Chapter Text
To become a god, one needed only two things:
They needed worshippers. Shrines. The whispers of prayers that they convinced themselves they couldn’t, didn’t, hear. They need lives at their disposal—mortals ready to sacrifice themselves at a moment's notice. They needed belief.
The belief that they were something else. Something more.
Psyche had beauty so immense that worshipers fell to her feet. Hercules had children hearing his life as a bedtime story. Dionysus had the lost, the broken, the powerless—all of which felt their problem slipping away after just one sip of wine. All of which lifted a toast to its creator.
When Percy Jackson called for arms, demigods answered. Because they truly believed they couldn’t lose.
Not with Percy fighting, protecting them.
The second thing needed was the attention of the Fates.
Sometimes, the Fates take special care in certain strings. They weave these more carefully. Thoughtfully. Godly strings glow gold. These strings have a distinct golden sheen.
The Fates weave. They plan.
But fate is a tricky thing. And the Fates can't change it. No, they can only guide it. Provide tests for these strings with a golden sheen. Opportunities. Tragedies.
Hope.
The Fates give them mortal lives. The bad, the good. The ugly parts, and the beautiful ones too. The mortals who can rise to the challenge—the ones who truly, deeply live—those are the ones who hate godhood the most.
Those are the ones who are granted it.
And those mortals, now gods, adapt. They don’t want to. They never will. But gods are unchanging, everlasting. They have an eternity to get used to it. Most of the time, it’s enough.
(Dionysus still drowns himself in alcohol. Hercules sits on his island and stews in his bitterness. Ganymede forces his hands not to tremble as he pours his king’s wine. Psyche carefully mothers each struggling soul and secretly yearns.)
Daedalus failed his test. The Fates had such high hopes. Such plans. He would have revolutionized Greece.
They sigh as they snip his string.
Icarus too. The sun’s son. A solar flare—bright and short. And at the end of the day, just a boy.
(It was only his first test. More would have come if he had a chance to grow.)
But Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, the Hero of Olympus, passed. All of the tests. All of the challenges.
(If he hadn’t, Annabeth would have died. Without her, Luke would have continued his crusade. Kronos would have ruled.)
Tartarus, Kronos, Gaea, and the thousands of more monsters that had tried their hand at his demise. He had defeated them all. That was more than any god or demigod could claim.
He had even rejected immortality. Turned it down. Wished for a mortal life.
He’s perfect, the Fates thought.
Zeus stewed. He never wanted to offer immortality to a son of his brother, especially not that one. Perseus Jackson was the most impertinent, rebellious mortal he had ever come across. He was his father in mortal form.
But Poseidon had immortality to protect him. And there lay the problem.
Gods can offer godhood to worthy mortals. Mortals handcrafted by the Fates, mortals with lives at their fingertips. That was the only way to become a god.
Immortality was something any mortal could achieve, with the right attention. Ariadne, wife of Dionysus, lived in Olympus. Feasted and danced in their halls. But she could not drink their nectar. She could not use their powers. She was only immortal.
Back in ancient times, Ariadne was a princess. She had mortals willing to lay down their lives, she had the Fates' attention.
But only the powerful ones could withstand the change.
And the change would come. It would always come. Gods were shaped by beliefs, demigods knew.
But what they didn’t know is that they were born from them too.
Mortals looked around an earth that didn’t understand and wished for there to be a reason why.
Why the storms rolled in so suddenly. Why, at times, the waves could rise almost ten feet high. Why the crops withered and the snow fell. Why their bodies failed with age and injury.
And so, the gods took shape.
To offer one godhood was to control the change. Direct it. Zeus had been quick to do so with Hercules. Son or not, he still stifled Hercules’ power. The man would only become a minor god, never powerful enough to resist him.
He did the same to Dinoyus. To Psyche. To Ganymede, to Ino, to Endymion.
He planned to do the same to Percy Jackson.
All the gods did. Even Poseidon looked at his mortal son with the Styx curse on his skin and the sea in his veins and agreed he needed to be leashed.
The sea doesn’t like to be restrained, Poseidon had said. But the one thing gods feared was change, and his son embodied just that.
Only Percy had turned them down.
They had blustered. They had snarled.
And secretly, they had panicked.
Perseus Jackson would become a god. He was always meant to. One way or another, he would.
And they knew that when he did, they could not stifle it, could not limit it.
He was powerful as a mortal. As a god?
Well.
They feared.
And then the son of Poseidon jumped into Tartarus for his girlfriend. He walked where no god dared. Did so willingly. Stared Night itself in the eye and lived. Looked upon the body of Tartarus and lived.
The gods know. They know the Saviour of Olympus brought down a goddess. They knew the Saviour of Olympus convinced a Titan and a Giant to die for him.
They knew, and they feared.
Percy Jackson awoke from dreams of dying demigods, wishing for his help. At dinner, prayers drifted with the smoke. His eyesight was a little better, his skin a little harder. His ambrosia and nectar tolerance increased. And so did his powers.
Poseidon was the god of the sea.
Not water. Not liquid.
But Percy could control poison. Blood.
(People too, but he never allowed himself to dwell on that fact.
He refused to dwell on any of these facts. Went about his day, pasted on a smile, and hid his worries under a mask.)
Dionysus watched with wary, pitying eyes.
Poor kid.
The Fates looked upon his string—gold, but not yet glowing.
Percy Jackson would become a god.
It was only a matter of time.