mind, my intrinsic observant nature and the fact that my ass goes numb way too quickly and I hate it.
"Thank you," I whispered when I settled into my gold cloth cushion. Only the best for the cutest butt on Earth. I ignored the glares boring in me. It's not like I was lying. Prophecy was acting up. It still is!
"You are very welcome," Saule whispered back, shifting a bit in her chair in discomfort. I felt really bad for dumping the Greek share of the burden on her and it was doing something funny to my stomach that she didn't even try to complain about it. "Some were upset, but Amaterasu vouched for you." Absolutely gorgeous teal eyes, like the sun rising over an ocean horizon, sought mine out. I looked away. "Everything alright?"
"Nope." I cracked my neck. "But I'll manage."
"I have no doubt you will," she said warmly and I tried really hard not to let on how badly that affected me. "His birthday is coming up, isn't it? I haven't missed it?" I shook my head mutely. She hasn't actually seen Percy in years, but she never forgot him. "I should get him something."
She bit her lip, thinking and I nearly died.
Why am I like this? It's a funny story.
By funny, I actually mean pathetic.
Just the worst kind of second-hand embarrassment to make you cringe.
I, the great, mighty, popular, handsome Apollo, am currently crippled with indecision.
You'd never know it to speak of me, because I am just that much of a virile sex god and cultural icon, but I've made mistakes. Hurt people who didn't deserve it (that much). Let my emotions blind me to the flaws of people I cared about. But one thing I will never regret is pursuing love. My sister might tell you (and me) that it doesn't exist or that it doesn't last or that it isn't worth it, but I can't believe that.
I won't.
Which puts me in a bind.
A decade ago, I wouldn't have given the Baltic Sun goddess Saule the time of day.
Why should I?
I, the proud Greek, loved by everyone worth anything because I am awesome and she was some weird, foreign D-Lister spending all her time with the mortals and I've only actually spoken about 5 words to her before this decade.
They were 'hi,' 'no' and 'leave me alone.'
And then Percy just up and self-destructed over his mom dipping out.
I panicked.
What the Hades do I know about raising half-divine sprogs? Dorian was way out of his depth and drunk and angry (and I was genuinely afraid of Percy continuing the proud Greek tradition of patricide). My first option, Hestia, knew even less than I did. He's a boy, so my sister was right out. It was so bad, I even considered shoving him onto Hera.
Briefly.
Don't - don't look at me like that, I said briefly. Like, the five second dumb idea.
Maybe ten seconds.
I was panicking.
Demigod of Fate. I was confident the Queen of the Gods would treat him like he was made out of fine china made out of antimatter, but I wasn't going to risk the absolute circus exposing a young, vulnerable Percy would have made of Olympus. Every other god would have wanted a piece of him and then the others would complain 'but you said I was your favorite sibling/aunt/uncle/cousin five centuries ago!' and then it would be my problem all over again. So I had to make do with other pantheons I could trust as far as I could throw them. The Egyptians were not available, I'm not letting fucking Odin get his hands on him (I can't throw him very far) and there were only three kinds of Celts:
No Chill, Batshit and Both.
I was out of options.
I care about that kid. He grows on you. Like mold. I was trying not to mess him up any more than I had to and dumping him on any one of my family members would have done exactly that.
So would have dumping him on his own family.
The House of Night literally drives mortals insane and I'm not going anywhere near Tartarus if I could help it. Just thinking about calling up Chronos to hand over his step-son because his wife shacked up with a mortal and couldn't handle it gives me the Heebie Jeebies.
So I threw him at Saule.
Because she was a D-List goddess without a pantheon to support her in anything against a Greek god who wanted her to fix the issue and keep quiet.
She couldn't say no.
You see my problem?
A century ago, I don't think it would have made a difference, if I ever noticed her that way to begin with. If anything I would have been happy at the sure bet! Pretty little brunette with legs for days, what's not to like? Why wouldn't I go for it? I am awesome and everybody loves me! Now, every time I felt like saying something, I felt like a creep two seconds later. Eventually, someday, maybe I will have to admit that I am a fuck up and I can count who actually finds me loveable on one hand.
I know, I know.
Crazy talk.
Dorian Stele has ruined me.
I looked around the room, because I'd like not to get caught staring and the pain was -
A lot.
There were some gods no one looked at for too long. Old gods, some whose Names have been lost to history but their duty remained. The twisting, paradoxical wings and fiery sword of one was at the corner of my eye, no matter where I looked. To my immediate left was Saule. To my immediate right was an empty seat for Helios. The Norse Sunna was past that, making kissy faces at me because she's a jerk. Past her were empty seats belonging to Hathor, Sekhmet and Ra with a skinny, sick looking cat on Bast's seat. Don't know what that's about, don't care. On Saule's other side was Beiwe of the Sami. It went around in a circle, like the visage of the sun itself. With every seat occupied, by Taiyang or Unelanuhi, there were three or four that were empty or were covered by another like the Celtic Áine filling in for Lugh.
It was taxing her greatly. You could see it in the unsteady flares of white and yellow light leaking off her, the beading of silver blood instead of sweat and her tight features as she clenched her eyes shut, ground her teeth and bore it for the fourth day in a row. I hoped the Night wasn't going to last for too much longer. I didn't want to know if we could literally burn out trying to keep the Sun alive.
It was not uncommon for pantheons to have multiple sun gods.
It was even recommended.
Now some pantheons had none. I don't want to admit it, but the next time the Night falls, I'm not sure if the old gods still left will be enough. They have to be. They're still going strong.
I met Amaterasu's eyes.
If you can see the Sun in a god's eyes. They're a Sun god. It's a quick and dirty rule because Ammy's eyes were the glow of the accretion disk of a black hole.
This wasn't all of her. She didn't play by the same rules as the rest of us.
She grinned and tapped the side of her head.
Oh shit.
Quick, make yourself small and don't say anything!
What's up? I sent over the god wire. Being this physically close meant telepathy is actually an option.
I just witnessed the most interesting little thing today. She sent back. Her mental voice was coy, amused and felt like focusing on a small sunspot with the vast bulk of the sun shining just out of reach. I hope she can't see you. Because then I'd get blamed for airing Greek dirty laundry, because I wanted this to happen, obviously, and I'd never hear the end of it even after I saved the day. So you finally caved and started teaching your children about the wider world? Or just you.
I frowned. I'm…not entirely what you are referring to?
She rolled her eyes. A demigod called on me for a pact and I would recognize that atrocious accent anywhere.
Oh. Oh! I made sure I didn't fidget in my seat. Percy.
Touchy subject.
Some gods and pantheons wouldn't care about the son of Greek Fate running around.
Some would care a lot.
I don't know which one Ammy falls under. The gorgeous Japanese woman with sunlight in her hair, a great sense of humor and excellent taste in eye candy was a mask. We all knew it was one, but one does not just call out the wizard behind the curtain if he doesn't feel like revealing himself.
Because he's a wizard.
And for the record, I can speak flawless Japanese. That 'atrocious accent' was me purposefully getting on Tsukuyomi's nerves. And I taught it to Percy as a joke because kid doesn't know any better to call me out on it.
It's still funny.
Oh, of course. No, just - just me. The, ah, the kid Saule was helping me with a bit ago.
He must be important to you, her message was soft and warm.
I don't know how I'd live without him, I said honestly, because if he got murdered, we were fucked. My father is a moron. Bug. Splat. Windshield. I've known this, but the day Percy set out for this Quest is the day I felt it down to the bottom of my soul.
I rebelled against him more than once.
He sent my little sister and brother on a Quest.
...Athena still has her Title, you know.
He thinks outside of the box, carries himself well in combat and is decisive, she praised. Your Prophecy is almost blinding in him.
He takes after me, I bragged, smiling. Next you're going to say he's also good looking, just like his father. You're not telling me anything I don't already know.
Ammy's grin widened. The Pinoy vampire kept her word. He is on his way to California with the Sons of Silence right now.
Pinoy vampire. In America? The Sons of Silence? My smile withered.
Fucking what.
I take my eyes off that boy for two seconds -
I didn't do nuthin' wrong
Crisis awaits me
Gah!
Who the - what the Hades are you? How'd you - why are you - this shouldn't be happening.
"Greek!"
Give me a second.
"How kind of you to notice through that squint of yours, Chinese."
What?
Oh. No.
I'm not being racist.
I am being an asshole. It's a subtle, but important difference. The former is being an idiot because bigot. The latter is because I'm Greek, Xihe is not here and I'm this close to doing something unwise to Taiyang's face.
It's been a long four days.
"So you all gotta hold the fort, Prophecy is acting up like whoa! Saule, darling, can you - great. It shouldn't take too long, five minutes? Five minutes, might be five decades, you know how it is. Ciao!"
Whew.
Did I get clear?
Don't answer that. You better not have any way of knowing and we are talking about gods here. A spiteful, contrary bunch. I should know!
I think I'm good, no one likes it when Prophecy Domains act up.
No one.
It's like a steaming wet turd dropped in the middle of the dance floor. It stinks up the whole place. You can't ignore it, because you might put your foot in it and then it'll get everywhere and if you just leave it to dry, you'll never get it out of the carpet so someone's gotta clean it up.
So.
Let's talk.
Well, you're pretty funny looking, aren't you…you haven't, perhaps, maybe, possibly dislodged yourself from this bizarre young little proto-demigod hybrid I-don't-know-what-he-is-person-thing?
Perseus Stele?
Crap.
I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to be wrong and I'm not and I don't know how to feel about that.
I bet he just rolled with it too. Because that boy wouldn't know normal if it actually bit him in the ass annnnnnd you shouldn't be here, but you are, which means something has gone very wrong somewhere!
And I have no idea what or when!
Fuck.
Story of my life.
Alright.
Fine.
Since I have decided against burning you out of my divinity…
Hi.
Whoever and whatever you are.
Don't tell me.
If I don't know by now, I'm not supposed to. That's how this works. I am the great, powerful, handsome and awesome Phoebus Apollon! Tremble before my glory! The Greek god of the Sun and a bunch of other things that aren't important right now.
Except Prophecy.
That one's important.
Unfortunately.
Hold on. That gives me an idea.
You're coming along, of course. How'd Percy do this? Since you're…you.
…I can do that.
There is nothing I love talking about more than myself!
My next stop was on my grandmother's front door step.
It was somewhere in Mississippi, I don't know exactly where. I can barely tell the difference between Manhattan and Queens. And I live in that city. Don't give me that - The Sun Sees All and the Sun also has a Terrible Sense of Geography, do I look like Hermes to you? I am much more handsome. And the geopolitical realities of what piece of land on a single planet belongs to what made up country or is named whatever to which government or the longitude and latitude coordinates - that matters to Travelers.
The "geography" crammed into my skull is on a more interstellar scale.
I raised my hand to knock on the normal looking front door, but it opened before I could touch it.
There, standing before me in all her polka dot bathrobe and pink slippers glory was the former Queen of the Gods of Mt. Othrys.
You don't know how weird this is.
I always imagined my grandmother to be like a female version of my father. Her husband was evil, five of her kids had been eaten and when all was said and done, she pulled a Switzerland with Okeanos and stayed out of the way. I'd give this woman good odds on a solo assault on Olympus itself and she did nothing with that strength. My father and my uncles loved her, but her daughters were noticeably cooler on the subject. I imagined this incomprehensible, arrogant, powerful distant figure with Uncle Sea's eyes, my father's face and Hera's sneer. Instead, I got Flower Power, lessons on strategic drug use and the really unfortunate knowledge that the elder Olympians had a step-father in Bob Marley.
"Well," my grandmother Rhea blinked owlishly at me. I think she could see you. "Shit."
She can definitely see you.
"Help." I was not begging, but it was a close call.
"Yeah." She sounded - and looked - despondent. It was a familiar kind of misery. The one where you hoped you were wrong about something and had to admit that you weren't. It wasn't actually a Prophecy thing, but it might as well be.
"Motherfucking - I hate her," Rhea muttered as she turned right around and went back into her house. For lack of better options, I followed. "I fucking hate her - I was done. I'm asleep."
"I'm sorry?" I didn't want to admit I had no idea what was going on, but, well. If I said otherwise, I'd be lying. Can't do that, I'm the God of Truth!
That was a lie.
I can lie, but I don't like doing it. That's the Honest to Me Truth.
I don't like apologizing either, but when confronted with someone that can splatter me like a bug on a windshield with an ounce of concentration I found saying my condolences much easier to do.
I'm a golden immortal, but some things not even I want to test the limits of.
"This is Her fault." You could hear the capital H as Rhea puttered around her house like an over-caffeinated mouse. I was starting to think the 'her' was Percy's mother. Which was fair, honestly, I'm not about to pretend I haven't cursed Her Name once or twice. Even us gods could feel like ants under a microscope sometimes. Shocking, I know. Rhea's pride of lions lazed about, watching the goddess blow through her house, finding her car keys, grabbing her purse. I don't know why she was bothering physically getting the items. I never did if I could get away with it. Perks of godhood, never losing your car keys for more than five seconds.
"I should have known," she grumbled. "I should have burned those fucking trees the second time around - argh!"
"Whoa!" I jumped back with my divine reflexes as a piece of pottery whipped past me to shatter against the wall. I knew from the way the pottery broke and not the state of Mississippi that she was still restraining herself. I was reminded of the many, many temper tantrums of my siblings whenever we were ordered around. I was always dignified about it, as I am with everything I do, but being bossed around by someone you knew didn't care much beyond their orders and not being able to do anything about it was, as Percy would say:
It sucks.
"I don't understand," I risked saying. "What's the problem exactly?"
Every lion in the room turned their deadpan cat stares onto me.
"Aside from everything."
Rhea snorted. She ran a hand through her hair that was currently a platinum blonde color I've only seen on her daughters Hera and Demeter before. In a blink of an eye, the hungover free loving hippie was replaced by a hungover snowbird who looked like she was hating her retirement years.
"The problem is that she fucking got me."
That explained absolutely nothing.
Neither did being dragged halfway across the country with a grumpy lion cub, a potted bonsai tree and the Beatles' music in the passenger seat of a Greek Mystery Machine. It was god travel, obviously, so instead of taking hours it only took a couple of seconds to travel hundreds of miles.
I can confidently say, with 100% certainty, that I have no idea what's going on.
Being confidently wrong is one of my many talents!
Our destination was all the way back to the East Coast and somewhere in the North East. I only recognized where we were by the echoes of our first failed attempt at moving to the Americas with Olympus.
"Washington, D.C?"
"Close," my grandmother grunted. "Takoma Park."
"And we're here…why?"
"To shut my goddamn trees up." She winced like a bugle horn was blowing right into her ear, making me remember that she wasn't just my grandmother, ex-wife of the one of the Worst Dads in History, but also the patron of the Grove of Dodona. The fifth Greek Oracle spirit, possessing a bunch of trees and completely out of my control. I don't think even The Fates controlled it, but I wasn't going to say so out loud. I turned around in my seat to give the potted bonsai tree a suspicious look.
The confirmation that we were following vague Prophecies did not fill me with good feelings. I've been on the wrong end of those more than once and had the unenviable job of telling others they were on the wrong end of one, even if they always tried to test my word, or never believed me. Some of them, my own children.
I got tired of that.
True Sight was not something I passed on to my mortal children anymore. It was a fine line to walk. If I invested too much, they always had the prophetic talent, no matter what I did.
Kassandra had the last laugh in the end, a cruel and beautiful one, just like her. She was no Helen of Troy, Nur Jahan or Beyonce, but Cleopatra proved that you didn't have to be the prettiest woman in the room to ruin everything.
I looked out of the window. There beyond the Mystery Machine was a boring suburb dominated by large, classical houses arranged in a half-circle facing the cul de sac. Rhea didn't seem to be in any hurry now that we were here, and it became obvious why not as the front door to one of the homes opened. A girl no older than fourteen came out, walking right towards us with quick, agitated steps. I could see that she was a redhead with shining green eyes. I recognized the endless reflection within those eyes. Hard not to, I had a half-brother with eyes like those and for far too long, my twin did too.
"The lion lady," she breathed as soon as she was within earshot. She can talk. I revised my age estimate down a few years to a tall twelve. Or maybe an average twelve. I don't know. I have a bad frame of reference. Percy is a midget.
"Saw me coming, did you?" Rhea said in response. "Bet you saw a lot of things recently, right?"
What?
"What?" My voice came out bewildered and confused.
"What?" The girl said, taken aback. "You know about that? About the dreams? What they mean?"
Dreams?
Prophetic ones, if she could see us coming before I even knew what I was doing here. So she was that kind of clear-sighted. I was beginning to get an idea of what was going on here and I didn't like it.
"Excuse me." I raised my hand. "Who is she?"
The girl inclined her chin boldly. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare."
She said it like I was supposed to know the name, but what are random mortal names to me? Congratulations, maybe your life wasn't a complete waste of time?
What'd you want, a cookie?
"Does this have anything to do with the Pythia?" I asked my second and infinitely more vital question.
The horn honked as Rhea slammed a hand down on it. "Dammit, if you knew Pythia was gone, why didn't you - "
"Percy is - "
"Not an Oracle spirit," Rhea clicked at me and it was only my divine nature that let me understand what she was saying.
"But an Oracle still," I tried. I was a little spooked. "He ate it. And we're still getting Prophecies, which is the important part? Besides, Pythia belonged to the Fates and he's their brother and his mother is You-Know-Who and don't tell me he broke it," I finished quickly. I wanted to be wrong. "Tell me that snake is still in Tartarus too."
"I don't know," my grandmother said slowly. My heart sank. "But something has changed." She glanced out the window past me at the frizzy red haired girl staring at us with shining eyes. "I do know that there is much you don't know about what you're seeing. If you want to know - "
"I do," the girl blurted out. She bit her lip. It was adorable. "I want to know. Please."
Rhea jerked her head and then we were off again in the Mystery Machine. With a grumpy lion cub, a clear-sighted girl holding the potted bonsai in the back seat and an acoustic guitar. I really should question pubescent girls being willing to get into the back of a van with strangers based on some cryptic messages, but that was called being a responsible adult.
I have spent millennia trying to avoid that as much as possible.
I was trying something a bit new this century, but old habits were hard to break. I was too caught up in my own thoughts. My stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself. Out of my four, the Spirit of Delphi of Pythia was important. Not the least of which is the fact that I had a Name tied to it.
You know about Names, right?
Good.
Suffice to say, I had a vested interest in not losing it, never mind that every mortal within Olympus' sphere of influence also has a vested interest in my not losing it. It would not be pleasant for them either, but my anguish was much more important. Through absolutely no fault of my own, my Oracle of Delphi got herself nommed. Don't ask me what she was thinking poking at the mini-abomination, because I don't know. I only found out after it was already gone.
My great destiny, my reward for my epic defeat of the mighty Python had its remains flushed down the toilet of Camp Half-Blood approximately 11 hours after becoming a midnight snack for a demigod of Fate.
Humiliating.
Better her than me!
No one likes hearing a Prophecy, but believe you me, not hearing a Prophecy would be worse.
It's like a massive game of Minesweeper. The word of an Oracle is like a revealed space on the board. It might be terrible, it might be good, but at least you know about it. Without them, any move you make can trip over a Prophecy you didn't know was there, ready to blow just under the surface. Prophecies can be planned for, prepared for, perhaps even manipulated. A world with no Oracles was one with no say at all in their own Fate. You might as well not even have a future.
Just an End.
I thought we were going right back to Mississippi, but I was sadly mistaken. Instead, the van sputtered to a rolling stop in front of a place I knew very well.
The Penn Museum.
It was actually very clever of me. An Ancient Greece exhibit right in the middle of Philadelphia. Categorized and logged as just another exhibit was a certain clay jar holding the infamous Oracle of Cumae. Get it?
Philadelphia?
Don't believe any of the reviews on RateMyOracle, they are horribly biased and Sibyl's hotness rating was thousands of years out of date. I sent a more accurate one, but can you believe that it got curated out as being 'needlessly provocative?'
Her bone-dust-in-a-jar-ness was not my fault.
Okay, it was a little my fault, but she deserved it.
I may have overreacted a tad.
She hates my guts and I'm still bitter, but we were working on it. In fact, just last month, we had a nice chat where she told me that actually, she never liked my hair and I told her that I lied a few thousand years back. That favorite blue dress of hers was hideous and made her look fat. We had to clear the air, and being truthful is important. I had some hope. Sure, usually being cursed to Hades and back is a deal breaker, but she never got around to rejecting my proposal after the fact, so there's still a chance!
But it was starting to look like closing that chapter of my love life was going to have to wait, because there on the stand where the elaborate Grecian vase that used to house my Oracle was empty.
I made a high-pitched - but still manly - sound. "Someone stole her?"
"Alright," my grandmother said. She worried at her bottom lip. "This is bad."
"Thank you for stating the obvious!" I snapped back. I didn't even feel it happen. That was good, because that meant she was still around somewhere. I would know if she was destroyed, just like I felt it when Percy ate the Oracle of Delphi.
Somehow.
It was bad because the trail was cold. There wasn't a trace of divine energy other than ours around. I almost couldn't believe this was happening to me. My fortune turned on a dime.
"I can't even start looking!" I continued, aghast. "The Sun - "
"I'll handle it," Rhea interrupted me. Her human looking avatar was looking up at the ceiling, thoughtful, head tilted to the right like she was straining to hear a song or whisper from far away. "Delphi gets got and so does Cumae within the month? That's not a coincidence."
"It could be," I hoped.
"It ain't."
I could see where my sister got her lovely disposition at parties from.
"Then Trophonius - " I began.
"I'll protect him."
I'll be honest. I had almost literally forgotten he even existed the past thousand years. He's never been a successful prophetic franchise and success is what matters! No one was going to paint vases and commission clay action figures of an Oracle that has an 80% chance of driving the petitioner insane or worse. But at the end of the day, he's still all I have left of my son. I have been forced to acknowledge that should mean something to me. I blame the most uppity, presumptuous mortal I have ever met, Dorian Stele for the fact that it does mean something to me.
I'm not saying I care about what Dorian says, but I must admit he gives good advice from time to time.
Sometimes I wish I had a father like him growing up.
That usually lasts about five minutes.
But it happens.
Rhea's compound eyes turned a lovely monarch purple color. "How is the Sun holding up, by the way?"
"It's holding," I said sourly. Dozens of faces that I should have seen there, I don't. Because they were gone, because they were dead, because they were just too weak to contribute. "I should be getting back."
"Bless the girl first."
I am not ashamed to admit I nearly gave myself whiplash turning back around. "What? I don't - "
"She's clear-sighted." Rhea shrugged. "Really badly. Legacy of Selene." She waved a hand at me. "Legacy of Helios."
That was a bit of a stretch. You can't steal legacies.
...yeah, Percy doesn't know that bit, but he suspects. If you asked me a year ago, I would have denied it to my dying breath (and I'm immortal), but I can admit it. Just to you. I stole it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Helios was way too Old School to understand. I wasn't willing to watch my sister suffer her inheritance alone. I understood what Rhea was asking me to do. I thought she was telling me to try to make the girl - Rachel - one of my Oracles anyway, without a spirit and that wouldn't have ended well. I still wasn't sure about this, or that it would work, but I saw no real harm in trying.
"Don't push her," I warned the Titan Queen. I was completely aware that my Oracles - and me - were vastly more important than some mortal waif off the street, but that didn't mean I had to be an ass. If she could help, then there is no point in making it be an unnecessary sacrifice.
Artemis hated putting down the young.
There was no good way to tell my grandmother 'No' though.
Bug. Splat. Windshield.
To my relief, Rhea held up her hands in surrender. "I won't."
The blessing was simple enough. Once I got back to the Mystery Machine, it was just a question of concentration, separation and the fine delicate balance of not lighting the poor girl up like a Christmas tree. The blessing was all Sun. Rachel Dare gaped for a moment at the golden glow surrounding her. "I have no idea what it will allow you to do," I admitted. Mortals had this annoying tendency to be completely predictable until they weren't. "But it should help."
"It will," the girl said with such utter conviction it even made a shiver go down my spine. "There's someone else we need to get." She turned towards Rhea. "He's in Canada, I think in Montreal."
"Question." I had to speak up before I was dragged off on this wild goose chase. "Is this going to get this thing out of my head?"
Rachel shot me an alarmed look.
No offense, but you're weirding me out. I'm not exorcising you or anything, but I did not sign up for this and you're killing my groove just lurking in the background of my mind like this.
Why you little -
If you like Percy so much, why don't you go back to him?
"Probably not," Rhea admitted. Which was great. "But it's a symptom of the disease that hasn't struck yet, you dig?"
"No," I said. "No I don't dig."
"It's an echo," Rachel said quietly. "Something big is coming and this is our warning to prepare for it."
I sucked air in through my teeth.
And that was my cue to get out of this universe.
"Should I split attention?"
"Are you able to, man?" Rhea asked me curiously.
It was going to be hard. The last time I was able to, but that was millennia ago. It was bad enough singular, but I had two equally important responsibilities pulling me in different directions. I was the God of Prophecy. It was my Oracle that was missing, someone was moving against my pantheon and the only way this could get even more in my lane is if the Sun was involved in this nefarious scheme somehow.
But that just answered my own question.
You being in my head is a warning. One that I heeded. The Sun needs me right now.
Saule was covering for me.
"I can't," I realized sadly.
"Eh, don't sweat it," Rhea quipped with a lopsided smile. "I am now officially off my fucking ass. If something is after the Oracles, I don't want them to succeed. Because I am one."
There was that.
Some idiot with delusions of grandeur waking the Matriarch of Swarms, thinking the Grove of Dodona was just another Oracle spirit would doom us all to a live reenactment of Starship Troopers. It would be worse if they actually knew what she was and was trying to do it on purpose.
I hoped that wasn't true.
"If - if you need anything…" I trailed off. The Sun was holding for now, but it wouldn't hold indefinitely.
My grandmother studied me, the kind of look that could make a young god wonder if they accidentally misplaced a temple again or forgot to zip up their fly.
"Get going," she said softly. I wondered what she saw in me from that little staring contest, but staying to find out was a waste of time.
I got.
Everything is shit
The sun's a giant spaceship
This is Percy's fault
As soon as I started adding my strength to the Sun again, the burn started. It was a nice, soothing feeling of 'help, I fell into a pool of lava.'
Planet side, if you looked up at the sky you would see a whole lot of nothing. At all. How good you are at seeing through the Mist (or how bad the Mist is at hiding it) determines how much of that nothing you can see into, but that's about it.
From this side of things?
Boiling dark eyeball and gnashing mouth soup of black nothing chomping and chowing down on the Sun's radiance.
If it weren't for us Sun gods, the Sun would have ceased to exist in a couple of hours and I'm not entirely sure the very concept of Light itself wouldn't have followed. I want to say that's what will happen, but the Night doesn't operate on the same rules we do.
Things get really fuzzy when the two systems intersect.
I hurried back to my spot. That being on the North end of a massive chamber within the cocoon of our influence in the cold dark of space.
The sun's a spaceship. It's got shields, seven stories of personal rooms, windows and command center and all. One of the many vimanas made throughout history. The Sun has been through some shit, so we've got a whole system for how we do this. It's easier if you can sit in one spot and, well, meditate? Distract yourself from the pain without diminishing your contribution. Some of us are better at it than others.
I don't have ADHD.
No matter what anyone says. Gods don't get mortal disorders, it's just some vestigial hyperactive 13th sense inherited from Rhea seeking a hive mind, my intrinsic observant nature and the fact that my ass goes numb way too quickly and I hate it.
"Thank you," I whispered when I settled into my gold cloth cushion. Only the best for the cutest butt on Earth. I ignored the glares boring in me. It's not like I was lying. Prophecy was acting up. It still is!
"You are very welcome," Saule whispered back, shifting a bit in her chair in discomfort. I felt really bad for dumping the Greek share of the burden on her and it was doing something funny to my stomach that she didn't even try to complain about it. "Some were upset, but Amaterasu vouched for you." Absolutely gorgeous teal eyes, like the sun rising over an ocean horizon, sought mine out. I looked away. "Everything alright?"
"Nope." I cracked my neck. "But I'll manage."
"I have no doubt you will," she said warmly and I tried really hard not to let on how badly that affected me. "His birthday is coming up, isn't it? I haven't missed it?" I shook my head mutely. She hasn't actually seen Percy in years, but she never forgot him. "I should get him something."
She bit her lip, thinking and I nearly died.
Why am I like this? It's a funny story.
By funny, I actually mean pathetic.
Just the worst kind of second-hand embarrassment to make you cringe.
I, the great, mighty, popular, handsome Apollo, am currently crippled with indecision.
You'd never know it to speak of me, because I am just that much of a virile sex god and cultural icon, but I've made mistakes. Hurt people who didn't deserve it (that much). Let my emotions blind me to the flaws of people I cared about. But one thing I will never regret is pursuing love. My sister might tell you (and me) that it doesn't exist or that it doesn't last or that it isn't worth it, but I can't believe that.
I won't.
Which puts me in a bind.
A decade ago, I wouldn't have given the Baltic Sun goddess Saule the time of day.
Why should I?
I, the proud Greek, loved by everyone worth anything because I am awesome and she was some weird, foreign D-Lister spending all her time with the mortals and I've only actually spoken about 5 words to her before this decade.
They were 'hi,' 'no' and 'leave me alone.'
And then Percy just up and self-destructed over his mom dipping out.
I panicked.
What the Hades do I know about raising half-divine sprogs? Dorian was way out of his depth and drunk and angry (and I was genuinely afraid of Percy continuing the proud Greek tradition of patricide). My first option, Hestia, knew even less than I did. He's a boy, so my sister was right out. It was so bad, I even considered shoving him onto Hera.
Briefly.
Don't - don't look at me like that, I said briefly. Like, the five second dumb idea.
Maybe ten seconds.
I was panicking.
Demigod of Fate. I was confident the Queen of the Gods would treat him like he was made out of fine china made out of antimatter, but I wasn't going to risk the absolute circus exposing a young, vulnerable Percy would have made of Olympus. Every other god would have wanted a piece of him and then the others would complain 'but you said I was your favorite sibling/aunt/uncle/cousin five centuries ago!' and then it would be my problem all over again. So I had to make do with other pantheons I could trust as far as I could throw them. The Egyptians were not available, I'm not letting fucking Odin get his hands on him (I can't throw him very far) and there were only three kinds of Celts:
No Chill, Batshit and Both.
I was out of options.
I care about that kid. He grows on you. Like mold. I was trying not to mess him up any more than I had to and dumping him on any one of my family members would have done exactly that.
So would have dumping him on his own family.
The House of Night literally drives mortals insane and I'm not going anywhere near Tartarus if I could help it. Just thinking about calling up Chronos to hand over his step-son because his wife shacked up with a mortal and couldn't handle it gives me the Heebie Jeebies.
So I threw him at Saule.
Because she was a D-List goddess without a pantheon to support her in anything against a Greek god who wanted her to fix the issue and keep quiet.
She couldn't say no.
You see my problem?
A century ago, I don't think it would have made a difference, if I ever noticed her that way to begin with. If anything I would have been happy at the sure bet! Pretty little brunette with legs for days, what's not to like? Why wouldn't I go for it? I am awesome and everybody loves me! Now, every time I felt like saying something, I felt like a creep two seconds later. Eventually, someday, maybe I will have to admit that I am a fuck up and I can count who actually finds me loveable on one hand.
I know, I know.
Crazy talk.
Dorian Stele has ruined me.
I looked around the room, because I'd like not to get caught staring and the pain was -
A lot.
There were some gods no one looked at for too long. Old gods, some whose Names have been lost to history but their duty remained. The twisting, paradoxical wings and fiery sword of one was at the corner of my eye, no matter where I looked. To my immediate left was Saule. To my immediate right was an empty seat for Helios. The Norse Sunna was past that, making kissy faces at me because she's a jerk. Past her were empty seats belonging to Hathor, Sekhmet and Ra with a skinny, sick looking cat on Bast's seat. Don't know what that's about, don't care. On Saule's other side was Beiwe of the Sami. It went around in a circle, like the visage of the sun itself. With every seat occupied, by Taiyang or Unelanuhi, there were three or four that were empty or were covered by another like the Celtic Áine filling in for Lugh.
It was taxing her greatly. You could see it in the unsteady flares of white and yellow light leaking off her, the beading of silver blood instead of sweat and her tight features as she clenched her eyes shut, ground her teeth and bore it for the fourth day in a row. I hoped the Night wasn't going to last for too much longer. I didn't want to know if we could literally burn out trying to keep the Sun alive.
It was not uncommon for pantheons to have multiple sun gods.
It was even recommended.
Now some pantheons had none. I don't want to admit it, but the next time the Night falls, I'm not sure if the old gods still left will be enough. They have to be. They're still going strong.
I met Amaterasu's eyes.
If you can see the Sun in a god's eyes. They're a Sun god. It's a quick and dirty rule because Ammy's eyes were the glow of the accretion disk of a black hole.
This wasn't all of her. She didn't play by the same rules as the rest of us.
She grinned and tapped the side of her head.
Oh shit.
Quick, make yourself small and don't say anything!
What's up? I sent over the god wire. Being this physically close meant telepathy is actually an option.
I just witnessed the most interesting little thing today. She sent back. Her mental voice was coy, amused and felt like focusing on a small sunspot with the vast bulk of the sun shining just out of reach. I hope she can't see you. Because then I'd get blamed for airing Greek dirty laundry, because I wanted this to happen, obviously, and I'd never hear the end of it even after I saved the day. So you finally caved and started teaching your children about the wider world? Or just you.
I frowned. I'm…not entirely what you are referring to?
She rolled her eyes. A demigod called on me for a pact and I would recognize that atrocious accent anywhere.
Oh. Oh! I made sure I didn't fidget in my seat. Percy.
Touchy subject.
Some gods and pantheons wouldn't care about the son of Greek Fate running around.
Some would care a lot.
I don't know which one Ammy falls under. The gorgeous Japanese woman with sunlight in her hair, a great sense of humor and excellent taste in eye candy was a mask. We all knew it was one, but one does not just call out the wizard behind the curtain if he doesn't feel like revealing himself.
Because he's a wizard.
And for the record, I can speak flawless Japanese. That 'atrocious accent' was me purposefully getting on Tsukuyomi's nerves. And I taught it to Percy as a joke because kid doesn't know any better to call me out on it.
It's still funny.
Oh, of course. No, just - just me. The, ah, the kid Saule was helping me with a bit ago.
He must be important to you, her message was soft and warm.
I don't know how I'd live without him, I said honestly, because if he got murdered, we were fucked. My father is a moron. Bug. Splat. Windshield. I've known this, but the day Percy set out for this Quest is the day I felt it down to the bottom of my soul.
I rebelled against him more than once.
He sent my little sister and brother on a Quest.
...Athena still has her Title, you know.
He thinks outside of the box, carries himself well in combat and is decisive, she praised. Your Prophecy is almost blinding in him.
He takes after me, I bragged, smiling. Next you're going to say he's also good looking, just like his father. You're not telling me anything I don't already know.
Ammy's grin widened. The Pinoy vampire kept her word. He is on his way to California with the Sons of Silence right now.
Pinoy vampire. In America? The Sons of Silence? My smile withered.
Fucking what.
I take my eyes off that boy for two seconds -
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Hmm, it occurs to me that Rachel could talk, interesting.
Apollo growing a conscious but still being godlike pretty awesome
Amaterasu being encouraging of the little demigods learning more about the world, amazing
Apollo tactfully letting Amaterasu assume Percy is his son and being proud of him *mwah* beautiful
Percy giving Apollo ulcers because he fell in with a bad crowd? Fucking amazing
Apollo growing a conscious but still being godlike pretty awesome
Amaterasu being encouraging of the little demigods learning more about the world, amazing
Apollo tactfully letting Amaterasu assume Percy is his son and being proud of him *mwah* beautiful
Percy giving Apollo ulcers because he fell in with a bad crowd? Fucking amazing