Yeah at this point I'm pretty sure the only reason he is even going through all this is because he doesn't want Apollo to be hurt.
An Undertow of Sand (Percy Jackson and the Cthulhu Mythos)
- Thread starter Shujin
- Start date
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Canon!Percy walked into the Underworld for his mother. Protecting a rabbit for his brother is just Percy doing Percy things.
- Location
- USA
Didn't Apollo already show up while the three were chilling at Rhea's place? All that happened was Apollo taking pictures of a sleeping rabbit so he could hold them over her for the next millennium or whatever.
Yeah Karma is catching up to Artemis courtesy of Fate and Nemesis. The funny thing is the only thing that is keeping her alive is the fact that her dying would make Apollo sad, which Percy doesn't want because he is trying to be a good brother.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
I think it's just the episodic format not doing you any favors. Kallisto's myth was laid out in I Tell Some Smart Kids Their Grandpa is a Jerk and she was mentioned as someone Artemis transformed in A Couple of Gods Say They Are Sorry. Not even Percy knows what myth exactly the elf hails from, so you're good there if that got you and Quintus with the Labyrinth card is a mystery! If you know, you know, but I don't...think it detracts from anything right now to not know?
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
In fairness, reading at 5 AM probably din't do me any favours either.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
...probably not, no. Though glad you were interested in reading this so early?
- Location
- Unkown, possibly extradimensional.
This has to be one of, if not the best PJO fics we have ever read. Add in the masterful blending of the mythologies, Eldritch Lore, and it has gone far and beyond any quantifier other than Good.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
Wow, thank you! Glad you like it, I worked hard on the setting and world building elements and am really trying to make it feel eldritch and dangerous without losing the PJO tone.
An Accounting of Old Sins
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
AN: Motivation sucks during a cancer scare and dentist appointments.
The sudden silence was loud.
"Did we lose her?" Luke asked, twisting around in his seat to look out the back windows of the van through the handlebars of his bike.
"No," Artemis and I said at the same time.
I could almost hear the hairs on the back of my neck vibrating in warning. Instead of a low hum of danger, I felt like even as I sat in the backseat of a battered soccer mom van that was probably stolen from a soccer mom, I was being stalked through a dark forest by something very, very hungry. It reminded me of a dark ocean in the Dreamlands. That sensation of encroaching doom deep underwater was not going to leave me any time soon.
"My spidey sense is still going wild."
"Spidey what?" Luke asked.
I was getting a little numb to being in danger. It was still there on the back of my neck and has been for a while. The tiny prickle of warning around Hiraya never actually went away after we made our deal and it's just been downhill from there. This entire situation with the Ursa Major after a rabbit's ass with us in the way was terrible and I could feel how terrible it was in my gut, but I'm going to blame my ADHD here:
"...seriously?"
I got sidetracked. In my defense, he doesn't know Spider Man?
Luke made a face. "No money, no time, can't leave Camp if I don't want to get attacked." Luke waved his hands, frustrated. "And if it's from a comic book - is it?" I nodded. "There are a ton of those, they make no sense out of order with a lot of characters and reading."
All good points.
I mean, they were terrible points (because yikes, reading comics out of order?) but they were legit, is what I meant. "...okay, Camp Half-Blood needs an American Culture Class." Like, yesterday. "After we're done here, remind me."
Luke gave me a look of long-suffering. "Find room in the schedule between javelin training and the Greek culture class."
"That doesn't teach anyone about xenia," I pointed out. "That makes it a shit class by default. We can toss it."
He looked like he was going to argue for a second, then he glanced down at his hand where Khione's ring sat. He spun it about his index finger with his thumb.
"Or about reconciliation gifts," he mused. "Or I guess, it does, but I feel like 'refusing a god's gifts is unwise' isn't even half of it."
Holy shit, I had been kidding. Cabin 12 didn't need Greek culture class, because Dionysus taught his fucking kids. I don't know what expression my face made, but it hurt and Luke just sighed.
"Yeeaaaap," he drawled.
I'm going to strangle that centaur.
The exchange of gifts and what they were for was pretty much the basics of the basics. That meant no one in Camp Half-Blood ever expected anyone on Olympus to actually pay for a favor or to properly apologize. They didn't know what a proper apology even looked like.
Jesus H. Christ.
"Remind me to do something about that class too."
"Believe me," Luke said dryly. "I have a list."
"Can we focus?" Artemis pleaded, dragging us both back to the present. "We did not lose her."
"Sorry," I mumbled.
The bunny was a small, sad ball on her seat as our van rumbled through the desert out of Texas into Mexico. The mountain range wasn't very tall. It looked more like a dry, blocky version of the Rockies than anything, but there were flashes of moving patterns in the cliff faces that I didn't stare at. I don't know if it was just me, but it looked like it was getting even darker outside.
"It is - Kali was not impatient," Artemis said suddenly. "But she could not stand sitting still or moving slowly, driving me mad because she always made it worse for me to control my fidgeting…"
The rabbit trailed off.
"Are you trying to say she's still in there?" I asked, trying to make sense of her rambling. "Still intelligent?" Thinking back, I shouldn't be surprised. Aura spoke. I should always be expecting the worst case scenario, because Mom set up nothing but for me.
I don't know if you remember the story. Kallisto was a Hunter of Artemis, the nymph daughter of Lycaon. You might know him as the first Greek werewolf, punished by Zeus for the crime of being a complete asshole and a worse dad (like Zeus had any room to talk. He doesn't). Anyway, Zeus was the one who decided to rape Kallisto while wearing Artemis' face. It was fucked up. She didn't tell Artemis. I don't know why, but I bet trauma was part of it. And when Artemis eventually found out, she didn't react well.
The rest was history.
"She would startle prey on purpose," Artemis said quietly. "Pulling back from us now is just like her. She would let prey know she was hunting them by mimicking the calls of known predators, or loudly trampling through the brush. Make them run or fight. A self-imposed challenge she never lost."
You could tell by the almost tangible atmosphere of despair she had that Artemis didn't think Kallisto was going to lose now.
Luke frowned. "Is she like the other one?"
The rabbit looked up, startled. "I - I do not know?"
"You don't know?" He ground his teeth. "Isn't this your fault - you did this. How can you not know? Can she die?"
"I never tried!" Artemis wailed and there was a loud bang sound as the van bumped over something large enough for all of us to feel the vehicle tilt and then fall back onto all four wheels. My heart was in my throat as I gripped onto Damocles silver pendant, waiting for a bear claw to tear through the doors.
But nothing happened.
The tension broke in my sixth sense, snapping like a taut wire. It was still there, but different. I didn't know what it meant.
"Must have been a rock," Luke muttered as he turned to look out the back window again, but there was nothing but the dark of Night showing.
Nothing but…
"Where's the rest of the convoy?" I asked, searching for the other headlights. There were a few jeeps and bikes in front of us, visible only by the dim red glow of their backlights but we were supposed to be in the middle of the pack.
Luke blinked and then frowned, gripping his dad's lighter in his hand. He squinted out the back, then frowned harder before closing his eyes. He breathed out slowly and his eyes moved underneath his eyelids like he was Dreaming, "Nothing on the wind. They're gone."
"Maybe they're just running interference?" I offered and Luke shrugged, unconcerned.
"Better them than us."
I bit my lip.
That's right. Because they were all monsters. It wasn't like I forgot about the murdered mortals on the road or anything. That kind of stuff is important. I just have to catch myself looking in from the wrong side of the fence sometimes.
I don't know why I do it. I'm mortal. I know that.
"Assume she can't die," I moved on. "What can we do?"
"Maybe she can though," Luke said with the 'click clack' of his lighter cap being flicked on and off, the bright flame appearing for a second. "If I remember my myths right, there was something about a son hunting her down? Arkas?"
Artemis flinched back. I had a really bad feeling about whatever she was going to say next.
"There was a son," she said quietly. "He had not been born yet when…"
"Ah," Luke said blankly.
Oof.
"Kali was - was a terrible, horrible mistake. One I could not undo, no matter how much I tried." Artemis sounded more than guilty. She sounded shattered. "Zoё searched for her because I lied - and she knew I lied, I do not think she knows how to give up…" The rabbit lifted her head weakly. "You asked why my lieutenant would try to end my life," she told Luke. "She wasn't lieutenant then, but…" She shrugged her small shoulders. "...this was it."
Luke blew out a breath. "...you don't want to kill her."
"No!" Artemis blurted out. "No - I - it is - she does not deserve this! She was in agony and I doubt that has changed! Constellations feel no pain or distress, why was she removed? She was safe - "
"Nemesis doesn't care about that," I said, feeling cold at the near panic in Artemis' voice. My niece, the daughter of Nyx and my brother Erebus. Clovis tried to tell the Night that they couldn't go to the House of Night. Erebus could pretend, but he didn't really understand. Nemesis took on a human shape, but maybe expecting the grinding mass of teeth in her eyes to care about her son, Ethan the way I wanted her to was naïve. I thought about my mother, the sentient black hole mimicking right from wrong. Why should she care about dust? The cycle of life is one she's seen millions and billions of times over, not one more special than the last. Even if Luke had the perfect childhood with parents who loved him, if Hermes' plan with the golden apple worked, that still didn't guarantee anything. It didn't mean anything. One little godling on a single planet in a single solar system among billions of stars.
Everything ends.
"It's not about what's best for anyone, not really," I realized. Nemesis might not be capable of thinking about things in those terms. "It's about addressing the Balance."
Artemis sniffled. "...I know."
"You know we might not have a choice?" Luke asked her softly and the bunny nodded miserably.
"She has suffered enough, but…" The bunny uncurled from her little ball. "When she was first captured, Zoё was still near godhood, supported by other senior Hunters." 'Near godhood.' So the fractured nebula I saw in Nightshade's eyes had been broken. "Her death might be possible, but still out of our reach."
"Can we lose her then?" Luke asked after a moment of thought. "In the desert?"
I looked at Artemis, who shrunk back into her seat. "Any ideas?"
The bunny shuffled. "I - if we go much further south, we risk trespassing."
"She doesn't mean territory," I said when Luke opened his mouth to ask. "She means mythologically. Origins. The Mesoamerican pantheons like the Mayans or the Aztecs are all down in South America. We won't fit and whatever doesn't fit, gets attention."
I wondered how Hiraya did it. Then I thought that maybe Olympus was just that dysfunctional and she slipped through the cracks. Wouldn't surprise me at all. It wasn't like anyone would be picking up Olympus' slack. Nyx getting involved in this reality was a bad idea (current disaster said it all), no idea what Erebus does for a living, Chronos getting involved in this reality might be a really bad idea, Tartarus was literally asleep at the wheel and Mom was still getting the rust off on Giving a Shit.
"We'll have a lot less of our monsters and a lot more of theirs," I finished.
Luke's face pinched. "And we might run into wendigos if we go north…"
"Can we make it to the Roman border?" I thought out loud. "They'd have to respond to a monster like - shit."
I almost forgot about what the elf said.
Luke raised his eyebrows. "You just said you don't want to meet a Roman - "
"I know what I said!"
Quintus also told us in that diner that he paid for smuggling because the border was closed down by the order of Mars. That was the Roman Name of Ares. How much you wanna bet that he told border patrol no one was to be allowed through, with extreme prejudice?
Luke held up his hands in surrender. "We might have to risk it anyway. This is the second one, I thought Nemesis only sent one but if there are multiple super monsters out for our hides - "
"Apollo said you only made monsters of two of your Hunters," I turned on Artemis. "That true?"
"Yes," the rabbit said, resigned. "...of my Hunters."
"You - " Suddenly the little tidbit that sometimes she turns boys into jackalopes stopped being trivia and started being a giant red flag of how utterly stupid I was. "Y̸o̴u̶ ̷d̴a̶u̵g̶h̴t̶e̶r̶ ̵o̶f̸ ̴a̵ ̵b̸a̴s̵t̸a̷r̷d̶ " I don't know what language that came out in, but I knew what I meant to say. "How many?"
"I - I do not - "
"How many?"
"One thing at a time!" Luke cut in sharply. I was a little thrown by how angry I was and he was the one being reasonable about the rabbit. When did that happen? "Percy, worry about that later, worry about the bear now."
I breathed in harshly through my nose. My gut churned, but I blew it out. Luke was right. Now was not the time for this.
"How is she here, now?" I asked instead. "Once Nemesis interferes with a Quest, then she can't - "
Out of the corner of my eye, something peered into our windows from the darkness and then turned away. I swallowed hard. Our van bumped and rumbled as it rode on, not daring to slow down, not even for a second.
"She cannot meddle further," Artemis said quietly. "However, Khione could," she said and my stomach dropped a little.
"You mean - "
"Are you really surprised?" She asked slowly and my stomach dropped further. "The withholding of hospitality was hardly an accident."
"Guess not," I mumbled as I realized that I couldn't say that Khione didn't help Aura find us in Quebec City. Now that I was thinking about it, we went all over the city, across the river and to the waterfall and everything. I assumed the pulse of cold energy was a ward of some kind, but then again, she wanted Artemis dead.
She still does, I reminded myself. Really badly. I couldn't take her help for granted. She wanted Olympus to change, but Khione was still Greek. I won't know which side of her won out until after it already blew up in my face.
"Every instance of interference," Artemis continued, "Is counted separately."
Any god with a grudge could piggyback onto Nemesis' revenge. My sisters wouldn't say a word against it.
Luke and I didn't say 'And there isn't anyone you haven't screwed over' but we were definitely thinking it. Bunny faces were hard to read, but by the way her ears dropped, I think she was thinking it too.
"What's around here?" I asked instead. "New Mexico is next to Texas, right?" I wracked my brain for whatever sunk in through my skull during geography class. "And then…Nevada?"
"Arizona," Luke corrected me.
"Right."
Luke didn't even go to school. I was choosing to believe that he knew because he inherited something from his dad. American education couldn't possibly lose out to being chased cross country by monsters.
"...I'm drawing a blank on anything not Native American or, like, terrible," I was forced to admit. That was a bad sign I should have expected. Sure, I knew that one of my cousins tended to wander around the West Coast area, but I've never met them before and Mom kept me from most of my cousins for a reason.
The further from Mt. Olympus, the closer to the Door to the Underworld and the Mountain of Despair. The original Mt. Othrys was still in Greece, just like Olympus, but it wouldn't surprise me if the aftershocks of the Gate opening leaked into its mythological counterpart.
I know Ouranos' prison moved.
Did the Romans close the border to keep people out or to keep things in?
"Are we just going to have to fight her and hope for the best?" I asked, feeling my stomach sink to the floor.
Artemis' ears buoyed.
"Arizona…" She mused. "Something is…yes, one of Hephaestus' junkyards is there, I believe?" She thought it over, her little nose wiggling furiously. "My father dislikes involving himself, but Eagle Point at the Grand Canyon, if we make a petition there or at the Hoover Dam in Nevada then -" Her voice cracked painfully. "Maybe?"
Maybe Zeus would help her, but his so-called favorite daughter didn't sound so sure of that.
Luke opened his mouth.
"Forget I said anything," she said quickly then. "Attempting to circumvent Fate, even indirectly, is not something I see Father doing lightly." My anger abandoned me so fast, I felt dizzy. It was in the way she just collapsed in on herself. "Or at all."
He shut his mouth with a click.
Her brother couldn't help her. Her father wouldn't. That was true for everyone else. She was completely and utterly alone. Except for me and Luke. Most of it was her own fault, but you can still feel bad about it, can't you? Or pity or something?
Maybe it was because I was feeling like a hypocrite.
Kallisto was hunting us down and she was concerned about how much it was costing the bear, not herself. I was struggling to remember if Artemis ever actually defended her actions at all. Was Selene the only time?
Maybe…
Maybe Apollo had been right to say she changed. Mom's punishment was earned, but…
I don't know.
"That's still several states away," I said eventually.
"She might wait that long," Artemis offered, but I doubt she believed it. "If you must, leave me. I will try to buy time."
"No," Luke said immediately. He looked alarmed. "We're not doing that."
"What he said," I put in.
"Then…" She thought for a bit. "You - you mentioned something about Egyptians the - " Artemis shuffled self-consciously. "The first time…"
I blinked in surprise. She remembered? "My phone. We can probably hijack an obelisk for their teleportation magics, so if we need to get away, we got a freebie."
"But?" Luke asked knowingly.
"But where we end up is random," I admitted. "There are a lot of obelisks around and I'm not a Magician."
…
Or am I!?
Mom has an Egyptian Name. Houy of the Flooded Toilets had the Pharaoh Djer as his ancestor, one of the incarnations of the god Horus. A lot of the elite Magicians had similar lineages. Did I count? What did it mean for me if I was? I don't know the first thing about Egyptian magic. What if I tried and messed it up even more? Crap. I should have asked Cliff if he at least region locked my reception or if I could risk ending up in Cairo.
I hated this. All of it. No one told me Quests were supposed to involve an identity crisis.
"So not useful right now," Luke concluded. "That's why you were pointing those out. But." He looked sly. "If we have to grab the Bolt and run, or confront the god of War then run, we have a get out of jail card."
My mouth opened. "Oh, so you don't know Spider Man but you know Monopoly?"
Luke choked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You are actually a Greek barbarian."
"I am not!"
"Have you ever even seen Star Wars?"
"I snuck Annabeth into a showing of The Phantom Menace?"
"...You're irredeemable."
Artemis sighed and stared at the floor of the van as we rode on.
I'm not stupid all of the time. I knew that Artemis' offer to buy us time was her volunteering to go off and die for us. And maybe, in the middle of a fight if we were completely out of options I could see it, but not like this, planned and premeditated. That didn't feel right at all. It bothered me that she offered. I don't think Artemis really came to terms with the idea of dying. I think she came to terms with the idea that she didn't deserve to be saved.
That wasn't the same thing.
I caught Luke's eye and jerked my head towards the bunny. He crossed his arms and looked over the rabbit critically. Then he sighed, nodding to me. He saw it too. He saw it ages ago. He turned to look out the back windows of the van again. "What is it with you daughters of Zeus…"
Riding in a van through the desert expecting a giant monster bear to tear the vehicle apart at any moment did not do great things for our blood pressure. We couldn't exactly ask for the ride to let us off, because the windows had turned pitch black like we were riding through a tunnel. The occasional flashes of light, sound and sometimes feeling vibrating through the doors of the vehicle weren't reassuring. During a bright blue flash, like a bolt of lightning, I thought I saw a derelict city around a giant inverted ziggurat surrounded by a lush forest in the distance, but when the light went, my sight went with it.
I haven't heard of any kind of ancient Mesoamerican city this close to the border?
"So…" Luke puzzled as he clumsily navigated his Isaac through the Golden Sun tutorial dungeon on my Gameboy. "Why doesn't anyone just kill the Joker?"
"Because," I said, shrugging.
He looked up with raised eyebrows. "Because?"
"Look, comics are like modern day mythology. If people weren't stupid there wouldn't even be a story half the time. It's just how it is."
Luke nodded slowly, absorbing this. "...The Punisher is cooler than Batman."
"Fight me."
We were trying to pass the time on the car ride across the desert the best way we could. We were still on guard, but the longer we went without Kallisto ruining our day, the more we unwound. Kallisto was still on our tail. I could feel it. But there was nothing I could do about it until it happened.
"What's the story behind the first monster?" Luke asked eventually as we munched on the snacks he had stolen from that rest stop with Hiraya. "The one that tagged me?"
Artemis looked up at him from her small pile of hay, and then away. "...she's my first cousin, the daughter of my uncle Lelantos."
Lelantos was the uncle she could have bummed a Name of Hunting off of, if she wasn't herself.
Figures.
"One of my oldest companions. We were like sisters, but we brought out the absolute worst in each other," she continued softly, bitterly. "I do not remember who started the stupid game, but it was - it was nothing but poison to both of us."
"Game?" I asked.
"We kept score," she murmured. "We did our best to find petty, mean ways to hurt each other, but if you let on how much blood that needle drew, you lose the round. We were both very good at it. It went on for years, getting more and more thoughtful. Practiced. Cruel. "
That sounded like either something I'd hear from a documentary of a school shooting or it was the plot of that new movie Mean Girls.
"And you couldn't stand losing," Luke sighed.
"I had just lost," Artemis admitted. "She just - I was livid, but I could get over - I can defend myself - there were some close calls but I - " Artemis almost couldn't speak. "My mother is off limits." The bunny breathed harshly, stomping around on her seat. Whatever Aura did, just thinking about it still made her blood boil thousands of years later. "Neither of us were ever gracious in victory, mocking each other, but she would not stop!"
On an impulse, I picked the rabbit up. I got where she was coming from. That didn't make it right, but I understood. Hell, I tried to kill one of my schoolmates -
Okay.
So.
I didn't actually mean to tell you that, but guess we're doing this live!
I was.
Not great as a kid. I know that now. Apollo was right. It was a rare occurrence, but not unheard of. Being confidently wrong was just one of his talents. I didn't have a high opinion of mortals back then. Like my big brother, Apollo the Locust, when I lost my temper, I got mean and I used to have a bad one. If there was one thing that stayed the same about me from then to now? It was that no one insults my mother to my face.
Some dumb third or fourth grader with a stupid take on Irish accents and paddywagons. They couldn't prove it wasn't an accident (technically…never mind), but she was paralyzed from the belly button down (consolation prize) so I got expelled.
(Mom smiled)
That didn't help my case with the whole cannon incident at the next school.
Shut up.
The 'disturbed child' thing was still bullshit. I was innocent that time!
"What set it off was not even that bad." Artemis shuddered in my hands. Her nose was cold as it pressed into the palm of my hand and her voice was muffled. "It should not have cut as deep as it did. It was an absurd joke. All of my friends made fun of my base form back then, because I hated it. Her way of apologizing. She expected me to laugh, but not this time." The bunny nearly whispered as she repeated, "Not this time."
I ruffled her semi-floppy ears. She looked up at me, but then her eyes dropped, ashamed.
"I was just so angry. The years and years of insults and slights and assaults from our 'game' was the only thing I could think about. I went to Nemesis, but the Rhamnousia only offered Balance. I agreed to the rules of our game, after all. I gave as good as I got. But mother was a bystander. Aura overstepped, so I was given a token from Retribution. I took it - " Artemis shuddered and wheezed. I was afraid she was having a panic attack as she shook her head almost violently. "I took it," she whispered. "And used it to call upon her mother instead. The Night answered."
Oh, I thought.
That explains why Aura looked a bit cousiny. Artemis was responsible, but it was Nyx who turned her into a monster.
"...what happened to Kali then?"
The ball of fur that was Artemis inflated and then deflated with a wheezing sigh. "Later, please?" she begged quietly.
"Yeah, okay," I murmured. "Later."
She said it was a mistake.
"Thank you," she sighed. "If we have to fight her, do not imbibe her blood." Luke opened his mouth to say something smart, but the bunny pinned him to the seat with her solemn, silver eyes. "No matter what it takes."
"Right," Luke said quickly, spooked. "Message received."
Silence is terrible. Silence because no one knows what to say anymore is the worst. I opened my big mouth.
"How long did it take you to kill the accent?" I asked Luke. And he stiffened (because what the hell Percy? Where'd that come from?) and then deliberately relaxed, looking at me out of the corner of his cloudy blue eye. "Sorry," I apologized, feeling like I wasn't supposed to notice.
"Why do you think it's something I had to lose?" He asked back.
"You've been slipping a bit," I replied and Luke's lips tightened into white lines. He might have been annoyed, but the way his eyes widened made him look almost frightened. "It's not bad, dude."
"Yeah?" Luke said tightly. "You've never had a time in your life that you'd give anything to never be reminded of, ever again?"
I had several.
"I see that you do," he nodded. He turned back to the window. I thought that was going to be the end of it, but then he muttered, "...I didn't want to introduce myself to Thalia sounding like a thug."
He glanced back at me, like he was testing my reaction. I tried to look as non-judgy as possible. It must have paid off, because he relaxed further and shrugged one shoulder. "Annabeth made it easier to watch my mouth and I just…kept at it? Besides, I got to Camp and was the oldest one in Hermes Cabin. You know what that means."
Luke's been in charge of raising kids since he was fourteen and his best friend had just died on him.
"You shouldn't have to hide who you are," I said because my brain was stalling on coming up with anything better to say. Story of my life. "You sound like a proper law-abiding citizen."
To my relief, he cracked a smile. "Yeah, not what you expect when you hear 'son of Hermes,' right? The exact opposite of my father. That was the point." Artemis huddled into herself. His face twisted up then. That complicated expression made his scar pop out. "He had to go and copy me. Just - " He deflated.
"He wasn't mocking you," I said quickly. "He just - " My tongue felt thick in my mouth. "Maybe he was trying to relate to you."
"Maybe," Luke agreed thoughtfully, before he rolled his eyes. "And he's a god so of course he thinks I would just get that him copying me is a good thing. He can't explain for crap either." This ugly expression flashed over his face. "Can't explain for...no offense," he muttered, shaking himself out of the sudden melancholy. "But I despise your sisters."
"None taken," I said. "They tried to kill me with a Pit Scorpion."
Artemis started in surprise. Luke's eyebrows nearly flew off his face. "No shit?" He caught himself a second later, grimacing. "I am slipping. Crud." He glared at me. "You are a bad influence."
"The absolute fucking worst," I agreed with a grin.
He huffed. "...a Pit Scorpion, huh? Nasty."
"I was three!"
"Now I know you're messing with me."
I don't know what event or last straw made Luke run away from home and his mom.
Apollo had his mom's blonde hair, Zeus had black hair like his brothers and father. Artemis walked around with auburn hair, but, Diana, the human half was a black haired silver eyed girl. Both of my party members didn't want to be defined by their dads.
I tried not to feel like the odd one out. The third wheel, in a sense. I sat there, feeling vaguely heartbroken as I joked around, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't really imagine cutting Mom out like that at all. I rebuilt myself because she left. Even after everything I've learned on this Quest, the thought was like trying to pick up streams of water with chopsticks. I'd have the shape of what it would look like to be free of Fate. The concept. The idea.
Then it would just slip right through and fade away, because it didn't feel like freedom at all.
My chest hurt.
We rode on.
I don't know how long it took, but my ass was completely numb by the time the van started to slow down. You couldn't hear the crunch of the tires gripping onto the gravel, but you could feel it. Luke hissed, fingering his lighter as he placed a wary hand on the door handle.
"Time to face the music," he muttered.
He was right on the money. We were deep in the desert, surrounded by the short, tough grass with a lot of sandy gravel, peyote plants and rocks. Quintus abruptly stopped arguing with Ghost Rider as soon as he saw us. He straightened, a hand falling to Mrs. O'Leary's eye-blisteringly pink collar and the expression on his face turned to stone. I risked a glance behind us. The mountain range loomed on the dark horizon, but strangely, it didn't look that large. Maybe the Night was messing with my depth perception again, but I could swear the short limestone mountains could be crossed in a day of hiking, but we drove for hours.
Ghost Rider rumbled warningly. Quintus glanced back at him.
"You left a few things out, graceus," he said coldly, holding Mrs. O'Leary back when she tried to shuffle over to me. There was a livid fresh red wound scoring across her side. The dog was weird, but that didn't mean I didn't feel bad about getting her hurt. She was a puppy that didn't hurt me when she could have.
Fuck.
That dog is literally my cousin.
Why did I have to remember that right now?
"Didn't they?" Quintus sneered. "Artemis."
Luke sighed. "I tried."
Artemis hopped forward boldly, ears straight up, lion charm collar on and little jacket tidy. "A few things," she agreed. "Daedalus of the Labyrinth."
I saw Luke shift his weight from one foot to the other, narrowing his eyes.
That name…
…meant absolutely nothing to me.
"Ah, yes, the card rather gave it away, didn't it?" A crooked smile crossed Quintus' face. "Ironic. The Calydonian Boar. Title, sacred animal of the Hunt. Quotation: 'It is customary to offer sacrifices for the Harvest offerings to the goddess of the Hunt. Since you have neglected to remember, I shall provide my own.' Fifteen hundred attack power, four thousand defense, Charge ability."
"What?" Artemis recoiled.
"The Calydonian Boar," Quintus repeated impatiently. "Fifteen hundred attack power, four thousand defense, charge. I defeated it with a mere harpy card because you didn't put it into a defensive position."
He's talking about Mythomagic.
Quintus pitched his voice to sound almost exactly like the rabbit's. "You cannot tell me my boar would ever lose."
I palmed my face. Hard.
I cannot believe this. Artemis is so bad at cards, she loses outside the game too. In hindsight, the Mythomagic was a bad idea.
"Okay, wait, stop." I held my free hand up as I turned to my party members, dragging my other hand down across my nose. "Who is this smug bastard again?"
"Wha - " In an instant, the angry whoever was once again the nerdy Roman with a puppy as he gaped at me. "You don't know who I am?" He said incredulously. "I invented carpentry!"
"Debatable," Luke coughed.
"Oh, like you have done any better, demigod!" Daedalus (?) glared at him. Luke glared right back, crossing his arms. Carpentry, huh? And Luke did not like this guy. Guess we were dealing with some kind of historic…demigod?
(?)
Great.
Mom's education was once again worthless.
"My statues, the daedala? Known for their uncanny likeness?"
"...is that what they're called?" I wondered.
"He was named after them," Luke explained. I could almost hear Daedalus' teeth grind together.
"That's not true. First man to fly."
"His son Icarus was the first plane crash."
"Invented the mast and sail design!"
"Stole it from your sister. Hermes remembers."
"I did not - "
"Yeah, yeah," Luke waved off. "Women couldn't take credit for anything back then."
"Are you going to contradict everything I say!?" He snapped finally. Mrs. O'Leary woofed in concern, pressing against him and almost toppling him over with all 300 of her pounds. Quintus took a deep, calming breath. Then he stood proudly with an equally superior smile,
"I mapped the Labyrinth!"
"He killed his nephew," Artemis said.
His smile disappeared.
"Oh don't you even start with me, hypocrite - "
"Mapped the Labyrinth?" Luke muttered. "You didn't even create it, you absolute - "
"You can't map the Labyrinth," I interrupted everyone and Quintus snapped back to me, scoffing.
"I thought you said you were educated by Apollo, but then knowing that god - "
"Not Apollo. My mother told me you cannot map the Labyrinth." I took off my sunglasses and stared right into his storm gray eyes and watched the color drain from his face. "But if it 'likes' you, it will pretend you can. But you can't. Ever."
Now I could place this guy. The nameless mortal who told the rest of the Greek world about the existence of the eternal maze running in a phased space through the Earth's crust, like blood vessels under the skin. You could walk into an opening you thought was a normal cave with only one exit and get lost forever. You could cross the planet in five minutes or cross the street in fifty years. It was choked with the Mist, messing with all six of your senses. It was vast, it was dangerous, it was malevolent because it was alive.
"That's why you took an escort across the desert, isn't it, Daedalus?" I prodded. "What did he call his usual methods back at the diner?"
Luke had a mean smile as he remembered. "Unreliable?"
Quintus scowled. "An escort I invited you on, out of the goodness of my - "
"Celestial bronze heart?" I asked and he paled again. "Sorry." Not sorry. I grinned my toothy smile and tilted my head at just the angle that creeped Cliff out. "Forgot to mention." I tapped my left temple. "This son of Fate can see how you die."
The silence was thick and heavy. Mrs. O'Leary's head swung back and forth between us like she was following an invisible tennis ball bouncing back and forth. It was a mirror of the way Daedalus' eyes traveled all three of us like he was trying to see into our bones.
"Why are you defending her? Quintus finally asked quietly. "Don't you know what the gods - she has done?"
"Yup." I popped the P, then I gestured down at the bunny with two hands. "But just wook at dat wittle face! How can you be mad at her? She's adorable."
Luke snorted and then pinched the bridge of his nose. "Percy."
"No one else gives that rabbit shit for being shit but us."
My Camp Counselor sighed. "Mascot?"
I nodded. "Exactly!"
Artemis stared up at us, speechless.
I made up my mind.
Mom's punishment was earned. 100%.
But Artemis swore on the Styx.
To help.
We were now parole officers.
Daedalus stared at us blankly. Then he closed his eyes and sighed, resigned. He half-turned away. He exchanged looks with some of the monsters milling around their vehicles and there was a prickling along my forearms. Kallisto was still breathing down my neck.
Awesome.
I was in so much mortal danger, my Spidey Sense was in overflow.
Quintus raised a hand like he was saying goodbye. "Camp Half-Blood remains blindly loyal to the last, I suppose."
This time, it was my turn to snort. I almost choked even as the thin hungry faces of Ghost Rider's crew crept in. I couldn't help it. "Pretty sure that changed once they all learned Athena used to be King of the Gods."
Daedalus just about gave himself whiplash turning back around.
"What did you say?"
Huh, that's funny.
That was literally the same thing Annabeth said when she heard that.
An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction
A PJO Fanfiction
The sudden silence was loud.
"Did we lose her?" Luke asked, twisting around in his seat to look out the back windows of the van through the handlebars of his bike.
"No," Artemis and I said at the same time.
I could almost hear the hairs on the back of my neck vibrating in warning. Instead of a low hum of danger, I felt like even as I sat in the backseat of a battered soccer mom van that was probably stolen from a soccer mom, I was being stalked through a dark forest by something very, very hungry. It reminded me of a dark ocean in the Dreamlands. That sensation of encroaching doom deep underwater was not going to leave me any time soon.
"My spidey sense is still going wild."
"Spidey what?" Luke asked.
I was getting a little numb to being in danger. It was still there on the back of my neck and has been for a while. The tiny prickle of warning around Hiraya never actually went away after we made our deal and it's just been downhill from there. This entire situation with the Ursa Major after a rabbit's ass with us in the way was terrible and I could feel how terrible it was in my gut, but I'm going to blame my ADHD here:
"...seriously?"
I got sidetracked. In my defense, he doesn't know Spider Man?
Luke made a face. "No money, no time, can't leave Camp if I don't want to get attacked." Luke waved his hands, frustrated. "And if it's from a comic book - is it?" I nodded. "There are a ton of those, they make no sense out of order with a lot of characters and reading."
All good points.
I mean, they were terrible points (because yikes, reading comics out of order?) but they were legit, is what I meant. "...okay, Camp Half-Blood needs an American Culture Class." Like, yesterday. "After we're done here, remind me."
Luke gave me a look of long-suffering. "Find room in the schedule between javelin training and the Greek culture class."
"That doesn't teach anyone about xenia," I pointed out. "That makes it a shit class by default. We can toss it."
He looked like he was going to argue for a second, then he glanced down at his hand where Khione's ring sat. He spun it about his index finger with his thumb.
"Or about reconciliation gifts," he mused. "Or I guess, it does, but I feel like 'refusing a god's gifts is unwise' isn't even half of it."
Holy shit, I had been kidding. Cabin 12 didn't need Greek culture class, because Dionysus taught his fucking kids. I don't know what expression my face made, but it hurt and Luke just sighed.
"Yeeaaaap," he drawled.
I'm going to strangle that centaur.
The exchange of gifts and what they were for was pretty much the basics of the basics. That meant no one in Camp Half-Blood ever expected anyone on Olympus to actually pay for a favor or to properly apologize. They didn't know what a proper apology even looked like.
Jesus H. Christ.
"Remind me to do something about that class too."
"Believe me," Luke said dryly. "I have a list."
"Can we focus?" Artemis pleaded, dragging us both back to the present. "We did not lose her."
"Sorry," I mumbled.
The bunny was a small, sad ball on her seat as our van rumbled through the desert out of Texas into Mexico. The mountain range wasn't very tall. It looked more like a dry, blocky version of the Rockies than anything, but there were flashes of moving patterns in the cliff faces that I didn't stare at. I don't know if it was just me, but it looked like it was getting even darker outside.
"It is - Kali was not impatient," Artemis said suddenly. "But she could not stand sitting still or moving slowly, driving me mad because she always made it worse for me to control my fidgeting…"
The rabbit trailed off.
"Are you trying to say she's still in there?" I asked, trying to make sense of her rambling. "Still intelligent?" Thinking back, I shouldn't be surprised. Aura spoke. I should always be expecting the worst case scenario, because Mom set up nothing but for me.
I don't know if you remember the story. Kallisto was a Hunter of Artemis, the nymph daughter of Lycaon. You might know him as the first Greek werewolf, punished by Zeus for the crime of being a complete asshole and a worse dad (like Zeus had any room to talk. He doesn't). Anyway, Zeus was the one who decided to rape Kallisto while wearing Artemis' face. It was fucked up. She didn't tell Artemis. I don't know why, but I bet trauma was part of it. And when Artemis eventually found out, she didn't react well.
The rest was history.
"She would startle prey on purpose," Artemis said quietly. "Pulling back from us now is just like her. She would let prey know she was hunting them by mimicking the calls of known predators, or loudly trampling through the brush. Make them run or fight. A self-imposed challenge she never lost."
You could tell by the almost tangible atmosphere of despair she had that Artemis didn't think Kallisto was going to lose now.
Luke frowned. "Is she like the other one?"
The rabbit looked up, startled. "I - I do not know?"
"You don't know?" He ground his teeth. "Isn't this your fault - you did this. How can you not know? Can she die?"
"I never tried!" Artemis wailed and there was a loud bang sound as the van bumped over something large enough for all of us to feel the vehicle tilt and then fall back onto all four wheels. My heart was in my throat as I gripped onto Damocles silver pendant, waiting for a bear claw to tear through the doors.
But nothing happened.
The tension broke in my sixth sense, snapping like a taut wire. It was still there, but different. I didn't know what it meant.
"Must have been a rock," Luke muttered as he turned to look out the back window again, but there was nothing but the dark of Night showing.
Nothing but…
"Where's the rest of the convoy?" I asked, searching for the other headlights. There were a few jeeps and bikes in front of us, visible only by the dim red glow of their backlights but we were supposed to be in the middle of the pack.
Luke blinked and then frowned, gripping his dad's lighter in his hand. He squinted out the back, then frowned harder before closing his eyes. He breathed out slowly and his eyes moved underneath his eyelids like he was Dreaming, "Nothing on the wind. They're gone."
"Maybe they're just running interference?" I offered and Luke shrugged, unconcerned.
"Better them than us."
I bit my lip.
That's right. Because they were all monsters. It wasn't like I forgot about the murdered mortals on the road or anything. That kind of stuff is important. I just have to catch myself looking in from the wrong side of the fence sometimes.
I don't know why I do it. I'm mortal. I know that.
"Assume she can't die," I moved on. "What can we do?"
"Maybe she can though," Luke said with the 'click clack' of his lighter cap being flicked on and off, the bright flame appearing for a second. "If I remember my myths right, there was something about a son hunting her down? Arkas?"
Artemis flinched back. I had a really bad feeling about whatever she was going to say next.
"There was a son," she said quietly. "He had not been born yet when…"
"Ah," Luke said blankly.
Oof.
"Kali was - was a terrible, horrible mistake. One I could not undo, no matter how much I tried." Artemis sounded more than guilty. She sounded shattered. "Zoё searched for her because I lied - and she knew I lied, I do not think she knows how to give up…" The rabbit lifted her head weakly. "You asked why my lieutenant would try to end my life," she told Luke. "She wasn't lieutenant then, but…" She shrugged her small shoulders. "...this was it."
Luke blew out a breath. "...you don't want to kill her."
"No!" Artemis blurted out. "No - I - it is - she does not deserve this! She was in agony and I doubt that has changed! Constellations feel no pain or distress, why was she removed? She was safe - "
"Nemesis doesn't care about that," I said, feeling cold at the near panic in Artemis' voice. My niece, the daughter of Nyx and my brother Erebus. Clovis tried to tell the Night that they couldn't go to the House of Night. Erebus could pretend, but he didn't really understand. Nemesis took on a human shape, but maybe expecting the grinding mass of teeth in her eyes to care about her son, Ethan the way I wanted her to was naïve. I thought about my mother, the sentient black hole mimicking right from wrong. Why should she care about dust? The cycle of life is one she's seen millions and billions of times over, not one more special than the last. Even if Luke had the perfect childhood with parents who loved him, if Hermes' plan with the golden apple worked, that still didn't guarantee anything. It didn't mean anything. One little godling on a single planet in a single solar system among billions of stars.
Everything ends.
"It's not about what's best for anyone, not really," I realized. Nemesis might not be capable of thinking about things in those terms. "It's about addressing the Balance."
Artemis sniffled. "...I know."
"You know we might not have a choice?" Luke asked her softly and the bunny nodded miserably.
"She has suffered enough, but…" The bunny uncurled from her little ball. "When she was first captured, Zoё was still near godhood, supported by other senior Hunters." 'Near godhood.' So the fractured nebula I saw in Nightshade's eyes had been broken. "Her death might be possible, but still out of our reach."
"Can we lose her then?" Luke asked after a moment of thought. "In the desert?"
I looked at Artemis, who shrunk back into her seat. "Any ideas?"
The bunny shuffled. "I - if we go much further south, we risk trespassing."
"She doesn't mean territory," I said when Luke opened his mouth to ask. "She means mythologically. Origins. The Mesoamerican pantheons like the Mayans or the Aztecs are all down in South America. We won't fit and whatever doesn't fit, gets attention."
I wondered how Hiraya did it. Then I thought that maybe Olympus was just that dysfunctional and she slipped through the cracks. Wouldn't surprise me at all. It wasn't like anyone would be picking up Olympus' slack. Nyx getting involved in this reality was a bad idea (current disaster said it all), no idea what Erebus does for a living, Chronos getting involved in this reality might be a really bad idea, Tartarus was literally asleep at the wheel and Mom was still getting the rust off on Giving a Shit.
"We'll have a lot less of our monsters and a lot more of theirs," I finished.
Luke's face pinched. "And we might run into wendigos if we go north…"
"Can we make it to the Roman border?" I thought out loud. "They'd have to respond to a monster like - shit."
I almost forgot about what the elf said.
Luke raised his eyebrows. "You just said you don't want to meet a Roman - "
"I know what I said!"
Quintus also told us in that diner that he paid for smuggling because the border was closed down by the order of Mars. That was the Roman Name of Ares. How much you wanna bet that he told border patrol no one was to be allowed through, with extreme prejudice?
Luke held up his hands in surrender. "We might have to risk it anyway. This is the second one, I thought Nemesis only sent one but if there are multiple super monsters out for our hides - "
"Apollo said you only made monsters of two of your Hunters," I turned on Artemis. "That true?"
"Yes," the rabbit said, resigned. "...of my Hunters."
"You - " Suddenly the little tidbit that sometimes she turns boys into jackalopes stopped being trivia and started being a giant red flag of how utterly stupid I was. "Y̸o̴u̶ ̷d̴a̶u̵g̶h̴t̶e̶r̶ ̵o̶f̸ ̴a̵ ̵b̸a̴s̵t̸a̷r̷d̶ " I don't know what language that came out in, but I knew what I meant to say. "How many?"
"I - I do not - "
"How many?"
"One thing at a time!" Luke cut in sharply. I was a little thrown by how angry I was and he was the one being reasonable about the rabbit. When did that happen? "Percy, worry about that later, worry about the bear now."
I breathed in harshly through my nose. My gut churned, but I blew it out. Luke was right. Now was not the time for this.
"How is she here, now?" I asked instead. "Once Nemesis interferes with a Quest, then she can't - "
Out of the corner of my eye, something peered into our windows from the darkness and then turned away. I swallowed hard. Our van bumped and rumbled as it rode on, not daring to slow down, not even for a second.
"She cannot meddle further," Artemis said quietly. "However, Khione could," she said and my stomach dropped a little.
"You mean - "
"Are you really surprised?" She asked slowly and my stomach dropped further. "The withholding of hospitality was hardly an accident."
"Guess not," I mumbled as I realized that I couldn't say that Khione didn't help Aura find us in Quebec City. Now that I was thinking about it, we went all over the city, across the river and to the waterfall and everything. I assumed the pulse of cold energy was a ward of some kind, but then again, she wanted Artemis dead.
She still does, I reminded myself. Really badly. I couldn't take her help for granted. She wanted Olympus to change, but Khione was still Greek. I won't know which side of her won out until after it already blew up in my face.
"Every instance of interference," Artemis continued, "Is counted separately."
Any god with a grudge could piggyback onto Nemesis' revenge. My sisters wouldn't say a word against it.
Luke and I didn't say 'And there isn't anyone you haven't screwed over' but we were definitely thinking it. Bunny faces were hard to read, but by the way her ears dropped, I think she was thinking it too.
"What's around here?" I asked instead. "New Mexico is next to Texas, right?" I wracked my brain for whatever sunk in through my skull during geography class. "And then…Nevada?"
"Arizona," Luke corrected me.
"Right."
Luke didn't even go to school. I was choosing to believe that he knew because he inherited something from his dad. American education couldn't possibly lose out to being chased cross country by monsters.
"...I'm drawing a blank on anything not Native American or, like, terrible," I was forced to admit. That was a bad sign I should have expected. Sure, I knew that one of my cousins tended to wander around the West Coast area, but I've never met them before and Mom kept me from most of my cousins for a reason.
The further from Mt. Olympus, the closer to the Door to the Underworld and the Mountain of Despair. The original Mt. Othrys was still in Greece, just like Olympus, but it wouldn't surprise me if the aftershocks of the Gate opening leaked into its mythological counterpart.
I know Ouranos' prison moved.
Did the Romans close the border to keep people out or to keep things in?
"Are we just going to have to fight her and hope for the best?" I asked, feeling my stomach sink to the floor.
Artemis' ears buoyed.
"Arizona…" She mused. "Something is…yes, one of Hephaestus' junkyards is there, I believe?" She thought it over, her little nose wiggling furiously. "My father dislikes involving himself, but Eagle Point at the Grand Canyon, if we make a petition there or at the Hoover Dam in Nevada then -" Her voice cracked painfully. "Maybe?"
Maybe Zeus would help her, but his so-called favorite daughter didn't sound so sure of that.
Luke opened his mouth.
"Forget I said anything," she said quickly then. "Attempting to circumvent Fate, even indirectly, is not something I see Father doing lightly." My anger abandoned me so fast, I felt dizzy. It was in the way she just collapsed in on herself. "Or at all."
He shut his mouth with a click.
Her brother couldn't help her. Her father wouldn't. That was true for everyone else. She was completely and utterly alone. Except for me and Luke. Most of it was her own fault, but you can still feel bad about it, can't you? Or pity or something?
Maybe it was because I was feeling like a hypocrite.
Kallisto was hunting us down and she was concerned about how much it was costing the bear, not herself. I was struggling to remember if Artemis ever actually defended her actions at all. Was Selene the only time?
Maybe…
Maybe Apollo had been right to say she changed. Mom's punishment was earned, but…
I don't know.
"That's still several states away," I said eventually.
"She might wait that long," Artemis offered, but I doubt she believed it. "If you must, leave me. I will try to buy time."
"No," Luke said immediately. He looked alarmed. "We're not doing that."
"What he said," I put in.
"Then…" She thought for a bit. "You - you mentioned something about Egyptians the - " Artemis shuffled self-consciously. "The first time…"
I blinked in surprise. She remembered? "My phone. We can probably hijack an obelisk for their teleportation magics, so if we need to get away, we got a freebie."
"But?" Luke asked knowingly.
"But where we end up is random," I admitted. "There are a lot of obelisks around and I'm not a Magician."
…
Or am I!?
Mom has an Egyptian Name. Houy of the Flooded Toilets had the Pharaoh Djer as his ancestor, one of the incarnations of the god Horus. A lot of the elite Magicians had similar lineages. Did I count? What did it mean for me if I was? I don't know the first thing about Egyptian magic. What if I tried and messed it up even more? Crap. I should have asked Cliff if he at least region locked my reception or if I could risk ending up in Cairo.
I hated this. All of it. No one told me Quests were supposed to involve an identity crisis.
"So not useful right now," Luke concluded. "That's why you were pointing those out. But." He looked sly. "If we have to grab the Bolt and run, or confront the god of War then run, we have a get out of jail card."
My mouth opened. "Oh, so you don't know Spider Man but you know Monopoly?"
Luke choked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You are actually a Greek barbarian."
"I am not!"
"Have you ever even seen Star Wars?"
"I snuck Annabeth into a showing of The Phantom Menace?"
"...You're irredeemable."
Artemis sighed and stared at the floor of the van as we rode on.
I'm not stupid all of the time. I knew that Artemis' offer to buy us time was her volunteering to go off and die for us. And maybe, in the middle of a fight if we were completely out of options I could see it, but not like this, planned and premeditated. That didn't feel right at all. It bothered me that she offered. I don't think Artemis really came to terms with the idea of dying. I think she came to terms with the idea that she didn't deserve to be saved.
That wasn't the same thing.
I caught Luke's eye and jerked my head towards the bunny. He crossed his arms and looked over the rabbit critically. Then he sighed, nodding to me. He saw it too. He saw it ages ago. He turned to look out the back windows of the van again. "What is it with you daughters of Zeus…"
Riding in a van through the desert expecting a giant monster bear to tear the vehicle apart at any moment did not do great things for our blood pressure. We couldn't exactly ask for the ride to let us off, because the windows had turned pitch black like we were riding through a tunnel. The occasional flashes of light, sound and sometimes feeling vibrating through the doors of the vehicle weren't reassuring. During a bright blue flash, like a bolt of lightning, I thought I saw a derelict city around a giant inverted ziggurat surrounded by a lush forest in the distance, but when the light went, my sight went with it.
I haven't heard of any kind of ancient Mesoamerican city this close to the border?
"So…" Luke puzzled as he clumsily navigated his Isaac through the Golden Sun tutorial dungeon on my Gameboy. "Why doesn't anyone just kill the Joker?"
"Because," I said, shrugging.
He looked up with raised eyebrows. "Because?"
"Look, comics are like modern day mythology. If people weren't stupid there wouldn't even be a story half the time. It's just how it is."
Luke nodded slowly, absorbing this. "...The Punisher is cooler than Batman."
"Fight me."
We were trying to pass the time on the car ride across the desert the best way we could. We were still on guard, but the longer we went without Kallisto ruining our day, the more we unwound. Kallisto was still on our tail. I could feel it. But there was nothing I could do about it until it happened.
"What's the story behind the first monster?" Luke asked eventually as we munched on the snacks he had stolen from that rest stop with Hiraya. "The one that tagged me?"
Artemis looked up at him from her small pile of hay, and then away. "...she's my first cousin, the daughter of my uncle Lelantos."
Lelantos was the uncle she could have bummed a Name of Hunting off of, if she wasn't herself.
Figures.
"One of my oldest companions. We were like sisters, but we brought out the absolute worst in each other," she continued softly, bitterly. "I do not remember who started the stupid game, but it was - it was nothing but poison to both of us."
"Game?" I asked.
"We kept score," she murmured. "We did our best to find petty, mean ways to hurt each other, but if you let on how much blood that needle drew, you lose the round. We were both very good at it. It went on for years, getting more and more thoughtful. Practiced. Cruel. "
That sounded like either something I'd hear from a documentary of a school shooting or it was the plot of that new movie Mean Girls.
"And you couldn't stand losing," Luke sighed.
"I had just lost," Artemis admitted. "She just - I was livid, but I could get over - I can defend myself - there were some close calls but I - " Artemis almost couldn't speak. "My mother is off limits." The bunny breathed harshly, stomping around on her seat. Whatever Aura did, just thinking about it still made her blood boil thousands of years later. "Neither of us were ever gracious in victory, mocking each other, but she would not stop!"
On an impulse, I picked the rabbit up. I got where she was coming from. That didn't make it right, but I understood. Hell, I tried to kill one of my schoolmates -
Okay.
So.
I didn't actually mean to tell you that, but guess we're doing this live!
I was.
Not great as a kid. I know that now. Apollo was right. It was a rare occurrence, but not unheard of. Being confidently wrong was just one of his talents. I didn't have a high opinion of mortals back then. Like my big brother, Apollo the Locust, when I lost my temper, I got mean and I used to have a bad one. If there was one thing that stayed the same about me from then to now? It was that no one insults my mother to my face.
Some dumb third or fourth grader with a stupid take on Irish accents and paddywagons. They couldn't prove it wasn't an accident (technically…never mind), but she was paralyzed from the belly button down (consolation prize) so I got expelled.
(Mom smiled)
That didn't help my case with the whole cannon incident at the next school.
Shut up.
The 'disturbed child' thing was still bullshit. I was innocent that time!
"What set it off was not even that bad." Artemis shuddered in my hands. Her nose was cold as it pressed into the palm of my hand and her voice was muffled. "It should not have cut as deep as it did. It was an absurd joke. All of my friends made fun of my base form back then, because I hated it. Her way of apologizing. She expected me to laugh, but not this time." The bunny nearly whispered as she repeated, "Not this time."
I ruffled her semi-floppy ears. She looked up at me, but then her eyes dropped, ashamed.
"I was just so angry. The years and years of insults and slights and assaults from our 'game' was the only thing I could think about. I went to Nemesis, but the Rhamnousia only offered Balance. I agreed to the rules of our game, after all. I gave as good as I got. But mother was a bystander. Aura overstepped, so I was given a token from Retribution. I took it - " Artemis shuddered and wheezed. I was afraid she was having a panic attack as she shook her head almost violently. "I took it," she whispered. "And used it to call upon her mother instead. The Night answered."
Oh, I thought.
That explains why Aura looked a bit cousiny. Artemis was responsible, but it was Nyx who turned her into a monster.
"...what happened to Kali then?"
The ball of fur that was Artemis inflated and then deflated with a wheezing sigh. "Later, please?" she begged quietly.
"Yeah, okay," I murmured. "Later."
She said it was a mistake.
"Thank you," she sighed. "If we have to fight her, do not imbibe her blood." Luke opened his mouth to say something smart, but the bunny pinned him to the seat with her solemn, silver eyes. "No matter what it takes."
"Right," Luke said quickly, spooked. "Message received."
Silence is terrible. Silence because no one knows what to say anymore is the worst. I opened my big mouth.
"How long did it take you to kill the accent?" I asked Luke. And he stiffened (because what the hell Percy? Where'd that come from?) and then deliberately relaxed, looking at me out of the corner of his cloudy blue eye. "Sorry," I apologized, feeling like I wasn't supposed to notice.
"Why do you think it's something I had to lose?" He asked back.
"You've been slipping a bit," I replied and Luke's lips tightened into white lines. He might have been annoyed, but the way his eyes widened made him look almost frightened. "It's not bad, dude."
"Yeah?" Luke said tightly. "You've never had a time in your life that you'd give anything to never be reminded of, ever again?"
I had several.
"I see that you do," he nodded. He turned back to the window. I thought that was going to be the end of it, but then he muttered, "...I didn't want to introduce myself to Thalia sounding like a thug."
He glanced back at me, like he was testing my reaction. I tried to look as non-judgy as possible. It must have paid off, because he relaxed further and shrugged one shoulder. "Annabeth made it easier to watch my mouth and I just…kept at it? Besides, I got to Camp and was the oldest one in Hermes Cabin. You know what that means."
Luke's been in charge of raising kids since he was fourteen and his best friend had just died on him.
"You shouldn't have to hide who you are," I said because my brain was stalling on coming up with anything better to say. Story of my life. "You sound like a proper law-abiding citizen."
To my relief, he cracked a smile. "Yeah, not what you expect when you hear 'son of Hermes,' right? The exact opposite of my father. That was the point." Artemis huddled into herself. His face twisted up then. That complicated expression made his scar pop out. "He had to go and copy me. Just - " He deflated.
"He wasn't mocking you," I said quickly. "He just - " My tongue felt thick in my mouth. "Maybe he was trying to relate to you."
"Maybe," Luke agreed thoughtfully, before he rolled his eyes. "And he's a god so of course he thinks I would just get that him copying me is a good thing. He can't explain for crap either." This ugly expression flashed over his face. "Can't explain for...no offense," he muttered, shaking himself out of the sudden melancholy. "But I despise your sisters."
"None taken," I said. "They tried to kill me with a Pit Scorpion."
Artemis started in surprise. Luke's eyebrows nearly flew off his face. "No shit?" He caught himself a second later, grimacing. "I am slipping. Crud." He glared at me. "You are a bad influence."
"The absolute fucking worst," I agreed with a grin.
He huffed. "...a Pit Scorpion, huh? Nasty."
"I was three!"
"Now I know you're messing with me."
I don't know what event or last straw made Luke run away from home and his mom.
Apollo had his mom's blonde hair, Zeus had black hair like his brothers and father. Artemis walked around with auburn hair, but, Diana, the human half was a black haired silver eyed girl. Both of my party members didn't want to be defined by their dads.
I tried not to feel like the odd one out. The third wheel, in a sense. I sat there, feeling vaguely heartbroken as I joked around, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't really imagine cutting Mom out like that at all. I rebuilt myself because she left. Even after everything I've learned on this Quest, the thought was like trying to pick up streams of water with chopsticks. I'd have the shape of what it would look like to be free of Fate. The concept. The idea.
Then it would just slip right through and fade away, because it didn't feel like freedom at all.
My chest hurt.
We rode on.
I don't know how long it took, but my ass was completely numb by the time the van started to slow down. You couldn't hear the crunch of the tires gripping onto the gravel, but you could feel it. Luke hissed, fingering his lighter as he placed a wary hand on the door handle.
"Time to face the music," he muttered.
He was right on the money. We were deep in the desert, surrounded by the short, tough grass with a lot of sandy gravel, peyote plants and rocks. Quintus abruptly stopped arguing with Ghost Rider as soon as he saw us. He straightened, a hand falling to Mrs. O'Leary's eye-blisteringly pink collar and the expression on his face turned to stone. I risked a glance behind us. The mountain range loomed on the dark horizon, but strangely, it didn't look that large. Maybe the Night was messing with my depth perception again, but I could swear the short limestone mountains could be crossed in a day of hiking, but we drove for hours.
Ghost Rider rumbled warningly. Quintus glanced back at him.
"You left a few things out, graceus," he said coldly, holding Mrs. O'Leary back when she tried to shuffle over to me. There was a livid fresh red wound scoring across her side. The dog was weird, but that didn't mean I didn't feel bad about getting her hurt. She was a puppy that didn't hurt me when she could have.
Fuck.
That dog is literally my cousin.
Why did I have to remember that right now?
"Didn't they?" Quintus sneered. "Artemis."
Luke sighed. "I tried."
Artemis hopped forward boldly, ears straight up, lion charm collar on and little jacket tidy. "A few things," she agreed. "Daedalus of the Labyrinth."
I saw Luke shift his weight from one foot to the other, narrowing his eyes.
That name…
…meant absolutely nothing to me.
"Ah, yes, the card rather gave it away, didn't it?" A crooked smile crossed Quintus' face. "Ironic. The Calydonian Boar. Title, sacred animal of the Hunt. Quotation: 'It is customary to offer sacrifices for the Harvest offerings to the goddess of the Hunt. Since you have neglected to remember, I shall provide my own.' Fifteen hundred attack power, four thousand defense, Charge ability."
"What?" Artemis recoiled.
"The Calydonian Boar," Quintus repeated impatiently. "Fifteen hundred attack power, four thousand defense, charge. I defeated it with a mere harpy card because you didn't put it into a defensive position."
He's talking about Mythomagic.
Quintus pitched his voice to sound almost exactly like the rabbit's. "You cannot tell me my boar would ever lose."
I palmed my face. Hard.
I cannot believe this. Artemis is so bad at cards, she loses outside the game too. In hindsight, the Mythomagic was a bad idea.
"Okay, wait, stop." I held my free hand up as I turned to my party members, dragging my other hand down across my nose. "Who is this smug bastard again?"
"Wha - " In an instant, the angry whoever was once again the nerdy Roman with a puppy as he gaped at me. "You don't know who I am?" He said incredulously. "I invented carpentry!"
"Debatable," Luke coughed.
"Oh, like you have done any better, demigod!" Daedalus (?) glared at him. Luke glared right back, crossing his arms. Carpentry, huh? And Luke did not like this guy. Guess we were dealing with some kind of historic…demigod?
(?)
Great.
Mom's education was once again worthless.
"My statues, the daedala? Known for their uncanny likeness?"
"...is that what they're called?" I wondered.
"He was named after them," Luke explained. I could almost hear Daedalus' teeth grind together.
"That's not true. First man to fly."
"His son Icarus was the first plane crash."
"Invented the mast and sail design!"
"Stole it from your sister. Hermes remembers."
"I did not - "
"Yeah, yeah," Luke waved off. "Women couldn't take credit for anything back then."
"Are you going to contradict everything I say!?" He snapped finally. Mrs. O'Leary woofed in concern, pressing against him and almost toppling him over with all 300 of her pounds. Quintus took a deep, calming breath. Then he stood proudly with an equally superior smile,
"I mapped the Labyrinth!"
"He killed his nephew," Artemis said.
His smile disappeared.
"Oh don't you even start with me, hypocrite - "
"Mapped the Labyrinth?" Luke muttered. "You didn't even create it, you absolute - "
"You can't map the Labyrinth," I interrupted everyone and Quintus snapped back to me, scoffing.
"I thought you said you were educated by Apollo, but then knowing that god - "
"Not Apollo. My mother told me you cannot map the Labyrinth." I took off my sunglasses and stared right into his storm gray eyes and watched the color drain from his face. "But if it 'likes' you, it will pretend you can. But you can't. Ever."
Now I could place this guy. The nameless mortal who told the rest of the Greek world about the existence of the eternal maze running in a phased space through the Earth's crust, like blood vessels under the skin. You could walk into an opening you thought was a normal cave with only one exit and get lost forever. You could cross the planet in five minutes or cross the street in fifty years. It was choked with the Mist, messing with all six of your senses. It was vast, it was dangerous, it was malevolent because it was alive.
"That's why you took an escort across the desert, isn't it, Daedalus?" I prodded. "What did he call his usual methods back at the diner?"
Luke had a mean smile as he remembered. "Unreliable?"
Quintus scowled. "An escort I invited you on, out of the goodness of my - "
"Celestial bronze heart?" I asked and he paled again. "Sorry." Not sorry. I grinned my toothy smile and tilted my head at just the angle that creeped Cliff out. "Forgot to mention." I tapped my left temple. "This son of Fate can see how you die."
The silence was thick and heavy. Mrs. O'Leary's head swung back and forth between us like she was following an invisible tennis ball bouncing back and forth. It was a mirror of the way Daedalus' eyes traveled all three of us like he was trying to see into our bones.
"Why are you defending her? Quintus finally asked quietly. "Don't you know what the gods - she has done?"
"Yup." I popped the P, then I gestured down at the bunny with two hands. "But just wook at dat wittle face! How can you be mad at her? She's adorable."
Luke snorted and then pinched the bridge of his nose. "Percy."
"No one else gives that rabbit shit for being shit but us."
My Camp Counselor sighed. "Mascot?"
I nodded. "Exactly!"
Artemis stared up at us, speechless.
I made up my mind.
Mom's punishment was earned. 100%.
But Artemis swore on the Styx.
To help.
We were now parole officers.
Daedalus stared at us blankly. Then he closed his eyes and sighed, resigned. He half-turned away. He exchanged looks with some of the monsters milling around their vehicles and there was a prickling along my forearms. Kallisto was still breathing down my neck.
Awesome.
I was in so much mortal danger, my Spidey Sense was in overflow.
Quintus raised a hand like he was saying goodbye. "Camp Half-Blood remains blindly loyal to the last, I suppose."
This time, it was my turn to snort. I almost choked even as the thin hungry faces of Ghost Rider's crew crept in. I couldn't help it. "Pretty sure that changed once they all learned Athena used to be King of the Gods."
Daedalus just about gave himself whiplash turning back around.
"What did you say?"
Huh, that's funny.
That was literally the same thing Annabeth said when she heard that.
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ExNihilo
SPACE!
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Watching Daedalus react the same way as Annabeth was very funny. Acting so smug like everything was going according to his plan, even if that kid keeps trying to damp his boasts, then boom, something you didn't figure out in your, what, three thousand years-ish of your life?
Also funny is how Percy's knowledge bank works. He knows obscure facts about details most gods don't even know, but doesn't recognize one of the most referenced myths in all of Greek canon.
Also funny is how Percy's knowledge bank works. He knows obscure facts about details most gods don't even know, but doesn't recognize one of the most referenced myths in all of Greek canon.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
This time, it's Luke who got to show off his knowledge! The tables have turned!
Well that's not very fair, I've only just read it =)...
Also really trying to work out what's happening next, currently a bit on the edge of my seat here.
I am enjoying the fact that Percy didn't know who Daedalus was, so his education about the realities of the world is circumscribed to godly knowledge, stuff a god wouldn't care about, he doesn't know about.
The introduction of Daedalus is interesting however, as now we have a character who's more worldly, who's main limits probably were the lack of knowledge who is going to know what kinds of questions to ask and is likely to read into the answers far more than Percy realises.
So yea, @Shujin, enjoying it, but waiting for the current situation to develop more so I can get a read on it =)...
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It is good that Percy doesn't know everything, avoids making him seem all knowling. Percy only learned about the broad strokes and important stuff from his mom and that is a PG makes mom look good version, he learned about the positive aspects of the Olympians from Apollo, but he doesn't really know a lot about demigods because they weren't super important to Gods.
Fencer
Writer
- Location
- 2nd shift
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah well…. I loved the update but I didn't really have a lot to say about it. Not a whole lot… new here? Artemis was a bitch but we're unlocking a bit of that sympathetic backstory that'll help sell the redemption arc. We see Percy being… not great what with trying to kill a schoolkid. We get the easily called maze runner reveal and yet another monstrosity wants to kill them and the greek gods have found yet another way to work around their rules and try to fuck the cast.
Good update just ya know not a lot to say about it. Sorry.
Good update just ya know not a lot to say about it. Sorry.
Shujin
M. NightShujinlan
- Location
- New York, New York
That's okay, but I'd take any suggestions on future story, side story PoVs, character development or any criticisms too over the update specifically. Thanks for remarking anyway
Funnily enough at present I'm less concerned about that, I've mentally put Percy in the box of Blue / Orange morality. Yes he has human morals, but it's looking like he has sides to his character and self even he's not fully aware of and is somewhat rationalising in retrospect. Until we know more about that, my opinion on him is in a state of 🤷.
I'm not sure I agree with that, we've learned a few things such as:
- Ok, so no one can map the Labyrinth, suddenly we have a solution to the problem of any unkillable entity, they can go in the Labyrinth and assuming they don't become friends with the apparently malevolent entity that for some reason likes Daedalus, we're good. Though I wonder if it's less that it's malevolent and more that it prefers mortals over immortals or something? Which might be even better!
- I feel like I've forgotten why this is important?
The point being, we just don't necessarily know what they mean =)...
Agreed, this bit was fun =)...
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- Location
- Queensland, Australia
Yeah, for me it was the twin issues of reading it whilst on a short holiday so difficulty typing up a response deterring me doing so and... We learned some new stuff, but not anything spectacularly new... Except for a few bits. And for those bits, I got distracted by the ending where Percy realises they're Artemis' Parole Officer (and boy, would the results of him saying that aloud around any of the Gods or at Camp be hilarious) only to be immediately followed by demonstrating that the Greek Pantheon has been extremely effective at hiding the truth of history if someone who is as well travelled, long-lived and likely connected inter-Pantheonly as Daedalus has no clue.
Fencer
Writer
- Location
- 2nd shift
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Dude couldn't pull off any of the ways greek demigods traditionally beat death so he turned himself into a clockwork person.