#Tales from Mount Othrys

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Axel II: Into the Lion’s Maw

The masks’ thrum was alluring. Something brushed his knuckles—the edges of another pew? Axel startled, gripping the wood. When had he started walking forward? There was nothing between him and the altar now—no other pew to warn him that his legs had elected to go for the shiny, dangerous object before his brain agreed. 

Pax was as cautious as he was capable. “The Triple A Chimera helmets!” he squeaked and scrambled ahead of Axel.

“Ajax!” Axel growled, but knew he couldn’t stop him. Pax was right beside the altar, and Axel didn’t trust his legs to cooperate.

Alabaster sighed. “Ajax, we’re not calling it that.”

“Witch Boy, you might not be, but the rest of the world is in agreement.” Pax cracked his knuckles and reached for the bronze serpent helm. If he was willing to drink mysterious, glowing vials for Alabaster, he would definitely pick up a haunted artifact that screamed, “hex me, please.” 

Alabaster grinned darkly. “Mercedes has been fueling more of the Romans’ own rumors, the ones about a beast that can morph in and out of the Mist. Why not—”

“Hello, little Spy Master,” the voice was soft, harsh, and slithered from the helm in Pax’s fingers.

The helmet clanged onto the altar. Pax jumped backwards. “Cool creepy stuff!” he yelped.

Axel ground his nails deeper into the pew. “They talk?” He already had to worry about Jack and Matthias’ influence on Pax. Pax didn’t need more bad influences.

Alabaster nodded. “They each have their own unique sense of humor.”

Sense of humor? What could that mean from Alabaster of all people?

Pax paled, still staring at the bronze one in confusion. “Why’d it call me the Spy Master? I’m just an irresistibly adorable spy assistant.”

Hecate settled a calming hand on Pax’s shoulder. This time, her smile was sad. “These helms reveal potential futures if you chose to align with them.”

“Maybe you take over spying on the Greeks when Silena Beauregard finally betray us.” Alabaster rolled his eyes at his age-old complaint.

Pax brightened, “You mean, I could be Mercedes’ irresistibly—”

“Irritatingly—”

“—adorable partner? Not just her assistant?” The prospect thrilled Pax. Axel knew how desperate Pax was to impress Mercedes. Despite that, Pax glanced over at Axel. The Free Possessions Here vibe had spooked him, and he wanted to make sure it was safe.

Axel swallowed, willing his legs into a casual approach. The closer he came, the more he could make out the detail of the beautiful plumage, the worse the urge to touch that gorgeous gold. His fingers twitched back to the cigarette in his pocket. Otherwise, he’d grab the helm. “Kinda flashy for you, no subtle amulets?” his voice came out rougher than he wanted.

Alabaster rubbed the edge of the antler between his forefinger and thumb. “I believe you gave me lectures on the value of utilizing fear in battle, and then proved it during our fight for my lab. These forms will enhance that…” His hand shook. He was awaiting an answer for a question Pax hadn’t realized he’d asked. But Axel knew the gravity of this conversation. And with this topic of conversation, Axel worried how demigods, supposedly, could spy on others in their sleep.

If Axel hadn’t come to know Alabaster so well, he might not have noticed how unconfident the Witch Boy felt. He was paler than usual—worried. His voice was soft as he continued, “Daedalus won’t make Kronos a body. I’ve researched his myth and history. He worked under threat for too long. Kronos only needs one more soul before he reforms.” Alabaster glanced up at Axel. “Castellan’s getting desperate. Even more short tempered than usual. And paranoid. He turned away Kelly. He sent out souls into the labyrinth that aren’t coming back—”

The three of them winced. None had heard from Chris Rodriguez. Pax liked to pretend he was okay.

Alabaster’s expression hardened. His knuckles turned white on the edge of his helm. “He hit Mercedes.”

Pax froze. “He what?”

Axel clenched his jaw. Mercedes hadn’t given Luke a name for their leak yet. She couldn’t find that Di Angelo child that Luke so fanatically wanted. He went from saying they didn’t need a Spy Master to using her supposed incompetency as a scapegoat to Kronos.

“Yesterday. When I told you Mercedes wanted you in the laboratory…” Alabaster trailed off. Something uncharacteristic of him. He was usually so calculated with his words. “Both of you are…” He hesitated and glanced at his mother.

Hecate nodded at him in encouragement.

Pax clutched his stomach, like he was ready to use the new helmet as a barf bag.[1] Axel understood the nausea. Mercedes was the first person to show them kindness on the Princess Andromeda.

Alabaster closed his eyes to collect himself. He squeezed the horn of the boned helm once more before his gaze shifted back to Axel. “You’re not pledged to Kronos. You can’t. Both of you have befriended those in power: Castellan’s Scourge of New Rome, his Quiet Death. The Bearer of Flames owes Axel his freedom—” Axel felt dizzy as Alabaster listed their monikers: Jack, Flynn, Prometheus.

“You can just call them their names,” Pax said weakly. “Or give them more accurate names. He Who Wears Pink Pajamas.”

Alabaster glanced to Pax, betraying the slightest of smiles over the joke at Jack’s sleepwear. “Ajax, you’ve become Mercedes’ prized spy for New Rome. Even your silly band has marked the two of you as a minor celebrity with the monsters. And—and both of you have wormed yourselves into the good graces of the children of Hecate.”

Pax feigned some bravado, leaned towards Axel, and whispered loudly, “I think Alabaster just admitted to liking us.” He straightened and looked at Alabaster. “Alabaster, you could have just said you thought we were cool. Remember how we talked about needing to sound less like a super villain about to assassinate someone?”

Alabaster’s lip twitched.

Pax balked. “Are you a super villain about to assassinate someone?”

Alabaster and Axel exchanged a glance.

That was exactly what they were talking about.

If possible, Pax’s eyes widened further. “Axeeeellll,” he whined in a tattle. “Alabaster is talking about assassinating someone!”

Alabaster sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s Kronos, Ajax. Must I spell it out for you and any hostile gods that might be eavesdropping?”

“Nah, I’m illiterate.” Pax waved a hand. “It would only help the gods.” Axel could tell how desperately his brother wanted to look aloof about the situation.

Alabaster straightened to his full height. One hand lifted a vial out of his pocket. “I can’t do this alone. I need people I trust.”

“And if we refuse?” Axel asked, eyes trained on the vial. Something about this felt wrong. But, when was the last time things felt right? Despite everything, he could picture Luke’s easy smile, the way he coaxed Jack back after Calypso captured him.

And the look of hunger on his face when he wanted to interrogate Annabeth one-on-one.

Alabaster’s expression crumbled. “I have the River Lethe water on hand. You’ll never know you were asked. And, I will be down two friends.”

Tension curled the Mist into menacing figures in their peripheral. Hecate, Axel suddenly realized, had faded into the fog around them. 

Alabaster and Axel stared at each other. It felt like they were on opposite sides of disk that was balanced on a ball. One wrong move, both would topple. Was Alabaster trying to trick Axel into admitting treachery? Or was he reaching out to commit it with him? This felt like a trap, but Alabaster had never gotten along with Luke. But, what if Luke could still be brought back?

Pax glanced from his brother to his friend. He raised his hands in an unarmed gesture. “Guys, I know you’re both paranoid, but, like, we can all agree that Luke is a dick. He—” Pax quieted. He took a shuffled step closer to Alabaster. Tactically, Alabaster shouldn’t let Pax get that close until he had an answer. “He has been. H—he hit you… when we first got here.” The end of the sentence disappeared into a mumble. Pax slipped his fingers along Alabaster’s.

          Alabaster startled. His face rouged, but he didn’t withdraw. “You hadn’t even officially joined and you were already spying for Mercedes.”

          “Only unwittingly.” Pax’s smile was shy, impish. He pressed Alabaster’s hand, and vial, back into Alabaster’s pocket.

          Something about the interaction rang Axel’s Older Brother Alarm Bells. (And, besides, did Pax have a crush on Mercedes…?) But there was too much to process to consider it now. “And if Luke can be separated from Kronos?” Axel asked.

          Alabaster shrugged. “This will give us the tools to free him, whether through aid or death. We need him to win the war, but afterwards…”

          “I don’t want to kill Luke,” Pax said, “That would make Jack very sad. And he might resurrect him. And that could start the zombie virus—Ala, do you think we could make the zombie virus in Camp Half-Blood and New Rome and win that way?”

          “Well, we—” Alabaster raised an eyebrow at him. “Super powered zombies?”

          Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them. “Oh. I see your point. Bad idea.”

          Pax and Alabaster’s hands hadn’t come out of Alabaster’s pocket. Later, Axel decided.

          Right now, the helm thrummed in his ears. There were no coherent words, just dissonance—a presence felt by way of an increasing pressure around his skull. Did the others hear it? Did they feel it? Did theirs call to them so intensely?

          The eye sockets seemed to have eyes of their own, pits of blackness. Axel thought, for a stuttered heartbeat, that an iris shifted. Reflections off metal, he assured himself. Though he knew better. Maybe others could be tricked by the Mist. He could see through it. Something was inside the helmet. Something wanted out.

          “These grant us power,” Axel summarized. Placing a hand beside the helm made the cacophony inside his head near unbearable. 

          No wonder Alabaster asked them to meet in his mother’s realm. Having these in the laboratory felt dangerous. Too much for demigods. Axel had to wonder if Alabaster was just a mouthpiece? Maybe Hecate was doing what she was rumored to do: give another option. A tertiary option to Kronos or the Olympians.

          Axel searched the surreal jungle. She had to still be here. This was, presumably, her temple, and these were her godly gifts. Even with his true sight, all he could spot was wisps of her presence in the fog: the wave of some hair, the echo of a finger, the curve of fabric along her side, none in the same spot. An unsettling notion made Axel draw his shoulders back. She was the Mist itself. Millennia of entangling with its essence had left her nearly indistinguishable.

          “Hecate?” he called, “What is the catch? What are we trading?”

          She resolidified across the altar from Axel. “While you wear these, the past will become nothing more than just a dream, so that you may regain the ability to dream.” She lifted the feline helm to examine it. As she did, the air electrified. He felt something swishing behind him in tempestuous flicks—a tail? He didn’t look. She was trying to distract him.

          “These will harness your anger, your pain, your doubts, and your fear. They manifest it and they become it, so that you may hold it separately from your own identities. So you may don it and meld with it when it is most fitting.” Her emerald gaze lifted to Axel’s. “You are trading a piece of yourself, pieces that will become my little monsters, my children. You are trading control. You will no longer have unwanted intrusions, but they will become the intrusion when you don them. I’m powerless to change your fates…” She looked to each of them in turn. Her son. Pax. Axel. “But in the end, I’ll shelter you. After all, you are my child’s cherished friends.”

          Alabaster went red.

          Breaking her somber speech, Pax nudged Alabaster. “Your mom knows she doesn’t need to pay us to hang out with you, right?”

          Alabaster shot Pax a glare.

          Axel tried to picture what that would mean, to be able to dream again without screaming, to know internal peace. He clenched his jaw. This felt like a cheat. It felt like—

          “They will fail one day,” she said, as though reading his thoughts. “You’ll need to face your fears. But, not during this war. The delay will make it traumatic, especially for you, Jaguar Child. Melding with this will cause you pain.”[2]

          Axel swallowed. Hesitantly, he reached out. The cacophony intensified, screaming until—

          “Hello, Lieutenant of Kronos.”

          Everything siphoned into that voice. Tension eased out of Axel’s shoulders. Distractions faded. He meant to just brush the cool metal with the back of one knuckle, but it was cradled in his hands. Its weight felt right, comforting. The plumes were soft as they curled around his forearm, around the blades he kept strapped there.

          Lieutenant? Axel mused, Like Atlas? A smile curled along his lips. The Leader of Assault and Battery? Or the Sabotage Unit?

          Touching the feline etching made Axel feel lighter. The calm was intoxicating. Some people went to his father to fuel their opioid addictions. He wondered if this kind of relief was similar. 

          “Do you two need a room? Or, well, a tree to hide behind?” Pax asked. He tried to sound light.

Axel startled, glancing up at his brother. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It must have been more than a few moments, as it had felt for Axel. Pax fidgeted with a satchel of something Alabaster must have given him to occupy his free hand. The one not in the Witch Boy’s pocket. Alabaster was examining Axel, expressionless. Axel ignored Pax, instead, giving Alabaster a crooked smile. “You’re not tricking me into taking a magical sleep med by throwing a rebellion, are you?”

Alabaster shrugged. “Is it working?”

          It was, but Axel didn’t want to admit that. The thought of falling asleep with this calm, all in the name of stopping a tyrant? Instead, he pointed out, “If these are going to alter how we fight and think through combat, we’ll have to test them in a controlled environment first.”

          Pax bounced on the heels of his feet. Alabaster merely nodded; he already would have planned for that.

          Axel’s fingers shook around the helm at the thought of putting it down. “Kronos will be suspicious if Luke tells him we have got specialized magic armor, if Kronos doesn’t just pull the memory out of his head.”

          “A memorandum for surviving the Roman’s raid on my laboratory,” Alabaster explained away.

          Pax rolled his eyes. Axel had to agree: Alabaster wasn’t known for being sentimental. That was an unlikely story.

          Axel considered other protests or objections. But, as he did, he realized there was no way he could put this helm down without trying it on. His gaze dropped down to the flicker of movement behind those blackened eye sockets.

          We have work to do, Lieutenant, the mask reminded him, as though they were already one.

          This wasn’t like signing up to fight Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter. That hadn’t been a choice. Luke’s men were going to kill both of them if he hadn’t signed up. But this? Alabaster was treating Axel as an equal. He was giving him the tools to fight an encroaching evil, something that was devouring his other friend.

          “I’m in,” he said.

          A dark laugh echoed from the helm, something that felt strangely comforting.

          Axel looked up to find Alabaster smiling. The Witch Boy turned to Pax. “Ajax?” he asked.

          Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them. Everyone always assumed he would follow Axel’s lead in every decision. Axel appreciated that Alabaster wanted the three of them equally committed.

          Pax hesitated. He set the satchel in Alabaster’s pocket. Timidly, he reached for the serpentine helmet. This time, he didn’t drop it, cradling it like Axel held his. He gave Alabaster and Axel a goofy grin. “Triple A Chimera assemble! Do we get a secret handshake?!”

“No,” Alabaster said. After Pax pouted at him, his stern expression cracked, “But, the helmets do come with weasel kittens, now that you’ve accepted them.”

Alabaster was excellent at delivering deadpan humor; that hadn’t sounded like a joke. Before Axel could ask him to repeat himself, he heard the soft trilling sound from the plumes.

“No…” Axel mumbled in disbelief.

There, emerging from the thick feathers, was a tiny set of squinting, beady eyes. The whole critter was miniscule, certainly smaller than Axel’s palm. Lifting its head appeared to be too much for it, the snout bobbing around uncertainly as it sniffed. A pang hit Axel’s chest. He held the helm more delicately. This was even more fragile than his pet jaguar cub, Juana, had been.

Pax squealed with delight. “It’s a weasel! It’s a baby weasel! You got us baby weasels!?” He hopped around the altar with the helmet. It made Axel want to frantically rush over to assure no tiny weasels fell out.

Alabaster plucked a pure white one out of the ivory on his skull helm. He slipped the weasel into a breast pocket on his shirt. Alabaster often had various compartments on him for spell ingredients, but—

“And you got yourself an incubator shirt?!” Pax yelped with glee. He had separated his weasel from his helmet, set the helmet on the altar, and was cradling his weasel in both hands.

Leave it to Pax to ignore the All Powerful Magical Armor.

“Kits or pups,” Alabaster corrected. “They don’t need incubators, but they will need to be fed, socialized with each other, taught to hunt, and—”

Alabaster cut off when Pax went on his tiptoes to kiss his cheek. His complexion had just settled back into that of a vampire. He went bright red again, cleared his throat, took a step back, and pointedly avoided looking at Axel.

That “later” talk that Axel and Alabaster needed to have? It was going to happen as soon as the three of them were awake.

“And named,” Alabaster tried to make it sound like there hadn’t been a pause. “Th—they’re more than pets.” He swallowed, regaining composure. “Each is an extension of your helm’s power, playing to the strength of the owner. Nietzsche can store spell runes, acting as both a roving set of prepared spells and a conduit to set magic off at a greater distance.” The tiny white head poked out of Alabster’s pocket, slitted red eyes trained on the Pax brothers.

Axel extended a finger towards his tiny charge. When the weasel sensed him, it curled about his index finger, nipping vainly. Axel had to admit, he liked her. She had spunk.

“Who gets Honey and who gets Baller?” Pax bobbed to Axel’s side.

Axel’s tiny charge clung to his finger while nodding off to sleep. “Honey and--?” he asked.

“Hunahpu and Xbalanque! Duh!” Pax cheered.

Alabaster looked relieved at the shift in conversation. “Maya names?” he asked.

Axel nodded. “The hero twins.” The names of sorcerer warriors felt fitting for gifts from Hecate. Though, Axel doubted these two weasels could feign dismemberment, the way the ancient warriors and Hecate’s children could. Well, maybe Pax’s could. That would fit Pax’s style of combat.

Pax pointed to a clustered spot of fur on the back of Axel’s. “Yours has little rosettes.”

Axel nodded. “Mine shall be Hunnapuh then.”

Pax held his up, Lion King-style. “And this shall be Baller!”[3] he proclaimed with bravado.

The three boys got to enjoy something they rarely did these days: a peaceful moment in a safe place with no one watching but a caring mother. Pax demanded they put their weasels into a kit pile in his hands. Axel surveyed this carefully, but was relieved Pax seemed to have a natural knack for tending to the little ones.

Despite discovering the existence of Greek gods, being “adopted” by someone a few years older than he was, and being cast as the heartthrob in a monster-centric metal band, these gifts were some of the biggest surprises Axel had in the past two years. Alabaster had always been uncomfortable with shows of affection. Some people got each other burgers and French fries as signs of friendship. Others gave each other weapons of war.

All of them were smiling when the jungle shook. The quake’s ripple was so strong, Pax pitched onto one side. He cradled the weasel kits protectively to his chest with one hand while smacking the forest ground with the other floor to break his fall. Axel stumbled. Alabaster snagged the edges of the altar. “Mother--?” he called.

“Mount Tams,” she said from the fog of mist, “is under attack.”

***

Thank all of you for reading! Also, thank you to those of you that left comments in my last post. I promise, I’ll be responding as soon as I can. You rock and have made it worth while to get myself to post again! In the meantime, know you have Jack in an appreciative pile of moosh and gratitude! Stay tuned for, hopefully (>>’’) every other week updates!

***

[2] Pax, “Way to hit his kink, Hecate.”

[3] I recently read up that the hero twins were pronounced, “WAH-nuh-pwuh and shi-BAY-lan-kay.” But I think younger Axel would have been too insecure to call his lil one “Pooh,” so we’re sticking with the mispronunciated, butchering of Honey and Baller.

#percy jackson and the olympians #PJO #the heroes of olympus #HOO #Tales From Mount Othrys #TFMO #alabaster c torrington #Hecate #Pax #Axel #WEASELS #FINALLY WE GET SOME MF WEASELS

[jack-and-pax]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Axel: Into the Lion’s Maw VI

The trap was a simple one. There was a chain across the floor at shin level. That, alone, didn’t reveal if the chain triggered a secondary trap, maybe Mathias’ dream: a shower of Happy Meal toys.

However, the scattered skeletal and not-so-skeletal limbs and dismembered bodies decorating the area in a half-circle? That and the massive axe blades poking out of the walls? Axel had a guess it wasn’t McDonald’s related.[1]

Axel caught up with them as Mary and Ethan triggered Part II of the Fancy Death Machine.

He tackled them from behind. Blades swooped above them as they hit the floor. Ethan’s sword and the lighter clattered to the stone ahead.

“Get off of me!” Ethan snapped.

Axel altered his weight to pin Ethan down, praying that Mary didn’t try to fight him too.[2] He knew how strong she was and didn’t want her to lift all three of them into the still-swinging blades.

“‘Swish Swoosh,’ says the pendulum! ‘Did you know that I’m but a clock unwound? Tic-Tok!’” she shrieked in glee. She rested her hands over the back of her head, like this was a game of hide-and-go seek. “‘Slooth, slosh, I’m too tired to go on.’”

Only two swooshes of death above them. Ethan, fortunately, had gotten the message and stopped struggling. Axel hoped the blades didn’t swing in a descending pattern.

Several mechanical clicks later, the axe blades settled back into place.

Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them. His lighter’s flame hadn’t gone out. The turquoise blaze spiraled lazily ahead of them, lighting up several dismembered limbs. Axel could see one wore a Happy Meal crown like a bracelet. Maybe he shouldn’t tell Matthias about that one.

Carefully, Axel sat up. He glanced to see how close the chain was. Several feet back. He didn’t readily see another trap.

“You could have gotten us killed,” Ethan snarled at Mary.

She didn’t respond. Her gaze had gone unfocused on Axel’s lighter.

Axel picked it up, watching her reaction as he did. She didn’t blink or follow the flame. She stared into the darkness. He didn’t know if that was more or less comforting than her earlier attention.

Ethan snatched up his sword. “We should leave her and get out of here,” he hissed.

Axel hesitated. She seemed completely nonresponsive. “I don’t want her to pick us off, one by one.” Axel could imagine her popping out of various doors in the labyrinth, Scooby Doo style, hoisting off demigods.

“What do you propose, genius?” Ethan Nakamura snapped.

We could unleash her onto Camp Half-Blood, the helm rumbled.

Axel liked that idea even less. She wasn’t a weapon. Unlike most gods, Axel didn’t get the vibe she was intentionally hurting people. He wondered if Prometheus could help her remember herself. He doubted “Mary” was her godly moniker. And, if it was, Catholicism had quite a few delusions that needed untangling.

“She could come with us,” Axel said.

Ethan glared, pointedly, at Axel’s bent shoulder pauldron then at the finger prints she’d left on Ethan’s arm bracer.

Point taken. They couldn’t exactly stroll merrily arm-in-arm.

Axel glanced at the pile of corpses. “If we have her hold a severed limb as we walked, she’d crush that instead of our hands.”

Ethan’s glare deepened. “I don’t like being mocked, Mayan,” he spat the last word like an insult.

Axel clenched his jaw. Anger boiled in his stomach. It eased when his helm spoke, Sacrifice him to this goddess to assure safe passage.

It was strangely calming. Maybe it shouldn’t have been comforting to be the reasonable one between you and your enchanted armor, but Axel would take the wins he could.

“I wasn’t mocking you or joking about the limb,” Axel said once he could keep his voice even. Alabaster or Pax would have brainstormed with him. He desperately wanted that right now. Maybe Ethan hadn’t carried enough limbless Titans around to know about the mythological options. “I was trying to figure out how to bring a lost minor goddess back to camp.”

Ethan lowered his gaze. He adjusted his shoulder straps.

At least he wasn’t arguing.

Axel crouched down near Mary, but not within touching distance. “Mary, what do you want to do?”

She blinked, still staring absently into the dark. “I don’t want to do anything.” Her voice was a soft drone compared to the previous fluttery tone.

Axel hesitated again. “Are you dangerous?”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She dug her nails deeper into her scabs. “No.”

If she hadn’t proved how easily she could snap his arm, he might have touched her shoulder.

“You heard her. She wants to be left here,” Ethan said, “We need to get back to the others.”

The sacrifice is correct. We must rally your troops for battle.

Axel swallowed and rose. He would be sure to tell the other minor gods  and titans about her. She shouldn’t be left to wander like this in the labyrinth. “I’ll make sure others know you’re here.”

She continued to silently weep as Axel and Ethan cautiously retreated. When they stepped over the trip chain, Axel lost sight of her amidst the dismembered corpses.

“This feels wrong,” he murmured. Which titans would be able to help her—? “Oh—this way.”

Ethan had turned down an unlit corridor. He paused and glared back. “How can you tell?”

Axel gestured towards the dim glow of the corridor beyond his turquoise firelight. “Can you not see it?”

“I can still see,” Ethan snapped, a little too quickly.

Axel paused, considering Camp Othrys’ newest recruit, examining his weathered eye patch in the flickering light. Ethan was very quick to assume others intended insult. “Where were you? Before here.”

Ethan looked away. He fidgeted with his shoulder straps again. “Cabin Eleven.”

“The children of Hermes weren’t particularly kind about your eye?”

He sneered. “Children of the trickster god. What do you think?”

Axel nodded in understanding. Maybe Ethan wouldn’t be shedding any tears for the missing Chris Rodriguez. “I didn’t mean anything about your vision. The floor has a glow to it in the direction we need to travel.” He would need to ask Alabaster why no one else could see it. Navigating the labyrinth didn’t seem that daunting. Axel took a step forward, then paused one more time. “Which side do you prefer I walk on?”

If Ethan had previous cabin mates that teased him about his vision, Axel imagined he would have a preference that was frequently denied.

Ethan gave him a suspicious look. He pointed to his blindside. “Make sure nothing attacks us from your direction.”

Strategic, Axel mused, trusting Ethan to guard their other side.

They began walking.

The corridor seemed to have elongated. Axel hoped the other demigods were still there. He hoped Mary hadn’t sprinted them away in a sack like a evil Santa Claus, handing demigods out to hungry mythological creatures like presents.

“I’m sorry about the Mayan thing,” Ethan said.

Axel grunted.

“I thought only mortals could have clear sight that strong,” Ethan said, “Why didn’t you tell Lord Kronos that sooner? You could have saved us a lot of trouble navigating the labyrinth.” It sounded accusatory.

In answer to both, Axel asked, “What is clear sight?” He thought about it. “You mean that I can see through the Mist? I don’t hide that. I didn’t know that would affect how we travel the labyrinth.”

Ethan snorted. Axel was getting the vibe this kid didn’t like him. “That seems convenient. Alongside the fact that you haven’t pledged your soul to Lord Kronos.”

Axel stopped walking and pivoted to face Ethan, only to realize Ethan couldn’t see the movement. Convenient? The lion’s helm felt heavy on his back. Did—did Ethan somehow know about—there was no way he could know about Alabaster’s meeting. That happened in Hecate’s realm—probably somewhere in Erebos. “I can’t. I’m not a half-blood.” He gritted his teeth. “And who told you that?”

Not many people knew. Except Pax, Alabaster, and—

“Lord Kronos.”

He couldn’t help it. “You mean Luke?” Axel resumed walking.

“Show him respect,” Ethan snapped.

Axel didn’t know how to break it to Ethan: he’d seen Luke so drunk he could barely sit on his barstool as he babbled about how beautiful Thalia was. There would be no “lord” when talking about his friend.

Ethan seemed to straighten his posture. “Lord Kronos will be sending me on a secret mission.”

Maybe Axel should point out the definition of “secret” in a dictionary to Ethan. Instead, Axel grunted, “Good for you.”

“And I plan to assure no one gets in the way of it.” Ethan turned his head sharply, so he could see Axel. This time, his expression was one of wary curiosity. “You’re really not the spy, are you? You’re not going to ask me any question about it?”

“What are you talking about?” Axel made sure not to make eye contact. He missed the standard issue helmet that covered his ears. They could be a dead giveaway when he was uncomfortable. He wasn’t a spy though. He was just making back-up plans to kill Luke if his friend totally lost his mind. Axel refrained from rolling his eyes, wondering which “Lord Kronos” would find more treacherous.

“The Romans knew about the Hecate child’s lab,” Ethan pushed, like Axel hadn’t been there, “I’ve heard what some of the monsters are saying. There have been other times the Romans knew too much.”

“I almost died in that raid,” Axel growled. He’d just been happy that he and Alabaster managed to keep Pax somewhat safe.

“And you got elevated to a hero with your brother and friend. I think you three have been very… lucky,” Ethan said the word like it was vulgar.

Lucky?! Axel barely refrained from pivoting to hit Ethan.

No one will find his body in the labyrinth.

This helm kept making excellent points.

Clutching the helm’s cold metal over his shoulder, Axel managed to control his temper. “What does that have to do with me not being or being a spy?”

“Sometimes you need to take things into your own hands. Make your own destiny.” Ethan tapped his eye patch. “Before someone steals it away. I’m going to find this spy, and I’m going to kill them.”

Axel didn’t like that Ethan was investigating this behind Mercedes’ back. He knew Mercedes had been working tirelessly. He wondered if he could—no, if Pax could—ask her about her best guesses. Axel and Alabaster still wanted Camp Jupiter to fall, but maybe this Roman spy would be useful to their cause. Maybe they could work together.

In the meantime, Axel didn’t like that Ethan’s investigation had come near him or his friends. “Nakamura, don’t go around accusing others without evidence.”

That’s what he meant to say. But lion’s helm chose then to speak, “Child of Nemesis, if you hurt anyone under my protection, I will break every bone in your body, starting with your left hand. And when I’m done with you, you will have neither an eye with which to see nor a tongue with which to slander.”

Axel was beginning to really enjoy this helm’s input.

-----------------------------

Thank you for reading! And thank you for your patience! Life should be hopefully settling down in the next month or so. (I feel like I’ve been saying this for awhile, but let me live in my delusions, damn it! XD)

I hope you enjoyed! This chapter felt janky to edit since it has been awhile. Hoping, as always, to get back onto a regular writing/upload schedule, but we might have another skip while life gets settled.

Thank all of you for your continued support! You guys rock and all your asks, comments, and likes have been very encouraging! (Which, I promise, I will one day get to! XD)

---------------------------------

Footnotes:

[1] Pax wanted to point out that it is: just Ronald McDonald FNAF edition.

[2] I don’t think you’d be in my fan base, but for those of you who were looking for Axamura—

Pax, singing from somewhere, “When the cat hits your back in a Paxboy attack, Axamura!“ (Name that song--!)

#percy jackson and the olympian #PJO #ethan nakamura #Mary #Tales from mount Othrys #hoo #heroes of olympus #writing #fanfiction #pjo fanfiction #axel #tfmo #The start of Axel's bromance with his helm #er--horror storyyyy #legit though thank you guys for the support #AND PAX's BIRTHDAY WISHES

[happyk44]

Imagining the New Rome army storming Mount Othrys. They defeat all the monsters before they advance to the throne room where Krios awaits. Some of them have been left behind due to injuries that the medics are fixing so the advancing team is smaller than they want.

Up until this point Jason has always seemed so normal. They think it's funny given how long he spent with the wolves compared to the rest of them - that he's no different, no stranger than they are. He's so prim and proper and rigid. He's ultimately kind, he rarely denies helping people if asked, but he always has tension in his shoulders. It's been there since he arrived, and has never disappeared once.

Thinking about the team sending out a couple people to check. When they come back, they inform the rest of the army about Krios waiting for them. They have to strategize fast. Reyna and other leaders bite out quick orders, sectioning the people they have left into various attack units so they can eliminate Krios fast. But one group doesn't know their orders. Jason hasn't delivered them yet.

They look around. Jason hasn't gone anywhere. He stands before them, stripping himself of his armour, of his weapons. And he's gone before they can stop him, charging forward and into the throne room.

Orders are delivered swiftly and then they're off after him. But they fall short at the scene before them.

Jason is aburst with blue-white lightning. The tendrils glitch and snap off him. Krios is pouring blood from a dozen wounds. He stands twenty-feet tall, maybe larger, but is stumbling around. His helmet has been blown open. One half of his face has been burned and hacked to bloody mangled pieces. His horns have been shattered, pieces scattered across the floor that he trips and fumbles over.

His twin swords slash desperately through rhe air as Jason is an unstoppable force of energy. He's using techniques the army has never seen from him before - even Reyna. He's snarling, growling, like a dog. He bites and claws and wraps Krios' throat tight with lightning whips that has the Titan roaring in pain.

He uses his leverage on the Titan's neck to knock him down, flat to his stomach. He catches himself on the top of an obsidian throne.

Then leaps through the air.

A lightning bolt shatters the roof as it lands in Jason's hand. He grips it tight and lands on Krios with a thunderous shout, driving the bolt deep into the Titan's battered form. The scream Krios gives still haunts some soldiers.

The laugh that snarls from Jason's throat still haunts all of them.

He hacks and slashes like a man determined, giving up on his lightning to instead rip apart the Titan with his bare hands, like a wolf. Blood has so thoroughly drenched him, he's unrecognizable by the time he calms. He stands languidly and loose.

The tension that has held him tight all these years has vanished.

He turns and blasts the throne into pieces. There is no maniacal victory in his eyes, in his stance. He doesn't smile, doesn't seem overjoyed by what he's done. But he's thoroughly at ease. Content. Calm.

The pieces of Krios dissolve away - not like monster dust, but into golden-black glistening ooze, sinking through the throne room floor, dragged back to Tartarus where they belong. Jason watches until every bit is gone. Then turns to the army that stands horrified in the open door way.

"Is everyone okay?" he calls out.

There's a persistent silence. Then Dakota chokes out, "Yeah, man, we're all good."

Now Jason smiles. "Great!" A burst of static crackles over his arms. His smile softens. "I'm glad."

The ones left behind may not have believed the other's tale of Jason's single-handed battle had he not emerged still drenched in blood. He stands beneath a summoned raincloud and lets it wash him clean of his conquest. There are a few wounds on his end, but they are small and shallow and healing fast.

A field medic daughter of Febris approaches him, baffled and awed by how swift his wounds heal without assistance. Jason has always healed fast, but this is pushing it. He doesn't even look tired, or mildly winded.

When she ghosts her fingertips over the last wound, barely a scratch now on his upper shoulder, she feels a strange bustle of air around it. Like a battery, she thinks. He can't grow tired, can't bleed, when the source of all his energy swirls around him. The more he generates around him, the more he recharges.

It's amazing.

It's terrifying.

"What were you thinking?" Reyna asks the next night, when the celebrations are still going, and energy remains high.

They're both tucked away in the high branches of a tree. Jason is staring ahead, watching the festivities. But Reyna cannot tear her gaze from his face.

He slides a hand across his thigh and shrugs. "I was thinking it wasn't fair that we had to do this again. Monsters are one thing, they're supposed to come back. But Titans - they're supposed to stay where they are. It wasn't right that he came back from Tartarus. So I had to put him back in the ground like my father did."

He tilts his face up to the sky. A gentle breeze sweeps against them both.

"That was the just thing to do," Jason says, and Reyna thinks of him covered in blood, tearing at a corpse like a rabid animal and wonders just how much of it was truly justice personified and how much of it was hidden ferality finally finding a reason to expose its sharp teeth.

#jason grace #wolf!jason #happy talks pjo

[tsarisfanfiction]

Eclipse: Chapter 32

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Adventure Characters: Apollo, Hades We're finally here - the last chapter and end of this story. This fic's been a year and a half in the making, and it feels weird that it's finally done and posted. To head off the question I know is coming (because it's already been floated in the discord) - no, there is currently no plan for a sequel. Yes, there is definitely space for it, and if it happens it will be the Revolution~, but I have several other projects at the moment that I want to work on, and honestly writing a full blown revolution fic would be a lot of work and time I don't have right now. So for now at least, assume there won't be one. I'm not making any promises on the next project or when it'll come, but I have several muses clamouring for attention so there should be another longfic out of me at some point... In the meantime, I have a discord server for all my fics, including this one!  If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi! <<Chapter 31

APOLLO XXXII

A goodbye for now The future keeps coming, but This tale is over

Hades rolled his eyes.  “You do not need to thank me, nephew,” he said, the familial title sounding almost fond and reminding Apollo yet again of Hades’ words after the Arai.  “I never intended to allow Nico to return to the Pit; it should be I thanking you for preventing it when he had found a way to get around my notice.”

Apollo had no words to say to that, a creeping feeling of awkwardness descending around them.  In the Pit it had been one thing, an alliance for survival against the Pit and everything it tried to throw at them – which had, eventually, been everything or close enough to it that Apollo was still amazed that they had escaped, and thoroughly grateful to Thanatos for choosing to aid them.  Now, there was no adrenaline tying them together, no co-dependence for survival.

They were safe once more, in Hades’ domain where Apollo had less power while his uncle ruled over every daktylos of it, and Apollo was not sure if he was expected to stay and talk, or if he had overstayed his welcome and was required to leave, now that the demigods had departed and Asclepius sentenced.

Silence stretched between them, before Hades broke it with a sigh.  “I did not lie, in the Pit,” he said.  “Your presence is more tolerable than that of your siblings and cousins.”  There was a weighted pause.  “Certainly more tolerable than your father.”

“I don’t think being more tolerable than him is much of an achievement,” Apollo muttered, and Hades let out an amused noise.

“No, it is not,” he said.  “Once, he was fair and just.  Now, he has allowed paranoia to devour any common sense he once had and isolates himself, fearing a knife in the back at every turn.  In truth, he is hardly recognisable from the young god I recall leading us from Mount Othrys, except in his determination.”

Apollo knew the stories, but that had been long before he and Artemis had been conceived so all he knew were the stories, most of which had been told to an infant god by his mother.  Zeus had rarely spoken of it, and Apollo had never been close enough to the other involved gods for them to tell him about it.

“Speaking of your father, and my siblings,” Hades continued, “I was not expecting Poseidon to drag himself from his watery depths, much less to take the side of Bob.  Athena, perhaps I could understand your sister gathering, but Poseidon keeps himself out of reach of Olympus almost as much as I.”

“It wasn’t Artemis.”  That much, Apollo knew, but the sound of his sister’s name provoked a memory of a vision, of two demigods scribbling symbols on a piece of paper.  An awkward, not-quite bubble letter ‘C’ – or rather, he realised, a crescent – squiggly lines stacked above each other in parallel rows, a stick figure that could creatively be called a bird.

At the time, Apollo had been too distracted with the aftermath of the Arai to recognise what the bad iconography had represented, but now he recalled mention of Percy and Annabeth, and the pieces slotted together.

“It was Will and Nico,” he said, meeting his uncle’s eyes as Hades froze.  “Somehow – Nico’s dream-walking – they reached out.  They must have known bringing a titan out wouldn’t go down well and tried to find allies.”

It was a laughable thought – allies amongst the Olympians.  Artemis was unique, his twin and intrinsically tied to him because of it, covering his back when she could manage, but the other gods?  No.

Except, Hades had stood with him, still stood with him, amicable and merciful to the son who offended him more than once, and Zeus had been the one outnumbered in the throne room.  It hadn’t been an alliance – Apollo had allied with three of the gods in there before, to try and talk Zeus into being a little less tyrannical, and that hadn’t been the same at all – but it had been something.

Trust demigods, who had little scope of the dynamic between gods, but an innate knowledge of how powerful friends in the right places could be, to head straight to the heart of the matter and enlist them regardless.  They must have gone through their friends – Percy and Annabeth, for Poseidon and Athena, and Reyna or Thalia to reach Artemis – all demigods who also knew the strength in bonds.

Asclepius had warned them against it, but hadn’t stopped them – enough of a god to know how unlikely it was to work, yet with the memories of a demigod who knew it needed to work.

Hades sighed, clenching a fist in the fabric of his robes.  The souls around his fingers twisted into something even more agonised.  “Foolish children.”

“Very,” Apollo agreed whole-heartedly, “but it worked.”

His uncle scoffed.  “It shouldn’t have done,” he said.  “My son’s irreverence for the gods will get him killed one day, if he is not careful.  It is one thing not to fear me – for all he should.”  Apollo didn’t think for a single moment that Hades was as irritated about his son’s lack of fear as he projected; parents who wanted to inspire fear tended not to put themselves in danger to protect their child.  “It is another to argue with or attempt to manipulate other gods, who would as soon as smite him down as listen.”

He wasn’t wrong, but Apollo could not see how they could convince Nico not to keep doing exactly as he pleased.  It was not as though the son of Hades hadn’t experienced first hand the wrath of a god – Apollo recalled the death of Maria di Angelo all too well, and not just because it had coincided with his uncle cursing his Pythia in his furious grief.

That had been the moment Bianca and Nico had been marked as important, to the future.  Their potential had always been there, but the potential had also been there for them to die in the war, forgotten casualties like so many others of the time period.  Zeus’ attack on Maria had provoked Hades’ defence of the children, squirrelling them away, out of the time stream and safe until it was time to bring them back out to re-join the world.

“In the future, I expect William to attempt to stop my son’s suicidal plans, not enable them,” Hades said, and Apollo gave a shrug.

“I’m sure he’ll do what he can,” he said lightly, well aware that Will’s own stubbornness and strong morals were more likely to have him joining Nico in the chaos, rather than pulling him out of it.  Even when he’d tried to keep Nico out of harms’ way, it had happened anyway.

“See that he does,” Hades grumbled, but Apollo suspected he, too, knew that the demigods were a lost cause.  As long as they were happy, that was the most important thing – although safe and alive were also listed at the top of Apollo’s priority list, and no doubt Hades’ as well.

His uncle stepped past him, as though heading for his throne once again, but paused after a few steps, turning back to face Apollo, who had half thought that he had just been dismissed.

“The prophecy,” he began.  “I find it curious that topaz referenced Koios.”

“I thought you didn’t care for prophecies,” Apollo retorted, defensive almost without thinking – it had been enough of a struggle getting his uncle to comprehend the idea of claiming one, and now Hades wanted to talk about the wording?

Hades hesitated, something that had been unnerving enough in the depths of Tartarus, but now in his own domain just seemed wrong.  “I cannot say that I like them,” he admitted, a truth Apollo had long been aware of, “but I realise now that they exist nonetheless, and will not be gainsaid by my refusal to listen.  I was… rash, when I cursed her.  Your Pythia.  I… should not have done that.”

It took Apollo a moment to realise his uncle was apologising, and another moment for the implications to sink in.  It changed nothing; Cassie’s life had been forfeit and she had been forced to endure long beyond the limits of her mortal life, restricted from death but unable to live.  With the lifting of the curse and the transference of her duties to Rachel, she had finally been allowed to rest, her torment over.

It also, Apollo realised suddenly, was not something he could condemn Hades for.  Perhaps once he would have done, a hypocrite of the highest order or perhaps simply forgetting his own crimes, but thinking now about a young woman cursed by a god for no good reason, Apollo could only remember the Cumaean Sibyl and the grains of sand he had made her life.

He had long waited for Hades to acknowledge what he had done to Cassie, to apologise for it, but now that he had received it, it gave him no satisfaction at all.  The act of his uncle apologising, and apologising to him, was strange enough in its own right, a flicker of warmth within his essence because apologies were not given lightly between gods, but it was cooled unpleasantly because as soon as he received it, it sent a chill through him.

He couldn’t accept it.

“You are not the only god to curse a prophetess in a moment of rage,” he admitted, glancing down at the polished black marble of Hades’ throne room floor before meeting his uncle’s eyes.  Hades looked surprised, as though he hadn’t known about the Sibyl – but perhaps he hadn’t, her name not appearing on Thanatos’ list of souls to be reaped and leaving that crime of Apollo’s unrevealed.  “I cannot condemn you for it when I have done worse.”

Cassie still had a body, when she was finally allowed to pass on.  The Sibyl of Cumae had been nothing but a naked and vulnerable soul, her body long since decayed to nothing while she still endured.  Apollo could not call it living, not in that state.

Hades’ eyes regarded him, surprise flickering in black flames for a few moments before morphing into something else, softer and yet harder at the same time.  “In that case,” he said after several long moments, during which Apollo felt exposed in a way he hadn’t even when his form had been torn to shreds and his essence was the only thing left of him, “let me rephrase.  In cursing your Pythia, I belittled and disrespected you and your domain.  You and she attempted to use Delphi to protect Maria and her children, and when I did not listen, I lashed out at the ones that would have helped me, had I allowed it.  If you will not accept an apology for my treatment of her, then let me instead apologise for the disrespect I gave you then.”

Apollo froze.  He had thought Hades would brush off the attempted apology and continue with whatever it was he had to say about the wording of the one they had claimed, not that he would amend the apology to address what was, in essence, the real offence.

“I still do not like prophecies,” Hades confirmed, “and I do not believe I ever will.  But they are part of the Fates’ designs, a part of your power, and I should not have lashed out.”

If the previous apology had startled Apollo, this one floored him.  His uncle apologising for a single rash action was one thing, but to delve into the heart of the issue and apologise for what was, at its core, disrespecting Apollo?  No, Apollo had never even considered the possibility.

He also knew that he could not brush this one away.

“Thank you,” he said.  There were no other words good enough in the face of Hades’ honesty, no elaborate speeches that would share his gratitude so eloquently.  “That…”  His breath hitched, as he realised just how much it meant, but also that while Hades had been open with him, he hadn’t returned the gesture.  “That means a lot.”

It felt wrong, baring himself, but if Hades could do it in Tartarus, then Apollo owed it to him to at least try.  “I know it’s less competition, but you’ve always been the most tolerable of my father’s siblings.”

Hades’ face went blank.  “Even Hestia?”

Apollo’s heart did an awkward twist at that, remembering her rejection of his advances.  In hindsight, it had been the correct decision, for both of them, but at the time…  Apollo had respected it, but he hadn’t been used to rejection.  Not when he was the young, handsome god everyone was falling over to be near, let alone with.

“You have never rejected my presence,” he settled on.  It must have been good enough, because Hades did not press further.  “Then, you protected me, in the Pit.”

“We protected each other,” Hades said, his face still unreadable.  Apollo hoped he hadn’t just overstepped, hadn’t just ruined everything he thought they’d created in Tartarus.  “It has been a long time since anyone trusted me like you did.”

The corner of Apollo’s lip quirked up humourlessly.  “It’s been a long time since anyone stood between me and Father.”  He could scarcely believe that he was admitting that, that he was admitting any of his thoughts, but after his uncle had been so open with him – it was the right thing to do.

It also, inexplicably, made his essence feel lighter, like a great weight had just dispersed.  “Thank you.”

Hades nodded, a single tilt of his chin acknowledging his words, but when he spoke it was a change of topic, backtracking to the comment that had sparked their openness.  Apollo followed the subject change eagerly – baring himself, being honest, was unnerving at best, and if Hades didn’t want to leave those words hanging between them awkwardly, then he was more than happy to oblige.

“The prophecy,” his uncle said.  “Topaz was an interesting choice for Koios.”  With a flick of his wrist, a collection of gemstones appeared in his hand, a mixture of fiery oranges and yellows, and faded blues.  “These are all topaz,” he said.  “It comes in a variety of colours, but these are the most common ones, and amongst the common colours, its reputation is for yellows and oranges, not blue.  Yet you and Koios both accepted without question that it was him.”

Apollo gazed at the gemstones, bright and pure in the hands of their god, and could only shrug.  “Prophecies are not set in stone,” he reminded his uncle.  “Topaz certainly referred to Koios” – he’d known that, felt the certainty of an event coming to pass – “but had events resolved differently, there may have been another prisoner of the Pit who better fit the other colouration.”

“You,” Hades said bluntly, not even letting Apollo pause before jumping in.  “If you had gone without me, it would have been you.”

“It could have also been Asclepius,” Apollo corrected, “or anyone who ended up in the Pit and could be conceivably associated with one of the many colours of topaz.”  Like Will and Nico.  “Once a prophecy has come to pass, the other potential interpretations are meaningless.”  Discarded possibilities, like so many of his visions over the millennia, because there were near infinite possibilities but there was only one future that would ever come to pass.

“And it has come to pass?” Hades pressed.

“Yes,” Apollo said simply.  “It has.”

Really, there was no more to be said on the matter.  Prophecies were simple, in hindsight, and this one was no different; he and Hades had ventured to the depths of the prison in Tartarus, and helped Bob and Koios leave – with the help of Thanatos – before he and Artemis had cast Koios back down at the moment their domains overlapped.  It was almost too simplistic to encompass everything else the prophecy had caused, the weeks of impossible-to-track time trudging through Tartarus and suffering everything the Pit chose to throw at them.  None of it had been even referenced in the vaguest terms by the prophecy, and yet without it none of it would have happened.

“In that case, it is time we returned to our duties,” Hades said, turning away once more and continuing his way to his throne, resizing to fit.  Almost instinctively, Apollo grew to match, even though this time he was sure that was the start of a dismissal.  “Thanatos did well, but he is not this realm’s god.  Likewise, the sun felt wrong, without you at the reins.  The gods from the other pantheons are not you, Apollo, and you are irreplaceable.  Do not let anyone, least of all your father, tell you otherwise.”

Ichor rushed around Apollo’s cheeks, and he pushed it down with only the innate force of will and absolute control being a god allowed him – things he had sorely missed as a mortal, when his body had failed him on multiple, often humiliating, occasions.

“So are you,” he replied, reaching for the sunlight high above them, in the Overworld.  “See you later, dear uncle.”

“One last thing, nephew,” Hades said, and he paused, casting his gaze up at the god sat on his throne as the address registered.  “Next time you need help, just ask.”  There was no if, just a simple when, and Apollo wasn’t sure what to think about that when he was the god of prophecy and had no inkling of when he might need it, but the look on his uncle’s face was intent.  “You know where to find me.”

It was a promise, Apollo realised, briefly losing his grip on the light high above in surprise.  A promise of aid, when he needed it – something he hadn’t had in millennia.

“I- thank you,” he breathed, before finding enough presence of mind to say, “the same goes for you, uncle.”  Hades rolled his eyes.

“If I need your help, I will call,” he said, but despite the eye-roll the tone wasn’t dismissive; rather, it was serious enough that Apollo could feel that he meant it.  “Now, go.”

That was a dismissal, with no room for misunderstanding, but it wasn’t harsh, and Apollo gave his uncle a grin and a wave before latching onto the warmth of the sun and dissolving into light.

The sun was only just risen, a new dawn to mark a new day, but it was late enough that Apollo had once again missed the timing for the chariot.  Tomorrow, then, he would take the reins again, although he was well aware that his horses required a lot of bribing and grovelling before then for disappearing on them again, despite the fact he had warned them this time.

Perhaps it was a good thing that he had almost an entire day to spare.  Part of him immediately flickered away to Helios’ old palace in a near-repeat of when he’d re-ascended as a god – sure enough, Hermes had piled up all the subscriptions and repeating orders he hadn’t cancelled across the door again, and once Apollo got past it to enter the stables, the greeting he found himself on the receiving end of was very similar, complete with hooves in delicate areas.

Most of him, however, had only one destination in mind, and it was barely a thought to reappear at the edge of Camp Half-Blood, watching the demigods stir as their new day began.  His children were all up and about already – Will was curled up in a suntrap near the porch of cabin seven, the unmistakable shadow of Nico tucked away outside of the sun’s rays but with his boyfriend nonetheless.

Will looked much better under the light of the morning sun, even if it was a sun that wasn’t Apollo’s.  Tomorrow, when he took to the skies once again, he would ensure a boost to his son – it was the least he could do, after being the reason he had been trapped in the Underworld for so long.

“I hear you and the old man below stirred up some drama,” a voice drawled from behind him.  Apollo had sensed Dionysus’ arrival and refused to give him the satisfaction of being startled when he began to speak.  Dionysus had gained enough blackmail material to last him millennia simply from Apollo’s second, brief visit to camp on his and Meg’s way to Nero and their fake surrender.  He did not need any more.  “A titan rescued from the Pit, wasn’t it?”

“Bob,” Apollo confirmed, still watching the demigods as Kayla prodded Will incessantly until he stood up – bringing Nico with him – and meandered his way to the breakfast table.  That appeared to be a cue for the others to swarm their brother and Nico, and Apollo was abruptly reminded that as far as the rest of the camp were considered, Will and Nico had simply disappeared for two months without a trace.  No wonder they were delighted to see them back, and in one piece at that.  “Formerly known as Iapetus.”

Dionysus snorted.  “I bet Father loved that,” he commented.

“Not particularly,” Apollo replied.  “The Fates intervened.”

That got the full attention of his younger brother.  Apollo felt the burning violet flames of his eyes boring into the back of his head.  “The Fates?”

“‘Bob will aid Olympus in her time of need’,” he quoted.  “‘Because Olympus aided him’.”

That prompted another snort from the other god.  “Father definitely loved that.  I almost wish I’d been there to see his face.  Where is Bob now?”

“Reuniting with Percy and Annabeth,” Apollo told him.  “New Rome probably received rather a shock when he arrived with his chaperone goddess.”  He suspected it would have been Athena who went with him on that particular errand, given that it concerned her daughter.  Apollo certainly would have gone himself in her position.

Dionysus flapped a hand dismissively, clearly uncaring about New Rome’s potential collective heart attack.  “So, what happens now, brother?” he asked.  “Do we just continue in this boring dirge of an existence, ignoring the titan’s presence outside of the Pit, until something exciting enough to change things occurs?”

“Life isn’t boring,” Apollo corrected.  “Did we not already establish that you will continue making wine out of the sour grapes deposited in your way?  But as for me – Will demanded I drop by, and he seems awake enough now, so if you don’t mind-”

“One last question,” Dionysus said, the lazy drawl of his voice disappearing to be replaced with something dangerous.  “The voice summoning Nico.  I trust there will be no more noises dragging my patient into situations that worsen his mental health?”

Alcyoneus sprang to mind, jewels and rocks combined as he sent out a cry that had sounded all too much like help me despite an eternal grin on his face, luring Nico down simply to get to Hades.  Apollo also recalled the way his and Hades’ essences had intermingled, furious and deadly even to a giant.

“The voice will not call him again,” he said confidently.  “Hades and I made sure of it.”

“Good.”  The single word was vehement enough it almost made Dionysus sound personally invested in the situation.   Apollo almost called him out on it, but movement from the pavilion drew his eye back to Will.

Will, who was looking directly at him and pointing a firm finger at the stone table cabin seven used as their own.  Apollo wasn’t sure how his son had noticed him, but he was not about to ignore such a blatant summons.

The rest of the table were beckoning him over as well, a total of eleven demigods including one son of Hades, and Apollo homed in on them like a fly to honey, slipping onto the bench next to Will, Austin on his other side.

“Is it over?” Will demanded, skipping greetings in favour of jumping straight into the grilling.  None of his siblings looked surprised at the question, and Apollo assumed they’d all dragged the story out of Will the moment he and Nico had reappeared in camp.

Apollo smiled at him, and looped an arm around his shoulders.  Instantly, his son nestled against him, and Apollo got a sense of tiredness.  Of course, he and Nico had lost all semblance of a sleep schedule in the Underworld for so long, so far away from the movement of the sun and the moon.  Arriving back in the middle of the night must have been a shock to their systems.

Was it over?  Was anything ever, really, over, when the future kept marching forwards, adjusting to the tune of millions of small, individually inconsequential decisions with every new weave from the Fates’ loom?

But Will wasn’t asking about the universe.  He was asking about Tartarus, about the voice calling his boyfriend, about the prophecy issued to him – but also to Apollo – and the titan that had clawed his way back out of the Pit and had no intentions of ever returning.

According to those, the answer was simple.  “Yes,” Apollo promised, pressing a light kiss to blond waves.  “It’s over.”

End.

#trials of apollo #trials of apollo fanfiction #riordanverse #riordanverse fanfic #pjo hades #pjo apollo #will solace #nico di angelo #solangelo #pjo dionysus #kayla knowles #austin lake #cabin seven #tsari writes fanfiction #eclipse

[jacereaall]

They're scheming

[Image description provided in Alt)

Lou Ellen and Ajax Pax from: @jflashandclash 's delightful fanfic, Tales From Mount Othrys.

What I imagined a pre-mission talk before "Ajax: Why little siblings need fidget spinners II" looked like.

Under the cut: close ups.

#their planning how to jump ehem i mean join Axel in his super awesome super secret mission #they did each others nails before this btw #pax messed his up by moving immediately after lol #ajax pax #lou ellen blackstone #pjo #tfmo #my art #description in alt #percy jackson fanfiction

[m4gp13]

do you have any ta fic recommendations?

I don't know how to make links so bear with me here and I apologise:

Prelude to sunrise by crystallines. It centres on Alabaster and Ethan in the aftermath of the big battle, Al managed to stop Ethan from dying and now they need to figure out their next move. It can be read as romantic or platonic. It was a little angsty but not so much that I felt like crying for hours after reading it. It's a one-shot and it's only 2,767 words so it's a pretty easy read if you're looking for something to pass the time.

Full circle by crystallines. This one did make me stare at my wall for a solid five minutes which, considering my attention span, is a lot. It focuses on the relationship between Ethan and Silena during the years before and during the war plus a little after. It was, unfortunately, canon-compliant which obviously means death but it was very well written and made me stay put even when it absolutely devastated me. It's very angsty with some hurt/ no comfort but if that's your jam go right ahead. My one piece of criticism is that I feel like Al was pretty ooc but aside from that solid read. It's another one-shot, this time 15,866 words so it's a bit longer but it won't take you very long to read.

From Outsider's Perspective by Kairi_Ruka. This is from the perspective of who I believe is some kind of fast-food cashier who sees a little ta business going on but, as a mortal, has no idea that the scruffy teens they just served were probably there refuelling after a long hard day of trying to kill god, ya know, as kids do these days. This fic includes some light banter between friends and some slightly less angst if you know what's going on. It's a very light read, only 1,797 words, so don't expect a heavy plot but it was a fun read.

Tales From Mount Othrys by jflashandcrash. I feel like I should warn you right off the bat that this is a 124,959 word fic with 45 chapters and counting so maybe clear your schedule of bookmark it before starting. It does contain a lot of OC's so skip if that's not your thing but I did enjoy a lot of the characters. I like that this fic has some comedy without shying away from the horrible acts done by both sides in the war. It is a pretty long fic and it covers from before Percy's quest up to botl and I think the author intends to keep going with it up to tlo. Personally, I enjoyed this take on the titan army especially because I haven't really seen it anywhere else and I did like the writing. Some of the paragraphs can be pretty intimidating but if you can read them I suggest you do. It was fun to read and I love how Al was with his sister. Also, I believe this author has written some other titan army fics that I haven't gotten around to reading yet so maybe check them out.

I know this list is super short and I'm sorry. These are only the ones I've read, I'm sure there are other good ones out there and I encourage you to find them! These can all be found on AO3 if you're curious. I do have roughly five ta fic works in progress so if you're interested in knowing more about those let me know. Thanks for the ask and have a nice day <3

#ask answered #the titan army #pjo #percy jackson #ethan nakamura #alabaster torrington #alabaster c torrington #luke castellan

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mouth Othrys

Axel: Into the Lion’s Maw III

A thunderous crack startled Axel out of sleep. At first, he thought Hecate had darkened the Mist into onyx.

His memory kicked in: black marble walls. Jack had moved Pax and Axel to their own room in Mount Tamalpais. Jack attempted separate rooms, but, of course, Pax ended up in Axel’s room within twenty minutes of being split, fifteen more minutes than the Sabotage unit had bet on, leaving Prometheus with a score of 7 to 1 on prediction.[1]

Mementos from the dead scattered and clanged all over their carpet. Axel had left all other decorating to Pax. That was why Praetor Julian’s medallions, a centurion’s unicorn necklace, and other items clattered onto a pink shag carpet with paint splotches. Axel hoped they were paint splotches. Pax had, allegedly, found the carpet dumpster-diving with Matthias.

Panic hadn’t set in yet. Axel sat up, clutching something to his chest: the Triple A Chimera helm. A hiss erupted from the top of the plumes, something far too weak to be the helm’s gravely tones.

Honey, the weasel, appeared quite distressed by the movement, hissing and squirming to find comfort.

Above Axel, he could see Pax peering over his bunk, his amber eye glistening in their room’s night light. Matthias had installed it at the same time he installed Pax’s bunk. Axel had replaced the original cover: a British aristocrat’s glowing ass, the monocled and top-hatted man peering over his shoulder while mooning them. Now, it was a winking dryad. Still inappropriate but a massive improvement.

“Baller is upset,” Pax said, his voice trembling, “Was that an earthquake? Like, did Poseidon just take a massive shit? Imagine if that is what took out the titans—”

“Axel! Pax! My boys!”

Their door flew open.

The scene was a flashback overlapped into real time. Jack stood in his pink, monogrammed PJs, the back of a toilet seat raised like a baseball bat to attack potential intruders. The only difference from the first time was that the walls and toilet seat were black. Prometheus often quipped that Kronos might have an aneurism if their new camp didn’t have the right SS aesthetic.

“You’re okay!” Jack exhaled, lowering the lid with a thunk. The effort had made his arms shake. “The room next door collapsed. I thought—”

“You were going to dig us out where a toilet cover?” Pax asked, voice quivering.

“Yes, next best thing to a shovel—”

“Jack,” Flynn’s snap quieted Jack. He took a step back.

The Leader of Assault and Battery was mid-tugging a shirt over her chest as she came into view. Axel averted his gaze. “Luke is hurt,” she said. There was a faint jingling noise, signaling that she must have been wrapping her bun. She’d taken to wearing the goofy hair trinkets Pax made for her. “Ajax with me. We’re mobilizing to dig Luke out. Axel, with Kampe. She’s decided she’s leading the charge to camp Half-Blood while Kronos is occupied under rumble.”

Axel’s gaze shot up. “She’s what?” Her command was already taking effect. Axel sat up fully, careful to assure the helm and weasel stayed safe against his chest.

“She thinks they might be able to beat Percy Jackson back to his camp—”

“He was here?!” Pax yelped. He, too, appeared under Flynn’s command. He scurried down from the top bunk, only pausing to collect Honey from Axel’s helm. She squeaked indignantly. Axel appreciated it: a battlefield was no place for a newborn Mistform, no matter how fierce.

Flynn glowered. She liked to be interrupted (especially by children) as much as the soldiers of Mount Othrys liked doing Monster Laundry Duty.

Fortunately, Jack had no such reservations. He picked up one of their newly minted Orpheus Metal shirts from the ground and slipped it over Pax’s head. As if he were five years younger, Pax obediently lifted his arms to make it easier. Jack’s motion was frantic, and Axel had to wonder if Luke could get hurt after receiving the Curse of Achilles. “Well, kiddo, unless some other demigod’s parent has earned the title of ‘Earthshaker,’ then that’s our perpetrator—”

Someone’s words overtook Jack’s. It was Luke’s voice, but not. A second voice reverberated under the first, the same way Kouta, Axel’s older brother, made announcements for the circus, but maybe if Kouta was hyped up on some demonic energy drink. It was a two-toned cacophony, rusty and vile. As it roared, the building shook again, a hateful scream of, “Percy Jackson! After them—after them—”

Everyone froze. Even Flynn’s hold on the boys snapped.

Before, when Luke and Axel used to meditate together or when Luke had convinced Jack to allow Axel to join them at the Horizontal Monster Mash, Luke had described that voice. Between Luke’s gulps of beers, the color would drain from his face and his eyes would go hazy. He recalled the sublime and awful tauntings that haunted his nightmares, that would seep into his waking hours to remind him he was useless, merely a vessel, a stuffed animal disemboweled of its stuffing. (That last one, Axel knew, would upset Pax immensely.)[2]

That voice made Luke feel small, the way Axel’s father’s voice had for him. He didn’t need to ask why Luke followed its orders. It was impossible to resist when it was in your head all day.

Now it was Luke.

Axel couldn’t help but think of Pax, pitching their cause to new demigods: Have you heard the good word of Kronos? Overlaid with a blasphemous verse from his days at a Catholic elementary school: he has risen, just as he said.[3]

Kronos had risen.

Axel didn’t realize the Luke-Thing was still screaming. Not until Lucille stepped into their doorway.

She wore her battle armor. Her blonde hair was neatly braided back, and she carried a Greek-style helm under one arm and a pilum in the other. With her frail frame, she looked like a costumed Barbie. Their training taught Axel otherwise.

“Flynn. Axel.” Her tone was grave, the same way it always got before battle. “The strike force is moving out.” Her icy blue eyes shifted. “Jack, Pax, I’m sorry.” Giving them a fragile smile. It failed to comfort anyone.

Flynn’s gaze narrowed. “I’m not leaving Jack alone.” Ever again, Axel thought he could hear. Maybe with another faint echo of, Especially not with that thing. “What if the Ol’sissies double back while Luke is out of commission? A child of the Big Three? Maybe two if that earthquake wasn’t from Jackson?”

Lucille nodded. The half-sisters had a respect for each other’s combat intuition.

Despite trembling at Luke’s shrieking and the fear of angering Flynn, Pax whimpered, “B—but Mercedes said—”

That she could make Axel and Pax be part of the Sabotage Unit, away from the main battles. But, Axel knew it would be futile after his second cage match had gone so well, especially after the assault on the lab.

Lucille explained this gently, “I know, sweetie. But, Axel has proven himself over and over. It will boost everyone’s moral if he’s there.” She pressed her lips together. “And gain him favor with any new… changes in command.”     

Axel had a gut-sinking feeling Lucille was right. The helm hummed in his grip. Now, more than ever, he needed to be seen fighting along the monsters’ side. If they were to survive assassinating Kronos after the war, they needed the full backing of Alabaster’s monster family.

Axel stumbled to the armor at the base of their bunks. His legs felt leaden. The fingers touching the helmet buzzed with painful anticipation, an electricity that made him lightheaded and eager. The opposite sensations left him disoriented. He needed to focus on one. He unwove a strip of leather from his armor and tethered the helm around his neck. That would need to do for now. He should leave it. They needed to test these in a controlled environment. But, instinct—

You’ll need me, Lieutenant.

Axel wanted to snap that he didn’t need anyone. A glance around the room proved no one had heard that but him. Maybe it couldn’t talk outside of Hecate’s realm.

Lucille had already lifted his breastplate to offer it to him.

Jack tugged at his hair, frantically looking from Axel, to Flynn, to Pax. “Oh, Lucille, keep my boy safe! He’s too young and pretty to die! We haven’t even gotten him a girlfriend or a solo in one of our concerts!”

Lucille giggled weakly. She couldn’t cover her mouth with a pilum in hand. “I’ll do what I can.” As Axel finished strapping on his armor, she turned to Pax. “Can you do me a huge favor?”

Three sets of eyes were intent on her: Pax’s multicolored ones, and the beady eyes of the two weasel kits.

“Go to the nursery and check on Charlie and Ethel for me.” Her eyes softened at the names. 

Oh, Fortune bless Lucille. That would get Pax out of harm’s way. Besides, he was an excellent playmate for Charlie.

They walked as Axel finished strapping on his armor. Lucille led him out. Goodbyes—did they properly say goodbye? He remembered ruffling Pax’s hair, trying to ignore how Pax’s eyes welled with tears, the same way they always did before his cage matches—Don’t you dare die—and ducking under Jack’s attempted hug.

Their hallway was an offshoot from the main one. The main one had descended into chaos. Monsters and demigods jostled past each other. The Luke-thing’s howls left them panicked, disorganized, and disoriented. Its order was so primal: after them.

“Please proceed to battle in an orderly fashion. Please keep your voices low so you can standby for more orders!” Lucille’s charmspeak was sweet and kind. She never had the projection that Flynn’s snarls had, but all the soldiers within hearing distance slowed, relaxed, and fell more into military lines. The calming effect rippled to the others rushing by.

With the mob partially tamed, Axel could see down the hall towards Luke’s quarters. Part of the ceiling was collapsed. Krios, one of the Titan lords, stood beside the rubble with his arms folded, tapping his left bicep. “If you can’t ask nicely for help,” he said, voice booming, “then you needn’t bother asking at all.”

“Imbecile,” the not-Luke snarled back.

Krios rolled his eyes. “Some things never change.”

At least the Titan Lords seemed unbothered by Luke’s and Kronos’ unholy matrimony.

Something about seeing Krios standing there left Axel confused. “Kampe is leading us?” he asked. Hadn’t Luke mentioned something about Krios leading them through the labyrinth? Axel finished strapping on his old helmet. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it would keep his skull intact. His own confusion at the chain of events—going to Hecate’s realm, Flynn’s charmspeak, Kronos’ screams—was clearing.

Lucille nodded, helping up a demigod who had fallen in the chaos. “Yes.”

The younger camper blushed, thanked her, and darted after the others.

Axel felt skeptical. “But, she’s a jailor.” Did they give battle lessons in Grecian jail school?

“Luke gave her Ariadne’s string,” Lucille said, “The others are going to follow her.” She nodded to the disciplined line up at the labyrinth entrance. Because of newly established order, support was able to come through. Matthias could be seen walking down the line, chest puffed up and shoulders pulled back, as he handed out goody bags of ambrosia and, if Axel had to guess, fart bombs. He and a dracaena checked monster and demigod armor and handed out extra weapons.

Lucille continued, “She’s known to be a powerful entity—like Atlas. Why do you think Luke wanted Atlas when he had the other Titans?”

Recognition meant a lot to mythological beings. Axel clenched his jaw. Just another mythological aristocracy, as Alabaster would say. “Being a famous jailor doesn’t make a good strategist.”

They were approaching the labyrinth entrance. Axel had steered clear of this place, especially after Chris Rodriguez never came back. Selene Beauregard had told Luke that he was alive at Camp Half-Blood, but that he’d been left to babbling incoherence. Chris was the only one who had come out alive.

Another foolish scheme to send a demigod when a monster could thrive in the labyrinth.

Axel could see the mark of Daedalus. Alabaster had explained the symbol to him: a glowing blue D above the labyrinth entrance. Any time he walked in the hallway, it stuck out sorely: an exploitable security risk that had, indeed, been exploited. He didn’t understand why everyone had treated it like a kitty door for coatimundi to wander in. Jack and Pax had given him a weird look the day he’d growled, “It’s like no one else can see it.”

Watching how the others felt along the wall until finding a grip on the door, Axel realized the others really couldn’t see it.

Lucille glanced at him. “Are you nervous, Axel? It isn’t like you to protest so much.” She reached over to squeeze his arm. With Lucille’s status in the Attack and Battery unit and Axel’s recent rise to fame, no one minded how they cut in line. From the queasiness on some of the demigod’s faces, he assumed they wouldn’t have minded either way.

Axel stared at the entrance as they stepped up to it. He couldn’t stop his ears from twitching. Something felt wrong about this place. The strategist in him screamed. They were going underground—underground­—chasing after a demigod that could cause earthquakes. “What if Percy doubles back and collapses the tunnels on us?”

“Recent rumor has it, Percy sprinted away from Luke and did not look like he was coming back. He was scared of Kronos. We’re in his army and I’m scared of Kronos….” Her brow furrowed. “I’m glad Pax agreed to check on Charlie. I can only imagine how terrifying those shouts are for them.” She frowned, and reached to twirl a lock of hair that was tucked too far back to reach.

Axel winced. Them. She meant Charlie and Ethel. Ethel didn’t handle this kind of shouting well, and Charlie was only a kid. “If there’s one thing Ajax is good at doing, it’s distracting people from terror.” And he and Lucille both knew Pax would be a she (instead of a he) if it would make Ethel more comfortable.

Lucille might have been about to thank Axel.

“Move it,” a quivering voice came from behind them. Feigned bravado. Axel suspected the waiting was about the same as waiting for a delayed tooth extraction: sometimes you just want to get something over with.

Axel took a deep breath. “If I lose my mind and forget who I am, promise me you won’t let Ajax convince me I’m a famous weasel catcher on Discovery Channel.”

That earned a real giggle. Axel remembered how cute he thought Lucille was the first time he met her at Monster Donut, before he knew about Ethel. That seemed so long ago.

“Oh, don’t make me promise that! I think you’d make a charming show host.” She suddenly hopped onto the tips of her toes, coming close to his height. She rearranged her pilum, so she could hold it and her helmet in the same hand. With her hand freed, she gracefully lifted it up and lowered it towards Axel.

It took Axel a heartbeat or two to realize she was offering her hand the way she might for a ballet partner to spin her. Or for a partner dance? It was called something in French that Alabaster would have known.

Axel took his friend’s hand, sheepish at how scarred and rough his looked compared to her dainty fingers. The absurdity of it—a ballet pose before battle—made him laugh.

Axel had no delusions. She was holding his hand for his sake. A return laugh for the one his joke incited.

He and Lucille stepped into the darkness, hands held high, into one of the most dangerous places of the mythological world.

___

Thank all of you for reading! I think I rediscover my footing a bit better as a writer in the next chapter. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy! (AND THANK ALL OF YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS, ASKS, REBLOGS, AND SWEETNESS! You're making it so worth coming back! <3)

____

    

[1] Jack, “You’re old enough now that you can have your own room where your fanclub will know how to find you alone and, potentially, underdressed—“ Axel, “Ajax and I are still sharing a room.” Jack, “B—but your fan club!” Lou Ellen, “But your fan club!”

[2] Pax, “ARE YOU INSINUATING LUKE WAS ONCE A BABY PANDA--?!”

[3] Mathew 28.

#Tales From Mount Othrys #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olypmus #PJO #HOO #TFMO #fanfiction #Pax #Jack #Axel #Lucille #Flynn #Luke whining under a pile of rocks #Luke #Krios laughing at him #WEASELS!!!!!! #inappropriately timed dramatic dance moves Part I #writing

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Axel: Into the Lion’s Maw V

Bandages covered the forearm closest to him, ones striped with thin, red slits.

Her chesire smile was so fragile; it twitched on the edge of sobs.

She was going to crush his shoulder.

Axel gripped her wrist. She flinched back, dragging him a step with her. Up close, he could see her lips were split. Flakes of skin dangled off. Spittle flicked from them as she giggle-cried, “Gone. Don’t you see? All gone. Just us. Don’t you see? Just us and our little audience, like a puppet crowd we stigger and stabble in the auditorium with nothing to do but fear the dreaded Exit Sign at the end of all sho—”

Axel allowed one glance.

The monsters were, in fact, gone.

With that one step, one that the demigod soldiers had unwittedly taken with them, the labyrinth had come to life and taken its own step. The hoards of monsters—their strength and shield—had vanished. There was a fork in the stone tunnel ahead. It ended in two doors, one with a golden archway; another, a wrought iron one.

He was alone with a handful of terrified demigods and a mad goddess.

“They left us,” one of the demigods shouted, “Without Ariadne’s string…” His fellow soldier—Luke’s new favorite—Nakamura?—didn’t need to finish the sentiment.

Mary spoke their fears aloud, “Everyone forgets that we all cease. How does everyone forget? You can read and read and watch and watch and drown and drown, but that’s all you’re doing. Drowning—[1]”

Lieutenant, came the gentle reminder.

The helm was correct: his job was, right now, to keep everyone calm. Something Mary was rapidly undoing.

Mary was far stronger than he. There would be no overpowering her. But, maybe he didn’t need to. Ethel needed gentleness after Zeus attacked her. Hiro, his little half-brother, needed slow movements and softness after Hiro’s mother had killed herself and tried to kill him. Mary’s desperation reflected that same fragility.

“Mary,” Axel said, maintaining eye contact, “My name is Axel. I am friends with Chris Rodriguez.”

That’s what he meant to say.

“I am the Leonis Caput,” came out instead. Axel felt like the alteration should scare him. Instead, clutching the helm brought calm detachment. “The child of Hermes was to be under my protection. As these demigods are now. We are rejoining our main force. And I do not like distractions.”

Pax would have liked it. It had dramatic flair. He would have wanted to end it with, and hear me roar.

The authoritative tone worked.

Mary released his shoulder and shrank back a step. Her lower lip quivered, making the skin flakes dance. She hugged herself, digging her nails into the scabs along either bicep.

“I can help! Help—help—please—” she pleaded, “I’ve been down here a long time. A lo-o-o-onnnng time. I’ve guided many people in the labyrinth.”

In the labyrinth, Axel noted. Not through the labyrinth.

“I know the way!” she pranced once towards the golden archway. “This way—oh, all ways are the same, but this way is best same way.”

But, Axel knew it wasn’t the way. Earlier, the flooring under Kampe and the monsters had glowed dimly. Here, the glow deadended between the two arches. “No—”

Mary had already gripped Ethan Nakamura’s arm. She dragged him towards the golden arch. “Hey!” Ethan shouted, unable to keep his footing at her speed.

“We’re going to be left behind again!” someone from the back cried.

For an exacerbated heartbeat, Axel remembered babysitting all his siblings after Uncle Frasco had given them several pounds of candy and they sprinted in two different directions. Except, that only resulted in several bags of throw up instead of the potential destruction of the entire demigod force.

 “Stop!” Axel roared. He flicked out his lighter, bit his tongue, murmured a word in Maya, and spit into the flame. It quadrupled in size, taking on a turquoise hue. With a flick of the Mist, torches around the room flared to life, providing them a parameter.

He pivoted on his scared troops. “Stay in the protective barrier. We lose no more to the labyrinth on this trip.” He sought out someone whose name he knew, someone responsible, and settled on a short brunette in the back. “Ailiseu, keep everyone here.” Before anyone could protest, he ran for the golden arch. Ethan just vanished into it, his over-sized armor clanging.

There was no protective barrier, but Alex couldn’t have them splitting up into the labyrinth. Ailiseu—he couldn’t even remember their godly parentage—was level headed. He just needed them to keep the others there until—

Heart pounding and eyes darting, Axel dashed after Mary’s footsteps as the sound retreated into the darkness. He held up his lighter with the turquoise flame. Uncle Frasco could manipulate flames like this for hours—for a whole circus show. Axel had only tried it for brief tricks. He hoped that “protective barrier” would hold.

“Hey! Let go of me, you crazy lady—” echoed ahead.

Axel almost stumbled over Ethan’s sword. He must have dropped it in the struggle. Axel slipped his foot under the hilt and kicked it up, snatching it in his left hand. The floor’s dim glow had shifted, the light trailing after the kidnapped soldier and mad goddess.

When Axel saw them, he increased his speed.

Ahead, Mary was dragging Ethan towards a pile of corpses.

Thank you for reading! I know this is a short one. And I’m only technically getting it out before the end of the weekend (er, my time zone’s weekend--) but I hope you enjoyed! Getting a short with both Ethan Nakamura and Mary. I’ve had requests on both of them and I hope this doesn’t disappoint!

---------

I’m hoping to resume our every-other-week schedule with a lovely forecast of dismembered limb jokes. I hope you have an awesome leap day!

----------

[1] Interlude brought to you by Jack’s recent existential crisis. Interlude music begins here, preformed by Pax and three weasels. Doo doo to doo doooooo—

#PJO #percy jackson and the olympians #HOO #fanfiction #Tales from Mount Othrys #heroes of olypmus #Mary #Nakamura #Axel #tfmo #writing #a wee babe chapter #I GOT AN A ON MY ESSAY #THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

[jflashandclash]

Axel I: Into the Lion’s Maw

Axel I: Into the Lion’s Maw[1]

Or Labyrinth of Treachery

          Mist poured everywhere, both magical and nonmagical. Axel liked to think Alabaster’s mom had the same flare for the dramatics that he did, if not a little more pronounced.

          The dilapidated church flickered with light from three torches, forming an equilateral triangle. Two hovered behind them and one above a scorched altar. Their eerie green light cast everything in shades of grey and turquoise.

          Reflexively, Axel knelt and crossed himself upon entering. He swatted Pax to indicate that his little brother should do the same. Pax did, but with about as much reverence as grabbing a napkin for eating at a barbecue.

          “Hello. Hedonism.  Blasphemy at forever o’clock.” Pax mumbled, rubbing the back of his head with a pout. He’d gotten more mouthy. Axel couldn’t tell if it was from discovering he could adjust to people’s gender preference when he flirted his way out of things. Or, more likely, because their surrogate father had been different since he’d been trapped on Calypso’s island.[2]

Recently, Jack had been… worse. He’d come into dinner toying with a tendon he’d ripped out of a captured Roman’s knee and wondered why some of the demigods didn’t want to participate in Spaghetti Night after he lost it. The monsters thought he intended it as a Happy Meal toy. Great for monster moral. Great for demigod nightmares. 

Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them as he and Pax approached the hooded figure in front of the altar. The person was meditating. Alex would say praying, but Alabaster didn’t pray to deities. He spoke with them as equals. Any misrepresentation of that, Axel knew, would be considered a “grievous offense.” Axel wasn’t in the mood for another thirty minute lecture.

Without checking to make sure it was Alabaster, Pax scurried up alongside the figure. He sat beside his assumed babysitter and shuffled closer until their legs touched. If that was Hecate, she would need to come up with a creative punishment for impertinence. If she turned Pax into a pole cat, he would consider that a reward.

“Pleasure seeing you here. You come to church often?” Pax teased.

“Ajax,” Alabaster’s warning was half-hearted.

Axel could hear Pax roll his eyes. “Fine,” Pax corrected, “Do you come to evil church often?”

Alabaster’s response was dry, “Every night in my finest robes in hopes of attracting… what does Mercedes call them? Persistent parasites?”

“Ah.” Pax patted down his duster jacket. “Sorry I forgot my occult robes.”

“I have some for you in the pews.”

Axel snorted. The pews were, mercifully for their eternal souls, empty of said robes. He scanned the church, checking for exits or potential ambush areas. Not that they could be ambushed here.

“Do we finally get to see the secret project you’ve been scheming over?” Axel asked. The question came out a little too serious for Axel’s liking. This was some kind of special occasion for Alabaster. The invitation in Axel’s back pocket proved it. The envelopes had been waiting on their pillows on thick, dark paper and swirling golden script.

Axel Pax,

Your presence is formally requested at the altar of Hecate.

Directions to Address: Fall asleep at a reasonable hour.

I know that’s hard for you. Your attendance will be appreciated.

--Alabaster C Torrington

Axel wondered if Pax had been twiddling his thumbs outside the church for hours or if Hecate had given him a sleep Fast Pass. Knowing Pax, he would have been thrown out of Hecate’s realm for making ghostly faces through the windows had she not. 

Axel had tried to sleep on time. He really did. He just saw corpses of the people he killed each time he closed his eyes. He tried reading the brick-of-a-book  Alabaster lent him. As it turns out, the dog-eared pages about overcoming a sinisterly encroaching tyranny? Not a good substitute for counting sheep. Especially not when it had Axel pacing in the world’s shortest loop across his and Pax’s room, wondering if Alabaster was referencing how Luke—no—no—how Kronos had been acting. Did Alabaster disapprove of Luke’s new management style as much as Axel did? Axel had been wondering about that until Pax threw a pillow at him with a, “Axxxeelllll! I wanna see Witch Boy’s mysterious whatever! Go to sleep!”

Axel had succeeded without being drugged by Pax, which Pax claimed his invitation instructed him to do.

Alabaster didn’t respond to Axel’s question about what this mysterious night time meeting. But, the room seemed to. Axel felt the air thicken. His breath strained.

The gleam of torchlight above them sank. A stoic whisper entwined with his own thoughts, making him flinch.

I can’t give you back what you had…

The Mist expanded, enveloping the room. A river gurgled nearby. The stars sparkled into life above them, thousands more than could be seen in Los Angeles or at the new site for Mount Othrys. Bugs hummed and Axel found himself smacking a mosquito that landed on his neck.

Belize.

They were in Belize.

Sort of.

Axel was left with the uneasy superimposition of the evil church amidst the calming jungle: a scorched altar and pews dropped into the thick undergrowth. Vines wrapped along the rotting wood, as though the disjointed images had been one for years.

Nearby, Pax wept softly. He and Alabaster were still kneeling in front of the altar. Pax turned to press his face against Alabaster’s shoulder, quivering at…

The last time they were in Belize, their father had killed their Uncle and Aunt in front of them. Axel hadn’t been strong enough to save them. All he’d done was get his arm broken.

Someone touched Axel’s hand, the one he had on his neck. I can’t give you back what you had…

He couldn’t tell if it was an echo or if she was repeating herself. Axel clenched his jaw. No one could give him Frasco or Nilley back. But… But Belize and Chiich… his siblings. They were still alive—they were—

Axel didn’t feel like a trained killer when his gaze turned to see the titaness beside him.

But you don’t have to do this on your own.

They had walked among titans and gods for years now, yet Axel felt his knees go weak seeing her. Her black hair swayed in the humid breeze. Her white robes with the ornate silver runes—all of it was immaculate despite their surroundings. Her eyes blazed like the orbs themselves were made of emerald fire.

Even if you’re never going home…

Pax hiccuped with a sob. What even was home for them now—

“You’re not alone.”[3] Until the last part, her mouth hadn’t moved.

Axel found himself staring a moment longer than he intended. “Hecate,” he breathed. Alabaster’s mysterious mother. Although she mothered at least a fourth of Luke’s troops, Axel had never directly seen her.

Hecate stroke Axel’s cheek and temple with gloved knuckles. She was investigating the swirled patterns of his fresh scars. “You ran out of room in your graveyard,” she observed.

His stomach plummeted. His graveyard? His and Pax’s room. He had run out of space for his—what else could he call them but trophies? Graveyard felt more appropriate: the pieces he collected from those that he murdered, his way of honoring the dead. They had become too numerous, too heavy. Encroaching into his sleep at night and into his thoughts during the day.   

But he couldn’t forget them. He couldn’t pretend they were nothing. He couldn’t become his father. So he’d started to carve them into himself.

Because, wasn’t that how it started? Choosing yourself over them? Deciding people were insects because you’d shatter to think anything else?

“You’ve been having more bad days,” Alabaster said evenly. He wouldn’t look at Axel.

Axel knew that. If Axel clenched his jaw any tighter, his teeth might break. This felt like an ambush. It didn’t help him to dwell on the bad days. That was the problem. That’s all his brain wanted to do—to rewind, replay, repeat.

          Breathing exercises and meditation didn’t work anymore. All he could do—as he did now—was fumble a hand into his pocket for a cigarette.

          Hecate’s brow furrowed. “My son is worried about you, Jaguar Child.” When her fingers curled around Axel’s ears, his grip loosened on the cigarettes. Her touch was soothing, almost mesmerizing. He hadn’t had someone scratch behind his ears like that since he was very little.

          “I—I don’t need help—yours or otherwise,” Axel said. He didn’t need help. He was the cavalry. He couldn’t need help because—because where would Pax go when he was crying from a nightmare? Or Jack when he was panicking over which band covers they would pick? Or—or Luke if he—if one of Axel’s best friends needed someone to kill them—[4]

          “Holy Titan!” Pax sniffled away his tears. Something had thrilled him. “Did you hear the quaver in his voice? Do whatever you just did again!”[5]

          Axel glared at his little brother. He would have smacked the back of his head if he were closer. All Axel could do, for the moment, was reach behind him to grip the backing of a pew. Hecate’s presence thickened the air with the tang of lavender, mint, chamomile, rosemary—a cycling swirl of scents that overwhelmed Axel’s sensitive nose and made him lightheaded.

          Those gloved fingers scratched along his other ear. Axel thought about slapping her hand away but—

          “Axel Pax,” she said his name like it was a secret, “A poison has infected the members of this camp and spread to you. You’ve seen it growing.”

          “I don’t want to lose you to it. Now that I’ve decided the two of you are worth something beyond being lab specimen,” Alabaster said. He tilted his head to allow his hood to drop back. He withdrew his spiral notebook, flipped it open, looked up, and startled. “Mother, what are you doing?”

          “Calming your wildcat,” she said. Axel could see her lips curl into a humorless smile. He swallowed deeply. She had stronger features than most of the Greek goddesses. When he lost focus (something he struggled to keep with her touch) he swore he could see multiple faces beside hers—one a residual of her past expression and one, he could only guess, a foretelling of her future. “I’ve been rather fond of cats as familiars in the last few centuries, especially since polecats are harder to come by. It’s important that they know your scent and show them you mean no harm before you make deals.”

          No harm—deals--? Axel’s mind spun. He jerked his head back. Although he felt her fingers lose contact, there was a shadow of her hand, a lingering, that rolled along his chin, just as another phantom of her limb withdrew sharply. Axel shook his head, watching as the shades unified into one hand.

His arms strained. Axel realized, with some mortification, that he’d bumped the backs of his knees into the pew. The only things keeping up upright were his claws, digging into the wooden backing.

“Deals?” he managed. His face felt hot; his legs were shaking. Axel hoped his ears weren’t a dead giveaway about how uncomfortable he was. He focused on orienting himself instead of replaying the feel of Hecate’s gloves on his ears. What were they talking about—his nightmares. Maybe something about Luke. Maybe this could be related to the book Alabaster lent him?

Axel glanced to Alabaster for answers.

He thought he’d seen Alabaster angry before, when he muttered about “causing his downfall,” during their celebratory dance. Axel had been wrong.

Had Hecate not been standing beside him, Axel could have felt the Mist radiating off Alabaster from the Princess Andromeda to Mount Othrys. His freckles looked like cooled black spots on a volcano, his face had gone so red.

“My child, shall we continue? Weighing the options?” Hecate asked, stepping past Axel towards the altar.

“I’m reconsidering,” Alabaster growled.

Axel fumbled to find his footing. Hecate’s, um, greeting hadn’t been weird. And, it wouldn’t intrude on his nighttime moping for the next week. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them before he could stop himself, something that made Alabaster’s glower deepen. Alabaster’s mother, he chided himself. Not that he needed chiding. He hadn’t done anything.

Pax looked delighted. His little brother was likely devising the best teasing strategies that would incur the least amount of injury.

Axel wouldn’t look at Hecate as she ran her gloved hands along the scorched altar. He gritted his teeth, seeking that indignant rage he felt moments before, instead of… instead of whatever that had been. “Is this supposed to be some kind of intervention? I’m fine.” He just hadn’t been sleeping. That was it. He had been waking up screaming for years. It was routine by this point.

“Augh, you had to focus on the boring part of this interaction, not the sexy one” Pax complained.

“Ajax!” Alabaster and Axel scolded in unison, going red for very different reasons.

Hecate remained impassive.

Alabaster fought to keep his voice level. “We talked about this?” Raising an eyebrow at Pax.

Pax rolled his eyes. “Fine! Fine—the fact that Axel has startled backwards from new campers, thinking they’re people he’s killed that have come back for vengeance? Totally normal.”

Axel clenched his fists. That had only happened once. But, it had been while he was helping Flynn train new recruits. A bad look for their camp. She had been furious and made him smack himself with a sword hilt.

With the alteration in conversation, Alabaster’s expression eased back to a calculated calm. He gently disentangled from Pax and stood. “This is more than an intervention, Axel, and this proposition goes far beyond counting sheep before bad dreams.”

He stepped to the side of the altar, parallel to Hecate, his swaying dark robes contrasted hers. “For…” Alabaster closed his eyes, quoting, ‘Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.’” He opened his eyes, Hecate’s emerald fire reflected in his own. This must have been a quote from the loaned book. Axel didn’t have the heart to tell Alabaster there was no way he would remember a quote like that.

Alabaster continued, “Elevating a thug to a position of power to destroy other thugs—that is a contradiction.” He nodded to his mother.

No incantations or movements came from the Goddess of Magic, not that Axel saw or heard. Unlike her son, she didn’t seem to need them. Axel felt her will ripple the air around them. The pressure in the jungle dropped. Axel’s ears pop. Pax slapped his hands to either side of his head, like he could stop the sensation.

Mist thickened around the altar, strands winding into three orbs. One reflected the green of Alabaster’s eyes, one the gold of Axel’s, and one of utter blackness. A nod towards Ajax’s black eye? Or perhaps my Mist mask? Axel wasn’t sure. He’d seen displays of godly power before, but this made him shiver with excitement. Pax had sat up, shifting his weight from side to side in anticipation. 

The weaving tightened into distinct shapes. Teeth sprouted out the golden mass. A mane of red pilled out its back.

Horns jutted from the central, black Mistform. The blackness chipped and shriveled away to hardened ivory. It pooled and gathered into two central eye sockets in a cervine skull.

The emerald smoke undulated in leisure waves before solidifying into serpentine scales.

All three settled into oblong shapes with distinctive eye sockets and mouth openings. The green and gold glimmered with metallic sheen; the former, a platinaed bronze, the other a pure gold. The last one kept the texture of bone.

As the Mist twisted away, three helmets remained. They hummed in deep guttural tones.

Axel’s heartbeat pounded alongside their two-toned cacophony. Adrenaline pumped, though he wasn’t sure if it was to rush towards the helms and grab one—the gold one, the feline one—that one is mine—or turn and flee this desecrated holy ground, maybe shrieking a few octaves higher than he’d normally allow.

“These,” Alabaster said, settling his hands onto the bone helm, “were made to eradicate contradictions.” Alabaster’s gaze turned to Axel. His expression was hard and defiant.[6] “The idea that Kronos would rule over freed demigods? That is a contradiction.”

He spoke so openly of treason. Axel almost forgot they were in Hecate’s realm. He’d broken into a sweat. Luke had become so paranoid; he and the other titans spread rumors that the walls of Mount Tam had ears. Some deep instinct warned this would be the perfect way for Mercedes and Alabaster to rat out dissenters, to trick Axel into admitting he disapproved of Kronos.

He thought of the promise he’d so casually given to Luke on the edge of a cliff. It was one of the last times Luke had acted like himself. It was when Axel had promised to kill his friend if he ever became a danger to those he loved.

Jack had lamented why they couldn’t just spend the evening talking about cute girls. It felt so absurd now. There had never been a future where Axel could just worry about girls, or school, or a job. He’d spent months strategizing the murder of his father; would killing his friend be that different?

Axel swallowed, looking from the golden helm, the feline curves of its face, back to Alabaster. Maybe these helmets would be the one way he could bring the promise to fruition.

“I’m listening.”   

***

Thank you for reading!

(And waiting two years >>’’’’ Those of you that are my original readers.)

I hope you’re having an excellent start to the New Year!

I can’t make any promises, but I’m hopppppinnnng to stick to: Stay tuned in two weeks for part II!

I will address some of where I've been in a post, shortly. In theory.

***

Footnotes:

[1] In which Jack has to begrudgingly let Axel be a badass instead of having his kneecaps hit every thirty seconds. I spent four books breaking this unbreakable rock, and I got so grumpy when I realized I need to actually let him build up to being Reyna-worthy in this one. *sighs* Can’t I just continuously beat up the Pax boys?

[2]When I need to edit stuff out and just can’t delete it, I’m going to start slipping it into my notes: Not that Jack had ever been the role model for stability—he couldn’t make it through a concert without striking up casual conversation with the base. Not the base player. Jack was the base player. The instrument itself. Something that surely would have made fan girls jealous if Flynn didn’t give away free ass kicking for anyone dumb enough to hit on Jack in front of her.

[3] For anyone wondering, yes this entire sequence was inspired and written to The Puppet Song by TryHardNinja. It felt appropriate. <3 It’s one of the first songs on their Spotify playlist that I will one day release.

[4] All equal IOUs in Camp Othyrs.

[5] What Pax wanted to say was, “I think he just went through puberty!” but fortunately the Fates prevented this.

[6] Pax guesses Alabaster practiced this line, and its bravado, over and over, both in front of a mirror and in front of Mistforms of his own creation, so they would applaud him each time. Just imagine him lecturing Hunnie, Baller, and Nietzsche and three tiny weasels standing up on their hind legs to applaud.

#percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olypmus #PJO #HOO #tales from mount othrys #TFMO #Axel #Pax #alabaster c torrington #hecate #fanfiction #writing #did you know... there might finally be WEASELS soon? #hey--long time no see #how is everyone doing?

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Silenced V: Jack

 When the brilliance stopped radiating through his eyelids, when Jack thought it might be safe to look—to hope, to dream—they were back in Camp Othrys’ titan’s quarters. The Pax brothers, Luke, and Lucille were locked in heated conversation several feet away.

At the sight of Pax’s wild hair, Jack sobbed. They were real. He was back.

“My boys!” Jack cried, his throat cracking with effort. That phrase had been unused in his timeless prison.

Everyone moved towards him. Words blurred together into a pleasant garbled drone. As they gathered, surrounding him with love and excitement, his chest constricted.

As they encroached, so too did thought of children’s graves: Calypso’s children with various, unnumbered lovers. The children that never left the island nor would age to adulthood. What would Axel and Pax’s tombs be like? Would they be decorated in Greek or Mayan? If Calypso had been right, if he truly was cursed to dismembered eternity, would Jack outgrow his boys and entomb them? Encasing their bodies in eternal prisons like Calypso had caged him?

Her words drowned out those of his children, of his friends, of his love—the only dreams that kept him on the edge of that sanity, the sanity that Calypso cursed him with. Her. She was still all over him. Still in his head, her fingers still gliding through his too-short hair—

“Get these chains off of me!” Jack shrieked. He clawed at the white clothing, the sinister henchmen to that sea witch. What if she could still control the fabric here? What if she could use it to choke his boys in the night, to worm each strand under Flynn’s skin and clog her veins? If he fell asleep, he might wake up to them—his boys, his love—made of nothing but yarn.

Jack didn’t know he’d stolen Axel’s lighter until Axel and Luke were stomping the flames out. In the warm, California air, Jack stood naked, staring at the smolder of white fabric, crushed repeatedly by his son and friend.

Someone had shouted to give him room. Jack didn’t hear the exact words; he just saw a blur of motion away from him. Someone saying, “He’s been through a lot.” Anger. Worry. Exclamations of revenge. Someone offering a cute panda hug with no pranks attached. The words and faces existed in a flurry around him, but none of it would stay. All he could think about was how she’d be around the corner. Waiting. Knowing he had nowhere to run.

Been through a lot. Was this trauma? His mind raced with the erratic beating of his heart. This was a different way for the world to be distorted. He missed the old way: hearing voices he could decide weren’t there instead of dreading a presence he knew was. He—

         He grabbed Flynn’s hand. She had stayed beside him when everyone moved away. In contrast to the fogginess of everyone else, everything about her was so real: the way one eyelid drooped down more than her other, the ribs of scar tissue lining her left cheek and left side of her forehead, the way her left nostril ended shorter than her right, the thinness of her lips. The sight was comforting: gritty and uneven compared to the movie-surreal quality of Calypso’s beauty.

Jack always waited for Flynn to initiate contact, but he needed her right now. “Flynn—” he choked. Words still hurt from disuse. His voice was so quiet and hoarse. When he leaned towards her, Flynn gathered him up in her arms, like she had the day they came to camp, like when she’d taken away memories of his family, memories that had crept back while he despaired on Ogygia. “Take me away.” He pressed his face into her neck. Her posture stiffened and her neck muscles tensed but she didn’t shove him off. “Take away my sanity. Lie to me that we’ll be safe and I’ll never see her again. Everything is too clear here, too bright, like an endless, flat plateau boiled under the unclouded sun. Give me that shade. Grant me the oasis of a mirage.”

Over the years, he heard the whispers: Flynn didn’t charm speak him. It’s why she wouldn’t take him to bed.

But she had once: to drift him into a happy lullaby where he didn’t murder his family on accident and where Camp Othrys was a choice instead of a last resort. She let him start his new life with a fresh conscious and the ability to see Pax when he looked at his adoptive son instead of the corpses of his little sister and little brother.

Axel and Pax are much too old to be my children. A voice of reason dared to breathe.

The thought was unacceptable. Jack whined. Although he could barely make the intonation correctly, he begged, “Qing, Fēi Lín.”

Flynn slid a hand into his hair. “You’re safe here, Jack.” Her melodious voice was soft and warm. It quavered with emotion. When something wet fell against the back of Jack’s neck, he realized she must be crying. “She can’t get you.”

The words sank in, weighing down his panic and compressing the tension smaller until only exhaustion remained. He melted against her, unaware, until he relaxed, how hard his heart thundered or how violently he trembled. Jack could see again: past Flynn’s soft skin, he could see Luke, Lucille, Pax, and Axel in the hallway. Prometheus must have left or been out of sight.

From the way Luke’s cheek puckered, he must have been chewing on the interior. He always worried too much. Recently, he hadn’t had time to go to the bar for their weekly Luke-gets-smashed-and-Jack-has-a-Shirley-Temple. Jack wanted to tease that they needed more days along the cliff, meditating.

Pax burrowed against Axel, his amber and black eyes barely visible. They glistened with fear. Axel kept a comforting hand atop his brother’s twisting hair. With the paranoia of a warrior under constant threat, Axel’s fingers trembled over a sword hilt.  

Silent tears rolled down Lucille’s cheeks. She didn’t look at Jack, but at her half-sister.

“Jack…” Flynn rested her chin atop his head. “What did she do to you?”

Looking at his friends and family, Jack swallowed. The boys were used to seeing him break down—Jack liked that. They needed to know they were allowed to show emotion, especially Axel. But, this was different. Other than Luke, they hadn’t seen him begging, naked and shivering. How long had he been gone to them? On the island, he’d stopped counting the number of etchings he’d put into the new cave, making it closer to the mirror image of Odysseus’.

He didn’t want them knowing what happened.

“She threw away Mr. Sunny,” Jack said.

Flynn gave a choked laugh. “I’ll be sure to buy you a new one.” Although she already held him, Flynn cradled him off the ground with little more than a grunt.

Jack glanced up. Flynn paused to stare at the anxiety of their onlookers. Jack wanted to reassure everyone. That was Jack’s job: to handle people and their feelings. Flynn didn’t like to. When Jack opened his mouth, he couldn’t lie to them. All he could do was tremble.

“Let’s get your medicine—Phil has some,” Flynn said slowly. “Then, let’s have you rest—”

Jack’s muscles tensed again. Some deep horror fought back the calm of Flynn’s charm speak, peeling its lulling effects to shreds. “I don’t have to rest. She’s always there when I rest, eating my dreams.”

Flynn hesitated. Another of her tears splattered onto his skin, chilling it. “Then, let’s go to a Monster Donut shop with the boys. How does that sound?”

Jack wanted that to be an adoption day tradition. No one wanted to go after the first one exploded and killed Jasmine. He nodded his head vigorously, enjoying the thought of Axel and Pax stuffing their faces and happily chattering. Like things could go back to normal.

“Lucille, can you run ahead and make sure there are no questions at the shop?” Flynn asked softly. “Axel and Pax, get one of his band shirts and some jeans. Ready some stories and plans about your next band show. And, uh, Luke, don’t be worthless.”

There were sounds of movement. Pax uttered something in protest and Axel shushed him.

“Luke’s my best friend. He’s not worthless,” Jack whispered.

“That’s right, man,” Luke said. The hand that settled onto Jack’s back made him flinch before relaxing further. It was too broad and ungentle to be Calypso. “I’m gonna go find Phil to get your medication. Then things will go back to how they’re supposed to be.”

Jack repeated that word in his head: normal. Home with his boys, friends, and true love, never to see that sea witch again.

Something twisted his stomach and knotted his brain. You will be cursed, Jack. Even as his family scattered to prepare, even as Flynn took his face in one hand, the words slithered with the same consistency of Ogygia’s tide. You will know both the torment of the Fields of Punishment—

Flynn’s mouth pressed to his. The dampness of her cheeks imprinted on his, allowing their tears to join hands in their travel downwards.

—and you will know the curse of dismembered immortality—

Jack clung to Flynn, tracing and savoring the curves of her lips and the wetness of her tongue. He inhaled her harsh scent—leather, sweat, metallic—

If you stay here—

Jack tore his face back enough to see her dark eyes. “Flynn, I can bear torture in the Fields of Punishment if you’re with me. I won’t break under a dismembered immorality if I know you’re there. Promise me our souls will be intertwined—that death itself shall not part us. Promise me that—I—” Jack wanted to be on one knee, wanted fireworks in the background, and wanted a full orchestra (by orchestra, he meant his metal band) playing. He wanted to make the world as beautiful for Flynn as it could be, instead of the distorted chaos they’d experienced. “Flynn--Dǒng Fēi Lín—will you marry me?”  

This was the first time he officially asked. They had talked about it before in theory, but not…

But, before, Jack didn’t know what it was like to be without her.

Flynn frowned.

Jack’s heart pitched.

The same way she had when Jack adopted their sons, she groaned in annoyance. “Will an exchange of self-written vows suffice?”

Jack almost knocked Flynn off balance when he flailed. “Oh, titans, Flynn, is that a yes?!”

The tears dried up when she said, factually, “I vow to want to be and try to be with you and love you for as long as I exist.”

“Oh, gods! Flynn! Flynn, you’ve made me the happiest man. Wait—my vows are in my room. They’re ten pages long and I’ll need a guitar—electric, I’m not playing acoustic ever again—”

“Jack, we’re going to the donut shop first.”

“Yes! We can exchange donuts as rings—Axel can be the bearer and Pax can be the flower girl. Luke can be my best man and Lucille your best woman—”

Flynn didn’t shush him, as he suspected, nor did she tell him to stop dancing naked around the hallway, as he started upon being set down. She sighed and leaned against a wall, watching him with the slightest of smiles.

With his excitement, Jack rediscovered his love of planning for a theoretical, happy future, something he’d lost in the timeless, futureless island of Ogygia.

Something still felt different. Calypso had taken something from him. Maybe it was the belief in altruism, that selfless love was pure, that either could avoid the pitfalls of poison. Maybe it was that they were the good guys, that being good was definitive, or that being good mattered.

You’ll avoid both fates.

As long as Jack had his friends and family, he could handle any fate.

  PSA: don’t get married unless you want to.

  Thanks for reading! I hope you’re all doing well and getting ready for the spooky season!

#TOO #Tales from Mount Othrys #PJO #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #HOO #Heroes of Olympus #Jack #Flynn #Pax #Axel #luke castellan #the desperate hopes that this author will write more soon #I really had been working on a project for you guys #The weasels thought it was cool

[jflashandclash]

It’s been a long time since you’ve been on. Just want to drop by and say that I hope you’re doing okay! Happy holidays and I hope you’re well!

Panel 3: Since I last vanished--maybe first vanished? I was kicked out of my dwelling due to a dispute with a partner, I had surgery for one disorder, and have been trying (and failing) to get medicated for another. (Character Jack and author Jack share more in common than red hair. Maybe I'll do a comic on that one day, since we're an often misrepresented minority.) I started a new job, and really, really recently, started grad school. (Wooh! Just got a baby scholarship!)

Panel 4: It's really hard to make art when you lose direction and hope.

If art is an expression of the soul, and you lose yourself, creativity becomes a vacuum. All the more hellish to realize it--you--were empty.

Panel 5: Anyway, THANK YOU FOR THE WELL WISHES, ANON! I'm doing a lot better. A lot clearer. I started to write and (obviously) draw again. I really appreciate your (and the other followers of this blog's) support. You guys ROCK!

I just picked up writing Tales from Mount Othrys again and want to get on a regular release schedule. I can't make any promises, but I plan to release more info on that (and my not-so-secret side project that had to be put on hold for--) soon!

THANKS AGAIN FOR BEING AWESOME!

Panel 6: What do you MEAN--it--it has been HOW LONG?!

Panel 7: Happy two year belated holidays to you too.

Two years....? TWO YEARS?!?

#THANK YOU FOR THE WELL WISHES ANON #thank you for letting me use this to rant as well XD #I hope you're doing awesome and you have a lovely start to the new year!!! #art #tfmo #the traitors of olympus

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Axel: Into the Lion's Maw IV

Axel had a horrifying realization: if they bottlenecked to get into the Labyrinth, they would bottleneck on the way out. He could imagine their meaningless march into a massacre, Kampe shoving each demigod to their death in an orderly fashion.

Upon stepping into the corridor, Axel was pleased to see that Lucille had been right about remaining calm. Kampe was, contrary to the bottleneck visual, an excellent strategist.

There was a massive corridor inside the entrance. Above them stretched a curved lattice of ornamental windows. Their floral and geometric designs were interspersed with white and green mosaics. Leaves and muck obscured parts of the glass, only allowing a few rays into the vast space. Where the light did break through, dust danced lazily in a snowy haze.

This was beautiful. Maybe eerie? But nothing like that horrors he’d come to associate with the Labyrinth. Alabaster said this was a foolish place to enter, that they’d lose a quarter of their army just getting through the maze. Axel rarely questioned Alabaster’s logic in mythological matters, but, seeing this…          

Several giants stood towards the far end of this massive chamber, presumably to lead their eventual charge. Earlier, Luke said the ground around the Zeus’ fist entrance was weak. If they sent the giants in first, they could likely widen that entrance.

Axel lowered his gaze. They didn’t have metros in Belize and, in their short stay in Los Angeles, Santiago always hired private cars. It took him a heartbeat or two to recognize the indents in the floor as tracks for a train. The monsters and demigods crawling in and out of them looked quite comfortable in the abandoned subway station. Axel just hoped no ghost trains came through to make everyone go splat.

Behind him, demigods coming in had a similar gasp of appreciation and relaxation. Someone mumbled, “Wow… so much better than Matthias’ horror game simulation.”

Lucille’s shoulder brushed his as she released his hand. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

Axel huffed out a laugh. “Wish you could show Ethel?”

Lucille gave another weak giggle. She lifted her pilum towards her mouth, the same motion she would normally use to cover it. “Not my ideal romantic outing, but maybe, one—”

“Daughter of Aphrodite,” thundered from the far side of the room. Kampe made the title sound like an insult. Axel almost couldn’t see Kampe amongst all the giants. It was strange seeing them in battle gear. Seeing them made him think of the Triple A Chimera Dance and the horrifying death contraption Matthias had rigged to transport them like weasels in a titan-sized backpack.

Lucille nudged Axel’s shoulder. “Stay close. I need someone I can trust in battle.” The levity vanished. She meant it. Cho, Axel internally swore, was dissidents in Luke’s troops so bad that even Lucille was worried? He swallowed.

Others parted until they were at the lead of the demigods, several lines back from Kampe.

Kampe and the giants were already lumbering forward. The tunnel shook, sending more dust particles cascading into the dim light rays. Their march forward was both deafening and devastatingly wordless. Hundreds of feet of various kind—hooved, scaled, and mammalian—droned into an eerie oppressive din. No one spoke.

This tunnel led to a narrow one with less natural illumination. Well, there was a dim, continuous glimmer ahead of them. The floor seemed to almost… glow. Despite this, various demigods fumbled for lights. The monsters were unbothered by the darkness, but Axel could sense the mounting panic in his fellow soldiers.

His own chest had constricted. This reminded him of the cage matches—

“We’re okay…” Lucille cooed. Axel could see she’d turned to walk backwards, so the demigods would hear her without risking mockery from the monsters.

The fear evaporated. Axel couldn’t be sure if it was Lucille’s charmspeak or… his fingers had reached back to brush the cool metal of the lion helm. He hadn’t consciously meant to touch it, but it felt comforting.

The tunnels snaked, curved, elevated, lowered, and altered from metal to concrete to mud. There were scuffles ahead. Potentially foes that Kampe and the giants extinguished without real resistance.

Despite how Axel hated to admit it, he wished Jack were here. He would have feigned a newscaster, giving everyone live updates in rhyming verse, likely with acoustic or kazoo accompaniment. He could imagine Kampe trying to squash him as he asked her what kind of battle ballad she would want after this victory. If Jack was here, they would have known exactly what was happening ahead when Axel had to grab Lucille’s arm to prevent her from bumping into a Scythian Dracaena.

Axel’s ears perked up and strained forward to hear. There was a disagreement. Kampe hissing, “But, the string says to go this way. This is the most direct route.”

Was the air thinner down here? It was colder. Axel could see puffs of air as it evaporated out of the anonymous metal helmets around him. The demigods’ reverence and obedience to Kampe seemed to ebb with each strained breath in the tunnel. Whatever argument was happening made the demigods apprehensive. He could sense some sort of rising tension in the way they glanced at one another.

“Can you hear them?” Lucille murmured.

Axel parted his lips to answer when someone thundered, “You fool! That could bring the tunnels down upon us!”

And a shriek of pain.

The demigods startled. Axel knew the movement: the nervous shuffle of a herd before it sprinted to panic.

Lucille shifted her pilum into the hand with her shield. She squeezed Axel’s shoulder, or he thought she did through the armor. “Keep everyone calm.”

The light pressure left. Like Lucille was flitting backstage, she slipped amidst the monsters, the plumes of her helmet becoming indistinguishable from horns and tails bobbing in the dull lighting. He could almost envision her pirouetting.

Keep everyone calm.

It’s not like Axel’s little knowledge of Maya magic was fear-based. Or like they mostly knew him from murdering people “for sport.” Or like what Alabaster taught him about the Mist was used to blend into and out of shadows.

Oh, he would be as natural at this as Flynn was at childrearing. He hoped Lucille could settle the dispute quickly.

Whispers of worry wormed their way behind him into a growing, writhing mass. “Hold,” he growled.

They died down. The Dracaena ahead of him jumped.

Yeah, a natural. He couldn’t say something without scaring the monsters, let alone the demigods.

He hoped Lucille realized that directing sword lessons and commanding an army were very different activities. Why did she and Alabaster seem to think he’d be such a natural at it when Pax wouldn’t even listen to him?

Are they different? the helm—was it the helm?—hissed.

No one else reacted. Axel wondered when others could hear the lion’s helm or… or had he just imagined it talking? He reached to feel the cool metal. Whether the lion’s helm or his own thoughts—cho, he was beginning to sound like Jack—it was right: maybe directing sword practice was similar to commanding troops.

And neither one involved freezing up like Pax had pantsed him in front of Aphrodite.

Axel pivoted away from the monsters to face the demigods. “Lucille has gone to confer with Kampe. Take this time to check your equipment. No one wants their first battle tactic to involve tripping on untied shoelaces.”

Nervous laughter. A decrease in tension. Murmurs went from worry to routine: all of these soldiers were used to checking each other’s armor. Axel knew there was comfort in repetition.  

Until one voice spoke up, fluttery and quick.

“The tunnels ahead are too narrow for the monsters to pass. Kampe could start a panic. They’ll trample us.”

Axel didn’t recognize the voice. It was high with a fragile quaver, like Pax when he was acting pathetic to get something from someone.[1]

Everyone stopped checking their armor. The tunnels went quiet. They stared, in unison, to Axel’s side.

A hand clutched his shoulder. This wasn’t the comforting grace of Lucille’s hand, but a shaking, icy pain. Axel swallowed. The speaker had bent his armor by touching him.

Her irises were wide, so wide and such complete discs of blackness; Axel could imagine ink overflowing and dripping down her face. The sclera was more red than white. Dark circles encompassed her eyes. In an insomnia competition between her and Axel, she wouldn’t just win, but make Hypnos beg her to take a break.

Her rags reeked of urine and defecation. Of rot and unattended sweat. Scabs of varied age crusted her arms, neck, and shoulders. With her other hand, she absently picked one open, revealing a glimmer of tainted gold.

Ichor.

“Chris said you could help me,” she whispered. She stood a little taller. “He said you were strong.”

Chris. Chris Rodriguez.

“But you can’t.”

Chris Rodriguez, Matthias and Pax’s close friend.

 “Can you?”

Chris Rodriguez who vanished into the labyrinth.

“You can’t help anyone.”

Chris Rodriguez who went mad.

“My name,” her soprano quavered so violently, it blurred to euphoria, “is Mary.”

-----

Footnote:

[1] It only worked on Jack.

Jack, “MY BABY NEEDS ME!”

-------

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed! And thank you for your patience with me from last weekend! I plan to release next weekend, since I skipped a week, and then resume every-other-week. A job application+school kicked my ass XD Seriously, thank all of you so much for your continued support, likes, and comments. (And artwork, JACE! THE ARTWORK) I appreciate how kind everyone has been as I get my feet back under me and am hoping to respond to asks/tags soon!

#percy jackson and the olympians #fanfiction #traitors of olympus #writing #HOO #PJO #heroes of olypmus #Axel #Mary #suprrrriiissse #she's hhheeerrree #lucille #I'm so tired but I'm freaking DETERMINED to get this out before I work on my essay

[jflashandclash]

In a main story (there's prequel's for before and sequels for after but is there something specific you should call the middle story? lol) you can grow the characters from point A to point Z through the series but with a prequel, you're building the characters back up to Point A; do you find that hard? Is there any changes or new character developments you'd like to add but can't because the characters have to fit into their previously established TOO introductions? 1/2

Thank you for your ask, Jacereaall!!!!!

("It's the squeal to PJO--oooohhhhhh. i see." "Medequeal." "I like limiqueal more." "That doesn't even mean middle--" "YEAH BUT IT MEANS THRESHOLD AND ALABSTER WOULD APPROVE--")

The bigger struggle I have is giving each baby the time I want them to have. Tales from Mount Othrys contains shorts that are snapshots of their time at Camp Othrys. It was always meant to be more summary than full dive, but it means the lil babies only get snapshots of character development.

As for a character development that I can't pursue...? Mercedes.

I want to do so much more with her. Her feelings about her job. About betraying her cohort. About Preator Julian dying. About her hidden family. About her hidden faith. About her secret crush on a particularly persistent parasite. There are snippets of scenes I would love to construct into full ones: Mercedes giving Pax an eidi card or cash for Eid. Pax snatching a kiss from her under Christmas mistletoe. Alabaster asking to join her during Salah. (She is, secretly, the demigod he respects the most aboard the Princess Andromeda.) Alabaster getting pissy because she'll explain prayer to Axel, but not him, since Axel has cultural and religious appreciation and Alabster is, um, clinical and scientific. (She would eventually educate him, but love to annoy Alabaster.)

Because of the construction of the prequel, she can't. Mercedes has a lot of pressure put on her, and she's balancing out a lot. Especially with how luke is losing it? She's scared of getting closer to anyone else, despite desperately wanting to and wanting to explore their worlds.

But, gods, can you imagine Mercedes being the one healthy friend this whole group has?

Otherwise....

I have a whole list of AU ideas for Reyel for the prequel. Listen. It's a problem. But I at least KNOW it is a problem--

#asks #tfmo #THANKS JACE!!!! #percy jackson and the olympians

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Flynn: Silenced IV

   Oh, My Wonderous Flynn,

I miss you.

She hates you.

Hates when I talk about you. Fear wracks me each time I incur her iced envy, fear that she’ll eat my dreams and inhale my memories—more—she’s already has

Sweet as poisoned honey, kind as Rohypnol before the trauma, patient and methodical as a farmer gavaging a goose to rupture its liver for consumption.[1] Ever present. As a child, to think how I sang jubilation to the omnipresent, encompassing God, one that coddled and defended the innocent from the sadism of the universe. And now, to be tormented with true omnipresence and true circumscription: her eyes ever-watching, her hands ever-touching, her mouth ever-murmuring those lascivious slither of suggestions.

           Oh, Flynn, my love, Flynn.

           I fear

           I hate her. She desired my love so violently that she earned my ire.

           She’s coming.

         And the message cut off. The handwriting was unmistakably Jack’s. No one would dare to call her, “my love” or “my wondrous” other than Jack. She’d made sure to that.

         There was poetic scribbling in the corners, tucked into the other side of the crumpled, folded paper:

 Like a full body straight jacket. You grant me my sanity and take away my freedom, my voice—what sick torture is this?

 Flynn trembled at the pit in her stomach. The paper shook so much that she was shocked Prometheus could read it. “Who,” she said, her voice hardly above a growl, “is he talking about?”

Prometheus leaned over her extended hand, skimming. His grey eyes went from glazed disinterest to surprised concern. “Oh, I did not foresee this… I would have thought it would be Luke or Axel or, even, Lucille…”

He and the other titans hadn’t rested much recently. Flynn had seen to it: no one rested while Jack was missing. She’d killed several Romans in a rage-fit while interrogating them. All maritime troops were scouring the oceans for any sign of Jack even… even if that sign was a corpse.

Then this. Pontus, the Titan of the Sea, drifted the bottled letter to the only recruit who wouldn’t think it was a trick. Pax had run shrieking to Axel and Flynn had intercepted him.

Since the ambush on Alabaster’s laboratory, Flynn had learned that Jack wasn’t helpless, that they could burn the world together with his angelic song as their theme. He could still accidentally make an ice cream pallor look like the end of MacBeth if left unattended. But, he wasn’t prone to becoming a damsel, not the way this note detailed. Other than the moments he broke down murdering Apollo’s children and the moments after Thalia pushed Luke off a cliff, she’d never heard him spew such hatred.

After weeks of sleepless nights—of punching Jack’s bed banisters until she crumbled to tears or until Pax came in to hug her, of Luke surfacing out of Kronos to panic over his friend—this was the first message they received and it was a distress call.

Flynn would destroy whoever hurt him. Kind as Rohypnol before the trauma. Nausea, so deeply repressed she could only feel it as a rock in her abdomen, resurfaced. She thought about her uncle, and the day she discovered she could use words and actions on him the same way he’d used words and actions to teach her the casualness of violence.

         “None of your dramatics. Who is it?” she snarled. The lack of sleep and constant tension had frayed her patience.

         “Calm now, Flynn. I believe he’s referencing…” Prometheus frowned. He brushed some invisible lint off his tuxedo. He and Morpheus had gotten into a competition to be the most stylish in Camp Othrys, much to Krios’ delight and Kronos’ irritation. “Yes, my niece. Calypso.”

         “Your niece? A titaness? Where can I find her?”

         “It’s not that simple, Flynn. Mortals can’t just go there. Demigods can’t just go there—”

         “Then make it that simple.” There were few things Flynn cared about in this world: Jack and her Nǎinai. One would die without the other, as Nǎinai’s health had already deteriorated over the weeks without Jack’s healing song.

         Before Prometheus could do more than deepen his frown, someone squeaked from the doorway. The Titan’s lodging had walls made of black marble and obsidian. A bustling of twisted hair poked out from around the dark stone. The electric wall torch glinted off a yellow eye. (Titans didn’t like modern technology, but Matthias was determined to update their archaic preferences, usually with occasional explosions of glitter.)

         Someone gently encouraged Pax forward. He, Axel, Lucille, and Luke stepped into the room. Axel wore his Maya war paint and a Greek breastplate. Ever since the ambush, Pax had gathered darts to tack onto a Batbelt, as he called it. That and the massive black jacket—that apparently some hobo had traded for Pax’s new winter jacket, convincing Pax he’d look more menacing—made him look ready for a stealth mission. Lucille, herself, looked like the glass figurine of a war goddess. Her blonde hair was pulled into a perfect bun and her leather armor made her look smaller rather than larger.

         The ballerina was an unlikely warrior, but Flynn knew her ferocity in battle. Their combined charm speak could probably convince Zeus to slice off his own gonads—an excellent hypothesis that both of them wanted to test. Maybe, if they tossed those into the ocean, they’d get a love goddess that wasn’t as shitty as their mother.[2]

         “We want to help,” Lucille said. “Pax said you got word from Jack. A cry for help.”

         “One that didn’t rhyme. That’s the scary part,” Pax mumbled.

         “Ajax,” Axel said.

         “What? He made our chore list rhyme and in iambic pentameter just to show me what it was!”

         “Focus.” Axel jammed his hands into his nonexistent pockets, frowned, and folded his hands over his biceps. “We need to get Jack back—”

“—ha. Ha. Jack Back…. I miss him,” Pax said, “What kind of a band would we be without a lead singer?”

         Luke, sweat-soaked and shaking, nodded at the back of the group. He scowled at Flynn. Without Jack around, Luke viewed her as an unhinged liability. There was something only she could give him: bouts of sanity. Flynn could charmspeak Kronos into a slumber. The fear for his best friend had given Luke a renewed surge to fight Kronos off. “He’s important to the camp. Moral has crashed and they started throwing goats during the monster meditation sessions. And not in the happy way.”

         Typically, Flynn preferred working alone. Seeing her “sons,” her actual half-sister, and their shitbag leader brought her some comfort. Even if this Calypso could somehow stop Flynn, she probably couldn’t stop the group of them.

         Flynn tapped her fingers along the blades she kept in her hair. Pax was still too gentle for this. As he’d grown, he reminded her more and more of Jack’s tenderness. She and Jack were so proud that Pax tried to hang someone with a cable during the ambush. Pity the cable must have broken. She and Jack took Pax and Axel to the circus and for ice cream as a private celebration away from the party, but neither boy seemed festive at the massacre.

         Luke’s shaky scowl slipped to Prometheus. This was distinctly Luke. If it was Kronos, he wouldn’t have cared about Jack. She could further tell from the way his cheek twitched—likely from biting it. One of the nights she’d decided to puppet Luke as a toy, she’d discovered the deep scars on the inside of his mouth. “How do we get him? I—I can’t go, but I want this handled.” They knew he could slip any moment. No point starting an operation only to have Kronos cancel it.

         Prometheus sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Calypso is not… she is not a battle to be fought. A chess master who has lacked a proper contender for centuries? Yes. Convincing her to surrender someone is like convincing a gardener to part with their prized flower. And, she can be very convincing.”

         “So can we,” Lucille said. She hesitated a hand over Flynn’s shoulder. Instead of patting it, she gave Flynn a thumbs up. Flynn both appreciated the gesture and Lucille’s restraint from actually touching her.

         “Lucille is right. Between the two of us, she can’t say no, titaness or not,” Flynn said, and, oh, was she crafting a creative list of ideas for Calypso.

         Prometheus shook his head. “It would be unwise to attack her head on or to attempt charm speak her on her own island. The best route would be for me to go alone.”

         The room deflated. Axel’s shoulder sagged. Pax’s lower lip trembled.

         Lucille frowned. “Is she a charm speaker?”

         Prometheus considered this question. “She has a way with words. Her island is her magical fortress. Even I don’t know exactly how things work there. But, she has respected orders from the gods before and she is Atlas’ daughter—”

         “So was that bitch, Zoe,” Flynn growled. The prophecy Selena supplied them, about a child dying by her father’s hand, was supposed to apply to Chiron dying at Kronos’ hand, not to Zoe. Her death meant far less to them, other than proving to Luke that Thalia was fully brainwashed by the gods. The titans should know that familial connections meant nothing in the Greek world.

         Prometheus opened his mouth for more words—words that Flynn didn’t trust to lead to action. Fortunately, Luke cut him off. He pointed to Flynn. “Take her. She’s the strongest out of all of u—out of them. In the event that your crafty counsel goes poorly, she is the best back up.” Luke glared. “That’s an order, Prometheus.”

         And, Flynn knew how much Titans enjoyed orders.

         Prometheus didn’t protest, as Krios of Hyperion would have. He stared through Luke, his eyes hollow with the ambience of omnipotence. “Very well.” Before Lucille, Pax, or Axel could counter the decision, he hovered a hand above Flynn’s shoulder.

         She closed her eyes a heartbeat before the room vibrated and radiated into something her mind couldn’t process. Others had survived witnessing the Titan’s mode of travel, but Matthias said he’d never have Taco Bell again afterwards. Hopefully Lucille and the boys had shut their eyes in time. Even behind closed eyes, the light’s brilliance made the darkness of nothing tinted red.

         As they disintegrated, Flynn considered their opponent: one of Atlas’ daughters. Atlas himself had been underwhelming, but Flynn didn’t like to underestimate an adversary. She preferred to hit hard and fast, so she didn’t need to ask or answer questions later.    

         The brilliance outside dimmed from blistering red to reasonable warmth. A breeze cradled her chin. The charm at the end of her hair blades swayed, gently tugging at her bun. Everything smelled salty and fresh.

         Water soaked through her shoes and into the ends of her jeans. Her heart leapt at the melancholic strum of a guitar.

         Flynn opened her eyes to a blinding paradise island: rolling meadows, a beach, a cavern off in the distance.

And, there he was.

         “Flynn,” Prometheus warned.

         The music stopped. The makeshift guitar dropped silently into the sand, leaving the island with nothing but the rhythmic flush of the water.  

         Everything else blurred to nothing.

His messy, red flag of hair had been trimmed down, much shorter than he preferred. He wore all white—a color Jack despised. He ran towards them, waving his hands, uncannily silent. Other than when he slept, Flynn had never heard him this quiet. Flynn didn’t plan to see Jack first. Her legs responded with a lack of discipline that made the stagiest in her scream with alarm. This could have been a trap. This could have—

Jack jerked to a violent stop, his feet slipping out from under him. Flynn snatched out her hair blades. He might have been shot in the back or, in a more comically, invisibly clotheslined. Before Flynn could stop her momentum and duck for cover, she saw what kept him silenced.

There was a thin white collar around his neck. The material ran taut back inland. His ragged breath choked on a similarly silky white gag. Tears streamed down to soak the fabric. He grabbed at her with the desperation of a drowning victim, floundering against his leash. His eyes bulged and his brow furrowed with the noiseless sobs.

This was how you disarmed a child of Apollo.

Flynn dropped to her knees beside Jack. She slashed a stiletto through his leash. As the blade cut, the strings rewove themselves, like she’d been trying to cut light.

“Release him,” she snarled, jamming her stilettos back into her hair.

The fabric exploded into frays. The leash thinned and warped until the material could no longer stand the tension Jack exerted onto it.

Jack flopped forward against her. This close, the contrast of white fabric and bruised skin was stark. Considering how rapidly Jack normally healed, he must have been twisting and struggling against the binding recently. The sight of him, sobbing into her shoulder, quenched her stomach with a nauseating rage. The way he gripped at her, like she too could dissolve into sand, the way he pressed his gagged mouth to hers—

She dug her nails into the fabric between his lips. “Release him.”

         It exploded off, revealing red imprints in his skin. His mouth moved to repeat her name with each breath, with each kiss, with each vibration of a sob. There was no noise other than the rustling of his skin against hers. Too quiet. No vocalization or humming.

         He smelled different: a perfect harmony of salt water and flowers and spices. Probably like Calypso.

         Less gentle than she wanted, Flynn grabbed Jack’s shoulders to shove him back. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

         He froze. Jack swallowed, more tears streaming down his cheeks. Rolling onto his side, he dragged his finger along the sand.

         He drew a stick figure torso atop that stupid Jesus Fish symbol that was on all the cars in her and Jack’s little Baptist town. A mermaid. She might not have understood the reference had Jack not forced her to watch The Little Mermaid so they could have matching Halloween costumes. Jack got to be a redheaded merman and she got to be a mariner that disemboweled a sea witch with a ship’s  figurehead. Acceptable and potentially very relevant.

         “A sea witch stole your voice?” she asked, begrudgingly happy that he orchestrated a family day for them to play charades. It might come in more combat handy than she could have predicted.

         “A sea witch that is currently present.”

         Flynn hadn’t forgotten Prometheus, but Jack startled and cowered against her as the Titan settled a large hand on either of their shoulders. Likely to comfort Jack and to restrain her.

         A woman stood along the beach. Her delicate hands covered her mouth in disbelief. Tears streaked her face. Flynn knew not to trust that glow of innocence. The most dangerous people in the world thought they were doing something that was moral. Morality and ethics gave people righteousness, the ability to feel justified in subverting others.

Flynn needed no such excuses.

         “Wait,” Prometheus breathed. “Calypso,” he greeted, “Dear me. A leash? A gag? Cousin, what is this?”

         Her hands shook. Her almond-colored eyes were crestfallen as she reached out towards Jack to trace his face in the air.

         Jack flinched. His breath turned to panicked panting.

         “Prometheus—no—if you’re here… and you brought her…” With her hair braid tucked to the side and her white dress fluttering in the island breeze, she looked like a forlorn Southern belle. Calypso’s lip quivered. “Are the titans no more merciful than the gods? Do they have such jealousy when a goddess takes a mortal bedfellow? Will you deprive me of him how Artemis stole Orion from Eos? Or how they robbed Demeter?”

The rage spread from inside Flynn’s stomach into her chest. That was the angle she was taking.

         Prometheus released Jack to rub his forehead. “Calypso, you didn’t tie and gag Odysseus, Columbus, Doris Miller, or any of the other dozens of men you’ve had here.”

         She clenched one fist. “He… he kept trying to swim out to sea, and it kept making him ill, so I had to keep him tether to the shore unless I was there as escort. And, he threatened to make me sick with his voice, to use as leverage to let him go. His voice is powerful. He managed to sing through some of my weaving. I needed double assurance—I know his fate! He’s safer here. He’ll be better off here. If only he knew, he’d agree.”

         “I tire of this parley, Prometheus,” Flynn growled. She was experiencing one of the few hesitations she had: indecision on how to mutilate your enemy. Prometheus’s grip tightened on her shoulder. When they returned to Mount Othrys, she’d have to remind him why no one but Jack and Pax were allowed to touch her.

         “Calypso, you are no decreer of the Fates, and, by Zeus’ order, no lover of yours will remain here forever. Do you want Kronos, after his rise to power, to make your fate a worse one?” Although Prometheus gave no physical indication, the threat lay heavy on his words. “You are holding his host’s best friend as prisoner.”

         Calypso’s expression contorted, though Flynn couldn’t tell if it was from fear or rage. Her gaze flicked to the trembling mass in Flynn’s arms.

         “You will be cursed, Jack,” she cried, “You will both know the torment of the Fields of Punishment and you will know the curse of dismembered immortality. If you stay here, you’ll avoid both fates. You, Prometheus, of all titans, should know that is not an offer to be taken lightly!”

         Prometheus’ grip slackened.

Jack’s shudders turned violent.

Flynn refused to risk Prometheus sympathizing with this sea witch. First, she would rid Calypso of her tongue, as she had deprived Jack of his voice. Flynn opened her mouth to speak.

         “I will transport you back, without Jack, if you say a word,” Prometheus said softly into her ear.

         Flynn scowled up at him, tightening her hold on Jack.

         Prometheus wasn’t looking at her. He’d straightened, gaze set on Calypso. “Calypso, you must promise to detain no more heroes like this. If not, when the titans win the war, I’ll assure no more companions are sent and you are forgotten. Do not harm my humans like this again. They may only stay off their own volition. If they should choose to leave, let them leave of their own free will. And for Kronos’ sake, provide them a raft, in case you get any more dinky heroes like Jack.”

         Calypso stood eerily still. With the sunrays and sway of trees behind her, she could have been a mirage. Her sobs quieted. Her fists clenched. She closed her eyes, perfect skin temporarily wrinkled with consternation. After an exhale, she relaxed her fingers and opened her eyes. She withdrew a thick thread from her collar, one that matched the red of Jack’s hair. “Is he not frail because he is ill?” she asked, softly, while snapping the thread in half.

         Jack’s next inhale came with a throaty whimper. He withdrew from Flynn, his eyes wide with alarm. The son of Apollo twisted to face Calypso, snarling, “No, you judgmental bitch, I’m just gangly! You stained-glass gas chamber! You—you—!” His voice cracked, hoarse from disuse.

         Prometheus shushed him. “While an apt description, I doubt Calypso knows what a gas chamber is.”

         There were a countable number of times that Flynn heard Jack swear and never so fluidly. He normally stumbled over them with the robotic stammer of a grandparent using modern slang.

         Tears streamed down Calypso’s cheeks anew. A sob rose with each breath. She refused to look at Jack, keeping her gaze level with Prometheus. As though Jack hadn’t said anything, she demanded, “I will agree to your terms, but only after I have known their love! I’ll let them leave, I’ll give them a raft, but only after I love them and they love me in return.”

         “Paralytic spider dressed as a Whore of Babylon—!” although hoarse and quiet, Jack’s voice picked up a tune. He was trying to sing.

         Prometheus pressed a hand over his mouth.

         With Jack’s weakened condition, Flynn wondered if he and she could overpower Prometheus to kill this brat.

         “Fine! Fine!” Prometheus said. His impatience made Flynn think they could. “After you’ve—ow! Jack.”

         From the way Prometheus jerked his hand back and Jack twisted away from him, more into Flynn, Jack must have bitten him. “Do not steal my voice from me,” Jack hissed. He nuzzled into Flynn’s chest. “Don’t let them take my voice from me again.” This time, he was begging her.

         Flynn’s scowl deepened.

         “Just a few more minutes.” Prometheus looked hurt. For being a titan of forethought, Flynn wanted to snarl at him for his thoughtlessness. They didn’t know how long Jack had been gagged. She wondered if Jack would struggle with being shushed.

The titan raised his gaze back to Calypso. “Agreed—after you’ve known their love. But then you better give them a route to leave. All we need is Luke showing up here and being too stupid to build a boat and it ruining our whole war effort.”

         “If she was dead, we wouldn’t need to worry about it,” Flynn said, expecting Prometheus to try silencing her. Had he tried, she would have done more than bitten him. She knew he could regrow limbs.

         Calypso fully acknowledged Flynn for the first time, examining her. There were two typical reactions Flynn received from onlookers. Either people noticed her curves first and scanned up in anticipation only to spot her face with horror, or they saw the withered, burned disfigurement of her face and nothing else. Calypso was different. She took in Flynn’s deformities with disgust and slowly worked her way down, surveying her clothing and her body.

         “Mangled, barren Flynn,” she whispered, “who provides him neither marriage nor child. Neither loyalty nor warmth.”

         Flynn had no interest exchanging pettiness. She never hid any of this from Jack and had hardened any self-hatred or shame she had into weapons instead of vulnerabilities. Before Flynn could utilize them, Jack snarled, “Be silent, you queen of thieves—no—no—that’s too cool a title for you! You Distributor of Asphyxiation! How dare you speak to her.”

Although his hands still clenched her, Jack stood up straighter and drew his shoulders back. When he scowled at Calypso, his eyes seemed clearer and his focus direct. Flynn wondered how long ago he’d run out of medication. “Don’t kill her, Flynn,” Jack said, “She’s just a fucked up, miserable soul. She’ll be sadder alive.”

Calypso covered her mouth again, choking on more sobs.

“No one is killing anyone,” Prometheus said, “Calypso, do we have a deal?”

The lady of Ogygia refused to look at them. She waved a hand in answer as though she could erase their presence off the island.

Flynn couldn’t tell if it was Calypso’s will or Prometheus’ that altered reality. She wasn’t even sure if she lucked into blinking at the right time or if she held her eyes closed out of reflex against the brilliant light.

All she knew was that Jack was home.

  ***

Author’s note: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! One more instillation of the Silenced series left! Thank those of you for still reading despite my Covid hiatus. I hope you’re all doing well and you and your families are safe!

Footnotes:

[1] If this sounds horrifying, don’t look up Fouie Gras.

[2] I still can’t get over that Aphrodite was born from Kronos’ castrated dick. Do you think that’s part of Luke’s plan? To capture Aphrodite and demand his dick back?

#Percy Jackson and the Olympians #PJO #Heroes of Olympus #HOO #Tales from Mount Othrys #TFMO #Jack #Calypso #Flynn #Axel #prometheus #Pax #Lucille #Seriously thank you guys for all the support #i couldn't have come back to this without you #also all hail weasels

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Jack: Silenced II

           When he thought about rolling over to see Flynn making her bed, Jack smiled. Her muscular figure would be silhouetted by the rays of dawn coming through the window, a tan blur against the black obsidian of Camp Othrys.

She walked around in her underwear in the morning. Luke said it was invitation. Jack knew it wasn’t. It was a marker of tested trust, Flynn’s willingness to be vulnerable knowing that Jack wouldn’t make the first move or ogle her. At least, that’s what Prometheus said when Jack brought up his concerns.

But, when Jack rolled over, there was no Camp Othrys, no line of Flynn’s weapons against the wall. His electric bass guitars were gone, as were all of his sketches of the Orpheus Metal band posters. (They were terrible—Pax had made better ones.)

A harp and loom lingered against one cavernous wall. There was a built-in fireplace roaring, providing some respite to the chilly air. The ceiling was crystalline, reflecting purple, emerald, and blue against the white bedding. Someone else’s bedding. It smelled like someone else.

Jack sat up, shoving the feather pillow away. He clutched at his hair, finding that someone must have trimmed it. He choked at the gap in his memory.

They had fought the Romans—an aerial attack against the Princess Andromeda. Jack was snatched by an eagle. Screams. Flynn’s roar of fury. He remembered falling in the water…

The clothing he wore was white, baggy, and cotton, too much like his hospital garb from the first time Steve, his step dad, institutionalized him. This prank has gone too far, Steve had said, angry Jack would dare scare Ashton and Shelby by claiming the walls were screaming. Jack’s skinny jeans and band shirt were gone. What if all of it had been a hallucination: Camp Othrys, the Princess Andromeda, the monsters, the gods.

Jack choked back a sob. This. This wasn’t the hospital. Jack dug his nails into his pockets, the material too thin and delicate to keep him from clawing his legs in a panic. No Mr. Sunny. His pillbox, and all of his medication, was gone. How much time did he have? He knew the withdraw symptoms: vomiting, hypersalivation, diarrhea, diaphoresis, insomnia, agitation, and rapid psychosis.

He had woken in a cold sweat, but a cold sweat didn’t always mean withdraws.

Rapid psychosis. Jack’s heartbeat thudded in his head. This felt real, but everything always felt real—that was the problem. There was a distant song—lovely and eerie, just abstract enough to question its authenticity.

His stomach churned with ignored hunger. A platter with tropical fruits, bread, and a mug of water lay beside him. Jack knew enough about mythology and fairy tales not to eat something unless you were directly invited and only if you knew that the owner of the food wasn’t a witch with powers to trap you eternally.

She must have undressed me. That girl with the caramel braid. Unease squeezed away any hunger: a stranger had taken off his boxers while he slept.

When Jack got to his feet, his legs trembled and his head pounded. He slipped a blanket around his shoulders. As he wandered towards the cave entrance, he passed a shelf filled with dried and drying plants that smelled of Alabaster’s laboratory. Several ancient tomes lined a desk beside it. One was open to a page illustrating human anatomy with words in… Minoan, if Jack had to guess. Some of the titans at Camp Othrys wrote in the dead language. Jack turned the page and flinched. There was an inked sketch of him, sleeping. He turned the page back.

Was it him? Or had his brain filled in the gaps?

It’s starting. Monsters. He was going to start to see and hear monsters again. Not the real ones. Not the friendly ones on his ship. Not the ones that came to his monster seminars about how demigods were friends, not food. Innocuous, innocent things would become sinister and comfort would lilt to paranoia.

         But there were no monsters outside the cave. Just her.

         The sun’s amber and coral hues broke against the ocean’s horizon, bleeding into the water and clouds to unite them into zigzagging, heavenly passageways. Crepuscular rays danced through their holes, making this girl’s hair glow as though one more constant in the coming of dawn. She stood, singing, at the edge of a beach. Her bare feet made lumps in the sand, compounding with each flush of the tide; if she forgot herself for long enough, the earth would reclaim her.

         Jack swallowed. In the oncoming lighting, he could see the silhouettes of flowers—so many flowers. There was a maze of roses, larkspur, delphinium, lilies, hollyhock, and sunflowers, all reaching towards the sky and curling about with a careless grace that looked both wild and tamed in their pattern. Some whisper cooed that these flowers didn’t belong together, making Jack fear they’d bow and bury him if he dared to walk through.

         But he needed to walk through to get to the beach, to follow the siren call. He hesitantly passed the first rose bush, expecting it to jump into Alice in Wonderland levels of criticism.

         “Jack!”

         The call made him jump away from the roses. After an exhale, he realized it was the girl, not chatty flora. He rushed past the rest of the flowers.

         “You’re already up,” she said when he reached her. The comment sounded more surprised than the disappointment he’d detected last time. Her white, sleeveless dress and braid fluttered in an ocean breeze. The effect made Jack’s blanket feel like an epic cloak.

         He gestured to his clothing and back towards the cave. “Thank you for the hospitality, Ms…” He trailed off, frowning. His throat felt worn. He’d have to do his warm up exercises. At least there was plenty of salt water to gargle. “How did you know my name?”

         “Ms?” she echoed, her brow furrowing in confusion. “Oh,” she giggled, “You talk in your sleep.”

         Jack didn’t—or no one ever said he had before. Pax (and Axel under the guise of worrying over Pax) had slept in his room when they’d had particularly bad nightmares. That sounded like something Pax would abuse, even subconsciously, and would result in Flynn taping both their mouths shut.  Morpheus liked to keep a strict record of who talked in their sleep, so he could play with demigods that slept through Alabaster’s lectures.

         Jack swallowed. “Um, Ms., I hate to be a bother, but I had a pill box in my pocket—”

         “I disposed of it. I don’t allow plastics on my island and the contents had been soiled by the ocean.”

         Jack choked. That was the first gift Flynn gave Jack—the first time he realized all his ballads, poems, and offers to carry her books hadn’t just annoyed her. She and Phil had been teaching him to carry it on his own, a marker of independence that made him proud, even if Flynn double checked every hour to assure he hadn’t overdosed on anything. Most people didn’t trust him with important things, but she and Phil were entrusting him with that.

         “You won’t need them here. Ogygia itself can soothe you—”

         Trembles shook from Jack’s core to his fingertips. “Ogygia,” he whispered, taking a step backwards. The beautiful horizon tilted. His hair felt course as he tugged at it. “You’re—you’re Calypso the Seductress, detainer of men—”

         Before the words left his mouth, he turned to flee. The sand slipped under his bare feet. The blanket tumbled from his shoulders, disappearing with the sight of that horizon. Jack ran towards the retreating darkness of the island, away from the sunlight that sparkled in that glowing hair.

Others at camp found Homer and Hesiod’s work boring, but he’d put the Odyssey to proper music and knew most verses. He knew of this nymph-goddess.

Each step made Jack’s body feel leaden. His panic numbed with an encroaching exhaustion. He shouldn’t be this tired—he knew his body. He healed fast. This weakness—how could she—did she—?

Jack’s legs failed him while racing through the gardens. Rose canes loomed over him and curled around in a canopy of thorns. In their sharp and cloy embrace, consciousness hazed to nightmares.[1]

 ***

Pain pinched Jack’s cheek. He jerked away, expecting to see Pax with a super glue tube and fake mustache to make Jack “look more esteemed.” That prank had not gone well. Turns out, Flynn did not like Jack with a Western train-robber look and she did not like how the fake black hairs tickled when he nuzzled her.

Instead of Pax, he saw Calypso with a small bandage that she must have ripped off his face. There was a tiny, brownish-red scab on the other side.

Jack sat up and jerked back from her. They were back in the cavern, on the mattress made of white fluffiness. She had a basket of tiny bandages at her side.

“Calypso the—”

“Don’t.” She placed her hands on her hips, glaring. Considering how she knelt beside him, her regale stature was impressive. “I get messages from the gods, you know. They call you Jak-Jak the Scourge of New Rome, Jak-Jak the Plague Bringer, Jak-Jak the Corrupted Spawn of Apollo. Need I go one? Shall I assume you’re here to plague me? To give me cancerous sores? Shall I make assumptions of your person off hearsay, like you have done with me? How long ago did Homer and Hesiod write that libel about Odysseus?”

Her eyes watered.

Jack frowned. Had his name really traveled that far?

A tear streaked down her perfect cheek: a raindrop down the smoothness of a statue. Rumor had it that Pax could cry on command. What if she could too?

Or, what if she was a good Samaritan helping out, decried, like many women had been, by the histories written by men?

Jack exhaled, telling himself to relax. He tried counting, the way Axel told him to when he got confused. Axel would be furious at him for this kind of assumption, for upsetting a mythological creature based off hearsay. There were lots of fabled monsters at Camp Othrys that were friendly (when well fed. Jack had to make rules about demigods being in the dining hall during monster feed time).

“I—I’m sorry, Ms. Calypso,” he said, looking down at his hands. There were more little bandages tapped across his forearms. From a quick examination of his skin, the thorn pricks had already healed and scarred over. The base guitar chord was still braided in a bracelet around his wrist. He touched the scars there, finding ridges where he’d healed Lucille and Lou Ellen’s skin by peeling off his own. That new kid, Ethan Naka—something, had joked that Jack’s arms would start to match Flynn’s burned face. Jack gave him a case of chicken pox for that. No one was allowed to talk about Flynn’s face, except Flynn herself and their son, Pax. Pax, only because he was a sweet little munchin and the only person other than Jack that could make Flynn blush.

Calypso gently touched his chin. Jack didn’t flinch back this time. “It is alright.” And, she ripped off another bandage. Some hair came away with it, making Jack wince.

Everything seemed… clearer. Sharper than it had in years. His thoughts raced with a hyper clarity that scared him. “What else was wrong from the myth?” he asked, observing the cavern in a new light. The cool breeze that rustled the white curtains was refreshing, intermixing the gentle sweetness of flowers with the herbs in her cabinet. He frowned at the tomes there. Had he imagined the drawing of him?

She dabbed a cool, wet cloth against his stinging skin. Sadness lined her eyes. She hesitated. “I don’t know what you know of this place, brave one. The island is a phantom island, my imprisonment for helping my father in the first Titan War. Time does not have the same meaning here as it does elsewhere.”

Jack glanced past her, to the roaring fire in the wall’s inset fireplace. There was a pot over the flames, boiling furiously. He swallowed, despite her earlier assurance. “You’re not going to… eat me, are you?”

“Eat you, my sweet?” Her eyes seemed to dance.

“Well, that response reaffirmed every fairytale fear that I had.”

Her laugh was melodious. She must have thought that had been a joke. It was not. “I’m afraid we mostly eat vegetables and fish here. There’s a scarcity of cannibalism on the island.”

Jack nodded, somewhat comforted. That hadn’t been in the original tale, but you never knew with Greek mythology. He didn’t want to be rude (again) but, if this was the Calypso, he had an important question. “How do I get off the island?”

“Jack, a terrible fate awaits you off the island. I cannot, in good consciousness, allow you to leave until you are healed, well-rested, and well.” She gestured to his lanky frame.

Once again, Jack considered pointing out that this was his natural state of stick-figure Jackness. He let the offense slide. In the Odyssey, she said something similar to Odysseus. Staying here would worry Flynn, Luke, and the boys, but he had no way off the island unless he lucked into some abandoned boat or cartoon-barrel. In the Odyssey, Calypso gave Odysseus a bronze axe so he could build his own raft. Jack doubted he could lift an axe over his head without falling backwards let alone build a raft with it. Greeks were master ship-builders. Jack was a master builder of group-therapy sessions for monster support, metal bands, and stories to make Luke, Flynn, and his boys smile.

Besides, Calypso helped Odysseus only after she held him captive for seven years and he provided her a son (or several, depending on the author). There were no sons on the island, unless they were hiding in the cartoon-barrels. Maybe the ancient authors truly had discredited her.

“I can stay,” he said hesitantly, “but only for a few days. Flynn, Luke, and my boys need me.”

Calypso’s lips pursed and her gaze softened, making her look both relieved and troubled. She glanced away. “You’re so young to have children.”

“Oh, we adopted.” Jack beamed. “Luke says they’re too close in age to be my sons, and Axel says I’m not allowed to both be the head of our metal band and his father, but they’ve taken well to it. They haven’t started calling me dad yet, but I’ll work them over.”

Calypso looked confused. “Metal band?” she repeated.

Jack leaned forward excitedly. “We already played once at the HMM—a bar for monsters—er—a tavern.” He scrambled to find words that would translate to ones she would recognize. “The crowd loved us. Clops threw a goat at us!”

“A goat?”

“Yeah! A goat’s this four-legged—” Jack fumbled, realizing that’s not the part that confused her. She repressed a smile at the pause. “It’s a really big deal to have a monster throw a goat at you instead of trying to eat it. Kind of like when people throw their underwear at the stage and about as sanitary. Much lighter impact.”

“What?!” Her face scrunched in disgust. The expression was almost cute. It put Jack at ease. This was the first time he felt like she wasn’t acting or hiding anything. “People have thrown their underwear at you while you’re performing? Is that… normal?”

Jack considered this. “I don’t really know. It never happened to me when I did solos in the church choir—” Well, once after service but that was a little different. One of those instances where the boy denied it happened the next day. “—but Pax—one of my sons—talks about it like it’s a marker of success. I think they’re mostly thrown at Axel. He’s a handsome boy and a hearthrob amongst demigod and monster alike. Plus, he’s the guitarist, and the angsty one, and people always love angsty guitar players.”

The look of confusion deepened. Jack absently tugged a lock of his hair, wishing it was a little longer. “It’s like a lute—oh, wait, that was 13th century. Uh, it’s a fretted stringed instrument—anywhere from four to nine strings though standard is six, and you play it by plucking or strumming with one hand while fretting with the other—or picking. Or bapping the body. Uh—how about I make you one? All I need is a box, a longish piece of wood, some sticks, and some of your uncut harp strings.”

I can make an instrument, but can’t make a boat. Not for the first time, Jack wondered why Luke and Flynn wanted to keep him around. He managed to use his powers to save Axel, Pax, and Alabaster (though, really, he thought it was mostly Flynn. She was so incredible). But he still didn’t feel like he was great at the killing department, regardless of Phil’s continuous encouragement. Even during the interrogations he and Flynn had been conducting on Romans, he flinched and shrieked when someone’s finger was broken. Despite all this time, he hoped Flynn and Luke found him useful.

Calypso nodded slowly. “Will you teach me how to play?”

Jack nodded enthusiastically. “The positioning might seem weird, but you’ll pick it up easily. From what I’ve heard of your singing and harp-playing, you have perfect pitch and a natural grasp on music—”

She tucked a lock behind her ear. “You like my singing?”

He tilted his head quizzically. “Of course. You’re incredibly talented, both naturally with your voice quality and the amount of work you’ve put into perfecting your craft.” Jack supposed that’s what he’d do, too, if he had an eternity to work on anything. An eternity of music—the foundations for paradise. Maybe that’s why God is said to have a choir of angels and how he crafted souls: by singing them to life. “Each word you sing weaves a secondary layer of emotion—both melodious and melancholic, interweaving multiple stories into—” He frowned, feeling his explanation lacked poetic value—ah!

“’Tis sweet, when mournfulness enshrouds

The spirit sorrowing and pale,

And gather round the angry clouds,

To take the harp and tune its wail.

‘Tis sweet, when calmly broods the night,

To wander forth where waters roll,

And, mingling with the waves its voice,

To rouse the passions of the soul!”

When Jack was done, she stared at him, her eyes wide and her expression unreadable. He frowned. “I—sorry—” he said, his insides churning. Had he done something wrong? He didn’t feel confused right now. The world felt so much clearer. An uncomfortable dread settled into him upon realizing something for the first time: not everyone burst into poetry at random. How stupid had he been to not know that before?

“No.” She put a hand on his. Her eyes watered. “I—that was beautiful. Did you—”

Jack blushed and pulled his hand back. “No. It’s by John Rollin Ridge, a famous Native American poet. I was just reciting.”

She cleared her throat and looked away. “I—let’s get you a box. I wish to hear this guitar of which you speak.”

 ***

Normally, Jack felt such mania for whatever project he focused on, everything else fell in the background. As he twisted the tuning pegs of his guitar (sabotaged off Calypso’s extra harp) his mind scattered with worry.

This newfound clarity was almost overwhelming. There was so much wrong in the world for him to mull over. Each time he stopped singing, it hovered on its peripheral, like a night terror lurking along the receding rays of the sun.    

Between each question from Calypso—she enjoyed hearing updates from the outside world—he’d hum or sing the ballads he’d composed about Flynn’s ventures. Calypso would pause her work on the strings and stare at him with that unreadable expression.  

After she finished with the sixth string—winding them of her hair—she sat closer to him. They worked in the shade, where the woods met the beach. Some distant whisper warned Jack that more time had passed than the evening angle of the sun, but he couldn’t be sure. The sun was all he had to go off of, and he wasn’t used to the awareness of passing time. Normally, Jack felt the passage of existence through the crystal notes of a song, the annoyed flash of Flynn’s smile, Pax’s giggle, or the upwell of elation at the end of monster help session, measuring life in crescendos and decrescendos of energy and joy. Jack didn’t like wanting to look at a clock, especially now that there were none. That was always someone else’s job.

“Why did you adopt children?” Calypso asked it with the practiced calm of an over-thought question.

“Flynn can’t have children.” Jack had to be gentler with these strings than the metal ones from home. He wondered how their sound would differ, and hoped it would ease the 2,000—4,000 year transition in music for Calypso.

“She’s barren?”

“So says the goddess of childbirth.”

“And this doesn’t bother you?”

Another reason Jack couldn’t stay long: it was almost the weekend before he vanished and he and Flynn would need to go to her Nainia’s apartment to sing to her, as they did every Sunday. The kind grandmother’s health was failing and Jack knew they needed to visit more often. “Why should it?” Jack frowned, repeating the question in his head. “Well, it did when I first found out. I wanted a family. Then, I adopted[2] the boys, and now we have one. And, it wouldn’t matter even if she could. We’re not… physical. Recently, we started curling up without clothing, but nothing else. Just snuggles.”

Jack felt his cheeks flush, both at the memory of Flynn snuggled up in his bunk (she never let him near hers; she wanted a place of her own) and that he’d told Calypso about it. Was that something else people didn’t normally blurt out? To Luke or Phil? Sure. To Calypso the Seductress, the Detainer of Men…

Her cheeks rouged. Shame crept along his awareness. You weren’t supposed to blurt stuff like that. Negative two on the Jack social protocol scoreboard.

“Oh… um… But you’ve already adopted—have you two not been married long?” She struggled to maintain eye contact.

Something pinched in Jack’s chest. “Um… she’s not really into the idea of marriage, but we’ve been dating for…” With no clocks on the island, he didn’t know how many days he had been unconscious. Normally, Jack could recite the length of time down to the minute. The thought of Flynn’s blush when he asked her to prom. The day before he met Luke. The day Jack accidentally killed his whole mortal family with a song.

That memory hadn’t resurfaced in so long, not since he was sobbing into Flynn’s arms over it. How could he banish it from his thoughts? It wasn’t like the thoughts of his half-siblings he killed—the other children of Apollo. No. They deserved it. They had reaped the favor of their father since birth. The cessation of that favoritism brought the world back to order, the way things should be to balance the scale that an unfair god created, like correctly a flat note to perfect harmony. But his family… Had he ever even had a funeral? And did it matter?

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Calypso asked.

The funeral part did bother Jack. It took him a moment to retrace the pieces, sliding his fingers along the guitar string. Flynn. Sex. Marriage.

Flynn would puppet and charmspeak boys into their room to humiliate and toy with them, but, she wouldn’t take Jack. Jack never wanted to pressure her, but icy insecurity crawled through him at the thought. What was wrong with him? It didn’t matter that Prometheus said Jack and Flynn viewed sex differently: Jack, as an expression of love; Flynn, as subjugation. Jack didn’t understand that. All he wanted was to be everything Flynn needed, and he didn’t understand why she could puppet others but wouldn’t puppet him. If that’s what she wanted—

         The string snapped and lashed him across the cheek.

         He shrieked and jerked backwards. Blood trickled down his skin. A full string wasted—an instrument piece dying before it could sing its first song.

         Something cool touched his face. Humming filled his ears. The lashed skin tingled and Jack wondered if this is how others felt when he healed them.

         When Jack blinked to clear his vision, Calypso knelt beside him. Her too-perfect face rested in a gentle, knowing smile. The strap of her white dress slid onto her shoulder, tickled by the length of the braid. For the first time, she looked like the goddess of the island—something about the subtle shift in confidence.

         Jack flinched when he felt her spider fingers in his hair. She must have put them there to hold him steady for a cheek-cleaning. “You ran from me when you first found out who I was. Do you—did you really think I could make you forget Flynn?” The question could have been rhetorical, but there was enough real curiosity to make Jack tremble.  

Fear coiled his confidence, the same fear present when Luke lost himself to Kronos or his anger. If Calypso lost her temper…

         “Odysseus never forgot Penelope,” Jack whispered, “So the stories say.”  

Could that fear come from the possibility of forgetting Flynn? Do people only experience fear when they’re experiencing doubt or uncertainty?

At the watery glisten of her beautiful almond eyes, an idea made Jack sit up and almost clock foreheads with her. She startled at the sudden movement. “And you never forgot Odysseus!” Jack cried. “Calypso, do you always fall for the people on your island?”

Calypso hesitated. A tear broke from the dam along her eyelashes. “I… I try not to say anything when travelers first come…”

“Have you heard of platonic love?”

Her brow furrowed. Her melancholy faltered to confusion. “Platonic? You mean… relating to Plato? Or the idea that abstract objects are objective, timeless, and are non-physical and non-mental?”

Jack would need to ask Alabaster about that later. “Uh—well, I want to be your friend. You’re really nice, but you don’t need to fall in love with everyone you meet, or at least not romantic love. Let’s be friends! I mean—have you ever heard of a rebound?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think you ever fully moved on from Odysseus. So, we should talk about him. Tell me what you loved and hated about him and why you fell for him in the first place.”

Calypso’s expression darkened. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Exactly! You never forgave him for hurting you or yourself for loving him. Both are still hurting you. So, let me be your friend. Let me help you get over him without being a replacement for him. And, after this war is over, we can still be friends! Either we decapitate Zeus and his lackeys and his power no long holds you to the island, or we can keep in touch. I know the myths say I can’t come back twice, but I’ll bet I can Iris Message you. I mean, you have rainbows and Iris can go anywhere rainbows can.”

Her lips cracked to protest. Upon considering his words, she stared off at the coastline. “No one has thought of that before.”

Jack beamed. The fear was gone. He shoved a hand between the two of them (awkward due to the close quarters). “Let’s shake on it?”

Calypso glanced from Jack’s hand back to his face. Curiosity perched her lips. “You’re… one of the oddest men I’ve ever met, Jack Flash.”

Jack blushed. “I get that a lot.”

Cautiously, she shook his hand.

At the time, Jack didn’t think to make her swear on the River Styx.

He should have.

 ***

author’s note: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! This series is going to continue! I’ve just been struggling to focus on writing with some crazy stuff going on at home. ^.^’‘‘‘ Thanks for your patience and continued support!

 Footnotes:

[1] So, Homer’s Ogygia is as Riordan described it. I needed to at least alter the flowers so Jack wouldn’t immediately recognize where he was. Also, flowers for symbolism because I’m a tool.  

 [2] I kept accidentally writing, “kidnapped” here. Not too far off.

#Tales from Mount Othrys #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #TFMO #PJO #HOO #fanfiction #Jack Flash #Calypso #My cat is named after Calypso #Her screams are not siren like #especially not at 4:30 in the morning #I hope you're staying healthy!

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

           After the Romans’ failed ambush of Alabaster’s laboratory, a celebration is warranted for the victors! Unfortunately, not all the revelers know what “relaxation” means….

   Alabaster: the Delicate Dance of Chance Part I

             Alabaster felt stupid.

           He hoped Axel would be an ally in the feeling, so was disappointed—and rather bewildered—to find the older boy applying black eye liner with a handheld mirror. Alabaster was so unprepared for the warrior to be dallying with makeup that he would have left the Sabotage Unit’s tent had tiny Pax not cried, “Witch Boy!”

           A cheer went up from the inhabitants: children of Aphrodite paused in helping others with their makeup and hair, children of Hermes paused in their preparations for food and drink, and his siblings sent up little fireworks.

           Alabaster managed a nod of acknowledgement. As much as Alabaster hated it, he’d mentally prepared himself to receive embarrassing amounts of attention. Everyone would feel validated and good about putting him on the spot today, like getting one of those horrific singing balloons for a birthday.

           “Are you ready to celebrate the victory of the Triple A Chimera?!” Pax cried.

           Another cheer went up, loud enough that the ground felt like it was trembling.

           This time, Axel leaned his head back and released an animalistic howl that probably would have made Alabaster’s monster siblings drool. Alabaster didn’t want to be around them drooling. One would need a mop the size of Luke’s chariot to clean that up.

           Alabaster shook his head. The slightest smile graced his lips.

           He, Axel, and Pax had survived a statistical probability akin to that of shoving one’s head in a hippo’s mouth. His pleasure and celebration had come from their survival, and knowing they’d excelled during the fight.

However, it did not from some superficial, obligatory dance.

           “Triple A Chimera, Ajax?” Alabaster asked. “That name isn’t going to stick.”[1]

           The cheering quieted down as everyone finished preparing.

           Pax seemed unconcerned by Alabaster’s skepticism. He turned back to Axel and tugged on his older brother’s wrist. “Axxxeellll, come onnnn! You’re pretty enough. You don’t need to pretty up to disappoint more women and men.”

           Alabaster snorted, walking up alongside their bedrolls. If the Pax brothers were going to turn out as promising as Jack anticipated—and so far they had—Luke really needed to get them their own room. Even if they had their own room, Alabaster assumed that Pax would still scamper into his room at night, asking for a story before bed. Pax’s complete illiteracy disturbed Alabaster greatly.

           With the deadest expression Alabaster could maintain, he asked, “I don’t know Axel—are you pretty enough?”

           Before Axel could retort, a stout blond barged into the tent with a loud speaker. “Gentlemen of the hour!” He nodded respectfully. “And Ajax.”

           Pax winked at his friend with his hazel eye.

           “May I direct you towards the exit! We need prepare you for your epic entrance of epicness—Jack’s orders of course.” Matthias motioned towards the exit of the tent. There was a suspicious sack of what appeared to be rotten vegetation on his back. He bowed graciously. “Good siiiiirrrrrs.”

           Alabaster still couldn’t tell if he liked or hated this kid. He was a genius with machinery, but, he and Lou Ellen had made Pax into a pranking nightmare. Alabaster refused to believe it had anything to do with Mercedes (as Pax claimed).

           Alabaster felt his stomach tighten. “Entrance?” he asked.

           Matthias mimed the motion of stapling his mouth shut, complete with sound effects.

           Alabaster had been hoping to avoid that extreme a spot light. On the field directing troops? Certainly. In a tent full of campers, lecturing on poisons and the importance of intelligent fighting? Of course.

Not at the equivalent of a high school dance.

           As they exited the tent, Pax skipping and Axel casually tapping out a cigarette, Alabaster sighed. “I haven’t been to a dance since Cotillion.”

           When they got outside the tent, Alabaster balked. There was a hyperborean (or frost giant) outside with a chariot strapped on its back like a backpack. Someone must have crafted a dress shirt for the thirty-foot man. The cream color made his blue skin and grey hair look extra chilled.

           Axel and Alabaster stopped to stare.          

           Pax yipped in glee.  “Is that our ride?!” He bolted towards the giant.

           The cigarette fell out of Axel’s mouth.

           “Dude, nothing but the best for the Triple A Chimera,” Matthias said with a grin. “Frosty! Heel!”

           The frost giant sat down on its rear, narrowly missing a giggling Pax. The ground trembled. Behind the frost giant, the “Assault and Battery” unit’s tent collapsed, earning several cries of displeasure.

           The giant gave a terrifyingly idiotic grin to Matthias.

           Matthias gave him a thumbs up. “You got it big guy! More yams for you!”

           Axel and Alabaster exchanged a glance. The message was clear: this contraption was an abomination and they needed to stop Pax before he got inside, or they’d never get him out.

***

           Fifteen minutes and lots of pleading later, Axel and Alabaster climbed into the abomination-contraption beside Pax.

           Pax was bouncing with excitement, sending uncomfortable vibrations through the chariot with each jump.

           Matthias—hanging off the outside of the chariot—gave them each a bungee rope. When Alabaster realized that the straps attaching the chariot to the giant’s back were made out of the same material, he thought about turning Matthias into a weasel.

           Axel held out his bungee cord. “What are these?”

           “Seatbelts,” Matthias said.  

           “Wouldn’t it be more dangerous to be attached to this catastrophe?” Alabaster asked.

           “Yep,” Matthias affirmed.

           The mechanic tested one of the giant’s shoulder straps. It made a thwang noise.

           Pax laughed gleefully. He wrapped an arm around Alabaster’s and Axel’s waists. The motion made Alabaster stumble. From the hollow sound of the floorboards, he wondered if they were made from cardboard. Though, the chariot—at least—had to be soundly constructed, right?

           Matthias gave them one more thumbs up before hopping off.

           “We’re not actually taking this thing,” Axel said. He looked paler than normal as the giant happily picked its nose. Alabaster had to agree with Axel—this was ludicrous.

           Matthias raced to a four wheeler parked nearby. “Can’t hear you over the sound of your awesome entrance!” he shouted and started the engine.

           Everything shook as Frosty the giant scrambled to his feet.

           Axel dug his claws into the chariot’s front.

           Alabaster mentally flipped through any incantation that could possibly make them levitate.

           Pax kept laughing. He released them and latched his bungee cord to the side railing, like that would do anything. Alabaster feared that Pax would try to swing from it.

           Somewhere on the ground, Alabaster could hear Matthias’s four wheeler squeal away. The giant thundered forward, likely in pursuit of the rotten yam bag.

           After the few minutes of acclimating to the sheer terror (at being strapped onto an idiot giant’s back with bungee cords, being lead by another idiot in a beat-up metal death trap) Alabaster could pretend to relax. The chariot hadn’t shaken to pieces yet and the bungee cords hadn’t snapped. He could fool himself into thinking their probability of survival was high.

           When he remembered to breathe, he appreciated the eagle’s view of their ragtag camp. He didn’t dare lean against the wooden railing that Matthias had slapped onto the back of the chariot, but he could lean against the firmer side railing and gaze outward.

           Their camp had financial backers. Plenty of people hated the Hellenistic gods, New Rome, and Camp Half-Blood. But, they weren’t far on construction. The black marble base of Kronos’s palace was still underway. Their tents were a sad replacement for Camp Half-Blood’s cabins or the Roman barracks. His laboratory was supposed to be the nicest structure a few miles outside of camp, but the Romans had compromised that in their last attack. Even their chariot parking lot wasn’t paved.

           But, that was their home. Since the Pax brothers had forcibly given him the brotherly treatment, both younger and older, it felt more like a real home.      

           “Do you think looking away from the chariot will make it more or less likely to fall apart?” Pax asked his brother.

           Alabaster didn’t need to glance over to envision the rage on Axel’s face. “When we get off of this, I’m ripping your ear off,” Axel growled, “And setting Matthias’ four wheeler on fire.”

           Alabaster cracked a smile. These two were lunatics.

           In his peripheral vision, he could see Pax lean against Matthias’s makeshift railing. He put a hand up to his brow to shade his eyes from the setting sun. The rays looked magnificent against the woods around Camp Othrys. Normally little sunlight could get through with Atlas’s storm clouds, but the sky seemed to be less stormy tonight.

           “You know, we did that thing you said earlier too: cotillion,” Pax said cheerfully. The pose made him look like an adventurer, especially with his crazy, raven hair flipping around in the giant-created-breeze.

           Alabaster tried to imagine either of these brothers ballroom dancing in an etiquette class. He couldn’t. Not with Pax’s ADHD or Axel’s stubbornness.  

           “You’re lying,” Alabaster decided.

           “No, really. We did it for six months before we got here,” Pax said. He went to fold his arms, only to grab hold of the railing as their giant stumbled. “Axel loved it.”

           Alabaster glanced behind him, to where Axel still had his claws in the front of the chariot. The older boy stared off aloofly, but the tension in his arms ruined the calm visage. Axel shrugged. “I like to dance.”

           At the absurdity of the comment, Alabaster wanted to call their jest.

           But, the Pax brothers had gone silent, both staring off at the setting sun, like they could track the progress of a fading memory. Most campers didn’t like to talk about why they were in Camp Othrys. All of them had their reasons, none pleasant.  

           Alabaster ground his teeth thinking about his own experiences with the Greek gods and what happened to his father.

           No one in their trio had talked about why they were here. The memory of Axel slicing the tattoo off his hip made Alabaster frown. That was when he came to understand Axel better. Through Axel’s sweat and pallor, Alabaster could see the determination in his golden eyes, and the relief at having that layer of skin removed. Axel never explained what the Mayan hieroglyph meant, and Pax would redirect questions about the same, intact tattoo on his hip.

           Alabaster glanced back towards their disappearing camp.

           Although he couldn’t see over the giant’s shoulders, nor did he want to face the giant that reeked of rotten yams, he knew they’d be approaching the local Tamalpais High School—a school gracious enough to rent out their facilities when Alabaster and Prometheus asked on behalf of their “home school” group. Normally, they used it for “rallies.” Would Alabaster have agreed to persuade the school if he knew it would be used to facilitate a dance?

           They were almost there. While Alabaster wanted off of this Fastpass to Hades, he almost wished they could talk longer. He wanted to know more about the Pax brothers—what they were, where Axel got his powers, why Pax never seemed to use his—and suspected they would shut down as soon as they hopped off.

             ***

             They dismounted. Matthias gave Frosty a bag of yams, and Axel caught Matthias and Pax to sock Matthias in the stomach and twist Pax’s ear. Once done, Matthias lead them through the back doors. He deposited them down a hallway, outside another set of doors, saying, “Wait to hear yourselves announces! Matthias out!”  Then he disappeared down the hall, clutching at his stomach.

           Music thumped against the other side of the wall, and Alabaster felt himself getting nauseous with each throb of the subwoofer.

           Being “announced” sounded like code for being humiliated.        

           He understood the importance of catharsis for the troops. But this wouldn’t be a catharsis for him. It would be two hours of checking his watch to see if the socially appropriate amount of time had passed that he could leave. Most of that time would be in a corner, with a drink, trying to find someone to talk business about their next battle.        

           “Hey, I’ll make sure you’re never awkwardly alone,” Pax assured him.

           “Having you around is more likely to ward people off,” Alabaster snapped. He knew it wasn’t true: Pax was really popular with his buoyant, persistent cheerfulness. But Alabaster really didn’t need this thirteen-year-old reminding him that he was socially awkward. And he didn’t need everyone seeing him hang out with someone so young.

           When Alabaster glared over, he could see Pax’s lower lip quiver on his smile. Axel examined him carefully, cracking his knuckles.

           Alabaster sighed. “I don’t need a kid taking care of me,” he said, gentler.

           As best he could, Pax kept his tone light. “You can tell everyone you’re babysitting me.”

           “You are babysitting him,” Axel said. He turned his gaze to the lights flashing through the slit of the doors. “Remember, he’s allergic to nuts and will eat any dessert without asking what’s in it.”

           Alabaster balked. “What are you going to be doing the whole time?” Although Alabaster didn’t want to admit to it, he felt relieved. That was a phenomenal and realistic excuse to have Pax with him the whole time; he wouldn’t need to be awkwardly fidgeting alone or jumping between different conversations.

           Axel cracked his neck to one side. His grin turned crooked. “Figuring out who the best dance partner is in Camp Othrys.”

           Pax looked thrilled. “I’ll bet it’s Flynn or Jack.”

           “Figuring out who the best dance partner is in Camp Othrys that isn’t Flynn or Jack,” Axel corrected.

           Alabaster couldn’t imagine this quiet, curt soldier hopping from partner to partner. Before he could comment, the music quieted and Jack’s unmistakable bravado announcing, “And now—the reason we’ve all gathered… the Triple A Chimera!”

           Alabaster scowled. “Ajax, did you tell Jack about that stupid Chimera name?”

           “Yea, he loved it.”

           A drum roll resounded through the door. Lights flashed in brilliant intervals through the slit. Alabaster could feel his heart pounding with panic. This sounded more like the entrance for idiot football players.

           And the Pax brothers were walking towards the door like this was normal. “Ajax, you wanna do something fancy?” Axel asked.

           “Yea!” the younger cheered and jumped with excitement.

           “I’ll carry Alabaster on my shoulder. Do whatever you want elsewhere.”

           “Excuse me?!” Alabaster demanded.

           Axel’s hand flashed out faster than Alabaster could react. The older boy hooked an arm around his waist, destroying any chances for escape from this idiocy.

           Pax threw the door open for them.

           “It’s called presentation,” Axel said through gritted teeth. He struggled to keep Alabaster’s hands from his emergency spell pouches while dragging the thinner boy through the doorway.

           Once on the other side, Alabaster was blinded. From what he could guess, they were on some kind of stage. A curtain or something partially obscured their assumed audience. Backstage.

           As they walked towards the center, Axel hefted Alabaster off his feet and onto his shoulder, like he was no more than a shoulder puppet.

           Alabaster hissed, “I’m not an acrobat!” Struggles ceased at the threat of falling. He found himself rigidly sitting six feet higher than he was used to, on a moving surface without a backing. He clutched Axel’s shoulder, knowing the wrong movement would mean a close-call with a broken bone, and, he knew how sloppy a healer Jack was.

           “So?” Axel grunted. “Do some smoke and mirrors stuff or something. Oh—and when I do a front roll, you’re going to want to break fall.”

           Rustling sounded by the curtain. Alabaster frantically glanced over to find Pax—having scaled one of the dangling catwalk ropes—gracefully stepping one foot onto Axel’s other shoulder and the other foot onto Axel’s head.

           “Ajax!” the older hissed with the strain of their weight. Granted, the thirteen-year-old couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, but Axel still walking with over two hundred pounds on his shoulders and head.

           As they stepped away from the minor protection of the curtain, Alabaster’s brain spun. Every part of him wanted to freeze up, then scream in frustration. Smoke and mirrors?! He wanted to demand. But, the thought of smoke calmed him. Maybe he could buy a little more coverage and give this audience a taste of what really happened in the Roman attack.

           With as little movement as he could manage, Alabaster slipped three smoke bombs from his pockets and tossed them in Axel’s path, hoping the acrobat wouldn’t trip on them.

           “Alright, all you monsters and fiends! Here they are! The men of the hour!”

           The smoke screen twisted up with three random colors: gold, green, and black.

           Pax giggled with delight, pointing forward. With his one leg higher on Axel’s head, he looked like the image of Captain Morgan.

           Everyone would still be able to see them emerging from the smoke though. Alabaster needed to do something to distract the audience, make them focus on that instead of him inevitably falling on his face.

           “The Triple A Chimera!”

           There was a roar of cheering. The drum beat blasted into a full techno-accompanied crescendo. The subwoofers throbbed. Fortunately, between the stage lighting and the smoke, Alabaster couldn’t see the audience.

           Which let him focus on altering the smoke into the first thing he could think of.

           Alabaster concentrated on the green smoke first, thinking about a massive snake twisting around from the right.

           Axel started to tilt forward.  

           Pax sprang off Axel’s shoulder into a front flip.

           Next, was the gold smoke. A snarling lion. Not something pretty from Rome. Something fierce and merciless.

           Axel tucked forward. Gravity mocked Alabaster as his stability disappeared. He was falling.

           Lastly, the black smoke… a goat? No—no—that would be stupid—

           Alabaster barely made the tuck and roll. Unlike the soft dirt of their outdoor training, the stage floor was unforgiving. Pain trembled along his shoulder as he rolled through the momentum.

           How do you make a goat menacing—how was—

           Then it clicked. Alabaster envisioned a giant ram’s head looming above them, exhaling black fire.

           He successfully rolled back to his feet without any serious injury. When he glanced around, he found Pax had landed nearby and Axel had finished off with a handspring on Alabaster’s other side. When Alabaster stood tall, he felt a ting of pride.

           Through his panic and improvising, the three smoky heads of a chimera framed them from above and either side: the snake wrapped near Pax, the lion by Axel, and the ram above Alabaster’s head.

           The audience had gone silent for a moment of shock.

           Then exploded into louder applause.

           Alabaster couldn’t understand what Jack was saying through the microphone. The redheaded maniac was at the edge of the stage, jabbering and jumping in excitement.

           This, Alabaster sighed in preemptive exhaustion, was going to be a long night.

 Author’s note: Alabaster would be furious if he knew this was his first chapter. (Pax, I see you squirming. Don’t you dare tell him). This short was originally written as a fluff Christmas present for Mel. It has been altered, added to, and come out more mangy and less fluffy at times. I hope you still enjoyed! Tune in for Part II of Alabaster’s Delicate Dance of Chance in two weeks!

 Footnote:

[1] For those Traitor of Olypmus readers, oh…. Oh the irony.

#TFMO #HOO #PJO #Tales from Mount Othrys #Heroes of Olympus #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Alabaster #Axel #Pax #Mattias #What if Matthias was the spy? #And an assassin? #all of his pranks are really just ill conceived assassination attempts #No one would see it coming #TRIPLE A CHIMERA