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

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Shujin, Jul 28, 2021.

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  1. Extras: Who's Who in An Undertow of Sand
    Shujin

    Shujin Know what you're doing yet?

    Joined:
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    This will be updated and changed as we go along with the story and learn more. There are also secrets hidden within.

    Cast List:

    Ananke
    Primordial of Fate, Destiny, Compulsion, Necessity, Circumstance and Inevitability. Confirmed Name of an Elder God Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.

    Greek Titles: First of Chaos. Mother of the Moirae, of Darkness, of the Celestial Sky. The Great Serpent. Eater of the Bloody Tongues. The Ruiner. The Beautiful One. The Thousand Mirrors. She Who Stalks Stars.

    Symbol: Blood Red Spindle of Golden Thread.

    Myth: Ananke is believed to have formed ex-nihilo from Chaos as the first being. Along with her younger 'twin' and consort Chronus, mingling together in serpent form, crushed the primal egg of creation to form the ordered universe.

    Truth: Was said to have owned slaves, among whom she chose favorites to ascend by feeding them the still living flesh of 'Phanes' at the conclusion of the 'rebellion' by the star-spawn. These became the first generation of Greek Young Gods. The Titans.

    "Only Fate (Eimarmene), or universal necessity (Ananke), the inevitable 'Adrasteia,' the faceless countenance and hollow sound of unknown Destiny, was absolute." - Vyacheslav Ivanov, Russian philosopher

    Known Children:
    Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, the Fates
    Adrasteia, the Inescapable
    Erebus, the Darkness
    Aether, the Celestial Sky
    Percy Stele, demigod

    Chronus
    Primordial of Eternal Time. Confirmed Name of an Elder God Yog-Sothoth, the Lurker At The Threshold.

    Greek Titles: Kronos, Khronos, Chronos

    Symbol: Greek Zodiac Wheel

    Myth: Chronus is believed to have formed ex-nihilo from Chaos as the second being. His elder 'twin' and consort is Ananke.

    Truth: In an unspecified sequence of events, gave Zagreus his mortal Name of Kronos. Presumably owned slaves of humanity.

    "For me, whatever share of excellence the throne of Fate endowed, I know full well that Khronos (Chronos, Time), although his foot be slow, shall bring it to the end ordained." - Pindar, Nemean Ode 4. 41 ff

    Known Children:
    Erebus, the Darkness
    Aether, the Celestial Sky

    Nyx
    Primordial of Night. Confirmed Name of an Elder God Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young.

    Greek Titles: Night

    Symbol: Three Black Wings in a Star

    Myth: Nyx is believed to have formed ex-nihilo from Chaos as the younger 'sibling' of Ananke, Chronus, Tartarus within the newly formed ordered universe.

    Truth: Lives in the House of Night in the Underworld, at the place where Tartarus collides with the Devouring Void of Chaos. Presumably owned slaves of humanity.

    "Be present, Goddess, to thy suppliant's prayer, desired by all, whom all alike revere, blessed, benevolent, with friendly aid dispel the fears of twilight's dreadful shade." - Orphic Hymn 3 to Nyx (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.)

    Known Children:
    Nemesis, goddess of Retribution
    Thanatos, god of Death
    Hypnos, personification of Sleep
    Geras, personification of Old Age
    Apate, personification of Deceit
    Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone, the Furies
    Unnamed demigod
    Hellhounds
    Many others...

    Tartarus
    Primordial of the Abyss. Confirmed Name of an Elder God Magnum Tenebrosum, the Unnamed Darkness.

    Greek Titles: The Pit, Tartaros

    Symbol: A Red Eye in a Sinkhole

    Myth: Tartarus is believed to have formed ex-nihilo from Chaos as the younger 'sibling' of Ananke and Chronus within the newly formed ordered universe.

    Truth: Presumably owned slaves of humanity.

    "The defeat of the Gigantes (Giants) by the gods angered Ge (Gaea, Earth) all the more, so she had intercourse with Tartaros (Tartarus) and bore Typhoeus in Kilikia (Cilicia)." - Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 39 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.)

    Known Children:
    Typhoeus (Typhon)
    Unnamed demigod
    Rhea, Titan Queen

    Gaia
    Primordial of the Earth

    Greek Titles: The Earth Mother. Gaea

    Symbol: A Perfect Sphere

    Myth: Gaia is believed to have formed ex-nihilo from Chaos as the younger 'sibling' of Ananke, Chronus, Tartarus and Nyx within the newly formed ordered universe.

    Truth: Was part of the 'rebellion' by the star-spawn. It took three nights to cover the campaign against her.

    "Khronos (Chronos, Time) ... [also called] Herakles (Heracles) generated a huge egg, which, being filled full, by the force of its engenderer was broken in two from friction. Its crown became Ouranos (Heaven), and what had sunk downwards, Gaia (Gaea, Earth). There also came forth an incorporeal god [Phanes or the primordial Eros]." - Orphica, Theogonies Fragment 57 (from Athenogoras)

    Known Children:
    The Hekatonkheires
    The Cyclopes
    Typhoeus (Typhon)
    Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea
    Rhea, Titan Queen

    Ouranos
    Primordial of the Sky

    Greek Titles: The Sky Father, The Voice of Heaven, Uranus

    Symbol: Eight Pointed Star

    Myth: Believed to have been created by Gaia to be her consort. Father of the majority of Gaia's children, including the Titans who eventually overthrew him via castration and dismemberment.

    Truth: Was part of the 'rebellion' by the star-spawn. Was said to have surrendered.

    "He [Orpheus] sang of that past age when Gaia (Gaea, Earth) and Ouranos (Uranus, Sky) and Pontos (Pontus, Sea) were knit together in a single mould; how they were sundered after deadly strife." - Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1. 498 ff (trans. Rieu) (Greek epic C3rd B.C.)

    Pontus
    Primordial of the Sea

    Greek Titles: Pontos

    Symbol: Ten Limbed Octopus

    Myth: Believed to have been birthed from Gaia with no father. Together with his female counterpart, Thalassa, created the first of the sea life and Telekhines.

    Truth: Is an alien, who came to earth and was adopted into the Greek pantheon.

    "And Sea begat Nereus, the eldest of his children, who is true and lies not: and men call him the Old Man because he is trusty and gentle and does not forget the laws of righteousness, but thinks just and kindly thoughts. And yet again he got great Thaumas and proud Phorcys, being mated with Earth, and fair-cheeked Ceto and Eurybia who has a heart of flint within her." - Hesiod, Theogony (231–239)

    Known Children:
    Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea
    Kronos
    Titan of Time and the Harvest

    Greek Names: The Crooked One, The Titan Lord, An Ass (by Percy), Zagreus
    Roman Name: Saturn

    Symbol: A Scythe

    Myth: Son of Ouranos, the Sky and Gaia, the Earth. Overthrew his father Ouranos at the command of his mother with the aid of his brothers and his mother's gift of a sickle, which he used to castrate the Sky. His father foretold he would be overthrown by his children in turn and so he swallowed his own children born to him by Rhea. His youngest, Zeus was swapped for a stone and hidden away by his mother. Zeus returned when grown, and with the help of his childhood friend Metis, made his father vomit up his siblings and began the Titan War to overthrow him.

    Truth: An Earthborn slave of Ananke, descendant of slave warriors originating from somewhere else in the cosmos. He fought against a race of beings referred to as 'star-spawn' and other creatures that might be part of the same group such as the Spinner, the Dweller, Devourer in the Mist, the Earth Mother and Sky Father. Consumed a living part of a star-spawn known as 'Phanes' and was ascended as a Young God. A Titan. For as yet unknown reasons, he received a Prophecy from the Sky Father that foretold his children would overthrow him, prompting him to swallow them as they were born.

    Metis
    Titaness of Good Counsel, Planning, Cunning and Wisdom

    Daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, Mother of Athena, former Queen of Olympus, former wife of Zeus. Was prophesied by Ouranos, the Sky to bear a wise child to her husband Zeus. A warrior stronger than his lightning bolt that would be the snake to take his throne. In an attempt to avert the Prophecy, her husband tricked her into assuming the forms of prey animals to escape a chase. She almost made it, but was finally caught in the form of a fly and swallowed. Ensured her daughter was born wearing armor.

    Mnemosyne
    Titaness of Remembrance

    Keeps a library holding records of the true history of the world on Mt. Othrys. Wouldn't spit on Zeus if he were on fire, according to Percy.

    Leto
    Titaness of Demurity and Protector of the Young

    Raised her twins Apollo and Artemis. Tried to protect them from the wrath of their father, Zeus, when he took back his throne but was burned completely through by his lightning bolt. Her children hope she will eventually reform.

    Rhea
    Titaness of Motherhood, Legacy, Comfort, Ease and Female Fertility

    Greek Names: Matriarch of Swarms, Queen of the Titans of Mt. Othyrs, the Great Mother, Goddess of the Mountain
    Roman Name: Ops.
    Phrygian Name: Cybele, the Queen
    Egyptian Name: Qetesh
    Semitic/Babylonian: Athirat

    Kronos' wife, mother of his six godly children. Patron of the Grove of Dodona, an ancient grove of prophetic trees. Was 'ripped off big time' by Ananke, according to Percy.

    Truth: Married into the Greek pantheon and is not actually a Titan, but a loyal star-spawn who did not rebel against the Elder Gods. Abdicated her title as Queen of the Gods with the fall of Mt. Othrys and is currently hibernating in an attempt to forestall her natural impulses which are implied to be detrimental to humanity and the Young Gods. Daughter of the god beneath the Pit and the Earth Mother, making her Percy's blood first cousin. Is stated to be a bug like Elder God, who has admitted to making mistakes with her youngest children, including letting Adrasteia, the Inescapable babysit Zeus.

    Hecate
    Titaness of Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery, Night, Moon and the Crossroads

    Greek Names: Goddess of the Mist, Queen of Those Below, the Three-Formed
    Roman Name: Trivia

    Symbol: A Strophalos (Hecate's Wheel)
    A third generation Titan born to Perses of Destruction and Asteria of Falling Stars, Oneiromancy and Astrology. Sided with Zeus and the Olympians during the Titan War to overthrow Kronos. Was a candidate for the throne of Olympus.

    Selene
    Titaness of the Moon, Radiance and Insanity

    Myth: The sister of Helios, Titan of the Sun and Eos, Titaness of the Dawn.

    Truth: An 'alien' who came to earth from several galaxies over that was adopted into the Greek pantheon during the reign of Mt. Othyrs. Her legacies are 'demi-aliens' otherwise known as clear-sighted mortals. Artemis inherited the Moon Chariot from her.
    Zeus
    God of the Sky, Lightning, Thunder, Law, Order and Justice

    Greek Names: Zeus Olympios, King of Olympus. Zeus Astrapios of the Sky, Zeus Agoraeus Protector of the Agora (assembly), the Dodekatheon, Zeus Anax, The High King. A Fucking Idiot (by Percy)
    Roman Name: Jupiter

    Youngest child of the Titan Lord Kronos. Was hidden away by his mother Rhea so that his father wouldn't swallow him. Was raised by the nymph Amaltheia, Daughter of Oceanus and Tethys in the shadow of Adrasteia, the Inescapable on Mt. Dikte in Crete. With the cunning of his childhood friend Metis tricked his father Kronos into vomiting up his siblings. After the Titan War, ascended to the throne as second choice with Metis after his eldest sibling Hestia abdicated. Was overthrown by his daughter Athena, but retook his throne thanks to his current wife, Hera. Is now known as one of the 'Big Three' of the Olympic Pantheon.

    Hera
    Goddess of Motherhood, Marriage, Women, Childbirth, Familial Love and Legitimacy of Rule

    Greek Names: Hera Aigophagos, the Goat-Eater
    Roman Name: Juno

    Sister Wife of Zeus, thirdborn child of Kronos, the Titan Lord. Fought in the Titan War. Was on 'Team Zeus' during the Olympiomachy and vital in the capture of Athena with the help of her son Hephaestus' chains.

    Demeter
    Goddess of the Harvest, Cycle of Life and Death, Sacred Law, Fertility and Agriculture

    Roman Name: Ceres

    Second born child of Kronos. Was a candidate for the throne of Olympus but recused herself to become the Earth Mother's prison warden. Mother of Persephone. Once attempted to kill all life on Earth in response to her daughter's abduction by Hades and nearly broke the Earth Mother free in the process. Was on 'Team Athena' during the Olympiomachy.

    Poseidon
    God of the Sea, Storms and Earthquakes

    Greek Names: Father of Horses, Uncle Sea (by Apollo)
    Roman Name: Neptune

    Fifth born child of Kronos. Lived in the Underworld with Hades until he was eventually married off by Zeus to Amphitrite, Granddaughter of Pontus and Gaia to become Lord of Atlantis. Was on 'Team Athena' during the Olympiomachy and served as a high ranking official and key advisor in her court. When Zeus retook his throne, was forced to undergo a mortal trial serving a Trojan king and built the walls of Troy. Inherited his mother Rhea's sea green eyes. Is feuding with Athena over her decision to surrender during the Olympiomachy and is now known as one of the 'Big Three' of the Olympic Pantheon.

    Phoebe Artemis
    Goddess of the Hunt, Moon, Maidens, Archery, Wilderness, Radiance, Forests, Childbirth and Insanity

    Greek Names: Artemis
    Roman Name: Diana

    Symbol: A Silver Bow Against a Moon

    Firstborn child of Leto. Illegitimate daughter of Zeus. When she was born, she rapidly aged to the maturity of a six year old child and was able to assist her mother in the birth of her twin brother, Phoebus Apollon. For this, she was granted the Domain of Childbirth. At 3 years of age, convinced her father Zeus to swear an oath to grant her one wish. Upon getting his vow, revealed that her one wish was to get six wishes fulfilled. Was a childhood friend of Persephone, who also wished to be a virgin goddess as a triad with her and Athena. Was on 'Team Athena' during the Olympiomachy. When Zeus retook his throne, nearly had her essence burned through by her father's lightning bolt as punishment. Inherited the Moon Chariot from Selene. Is a Quester.

    Phoebus Apollon
    God of Prophecy, Poetry, Music, Knowledge, Healing, Sun, Truth, Archery, Art, Disease and Plague

    Greek Names: Apollo
    Roman Name: Apollo

    Symbol: A Golden Bow Against a Sun

    Second born child of Leto. Illegitimate son of Zeus. Was granted the Domain of Prophecy upon his defeat of the mighty serpent Python. Is the patron of four oracle spirits, the Oracle of Cumae, the Oracle of Trophonius, the Oracle of Delphi and the Oracle of Erythaea. Was on 'Team Athena' during the Olympiomachy and was protected from Zeus' wrath by his mother and sister. Was forced to undergo a mortal trial with Poseidon, serving a Trojan king as a sheep herder as punishment. Found Percy when he was five and trained his prophetic talents. Plays Dungeons and Dragons as a bard, but his dice have been cursed by Tyche, goddess of fortune. Inherited the Sun Chariot from Helios.

    Ares
    God of War, Bloodlust, Courage and Civil Order

    Roman Name: Mars

    Legitimate son of Zeus by Hera. Was on 'Team Zeus' during the Olympiomachy. Lover of Aphrodite.

    Hephaestus
    God of the Forge, Volcanoes, Fire, Smiths, Craftsmen, Stonemasons, Sculpture, Metals, Magnetism and Gravity.

    Roman Name: Vulcan

    Firstborn son of Hera alone. The nature of his mother's divinity tainted the pathogenesis and Hephaestus was born with a genetic 'father' in the star-spawn Phanes-Dionysus. His father's influence proved dominant, enough to allow him to kill the Gigantes Mimas by himself without demigod help. A feat impossible for a Young god. He was raised from two weeks old by the nereid Thetis. He provided Hera with chains unable to be broken by the one ensnared in return for her solemn oath to love him as a mother should. Freed Athena from imprisonment with his foster mother Thetis and was hurled from Olympus, breaking every bone in his body by Zeus as punishment. Husband of Aphrodite.

    Aphrodite
    Goddess of Love, Beauty, Sexuality, Physical Pleasure and Procreation.

    Sumerian Name: Inanna, Queen of Heaven
    Akkadian/Babylonian/Assyrian Name: Ishtar
    Hurrian/Hittite Name: Šauška
    Canaanite Name: Astarte
    Roman Name: Venus

    Symbol: A Crowned Dove

    Myth: Daughter of Ouranos, created when the blood of his castrated genitals met Thalassa of Deep Waters, birthing the goddess from the sea foam.

    Truth: An foreign goddess ascended into an Old God by a Name of the god behind Greek Primordial of Fate was originally of the Sumerian pantheon known as the Queen of Heaven. Her presence in the Greek pantheon is unexplained, but it is known that she attempted to ascend beyond her means by way of consuming Ouranos. The attempt failed leaving a broken goddess behind. Was on 'Team Zeus' during the Olympiomachy. Lover of Ares, wife of Hephaestus. Has 'defective' demigods that possess an ability similar to Siren Song. Her typical children have a wide variety of talents born from her various Names.

    Hermes
    God of Travelers, Thieves, Messengers, Commerce, Trade, Diplomacy, Orators, Athletes, Trade and Invention

    Roman Name: Mercury

    Son of Maia, eldest of the Pleiades nymphs. Illegitimate son of Zeus. Born within a cavern near the peaks of Mount Kyllene in Arkadia. Shortly after birth, he snuck out and stole from the herds of Apollo. When Apollo was mocked for accusing a newborn godling of theft, Hermes promptly blew his own cover to eloquently argue before Zeus that he was too young and cute to possibly be the thief. This amused his father so much he was given the task of herding departed souls to the Underworld and was elevated to a throne as a member of the Dodekatheon. Has an assistant named Milos. Ticketed Percy's mother for a cross-pantheon violation. Tried to save his son Luke from his destined Fate by assigning the boy a Quest to steal a Golden Apple from the Garden of the Hesperides. Once eaten, that apple is capable of giving a demigod immortal life. Was punished by the Fates for this attempt by exposing him to Percy's eldest sibling, Adrasteia.

    Dionysus
    God of Religious Fervor, Ritual Madness, Wine, Grape Vines, Theatre and Revelry

    Greek Names: The Twice-Born, Chubster God (by Percy)
    Roman Name: Bacchus

    Myth: Illegitimate son of Zeus by Semele. Former demigod. Was raised by his mortal aunt and uncle until they were driven mad by Hera, making them kill their children save Dionysus and then themselves. Was driven mad by Hera as punishment for his existence but was able to have it lifted by the Titaness Rhea. Rescued his mother Semele and wife Ariadne from the Underworld. Invented wine. Wandered Egypt for a time. Invaded India and was eventually forced to retreat, but returned having achieved apotheosis as a god. Ascended to Mount Olympus and was given the throne of former Olympian Hestia. Is the current Director of Camp Half-Blood.

    Athena
    Goddess of Wisdom, Strategic War, Handicrafts and Kings

    Greek Names: Athena Promachus, Who Fights on the Front Line. Athena Areia, the Judge/the Warlike. Athena Polias, the Protector of Cities. Athena Hygieia, the Inspiration of Physicians. Athena Glaukopis, the Owl Eyed or Bright Eyed. Athena Apatouria, the Deceiver. Athena Ageleia, Leader of the People. Pallas Athena. Patron of Heroes. Wanax, the High King. Owl-Head (by Apollo)
    Roman Name: Minerva

    Firstborn of Zeus and Metis. Was prophesied to overthrow her father which lead to her mother's demise. Was born from Zeus' head after it was split open by Hephaestus in full armor and was promptly blasted off Mt. Olympus by the Master Bolt. Was named 'Athena' by the Titaness of Fresh Water Tethys and fostered with Triton, the son of Amphitrite and Poseidon. Hoping to break the sea's protection of Athena, Zeus interfered in a duel between her and her childhood friend, the sea nymph Pallas, causing her to land a fatal blow. Was escorted to Olympus by Oceanus where she confronted her father and received her Prophecy. Was able to convince Olympus that she was not the subject until it came time for her coup that led to the Olympiomachy. Was forced to give Names to the Devouring Void by Zeus after capture and eventually surrendered. Is feuding with Poseidon over her decision to do so. The architect of the Olympiomachy cover up. Lied before Adrasteia, the Inescapable and received the Name Apatouria by the Daughter of Ananke herself. Was barred from paying her debt to Luke by the Fates.
    The Mórrígan
    Tuatha de of Victory and Death in Battle

    Celtic Titles: Morrigu, Anand, Mór-Ríoghain (Modern Irish), Phantom Queen, Harbinger of Fate
    Mortal Alias: Mórrígan Stele

    Was the consort of the Dagda. Is a confirmed Name of the god behind the Greek Primordial of Fate. Married mortal Dorian Stele and raised his son, the Greek demigod Percy Stele. Was ticketed for a cross-pantheon violation and is currently missing.

    Aten
    A solar deity of the Egyptian pantheon. Confirmed Name of an Elder God Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.

    Egyptian Titles: Itn, Atonu, Aton, The Black Pharaoh

    Was the focus of Atenism, a cult started by Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten and claimed to be a demigod of Aten. Aten was compared to Ma'at, as the Order and life-giver of the world, by means only belief in Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti knew the truth of. The cult fell apart with his death as his son, Tutankhamun, reinstated traditional worship of Ra and other Egyptian deities. The cult was later erased by Horemheb.

    Boreas
    God of the North Wind and Winter

    Was a revolutionary on Team Athena during the Olympiomachy and has been on house arrest under the command of Aeolus, Master of the Winds ever since. Stole away Oreithyia, nymph daughter of Erekhteus, King of Athens to be his wife. Father of the Boreads, Zetes and Kalais and the Boreides, Kleopatra and Khione.

    Khione
    Goddess of Ice and Snow

    Daughter of Boreas, the North Wind. Unlike her siblings, she was born an immortal deity and received the Name of Khione from her mother in an effort to sway Olympus in granting citizenship to her daughter. The application was rejected and Khione was classified a nymph without the full protection of the law. She was loved by many gods, most notably Poseidon to whom she gave birth to the hero Eumolpus who was cast into the sea and given to his half-sister to raise by his father. Boasted of her beauty in comparison to Artemis, and survived the subsequent murder attempt. To save face, her application for godhood was reconsidered by Olympus. Wished to help on the search for the Master Bolt, but holds a severe grudge against the goddess of the Hunt.

    Iris
    Goddess of the Rainbow

    Amphitrite's first cousin as the daughter of Thaumas, son of Pontus and Electra, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. The OG Messenger of the Gods during the Titanomachy having sided with the Olympians just as her sister Arke sided with Kronos. Married to Zephyrus, the West Wind. Butch Walker's mother and appears to have a form that looks like a ten sided starfish built out of neon light astrolabe.

    Nemesis
    Goddess of Retribution, Vengeance and Balance

    Greek Names: The Rhamnousia, Punisher of Hubris Before the Gods.

    Daughter of Nyx, the Night and Erebus, the Darkness. Niece of Percy. Mother of the Greek demigod Ethan Nakamura. Has unleashed the physical manifestation of Artemis' past sins, her former Hunter Aura, to hunt the Questers. Has a form that looks like a grinding mass of teeth.

    Alecto
    Erinyes of Revenge, Crime and Punishment

    Greek Names: Fury. The Persecution. Alekto, the Unceasing.

    Daughter of Nyx, Eldest of the Triplets.

    Odin
    Æsir of Wisdom, Death, Knowledge, War, Sorcery, Poetry, Frenzy and the Gallows.

    Germanic Names: Wōden, Wōdan, Wuotan, Wuodan, Wōđanaz, Óðinn, the All-Father

    Was Named as a contemporary of Kronos.

    Atum
    Unknown deity of an unknown pantheon.

    Was Named as a contemporary of Kronos.

    Apophis

    Egyptian Names: Apep, Lord of Chaos, Enemy of Ra

    An alien that came to earth and was adopted into the Egyptian pantheon.

    Hestia
    Goddess of the Hearth, Family, Home, Domesticity, Virginity, Existence of State and the Sacrificial Flames

    Greek Names: Hestia Prytaneia, of the Hearth. Hestia Potheinotáti, the Beloved. Beckendorf 2.0 (by Campers)
    Roman Name: Vesta

    Firstborn of Kronos and Rhea. Was offered the throne to be King of the Gods, but turned it down in favor of Zeus and Metis. Regretted doing so after Zeus swallowed Metis and became a poor ruler. Was on 'Team Athena' during the Olympiomachy. Was a member of the Dodekatheon, but stepped down from her throne in favor of Dionysus and carved out her Queenly name of Hestia Basileia. Was a key advisor and high ranking official in Athena's court. Is currently being aggressively befriended by Campers at Camp Half-Blood in an attempt to keep her from Fading.

    Hades
    God of Riches and of the Dead

    Greek Titles: The Rich One, Uncle Dead (by Hermes)
    Roman Name: Pluto

    Fourth born child of Kronos and Rhea. Was made administrator of the Underworld and is considered the Lord of it. Is suspected by Olympus to still be gathering Names via his dead worshippers. Has the influence of Nyx, the Night, on him making it difficult for other gods to sense him. Husband of Persephone. Owner of Spot (Cerberus).

    Persephone
    Goddess of Spring Growth, Flowers, Vegetation and of Withering

    Greek Names: Despoina, of Mystery. Kore, the Maiden. Lady of the Underworld.
    Roman Name: Proserpina

    Symbol: A Pomegranate Flower

    Myth: Illegitimate child of Zeus. Ate six pomegranate seeds while in the Underworld, compelling her to remain for at least six months of the year.
    Firstborn child of Demeter. Wife of Hades. Wished to be a virgin goddess as a triad with Artemis and Athena, but was abducted by Hades.

    Hypnos
    Personification of Sleep

    Roman Name: Somnus

    Son of Nyx and (step) Erebus. Younger twin brother of Thanatos, the God of Death. Friend of Percy.

    Thanatos
    God of Death

    Roman Name: Mors

    Son of Nyx and (step) Erebus. Older twin brother of Hypnos, the Personification of Sleep.

    Morpheus
    God of Dreams

    Son of Somnus, the Roman Name of Hypnos and the Roman Grace, Pasithea. Is of the Roman pantheon, with a Greek Name because his father doesn't care about the divide. Guards the borders of the Dreamlands. Friend of Percy.

    Erebus
    Personification of Darkness

    Roman Name: Scotus

    Child of Ananke. Consort of Nyx. Gave Percy a Stygian Iron dagger. When Night fell, sent his step-son Thanatos to retrieve Hypnos and Percy, but when Percy turned down the invitation due to a misunderstanding, came to find out what was going on. Encountered Percy in a bit of trouble in the Dreamlands and proceeded to 'loosen his shackles,' allowing his little brother to take on an eldritch form to battle a sea monster.

    Herakles
    God of Heroism

    Greek Names: Alcides, mortal name. Herakles Engonasin, the Kneeler. Herakles Mantiklos, the Hero. Herakles Leontothymos, the Lion-Hearted.
    Roman Name: Hercules

    Illegitimate son of Zeus by Alcmene. Was renamed Herakles to appease the Queen of the Gods. Husband of Hebe, goddess of Youth. During the Giant War, his divine backup was Athena with the exception of the slaying of Porphyrion at the behest of his father Zeus. Was on Team Athena during the Olympiomachy. Ascended to godhood at his death after being unwittingly poisoned by his second wife with the tainted blood of a centaur. Was an Argonaut after the Golden Fleece sometime after his apotheosis where the Boreads, Zethes and Calais convinced the crew to leave him behind and in return, Herakles killed them for the treachery.

    Saulė
    Goddess of the Baltic Sun

    Latvian Name: Saule

    The common solar deity of the Baltic religion of the Lithuanian and Latvian cultures. Is said to live in a silver gated castle at the 'edge' of the sea. Was stated by Percy that her orphanage and her duty was all she has.

    Manannán mac Lir
    Tuatha de of Violent Deaths on Sea and Land

    Celtic Titles: Manandán, Mannan, son of the Sea, King of Tír na nÓg, the Otherword. King of the Tuath Dé

    The Irish Celtic war god not only rules over his lands, and tribe, but also uses the Mist, called the féth fíada to conceal his home and the sidh dwellings of others. Has a demigod daughter that came to Percy's 10th birthday party.

    Aether
    Personification of the Celestial Sky

    Child of Ananke. Boyfriend of Hemera. Gave his step-father Dorian Stele and little brother, Percy Stele a ball of star dust from an aborted star to eat. Manga addict and enjoys eating icy moons and planets out in deep space.

    Hemera
    Personification of Daylight

    Believed to be a child of Nyx, Hemera is often at Aether's side, roaming the cosmos. Percy describes her as a 'pulsar' that his mother had to prevent from vaporizing him by accident and she once crashed his twelfth birthday picnic as a go-between his Elder brothers with their gifts, Erebus' Stygian Iron dagger and Aether's star dust ball.
    Perseus "Percy" D. Stele
    Son of Primordial Fate and mortal father, the lawyer Dorian Stele. Raised by The Mórrigan. Currently the Oracle of Chthon. Prophecies are given via 'tarot' using Mythomagic cards. Has a crush on Artemis. Has a non-standard biology of protruding spine, extra ribs and undefined organs. Had additional sets of teeth, but they were removed by his mother. Is a Quester.

    Clovis
    Son of Hypnos, sleeps through Sundays visiting his father. Calls Percy his cousin and vice versa. Also has non-standard biology, such as a protruding spine, extra ribs, a second heart, the ability to sleep with half his brain, and three sets of teeth. Non-reflective eyes.

    Ethan Nakamura
    Son of Nemesis. Percy calls him first cousin once removed. Also has non-standard biology such as a visibly protruding spine with oddly shaped vertebrae, fangs and moving patches within his non-reflective eyes.

    Bianca and Nico di Angelo
    Children of Hades. Were alive when the Great Prophecy was given by the Oracle of Delphi. Presumed dead after being struck by Zeus.

    Thalia Grace
    Daughter of Zeus, currently a pine tree. Zeus turned her into a tree to save her soul from Hades' retribution. Hestia accepted her dying wish to protect her friends, Luke and Annabeth, creating the barrier of protection around Camp Half-Blood powered by her Sacrifice.

    Luke Castellan
    Son of Hermes and May Castellan, a prophet who went mad while trying to become the Oracle of Delphi, and ran against Hades' curse. Luke still holds a grudge against Hermes for this. Definitely did not steal the Master Bolt and doesn't work for Kronos. Was previously on a quest that failed, he made it out with a scar, the other two didn't make it out at all. The camp counselor for Cabin 11, which means he's also the counselor for the unclaimed and those without a cabin, and also Percy. Is a Quester.

    Annabeth Chase
    Daughter of Athena and the mortal Frederick Chase, a Military History professor. Friends with Luke, is the counselor for Athena Cabin despite being really young. Enthusiastic about learning more, a major character in canon, though hasn't been as much here. Has a cousin who's a Norse demigod.

    Malcolm Pace
    Son of Athena.

    Masayuki
    Son of Athena. Black hair.

    Silena Beauregard
    Daughter of Aphrodite's Name of Astarte. 'Horse-pigeon' whisperer, great Archer.

    Drew Tanaka
    An Aphrodite 'defect.' The cover story is that she inherited more from the Sea than usual, has a divine gift of a pearl bracelet. Percy speculates it's a Mist cloak. Called Percy a weirdo.

    Maximilian
    Son of Aphrodite's Name of Ishtar. Sense of fairness, flips a drachma when he can't decide things.

    Jacqueline
    Daughter of Aphrodite's Name of Šauška. Her mood changes based on what feathers are in her hair, has feathers of endangered birds.

    Lace/Lacy
    Child of Aphrodite's Name of Šauška. Genderfluid, with scarily good healing powers, especially for a seven-year-old.

    Renico
    Claimed as son of Aphrodite, but Percy thinks he's actually son of a Hindu deity. He has a perfect internal clock and rises with the sun.

    Michael Yew
    Son of Apollo. Does music and archery.

    Lee Fletcher
    Son of Apollo, very freeform with his Dungeon Mastering.

    Castor and Pollux
    Children of Dionysus, identical twins. Percy's friends. Play D&D as a Druid and a Cleric.

    Katie Gardner
    Daughter of Demeter, counselor. Play D&D as a Monk.

    Charles Beckendorf
    Son of Hephaestus. Has his '2.0' sidekick Hestia helping him around Camp.

    Angelina
    Daughter of Hephaestus

    Everett
    Son of Hephaestus

    Clarisse La Rue
    Daughter of Ares, likes hazing new kids. Threatened to put her foot up Hestia's ass, in an encouraging way.

    Ryan
    Son of Ares. Admired Percy's sword.

    Alabaster and Liza
    Hecate's children. Get a polecat from their mother.

    Lou Ellen and Moni
    Also probably Hecate's children, though they get a puppy.

    Butch Walker
    Child of Iris, can IM for free.

    Chris Rodrigues
    Son of Hermes, recently Claimed. Resentful of how long he was Unclaimed for.
    Clifford Randall
    A Cynocephali 'Dog-headed' boy aged 3. Has the maturity of a 15 year old human boy and looks like a Golden Labrador from the shoulders up. Has a mastiff-headed mother. Called Cliff by his friend Percy. Is an Egyptian 'magician.'

    Chiron
    A centaur son of Kronos and Oceanid Philyra. Was trained by Apollo in his youth and in turn became a trainer of heroes. The gods returned him to life and granted him immortality as long as he teaches. Is the Activities Director at Camp Half-Blood.

    Sam
    An orange tabby cat of the Dreamlands. Has a crook in his tail due to Percy (age 2) pulling on it. Will not let this go, calling Percy 'Lil Fucker and 'His Royal Tail Puller.' Has the title of Master Sorceror. Went to the moon with Percy and was banished from his home of Ulthar because of it. Lost his right eye during that trip and Percy's mother replaced it.

    Argus
    Watchman of Camp Half-Blood. Disowned son of Hera, known as a 'pseudo-Giant' servant. Like his brother Hephaestus, the nature of Hera's divinity tainted the process and he was born with a genetic 'father' in Phanes.
    Dorian Stele
    Father of Percy Stele, husband of Mórrígan Stele. A Manhattan lawyer born of Greek immigrants who somehow drew the attention of Ananke. It cost him his sanity for several years, but eventually recovered.

    Corey Achebe
    Good Samaritan that gave our Questers a ride to Quebec City. A demi-alien clear sighted Canadian who lives in Montreal, attended college in Dublin, Ireland, has an American girlfriend, a Volvo and a dog named Bradley.

    Wilhelm I
    An old Prussian king that lives on after his death in the Dreamlands. Also known as Willie. Made the mistake of being a concerned adult, escorting Percy to the moon to meet his mother and in return lost his left arm. It was replaced and the replacement makes him very uncomfortable.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2022
  2. Extras: Camp Half-Blood Tales #1
    Shujin

    Shujin Know what you're doing yet?

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    Castor

    TWO DAYS AFTER Percy left on his Quest, the planet fell into a black hole.

    And Pops turned into the Silver Surfer.

    Maybe he shouldn’t think of it like that? ‘Two days after Percy left’ makes it sound like this was Percy’s fault. That was impossible though. Percy was a demigod, just like him and while things could get weird around them, there was a limit, right? They were still just mortal kids. Launching the world off a cliff was definitely over that limit.

    He still wouldn’t be surprised if it was Percy’s fault.

    If you know, you know.

    They still couldn’t figure out how he broke the Climbing Wall the second time, by the way. The enchanted rock climbing wall in Camp. Pops actually got off his ass to help put it together the first time he broke it.

    Didn’t help.

    Pops was an Olympian.

    Castor, like most demigods, had a list.

    It was a very nice list. It made sure he still had his feet planted in the 21st century even as he polished shields and struggled through Doric Greek because Pops was old as hell and a slave driver. It was a list of what was normal and what was not and Percy Stele looked at his list and freaking ate it.

    It had been a month since Castor found out Athena used to be King of the Gods of Olympus and his head was still spinning.

    Everyone sat down for dinner in the Dining Pavilion of Camp Half-Blood like Not-Normal. It was still a little weird without Percy there. The first day, he had been a bit worried that without the son of Fate around, everything would snap back to the way things had been like a crusty rubber band. It hadn’t happened.

    Hestia stayed.

    Ares Cabin was still bullying her around and she was still too nice to stop them. Fred did leave, but not before chaperoning their super close Hunters vs Camper Capture the Flag game yesterday. It was 56 to 0, but almost! He even helped them back out of the infirmary, giving all the kids with healing powers tips while he was at it.

    All the kids with healing powers, like Lou Ellen of Hecate and Lacy of Aphrodite.

    Castor knew as soon as he and Pollux got to Camp and saw what it was actually like, that gods paying attention to their own kids was rare enough.

    But paying attention to the kids of others?

    That never happens.

    But it was.

    Happening.

    Hermes had shown up again today, for the second day in a row since Luke left with Percy. It was like he was interim Cabin Counselor, keeping a half-hearted eye on the Stoll twins and taking over Luke’s classes and refereeing the races. Castor saw him run with Butch, pushing him until he unlocked some kind of wind teleporting power to go faster.

    Butch Walker wasn’t his.

    No one said it out loud, because she didn’t Claim him, but Hermes still knew.

    Iris, Messenger Goddess of the Rainbow Claimed her son after that race, just like Hermes Claimed Chris Rodriguez. It didn’t change anything. Iris didn’t have a Cabin so he was still in Cabin 11, but…

    Ethan sat down at Table 12 and Pops still didn’t do nothing, so it looked like this weirdness was here to stay.

    Bizarre.

    “Think he’s okay?” Pollux asked as he sat down just like he had yesterday.

    “He’s fine,” Castor replied, just like he had yesterday, but this time with a shrug. Percy had to be fine. Or else his burial shroud was going to make him so mad. “It can’t be too dangerous,” he reasoned. “The thief has to be mortal, remember? Gods can’t steal Symbols of Power.”

    “But they can sponsor someone to steal it,” Pollux said quietly. “Monsters count too.”

    “He’s better than both of us with a sword and freakishly strong sometimes. And he’s got Luke.”

    Brandon of Athena and Chloe of Ares had Luke too, but it would be stupid to bring up that failed Quest right now. Besides, most monsters weren’t the Ladon.

    “Yeah,” his twin brother murmured. “He’s got Luke.” Pollux smiled weakly. “And a pet rabbit.”

    “Ssshhhh,” Castor hissed and theatrically glanced over at Table 8, Artemis. “Don’t let them hear that.”

    He didn’t think Chris was trying to be mean about it, but the Hunters were really sensitive about the rabbit thing. As in ‘break your arm and threaten to crush your balls’ sensitive.

    Probably because they didn’t glow silver anymore.

    Pollux’s smile grew for a second, then withered. He bit his lip. “Still…”

    To both of their surprise, Pops leaned over and put a hand on Pollux’s shoulder.

    “He’s not like you two,” their father, Dionysus, said bluntly. “Take it from me.”

    “Cause his Ma?” Castor asked after swallowing, even though he was pretty sure that was the answer.

    Percy’s Ma was a Protogenoi. A primordial. One of the first order of deities that predated creation itself. Pops had knelt for Percy’s Claiming and no one else had been able to make a sound. No one corrected Percy’s manners. He punched a nymph and she tried to drown him in response and she was the one who got punished.

    Like, what?

    Sometimes the son of Fate was kind of pathetic, like he was just hiding behind his mother’s skirts (coils? scales?) and then sometimes it seemed like he could headbutt reality and reality was the one who’d walk away with a black eye.

    He was cool about it though.

    A good guy.

    He made Castor feel selfish.

    Pops was frowning into his Diet Coke.

    “Yes,” he said eventually. “No. Maybe.”

    “Helpful,” Castor drawled.

    Pollux shot him a warning look. Castor pulled a face back. Whatever else he was, Pops was Pops. Treating him differently just because they were at Camp now - sure maybe he’d still call the other gods Lord and Lady and whatever so he wasn’t smited, but Ethan had been eating on the floor because they didn’t treat their father like he was their father.

    Castor had personally peed and shit and threw up all over Dionysus, so really, they had already hit rock bottom.

    Pops sighed. “If he’s anything like I think he is, the boy’s a cockroach.”

    Like he thinks he is?

    He’s a demigod, though.

    “Nuke him to be sure?” Castor quipped.

    The smile his father gave him made his blood run cold. “And even then…”

    When Pops turned to shoo a nymph away, Castor leaned towards his twin to whisper, “That was still a compliment, right?”

    “The cockroach thing?” Pollux whispered back. “Definitely.”

    They took a moment to digest this.

    Weird!” They both declared.

    “What is?” Clovis huffed as he sat in his new seat right next to them. He’d been evicted from his old one by Ethan who needed to be close enough to argue with Annabeth and Masayuki without anyone getting in the way. And Percy didn’t need the seat anymore right now.

    “Percy,” Castor said. “I think Pops doesn’t hate him as much.”

    Hypnos’ kid blinked his blue eyes owlishly before traveling to where Pops was arguing with a satyr. “...glowing recommendation.”

    Pollux snort giggled into his apple juice.

    Then the sky turned pitch black.

    Everything went absolutely silent. Like when Percy had been Claimed by his Ma. Nothing made a sound. The crackle of the central brazier was missing, even as the flames leapt a good five feet into the air casting a pale, sickly yellow light on them all.

    “What the fuck - “

    Hermes’ sudden curse cracked through the air.

    Pops stood up.

    And turned into the Silver Surfer.

    Kind of.

    If the Silver Surfer was a super pretty beardless man made out of porcelain on top of the molten silver. His Hawaiian shirt was replaced by a white marble loincloth and a spinning silver halo over his porcelain curls. His blue eyes were electric, almost visibly sparking. There were seams of the molten silver along his neck and shoulders and joints, like the porcelain was armor on top of a quicksilver god.

    “What’s going on?” Castor tried to ask him, but not a sound came out of his mouth. He tried again. “Pops?”

    Dionysus’ glowing blue eyes flicked over him dispassionately, then rose to the dark sky. There was a series of resonating notes, like someone was playing a pipe organ underwater, but he didn’t answer.

    “Alright, everyone just - just calm down,” Hermes began, shakily rising from his seat. He sounded like Castor’s elementary school teacher when the Twin Towers were hit a few years ago. “We’ll figure this out - “

    He was cut off by a blinding flash.

    At first, Castor didn’t recognize the new god.

    His hair looked like it was spun from actual gold, standing out against his olive skin. Dark freckles dusted the bridge of his proud nose and high cheekbones. His eyes were a burning yellow color like miniature suns, mimicked by the radiant markings on his chiton like neon lights. Castor had never seen him before, but the golden bow in his hand gave him away.

    “Split up!” Apollo barked and Castor almost couldn’t believe this drill sergeant was the same person that had awkwardly defended his crush on Hestia yesterday. Who refused to help him out and stayed seven years old through his begging.

    This couldn’t be the same person.

    They weren’t, Percy’s voice whispered in the back of his mind. Kinda, but not really? He’s just using a different Name.

    Not Fred.

    Phoebus Apollon.

    Castor glanced at his father, who was still and quiet, staring up at the dark sky.

    Not Pops.

    Dionysus.

    “Hephaestus, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus Cabins will be protected,” Apollo said sharply.

    Protected?

    Uh oh.

    “Get to them.”

    Hermes shakily raised a hand. “I can - “

    “You can’t.” Apollo shot him a sharp look, gold eyes flaring so brightly, Castor almost flinched. “We must be singular beings and you are needed elsewhere, Pylaios.

    Castor knew that word.

    Doorkeeper.

    As Hermes’ head rocked back in surprise, there was a crack of thunder. But it was way quieter than Castor was used to from whenever Pops would rile up their grandfather. Weaker. Almost stuttering. It wasn’t a bark of anger anymore, but almost like a cry for help.

    Hermes’ straightened. “Understood.”

    Then he just disappeared.

    Popped out of existence like he had been as solid as a soap bubble.

    “Hestia,” Apollo said, softer. “Protect Troy’s hearth.”

    Troy?

    Hestia, pale and worried, nodded. The flames of the central brazier winked out as the small goddess burst into sparks. An eerie howling noise rose up on a bitterly cold wind that blew in from the sea, like it had just been waiting for the fire to go out.

    “Split up,” Apollo said again. “Now.”

    Castor glanced at his father and grabbed his plate.

    Just outside of the Pavilion where the hill started to slope down into the Camp, they were met with what had to be another goddess. Because she was the most beautiful woman Castor had ever seen in his life and he saw Hera once! She even looked like the Queen of the Gods a bit too, but Castor had no idea what about her gave him that impression. She didn’t look Greek at all, but he knew that didn’t mean much. But unlike Apollo, she didn’t wear a chiton.

    Instead, she had silken loose pants, barefoot and a multi layered wrapped shirt with a rich purple cloak attached to a ring on her right hand. Her long dark hair was in hundreds of looping braids with colorful ribbons and bells woven into them and golden bangles glinted on her wrists and ankles. She had Silena’s sky blue eyes that stood out against her dark skin. Castor followed her gaze up at the sky.

    He dropped his eyes immediately, feeling his skin crawl.

    There was nothing up there.

    Just an emptiness that had swallowed the world whole.

    And it still felt like something was looking back.

    The foreign goddess glanced over them all. She didn’t look worried.

    Just amused.

    Like the daylight died all the time. Like this was fun.

    “Run along then, darlings,” the goddess said with a lazy smile as she waved them off. She turned her back to them as she looked at the sky again and there on her cloak was a crowned dove in flight. Out of the corner of his eye, Castor saw Aphrodite Cabin freeze in place, gaping.

    The goddess tilted her head in their direction. “Look at you all, just - “ Her eyes lingered on Drew Tanaka for a second. “ - perfect. You will be safe enough in my Cabin,” she said with a soft laugh. “But it is going to be a long, long night.”

    Seeing Cabin 12 didn’t make Castor feel any better.

    Or safer.

    In the daylight, Cabin 12, Dionysus had been an ordinary bunkhouse. Almost bland enough to pass for an army barracks if it weren’t for the grape vines Pops grew all over it.

    Castor stopped dead. He barely felt Pollux run into him.

    Cabin 12 was writhing.

    Something touched his shoulder and Castor actually screamed.

    The dark sky swallowed the sound.

    It was Clovis.

    He had a grim little smile on, blue eyes flickering back and forth between Castor and the way the slug-like walls of Cabin 12 were struggling against the grape vines. Ethan brushed past them both, boldly walking right up to the front door, but it was obvious from the way Annabeth was looking back at them in confusion that she didn’t see anything wrong.

    Clovis shook him a little and tilted his head questioningly.

    He’s still your Dad, Percy’s voice chimed in. Has he given you a reason not to trust him?

    Castor breathed out.

    Have I? Pops’ voice asked, sounding hurt.

    Not yet.

    At least the inside still looked kind of the same.

    He didn’t know if his heart could take it if the eyes on the outside were looking in too.

    He found his bed and sat on it. He put his leftover barbeque and spinach on his nightstand.

    His hands were shaking.

    He clenched them into fists and looked out his window.

    It was just like Apollo said. Cabin 10, Aphrodite was surrounded in a barrier of glowing gold symbols, like lettering scrolling around the super dollhouse. Cabin 9, Hephaestus looked like it was on fire, throwing sparks up into the air and belching flames from the forge’s chimney. The sun god’s Cabin 7 had always been a little tacky made out of solid gold, but now it burned like the gold was molten and threw literal rays of sunlight against the darkness. In comparison, his twin Artemis’ silver Cabin looked dead.

    The soft moonlight had been gone ever since the goddess got rabbited, but from this distance the silver walls looked pitted and tarnished, or rusted. Like the void of the sky was eating away at it. Hermes’ run down building looked hollow and condemned. The windows on Athena’s Cabin were just as dark as the sky, making his skin crawl the longer he stared. The gaudy Hellenic Cabins of the King and Queen of Olympus were dull and washed out. Poseidon’s longhouse looked like it was rotting right before his eyes. The odd one out was Demeter.

    Cabin 4 seemed just like it always did, but when he really looked -

    Yeah, Percy’s voice said as Caster gagged, tearing away from his window with a wailing ringing in his ears. Let’s not do that again.

    But what did I do? Castor asked himself.

    Looked, Percy’s voice answered ruefully. We’re noticing things we’re not supposed to. Not everything, but enough.

    Enough to what?

    I dunno, the voice in his head said and that made his blood run cold. Percy basically knew everything. The Mist hides shit for a reason.

    Pops?

    His father’s voice grumbled. Might be my fucking fault. Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly.

    Pollux? Castor checked on his brother. He had his knees drawn up to his chest on his bed across the room, trying not to rock. Is he noticing anything?

    Nah, Percy’s voice brushed off. He’s the grape and wine guy.

    Despite himself, Castor smiled. That’s true.

    You, though.

    Hearing voices and having conversations with yourself usually meant your mental health wasn’t exactly stellar, but as long as you weren’t delusional, a few extra perspectives helped more than they hurt.

    Castor, demigod of Dionysus, the Greek god of Madness would know.

    “Testing?” Castor heard faintly and he snapped his head around. Annabeth sighed in relief. “You heard me?”

    “Yeah,” Pollux croaked. “I can hear you.”

    That haunting howling was still drifting on the wind right outside the wriggling walls of Cabin 12.

    There were some kids from Cabin 11 and 4 and 6 with them, like Chris and Monique and Katie had her little sister Billie on her lap. The others he didn’t know all that well because they were younger, but watching them hesitantly pick out a bed to sit on with all of Cabin 12s unused space made something in his chest tighten.

    Clovis was watching the door, looking a bit ill, like he was expecting something bad to happen. Ethan was looking outside too, with his face plastered right up against the glass.

    “What - I mean how - “ Annabeth licked her lips. “That sound is getting to me,” she admitted.

    No kidding.

    Castor’s goosebumps had goosebumps.

    “I keep losing track of what I’m thinking, like it's in my head.

    Huh.

    Maybe he had too much in his head to tell.

    “It's Hellhounds,” Ethan said absently.

    Annabeth shot a look at his back. “And how do you know that? I’ve never heard them sound like that before.”

    Castor figured Annabeth would know. She’d been out there at seven years old with Luke and Thalia, trying to get to Camp. She really didn’t like Cyclops. Or spiders. But hellhounds were definitely up there.

    Castor thought they were the worst kind of monsters to run into. Everything else had their weaknesses and places they couldn’t get into, but Hellhounds just needed a deep enough shadow. And once the sun went down…

    “You wouldn’t,” Ethan scoffed. “It’s a happy sound, I think.”

    “You think?” Castor asked.

    A happy Hellhound sounded like a Hellhound that was chowing down on a demigod.

    Ethan turned to look at them for a second, then back out the window. “I had one when I was little. Kind of.”

    He had a Hellhound?

    Like a pet?

    “Kind of?” Annabeth drawled. “How do you kind of have a man-eating monster?”

    “It hung around my father’s place a lot. Always the same one. When - “ his breath hitched. “I left, I think it helped me. It howled like this, but not as long and not with so many.”

    Annabeth’s mouth opened, but then she closed it. Her gray eyes narrowed in the dim cabin lighting as she studied Ethan’s thin frame against the window. Then her eyes turned to Clovis, who shrugged.

    “I don’t think we should go outside,” Hypnos’ son said blandly.

    “I know that!” Ethan snapped, turning on them.

    There was something wrong with his eyes.

    What’d I say? Percy came back as Castor stared at Ethan’s pupils, shrinking and expanding like gasping mouths as drops of pearl swam in his irises. Noticing things.

    Castor closed his eyes as the son of Nemesis swallowed his temper.

    Lately, Ethan and Clovis had started to look different. A bit off. Less normal.

    Like Percy.

    He couldn’t remember when that had started.

    “I know that,” Ethan repeated, softer.

    “But you want to,” Clovis and his eight eyed shadow said calmly. “It’s okay. We are grandchildren of the Night. The dark is in our blood. We’re just not monsters.”

    “Yeah,” Ethan looked up at them through his black bangs. He didn’t look convinced. “Not monsters.”

    He tore himself away from the window and threw himself on an unclaimed bunk, burying his head in the pillow.

    “But what is going on?” Annabeth murmured. “What exactly is happening? Why now? Why - why are only four cabins out of twelve safe?” She started to pace. “Safe from what?”

    Castor poked the voices in his head.

    Oh, puddin’, Ma answered. Ya sure you wanna know?

    Good point.

    Not really.

    “Castor?” Pollux asked timidly. “What happened to Pops?”

    He shrugged uncomfortably.

    “I don’t know.”

    And that was the worst part.

    “Maybe that’s what he looks like, when he ain’t pretending?” Pollux offered weakly.

    “He didn’t say anything,” Castor bit out. “He didn’t even - “ he stopped when Pollux shrunk back into himself and gave him an apologetic look. “He was different.”

    “The sun god looked and acted different too,” his brother murmured.

    When things got back to normal, Pops was going to have to do some explaining, for sure.

    If things got back to normal.

    “A long night…” Annabeth murmured. “Do you think…it has something to do with the Night? Your grandmother? Clovis, do you think we could ask your father?”

    Ethan perked up a little.

    “He probably knows,” Clovis allowed after a moment. “But I’m not sure it’s - “

    “We’ll be sleeping anyway,” Annabeth pointed out. “We can either have useless dreams or nightmares and not know anything until someone decides to tell us.” She frowned darkly. Annabeth did not take Olympus’ lies well. He knew she had asked Hypnos to show her Athena’s doomed inauguration and Annabeth took everything personally. “And they won’t, or….”

    “We can find out for ourselves,” Castor finished for her.

    “What are you guys talking about?” A new voice entered the conversation and they all turned to see a suspicious looking Chris Rodriguez squinting at them.

    “The god of Sleep,” Pollux said softly. “We can ask him what’s happening.”

    “Just like that, huh?” Chris sneered and Castor winced.

    Hermes may have Claimed him today, but Chris had years of not knowing who his godly parent was. He had been living in Hermes Cabin as one of the Unclaimed, as a child of Hermes. Castor didn’t know what that felt like, but he imagined it stung.

    Bad.

    “He always makes time for me,” Clovis said defensively. “Him or my brothers.”

    “Lucky you.”

    “Chris,” Katie said warningly from her spot near the back of the Cabin. “What would Luke say if he were here?”

    “He’s not here, is he? Because father volunteered him.” Some emotion flashed over Chris’ face. It wasn’t a pretty one, turning the sharp features he shared with Luke even sharper. “He’d say we’re mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed shit -

    “This is not helping,” Annabeth said sharply. “We’ll tell you what we know once we find out what’s going on. Just...finish eating and act normal,” she dismissed Chris, who clenched his fists and took a step towards her.

    Ethan snarled.

    “Whatever,” Chris backed off, trying not to look as spooked as Castor felt. Llueve sobre mojado. Do what you want.”

    “We will,” Annabeth told him primly, because she always had to have the last word.

    “Do you think Sleep knows why Pops looks like that?” Pollux asked.

    He does, Percy’s voice chimed in.

    “Probably,” Clovis admitted. “Father is old and your sire is the youngest Olympian. Sleep has witnessed a lot.”

    “I bet Balance knows more,” Ethan said bitterly. “But we won’t get anything out of her.”

    “We should come up with a list of the questions we want to ask,” Annabeth said. “About tonight. Just so we don’t overstay our welcome.”

    “Good idea,” Castor said.

    None of it was a good idea.

    Because Sleep wasn’t there.

    But the Night was.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2022
  3. Extras: Camp Half-Blood Tales #2
    Shujin

    Shujin Know what you're doing yet?

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    Hermes

    Hermes let the image of his son racing away on the back of a purebred Thracian fade from his mind’s eye as he stepped into the circle. It was a crumbling mosaic too badly damaged to tell what it had been anymore. He cleared his throat.

    Aphrodite dropped the magazine and threw up her hands as soon as she saw him.

    “Please tell me you’re here to - “

    “No,” Hermes said with a handsome smile.

    “Ugh.” The goddess dropped back into the seat she had only just begun to rise from, rolling her eyes. “Then you’re useless.” She willed her magazine back into her hands, flipped to the exact same page she’d left on. “Go away.”

    “Wish I could,” he said honestly.

    Looking at her hurt.

    She had May’s wavy blonde hair, and it was even threatening to frizz in the damp air just like it should. The upturned nose, prominent cheekbones and small ears were hers, although he thought the natural slant to the pouting mouth belonged to someone else. It was familiar, that and the pointed chin, but he couldn’t remember right now. He didn’t want to, really. The eyes were all May, though. They even echoed like hers. The ones in her skull and on her spine reflecting back through the ones in her face, making them shine. Eyes and eyes and eyes…

    All she had wanted was to do something good with her Sight.

    For a goddess of Love, Aphrodite was always the last person anyone who’d loved and lost wanted to see.

    He looked away.

    “Anything worth mentioning?” He asked, before his phone rang. “Hang on.”

    ‘I have Demeter on line three,’ Martha said.

    “Not now,” Hermes replied. “Tell her to leave a message.”

    ‘The last time you put her off, all of our packages for delivery sprouted thorns.’

    “I’m not doing delivery, right now,” he snipped back. “Door keeping. And singular. Tell her she’s on the list.”

    His pocket vibrated again.

    ‘Can I tell Frigg to fu - ‘

    “No!” He cut George off. Holy Zeus, no. That woman scared him. “Redirect her to Iris, please.”

    Sometimes, he hated his job.

    Iris didn’t get it. She hadn’t been demoted, it was a lateral move. And no, being able to go to new and exciting locales with the full backing of Olympus was not a bonus. Because no one was thrilled to see someone from Olympus anymore and this was the new and exciting locale.

    A large, dark underground cavern.

    Well, he supposed dark wasn’t new. It was hard finding someplace that wasn’t dark right now, but this was more than just the absence of light. It was more of a feeling, then anything. The large red doors were not barred or otherwise secured aside from an ornate and complicated looking Assyrian lock that made his fingers twitch.

    He found himself frowning. At first, he thought it was just because he’d seen hundreds of dark caverns, Styx, he’d been born in one, but… the detailing on the columns and the type of brazier in the corner…the doors.

    Was this even Greek? It looked…he was reminded of Alexander’s former empire and he didn’t like it.

    “I have no idea where I am,” he realized. How had that happened?

    “You wouldn’t,” Aphrodite said dully, turning the page, bored of his presence already. “This isn’t a place. There were a few cracks,” she said and waved off his alarm with a flip of her long blonde hair. “That’s hardly worth bothering about, really, although give it another moment to realize you’re here - “

    There was a pulse. It was little more than an uncomfortable feeling like his heart had just skipped a beat or turned over in his chest.

    ‘Hermes?’ May’s voice called, sounding slightly muffled on the edges, like she was speaking through a keyhole. His eyes snapped to the red doors. ‘Is that - are you out there?’

    What - he reeled. He hid her. They didn’t find her - they didn’t know - The sudden terror had him casting his mind back to the white Colonial house in an ordinary, American suburb -

    May’s voice sobbed. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Hermes. I wanted it to work - babe, I wanted it to work so bad…’

    He didn’t tell her that story so she could apply!

    He took an unsteady step towards the doors. Why was she willing to risk it all to try to become the Oracle of Delphi? Luke had been so young - they had time…

    ‘I’m so sorry! Where’s Luke?’ May wailed. ‘He ran! Oh, my baby boy. I’m sorry - I don’t want to be trapped in here - Hermes please!’

    Trapped?

    It was enough to snap him out of it.

    May hasn’t been herself for over a decade. Not sane. Barely human. And no one would have bothered to lock her away in a dungeon deep like this. They would just put her down.

    First was the relief. It wasn’t May.

    Then came the rage.

    “Hup bup bup,” a well manicured hand pressed against his chest, stopping him in his tracks completely. “And you, don’t make me come in there.”

    For a moment, he was confused. He wasn’t weak. He was whole. All of his Names in one place, the weight of them heavy enough to send ripples throughout a three dimensional reality as he forced it to move around him. He pressed a little and found not a single ounce of give. He slowly turned his eyes to the obstacle.

    “No,” Aphrodite said. Her eyes were a steel blue now, the color of a reflection off freshly tempered metal. The ripples hit her form and broke. What was he seeing?

    “That’s exactly what it wants and if you break anything - “ Her voice rose in that tell tale whine that had him already cringing. “I’m going to have to fix it and you know how much I hate responsibility!”

    Hermes sputtered.

    “Honestly.” She rolled her eyes and shoved him back with little more than a flexing of the fingers she had on his chest. “Blast first and ask questions never, just what did I see in you?”

    Hermes’ mouth opened, then closed, strangely hurt that he lost out in a comparison to Ares, of all people. He tried, “I’m very handsome.”

    “True.” Aphrodite admitted as she idly inspected her nails.

    He felt like he should have whiplash.

    “Come on,” she needled him. “Did you really think I’m wasting the best hours of my life in this dump for fun?” She flapped a hand as he tried to wrap his brain around a crisis of this magnitude being anyone’s best hours of their life. “Because trust, I am not.”

    He almost needled her back that Athena was the goddess of Wisdom for a reason… He almost needled her back. His anger finished draining as Hermes paused.

    He wasn't weak. Even his father would have spent a bit more effort holding him back.

    “What?” Aphrodite demanded. Her brows were furrowed in her signature annoyed pouting and her eyes remained wide and guileless.

    He eyed the goddess warily.

    “Oh, that?” Aphrodite turned to indicate the doors. “It was nothing you did, honestly, I’d be more concerned if you didn’t have a reaction to it.”

    He swallowed thickly. “It sounded like - “

    “Someone you love.” Aphrodite swooned, spinning in a little, giddy circle with the back of her hand against her forehead and everything. “No wonder they have to hide this here, can you imagine if just anyone can hear it? The most powerful force in the cosmos is love…and no one ever believes me!”

    “And you’re safe because you don’t love anyone?”

    Aphrodite gasped in outrage, whirling on him. “How dare you! I love everyone equally!”

    “Athena.”

    “I’d love her head on a stick!”

    And something in his gut was still whispering:

    Liar, liar, liar.

    Aphrodite was old.

    His father had cast the tie breaking vote to give her full rights and privileges as a god of the Greek pantheon, but that was well before his time. She was a terrific lay, fun mother and was very good at defusing people. Being non-threatening.

    He’d noticed when the Fates came for their daughter, Tyche, the goddess of Fortune.

    He still doesn’t know what they said to her, but Tyche always managed to talk a whole lot without saying anything about it. Aphrodite raised their daughter and now Tyche was a goddess that knew just what she needed to say to convince everyone that Fortune wasn’t dangerous. She had to have gotten it from her mother, because no one let him get away with anything anymore.

    Tyche was just under a few Fated restrictions so she wouldn’t interfere, is all.

    He might have bought it, if he wasn’t himself. Thief covered the grifters, the conmen, the cheats and embezzlers. The intersection with Commerce drew in the insider traders, the price gougers and the anti-trust. Someone who always wins, wasn’t lucky.

    They were rigging the game.

    Four days ago, he learned he had never known how to swear an Oath on the River Styx.

    He should be asking a lot more questions.

    “What’s in there?” He asked instead.

    Aphrodite pulled on a lock of wavy blonde hair, shifting her weight from one foot to another, cocking a hip. “You know leucrota, yes?”

    Hermes swallowed what tasted like pure bile.

    They were monsters with the bodies of red-furred lions with the hooves of a horse and heads that looked like a cross between a horse and wolf, glowing red eyes and instead of teeth, their jaws were fitted with two solid plates of bone that clacked together. They were good mimics of voices, luring in the unaware.

    It was something like a secondhand memory. That thing your mind does when you see your care keys and you aren’t reminded of the last time you lost them, but of the time you got so drunk you had to take a taxi home, maybe you hit on the fat cabbie and then spent the rest of the night locked in the bathroom crying.

    Not that he had any personal experience with that.

    The point is, his mind jumped to the one time leucrota were hellbent on killing his son, Luke. He had been so much younger, running through the halls of an old mansion belonging to a cursed son of Apollo with the daughter of Zeus when he ran into an older blond man the boy instantly recognized as a god.

    ‘He’s your son, isn’t he? How could you - what kind of father are you? He doesn’t deserve this! He just wanted to save someone!’

    He couldn’t look Apollo in the face without feeling the urge to punch him for a year after.

    “I know leucrota,” Hermes said darkly.

    Why was he allowed?

    What made him so special he could overturn his son’s cursed fate decades later without getting ruined?

    “Well, that,” Aphrodite jerked a thumb back at the large red doors. “Is their progenitor.”

    He looked over her shoulder. “Does it have a Name?”

    “Yes.”

    He understood.

    Aphrodite was old.

    If he broke the doors, she would fix them. She took it for granted that she would not only know how, but could. That it was expected of her to. While contributing to the protection of all the Camps and Olympus and guarding this Door as a singular being.

    And she did hate responsibility.

    All of that just didn’t count.

    “Crocotta are from north Africa,” he probed lightly. “India.”

    She rolled her eyes again before giving him a flat, unamused stare. He could hear the ‘bitch, please.’

    “The complex is secure, everything works, honestly if you’re not here to relieve me -Aphrodite absently adjusted the way her jean jacket fit over the pink blouse that had sparkling silver Beautiful, baby written on it. Her face brightened. “Actually a quickie would - “

    “No,” Hermes said with another handsome smile. Not when she looked like that. It would just flay his heart wide open. “I’ll just - “

    The coral, pearl and seastone walls of Atlantis blinked into existence around him.

    “ - go,” he burbled underwater.

    He was answered with attempted murder.

    “Woah! Woah!” He danced out of the way of gleaming bone spear tips. To their credit, it only took the merman guards a second to realize that he wasn’t an intruder, just an idiot.

    He should have known they’d be jumpy. Everyone was.

    Well, maybe not Aphrodite.

    “Sorry, sorry,” He showed off his Iphone. Its commercial release was in two years, but since when did that matter to him? “Official business,” he said, swirling the phone and its snake antennae around his head.

    ‘I’m going to be sick,’ George, the left snake head, complained.

    ‘Not on me!’ Martha, the right, snapped at him.

    Hermes ignored them both and tried out a winning smile.

    The guards glanced at each other. The right fish man had an entire conversation with his eyes, gills and right shoulder, but Hermes could tell the left shark man understood maybe a quarter of it. They both shrugged at him, decked out in sea green scaled battle armor. Then left held up a small signpost made out of small sea coral and anemone.

    ‘Lord Hermes,’ it said in the pink words of blooming anemone. He almost laughed, but then he remembered.

    Oh right.

    Not everyone could talk.

    Left’s sign flipped around. ‘If you seek our Lord, he is overseeing defenses.’ Makes sense. They had their own Camp too, didn’t they. The sign flipped back and there was new writing. ‘We can summon an escort.’

    “I was hoping I could talk to Queen Amphitrite, actually,” Hermes tried and watched them both frown. But they were fish. Mermen, whatever. They didn’t have lips, so it was more like their bared teeth showed even more pearly white sharp. “Just a short report and then I’ll be out of her hair, promise!”

    The guards shared another glance, but they stepped back to the opposite side of the double sided palace doors. They couldn’t be anymore different from the doors to the Olympian Assembly or even the Doors of Death. Those had Grecian mosaics, heroic scenes and legends etched into them of their history. These were crafted to look like the interlocking tentacles or limbs of some massive sea creature reluctantly prying open from the bottom, still staying stubbornly closed at the top. The hallway past the doors kept the image going, being circular and lined with pale curving columns like ribs as if visitors were walking right into its gullet. He hoped he was just imagining the contractions rippling through the slick, blood red walls.

    The Elder Cyclops and Olympus. Erebus and Uncle Dead’s House in the Underworld. It made him wonder, and not the first time, who built the halls of Atlantis.

    He was let into the throne room with little fanfare and he felt it the moment the Queen of Atlantis noticed him. May liked calling it his Thief Sense. That feeling you get when your foot nudges a trip wire, when you spot a camera looking your way, when a guard dog stops and sniffs the air.

    Poseidon’s wife wore a stunningly beautiful woman with black hair tied back under a silk net of pearls on a clamshell throne and this time the circlet on her brow was made up of white starfish. A long teal fishtail flowed out from under her green and gold dress, fins idly moving with the current. She was dark skinned with regal cheekbones, straight nose and full mouth. The talk on Olympus was that she was a kind and gentle goddess.

    They had the benefit of distance.

    The eldest granddaughter of Pontus was kind enough, he supposed. Maybe if her sea monster kids weren’t a dime a dozen compared to the four proper gods, he’d feel better about it.

    One word: Charybdis.

    As for gentle?

    People couldn’t tell the difference between genuine gentleness and ever present caution.

    “Hermes,” Amphitrite said. He would never like the meticulous way she said Names. Made his soul itch. “And what does Olympus want from me?”

    He sketched out his best diplomatic bow. “Queen Amphitrite.”

    Technically, he wasn’t supposed to. He was the Messenger of the Gods of Olympus. On the clock, he carried the full authority of his father, Zeus Olympios. It was a fact that Atlantis was under Olympic rule.

    His father’s Master Bolt was still missing and Hermes knew better than anyone stealing it wouldn’t have been hard. Piss easy actually, for anyone who isn't a god. While he didn’t think Atlantis needed to steal it, he wondered if that fact was close to overstaying its welcome.

    He hoped not.

    Uncle Sea was powerful, but his Queen was dangerous.

    He wasn’t even talking about her grandparents.

    Either set.

    “Just…asking if anything has changed down here,” he offered as nonchalantly as he could. Looking into her eyes was uncomfortable, even for him. “Anything to worry about?”

    The corner of Amphitrite’s supple lips pulled up.

    “Athena remembers,” she said thoughtfully. Hermes bit his lip so he didn’t blurt out that it was a request from Zeus.

    But.

    Yeah, it was Athena’s idea. His dad deserves some credit for recognizing a good idea when he heard one, right? If one primordial was mucking things up, better make sure other massive headaches weren’t getting any funny ideas.

    “I had wondered.”

    Hermes patiently waited out the pause.

    “The stars are not right. However, three of grandfather’s lowest circuit are unaccounted for.”

    Yikes, Hermes thought. Weren’t they all supposed to be dead in that sunken city of theirs? Or was it sleeping?

    Or both?

    “We are tracking them and do not require assistance at this time,” Amphitrite offered. “She will know what that means.”

    “Thank you,” he bowed again.

    “Do not thank me,” Uncle Sea’s wife said mildly with a small wave of a hand. “The sea takes care of its own. I would have you remind her of this.” Amphitrite paused. “And perhaps suggest that her preoccupation with forewarning has reached a limit.”

    Hermes frowned. “Forewarned is forearmed?”

    He didn’t mean for it to come out like a question.

    The Queen of Atlantis studied him, making him shift in place. “Ah,” she said softly and he felt his stomach sink. “You are under the impression that if one such as grandfather arose, or if the Night found our existence offensive, Olympus would be able to defend itself.”

    He waited for her to finish, but she didn’t say anything.

    “Oh,” Hermes said quietly.

    Maybe Hecate had the right idea. He kind of felt like praying right now.

    Maybe not to the Serpent.

    He could still remember the titanic weight of the Serpent’s attention before Apollo’s altar; cold, caustic and utterly uncaring. And maybe not Buddhism either. Iris tried to explain it to him once, but it just made his head hurt. The Hindus terrified him, so that was a no.

    Hecate’s White God?

    Would he have to apologize for all his bellyaching over the past two millennia first?

    Because he did a lot of it.

    “Thank you. I won’t darken your doorstep - “ The last thing he saw of Atlantis was Amphitrite’s blazing eyes as she tilted her head in dismissal.

    Hello, Delphi, Greece.

    “ - any longer,” Hermes whispered. He breathed in the air of the Old World from the top seats of Apollo’s Theater. Time had worn them down to crumbling bricks baked pale gray by the sun, but at least it was mostly intact. It was recognizable. He dreaded the day when it would no longer be. The mortals had just gotten around to reclaiming Hephaestus’ temple for study sometime before that silly war they had in Europe and the Oracle of Delphi no longer called Greece home.

    Well, he guessed it called nowhere home now, because it was in the stomach of a demigod.

    Good riddance.

    “Alright,” he said loudly as he approached the wheat blonde woman sitting on one of the Theater seats, making a daisy chain in the dark. “I’m here, sorry for making you wait, Aunt Demeter.” The second eldest Kronide started a little, before she put the flowers down and crossed her arms, pinning him with a stern look. Hermes held up his hands in surrender.

    ‘Told you,’ Martha snarked.

    “I’m here now. You wanted to speak with me?”

    “Yes.” Demeter nodded sharply. “If I had the choice, I would absolutely do it again. Give up on Kore? Over my dead body.”

    Hermes blinked.

    “What?”

    He was missing something.

    “This is Delphi,” Demeter said.

    “I…know that.”

    “The Navel of the Earth.”

    “Know that too.”

    The Earth Mother was imprisoned here.

    Demeter’s face made a pained expression. “It’s cracked.”

    “I - “ Hermes stopped. “Oh dear.”

    His aunt wrung her hands. “I thought I fixed it after Kore finally left that no-good brute for just five minutes - “

    “Demeter.”

    His aunt huffed. “I might have understated the damage I did to the prison,” she said quickly. “Just a little! Turns out, it was more of a symbiotic relationship than I thought - really, it wasn’t like it was even my fault - “

    “You just said you would do it again,” Hermes pointed out.

    “Yes, well,” Demeter began, looking a bit hunted. “Mother helped put things back to rights and that should have been the end of it.”

    Rhea?

    “Maybe we should have known after that bit of trouble in Alaska a little while ago. Hera’s hiding something - don’t tell me she isn’t, but Alaska? You just know the daughter-stealing ruffian was just asking for it - “

    “Can’t grandmother help us fix it now?” He didn’t need this. None of them needed this. “The Questers came across her recently.” Before everything went to shit. “I think she wants the Earth Mother back just as much as we do.”

    Which was not at all.

    Demeter frowned and instead of talking about anything to do with the protogenoi that hated them getting free, asked, “What Quest?”

    “The one for father’s Master Bolt.”

    “Oh, that old thing?”

    Hermes boggled.

    “I thought Artemis found it?” Demeter looked at him expectantly with mismatched eyes as if he had just forgotten her second favorite had taken care of the problem already. “No?” She frowned harder before flapping both hands at him. “Don’t look at me like that - you know I don’t pay attention to these kinds of things. It’s summer!”

    “The Bolt was stolen at the Winter Solstice.” Even as it came out of his mouth, he knew it wouldn’t help. Winter Solstice was the only time of the year Hades was invited to Olympus and when it came to the Lord of the Underworld, his aunt had two modes: Bitch and Nag.

    Her round face predictably darkened.

    “Rhea fix Earth Mother’s prison!” He said quickly.

    “Without turning around and killing us all, maybe,” Demeter said absently and Hermes reeled. “Well, maybe Geb - oh no, wait, the Egyptians are still useless, aren’t they? What is Ra doing - “

    “Demeter,” Hermes croaked.

    The Earth Mother’s Warden blinked at him. “Do you remember the Byzantine?”

    “No,” he said, bewildered.

    No one on Olympus remembered the Byzantine, not even Demeter, because humanity just up and threw them away long before Rome collapsed. They didn’t Fade, but he supposed they might have slept. Dreamed.

    Hermes paused.

    Aphrodite remembered.

    “Your grandmother is putting herself through that so that she doesn’t cleanse the world of mortals.”

    Hermes’ world tilted. “What? Why?”

    “So she doesn’t cleanse the world of mortals,” Demeter repeated slowly at him, as if he was the one who didn’t understand plain Greek. “They really are much alike,” she said in this very reasonable tone. “Like Mother, like daughter as I always say. All you have to do is listen to them talk for a bit - “

    “The Earth Mother is talking to you?”

    “I am Her Warden,” Demeter said. “Even the mortals figured out that solitary confinement was cruel.”

    Hermes stared.

    “And throwing the pieces of your father into the Pit was just a little unfortunate?”

    “For the record,” Demeter said loudly, offended. “Hestia and I argued against that, but we all knew he was awful, no chance of changing his mind. Self-defense.”

    Hermes continued staring.

    “Oh, She won’t change,” his aunt finally admitted. “But it’s symbiotic. She is learning from me.”

    “That’s - that’s bad.”

    “It is.”

    A flower bloomed within her empty right eye socket, the long thin blood red petals unfolding like shapes within a kaleidoscope.

    And it bloomed and bloomed and bloomed.

    “Thank you for telling me, Aunt Demeter,” Hermes said stiffly.

    Demeter beamed at him.

    “Of course, dear.” She motioned for him to step closer so she could put her finished daisy chain crown on his head. “And I’ll make sure you have plenty of those wheaties that you like so much,” she promised as he smiled weakly. “Be careful running around in the dark, now.”

    He nodded. “You know me, Aunty. I’m always - “

    Cold wind slapped him in the face. “- careful.”

    The god of the North Wind lowered his newspaper just enough to squint at him from over the pages. He was wearing a snow suit as usual with icicles clinging to his pale beard and eyebrows. Hermes glanced around and saw that he was…not where he was expecting. His inner GPS was telling him he was in Quebec, Canada and it certainly looked like it. He could still see The Edge from the icy penthouse’s windows as a shimmering aurora borealis barrier separating their world from the land beyond the gods.

    He didn’t mean ‘beyond’ as in they couldn’t go there. He meant ‘beyond’ as in they shouldn’t.

    It was a land where even gods were prey.

    “How is the barrier holding up?” Hermes asked, looking up over the reflective Art Deco ice desk.

    Boreas’ eyes narrowed into slits.

    Ugh.

    Dealing with the Four Winds always felt like trying to teach a demigod common sense.

    “Athena’s checking?” He tried instead.

    “Intact,” Boreas grunted.

    “I’m only asking because if you haven’t noti - wait, what?” Hermes’ mind spun.

    He just saved himself an hour.

    Holy Zeus.

    “I - thank you.”

    A grunt.

    Hermes hesitated, but then he decided to just go for it. A god only lives once. “And I would like to thank your daughter for her help on my son’s Quest.”

    Boreas’ eyes flashed back up to him as the god reared up, rising from his seat with his purple wings flaring behind him like an enraged stallion. “Khione hardly needs your gratitude, son of Zeus.

    Hermes deflated.

    May was a good person. And through her, he had come to realize that he…

    He wasn’t.

    He was glad Luke took after his mother.

    “I know.” He said quietly. He tossed one of his business cards onto the god’s desk. “She has it anyway. If she needs anything…” He finished hopefully.

    Boreas’ gaze cut through him, but eventually, the god sat back down. Hermes counted it as a win that he didn’t just blow the card away.

    “Get out.”

    He went.

    A few more visitations, both Greek and not, and he found himself revisiting the Old World. Or rather, the outskirts of it. He already had his hands up in surrender when the one he wanted to visit noticed him, which was damn quick.

    Heracles wasn’t called the greatest hero in Greek history for nothing.

    “Oh, it’s you.”

    “I’m flattered,” Hermes said.

    His elder half-brother rolled his eyes as he leaned on his club, looking down on him.

    Because he was very tall.

    Hermes was actually kind of jealous. If he tried to make himself look that tall without going full god form, he’d look ridiculous.

    “What do you want?” Heracles raised a skeptical eyebrow.

    He had their father’s black hair and was rocking the stubble look Apollo could never pull off. His eyes were an electric blue, also like their father’s, but up close, Hermes could see that they echoed. Like May’s.

    “I can’t leave my post, so if you’re expecting me to do some stupid errand for you - “

    “No, I - “ Hermes was beginning to regret visiting. “Nothing like that. I just - “

    He looked out over the island. The Pillars of Hercules loomed in the distance, jutting out over the sea like swollen fingers.

    “What was Athena like as King?”

    Heracles’ eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

    “Humor me,” Hermes begged. “I don’t - I don’t know anything. Apparently.”

    Heracles scratched at the small scar on his stubbled chin, then sighed. “Exactly the same as she is now,” he said and Hermes frowned. “You know that thing she does where she expects you to follow her train of thought, but she’s crap at talking to people she thinks aren’t complete imbeciles, so you don’t get the memo and she looks at you like you’re stupid anyway?”

    “Oh yeah.”

    “Hate that,” Heracles said. “My King or not.”

    The god of Heroism swung his club, knocking some white sand off his bare feet.

    “I understand, you know,” he said. “You’ve learned that you had it wrong this entire time and now you’re lost.”

    I’m not, Hermes thought, but he couldn’t quite make the words come out of his mouth.

    “You are,” Heracles said. “And you’re looking around, hoping that this crushed feeling you have is because the world changed recently without having the damn decency to tell you about it. But it hasn’t changed at all.”

    There was a painful lump in Hermes’ throat.

    You did,” Heracles finished.

    “What do I do?” Hermes asked.

    “I rebelled.” Hermes cringed and his brother sighed. “Styx, I don’t know. What do you want?”

    Hermes didn’t even have to think about it.

    “I want my son Luke to have a future.”

    “A demigod?” Heracles asked knowingly. “Good luck with that, the laws haven’t been changed - “

    “He’s not - “ Hermes scuffed at the sand with a foot. “I’ve been looking for loopholes and it - it brought me to you,” he confessed.

    Heracles straightened.

    “My way wasn’t exactly…ideal,” he said slowly.

    “Not that.”

    His brother went still.

    “His mother - May was clear-sighted. Badly.” Hermes said quickly. "I know what that means."

    “Aren’t those records sealed?”

    “Thief.”

    “How badly?” Heracles finally asked flatly.

    “She could See - “ He made a vague gesture in the air with his hands. “Diagonal. The Could Be.” The way Apollo had explained it to him, the Could Be could be changed. If you told someone else, if you made a different decision, if you ignored it. It was Fool’s Gold to the real thing, but that didn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t come true. It just wasn’t inevitable.

    A False Prophecy.

    All she wanted was to be able to do some good with her Sight.

    That was all.

    “And I invested a lot in him. My son.” Hermes hesitated. “I gave him everything.”

    Finally saying it out loud felt like lancing a boil. He wasn’t ashamed, he realized. Every single one of his Names was Luke’s father and he wasn’t ashamed of giving a mortal so much.

    My son.

    “He can - he can do something I can’t. And I tried.”

    He demonstrated, wrapping the mantle of Thief around him and reaching for that one spot in the center, that one tiny, tiny place that felt like what he felt in Luke. Thieves stole things, but the concept was far too tied to stealing the material. Things of perceived value. Things you could pickpocket, grab, swindle and cheat out of someone else.

    What he felt in Luke felt far more pure. Something that felt like Steal, but reaching for it felt like his heart would burst.

    He let it go, huffing and puffing.

    Exhausted.

    “I see,” Heracles said softly. Hermes looked up, but his face could have been carved from the stone of his Pillars. “An emergent daimones if you could argue it, perhaps,” he mused and Hermes’ heart leapt. Daimones, like their Nymphai counterparts, could live on Olympus. “But it’s more likely he’d be destroyed.”

    “No!” Hermes shouted.

    The god of Heroism raised an eyebrow. “Children with the clear-sighted used to be outlawed for a reason,” he said mildly.

    “But - “

    “Like I said, my way isn’t ideal.”

    The last time he felt this small, he realized he had never known how to swear an Oath on the Styx.

    “Thank you for your time,” Hermes managed to choke out.

    “Hm.” Heracles roughly nudged his right shoulder in an awkward, comforting gesture. “Sorry.”

    “...I am too.”

    Returning to Olympus was no relief. The golden streets were washed out pale gold without sunlight and the great palaces looked like condemned buildings against the void of the Night sky. Various immortals of all kinds wandered the streets, because life goes on.

    Until it ends.

    He reported to Athena and it was just as Heracles said. He could see it now, the way she asked for clarification and the way she looked to the side when she was thinking, like there were puzzle pieces tumbling around in her skull.

    He looked the former King of the Gods of Olympus in the face and felt…

    “Troubling.” Her brow furrowed. “My preoccupation with forewarning,” she scoffed. “The Earth Mother we can do something about, at least.” Her eyes went through every color of the rainbow as she glanced up at the Night sky. “One last thing,” Athena said in her sharp, cold way. “Your conversation with Heracles.”

    “You heard?” He nearly screamed, mortified.

    Athena actually paused. He could see her make the effort to step back and lower her head as her expression softened. “Around Herakles, I always listen to my Name. Even if I cannot respond.”

    Like she was his divine parent.

    Hermes’ mouth opened, and then he closed it.

    “This surprises you.”

    “Yes,” he admitted. He supposed if there was any child her pride would gladly call her own if she could, it would be the greatest hero in Greek history. “Yes, it does.”

    “A habit from his, let’s call it accident-prone ways and the Giant War,” she explained, a quicksilver smile flashing over her face. “Boy could get into trouble standing still. I saw no reason to stop.”

    He wondered how Heracles felt about still being called ‘boy.’

    “I merely wished to reassure you that I will say nothing about it, and if you wished to have it argued - “ Her iridescent eyes searched his face. “It would be best to approach Demeter of Sacred Law.”

    Hermes nodded sharply.

    Athena owed Luke.

    Well, in for the penny, in for the pound. “What was grandfather like?”

    Gods only live once.

    He should coin the phrase.

    GOLO?

    No, if he wanted to make it a thing, it’s got to be more inclusive.

    “Pragmatic. Efficient.” Athena said immediately. If she was caught off guard by his sudden interest in the Titan Lord, she didn’t show it. “Do not forget, the Golden still live within the fields of Elysium and they welcomed his return. However,” she said thoughtfully. “It was also true that he is still an enemy of Olympus, no matter his role. He was bitter. Resentful. Scornful. Furious.”

    She paused.

    “Grieving.”

    Hermes finished his rounds, all of the Doors under his jurisdiction pressing like hot brands at the back of his mind. Where was Thanatos when you needed him? The Lake of Lerna. The Doors of Death. Acheron. The Grove of Arcadia. He stopped at the last for a moment.

    It was deep in the heart of the Amazon. The smoke of a nearby slash-and-burn tickled his nose.

    His heart ached.

    These trees used to be Pan’s pride and joy, but now they were covered in cancerous-looking growths and clumps of bleeding fungi. Places where the gnarled, dark ash colored bark fell away revealed silvery lines like spiderwebs or veins on the wood, crawling with mutated insects and worms. In a jungle like this, there wouldn’t be much flora anyway. He both hates and loves that he knows that.

    The sickly sweet smell wafting from the rotting ground tells him enough, though.

    He thought about it for a second. One of the ward stones wasn't far. All it would take was a crack and a gap in the Mist so mortal greed would find the grove…No, it wasn’t worth it, he thought then, running a hand through the curls of his black hair. It wasn’t worth it.

    And it wasn’t their fault.

    The mortal need to destroy their environment was a poison they leached from the Black Goat first, not the other way around.

    He threw a stone.

    Startled, bloodshot eyes opened all over the dark trees as twisted roots ripped themselves up from the ground, flailing.

    The dryads were restless.

    It was his decision not to tell the satyrs about his son, Pan, not even when they made that ridiculous Cloven Council thing a while back with their searcher’s licenses. Dionysus didn’t care and it wasn’t Hermes’ fault they were so stubborn about it. And it wasn’t like he knew where the Lord of the Wilds was now, so it wasn’t as if their search was futile.

    Just meaningless.

    Why couldn’t he save anyone he loved?

    He smelled smoke.

    Hermes stepped away.

    He had work to do.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2022
    Zendrelax, Larff, Evilhippy and 37 others like this.
  4. Extras: Camp Half-Blood Tales #3
    Shujin

    Shujin Know what you're doing yet?

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    THE DEMIGOD had the same tell as his father.

    She would be the first to admit that he was a handsome boy in that familiar sharp edged, arrogant way. His mother must have given him that hair and nose, but everything else was his father. It was too bad Hermes’ pretty head was one she wanted separated from his neck and it took everything in her to not let the spark of hatred burn.

    Be ice.

    It was in the minute twitching of his fingers. To their credit, it could have meant anything. The desire to draw a weapon, to strangle, to indicate in a direction, to steal…which is why she never bothered trying to decipher what it meant.

    Luke Castellan, like his father, suppressed and hid the wrong things.

    The faint crackle and pop as the surveillance cameras watching them died could have been caused by a number of different things, but Khione was a goddess. The way the top layer of reality inverted into a spike right through the mechanical innards might as well have been a bugle horn. She didn’t have to look around the tourist trap to know that they were out of earshot and out of sight of mortals -

    - that white cowboy hat was nice, actually. There were even little light blue buffalo prancing along the hat band! That was adorable. She could make a copy, of course, but having something that wasn’t cold was appealing, once in a while. She set it on her head and turned around.

    There was a sword at her throat.

    She almost rolled her eyes.

    Mortals.

    The next Ice Age could not come fast enough.

    “My criminal justice degree feels compelled to inform you that this is criminal assault in Texas,” she tried.

    The demigod’s cloudy blue eyes (they changed, she noted. Has someone been exposed?) were hard as he spat out, “What do you want?”

    Khione stared at him for a second. “You cannot possibly be this dense.”

    She could tolerate one oblivious demigod, but two would be pushing it.

    Apparently, she was, in fact, dealing with two of them, because the demigod of Hermes simply edged his blade closer to her neck. And he would do it too, she could tell. If she took too deep a breath now, it might cut.

    She inclined her head. “Immortal goddess.”

    He tilted the flat of the blade towards her and the fluorescent lights shined off the threads of greenish white crystal spreading through the centre of the sword like the thin branches of a tree.

    “Adamantine.”

    She didn’t need to spend even a second wondering how Hermes got his hands on the dangerous material (Thief), but she did make a mental note that this demigod was worth more to his father than most.

    A lot more.

    No wonder Hermes offered a favour. She was glad the boy wasn’t dead yet, even if he had the same darkly mocking smile his father had.

    “You won’t be healing from this one,” he finished grimly.

    …Now she was curious.

    ‘Won’t I?’ she wondered inwardly and let the question echo. There was a faint feeling of question from within. ‘Cut forever,’ she thought next and in her mind’s eye an image of a flowering tree branch was cut off and the leftover stump withered away. The feeling turned to reproach and the stump bloomed again right through the rot.

    “Won’t I?” She asked out loud with what she knew was an inappropriate amount of glee. She adored her new mother, truly. Way more useful than her birth one ever was. “You can break the ice,” she admitted easily. “Temporarily.”

    It cost her nothing to admit it. Ice could break. Has broken. Denying it was useless. There was nothing she needed to protect herself from here. He was just like all the rest of his type. Only capable of envisioning a god as something simultaneously powerful enough to own all the ills of mankind, but weak enough to punish for it.

    He had a warrior’s sense. She had seen enough men prancing before her in an effort to impress to be able to discern the wheat from the chaff. He was wary now. For a moment, she thought perhaps her eyes had given it away, but he couldn’t even see through the Mist, could he?

    It didn’t matter.

    “All ice needs is water.”

    The human body is sixty percent water.

    “And cold.”

    The boy cursed as his outstretched arm froze all the way through.

    He was quick.

    Even through what must have been excruciating pain and unresponsive muscles, he flipped his sword into his other hand. She watched him swing the blade right through her neck. Her visage didn’t respond besides raising an eyebrow as the sword passed through harmlessly. One of the symptoms of hypothermia was hallucinations. He immediately turned with a vicious backswing -

    The blade glanced off the wall of ice that hadn’t been there a second before because in the end, it was just metal. Snarling, he spun again and tired of the pirouetting, Khione froze his penis.

    Everyone knows frostbite takes the extremities first.

    The boy’s eyes bugged as he soundlessly dropped to his knees.

    He really did look too much like Hermes. She should know better than to let her wishful thinking slip through.

    “You are fortunate I went to medical school,” she mused as she came back from the counter, a newly purchased white cowboy hat on her head and slowly knelt down in front of him. She just as slowly reversed the freezing. Revelling a little, in the fact that she could reverse it, now that mortal understanding of their own physical limitations allowed for it.

    The demigod glared up at her with tears in his eyes. Khione let herself smile at him. “Or maybe not.”

    “How many degrees do you have?” The demigod demanded, a bit high pitched.

    “Enough.”

    She was especially proud of the latest one in physics, because it was incredibly useful, very interesting and finishing that doctorate was a bitch and a half she never wanted to do again.

    Unfortunately, she probably would have to do it again in a century or two.

    “I won’t kill you,” she reassured the wretch. She would have liked to make him beg for it, but she was not here to make enemies and he was unlikely to do it. Even if killing him wouldn’t have been a step too far for the rules. “I don’t want to and I don’t care that you stole the Master Bolt.”

    His eyes searched her face. To prove her words, she took the lingering pain away as well. The cold deadened nerve endings.

    Slowly, almost too slowly, the demigod relaxed.

    “Of course not,” he drawled. “You’d have to explain to Percy what you did with the body.”

    Khione smiled winningly at him. So he wasn’t that dense, just paranoid.

    “Because you’re a dirty traitor, obviously. You even tried to sabotage the whole thing by attacking me in a souvenir shop when all I wanted was a hat,” she mock chided him. “There won’t be a next time.”

    It wasn’t a question.

    “No,” the mortal said quietly. “There won’t.”

    She let him get up and checked over her work. For obvious reasons, she wasn’t as used to using her abilities to take the cold away. There was a little subdermal bruising, but demigods did heal rather quickly compared to more mundane mortals. It would be fine, no permanent damage. Good. He was useful and she would like to keep it that way.

    “I am curious, though.” She stepped in close and absently fixed his vest collar. He tensed for a second, but the moment passed and he just watched her with lidded eyes. “Is change enough? Or would you rather Olympus burns?”

    “Which one for you?” He ventured cautiously.

    “The second,” she said coldly. “But…it doesn’t matter, does it?” The collar fixed, she let her hands run down to smooth over the creases in the red vest before pulling away. “The son of Fate seems the compassionate type, but at least he has the power to actually do something about it.”

    She doubted Olympus even had the capability to truly change, but she would wait and see. She could be patient. If it proved that it couldn’t? She hoped Fate’s demigod turned out to be a truly just man.

    “You don’t have to put yourself at risk like this,” he said, feeling out her conviction.

    “Yes, I do,” she said immediately. “The moment the shock of his Claiming dissipates, every god on that mountain will realise exactly what he is. They might get ideas,” she said in a low tone. “And I can’t have that.”

    His face scrunched up.

    She scoffed. “Don’t pretend that’s not what you want him for.”

    The demigod’s eyes averted. There was shame there, she thought. Someone was having second thoughts, but what about?

    It didn't matter.

    Whatever he had doubts about, it wasn't about this. She could see the moment he decided she was a potential ally and trusted a little.

    “He gave me…his boon.” The mortal’s cloudy blue eyes swung back. “From his mother.”

    Khione’s mind went blank for a second.

    “From…his mother,” she repeated. “From his mother?”

    Gods giving a mortal any kind of IOU was almost unheard of, and to have one from Ananke herself?

    Amazing.

    Also terrifying, yes.

    “He’s only good for it if the rabbit survives,” he said with a grimace and Khione turned completely away from him to bite her thumb so she wouldn’t scream.

    “That’s…fine,” she managed to say around the sweet golden blood in her mouth.

    It wasn’t. It wasn’t, it wasn’t!

    “The best I can do is help the Quest in general succeed - “ Because she could not stomach the thought of actually lifting a finger to help Artemis do anything. “ - we can say I’m just helping the son of Fate. Officially.”

    “Officially,” the demigod repeated dutifully.

    She turned back to him. “And unofficially, if you need to cover your tracks so our mutual friend doesn’t know, you have options.”

    “The god of War knows,” he reminded her.

    “The god of War is a brute that the goddess of Love has on a long leash,” Khione said shortly. “If you can talk him into letting you go and keeping the Bolt, then believe that I am capable of much more.” She tilted her head. “Besides, he kept it for this long. If he tells, who will believe him?”

    The demigod waved a hand.

    “He has the Helm too,” he said airily, a challenging look in his eyes.

    The Helm…of Darkness?

    Hades’ Symbol of Power that turned the wearer completely invisible and completely undetectable.

    On a demigod of Hermes, god of Thieves.

    Who just stole from Olympus.

    “You…are an idiot,” Khione hissed at the wretch. “If you had the Helm, why didn’t you wear it instead of fighting the god of War?”

    Fighting and losing.

    The demigod’s face twisted.

    “The Helm was booby trapped to the Pit and back. I didn’t have the time to disarm it all and thinking straight while escaping Olympus was…hard,” he finished lamely and she revised her understanding of the situation.

    At first, she had thought there was some unnamed god acting as his patron. How else would a mere demigod get the actual gumption to steal the Master Bolt of Zeus? A mastermind waiting for Camp Half-Blood field trip during the Winter Solstice to direct a demigod of the god of Thieves into the perfect theft that would set the Olympians against each other. It would allow for them to approach allies and consolidate power while Olympus were distracted.

    Now she knew this boy was as much of an imbecile as his father.

    “Don’t worry,” Khione said drily. “I’ll treat you just like my brothers and be sure to do all the thinking for you.”

    “Hilarious,” the demigod deadpanned.

    “One last thing,” she said and watched his eyebrows raise. “Steal from me.”

    “What? Why?”

    “Just do it.”

    The boy sighed. There was movement a layer beneath the top and she could see a ghostly luminescent white silhouette covered in mouths with long prehensile tongues reach out of his body -

    There was a crackling sound as they sprang apart, stung.

    “Did you just punch me with your soul?” Khione asked incredulously.

    “I was trying to steal something! Like you asked!” The mortal protested, then his brows furrowed. “How’d you do that?”

    How did she do that?

    How the everloving fuck

    Be ice.

    “...I was expecting it,” she managed to say. “And gods have more awareness and control over our soul.”

    Such as it was.

    Her mother called them ‘Hollow’ and she was not wrong.

    “Be careful with that. In how you use it and in who knows you can,” she warned him, because he was useful and she would like to keep it that way. "The wrong person will make you pay for it."

    And maybe she was speaking from personal experience.

    She watched his face flood with understanding.

    “...Percy let me take a bit,” the demigod said quietly as his eyes averted again.

    “He’s a kind boy, isn’t he?” Khione let herself smile as she looped her arm around his and dragged him to the counter where he hesitantly picked out a silk handkerchief at her urging. It was in that vintage style with the state’s flower, the bluebonnet and a decoratively cursive red ‘Texas’ on it. She was surprised. It didn’t seem like his style.

    “For my mother,” he murmured, eyes lowered.

    The mortal woman at the counter remained completely ignorant as she congratulated Khione on having such a handsome, thoughtful boyfriend in hastily scrawled writing. The boy’s answering smile was faint, but passable as Khione simply compelled the woman to not ask too many questions.

    They got a map, discussed their options and she carefully talked around the issue of Roman demigods in California. That one enforcement would not let go if she let it slip, but she said enough to make him suspicious that Olympus was ‘hiding’ something there unrelated to Ares’ temple or the ruins of Mt. Othrys.

    He had been to the latter before. It was where he got the scar on his face.

    At the vending machine, he punched the buttons like the contraption had personally wronged him.

    “It’s Luke,” he said forcefully.

    “Pardon?” Khione turned back to him.

    “My name is Luke,” he said. “Maybe I can’t see you like Percy can, but it’s still in your eyes. It’s not ‘mortal.’ It’s not ‘demigod.’ It’s Luke.”

    She opened her mouth and then closed it, honestly speechless.

    And a sick, hot flush was welling up under her cheeks that she hadn’t felt in centuries.

    “Of course, f - forgive me.” She cursed her tongue for the falter, but he didn’t seem to notice as his shoulders dropped a bit of their tension and he collected the snacks as they dropped. She supposed she should be pleased he was comfortable enough to confront her. She would do him this courtesy. They were allies, after all and he was not bad company.

    (they kept calling me girl)

    It was not the same!​

    She felt sick.

    She quickly offered the feeling to her mother and it was quickly taken.

    Too quickly.

    She could feel it cut away this time instead of a gentle fading, leaving behind an empty, hollow feeling that she didn’t like. It made her…wonder what it was exactly that she was giving away. The next feeling was one of an apology and she forgave her mother.

    She was just restless due to the confluence of events. The Pit was stirring and for the first time, it was happening at the same time as the Night fell. She would not be surprised to hear that there was movement in the ocean depths so of course the earth would yearn to follow suit.

    Not yet, though.

    Just before they returned to the cafeteria, the demig Luke stopped her.

    “So, we’re good?”

    Khione stared at him blankly.

    “Yes?” She frowned. “I can’t think of a reason why we would not be?”

    His face slackened. “Criminal assault in Texas?”

    She frowned harder. “We both agreed that wouldn’t happen again.”

    “That’s it? No hard feelings?”

    “Immortal goddess?”

    They stared at each other.

    “So someone can just leave you to die - “

    “Wait.” Several things clicked into place for her. His paranoia and hostility. “Were you still holding that against me?” He stared at her, baffled. She huffed, almost offended now. “I gave you a reconciliation gift! What more do you want?”

    Luke threw his head back and stared at the ceiling of the Chambers County Rest Area like it held the meaning to life.

    “I get it,” he said eventually. “Gods are insane.”

    “No,” she countered as she eyed the map, mentally marking out godly territory. “Mortals are. It’s all that dying you do.”

    Percy was awake. At first, he looked confused when he saw her, but she could see the moment he remembered that she came to help because his face then lit up. She felt a heady thrum of vindication and internally sighed wistfully.

    He was going to be a beautiful man in a few years.

    Mother did not approve, but Khione hadn’t spent the time convincing her that the enemy of your enemy was a tool to be used to just give up on what she wanted.

    She was less thrilled to see a certain furball again and even as annoying as it was, she welcomed the food clerk’s efforts to get her attention.

    Yes, it was technically against the rules to let mortals know about her. Olympus had a standing policy of non-interference in mortal affairs outside their Domains. Saying she had magic probably wouldn’t fool any enforcement, but it also wasn’t actionable.

    And according to Olympus, she could tell this man whatever she wanted in order to fuck him. Leaving this man with a demigod to raise alone did not count as ‘interference in mortal affairs’ and bastards were not afforded any rights. If you were to ask, you would be told that the country they were in, America did the same thing.

    Who were you to judge?

    Canada did not.

    Except for Nova Scotia, but no one cared about Nova Scotia.

    Sometimes, she wondered who they were trying to fool. Either they were following the mortals, or they weren’t.

    …enough stalling.

    It would be fine. She was a rabbit.

    There was nothing Artemis could do to her anymore.




    She was wrong.​




    The ice had broken again.

    She couldn’t do it.

    She supposed Greek heroes were used to leaving their women behind for one reason or another, but being that woman for a completely oblivious demigod was both a novel and horrid feeling. Either men knew what she wanted or they didn’t care.

    She hesitated at giving the emotion to her mother. Some wretched part of her wasn’t ready to let it go.

    She vividly remembered her own pleading, her voice breaking, the rocks digging into her knees as she begged for the only child she had actually wanted. She had stopped asking for her daughter’s life (what did I do? who have i wronged? what choice should i have made, please) and now was just asking for it to end.

    The Fates denied her.

    In their own words, some lessons only suffering could teach.

    But she wasn’t the one they were punishing with failure. After all these years searching for a reason, a rationale (the terror always came, choking. if she did not care about them, they couldn't be used against her), or some kind of sign that the lightning would not strike twice and burn it all down again.

    But it wasn’t her fault.

    Her senses followed them out of the rest stop, resuming their journey. Artemis was a dull grey blob of insignificance, only distinguishable from a plant by the spark of silver deep within. Luke was a sharp purple haze, the same colour as most demigods of their pantheon, but there was a creeping dark blue colour that shot straight through his core.

    Percy’s was slumbering. A lazily smouldering dark pit that felt like it was just biding its time until it could finally set ablaze and devour everything in sight.

    She pulled her senses back, annoyed at herself for lingering on him. On the warmth. It was a bad habit. When would she learn? Even a dog could only reach out so many times, before it preferred the cold.

    Fire always burns.

    He would be ridiculously influential. She had seen the dark wings from his shadow contemptuously bat Aura away. He would be strong.

    (he’s kind)

    And what would kind get me?​

    She ignored that little voice inside.

    The meek do not only inherit nothing, they are robbed. The unjust will always have the initiative. The weak can accomplish only as much as the strong allow and the good is notoriously slow at coming to the worthy. If it ever arrives at all. Perhaps another plane, another state of existence supped on kindness instead of apathy, but if one such as that existed, it was not this one.

    There was nothing inherently good about living.

    She wished there was.

    But that was the truth of things. She need only look as far as the ones who decided it would be so, to see it would never change. It took longer than she would care to admit, but she learned.

    She learned.

    This is what Olympus made of her. It would be inconsiderate not to let them enjoy the hard earned fruits of their labour. Now, if only she could keep her heart hard and cold and just do what needed to be done, she would be able to enjoy every second of it as well.

    The Hollow Gods grow quickly. Perhaps that was why she was having such a difficult time putting her childhood down like the pathetic creature it was after all these years. That little voice inside had grown quiet, but not completely silent.

    It was fine.

    She could wait.

    And one day.

    Soon.

    The girl she had been would no longer have the strength to break the ice with her pain and compassion, but would

    Finally!

    drown.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2022
  5. Extras: Camp Half-Blood Tales #4
    Shujin

    Shujin Know what you're doing yet?

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    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. I wasn't willing to watch my sister suffer her inheritance alone. I understood what Hera 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 -
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2022
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