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queenie-blackthorn · 1 year

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What if Annabeth died in the Giant War? (5/8)

Pov: Hestia, goddess of the hearth

The son of Poseidon was coming. I could sense his aura, even from the throne room. Zeus had summoned all the Olympians together for a meeting; Apollo and Artemis have been summoned from their prison on Delos, and even Hades was summoned up here. I may not be an Olympian anymore, but I want to make sure no fights break out among my family.

That is my purpose, after all, as the goddess of the home.

"Father," Artemis asked. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Are me and Artemis being freed?" Apollo asked hopefully.

"Yes, Apollo," Zeus answered. "We are in troubled times. Annabeth Chase has-"

"My daughter has fallen in battle." Athena cut in. Her intense gray eyes, red from sorrow, were staring hard at Poseidon. "She has fallen at the hand of Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon."

"It was an accident," Poseidon said angrily. "My son is being destroyed by grief-"

"And that pain will not only destroy him, but it will also push him to destroy us." Zeus cut in, his voice full of authority. "I never warned you before, but my nephew is a dangerous opponent. If he had chosen to be a lesser god last year-"

"He would've destroyed us the instant my daughter released her last breath." Athena finished.

"Just slay him where he stands and get it over with," Ares grumbled. "I don't understand why some troublesome punk is such a big deal."

Poseidon's eyes blazed with anger. "The boy is in mourning. At least try to get him to see reason before annihilating him."

Hades opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly Demeter gasped. She doubled over, coughing.

"Sister?" I asked, alarmed. "What is it?" Demeter looked up, her face pale, ichor dribbling down the corner of her mouth. "A dryad has been killed. She died here, on Olympus."

"He is coming," Hades whispered harshly.

The doors flew open.

A young man stalked in, eyes like the calm before a storm. His clothes were ripped up and covered in dirt, and he had the scent of death clinging to him. He was carrying a dead dryad in his arms, her skin an abnormal shade of pastel greenish yellow. Her eyes were closed, her long black-and-white eyelashes brushing her cheeks.

There was another young man a little ways behind Percy Jackson, one I recognized instantly. He was the first mortal who has ever spoken to me in centuries, and he hadn't even known I was a goddess when he had. He was fiddling nervously with the skull ring on his finger. I guessed that he was here to keep Percy at bay if he went out of control.

"Nico di Angelo. Percy Jackson." I murmured. The two most powerful demigods I have seen for quite some time.

Nico seemed to hear me. "Hello, Hestia."

"I am sorry to hear about your lover, son of Poseidon," I said carefully.

"Oh, you might be. And Athena might be. What of the other gods? Are they sorry?" Percy didn't even glance at me.

"We are, as a matter of fact," Artemis answered. "Annabeth Chase was a marvelous fighter. Her death is a great loss to Camp Half-Blood. I would've loved to have her join my Hunters, but it seems her love for you was strong. She died a warrior's death; one she deserved."

"If she was a marvelous fighter and her death is a great loss, you have to consider that we are at war. Bring her back to me."

"That is not allowed," Zeus said. "Her soul has already passed. She resides in Elysium now. If we bring her back to war, she will be unhappy."

"Unhappy? Unhappy?" Percy roared. Nico flinched. "There are two people in my life that I need, and two people only. Anyone else can die. But if I lose either, I won't be able to continue living."

"Annabeth Chase," I said calmly. "And Sally Jackson."

"I've already been separated from my mother because of you, Hera." He glared at the goddess in question. "Now I lose Annabeth? I won't fight for the Greeks or the Romans if you do not bring her back to me. I will fight against them."

"Percy, don't be irrational. Achilles stopped fighting in the Trojan War, and it led to Patroclus's death." Hephaestus said. "Then that led to Achilles's death."

"I don't care, though, since I am Achilles who stopped fighting so Patroclus can be returned to me. And you think I would mind death?" A maniacal laugh bubbled out of him.

"You would," Hera said. "Your mother... she is pregnant."

Percy froze. The dryad's body fell to the ground as his arms went limp to his sides. "W-What?"

"She's one month now, nearly two. I already let them know. As the goddess of motherhood, I know when one is expecting."

Percy stared in shock for a moment. He fell to his knees and stared into space.

"Percy," Nico said softly. He knelt beside Percy. "Your mother. She cried every day of fear for you. Annabeth too. Paul comforted them both but it didn't help much. I know this because I used to go to her often, to give her updates on you. She needed it, she said. Then Annabeth knew you were in Camp Jupiter, and that gave her and your mother hope. Then your mother found out she was pregnant and was delighted. She kept talking about how great it would be for you to have a younger sister."

Percy didn't seem to hear him. He was looking down, still in shock. Then slowly, he looked up.

His voice was monotonous. "I won't lose my mom or my baby sibling. I won't lose Annabeth. I will bring her back." Water appeared out of nowhere, swirling around us. Fear washed over me, like a cold hand clutching my heart. "Die."

The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the tears forming in Percy's eyes as he walked over to the Ophiotaurus, his sword in hand.

#dark!percy #percy jackson #nico di angelo #heroes of olympus #hoo #the giant war #percabeth #dead annabeth #pjo hoo toa #pjo series #fanfiction #fanfic #part five #angst

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sparklecryptid · 3 years

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*vibing in excitement* Moose, moose your dream? Guda in PJO? I had all the question for this bad boy. Like what is the timeline in the PJO? Cuz if you made it book 1, you could have smol Guda (age regression) being a menace to the society just being herself. And the angst? Sally knowing she give birth to twin but only can had one child with her cuz the other one are not necessary for the prophecy. Percy-my-fatal-flaw-is-personal-loyalty finding out he had sister. Twin. But grow up alone - (1/2)

- cuz Zeus being Zeus. The anger and frustration of another life changing fact being hidden from him. On the other side, I can see Guda accidentally create a group of people that don't like the Olympian but didn't believe what Kronos sell either. Who accept anyone no matter what the past was. And how you handle the crossover elements Moose? Like as funny as it is of Medusa fgo meet Annabeth, something like Eresh will cause problem with the whole different patheon thing didn't meet thing. (2/2)

I'm out here acting like i havent thought of all of the above in terrible detail.

Okay so. if i did write this it would go like this:

"I have a sister," Percy tells Nico one night, after the Titan War is over, "We are twins."

"Don't lie to me," Nico says, "I would have met her by now." Nico has traversed lands both alive and dead, he knows that if Percy had a sister in either realm Nico would have met him.

"I'm not lying. She disappeared when we were five. I don't-" Percy pauses, "-She's not in the Underworld is she?"

"No," Nico says, "Not that I know of."

Something like hope shines in Percy's eyes. It is a terrible thing, bright and angry and so hopeful Nico wants to tear out Percy's eyes for being able to have hope when Nico's own sister is dead and gone and not coming back to Nico.

Percy laughs, loud and victorious.

"She's alive." When Percy grins he looks more like a young god -brash and terrible- than anything else. "Thank you, Nico, I finally know what to do."

"You're going to look for her."

"I don't have a choice," Percy says, "She's my sister."

Percy doesn't find his sister. He doesn't find Ritsuka - a name their mother chose, a mortal name through and through - and the fact that his sister is out there and alive burns in his gut even as he faces down the Titan War.

Where is she? Percy wonders. He never gets any answers and knows better than to face Poseidon's grief by himself. She was my sister.

The Giant War ends, Percy turns eighteen, and one day while sword training at Camp shouts from the beach alert Percy to the fact that something is wrong. He rushes over to find a woman with a shock of red hair and brown eyes - the same shade and shape as Sally's - stumbling dry out of the ocean.

"Why do I always fall from the sky?" Ritsuka grumbles and runs a hand through her hair, "Does gravity have a personal vendetta against me? This is bull-" She stops, staring at the crowd of people who have gathered to watch her walk out of the ocean.

She smiles at them and it's like the sun.

"Ritsuka," Percy says, because that is his sister, because he knows that is his sister and the crowd parts around him like a wave as he walks toward her.

Ritsuka looks at him, eyes lighting up in recognition and a grin blossoms on her face like a wildflower.

"Hey, bro," she says and now that Percy is closer he can see that Ritsuka has carefully covered every inch of skin that could possibly be exposed. Percy spies the edge of a scar peeking out from he wrists of her fingerless gloves. He gives her another once over and sees a jagged line making it's way across her throat.

His stomach twists in his gut. He wants to kill something. But his sister is there and smiling at him and he does the only thing he can think of.

He reaches out and drags her into a hug.

"Hey, Ri." His voice is muffled by her hair and the ocean beside them gleams and churns and Percy can feel his father watching. "Missed you."

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happyk44 · 3 years

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Me at anyone who will listen: The kid ban was to avoid the prophecy but they still had kids around!! So logically the kids had to die!!!

Anyway!! Zeus likely wanted Bianca and Nico at camp so he could have all of Hades' kids, as many or as fee as there were, all in one place to just blow up at once.

And Hades probably suspected this or was like "no I'm not sending my kids to the place where they're mistreated, the only reason you got the few other ones that are there is because of satyrs" and that's the real reason why Zeus tried to kill them seemingly out of nowhere!! Because he was going to usher them to safety - and Maria too - and that would effectively put a pin in Zeus's plan to screw him over completely because Maria would be safe, the other kids would be dead but the babies would be okay, and Demeter would throw a huge fit if he tried to do anything to Persephone (again).

Hades probably didn't really want Nico or Bianca to be the real hero of the prophecy but when he realized Percy's permanence in the role, he wanted to prove that they were wrong to target him and his children??? That the underworld is not all ends and misery and darkness and the complete and utter cold. That the underworld can produce heroes, not villains. That there can be good in all the death and decay.

Masters of death, people that can kill just by touch, just by a wave of their hand, are so much more dangerous than kids who burst lightning from their skin- you don't think they were the first to fucking go?

And you don't think they were always the first to fucking go?

#happy talks pjo #look i have been thinking about this for like as long as ive had the series in my head #i feel justified

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thebigqueer · 3 years

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Nico di Angelo & Hazel Levesque - "Falling Apart" - One-Shot

Summary: Nico has a breakdown after his meeting with Eros and Hazel tries to comfort him.

Word Count: 1080

TW: Homophobia, Outing, Internalized Homophobia

Read on AO3

Dread swirls in Nico’s chest as he and Jason walk together. The son of Zeus is awfully silent next to him, and Nico just wishes he were alone. It’s already humiliating enough knowing that one of the most powerful and popular demigods of the century knows about his secret.

When the Argo II comes into view, Nico falters. His heart quickens its pace, fighting to escape his chest, and his stomach churns with anxiety.

“Jason,” he whispers, fear threaded through his voice, “you can’t tell anyone.”

Jason’s brows furrow and a concerned look pulls at his features. “Nico, I wouldn’t. I promised you.”

“I know, but you just… can’t. I’m not ready.”

“Hey, dude. I understand. You can trust me.”

Nico offers him a wary look. He doesn’t trust when people tell him to; it only ever leads him to more messes. But he offers a nod and, after a moment’s hesitation, the two step forward onto the ship.

Immediately after seeing them, some of the crew members crowd around the boys. “What happened?” asks Piper, looking from Nico to Jason. “Did you get it?”

Nico opens his mouth to respond, but Jason beats him to it. “Yeah. Nico’s got it.” He smiles at the son of Hades, but he only turns away. He doesn’t want Jason’s feigned kindness.

His gaze connects with Hazel’s dark eyes. She’s watching him with a frown, the gears in her head turning as she gauges his body language. He looks away from her, too, and stares at the ground. He can’t give up his emotions so easily.

“Well, congrats, guys,” Frank says. “Guess we should celebrate with dinner.”

And that’s Nico’s cue to leave. Emotions well up in his chest, strangle his throat, and he knows that if he doesn’t escape from the crowd right now, he will break to pieces. He doesn’t want people picking up his broken shards.

Nico slips out from the crowd as the heat of humiliation sinks into his skin again. He hopes no one notices, but as soon as he’s into the corridor, the patter of feet against the floorboard echo behind him. He stops and turns, expecting it to be Jason.

But instead, Hazel stands before him, her dark curls floating wildly in front of her. Her eyes gleam with concern. “Nico?” she asks. “Everything okay?”

It’s the way that she says his name, the way that she sounds so genuinely worried for him that makes Nico’s emotions press against his chest. Hot tears ache against his throat and rise up to his eyes, and he knows he only has seconds before he crashes and breaks into pieces. He opens his mouth to speak, but the chokehold that the tears have him in don’t let any words come out. He merely shakes his head and rushes into her cabin, looking for refuge from the outside world.

With each step that he takes in the cabin, he strips himself of the anxiety, rips off his guarded-exterior, and falls deeper into his emotions. He unplugs the stopper to his tears, and soon he’s tumbling into his despair. He knows he shouldn’t do this in Hazel’s room, but right now he has no other refuge. There are too many people on the mast and too many emotions to handle in the wide-open. The only person he can trust is Hazel.

He presses himself against the back wall and slides down, allowing the anchor of pain to push him to the floor. A dam in his throat breaks and suddenly tears are falling from his eyes, pouring from his hands, pooling at his feet. His body shakes as each broken sob escapes his chest.

He’s never cried so hard. He’s never felt so much.

“Nico,” Hazel whispers. The son of Hades doesn’t look up; he can’t bear the thought of seeing her right now.

The door clicks and Hazel turns the light on, but Nico is still suffocating in darkness. What’s going to happen to me? he wonders. Will someone find out? Will I get killed?

He’s cracking down, being chipped away by his fears. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He thought he could keep it secret; he thought he could force himself to believe he was normal.

But all those hopes washed away as Eros stripped his secret from his body and put him on display in front of Jason.

“What’s wrong?” asks Hazel, concern choking her voice. “Did something happen? Did Jason do something?”

Nico shakes his head. He wants to say something but his sobs are too loud, too controlling. They don’t make room for his words; they only echo his despair.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

Nico shakes his head again. She would hate him the most. She’s from a similar time period; she wouldn’t understand and she wouldn’t love him anymore.

If he tells her, he’ll lose Hazel. He can’t let someone else he loves slip from his fingers. Not again.

So he sits there, bathing in his sorrow, and Hazel watches him from a world away, unable to reach him, unable to help him.

The floor creaks as Hazel’s body moves forward, but still Nico says nothing. He lets the tears trail down his cheeks, catch onto his palms, slither down his wrists. He lets his pain out into the wide open.

Hazel bends on her knees and, after a moment’s hesitation, wraps her arms around Nico. She cannot save him from whatever monsters he’s hiding, but she can at least try to keep them at bay for a little while.

Nico flinches against her. Why should she touch something so disgusting, so vile? What if she discovers from this mere hug that he isn’t worth her love?

But her arms are comforting and warm, filled only with admiration for him. Nico loosens himself and spills into her embrace, suddenly yearning for the warmth of his sister. He cries against her shoulder, letting his tears soak through her sweater, but she says nothing.

She’s holding him together as he's trying his best to fall apart.

He wants to tell her it isn’t worth it to hold him, that he doesn’t deserve her embrace. But he wants her love. Nico wants her to tell him he’s still worth something to her before he lets her know of his disgusting secret.

She doesn’t know him for who he is. And he wants to keep it that way for a while longer.

#my writing #nico di angelo #hazel levesque #rick riordan #riordanverse #heroes of olympus #hoo #trials of apollo #toa #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #house of hades #hoh #nico di angelo fanfic #hazel levesque fanfic #nico di angelo fic #hazel levesque fic #riordanverse fanfic #riordanverse fic

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demigodlunar · 3 years

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Scars - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - Woman Up Levesque

Hazel looked down into the recent pages of her sketchbook, filled with drawings of gems and pictures of her mother’s face that she had drawn.

This day was the seventh anniversary of her mother’s death, and Hazel holed herself in her room every single year on this day, drawing her heart out until Nico came and sought her out to mourn together.

Pouring feelings she couldn’t share with anyone but Nico into the pages. A light knock at Hazel’s door startled her out of her reverie, and she let out a small noise she hoped sounded like ‘come in’.

Nico stepped into her room with red-bloodshot eyes and sat next to her on the bed. She felt bad for her brother… well, her half-brother. They had different mothers, but Nico was as brotherly as any brother was.

Nevertheless, she felt bad for him.

This was the same day that he had lost his real sister, Bianca, to the same people who killed Hazel’s mother.

Then, she felt angry. At herself.

She never came to comfort him on these days as he did for her. How could she be so selfish?

Nico pulled her into a hug, and Hazel was about to apologize for being so inconsiderate when the flashback hit.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Hazel, baby.” Marie Levesque whispered with an anxious expression on her face and a maniac look in her eyes, “Your father will be here soon. When he comes, go with him.”

9-year-old Hazel quivered in her stance, but nodded and tried to calm her beating heart. Then, her mother hugged Hazel to her chest and stood up. She straightened her back and walked into a room, where the door closed behind her.

Not five minutes after Marie went in, Hazel heard a gunshot and a cut-off scream. Suppressing a shriek, Hazel went to the door and pressed her ears to the thin wall, hoping and praying her mother was safe.

“... kill the girl as well.” a commanding woman’s voice demanded on the other side of the wall.

This time, Hazel couldn’t suppress a scream, and the room fell quiet. Suddenly, a hand fell on her shoulder and she would have screamed again if the other hand hadn’t been covering her mouth.

She turned her head around to face her captor, shaking so hard she felt she might never stop. Her gold eyes met ones of pitch black.

Hazel had only seen that pair of eyes once in her life, when she was just an infant. Her father, Hades Di Angelo.

Hades put a finger to his lips and motioned behind him, silently asking her to follow him quickly. She complied quickly, following him into a dark alley. They had just rounded the corner out of sight when Hazel heard the door to the room bang open and what seemed like hundreds of footsteps pounded afterward.

Her father pulled her arm to follow him, and he led her to a sleek, black limo. There was no way her mother would- would have been able to afford that.

Hazel was no idiot, she knew exactly what had happened to her mother, but her thoughts were too muddled for her to properly grieve at the moment.

As they approached the car, both of them heard two voices that were trying to be quiet but completely failing.

“... shut up, Nico!”

“You shut up, Bianca, you're such a fun spoiler!”

“Oh yeah, well you’re a-”

Hades interrupted them, “What in Zeus’s name are you doing here? I told you two to stay at home!”

Two figures emerged from behind the car and Hazel’s heart almost jumped out of her ribcage. But these people weren’t dangerous, no, they were just two kids. The younger looking one was a boy, with black hair and chocolate brown eyes, olive skin, and a chipped tooth when he smiled at Hazel.

“Hi! I’m Nico!” was all he had to say to have Hazel cowering behind Hades, while the other, older girl elbowed him.

“Nico, that’s not nice! She’s scared, can’t you see? Father, why is she scared, and why are you here, and why do you look so scared?”

Hades had started shaking too, and opened his mouth to speak when they heard voices in the distance.

“There, I see somebody!”

Hazel’s eyes widened, and Hades' voice took on an urgent tone, “Kids, all of you. Get into the car. Get- get in! Go!”

In the dark, Hazel could see Nico and the other girl- Bianca- rushing to the car with them. The misty night air was cool against Hazel’s fiery red cheeks, hot from the impending danger.

She could see Hades get into the front seat of the limo, and she and Nico filed into the left side of the long car. They could leave, but there was something, no, someone missing. Hazel could feel her heart beating out of her chest, as she turned her head to the right window of the car, and could see Bianca struggling to open the side door.

What happened next was something that none of them could ever forget.

Hazel heard a loud gunshot and looked in horror as she watched Bianca’s body arc backward and a splatter of blood landed on the window. Hazel turned away, feeling the contents of her stomach trying to rise, and swallowed hard.

The car was silent for a second before they all heard yells, and Hades stepped on the gas, propelling the limo forward. When they got to Hazel’s new home, they all filed out silently.

The days that came afterward were full of heartbreak, and some sort of recovery.

Bianca’s funeral was held the next week, and though Nico warmed up to Hazel, he and Hazel would never be the same again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hazel opened her eyes, blurry with water, and saw Nico shaking her shoulders. She focused her vision on him and he visibly sighed in relief.

Pulling his arms away from her shoulders, Nico closed his eyes and murmured, “You had another flashback.”

Hazel groaned and sat back. She was sure that her flashbacks had ended last year, that she had been done with them. But as long as she remembered what happened that night, Hazel would never get over the flashbacks.

Nico clicked his tongue a couple of times just to break the silence, and Hazel cracked a smile. He smiled back, and a quiet pinging noise aroused from his pocket.

Nico drew his phone out of his pocket and squinted at the screen. After a couple of seconds, he spoke again.

“Jason is coming over. Thalia can’t make it, so I guess it's just the three of us,” he said, pursing his lips, and showing Hazel the screen.

Every year on this day, the two of them would mope, at least until their cousins came to drag them out of the dumps. And they would spend the rest of the day binging shows and movies and eating junk food. The fact that they still remembered brought a smile onto Hazel’s face.

They heard the doorbell ring from the other room. Neither Hades nor Persephone were home, so Nico and Hazel were home alone.

“Well, I guess Sparky is here.” Nico said with a grin, and he jumped off the bed and yelled: “COMING!”

Hazel got up too and followed Nico into the main room of the apartment. He was already at the front door, but when he swung it open, it wasn’t Jason standing there.

“Hey,” said someone who Hazel thought she would never see again.

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

-Blossom ;)

#percy jackon and the olympians #soulmates #percabeth #caleo #solangelo #jiper #frazel #heroes of olympus #pjo fanfic #pjo angst #nico di angelo #bianca di angelo #hazel levesque

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outoftimewriting · 4 years

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Imagine (based on the incomplete fanfic Son of Underworld) (3/5) (Son of Hades! Percy AU)

Before reading, check the masterpost - and read the warnings before proceeding :)) Good reading!

Percy goes back to Yancy, and things proceed as normal. He has nightmares, he misses his mom, who he only saw for a week. He thinks back on last summer and asks himself if it's worth going back to.

Annabeth tries to go back to her father's family. It doesn't go well, but at least they could keep contact using a landline for the three months she can deal with the monsters in her father's new location. There's a weekend he tries to visit her in San Francisco - but he still isn't perfect and lands in Sacramento.

It takes him an hour and a half to reach her - and it's the best weekend of the year, even if he doesn't meet anyone in her family - she is afraid they'll double the monsters in her house.

And her stepmom is racist. So there's that.

Annabeth makes fun of his Academy Uniform, the blazer and the black gloves, the red tie that he hates, and he calls her Wise Girl - he is two grades over her because of her years as a runaway.

It feels a little like a date. There's pizza, and they hold hands when she takes him to see the Golden Gate. He notices that Annie's eyes look literally like molten silver - every demigod carries a trace of their parent, he finally notices.

He can't come back after that - they were attacked by a Hydra, and killing it was only possible because he managed to use fire - a green, weird fire that he did not know he had - to cauterize the stumps.

Blackjack shadow travels him back to Yancy Academy and he and Annie keep the contact for another two weeks before she has to go back to Camp since San Francisco is becoming too dangerous.

It's his last year of middle school. Next year, he doesn't know if he'll continue in Yancy or go for a scholarship at Phillips Academy, in Massachusetts.

It's far. It's almost four hours from his mother, it's six hours from Camp. But it's the best school on the East Coast.

He does his midterms exams. He is in all high of A+ in Geometry, Algebra II, Economics and Government, Ancient World History, and Health&PE.

U.S. History and Science keep between B- and D+, and he is okay with that.

Language Arts and World Cultures can go die in a hole. He hates reading, writing makes him anxious and the only language he can get a C+ is Latin.

They give him a tutor for English - his GPA is only sustained by math. His grades raise a little: They go from F to E+.

There's a girl being tutored with him. She is Cherokee and a grade below him - her name is Piper.

He hates verbs. He hates To Kill a Mockingbird. He will kill a mockingbird if it stops them asking him to read again.

He cheats in his essays - makes skeletons write them for him. They suspect - it's not his handwriting, it's not the way he writes, it has no errors.

They can't prove it, so he scrapes Language Arts with a D+.

His midterm GPA is amazing. He goes see his mother for Christmas, even though he thinks there's no Christ. Maybe. Who knows? He is not celebrating Jupiternalia anyway.

He barely put his bag down when his four weeks with his Mom go down the drain - Thalia and Annabeth appear in his door. He grabs his backpack, his weapons, and go.

Annabeth looks at his hands with wonder - it's the first time she sees them bare in two years, but he puts his gloves back quickly enough.

Thalia is less skittish around him, and that's good. Better, at least. He notices that her eyes aren't only green - there are waves in them, it's like looking at the sea. It changes with her humor, perhaps? He doesn't know.

They make fun of his uniform - but they are going to Westover Hall, and he will merge better if he looks like a preppy kid from a boarding school.

Percy knows about the Mist this time. He helps Thalia to control it - his heart aches when he thinks of his friends. Its been a year and a half now. He misses them.

The daughter of Zeus asks him who taught him.

"The same person who taught you"

She looks at him appreciatively now, but he knows he'll come short of whoever she is measuring him against.

They see the kids. There's a girl looking nervous and overlooking the gym, and a boy by her side fiddling with his cards. Their hair is black just like his - he wishes for a brother and a sister.

Their skin is not like his - but it doesn't matter that they have a different mom, does it? In the end, it's family. Grover says they're powerful - so Big Three might be a possibility.

They're not children of Poseidon - their skin lacks the tan and the hair lacks the messiness, the windswept look - And Zeus is a lot of things, but a hypocrite isn't one of them, is?

Percy dances with Annabeth, and he feels alive. Then, he is running to save the children.

He doesn't shadow travel them. Shadowtravelling with more than one person is tricky, and he still hasn't mastered not going to Wyoming.

He kills the manticore with his Warhammer, but as it crumbles to dust, Annabeth falls.

The earth trembles at his feet - but it's Thalia's hand in his shoulder that remembers him there's two kids here, and Artemis Hunt is all looking at him with varying degrees of disgust and fear.

It's nothing he is not acquainted with. For being black (and not even a normal shade of black), for his clothes, for not having a father, for having a father and it being Hades. Just now, he was being judged for being a man.

Misandry is news for him. His mother raised him to respect all genders (even when he discovered a few months ago there's more than two), that women deserve the same as men. Annabeth fights alongside him frequently enough. Clarisse wipes the floor with his ass. Katie Gardner doesn't - it doesn't make her weaker, or less deserving of respect.

He knows women have to fight for their place in society much more than he has to. He knows these women are probably traumatized by violent men and unable to fight back.

It still doesn't make it right for them to be bullies. It gives a reason, but not a justification.

And when they take Bianca Di Angelo, who has a little brother and barely has any idea of what she is doing, who was just attacked by a thing that shouldn't exist and is probably still in shock, he wants to scream.

Artemis sees something in Bianca - and he finally looks at the girl's eyes. There's a storm raging in them.

Zeus is a hypocrite, after all.

But it's not his place to say anything, nor to the children, nor against Artemis, so he just leaves the tent and goes ask the only other boy here to teach him Mythomagic.

Nico Di Angelo asks way too many questions and has an infinite source of energy. He is prideful - a trace common of all Zeus children. His eyes aren't stormy like his sisters, there aren't clouds in his irises. They are white, like his probable father's lighting bolt.

Nico asks him why he has green eyes - and why they turned black after the question. He doesn't know the answer.

Apollo appears and says something about flying in the sun car - it's the first time he and Thalia agree on something.

But calls for Blackjack. He is not flying, not even under a god's asking. Apollo understands.

Thalia goes with him. Better through shadows than through air. He doesn't want to leave Nico with the misandry archers - but he has Grover, and Percy would probably land them in Iowa.

The daughter of Poseidon holds his waist while they ride on the hellhound. He focuses the best he can - and, for the first time, he lands exactly where he wants to land: in the woods at Camp.

Thalia helps him get to the Big House under weird looks of the year-rounders. They are there at least three hours before Apollo.

"You're kinda heavy, Corpse Breath. But that was cool."

"Shut it, Kelp Head"

He is anxious to just leave and go back to his mother, but Annabeth is in danger: They need a quest.

He has dreams. He can't fault Annabeth for doing what he would've done without a second of hesitation. It's Luke.

He helps Nico settle at Cabin 11, and avoids the huntresses. Connor hugs him, and Clarisse wipes the floor with him in wrestling - they are his friends now.

Clarisse, Connor, Annabeth, Grover, Charles. Luke, Ethan, Alabaster. The scales are tipping. He doesn't care for masters - he cares who is the defending.

Artemis goes missing, and they finally get a quest. Zoe Nightshade doesn't want a boy in the quest but tough luck: He is the most experienced camper here right now AND the quest goes through a desert, so he is going.

There's some doubt about taking Thalia - she is a daughter of Poseidon and can't do much in the wasteland.

So it's decided: Phoebe, Bianca, Zoe, Perseus, and Grover. No one is happy about it, and Percy knows Thalia is going to follow them.

He introduces himself as Perseus to them. He is stoic and doesn't smile around the girls.

Capture the Flag is horrible. He doesn't leave his post and blocks Zoe with skeletons for enough time that Thalia manages to snag the flag and cross the river.

The huntresses get mad and try to fight the campers - Phoebe tries to hit Nico with the pommel of her sword and a lightning bolt hits her, putting her out of commission.

He is claimed. Bianca isn't, but it doesn't matter: She is not a camper, she is a hunter. Her loyalty is to her half-sister now.

They leave in the morning without Phoebe before anyone wakes up.

Bianca looks at him weirdly because of his soft white and blue sweaters and scrunchies that he started using to take off hair from his face, and the contrast it makes with his dark skin and demeanor.

Newsflash: He doesn't care for a prejudiced daughter of Zeus's opinion.

Zoe doesn't even look at him twice: They have trans girls in the hunt, they're caught up with modern times. Except for the misandry and the exclusion of genderfluid, agender and non-binary people. But sure, caught up.

Nico asks him to protect his sister. He says he is going to try, but he understands death better than some. He says it'll be dangerous, but he'll do his best.

For some reason, Nico doesn't look worried.

Thalia joins them in the Space museum. She came in her Pegasus, Porkpie, and they fight the Nemean Lion together. His hellhound startles the hunters, and Thalia laughs.

They kill the Nemean Lion, and Perseus thinks he finally perfects his power over the earth when he uses a stone spike to pierce the monster through the mouth and barely gets tired.

The duster is not his style, but beggars can't be choosers. Zoe is warming up to them, he thinks, but he doesn't care either way: his objective is Annabeth.

He still hasn't managed to open the ground or to control metal's proprieties, but he controls the earth beneath his feet, shadow travels (very badly controlled, but sure), raises armies of skeletons and money and gems just sprout when he wants them. He has power.

But he isn't completely in control yet, so he doesn't want anyone touching him. And it's been such a long time since anyone except his mother ever been close to any skin below his neck.

Perseus has dreams. He is grateful that Artemis took the sky for Annabeth, so he burns the coat in her name.

Thalia says she has met Apollo, and Perseus is glad at least one god is on their side.

Perseus feels in the air: life. This town is cloying with the smell of life, of forests and waterfalls. He hates it on principle but wishes she could enjoy it.

He kills a spartoi. He doesn't manage to kill more, but now he knows. He wishes he could open the ground and swallow all of them, but even his own skeletons he only manages to turn them into piles of bones.

The boar carries most of them: it's still just a boar and they are five, so both he and Thalia enjoy Blackjack, who now is almost the size of a small rhino.

Perseus meets Ares awake this time. He didn't snitch on him to the gods, but he wishes he did.

Meeting Aphrodite is awful. Percy looks at her, and he sees blonde hair that he can't decide if it's golden or brownish, he looks at her eyes and see the blue and grey fight for dominance in the irises. Her skin flicks, and he sees a scar crossing her eye.

For a moment, her skin turns as black as his - his desire for family.

He hates her more than he hates Ares when she looks at him with a smile and says that his love life will be the most interesting tale she has ever woven.

They cross the junkyard. Bianca dies for a figurine of Zeus, and Perseus wants to scream at the skies for the injustice. He isn't close to Bianca, he won't miss her, but he blames himself.

What if he was good enough at shadow traveling to take all of them away? What if he was able to kill Talos before? If he saw the figurine in her hand, if he was clearer in his warning, if, if, if.

He is a son of Hades, and death follows him. The stench of it grabs at his clothes, but he doesn't cry. Bianca is not the first to die in the name of the gods - she won't be the last one.

Perseus tries and tries to reach for any part of her body - everything is gone.

The Hoover Dam goes exactly the same way - Percy finds the mortal girl cute, but he doesn't ponder on it. It's not the time. He tells her his name is Percy, because why not. He is not seeing her again.

He laughs at the dam joke and feels a little freer. He cares about Zoe. It's difficult not to.

They fly away, and Perseus doesn't like it, but he barely flinches.

They get closer - all of them. Perseus always makes friends in quests, and he is happier for it.

Thalia catches Nereus - and she tells them all about Bessie, the ophiotaurus. Percy thinks that, for a serpent cow, it's pretty cute.

Grover leaves with it back to Camp Half-Blood and away from the temptation that Thalia feels. He knows it - he feels it too, deep inside of him, the urge to kill all of them.

But is Kronos any better?

They meet Annabeth's father. Her stepmom caught a glance at him and sneers like he is covered in blood.

Luke is in Mount Othrys. Percy doesn't join him. He wants to. The drachma is still in his pocket. But Luke needs to pay for what he has done to Annabeth. This is not about the war that looms on the horizon, this is about his best friend.

They fight. Perseus holds the sky, but the thing in his fingertips is not the earth, it's something older and harder, that presses him to his knees. He draws strength from the earth, and he holds on.

They win, but at what cost? Luke falls. He cries and throws the drachma over the cliff - a promise gone with one of his first friends.

Zoe is dead. Three people dead, for a goddess who couldn't care less about them. Perseus wants to go back in time and accept Luke's proposal.

He wants to cry and he doesn't. They go to Olympus. Thalia joins Artemis, and he feels betrayed: just because she is afraid of power, she is going to throw the weight of this prophecy on him?

And on top, she just joined the eternal misandry group, and something in his heart festers. He thought he had one more friend in her, but she was just another pawn.

Annabeth basks in her mother's praise. He wants to vomit - two people are dead, but who cares.

Thalia pleads for the ophiotaurus life, but she doesn't lift a finger when they talk about his death. He hates her. He holds a grudge for his cousin just like his father holds one for his brother.

He just saved their asses for the third time, and they're talking about murdering him because he might not save them a fourth.

The gods. They take and they take and they take and the demigods keep giving.

His father saves him - no one dares to go against Hades' vote to let him live, because he is a hero.

They go back to camp, and Perseus is charged with the task to tell Nico.

"Well, so bring her back"

The boy says it non-chanlantly like he is counting on it. Percy feels guilt creep at his heart like a plague, all the ways he failed to save Bianca. If he just had a better grasp in his powers, if he was just better. And here it was, something else he couldn't do.

"I can't, Nico"

Nico yells at him. He screams that he killed his sister. Percy starts to retract, and they end up in the pavilion. Everyone is there, and they don't lift a finger to help.

Percy is so tired. He hasn't seen his mom since October. He just lost one of his best friends. He was on a mission for a week. He held the sky in his hands. Zoe is dead. Thalia is gone. Death follows him. The guilt claws at him - for not being enough.

Nico shouts and shouts. The final straw is when he says that he shouldn't have trusted a son of Hades, how everyone told him not to. He tells no one wants him here, and before anyone can say anything to contest it, spartoi appear.

People scramble for their weapons, but Percy opens the ground and swallows all of the skeletons. When they're gone, so is Percy.

Turns out? Percy doesn't want to be here anymore either.

Nico is prideful. People in camp scrambled for his attention. A couple of kids of Aphrodite tell him that Perseus wasn't a good company, trying to get in his good graces. This time around, there's no one to sing the praises of Percy Jackson.

Grover takes him aside and explains, a little against him own will, what happened with Bianca. He gives him the figurine.

Nico feels guilty. He is too prideful to admit, but he feels it burning in his heart - so he tries to understand what he just did. Grover tells him about the last two years. The guilt now fights with admiration, and resentment battles with adoration.

Some people steer clear of him for a while. Charles Beckendorf is too kind to isolate him - but Nico sees the sadness in his eyes. Annabeth doesn't talk with him - she just lost three best friends in a swoop. Grover reluctantly tells him more about Percy. Clarisse wipes the floor with him - and he doesn't complain when he wakes up and his makeshift bed in Cabin 1 is crawling with bugs - He is pretty sure Connor hates him.

Katie Gardner doesn't talk to him anymore. Will Solace - who is his best friend - consolates him. He tells Nico he was pretty awful to Percy last summer, and Percy still came back.

Pretty awful doesn't even begin to cover what Nico did. But he nods and settles. It's going to be fine.

Perseus wanders the Underworld. He plays with Cerberus, and it's finally time to go make peace with his father and meet Persephone.

There's the heavy weight of a drachma in his pocket.

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askstorykids-hq · 2 years

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Attention students! Two new students have been permitted by their parents to attend Auradon Prep! Please welcome:

Maddilynn “Maddy” Mim, granddaughter of Mad Madame Mim! [Sword in the Stone]

Maddy is the granddaughter of Madame Mim. She grew up being the runt of the family while at the same time being the most powerful witch in her family. She grew up on the Isle of the lost and after getting lye poured in her hair by Mal was a recluse that was occasionally bullied but until Mal came back to the Isle where she hatched a plan with Anthony, Ginny, and the Gaston Twins to kill Mal but it fell through leaving Maddy feeling guilty about the act of attempted murder but not the fact that she attempted murder. So throughout the rest of the years until coming to Auradon she mostly kept to herself and stayed that way.

Kirsten, daughter of Zeus & Hera! [Hercules]

To say that the way Kirsten grew up could be tense might be understating things a little bit. Because for every one child like her or older brother Hercules, well... her dad wasn't exactly known for staying loyal to her mom.

Hera saw her more as a therapist than a child, and Zeus made her feel like she had to walk on eggshells around him. Kirsten struggled to hold things together at home, and because their behavior was something limited to their private lives, she couldn't even reach out for help because no one believed her, since in public, they appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a happy couple and family.

Hercules should have been there to help, but he wasn't. He had his own family and left Kirsten to deal with it on her own. She grew to resent him and sought her own way out without him or anyone else.

When she was fifteen, Kirsten left Olympus and found her half-siblings, the di Angelos. Bianca and Nico were her first true escape from the family she had at home. It was Bianca who helped her get her feet on the ground, and before long, the teenager used a loophole as a goddess to get her own apartment that Bianca and Nico's mother happily co-signed for her. But she wasn't going to rely on one of Zeus' many mistresses. Kirsten's never missed a rent payment and she's not about to start now.

To keep the rest of Mt. Olympus out of her business, she worked with her neighbors and her apartment is considered a makeshift temple to... herself. Her neighbors, as a form of "offerings", often leave her a portion of homemade foods and little notes phrased to look like prayers. In exchange, Kirsten taught herself a lot of various skills and does the handyman work around the complex. She helps her community at every turn... and it was from this that her true potential and powers were finally awoken.

Kirsten was helping repair a neighbor's truck when she first heard a prayer to "anyone" for help. She'd trusted her gut and followed up on it, finding a homeless teenager who'd struck out much like she had and had been doing everything in their power to get on their feet living a few streets over. She'd offered her hand and known in that moment: patron goddess of survivors, runaways, and found family. The young girl had stayed in her apartment a couple weeks while she got something together again and then moved on with her own friends. But Kirsten's found the friend she'd made in the girl persists-- she to this day hears the other, and those like her who she's helped since then, praying to her for a bit of luck when they try to remedy their situation.

Kirsten has a rather thick skin and can be quite the tomboy. To all who meet her, Kirsten is a natural-born leader with a take-charge attitude. When she sets a goal, she intends to reach it and nearly always does. She doesn't discuss her family with anyone, preferring to consider herself "no one's daughter" when asked in favor of recognizing herself as an individual. She can get aggressive when people try to push her about her family beyond Bianca and Nico.

Coming to Auradon Prep was a leap for her. She wanted to continue her education, but unlike her apartment, she couldn't implement any loopholes to get around listing her parents for the school, so it took her time to finally feel willing to try it anyways. Well, time and Bianca's interest in the school. Kirsten cares fiercely for her half-siblings, largely because Hera worked so hard to make her hate them.

Overall, Kirsten is overprotective and tough down to her core. She's hardworking, determined, and would do anything to prove her value as herself, beyond her family.

Rory and Destini, you have 24 hours to send in your blog URL/post in-character content on the multimuse blog! The follow notice will be posted as soon as possible. Thank you for applying, and welcome to the group!

#DESCENDANTS RP #disney descendants rp #descendants roleplay #disney rp #disney descendants roleplay #askstorykidshq #askstorykidshq acceptances

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buoyantsaturn · 3 years

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Bring On The Monsters (8/8)

chapter title: The Prophecy Comes True

word count: 4,520

read on ao3

The Doors of Orpheus let them out into the middle of Central Park, and from there, Will did his best to lead the di Angelos to the Empire State Building. In his defense, he’d only ever been in the city once, and Argus had driven him and the rest of camp there in a camp van.

When they got to the door, Bianca set a hand on Will’s shoulder to stop him from walking inside. She held the Lotus card out to him.

“You should go back to camp,” Bianca said. “We don’t know how Zeus is going to react, and we don’t need him getting angry at you and your dad when he’s only mad at ours right now. Trust me, Will, it’ll be safer for you this way.”

Will took the card, looking dejected, though he nodded in acceptance. He kept his gaze on the ground as he said, “You’ll wanna go to the 600th floor. Ask the doorman for the key. He’s gonna be a real jerk, but don’t let that stop you. And…” He lifted his eyes and met Nico’s. “Find me when you get back to camp, okay? I’ll be...in the infirmary, probably, but maybe the pavilion, depending on what time it is, and if it’s after dark then I’ll be in my cabin, but--”

Nico jumped forward and pulled Will into a hug. “Be careful.”

Will hugged him back. “You too.”

Will pulled away and glanced at Bianca, holding his arms out awkwardly. She punched him in the arm. “If you manage to get yourself killed between here and camp after the week we just had, I’ll find you in the Underworld and kill you again myself.”

Will nodded. “Noted.” He pushed forward for a hug that lasted no more than a second, and then he ran toward the street to hail a cab.

With one hand, Bianca tightly gripped the strap of her backpack, and reached down to grasp Nico’s hand in the other. “C’mon, Nico, let’s pay our uncle a visit.”

Will had been right about the doorman giving them a hard time, but after Bianca threatened him with her knife, he handed over the keys and pointed them toward the elevator. After what seemed like half an hour, the doors finally opened, not into a building, but out onto a stone path that wove between lush green hills.

Every building on Olympus was white. White and bright with little bits of silver decorating everything that reflected the sun straight into Nico’s eyes. He wished he was back in the Underworld, and he’d barely even stepped foot in Olympus at that point.

They followed the path to the palace, which was almost an exact replica of the one in the Underworld, only - of course - white and silver instead of black and gold. Nico hated it already. At least they had a good idea of where the throne room would be once they got inside.

Zeus was much more unnerving than their father, having chosen to appear as a larger being while Hades had opted for a regular human height. Zeus towered over them and glared with so much force that Nico thought would kill them in an instant if he had his bolt. And Hera’s presence at his side was nowhere near as comforting as Persephone’s had been.

“Hello, um,” Bianca started awkwardly, and then fell to her knees and bowed her head. She tugged Nico down beside her. “Uncle Zeus. We came to deliver your Master Bolt.”

“Admitting guilt?” Zeus asked with a raised brow.

“No, sir,” Bianca answered swiftly, and started removing her backpack. “We were set up. Ares gave us this bag during our quest, and it must have been...enchanted, somehow, so that the Bolt appeared after a certain amount of time.”

Zeus watched them for a second before replying, “Are you telling me that my own son stole my symbol of power? You do realize that it’s impossible for another god to do so.”

“No, sir,” Bianca said again. “He was working with someone else.”

“Who?”

Bianca hesitated, so Nico answered, “We don’t know.”

“Our dad had a guess,” Bianca told him, “but he wouldn’t tell us what it was. He said it was impossible, and that he couldn’t believe it was true.”

“And something about things stirring,” Nico said, though he wasn’t sure why he chose to bring that up specifically.

Something about it must have struck Zeus, though, because his eyes widened and he leaned back on his throne. He whispered something to his wife, whose expression turned to one of shock and fear, which definitely wasn’t making Nico feel any better.

“Give me the Bolt,” Zeus said, holding out a hand. Bianca took the cylinder out of her bag and approached the throne, setting the Bolt in Zeus’s hand. “I shall let you both live, for now. Return to camp, mention nothing of this stirring to anyone.”

Was that supposed to be their dismissal?

Bianca seemed to think so, because she returned to Nico’s side, barely stopping to grab her back with one hand and Nico’s arm with the other as she left the throne room. “Not even a thank you,” she muttered as soon as they were out of the palace.

They marched back in the direction of the elevator, though this time Nico caught himself watching the scenery as they went. There were nymphs and minor gods wandering about, and someone that looked an awful lot like… “Will?” Nico said before tripping over his next step.

“What?” Bianca asked. “Did you say you saw Will? He followed us up here after I told him not to?” She sounded angry, and was scanning the horizon in the same direction Nico was looking.

The Will look-alike appeared to notice them, and said goodbye to whoever he had been talking to. He jogged toward the demigods with a sunshiney grin, and it didn’t take Nico long to realize that this definitely wasn’t Will. For one, his hair wasn’t quite as golden, and he lacked Will’s freckles. And he was a good foot and a half taller than Will.

“Hey, di Angelos, right?” the man - probably a god, Nico’s brain supplied - greeted. “My son’s been praying non-stop for the last hour that I stop Dad from smiting you two, though I don’t know how he expected me to do that. But anyway, you made it out alive! That’s great!”

“Your...son?” Nico asked, feeling his face heating up at the attention the god was showing to him. That, and the fact that his chiton showed much more skin than it was probably supposed to.

“Will!” he said, his face somehow lighting up even more at the name. “I’m Apollo, you know, god of the sun? And poetry, and healing, and blah blah, all that. Hey, thanks for keeping my baby safe out there on his first quest. Well, he’s not my baby, but you know what I mean. My youngest. Well, my youngest at camp. Anyway, he’s going to be really happy to see that you both made it back to camp safely. And trust me, I’m also the god of prophecy. I know.”

“I don’t suppose you know how we’re getting back to camp,” Bianca said. “I gave Will the rest of our money, because I didn’t know for sure that we would be leaving. So now we’re sort of stuck here.”

Apollo thought about it for a second, tapping his chin with one index finger. Then, he reached behind himself and brought out a single gold coin. “This should be enough for a cab.”

“Cabs take mortal money,” Nico pointed out. “Not drachmas.”

Apollo grinned. “So don’t take a mortal cab!”

Nico was not a fan of the Gray Sisters. He almost puked in the back of their cab more than once in the ten minute drive - which was supposed to be closer to an hour. Nico and Bianca stumbled over Half Blood Hill, still struggling to regain their bearings. Once he could finally see camp, Nico’s eyes started scanning for Will.

He ran at full speed toward the infirmary.

Nico burst through the door, his eyes wild and searching. There were blond sons of Apollo inside, all looking at him with startled expressions, but none of them were Will. Finally, Lee grinned and said, “Hey, Nico, he’s--”

“Nico?” Will’s voice came from across the infirmary, and he practically flew out of the storage room. In a second, Nico was nearly knocked off his feet with the force of Will’s hug. “You’re okay! I was so worried, I kept praying, and you’re okay!”

“I’m okay,” Nico said with a giddy laugh, closing his arms around Will and tucking his face into his friend’s shoulder.

Suddenly, Will pulled back, just a few inches. “Wait, and Bianca?”

Nico nodded. “She’s okay.”

Will hugged him again.

After a few moments, Lee approached them and ruffled Will’s curls. “Alright, Will, let the boy breathe.” Will released Nico reluctantly and took a step back, but he took Nico’s hand instead. Lee turned to Nico and set a hand on his shoulder. “Glad to see you again, Nico! Any injuries I should know about before we go talk to Chiron?”

Nico squeezed Will’s hand, then shook his head.

“Alright, then let’s go get Bianca, and we’ll have Chiron call a head counselor meeting,” Lee said, then turned to Will and winked. “You’re in charge until I get back.”

The counselor meeting was just as uncomfortable as the first, if not more. It was clear that the other counselors still weren’t very fond of the di Angelos, but they were interested to hear about the quest - especially when Nico slipped up and mentioned the stirring again. There was a short debate over who Ares might have been working with, though Chiron had seemed thoroughly uneased, and ended the meeting early, insisting that Nico and Bianca needed rest. They were shuffled into their room in the Big House and left alone.

It made Nico feel trapped.

When they got to their room, though, Nico spotted gifts on each of their beds - wrapped, but in a way that showed exactly what was underneath. He figured it was probably difficult to wrap a sword without making it look like a sword.

There was a note left beside the sword that Nico couldn’t decipher, so he handed it off to Bianca to read for him.

Dear Nico,

I understand that your visit has left you unarmed, so I had your sword fished out of the Styx. The river has wiped away the curse placed upon it, and has transformed the blade from Celestial Bronze to Stygian Iron. This new blade is equally effective against monsters, though it has other properties that I would be happy to teach you of in person. The offer to visit again still stands, and I can ensure that you will receive the best training Elysium has to offer.

I hope to see you again soon.

Your Father

Bianca received a similar note, alongside a new knife and a bow. The blade of her knife, the heads of her new set of arrows, and the blade of Nico’s sword were all made from the same black material. Almost like obsidian, though it didn’t reflect light, and it was freezing cold to the touch.

Nico couldn’t wait to try it out.

He and Bianca had sword practice in the arena with the Hephaestus cabin about a week later. Just about everyone from cabin nine wanted to get a closer look at Nico’s sword, though he didn’t want to let anyone touch it until he learned about those other properties that Hades had mentioned. He wasn’t going to be responsible for… For sucking out somebody’s soul, or something.

When Beckendorf asked, though, Nico found he couldn’t outright deny him. He had made the sword, after all, even if it had been changed since then. Beside, Beckendorf was actually Nico’s friend, unlike most of the Hephaestus cabin. Sure, everyone had started warming up to Nico and Bianca by then, but Beckendorf had been there from the beginning. Sort of.

He was no Will, is what Nico was trying to say.

So, when Beckendorf asked to try out Nico’s sword, Nico had refused. And when Beckendorf came back with, “How about later, during free time? We can go out into the woods, so no one has to know.” And Nico figured, as long as nobody could see that he was playing favorites, then it was probably okay.

Which was how Nico found himself sneaking off with his sword just after dinner, making his way into the woods in the direction of Zeus’s fist. Beckendorf was already in the woods waiting for him, a few cans of Coke on the ground next to the rock he was sitting on. He smiled when he saw Nico.

“Hey, man, I was starting to think you’d ditched me,” Beckendorf joked. He reached down for one of the cans. “You want a Coke?”

“Bianca says I shouldn’t have sugar,” Nico told him.

Beckendorf tossed him the can. “She doesn’t have to know.” He cracked open his own can, and nodded to the scabbard at Nico’s hip. “So, you gonna let me see that thing, or what?”

Nico pulled the sword out of its sheath and stepped closer to Beckendorf to hand it over. The son of Hephaestus stood, then nodded toward the rock he’d been sitting on for Nico to use as he started to move away.

“It’s really well-made,” Beckendorf said, testing the weight in his hand and eyeing the blade to make sure the lines were all straight.

“You made it,” Nico reminded him, and Beckendorf shot him a confused look. “It’s the same sword I left camp with. My dad, uh-- Apparently, if you dip a sword in the Styx, it comes out like...that.”

Beckendorf took a few practice swings into open air, then came back to Nico. He handed the sword back, and reached around Nico for his own scabbard, on the ground behind the rock. “Why would he dip it in the Styx?” he asked, moving away again. “Did he say?”

Nico hesitated. The sword had been cursed, but Nico didn’t know when that could’ve happened, since it never left his side after he left camp. Which meant it must have been cursed before he left… Surely not all curses were bad, if it had been cursed at camp. “He said it was...cursed.”

Beckendorf nodded, like he wasn’t surprised, then gripped the hilt of his own sword. “Well, not all curses are bad, you know. I just made a new sword for myself, complete with a few curses of its own. Wanna see?” He didn’t even give Nico a chance to nod before he pulled it from the sheath.

The sword was easily a foot longer than Nico’s, and it reflected the sun almost blindingly compared to Nico’s. The blade was split down the middle, one half Celestial Bronze, and the other half something closer to silver.

“It’s really difficult to forge these two metals together,” Beckendorf was saying. “It took quite a few curses just to keep this thing from busting apart with a single hit, but it’s definitely worth it.”

“What is it?” Nico asked.

Beckendorf grinned. “I call it Backbiter. Half Celestial Bronze, half steel.”

Nico flinched. “Steel? But we’re not supposed to--”

“And whose rule is that?” Beckendorf cut in. “Chiron’s? Do you really think he knows what’s best for us?”

Nico ducked his head and shrugged, flicking at the pop top on the can without opening it.

Beckendorf kneeled down in front of Nico, setting a hand on his shoulder. “Nico, the gods make all sorts of rules for us to pretend that they care, when really, they’re just trying to keep us in line. They don’t realize that, together, we’re way more powerful than them. You’re going to be the most powerful demigod in the world someday, kid, and the gods are just going to keep piling on more rules to keep you from taking them down. Why should you have to reign it in when they never do?”

Nico frowned, and said the first words that came to mind. “My dad cares about me.”

Beckendorf gave him a sympathetic smile. “He doesn’t.”

“He does,” Nico shouted, shoving Beckendorf’s hand away. “He told me himself, and he wants me to come back to the Underworld!”

“So he can trap you there,” Beckendorf said, rising to his feet to tower over the younger demigod. “He knows how powerful you could become.” He held out a hand to Nico, though his other hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. “Look, Nico. I’m leaving camp, and I want you to come with me. I can help you train. We can find every other demigod before they make it to camp, and we can build up an army against the gods.”

“Why would I want to fight against the gods?” Nico asked, eyes flickering between Beckendorf’s face and his sword. “The gods help. It’s the monsters that we have to fight!”

Beckendorf raised his sword to Nico’s chin. “I thought you trusted me, Nico. I came to you because I thought we were friends! Are you really going to make me kill you? What do you think will happen to Bianca? Will she join me when I tell her that your dad sent another hellhound to take you out? Or will I have to kill her, too?”

Nico’s sword was in his hand without him realizing that he’d even picked it up. “Don’t touch my sister!” he screamed, and lunged blindly. Beckendorf parried his strike easily, and Backbiter sliced through Nico’s skin, just beneath his ribs. Beckendorf yanked the sword back, tugging Nico forward with it and knocking him off balance. Nico dropped to his knees.

“It didn’t have to come to this, Nico,” Beckendorf said as Nico clutched at the wound in his stomach. “Hopefully Bianca won’t choose to fight.”

Then he was gone.

Nico didn’t hear him walk away (probably due to the pounding of blood in his ears) and he couldn’t see any sign of Beckendorf around him (though there were black stops in the corners of his eyes that were moving inward). The only thing that Nico found around him was his sword. With one hand still holding pressure on his stomach, Nico reached for his sword, then used it somewhat like a crutch as he pulled himself toward the nearest shadow. He would never make it back into central camp on his own two feet, and he still didn’t know how the whole teleportation thing worked, but he had to try.

Hades had said something about shadows, so that’s where Nico went. And instead of crawling onto solid ground, he slipped through the earth, reappearing in the shadow of the Apollo cabin.

And he passed out.

Nico’s stomach hurt. Not like he’d eaten something he shouldn’t have, but like he’d pulled a muscle. Or a lot of muscles. Or like someone else had tried to pull his muscles out of his body.

He opened his eyes. He was in the infirmary, and there was a familiar head of blond hair resting on the cot at Nico’s side. Will’s hand was gripping Nico’s hand tightly in his own, despite how heavily he was sleeping.

“Charlie…” Nico whispered, suddenly remembering what had happened. He tugged on Will’s hand, but the other boy didn’t move. “Will-- Bianca!”

The curtain around his bed shifted, and one of Will’s brother’s poked his head in. Michael, Nico thought after a second. He was one of the only children of Apollo that didn’t have their father’s golden hair. He didn’t smile much, either, and those two facts had always caused Nico to have a hard time believing that he and Will could be related, let alone brothers.

Michael crossed to Nico, setting a hand on his shoulder with a stern, “Don’t move. Will put a lot of work into keeping you alive, and he won’t be happy if you mess that up.” He glanced down at his younger brother with the beginnings of a fond smile. “He healed you all by himself. And knocked himself right out.”

“Where’s Bianca?” Nico demanded. “Beckendorf, he--”

“She’s okay,” Michael cut in. “She wouldn’t leave your side when you suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and Chiron just took her to grab some lunch. They’ll be right back.”

“And Beckendorf?” Nico asked.

Michael frowned. “What about him? I haven’t seen him since dinner last night.”

“He stabbed me,” Nico said, feeling his body starting to shake at the memory. “He said he was going to kill me, and that he was gonna kill Bia next. He’s-- He’s running away to build an army!”

Michael’s eyes widened. “Woah, dude, uh. Maybe you should wait for Chiron to come back before you start talking about stuff like that.”

“Betrayed by a friend,” Nico mumbled to himself. “The prophecy...it wasn’t over yet.”

Nico and Bianca were kept under close surveillance for the rest of the summer, and Beckendorf never showed his face again. Nico wasn’t sure how many people had heard the truth, but it seemed like there was something of a divide at camp. There were the people who were on Nico’s side - the Apollo cabin, a bunch of Will’s friends, and a few who had befriended Bianca at some point or another - and the people who were in some way loyal to Beckendorf. Nico wondered how many of those people were going to disappear, and end up as part of Beckendorf’s “army.”

By the end of the summer, Nico felt more welcomed at camp than he ever had before. He had friends, more than just Will, and he didn’t feel like so much of an outsider. He was happy, and he was excited to stay at camp, until one day in August when Will sat him down by the lake and announced that he was going home to Texas for the school year.

“I’ve been at camp year-round for the last two years,” Will told him. “I miss my mama, and my grandparents. We all agreed that I would be safer here, but after going on that quest… I think I’ll be able to keep myself safe out in the real world, too.”

Nico felt ice in the scar on his stomach. “But… Charlie.”

Will’s expression dropped. “I know. But Nico, you have to know that I would never go with him after what he did to you.”

“But he could hurt you.”

Will shook his head. “I won’t let him get close enough. I’m fast, I can outrun him no problem. Besides, once you figure out your teleporting thing, you can come check up on me.” Will bumped Nico with his shoulder. “I know you’ll keep me safe.”

“I don’t...know how it works,” Nico told him.

“You’ll figure it out! While I’m with my mama, you can go visit your dad, and he can teach you all sorts of stuff,” Will said. “And when you come back to camp, you can sneak onto the computer in the Big House and email me about all the cool stuff you’ve done!”

Nico pouted down at the grass. “I don’t know what that means.”

“I’ll show you,” Will promised.

“And…” Nico hesitated. “Beckendorf, he said… He said that my dad doesn’t really want me to visit. He said that Hades is just going to lock me up so I can never get powerful enough to fight back against him.”

Will’s expression darkened at the mention of Beckendorf, and he sighed in frustration. “Well, he wasn’t there, and I was. I saw how much your dad wants you to visit him, and how much he wanted to help you learn stuff. I wish my dad would tell me stuff like that, but I’ve never even met him.”

“I have,” Nico said.

“What?” Will asked. “When?”

“On Olympus. He said you were praying that Zeus wouldn’t kill us,” Nico told him. “He thanked us for keeping you safe on the quest, and he gave us money to get back to camp. He… You look a lot like him. He called you his baby.”

Will’s nose scrunched up. “That’s...embarrassing. He really said that?”

Nico nodded. “You know, if you go away for school, then you might not be the youngest when you come back.”

Will’s eyes widened. “What? Did he tell you that? Do I have more siblings?”

“He said you were his youngest at camp,” Nico replied. “He… He didn’t say anything, but he implied it.”

“Woah,” Will said, glancing out toward the lake. Then, he shoved at Nico’s arm. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to leave! You think I’ll stick around just for the chance that I get a new sibling.”

“Well...won’t you?”

Will laughed. “And then what am I supposed to do all winter when you’re in the Underworld with your dad?”

“Who says I’m gonna do that?”

“You’d be stupid not to.”

Nico shoved him. “Maybe you’re stupid for going to school.”

“I’m definitely gonna be if I don’t.” He grinned at Nico, poking him in the stomach near the place where he’d been stabbed. “Now that I know I’m such an awesome healer, I’ve decided that I’m gonna be a doctor someday, so I have to go to school.”

Nico grabbed Will’s hand to stop the poking. “Promise me you’ll be careful? And Iris Message me if Beckendorf shows up. I don’t care if I don’t know how the shadow travel stuff works yet. I’ll figure it out, and I’ll come get you.”

Will squeezed his hand. “Maybe you can come visit for Christmas. Don’t let me leave camp without giving you my email address, okay? And my home address. And my mama’s phone number!”

The end of summer came a week later. Some of the campers wouldn’t be leaving for a few more days, but Will was set to leave right after breakfast. He’d given Nico about six different ways to contact him during the school year, and he’d sneaked Nico into the Apollo cabin to help him pack the day before.

At breakfast, Chiron enlisted the dryads to hand out clay beads to every one of the campers. The beads were small, but Nico could make out the design of a white angel on the black surface. The di Angelos, Chiron had announced, the angels.

Nico and Bianca helped each other with their necklaces, and after breakfast, Nico gave Will one last hug before he was shuffled off toward the van that would take him and a few other campers to the airport.

Nico sat on the top of Half Blood Hill in the shade of Percy’s willow tree and watched the van drive away. Then he stayed a little while longer, until finally pulling himself to his feet and heading back to the Big House to pack a bag.

He was going to see his dad.

thanks for reading!!

buy me a coffee | send me other canon scenes to rewrite

#solangelo #will solace #nico di angelo #bianca di angelo #mine #my writing #bring on the monsters

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cattearambles · 4 years

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Dionysus, the different aspects of death and how Nico gets caught in the middle

So I was on anon and told @jerseydevious that I did this for my “dissertation” and that I had a HC on this matter. And then people started saying they wanted to read it? So.... uh... here it is in summary form?

Before I get into the summary and post the full length essay link, I want to say that yes, I did my dissertation on it. However, I am far from an expert on the matter. There was only so much I could write for a 5000 word essay with a 10% leeway. This is just what I found. If you find anything that contradicts this, please do bring it up! I love discussions and debates! Also, I guess trigger warning for extreme violence, death and blood? If I’m forgetting something, please do tell me so I can add it.

Let’s get into it.

Dionysus and his Mysteries

Dionysus had these Mysteries that were mostly aimed at women where they were initiated into an ecstatic cult which they believed would allow them to live happily and die with hope, according to Cicero. They used a bunch of intoxicants to induce mania or inspired frenzy and provided liberation by removing social constraints. As the name suggests, we don’t know much about what exactly happened in these initiations (telestai), but we can make assumptions based on extant descriptions and iconography.

Some background into what the Mysteries entailed, their background and ultimately how they relate to death and rebirth:

1) In one retelling of the myth (Orphic myths of the chthonic Dionysus), Dionysus was the son of Persephone and Zeus, not Semele. which brings up a whole plethora of uncomfortable whys but anyway In this myth, Zeus names Dionysus as his heir and so the Titans plotted to kill him. The Titans shred him into pieces, boiled him and then consumed him. Zeus blasted them with lightning, reducing them to ash. The remaining ash would later become humanity, which led them to believe that humans being were Titanic in body but divine in soul. Dionysus was recovered by Demeter and thus reborn.

2) Even in the more familiar myth of Semele being flashed by Zeus and Zeus saving embryo Dionysus by sewing him into his inner thigh is reminiscent of being twice born, establishing his connection to rebirth. I still don’t understand how this is possible... the skin would bulge so much??? How would Zeus walk if he had a melon sized lump on his thigh? How did the gods not notice this??? I have so many questions for the Ancient Greeks

3) In one myth surrounding the Alcyonian Lake in Lerna, worshippers blew trumpets by the lake to summon Dionysus from the Underworld.

4) His companions are also associated with death, for example the maenads and the nymphs. In Euripides’ Bacchae, these maenads were whipped into a frenzy that later led to them ripping apart bulls, heifers and later a man. So death is pretty obviously connected to them. Nymphs were known in their roles in mourning (eg: Thetis sending Achilles off in a shroud in the Illiad) as well as their roles of guiding the dead to the Underworld.

5) Some things that were thought to have occur during these initiations were things like ritual violence like flagellation, vigourous dance with cymbals and tympanon and the drinking of wine.

Death oracles were considered a powerful form of divination and the Ancient Greeks believed that the dead held knowledge beyond mortal comprehension. A lot of the information on death oracles is given in the Odyssey, if anyone wants to read further into it. Long treks were made to get to these death oracles and they asked stuff about death funnily enough. The client would typically undergo a series of preparation rites like fasting, purifying baths and eating certain seeds to get high. They would enter the caves and the ghost was thought to appear to them in several ways eg: in their dreams, deus ex machina or hallucinations.

Death Oracles and Necromancy

Comparing the two

I go into a lot of depth about the similarities in locales between these two rituals and and also the way in which they induced an altered state of consciousness, but this is meant to be a summary so I’ll link the full essay below and you can read it if you like. I want to talk about some of their rituals. By consuming wine in the Dionysiac Mysteries, it not only served to alter the state of consciousness but it was thought that they were receiving Dionysus himself into their bodies and through divine possession (entheos) they would also receive a revelation. In that sense, the consumption of wine is comparable to how blood was offered to the dead in order to revive them and be imparted with their divine knowledge. Furthermore, there are metaphorical associations with wine production and the recurring themes of violence in that the grapes had to be broken down thoroughly before being brought back as something new and is also described as being the “blood of grapes”. This emphasises Dionysus’ tie with rebirth and also death.

Both rituals helped to consolidate the clients’ status in life by reassuring them with the knowledge of the afterlife, eschatological hope and also by removing their fear by giving them a symbolic death.

TLDR --> the Dionysian mysteries draw many comparisons to death oracles in location, ritual and iconography. It addresses their hope for what is to come. Death oracles, on the other hand, aided in answering questions about death, and so the two of them addressed different aspects of death.

If you’re still here after reading all that, kudos to you! Here is the full length essay: https://we.tl/t-OdwbdNpNJ6

So how does this all tie in with my HC? We’ve established that Dionysus is actually more entrenched in death as previously thought. I’m just saying, the potential for Dionysus to be grudgingly chill with Nico is something I find immensely funny. Not to the point where he cares for him like his own child, but like a cool wine uncle (ha!). I’m thinking he would turn a blind eye to a lot of things that Nico has done. If he wants to sit at another table (which he does in ToA but semantics)? Wow this Diet coke is exquisite. Just the right amount of carbonation. The colour is not as fullbodied as the 2017 batch I had earlier. Nico and a camper, let’s say Percy, do some damage because Big Three kids must have a lot of repressed power that sometimes bubble over. Anyway, Nico and Percy destroy something? Perry Johansson, organise the weapon shed. Did I just hear you sass me? Okay, now you’ve got cleaning duty with the harpies. I like to think that in TTC, when baby Nico excitedly points out that Dionysus is the wine dude, Dionysus doesn’t smite him where he stood not just because of the Mythomagic card, but because he had an inkling to his parentage but couldn’t be sure. Especially since he’s also connected to death. But also think about the possibility of Dionysus trying to challenge Nico at Pacman. And Nico obviously obliterates him because if you were stuck in a time loop full of games, I’m pretty certain you’d be a pro at arcade games as well. And an interaction like this happens or something:

Percy: “You beat Mr. D at Pacman? And you’re not dead or a porpoise?!”

Nico: “I guess?”

Percy: “What did you do?! How??”

Nico, in utter confusion: “I existed???”

Nico is confused and low key concerned, Percy is aggravated and also very confused, Dionysus is chilling, diet coke by his side and aware of the confusion he’s sowing but would turn anyone who brought it up into some sort of animal and Chiron is just there side-eyeing him, like “are you serious?” and very done.

#pjo #percy jackson #nico di angelo #dionysus #what I want: good friendships that have a tonne of interaction #what I get: forced romances in HoO and more white bread ass Jason than I care for #I genuinely find this so interesting and the fact that people want to read it makes me super happy #it feels good putting one of my hyperfixations in the context of another hyperfixation #meta #long post #tw: extreme violence #tw: death #tw: blood #the great british queue off #now I'm just thinking that I've gotten this all wrong and wasted everyone's time!?!?#shush haz and go to sleep #but monkey brain won't let me

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ohmyhera · 4 years

Text

the tragic ending to an already tragic tale

T/w:mentions of r*pe,m*rder,p*edos, and Zeus saying some uncomfy things. Please proceed with reading this at your own discretion because this is chalked full of angst, more than I usually write for y’all so be careful.

“Nico-”

“You’re keeping it, now stop talking”Nico hissed. Will huffed and pulled the jacket—Nico’s jacket, tighter around his waist. It was cold, and they were wet and nothing seemed to be going as planned. The clouds grew darker and seemed to cover the sky completely only adding to their plight. Will paled, he didn’t do too well without the sun. His eyes fluttered towards the sky and he shuddered. The longer it was gone, the weaker he grew, it was his Achilles heel, the reason why he wasn’t allowed out on quests. He was a liability. Now, as the sky grew dark, and the clouds grew heavier, so did his fear. He wasn’t just a liability, he was Nico’s liability. And that made him feel even worse.

They were treading dangerously into no man's land, with the sun gone for gods know how long Will didn’t have access to his powers. Any of them. So that also means he was no help, he was as useful as a human who could barely shoot an arrow, and they didn’t even have arrows thanks to the Artemis girls accompanying them on the trip. They’d gotten split up about yesterday which already spelled bad news. Will knew it was the Gods doing, split up the team and they’re easier to pick off. It was practically the first rule in the book of killing a demigod.

They could have taken refuge in the underworld but Will wouldn’t—no, he couldn’t survive down there. Thanks to his unique skill set he would quite literally die if he stepped foot down there, no sun equals no Will. He frowned, he was completely useless—

“Shut up”Nico said. It was said so casually that Will actually went to apologize, but Nico shook his head.

“You’re thinking too loud, it’s stressing me out”Nico said. Will titled his head a bit.

“You can read my thoughts?”He said. Nico’s mouth quirked up in his own attempt at a smile and he shook his head.

“No, but I can read your face. You won’t be any good out there if you’re distracted”Nico said.

“If we ever get to where ‘there’ is”He said, folding his arms. He wasn’t sure if it was the cold or his nerves causing him to tremble, but here he was, trembling. He should have just stayed at camp, but his big mouth opened on its own when Nico volunteered to go. They all looked at him funny but sent him out regardless, they’ve never seen him fight but that also meant they didn’t have proof that he couldn’t. And he can! When he’s not seconds away from collapsing against a tree. He was starting to see doubles and quickly blinked his eyes, and it helped. Until it didn’t. He found himself walking slower,his heart beating faster and Gods it was so cold…

“Will...Will!”

The trees above him spun and he hit the ground with a thud.

“Fuck!”Nico said through clenched teeth. He threw himself to the ground and grabbed the blondes wrist feeling for his pulse. He felt it pulsing faintly, almost as if he was frozen. He bit his lip and squinted at Wills body, yellow tendrils of spirit floated around frantically trying to find a way out. He let out a shaky breath, Will wasn’t dying, he was just unconscious and his soul was in shock. His soul...his soul was in…

“Shit!”Nico shouted and pulled off his backpack searching for anything to keep his body warm. There was nothing in there but his sword,Wills arrow and some ambrosia. They really needed to start packing better. His mind raced and his body froze, if Will's soul went into shock he might not come back the same, he might...they might...Nico shook his head and pulled the blonde into his lap. He wasn’t going to let that happen, he wouldn’t. He folded his body over Wills and tried to remember something,any incantations that Will or the Apollo kids have ever said. He tried desperately to keep his body warm in the meantime.

But then it started to pour.

Harder than Nico had ever seen in both the lives he lived, this wasn’t an ordinary storm, this was foul play. This was the Gods doing. Nico gasped as the freezing water pelted the two and his mind soon knew nothing but anger. He knew not to provoke the Gods, he learned that from watching Percy get his ass handed to him more times than he could count, but now he knew. Now he knew how it felt to have the Gods slowly but surely try to take everything from you.

“What the fuck do you want from me Zeus!”He shouted towards the sky, Will's pulse was getting slower and he could feel his own pulse in his throat. “Tell me what you want you bastard! Call off the storm and face me! Are you scared or something!”

He felt a gust of wind behind him and resisted the urge to whirl around and choke the god. He didn’t have much time to think before the god was standing before him. No, Nico thought as his stomach dropped, that was too easy, it’s a set up.

“Well now, who do we have here?”The god said.

“Nico,son of Hades,”He said, surprised that his voice didn’t waver. “I said call off the storm”

“From the mean words you used, you’re in no position to be making demands”The god said.

“You don’t think anyone is in a position to do anything”He spat, “What’s your damage, Zeus? Don’t you have enough people to fuck with? Or is there not enough people to fuck? Are you getting bored again with your concubines? You feel the need to interfere on a simple fucking quest!”

He was red hot mad now. All he wanted to do was stab the god until he bled or sparkled or combusted or whatever it was that they did when they no longer existed. The god looked at him in disgust before flicking a finger and suddenly, Nico couldn’t breathe.

“You demigods—no no, you Hades brats think you have the right to talk to me anyway?”The god fumed, “I am a god! I can wipe you from existence,bring you back and do it all over again until you’re begging me to die!” He clawed at his throat but he wouldn’t give in, it felt good to get under his skin, to piss him off.

“But I won’t do that” he released the binding on the brunets airways and once again nico fell on top of Will—shit, he needed to save Will. Zeus seemed to ponder and shook his head.

“No I won’t do that or your daddy will wage war”The god said, “I don’t know why he cares for you brats when you do nothing for him, you hate him, you’re disgusted by him but yet he still loves you”

Nico felt his eyes sting and he quickly blinked it away, he wouldn’t fall for this.

“You rotten little halfbreeds don’t deserve his love, you do nothing but train up the next generation of miscreants and then die a hero”The god scoffed, “A hero, please. We haven’t had heroes in centuries. Aeacus,Amphion,Arcas, all my boys”

“I didn’t summon you here for you to bitch at me”Nico growled, “I summoned you to get an answer to a simple question, and no I don’t fear you, I don’t think you’ve met me but everyone who's ever crossed my path knows i’m not afraid to die young.”

“You’re an imbecile,”The god said.

“You’re a pedophile,a rapist,a murder-”Nico started, this time the god actually did choke him. The brunet was lifted far off the ground and he was face to face with the god he wanted to kill the most right now.

“If you’re going to disrespect me, say it to my face”The god said.

“Let go of my throat and I'll disrespect you all day long”He wheezed, he was thrown to the ground without a care. His body hit the dirt with a thud and he bit back a groan, he wasn’t letting zeus win this one. He peeked over at Will, at this point he only cared that his soul was still in his body. They’d cross the other bridge after Nico finishes giving Zeus a piece of his mind.

“Stop fucking with me and answer my question!”He spat.

“You have a cursing problem”The god said offhandedly.

“You have an impregnating problem”He said, “you hate us so much then stop creating us, use a condom!”

“You’re lucky I'm not killing you where you stand”The god warned.

“Stop making promises and just do it already!”Nico exploded, “Kill me Zeus, just kill me!” “I can’t!”The god shouted back, “your father would wage war and i’m tired of war!” “Then stop causing them!”Nico shouted, “And stop changing the subject! Call off this damn storm and tell me who’s hiding Hermes so we can both go back to not seeing each other's faces!”

A wicked grin grew across Zeus’ face and Nico gulped, yup, definitely a setup.

“Nico, son of Hades. If you were really trained right then you’d know there’s always an ultimatum”The god said. As soon as he heard ultimatum his body ran cold, fuck.

“Name your price,”He said quietly.

“Not so bold now are we?”The god grinned, “Seems like you have something to lose”

“Just name your price!”Nico snapped.

“Your temper needs work”The god warned.

“That’s rich coming from you”He huffed, but it went ignored.

“I’ll tell you where Hermes is being hidden and even how to get there if…”Nico followed the Gods eyes to Will who was still unconscious. His eyes widened and he shook his head quickly, no.

“No, not him”Nico said, “He’s got nothing to do with this”

“I’ve made my ultimatum”The god said, “He’s pretty,he’s blonde, why wouldn’t I want him?”

“No!”Nico growled. And the god laughed, Zeus laughed.

“It hurts having the one you love ripped away from you doesn’t it?”The god howled.

“I’m not in love with him!”Nico shouted. “Then why are you playing martyr!”The god said, alight with fury. “Besides, it doesn’t take a god of love to recognize attraction”

“Take me”Nico said, the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“Take you?”the god questioned, “Why would I take you?”

“I will do whatever you want,”He said through clenched teeth. “Take me and do what you see fit, but I want a new ultimatum”

“Humor me”The god said.

“Fix him”He said, “Fix him, give him the information for the quest and make sure no harm comes his way”

“That’s asking a lot of me”The god said, “You have to sweeten the pot”

“I am Hades' only son in history!”Nico shouted, “I would be a rarity on mount olympus, parade me around like some exotic pet, I don’t care! You wanted something the other gods never had and that’s me!”

“Cocky aren’t we?”The god said.

“You know it’s true”Nico panted, his chest rose and fell rapidly. “Take. Me.”

“Hmm”The god said, “That does sound pretty good, promise you won’t try and run away?”

“I promis-”

“No”The god said, “We’re making this deal...on styx”

There was a clap of thunder and the rain only intensified. Nico felt his life flash before his eyes. Christmas with mama and Bianca,the lotus hotel,his first few years at camp half-blood,Bianca’s death,the crush on Percy,meeting Will, his 18th birthday and how the Apollo cabin sung so loud it woke the mermaids in the lake,the way Will smiled so wide it reached his eyes as he smeared frosting across Nico’s nose. He was stunned into silence, all he could do was nod.

“I need that in words”The god said.

“I swear...on Styx”He whispered, another clap of lightning sounded and a pair of golden handcuffs appeared around his wrists. Immediately the clouds retreated and the sun was shining more brightly than ever.

“Well”he looked at Zeus, “Are we going?”

“No”The god said, “You’ve got someone to say goodbye to”

Nico’s eyes flooded with realization, “You bastard!-”

“Nico?”Will said in that sleepy voice, “What happened? Did I fall asleep?”

It really was a set up, this was planned, this was entirely planned and Nico fell for it. Split up the team and they’re easier to pick off. It was practically the first rule in the book of killing a demigod.

This was just the beginning. This was the first move in Zeus’ cruel game of chess.

“You won’t be seeing your Nico for a long time”The god drawled, “Also you really should have confessed your feelings for him earlier because now he’s all mine”

“W-what!”Will stuttered, whirling around. “Nico?”

“He practically begged me to take him”The god continued. “I would feel pity for you if I had any pity at all”

“That’s not true!”Nico shouted and immediately felt a surge of flaming hot pain sear through his body. He wailed and his knees buckled from underneath him as he waited for the pain to subside.

“Tsk tsk”The god said, “Techically you did and Styx doesn’t like a liar”

Nico felt tears roll down his face and he was still screaming. He tried to complete the quest, he tried to keep Will safe but he failed. He did everything he could and he still failed.

“I would say I hate to break up young love but that wouldn’t be true, would it be my new pet?”The god said, “What was that you called me Nico, a bastard? A pedophile,a murderer, a rapist?”

All nico could do through the pain was nod.

“Well i’m all those things”The god said, “but so. much. worse”

Fuck Zeus,Fuck Styx and fuck the gods, he should have converted to the Egyptian Pantheon a long time ago. He looked up to see Will practically frozen in his spot, tears of his own streaming down his face. He wanted to reach out but even the thought of it sent another wave of pain coursing through his body, even his mind was shackled to Zeus.

I love you, he thought defiantly. I love you, my heart belongs to you, my heart bleeds for you, I’d do anything for you—each thought sent a new wave of pain shooting through his body.

“I’m sorry”He croaked. It was the only thing he could say. The last thing he saw was sorrow in Wills eyes, and the once bouncing soul come to a sharp stop and crack. Will’s soul was broken.

And it was all his fault.

A/n hey guys, I’m alive! That was different than what I usually write but I hope you enjoyed it!

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perseusjackson-jasongrace · 4 years

Note

Angst 1 for Jason? I'm feeling like some sad lightning boi I dont know why but ye

Hello darling Anon! Thanks for the prompt and I hope I did you well🥺 dis is hella angsty

Jercy Masterlist

Jason Grace doesn't have enough fingers to list how many things he's done wrong in the last month.

1. Losing his best friend

2.Losing his girlfriend

3.Being unable to help all the demigod's he's promised

4.Letting Reyna down by not coming back to SPQR

5.Dammit he can't even put on his fucking shirt the right way.

Holding in a scream he tugs it off and flips it so the tag is on the inside. He's proud of himself for not ditching clothing altogether, ditching life altogether. There is so much temptation in taking to the skies and floating for the rest of his days. It's not like anyone would miss him, would even notice he was gone. And maybe it's for the best. It certainly wouldn't be unexpected. For years he's wanted to be anonymous, just another one of the Campers. For years he's secretly rejected his titles as Son of Jupiter, Praetor of New Rome, Slayer of the Black Throne. He shouldn't complain now that he's ignored, unwanted.

There's a knock at his cabin that he pulls him out of his self-deprecating pity hour. Checking to make sure he has his pants and shirt on and his head firmly on his neck he grabs his sword and opens the door.

"Jason!" Will Solace gasps, "Please come it's Nico!"

His heart turns to stone, lungs become useless masses, "Let's go." He manages to breathe, "Brief me on the way."

They sprint through the camp, uncaring of the shouts and greetings coming from every side. They don't have time. It seems ever since they had defeated Kronos the clocks spin uncontrollably; hours are seconds and minutes only exist in the afternoon and nobody knows if one week is seven days or three blinks of an eye, if years are twelve months or a century.

"A breach at the west border. Monsters we've never seen before. They just snuck up on us. Nico's been raising the dead to fight but I'm afraid he's not strong enough yet. Not after the war. He'll burn out soon and they'll overwhelm him." Will gasps.

"How many?"

"Twenty maybe twenty five?"

"You call anyone else?"

The Son of Apollo shakes his head as they sprint around the corner, "Percy is in school he only arrives tomorrow. Clarisse is gone to visit her mom and there's so many Campers in the infirmary. The rest are the little ones."

"How fa—" Jason beholds the scene in front of him and every nerve in his body shut down.

There in the middle of skeletal warriors and black shadows is Nico Di Angelo. All around them are scaly four-legged vipers hissing and spitting. One opens its grossly enormous jaw and snaps it around a skeleton with a sickening crunch. Another skeleton pops up in the exact same place and with a rattling, he supposes is a scream, attacks the monster.

"NICO!" Will screams, trying to catch his boyfriend's attention.

The Son of Hades although dangerously powerful is grey and heaving as if the sheer force of his summonings are turning his own body to it's bony structure.

"Go!" Will shouts at him.

With a nod, Jason pulls his sword out and steps into the ring of the dead.

Gods these things are a hundred times more terrifying up close. Sharp teeth and poisoned spikes on their tales and oh gods jagged claws to top it all off. But he's fought armies before and survived. This will not deter him. So with the force of Zeus and the strategies of Jupiter flowing through his muscles he brings his sword down on the first creature.

It shrieks and his ears ring like a bell clanging in his skull. But the head thumps to the ground and the monster crumbles to dust.

Decapitation then.

He sidesteps the swish of a tail, chopping it off as it goes past. First mistake. Three tails grow back and he knows one drop of poison will be enough to end him. He vaults into the air using the wind to push him as high as possible and then he's slamming in the body of the creature and sawing at its head.

His foot slams into the ground as the monster powders underneath him. Second mistake. His ankle is broken and there's three more of these things advancing towards him.

He bites down a scream as he attempts to walk. It's no use. Stand here and fight it is. Summoning as much lightning as he can, blue eyes sparking maliciously, he looks directly into the first of them and slams five thousand volts of electricity into its brain. Before he knows it's dead he's onto the next. This time he bides his time, let's it come closer and when he can hear its ugly breathing and feel its lack of heat he stabs his sword into its neck and watches it bleed black.

The third monster is clever, it's learnt. But Jason doesn't know. So he gathers all his strength and waits for it to pounce. By now Nico is a few meters away, holding his own but pale beyond healthy. The monster shakes its body, scales rippling in the afternoon sun. It takes one step closer. Jason grips his sword, holds the power thrumming in his fingers. The monster moves again and he swears its smiling.

He turns to Nico, "You good?"

Third mistake. The monster let's out a vile screech and slams into them.

"NICO!" Someone screams. It sounds like Percy Jackson. But that can't be right. Percy is in school.

The creature's tail swipes at the Son of Hades.

Jason can't move as it's claws wrap around his throat.

I can't do anything right, he thinks. Those talons pierce his skin. The world goes black.

***

"He's a fucking idiot."

"Lay off. How was he supposed to know?"

"Maybe if he wasn't so caught up in trying to make friends he would have been able to do something."

"Leave him alone."

"Alright you lot, get out of here. I'll call you when he's awake."

Jason tries to open his eyes, tries to say something, anything. But he feels a prick in his neck and reality fades away.

***

"Is he awake?"

"How long does this take?"

"He had a broken ankle and a slit throat. Maybe a little patience is in order?"

"I still think we should send him back."

"That's enough! It wasn't his fault and we will stop acting like it.".

The Son of Jupiter groans, blinking into the world. Everything hurts. Everything. And the light above his head is blinding.

"What the hell happened?" He rasps.

"You almost got Nico killed is what!" Someone snaps.

He blinks trying to find the source of such bitterness. "I what?"

"What the fuck were you trying to do saying hi in the middle of battle?"

The room finally shifts into focus and he sees three faces staring at him intently, varying degrees of anger and relief in their expressions.

"Well?" Hazel looks at him, "What were you trying to accomplish? Were you actively trying to get him killed? I know you didn't trust him but trying to kill him Jason? I thought you got passed that after Cupid. Nico told me he trusted you."

"Hazel!" Percy Jackson glares at her.

"I'm—" He chokes, "I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. I— I didn't know the monster would try to get both of us." He's crying now, red hot tears spilling onto the white sheets of the infirmary bed.

"That's the problem Grace, you don't think." There is so much pain in her voice.

"Im sorry," He sobs, "Is he okay? Is he— is he—"

"He is fine Jason," Will says softly, "He managed to jump back before the tail swiped him. He's actually really worried about you. We all are."

He doesn't know what to say to that. He doesn't even know if he deserves that. Hazel is right. If he hadn't distracted Nico they wouldn't be in this situation. It was dumb luck that Nico managed to get out of the way. If he hadn't. Oh gods, Jason would have been responsible for killing his friend.

With that though he turns over in his bed and heaves straight into the trashcan.

"Everyone leave us." Percy's voice is soft, but there is an unmistakable command in it.

The buzzing of the infirmary hushes as people file out and Will gently clicks the door behind him.

"I didn't meant to distract him," Jason cries.

The Son of Poseidon clasps their hands together and looks into him, "I know Jase. I know."

He breaks down, sobs wracking his aching body. He can't even keep his head up. And the tears are ever flowing. He can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't do this.

Percy hops onto the bed and takes him into his arms. They sit there for many moments, the sound of his crying disrupting every inch of the silence.

"I can't do this anymore Percy."

He feels the demigod stiffen and he's afraid he said too much, has pushed another person away. But then his head is being tilted up by a soft hand and he's looking into oceans.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"There is no-one left and I cannot do this alone."

Something sparks in those emerald green eyes.

"You have never been alone Jason Grace. When the world is dust and the gods can once again become mortal, you will find that only one thing still exists."

"What— what is that?" He hiccups.

"Love. You cannot be alone if you have love."

His eyes pool with tears, fall to the floor, "Lies. There is no love."

"You have forgotten my friend what it feels like. And that is no one's fault but ours. We should have been there. Should have helped you, seen the signs. I should have known."

"Why you?"

"Because I know what it's like to have everything you've never wanted and bear the burden anyway. And when I left I added to yours. I'm sorry for that. I got selfish, wanted to know what it was like to live. But that meant you suffered."

"It's not your fault. I just thought I was stronger than I am."

"You are strong. You are so strong because you are still here. You took the nature of the gods and made it your own. Took the burden of everyone in these camps and carried it on your shoulders."

"Thank you," He mumbles, getting lost in the seas, "For saying that. When did you get so philosophical and wise?"

Percy cracks a grin at that, "After Tartarus I started going to therapy. I think you should too."

He mulls it over, flips the idea around in his mind, "Okay."

"And maybe..." The black haired boy pauses, "Maybe you should come with me to Montauk for the winter holidays. I think you could use a break from all the hero stuff."

"Really?" His eyes widen, staring at his friend.

"Really. Annabeth is in Cali to spend time with her dad and my mom and Paul are just going to spend some time at home with Estelle. I could use company."

"Won't you dad like blast me for being in his territory?"

"I'll talk to him," He smirked.

"Okay. That would be great!"

Percy gives him another squeeze and then jumps to the floor.

"Rest easy Grace."

"Jackson," He stops the demigod in his tracks, "Thank you for this. I needed it."

"We are alive Grace, and we are enough." Those green eyes are intense, filled with emotion. "Remember that."

Jason nods and when he finally succumbs to sleep once more, his soul takes a deep breathe and exhales a new beginning.

#I just love philosophical self help Percy okay #Let me be #Jason grace #Nico di Angelo #Percy Jackson #Will solace #Hazel Levesque #Baby fanfic #Baby fanfic series #PJSSG fanfic #PJSSG asks #Ciara's Convos #She speaks #Anon requests #not edited

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halfbloodallbitch · 4 years

Text

God Swap Au

(The way this au works you take to characters and swap there godly parents. I decided to add Will because I need to keep the numbers even and I don’t think Bellona has a Greek equivalent)

Percy:

Son of Athena

There’s no Gabe in this au cause he’s not needed

Percy is really into Mythology (not just Greek but every kind), Ancient history and biology

His room looks like an explosion in a book store. He does have a system but it seems to only make sense to him.

He can give of mad scientist vibes

Annabeth:

Daughter of Poseidon

She loves building model ships and hopes to one day design the fastest boat there’s ever been

She still ran away from home when she was seven and she still met Luke but in this au it’s just the two of them.

She isn’t claimed until years later after she’d already met and befriended Percy.

She was worried Percy wouldn’t want to be friends with her anymore but he reassured her that that wasn’t going to happen

Jason & Thalia:

Children of Pluto/Hades

In this au they were the ones who lived during the 40′s

Their mother died from alcohol poisoning around the same time the big three prophecy was made

Realising he had to hide them, but couldn’t hide them together due to being greek and roman Hades/Pluto sent Jason to the Lotus Casino until it was time for him to go to the Wolf House.

Before he could think of what to do with Thalia Zeus attacked and killed her.

Decades later Jason found her and escaped the underworld with her.

He tried to take her to Camp Jupiter but they got separated along the way and she ended up at Camp Half Blood

Hazel & Nico & Bianca:

Children of Jupiter/Zeus

Both born in the modern day

Nico and Bianca’s mom was a big city lawyer who moved from Italy to the States

She died after her office block was attacked by someone who’d lost a case to her

They were sent to Camp Half Blood where they arrived around the same time Percy did.

Two years later Bianca meets the Hunters and decides to join them

After she dies Nico does run away but it doesn’t take long for Percy and Annabeth to find him and bring him back. He’s known them for three years and he has friends at camp who he already misses.

Nico has a toy plane modelled after the frecce tricolori planes and dreams of being a stunt pilot one day

Hazel was also born in the modern day, and in this au never died.

Her curse is she can’t touch people without accidentally electrocuting them. Usually it’s only a small shock but there are times it’s killed people.

Out of fear she covers as much skin as possible and refuses to touch anyone.

When Jupiter claims her everyone starts expecting her to take a leadership role much to her frustration.

She ends up turning to Jason for help and quickly figures out this Pluto kids a much better leader than she is. It’s just no one wants to listen to this weird kid who talks funny and appears and disappears a little too quickly and quietly

Will

Son of Aphrodite

He has the power to make anyone fall in love with him, romantically or platonicaly. He never uses the romantic side of his powers and only uses the platonic side if he’s in danger

Nico calls him Pretty boy

He’s the one everyone turns to first when they have relationship problems or just need to rant but don’t think their friends or siblings would understand

When he becomes the head of the cabin he makes a strict no shipping fellow campers rule.

Piper

Daughter of Apollo

She’s more on the musical side, though she does keep a small first aid kit in her saddle bag which she carries everywhere

Whenever she sings everyone has to stop and listen to her no matter what they’re doing

She can also play the flute. She can control mice by doing this earning her the nickname Pied Piper from Leo

She is quick to prove wrong anyone who accuses her of just being a healer with a pretty voice

Leo

Son of Ares

He gets very angry if he sees someone picking on someone smaller than them, even if said person is bigger than him

He’s gotten into a lot of fights because of this

Eventually his mom had to send him to the wilderness school because he’d been expelled/ran away from all the local schools and three military schools

Whilst he was there she died

He tends to use his sword for everything, including opening tins, picking things of the floor and at one point scratching his back. Piper yelled at him for five hours after he came to her for healing

Frank:

Son of Vulcan

He can still shape shift but also have fire powers (you don’t know true fear until a burning elephant has charged towards you

He’s pretty good at making/fixing weapons which is just as well because Leo keeps breaking his

His mom was a combat engineer until she died.

#au #godswap au #pjo #hoo #toa #percy jackson #annabeth chase #jason grace #piper mclean #leo valdez #frank zhang #hazel levesque #thalia grace #nico di angelo #bianca di angelo #will solace

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nicostolemybones · 4 years

Text

Amber Valentine

Tw: minor character deaths (referenced), mentions of homophobia, ambiguous rejection (purposely left unanswered so the reader can choose which they want it to be)

Nico woke up. Nico didn't like that. He tried to sleep again but no, sleep was impossible, because today was a bad day and his brain hated him. He wanted compensation from life for waking him up today, on Valentine's day of all days.

He huffed, dreading the day more and more as the heavy weightlessness of sleep left his bones to be replaced with a dull ache. He didn't have the strength to get out of bed yet, and to be quite honest, he didn't really want to.

So he opted to angrily stare at the ceiling like it personally offended him. The one time he wakes up before breakfast, and it's on the one day he wishes some kid would whack him round the head and put him in a coma for the day. He bet Will was already out on his morning run. He'd wake at the ass crack of dawn like a heathen and exercise like a heathen and glow like it didn't fucking give everyone a headache like a heathen.

But he was cute, so Nico forgave him.

Cute didn't really describe it. Will was a beautiful. Nico wondered what it would be like to wake up in the morning to the sight of Will sleeping beside him. He could imagine it- Will laying on his stomach with his head on his arms, golden blond hair fanning out onto the pillow, his skin glowing softly in the morning light. Nico wondered if Will had freckles on his back too, and if Will would let him paint them, like angel wings and constellations.

Stupid cute boy making him have emotions this early in the goddamn morning on the worst day of his life. Should be illegal. Nico forced himself out of bed and prepared for the day before opening the door- and the offending boy was stood nervously on his doorstep, freckles glowing a light yellow whilst his skin glowed soft amber. He had such a pretty smile and pretty eyes and Nico absolutely despised him for being so cute and making him blush in public by being so goddamn cute.

"What do you want Solace? You see the sky? You see that giant orb of radiation and death? Yeah? Well that means it's way too fucking early to be awake."

"Nice to see our resident vampire is already in full brooding mode! That must mean you're awake enough for a hug!" Will beamed, and gods Nico couldn't breathe because… holy shit. His smile was so beautiful and he was glowing sunrise yellow and he had dimples okay and his nose was scrunched and Nico forgot how to breathe. He was so pretty.

"Don't you dare, Solace!"

"But hugs," Will pouted, his glow slowly turning sunset yellow as Nico tried to resist. Nico couldn't resist because his boyfriend looked like a kicked puppy and he gave good hugs.

"Okay, fine, hugs," Nico relented with a sigh. Will's glow was back in full force, sunrise yellow with a warm amber undertone, and he was practically throwing himself at Nico, wrapping him up in a warm hug. Fuck, Nico was gonna die like this and go to Elysium, he couldn't function because the cute bastard was hugging him and he was warm and he smelled gorgeous, like lemons and antiseptic and cinnamon and sandalwood and sunshine and sweat and boy. Then Nico realised he hadn't been hugging back- he could tell by the way the heat from Will's glow changed slightly, nervous heat, that he was shifting back into a sunset hue, and that kickstarted Nico's brain to hug back, and Will's warmth grew comforting again.

Nico didn't want Will to ever let go.

If he was honest, he was kinda touch starved. He may have been touch averse, but that didn't mean he didn't need affection from time to time, and Will's hugs made him feel safe and sentimental and fuzzy. And Will was taller than him so his face was met with a wall of muscle and fuck Nico could die because that was his man and he was a fucking snack. Between feeling sentimental and flustered, Nico felt overwhelmed- the touch starved side of him wanted to cry and the teenage side of him practically wanted to consume Will and the conflicting emotions were too much for him to process at once.

He reluctantly let go, noticing Will's hesitation in the way his arms twitched as he let go, like his body didn't want to let go and Will had to fight it. Nico wanted to hug him again, but he knew if he hugged Will again he'd grow deeply uncomfortable and want to rip his flesh off. Sometimes physical contact was like that feeling when a bug flies into your face and you can still feel it twenty minutes after it's flew away. But ten times more intense and distressing to the point it made Nico want to scream and cry and rip his face off, but apparently, that isn't what physical contact felt like and Nico was being over dramatic so naturally everybody would pull him into hugs or headlocks and Nico would freeze or bolt. Except for Will. Will may have been very huggy, but he never tried to force Nico into physical contact. He didn't question it if Nico pushed him away sometimes and he didn't take it personally.

"So uh…" Will began, his freckles a nervous pale amber, which Nico knew meant he was anxious. He didn't finish his sentence, picking at the bandage around his hand instead.

"It's Valentine's day," Nico said quietly, and Will nodded awkwardly.

"Yeah…"

"I already told you, I won't celebrate it."

"I know," Will said quickly, and the amber of his freckles was almost a dark chocolate gold, "I wanted to talk. Can we- can we go somewhere?" He looked just about ready to cry, and Nico's concern was able to quickly override his aversion to being seen.

"You look terrified," Nico noted, and Will nodded, not moving. Nico started to walk, and Will followed him. Nico could feel the heat radiating off him, so Nico walked him to a far spot through the forest- walking helped anxiety by tricking your brain into thinking you were running away- fight or flight. And for a short while, Will seemed less anxious, but the closer they got to their favourite talking spot, the darker Will's glow got until he was a dark sunset orange. Sunrise colours were good- sunset ones were worrying. "Will?"

"I really wanna tell you something but I never talk about it and I'm scared to talk about it because I like running away from my feelings and I need to talk about it and I trust you the most to understand how I feel so can we talk about it?"

"Of course," Nico said gently, guiding Will to sit down. He looked on the verge of tears.

"I hate Valentine's day," Will said quietly, "I hate it so much."

"Glad we're on the same page," Nico said quietly, and he knew that Will would catch his meaning: I'll understand, you can tell me anything.

"You already know I'm from Austin, right? Well I come from a super nice area, y'know? My school had a gsa and the local church I went to as a kid was super accepting and had rainbow flags and funded a shelter for lgbt youths. My grandma was a lesbian and her wife made me my very first punk jacket when I was six. So uh… I grew up in a super nice place. So I knew quite young that I weren't straight, you know? I hadn't really had crushes yet but I remember we all used to play kiss chase at recess and I always wanted to kiss the girls and the boys. So I knew I wasn't straight. And I came out to my mom on Valentine's day because young me was making Valentine's day cards for all the boys in my class. Except for John. He was a cunt. I didn't like John. But anyways um- I ran downstairs and I yelled at the top of my lungs 'mama I'm gay!' And she looked really awkward and just replied 'that's nice, honey,' and I thought maybe she thought I was joking so I was like- 'no mama, I wanna kiss all the boys and all the girls,'- I didn't know what bi was, by the way- and she just gave me this really awkward look and said we'd talk about it later, and then she went to hang the washing. I didn't know if she was awkward because she didn't accept me or just the way I came out, and I still don't know and-..."

"Will?" He was crying by now, a sunset red undertone to his sunset amber glow, pushing the ball of his palms into his eyes to try and stop the tears.

"I never got to ask if she was okay with me being gay because a few minutes later I heard scary noises so I hid under the kitchen table and the scary noises sounded like a really big lion and I heard mama scream so I went out and I screamed because she was dead and bleeding and eaten and then it tried to eat me too but a goat man grabbed me and ran and took me to camp, and that's why I'm an all year round camper…"

"Will…" Nico began gently, before reaching out and holding him in a strong hug. "I wish I could tell you if your mom accepted you or not… and I wish I could make all your pain go away…"

"I always thought mama got killed because of me. Because if I didn't say I was gay she wouldn't have gone outside. So I didn't wanna tell anyone I liked boys ever in case they died, and I spent all these years so sure that she rejected me that day because she looked uncomfortable and sad and I felt like nobody loved me if my mama didn't love me and Valentine's day reminds me of all that and… it hurts… rejection hurts..."

"How long have you been holding all that in for," Nico asked softly, rubbing comforting circles on his back and gently carding his fingers through his hair. Will's hair was dry and floofy but it never seemed to knot.

"Since forever," Will sniffled, "and I felt bad because I could never celebrate Valentine's day without being real sad and thinking about rejection."

"Please don't feel bad," Nico said softly, "it's okay. We never have to celebrate it, it reminds you of your trauma."

"I didn't think anyone would understand…"

"My mom died too," Nico said quietly, pulling away from Will so he wouldn't overwhelm himself too much. "I watched her die too. But it wasn't a monster, it was Zeus."

"I- I didn't know, I'm so sorry," Will whispered, and Nico shook his head.

"I lost a sister about two days before Christmas. Bianca. Which is why I got upset when you wanted me to wear the Christmas jumper. But- my point is I understand how it can ruin a holiday, and I want you to know that I understand, and you're not alone because I relate."

"I'm sorry," Will said quietly, "I'm really sorry." Will moved to hug Nico, but Nico gently pushed him away. As usual, Will didn't protest or try again.

"I hate Valentine's day because I was outed," Nico began after a deep breath. Will's glow was sunset orange and yellow with concern. "I was outed by Eros to Jason. I had a crush on Percy in the past, and Eros made me tell him. Jason, I mean. He shot me with an arrow and everything. I wasn't ready to come out- I hadn't accepted myself yet. I wasn't comfortable. When I was a kid being gay would have got me killed. And after Eros made me come out it felt like suddenly everyone knew. And I even accidentally outed myself to an entire Roman Legion thingy. Then when you made me come to the infirmary I felt obliged to tell Percy. All my life I'd seen myself as creepy, and everyone else thought I was creepy, so I felt like I had to tell him. Like he had a right to know. I still wasn't okay with myself and I didn't want anybody to know, and I still struggle sometimes with internalised homophobia. Or at least a fear of being outed or being seen or being attacked. I can't handle hearing slurs or judging looks or bigoted preachers without breaking down in tears because I didn't ask for this and it feels like I'm constantly being punished when I didn't even do anything wrong. I'll just be minding my own business and some asshole tries to ruin it, because somehow, people just know."

"I understand that," Will said softly, but Nico felt scared- Will had an angry sunset red undertone to a near white yellow sunset glow. He thought Will was mad at him for being a coward. "I'm gonna smash every last Cupid statue and heart card I see dotted around camp. You shouldn't have to have your triggers and your trauma shoved in your face any day."

"Will don't," Nico said softly, reaching for Will's hand, and a sunrise orange began to seep through the darker undertones, like he was trying to reassure Nico that it was alright. "They don't know, and I don't want to ruin their day. I was gonna stay in my cabin, but… I'm glad I'm out here with you. I feel safe here with you."

"I feel safe with you too," Will said softly, and his glow radiated a warm sunrise amber with yellow undertones- fondness, golden.

"Maybe we should reclaim Valentine's day," Nico said quietly. "Make it ours. As a fuck you to all our trauma, y'know? Avoid all the traditions and just snog the fuck out of each other until we both turn blue then do whatever the fuck we want. We have each other now."

"So… celebrate Valentine's day to spite Valentine's day by making it our own? Not romantic, just spite?" Will seemed amused, a thin smile on his lips making one of his dimples prominent where the corner of his mouth turned upwards to form a lopsided smile.

"I'm powered by spite and I'm tiny so yeah," Nico replied, bumping shoulders with Will. "Hey… maybe one day when you're ready for answers, I can summon your mom," he suggested gently.

"Maybe," Will replied softly, "I love you."

"Ti amo."

So they kissed, and they kissed until Will's glow was golden and bright and encompassing Nico in warm rays, and the shadows were dancing around Nico and holding Will close. They kissed until they felt fuzzy and hot, and they kissed until things would have got real awkward if they would have continued. When they pulled apart, Will's cheeks were a ruddy pink to the tips of his ears and blotchy, and Nico was sure he was puce. Fuck Cupid and fuck manticores too. Nothing could take this love away from them.

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valdez-and-the-argo-crew · 4 years

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God!Percy fic ch. 5

Previous chapter: https://valdez-and-the-argo-crew.tumblr.com/post/616320304875175936/god-percy-fic-ch-45

Two sons of the sea

Alone on a quest

That line made sense. It was actually the most understandable thing I’d ever heard an Oracle say. I looked over at Jamie, who was currently fast asleep. He was handling the quest pretty well.

To return escaped spirits

To the cold hands of death

The part about escaped spirits made sense as well. The Arai were the escaped spirits, and I assume the underworld is what the second line was talking about.

For better or worse

One choice changes all

I’ll take vague descriptions for 500. I make about a million choices a minute, and one of them is supposed to change everything?? That’s comforting.

He will bring peace to Olympus

Or be the cause of its fall.

And to top it off, I might kill the gods...again.

It’s been two days of straight traveling, but Jamie and I finally have reached a point where we believe we can intercept the Arai.

Which means we can finally get off this train we’ve been on.

I turn to Jamie, and shake him gently on the shoulder.

“Hey bud. Rise and shine, let’s go kill some things.”

He sat up and stretched, rubbing his eyes. I didn’t need any godly powers to be able to tell he was not at all awake. I almost felt bad about Jamie being here on the quest. He’s 6, he deserves to be building sandcastles and riding Pegasi, not saving the world.

“Are we there yet...?” He asked, narrowly avoiding another yawn.

“Yeah. Now come on. We need to get off the train.” I tugged his arm gently, but that was somehow counterproductive. He passed out once again, leaving me with no other choice.

I stepped off the train with my brother on my back, holding both of our bags. I have to admit, it was nice. It made me miss mortality. Ever since I became a god, I’ve been...detached. Emotions and connections were hazy and inconsistent, and at times, I found myself wondering why I’d spent years building up relationships.

But just carrying Jamie grounded me. So I let myself smile as I walked out of the train station and immediately into somebody I hadn’t seen standing in my way

“Shit my bad I didn’t see— Nico?” I paused to look at the boy in front of me.

“Percy?” He tilted his head to one side— a habit he had when he was confused. “What in Hades are you doing out here?”

“Uhh...believe it or not I’m on a quest.” I laughed a bit.

“You? But you’re...y’know...a god? What’re you on a quest for?”

“It’s beyond me. But apparently I might destroy Olympus again so...I got that going for me.” I laughed again and adjusted my weight. A sleeping 6 year old gets heavy quickly, even for a god.

“who’s the kid? He’s not...like...” Nico trailed off, looking between Jamie and me.

“Like what...?” I said before it struck me. “Oh gods no. No no no, he’s my brother. Another Poseidon kid. His name is Jamie.”

Nico smiles a bit. “Alright then. So...where are you headed? Because I have a feeling we’re both here for the same reason.”

“The Arai?” Nico nodded. “Well...I was thinking first we just find some place to crash and get organized, but seeing as Jamie here has been out like a light for hours, I’d say he’s well rested. So...” I shrugged. “I guess we go after them?”

“Yeah...I guess,” Nico looked at Jamie again. “He seems too young to be on such an intense quest, is he doing okay?”

I saw the look in Nico’s eyes and I knew what he was afraid of. Ever since Bianca, he’d been wary of quests, especially when younger children were involved.

“It’s been surprisingly mundane. Not one monster attack.” I said, to which Nico raised an eyebrow.

“Not one? Weird.” A pause settled over the two of us as I shifted my weight to keep Jamie supported on my back.

“Well...you two come with me, I can lead you to where the Arai are.”

I followed him out of the train station and through the quiet suburbs of the town we were in. We kept walking and walking until we came across a deserted park area, and I could feel the Arai nearby.

Now, I’d like to say I’m not as stupid as some people make me out to be, but looking back on these next a few moments...definitely makes the list of top 10 stupidest things I’ve done.

“Percy...”

I glanced around. “What?”

Nico looked up at me. “Hm?”

“Did you say something?” I asked, still looking around.

“No?” Nico said, with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh...I could’ve sword I heard...” I trailed off, shaking my head. “Never mind.”

“Listen to me Percy...”

And my big mistake...is that I did.

Using my Awesome And Useful Godly Powers, I split my conscious. I know, impressive, right?

Part of me stayed walking with Nico, carrying Jamie who was still out cold, but the other part of me slipped away, still looking around for the voice.

“Are you listening...?”

“Who are you?” I said aloud, now able to look all around. “What do you want from me?”

“We don’t want anything Percy. We want to protect you.”

“First of all, I’m a god so...good luck. And secondly, I don’t talk to disembodied voices. Sorry, gotta go.” I took a few steps forward, only to be cut off buy something appearing in my path.

My body reacted on instinct, jumping back and pulling Riptide into action. What had appeared in front of me looked exactly like a fury, and I can’t say I’m particularly fond of furies.

But upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a fury at all. Wrinkled features, bat-like wings and brass talons, not to mention the glowing red eyes...this wasn’t something I’ve ever encountered. Not in this plane of existence, at least. But something lit up in the back of my mind. A hazy memory...

“Who are you.” I pointed Riptide right at her, hoping to pry some useful information from her.

“You know who we are,” she said, as more creatures looking just like her appeared around her. “And we’re here to tell you that you don’t have to kill us again.”

“Again? I’ve never...” wait. I thought about it. I could remember...something. Like a memory that never happened, but would’ve in a different timeline. I could recall...Tartarus. Annabeth and I...she was...blind, and I was in pain...

It struck me. “You’re the Arai. And if things had played out differently, I would’ve killed you years ago.”

The Arai laughed, which sounded rather like an asthmatic dog wheezing. “He does remember.”

“You still haven’t told me what you’re trying to talk to me about. I could just kill you now, and the quest would be over.” I eyed each of the hags in front of me. “You have 10 seconds to talk before I dice you.”

“If you kill us, you’ll suffer every death you’ve ever bestowed. But it doesn’t have to be like that.” One of them stepped forward. “You chose immortality, but what you don’t know...is how much more powerful you could be. More than Hades, more than your father...” she took another step closer. “More powerful than Zeus.”

I lowered Riptide. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Zeus has been in charge for too long. What has he ever done for you? He gave you godhood and confined you to your silly camp. He forbid your dear old daddy from being there while you grew up. He let neglected half-bloods raise Kronos, and forced you to save him.” She was circling around me now. “You can prove you’re a worthy god, not one to be stuck on camp duty. Don’t you want that, Percy?”

“Oh shut up.” I swung riptide right through her chest, causing her to dissolve into a flurry of gold dust.

A fountain of pain erupted from my gut. Riptide clattered to the ground as I toppled over, putting my hand to the pain. Golden Ichor flowed though my fingers from the wound that had appeared. One word came to my mind. ‘Minotaur’. My wound was right where I’d stabbed the Minotaur all those years ago, right outside of camp.

My vision swam as I reached out for my sword. I closed my hand around it and swung at the nearest Arai I could reach. It wasn’t enough though. She simply screeched in pain.

“You can be strong Percy. Chiron has nothing more for you. That silly camp of yours is not built for someone with as much potential as you.”

“You talk too much,” I said, struggling as I got to my feet. “I’m not going to turn my back on anyone. Camp is my home.”

I suddenly felt the presence of water. I looked to my left to find a sprinkler in the ground next to me, which gave me an idea.

I willed the sprinkler to explode, allowing me access to the waterlines. Raising my hand slowly, the water began to form a small ball between me and the remaining Arai.

“Percy!” Came a voice in the distance. Nico was running towards me, Jamie following close behind.

I kept my focus on the water as it grew bigger and bigger. I used it to engulf the three hags in front of me. They gasped for air as they slowly started to drown in the water.

“Percy! Oh gods what happened to you. Jamie stay back.” Nico said, running towards me, but I showed him off.

“I got this, Nico it’s fine.” I kept my eyes strained on the spirits in front of me. Another one exploded into dust in the water. I lost my balance as my skin turned searing hot. I couldn’t focus anymore as burns crept up the sides of my arms. Mount St. Helens... the explosion.

I lost control of the water, letting the two remaining Arai fall to the ground. Another one died on impact with the ground.

I couldn’t breathe.

Somewhere to my right Nico was running toward me but I couldn’t focus on that. I started coughing, gasping for air, but I couldn’t get it. What is it what did I kill?

Sounds became muted as I started coughing more violently. I think Nico was calling me. I think Jamie was too.

What the hell did I kill? My vision doubled as I couldn’t get oxygen. I’m a god this...this shouldn’t be killing me... why...

I felt Nico shaking me. His voice sounded so far away.

“Percy! Percy are you okay? Percy what’s going on!” He shook me violently.

Oh gods... I’m drowning...

I coughed more and this time I was coughing up sea water. How? I’m the son of Poseidon, I can’t...I can’t drown...I’m not supposed to drown...

The boar. Ares...the lightning bolt situation... I’m drowning like I drowned Ares’ boar.

“Jamie!” I heard Nico say. “I know I’m asking a lot but take my sword. You have to kill that last Arai.”

And that’s when I lost consciousness.

#percy jackon and the olympians #pjo stuff #percy jackson #rick riordan #pjoverse #trials of apollo #pjo #chb #annabeth chase #percabeth #god!percy

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whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer · 5 years

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I’m happy that you like to hear people’s thoughts about subplots and ideas and such. I just got so caught up thinking about the time right after he was claimed and how “everyone was afraid of him” and how different his experience might have been if instead he could’ve met people with the undercurrent of “this kid might be my sibling” and that’s really neat :) I absolutely, 10000% look forward to whatever you write next!!!

I do! (About hearing people’s thoughts on subplots, ideas, and so on.) :)

Heads up I’m going to break this reply in two parts. The first part is about claiming or rather Percy not being claimed and what that means later on in the series. The second part will be about his SPQR tattoo. Okay, onto the the first part, claiming:

1.) Annabeth canonically assumed Percy was Zeus’ son even after Percy became the supreme lord of the camp’s plumbing (which Percy doesn’t become in this verse). It isn’t till she sees the water healing Percy that she puts the pieces together and then BAM Percy gets claimed.

This is honestly a fair guess because in Greek mythology Zeus had the most children. This is also supported by the fact Zeus has the most demi-god children in PJ series.

Before someone points out Hazel, Bianca, Nico, and I’m pretty sure it’s hinted in the books Hitler was Hades’ son and that three confirmed children of a big three beats the two (Thalia and Jason) children Zeus has let me remind you that Hades stopped having children after the oath was made that was result of the great prophecy and of their children being too powerful (about WW2).

Hades actually kept his oath which both is something Greek mythology supports in two different ways but that’s a discussion for another day. (I haven’t had caffeine yet. My cup of tea is still steeping.)

Zeus had two children after the oath - one who Annabeth personally knew - while

Poseidon only had one and Hades had none after the oath.

So it was a valid guess to assume Zeus had fallen off the bandwagon again.

Grover, on the other hand, states that he believed Percy is the son of a minor god or goddess.

We never officially (key word officially) get Chiron’s guess on Percy’s parentage but

I think it’s telling that out of everything he could have done Chiron gave Percy Riptide during the school’s trip to the museum.

It’s apparent in the chapter after Percy vaporizes pre-algebra teacher that Grover and Chiron knew she was a Kindly One (plus I just remembered in the first chapter that Percy made a remark after sententious that she was pure evil and Grover agreed). There’s also the fact it’s stated several times throughout the series that Grover, and I’m sure it’s a safe assumption Chiron too, could smell monsters. Even if they couldn’t smell that there was a fury in the school they would have noticed her appearing one day and manipulating the mist. (Thalia states TTC that Chiron taught her to manipulate the mist.)

So Chiron must have known Mrs.Dodds was a monster. If he didn’t carry a weapon with him that would be beyond stupid (maybe he can’t personally interfere since there’s red tape for everyone but a demi-gods who only held back by their own bravery but that doesn’t mean Chiron couldn’t have kept a weapon to give Percy in case he needed it which he does) especially when Percy states in the book Chiron had a collection of weapons he would let the class mess around with.

Out of all the weapons Chiron - Chiron who manipulates the mist, Chiron who had been training demi-gods for hundreds of years, Chiron who had a stash of weapons he let his class play around with - could have kept on him it’s Riptide - the sword Poseidon gave him - that Chiron gives to Percy.

So even though Chiron is never officially guessed Percy’s parentage I think he had already guessed right in the privacy of his own mind. (This is something I hint about in the series.)

Okay, so that’s Annabeth, Grover, and Chiron’s guesses in canon.

It would be fair for other campers to assume that Percy was a child of Zeus because he was the only big three known to break the oath at the time (Thalia) and seriously the god could not keep in it his pants in Greek mythology. You would be surprised how many people are attributed to being Zeus’s. There actually are a few bad guys in Greek mythology that are sons of Zeus and some of Hades’ children that could be his are also said to be actually Zeus (Macaria, Zagreus, and Melinoe).

But the kicker is Zeus doesn’t claim him.

It doesn’t matter what you or anyone thinks. If the kid isn’t claimed they have to stay in the Hermès Cabin. (Which really sucks if you’re a child of a god or goddess who isn’t an Olympian. Even if you’re claimed you still have to live in that overcrowded cabin because the camp only had twelve cabins until the end of TLO.)

Zeus who apparently didn’t just only turn Thalia into a tree to save her life (and finally give the camp some protection) but kicked up a fuss on Grover failing to retrieve Thalia to camp safely. (It’s mentioned throughout the series Grover was given shit about not saving Thalia and that Zeus doesn’t like him. I know for a fact Zeus still holds it against Grover because I reread the scene in TLO where the gods rewarded the heroes; I’m working on an oneshot with trans female Percy - Helen - that takes place in that scene.)

So to most campers who were old enough to know about Thalia and the story behind the pine tree that protects them or were told about it by someone who did...it’s very telling and makes them wonder that Percy might not be Zeus’ son.

That who knows...he could be the son of just a normal Olympian, a minor god, or a minor goddess.

Who ever thinks not being a son of the big three, Ares, or Athena means you’re not powerful is dumb. We see this (off the top of my decaffeinated head) in Selina (her love for Charlie makes her trick the Ares cabin to defend New York which saves the battle, Clarisse’s love for Selina makes her slay a drakon that Percy with the Achilles’ heel couldn’t do, and there’s also the fact her telling Luke of Percy and Charles plans to blow up the cruise ship could have turned the tides of war if Kronos had been able to kill Percy too) who was a daughter of Aphrodite, when see this in Meg in ToA who is the daughter of Demeter whose children Annabeth brushed off in TLT, and in Luke who was a leader for the Titan’s army until Kronos possessed him and fought Percy (the son of Poseidon, of the big three, while Luke was only the son of Hermes).

Demi-gods are important- this is stated several times in the series because they are only held back by their bravery, their hubris - no matter their parentage.

In the last chapter I had a parts where Percy (who was told he was a pawn by Gaea) realize his worth and honestly this can apply to any demi-god who survives long enough and realizes their worth (the gods need demi-gods because the demi-gods are not held back but by their bravery):

1.) “Percy would not be a victim nor would he longer be a pawn that Gaea had told him he was before promising to persevere him if he went north. Didn’t they know about the thing called promotion in a game of chess? Percy had still had not played a round of the game (he had kept meaning to download an app for it) but he had googled about pawns and the thing was if a pawn survived long enough and got to the other side of the board they could become anything but the king.

And Percy?

He was no longer a pawn because Percy had survived. Yet the thing was Percy had to wonder at what had been the cost. He wondered if had become a monster along the way because don’t you know? Monsters are made, not born. And two wars had certainly made Percy into something: a child killer, a person who watched his best friend die to bomb a cruise ship which Kronos had still survived, someone who intimately knew the smell of burnt human flesh from the pyres of fallen comrades, but Percy had not been made a good person. A good person didn’t talk the person, the titan Bob, they claimed (they lied) to be their friend and convinced them to murder their brother.”

2.) “There it was again: pawn. Percy was no longer a pawn. He had survived and he had become what was needed of him to save his loved ones and to live after so many quests. (And maybe what he was was a monster that no one else could see because it was under his skin - in his soul. A monster that possibly couldn’t die until this body reached sixteen.)”

3.) “I lied earlier,” Percy admitted as realization fell upon on him. (Don’t you know the king is the weakest player? Don’t you know if the pawn survives across the journey to the other side of the board it can become anything but the king?) Percy thought of Calypso and of vows sworn to the river of Styx. Percy remembered how Hera had told him he was the glue that held the Seven. (Don’t you know when you make a Faustian contract with the devil you will pay for it even if it’s years later - so many years you thought you escaped him? As if he would forget after what he’s given you. You struck a deal and you were a fool for ever thinking he would let it slide without payment. Not after he’s given for you because he gave you his soul in the end when he only meant to give you victory of your wars.) “When I said I was sorry and that it wouldn’t save either of us.”

Okay, that was the end of part one of my reply. I’ll try to write the second part later today. (When I post the second part I’ll come back to edit this post so there’s a link to the second part of the reply.)

#dark Percy #percy jackson #percy jackson series #meta #my fic #time travel #I Scream Too Loud When I Speak My Mind #asks

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