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Chapter Text

I know my mom loves me. She always has. It takes a special kind of mother to move into the wilderness for the sake of her child. She’s a good woman and very strong, not afraid to shed her timid guise when it’s needed; but I have a lot of memories of her struggling with things when I was young.

Well… when I was small at least. I’m still pretty young, but I didn’t stay small for very long. When she made me a cake as big as my head and stuck three candles in it, I was already almost as tall as she was.

When I ate a birthday pie baked in our earthen oven with a ‘6’ of crust draped over the lattice, I was tall enough that when she hugged me her face was nearer to my belly button than my chin.

Luckily, that was around the time I finally figured out how to shrink myself back down. I know how big I really am, every time I go to sleep if I don’t focus on it I sprawl out again to my full size, but I could at least appear like a normal seven year old when we took our trips into the local town.

Mom was a tough woman, but I was the strong one between the two of us. She was really smart, and taught me everything I needed to know; but to teach like she used to in schools we needed paper to make worksheets and math exercise books.

So we got those from the village nearby, a giant woman with sharp teeth greeted me with a half-kind scowl whenever I came in with my mom to pick up an order and then laughed a bit when I slung on the sled-harness and hauled away with 500 or so pounds of supplies without seeming to notice the weight.

Honestly I’m not sure how I didn’t realize I was really strong until I was about 12, that was embarrassing.

I know what I am; it’s hard to not know you’re a cyclops when you brush your teeth in front of a mirror every morning, but I honestly thought human kids were this strong too, they just grew slower.

Then I lifted a bus off two trapped draft horses at the side of the road and the weird men with suits came to the village looking for us.

No one told them where we were, we had earned their loyalty a few dozen times over, just as they had earned ours, but it still really freaked out Mom.

“It’s time for you to leave, my son.” She said after my twelfth birthday, crying. “There’s a place near where you were born where people will accept you better. Where you’ll find your destiny.”

I was sad, so desperately sad, but I’ve always been a simple boy and I was even simpler back then. So I nodded, proud to do whatever it was that my mother needed me to do as a good son, and I took the trains and buses all the way to Long Island.

As I crested the hill, tasting strawberries on the wind, I reached for where the horn my Mom had made me was slung on my hip.

And I blew into it, a long mournful note like when Mr. Reardon’s bull got caught in a fence and broke its leg and I had to kill it.

I miss you Tiny.

With the galloping of hooves, a centaur approached me at the top of the hill, the winter winds less brisk than I expected here at the gate of the camp.

“ Greetings, Chiron. My name is Perseus, Son of the Sea. I request sanctuary.” I had never had the pleasure of seeing a Centaur, let alone one so dignified in bearing, ( tweed jacket, seriously?) look dumbfounded, but it was funny.

It’s not every day a Cyclopes walks up to camp and speaks in flawless Ancient Greek; very much a demigod ability. But that’s because I was one. He answered in the same tongue.

“ Should you not seek it with your father, under the sea? The Father of Monsters always welcomes his children.”

“ I am no monster. I am born of The Stormbringer and Sally Jackson, a human woman. I seek entrance to Camp Half-Blood by right of birth.”

I spread my uncovered arms to show no hidden weaponry.

“ I will need to commune with your Lord Father, but you have come at an auspicious time. The Camp is empty with the winter. ” Chiron frowned, considering. “ Very well, I bid you welcome to Camp Half-Blood. Welcome home, Nephew .”

I smiled, showing pearly human teeth, and strode down the hill, feeling the breeze brush against me in greetings.

The camp wasn’t truly empty, there were always Satyrs and Nymphs around, but only a scant few fellow Demigods were here. Two Children of the Forge who I rapidly formed a friendship with, and a son of The Sun who spoke warmly to me even as his eyes remained wary.

It was him, a young and bright lad named Will, who approached me late at night in the Forge. I stood in the fire as I usually did, a special anvil had been made and mounted in a recessed pit exclusively for my use.

The superheated air kept the metal constantly hot as I worked it, and the anvil was enchanted to retain its shape and remain relatively cool via extensive rune work, tooling and prayers.

I didn’t notice Will was there until he started singing along to my low, rumbling humming. He made the words up on the spot, and I felt the sorrow in them.

“What troubles you, cousin?” His face lit with a tired fondness, I noticed he liked it when I referenced our familial connection. I imagine it made it easier to forget my monstrous form.

“Sometimes I don’t feel like a very good Son of the Sun.” He admitted, as I set aside my near-finished work to cool and set whilst turning off the forced air to the forge.

The roaring sound died as the flames altered pitch to a merry crackle, and I sat on the edge of the pit when he hopped up on a workbench across from me.

“Who’s to say you have to be?” I asked after a long moment, scratching my face.

“I imagine the glowing golden arrow and sun that appeared over my head when I got here.” He said with a bitter sarcasm, and I really didn’t like the shadow that fell over his sunny features.

“I am son of the Stormbringer.” I said in clarification, whirling my hand in the air and summoning a gale into the pit to blaze again. “This gives me power over the Storm and partially over winds. As a Son of the Sea, I can breathe and thrive underwater and speak to horses.” He nodded, still seeming confused.

“A brother of mine who was the Son of the Father of Horses, would be much better at speaking to them, and would be able to communicate with even the Great First Pegasus. I cannot hope to do so. Just as a Son of The Earthshaker could crack open the fault lines in the plates of this world, where I could only hope to tremble the ground under an opponent’s feet in a moment of true desperation.” Comprehension lit in his eyes.

“So though I might be a Son of the Sun I might not be linked to the Sun itself?” I nodded.

“Perhaps you fall under his dominion over Truth, or his twin responsibilities of Healing and Plagues. Perhaps you have Visions blessed by The God of Foresight which have historically been more powerful if more fleeting than those of an Ordained Oracle. As a Son of the Sun you seem to sing quite well, feel free in the daylight as much as you seem to more directly enjoy the night, and so on. We are children of The Divine, there is no limit or qualification placed on us that our mind does not craft itself.”

He smiled softly.

“Thanks Perseus.”

“Percy.” I rumbled, embarrassed. He smiled wider, eyes still soft.

“Percy it is.”

“Goodnight Will.”

“Goodnight Percy.”

Chapter Text

I think I surprised Chiron when I showed up for his weekly combat training session. He held them on a personal basis for the year-round campers, and would generally work independently with each camper for long stretches of time.

Will, counter to my expectations, wasn’t all that great with a bow, and I made eye contact with Nyssa and Charles regarding ideas to improve his gear.

Nyssa’s eyes lit and I smiled, happy to leave that fine control work in her capable hands. Charles seemed a little annoyed at having to yet again put in a requisition form for an out-of-season Celestial Bronze drop off, but the fond smile he gave to his little sister didn’t fool me.

“Young Perseus. I’m glad you could join us.” I smiled up at the Centaur, something in me lightened by the openly welcoming air. Some of the Nypmhs found it difficult to be around me, and the Satyrs were even worse, so another ‘non-standard’ form being pleasant was a nice change.

“I’m happy to be here, Uncle.” His face crinkled around the eyes in his ancient way of smiling, and he stamped a hoof idly.

“What is it you wished to learn?” I only had to consider for a second.

“A trident, and also a sling.” He seemed a little surprised, but pleased.

“Two very versatile weapons.” With an approving nod, he gestured for me to follow him to the range. I heard Nyssa strike up a conversation with Will regarding compound bows, his bright gasp of realization as it was explained to him, and Charles’ heavy steps loping casually beside us.

“Young Beckendorf. You are interested as well?” Charles nodded in his normal stoic manner, looking as though he was far away in the calculations of how a sling worked.

“It seems very practical to learn to use a sling. Easily concealed, easily repaired, and ammunition is common.” I nodded, pleased he’d thought the same pattern I had.

“I was considering how best to use the material cutoffs we have, and realized a foundry and projectile casting would most likely be it. I don’t imagine monsters find it enjoyable to feel a three-ounce-slug forced through their brain at significant velocity.” Chiron did something I hadn’t yet from him yet; he laughed .

A proper laugh that sent his flanks flaring in a wheeze, and Charles’ angular features cracked into a craggy grin.

“No, indeed they don’t.” There was a flame of just vengeance in Chiron’s eyes, and I smiled at seeing it. We stopped in front of the secondary archery targets, Chiron reaching for what, at first glance, appeared to be a bundle of rope.

But that was rather the point. It’s easy to underestimate a sling until you see it swing by an ancient centaur with the force of ages behind his arm and hear the cracking of the sound barrier as the stone shatters violently on target.

“They’re very potent weapons even in the hands of a mortal, but our strength offers even greater advantage. A great amount of potential energy is offered in the leverage, and the final snap happens with sufficient force that I’ve seen the limbs of a Celestial Bronze thread sling lash out and cut a Draceana in half.”

“I want that story.” Charles and I said in unison, and Chiron’s bright laugh rang like rain on a window pane.

“Hit the farthest target consistently, and I’ll tell you.” He said with mirth dancing in his eyes, and we begun to train.

The most tragic aspect of my life here at camp came that summer.

The Campers.

Charles, Chiron and I had thought about the logistics, and we both agreed that splitting my time between the Forges and my Cabin until all the arrivals had settled in and gotten used to me would be best.

I had a further idea which made Chiron’s eyes dance.

I crafted my first set of armour, using my amateurish understanding of Atlantean Steel from tomes Chiron had in the Big House to craft a scaled mail suit which hung upon a deep green body-glove.

It made me very noticeable, and would hopefully mark me as a significant enough novelty to not mistake me for one of my rampaging brethren.

It worked rather well, when not in the armour I maintained wearing the bodyglove with a leather kilt over the parts of me a little too indecently displayed by the tight material, but was otherwise painted as uniquely ‘Of the Sea’.

It went alright for a while, the few campers observant enough to look past my strange size and otherworldly armour and see my single eye were also the ones observant enough to notice my friendship with Chiron and my rapid friendship with all of the Hephaestus campers.

“Hello, little one.” I rumbled down at Harley, the tiny new Hephaestus half-blood who was one of our new year-round additions. He whirled and looked up, meeting my gaze with a hesitant smile. “Would you like to join your siblings?” He nodded with a painfully shy air, and as his tiny hand settled into mine I understood what Beckendorf felt each time he looked at his fellow campers.

I understood love for someone besides my mother.

After a moment of slow walking, he turned to me and gave that universal sign language for ‘Up’. I smiled softly, and settled him onto my hip.

My long loping strides lulled him to near sleep as I approached the breakfast table, and settled in beside Charles with a murmured prayer to The Forge God. The wood heated under me in a mild warning, but it was merely a comforting warmth to me and I don’t doubt the God knew that.

As I plated the French toast and handed him the tiny fork Nyssa had crafted for him, Harley smiled and nodded his thanks.

No one had heard him speak yet, but the sadness in Chiron’s eyes as he handed Harley to Charles that first night said everything about the child’s past.

Saving a portion of Harley’s food on a side plate to offer in his place and three of mine for Father, The Hearth Maiden and The Forge, we ate in peace.

Until the hunting horn blew.

I moved among the Hephaestus campers that day, going about my duties in the forge workbenches away from any open flames with Harley in a seat next to me.

Charles was agitated the entire day, though none among any but his siblings and I would be able to tell. He didn’t like the Hunters who had commandeered Cabin Eight, and wasn’t shy in explaining why when I asked.

He stripped his shirt, and showed three massive roping scars down the length of his back.

“I journeyed to Camp with my sister.” He started, and paused. Nyssa reached over while still fiddling with a watch with her other hand to run her hand over his arm while he buttoned his shirt again.

“Halfway here, in Wyoming, a pack of hellhounds ambushed us. Father had led me to this…” He pulled a pendant off his necklace, and it expanded into the single most terrifying expanse of Celestial Bronze brutality in hammer form I had ever seen. “It was smaller then, growing to fit me, but it was still very heavy. I wasn’t strong enough to kill more than three of them.”

As a tear traced Beckendorf’s chin, Harley stood on his seat next to me and reached out to pat a tiny grease-stained hand on his dark cheek.

“Don cry, broth’r.” He said brokenly, tiny face twisted in sympathetic grief. Perhaps other cabins would have overflowed with joy at a mute member of theirs finally speaking, but my cousins were a pragmatic people.

Nyssa smiled brightly, standing and carding her stained hands through Harley’s dark brown hair. I patted him gently on the back and Charles took the minuscule hand on his face with his own and held it there for a long moment.

“Thank you, little one.” He said with an aching fondness in his eyes. Harley smiled brightly in response, leaning back and settling against Nyssa.

After a long moment, Charles’ re-firmed his brow and began again, voice stronger.

“The hammer was too heavy, so I dropped it. I started to scream in anger and hammer them with my fists, but I only got two of them battered into stillness before the biggest swiped a paw at my back.” He paused a long time again, and reached out to delicately hold Harley and Nyssa’s hands.

“I lay there for hours. My sister ran off, drew them away for a while, but soon I heard her screaming echo down the canyon back to me. She begged me to run, screamed she loved me before the pain ripped it’s way from her lips.” I placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I heard her screams in my sleep for a while, now on bad nights I hear the particular silence of a scream finally dying while basalt walls taller than the gods echo the noise until it finally dies too.”

There was another pause.

“I was discovered by the Hunters. I’d stumbled up the canyon, using the hammer as a cane until I found her mangled body. Weeping near it for what felt like days, they assumed I had done it just from the savage shape of my weapon.” His brow now firmed in a brutal fury.

“They pushed me away and ignored my screams of pain and refusal and started beating me, lashing me with whips they keep for disciplining rapists until my Father appeared before them all.”

Nyssa twitched, clearly hating this story.

“He told them he’d never make them another weapon, that he would speak with their Mistress about their mistreatment of his son and his daughter’s corpse, and transported us both here. I woke up days later in the infirmary and my father had already burned her body in his forges.”

“An honor .” Nyssa spat, eyes dark with a foul rage.

“Aye.” Charles rumbled. “An accursed fucking honor from a bastard too lazy to make her sacrifice unnecessary altogether.”

“I’m sorry, brother.” I finally said, and he leaned into my side. Harley monkeyed up Charles’ back to sit on his broad shoulders and hug his head, and Nyssa settled her head under his chin.

We stood there until the Dinner Horn blew.

“Thank you, brother.” He said in return, and I looked around in shock as an unearthly orange glow settled into my skin.

Hephaestus’ hammer appeared aglow above each of our heads, claiming us as Forge-Siblings as far as he was concerned.

An avatar of the God’s appeared in a nearby flame.

“Thank you, Father.” Charles said begrudgingly.

“Your sister commanded it.” Hephaestus said shortly. “Her voice is one of the loudest in my forge, singing often.” Charles smiled sadly.

“I bet it’s distracting.” The Son managed to joke, and The Father nodded.

“It’s a good distraction. Makes me focus on my little ones more. Paid enough attention to Harley to see what happened, to intervene.” Charles seemed to choke back a sob.

“She has made a legacy you can be proud of, Charles.” I murmured consolingly.”

“I was always proud of her!” He snapped, crying. “I want to be proud of her works alongside mine!” There was a low hum through the flaming avatar.

“Very well, my son.” An enormous shield appeared on the table before us, unadorned and not completely finished. “Perhaps she knew this was coming today, it’s only been her voice the whole time I’ve been working on this.”

Charles wept over the expanse of bronze.

“She says this…” Charles cut his father off.

“Will be our greatest work. I know, I can hear her.” Charles murmured around his tears, running his hand over the shield.

“I’m glad my son. Call for me again should you wish to speak to her.” With that, The Fire Avatar dimmed and flickered out.

Chapter Text

Chiron and I agreed it would be ill-advised for me to participate in Capture the Flag. A deep state of combat meditation came over almost all Greek Demigods in the throes of war, and even mock combat could cause buried instincts of Monster-slaying to emerge and cause problems.

I stood at the centaur’s side now, trident planted in the ground and sling in a pouch on my belt. The trident was my main weapon, but most likely would not be necessary. The Demeter Cabin Counselor, a stocky teenage boy named Carter near to college age with kind brown eyes had worked with me to create a formula of tear gas which wouldn’t irritate the Nymphs or other nature spirits.

Now held in sling-size pouches to be shattered on surfaces in case a confrontation got out of hand and demigods needed subduing, it promised to be quite effective and ensure I could do more directly in refereeing than Chiron could normally.

 Now, don’t get me wrong; you feel the Aura of the Lastborn of Kronos as he commands you to stop your foolishness, you’re gonna listen , but my concern was a lack of his presence or the problematic kid not being able to listen at all.

Falling too deep in our Greek instincts could intoxicate better than any alcohol not brewed from Nectar, after all.

Zoe Nightshade, the Lieutenant of the Huntresses, didn’t seem thrilled by the idea but an eyebrow from Chiron had her admitting that her sisters could sometimes get… over enthusiastic.

I distinctly recall her unsettled expression as Beckendorf snarled like his Father’s sacred guard dogs at those words, but I won’t give her the credit of recognizing him and their monstrous actions until I hear her say she’s sorry.

As I heard a roar of rage in the distance and tore off after Chiron, I already knew what had happened.

Beckendorf was throwing his mass around, shoving, pulling and snarling like a maddened beast as the Huntresses’ silver grappling arrows wrapped around his arms and even embedded in his flesh through the armour shallowly.

Chiron stepped forward with his mouth already opened, but I caught his arm and shook my head.

We shared a silent conversation, and I palmed a few of my tear gas grenades, and then we both turned to observe.

“ Get off me! ” Beckendorf was raging now, properly raging and beginning to become unbalanced.

Nyssa appeared at my side, eyes alight in rage. When she spoke, her throat seemed to growl like a far off inferno. “I wonder what set him off?”

Chiron hummed, but said nothing.

“Perhaps he saw a particular hunter he remembered better than the others.” I glanced up and saw Chiron’s face go sad with remembrance of how injured ‘Young Charles’ was when he arrived at camp.

“ Sulenë! ” Beckendorf suddenly roared more clearly, grabbing one wire wrapped on his left vambrace with his right hand and hauling the Huntress in like a prized trout. His dark hand clasped down on her throat with the grip strength of a man raised from birth to forge steel and crush monsters.

As she gradually turned red, I saw a Huntress draw a new arrow, glinting razor sharp in the spotty sunlight glinting through the canopy.

Without even thinking, one of the tear gas pellets was in the sling, whirled, and smacking her upside the head before she could loose her arrow. She clutched at her eyes and went down with a hoarse yell.

“Do not interfere.” Chiron boomed. The Huntresses snarled, but the ancient Aura pressed in from all sides. A golden light flashed from the centaur in a wave, and Beckendorf slackened slightly as it seemed to calm him.

“Young Charles.” Chiron began in the soothing tone of a man lulling a mad beast to peace. “I know what you have felt. But this is not the way to make them understand their evil deeds.” Charles was trembling now, tears streaming down his face.

He brought Sulenë closer, looking for all the world like a child lifting a toy despite her being more than half his weight.

“You took her from me. Robbed me of a chance to properly grieve! ” He shook her like a rag doll, but I could see her pale eyes rolling back.

I waded in, growing to full size for the first time since coming to camp, and ignored the gasps as my footsteps shook the ground. I palmed his entire shoulders and gently tugged away.

“Come along, Brother. We will once again raise her monstrous misconduct with her Mistress.” He began to shake under my hand.

“She won’t do anything.” He sounded more miserable than I’d ever heard anyone.

“She will. If necessary, my Father will force her to.” We all felt the ground under us rumble in place in approval, and finally he dropped the Huntress like a sack of garbage. He turned into me and clung despairingly as I shrunk back down.

I led him away to Nyssa, and then home to the Cabin. Harley was awaiting us there, wrappers of pop-tarts strewn around the cabin and a faux-innocent smile on his jam-stained face.

The lad turned sad and threw himself immediately onto Beckendorf’s armoured torso.

Leaving them in his care, I strode to the Forges and brought his sister’s shield back to the Cabin. I placed it delicately in front of him.

“She isn’t truly gone, brother.” For the second time in as many days, Charles leant forward and wept over the bronze before him.

This time, I wept alongside.

I didn’t know what to expect of the first Yearly Counselor Meeting, on the 1st of June, but a gathering of motley teenagers around a ping-pong table with an animated leopard on the wall wasn’t it.

Chiron stamped a hoof and the room’s chatter fell silent.

“We have multiple pieces of business to go over.” He said it with the air of a cavalry charge in his eyes, and I knew I was now speaking with the ancient trainer of Heroes. “The Huntresses have been accused of raising a lethal arrow with intent to violate the ancient treaties of non-fatality which allow these competitions to take place.”

“This boy was going to kill one of our own!” The ‘Counselor’ for Cabin 8 protested with a bang of her hand on the table, silver tiara glinting. Zoe Nightshade held an ethereal air, ancient beyond comprehension and as inflexible as anyone could be without self-inducing paralysis.

“Young Beckendorf was responding to a threat with what he saw as reasonable force, he was surrounded and outnumbered by an imprecise difference, alone, and his… ‘difficulties’ with the Huntresses have deep roots.” Zoe looked ready once more to protest, but Chiron’s aura alongside mine pressed down brutally over her.

“Say one word about my brother and I cut you down where you stand, your Mistress’ retribution or not.” It took me a long moment to realize those were my own words.

She scoffed derisively. “As though you could.”

My trident was out of its pendant form around my neck, in my arm, and flying through the air to pin her tiara to the wall behind her before either of us could blink.

“It is only through my intervention that your sister lives at all, and only through my mercy that any of you are standing to criticize my fellow campers. I will thank you not to try my patience .” I stood up and loomed over her, recalling my trident to my hand with a flaring motion of my hand.

“Heh.” The Ares counselor, a tall and lithe young man with twin shorts words on his hips, laughed from across from Chiron.

“Is something entertaining, young Mark?” Chiron rumbled with a glare of disapproval to both Zoe and I, but we could all feel the danger in the air regardless of who it was pointed at precisely.

“Yeah, I think it’s about times these cunts got a taste of what they deserve.” Mark rumbled with narrow eyes, glinting red in the orange overhead light.

Zoe stood once more, eyes flashing silver.

“I will not be insulted in such fashion by a petulant child!” She roared. With a flare of moonlight, her bow appeared in her arms. Seemingly before she could react, Carter gripped her by the arms and Beckendorf had her bow in his hands, snapping the ancient Olympian Silver limbs like a child crushing tissue paper.

“Weaponry is allowed only with those who can be trusted with it.” Charles rumbled in a dangerous tone, no mirth to be found here. He plucked free the ancient bowstring and slipped it into his pocket. I raised my eyebrow in question.

“Spoils of defeat are often useful in enchanting significance.” He answered my silent question.

I huffed a laugh.

“Indeed.”

Speechless with rage; Zoe growled and clenched her hands at her side before storming from the room.

“I hope you know precisely what it is you have called upon yourself, my lads.” Chiron said warningly.

In the day-lit sky through the window, the moon seemed a thousand times brighter than usual.

“I will never regret defending my family.” I said.

“Nor will I.” Carter and Beckendorf said at once, with Mark nodding in response.

Chapter Text

Far away, in a land Beyond the Gods, two old friends met in a cozy cabin.

“Hello, mother.” The visitor was a giant man, lanky and tall and inhuman. He had four arms, the lower right missing a hand and a thick beard looped back in braids to interweave among his dangling hair.

His smaller counterpart smiled as she poured tea for them both. In this form, her feet bare against the boards hewn from rough logs and smoothed by a decade of heavy footsteps from her mortal son, she seemed more maternal than he had ever remembered.

“It’s good to see you, my son.” Sally Jackson said, not shedding her mortal guise to reveal the ancient spring winds rippling below her skin.

“You as well.” Rumbled the man.

They sat peaceably, sipping their tea and watching the fickle spring snows flurry down onto the ground and melt in place under the glaring sun.

“Why do you make your home here, Mother? Is it not too cold for your comfort?”

Frigga leaned back in her chair, golden-green eyes flickering into place to replace the warm brown of her mortal form.

“I am as the Earth-Mother here, little Tyr.” She turned and smiled beautifically at the lanky god. “No weather can harm that which grants it dominion in the first place.”

She watched as her darling boy leaned back and tried to act as though he wasn’t refreshed by her mild rebuke. He had always grumbled and complained about his preferential treatment as Prince of Asgard, having failed to earn his people’s respect when yet a boy.

Now a grown man, Frigga and the few others who had known the precocious lad at the time followed his wishes and treated him as they would treat any other in his position.

She spoke to him the same way she had once spoken to darling Baldur, and how she had spoken to Percy these last dozen years.

She spoke to him as her son, and he listened to her as his mother.

“I am glad you have found this peace, Mother.” He finally said, reaching out with his golden hand and delicately pouring more tea into their cups. “I had once worried you would forever bear my father’s pressure upon you.”

“I was there when your father was a child, my Son. Already a woman grown and flowered and bartered away by my father to a lad scarcely as high as my waist. I grew to love him, but the thing which emerged from that Well and which fell back again from hanging in the Branches of The Mother Tree was no longer that lad.”

Tyr reached over and settled a massive hand over his mother’s shoulders.

“You have changed, mother.” He observed softly.

“Aye.” She nodded, thinking back to a storming night long ago. “I have.”

Frigga heard the crying before she ever saw him. A piteous lad crying through one big eye over the cooling corpse of a woman who looked much like him.

As she spelled him to sleep and her Valkyrie wings flickered into place behind her, she frowned as he fought the spell.

But none could stand against her spells for long and he finally drifted to sleep.

Standing over her own corpse was the soul of the woman, in a flowing dress and a crown of flowers woven into her hair.

“Hello, young Sally.” Frigga greeted. The Half-Nymph bowed at the waist, form flickering idly.

“Great Queen Mother.” Frigga shook her head.

“You are your own Holy Mother now, Sally Jackson. And to young Perseus, you are the Greatest Queen of us all.” Sally smiled softly and ghosted a transparent hand over her son’s sleeping face.

With the echo of her spirit brushing him, his tossing and turning mind settled and his body fell still.

“He will miss me.”

Frigga hummed, considering.

“Not if I can help it.” She finally said, and cast a spell, greenest spring light glimmering over her.

Where a moment ago Queenly Frigga had stood, now an echo of the corpse on the ground could be seen.

“I will watch over your son; should you let me.” Sally fell before her, prostrating herself and begging most profusely.

“Hush, child. Hush, child.” Frigga said, first out of habit but then again when she truly looked and truly saw how young Sally was. “This is the least the Mother of Mothers can do for a woman so discarded by an uncaring father.”

The earth trembled warningly, but not more could be done even with Poseidon’s great rage this far north of Juneau.

“Thank you, my Queen.” Sally finally said. “If you would permit me, I would join your Valkyries and dedicate my afterlife to your service.” Sally knew what awaited a soul in this land beyond any gods, too far south for the Inuit Spirits to reap her to their Springtime Lands and too far north to enter the dominion of the Lord of the Underworld.

A life of wandering, until finally Oblivion took her.

Frigga knew this as well, and smiled fondly as she called her Daughters to take this brave woman before her into their ranks.

“You are a good woman, Sally Jackson. And I will ensure your son loves you well.” As the soul began to weep, Frigga wove a spell into Percy’s spirit, marking this night as one terrible nightmare, and took the knowledge of their Wilderness Home from Sally’s mind.

She settled her new son into his bed and was there to soothe him back to sleep when her spell flickered out and he woke up distressed.

From that moment on, she loved him truly.

And this is what she relayed to Tyr, and smiled shyly as he looked upon his mother with an exasperated fondness.

“It seems I have yet another stray to watch over.” Tyr finally said, and as she beamed at his acceptance of his new brother; the Sun flared through the clouds and spring came early.

Hephaestus grunted around a flare of pain through his leg, growling at his own body and annoyed by yet another failure to contour a brace perfect for his particular ailment.

He had been on his feet for far too long, lost in another trance for days as his children and Oathsworn from centuries past hummed and chatted and sang through his forge.

A knock boomed on his workshop’s door, and he spoke for the first time in days.

“Damn distractions.” He shook his braided head and smote his anvil with another floor-shaking blow. The Bronze flared and shrunk under his will, compacting and purifying under his attention.

He flared his aura outward and unlocked the door, swinging it open with a muttered command and ‘welcoming’ his visitor inside.

“Hello, sister.” He rumbled, voice hoarse and rarely used lately. “I did not expect to see you before the next solstice.”

“I come seeking justice, brother. ” At that, Hephaestus finally looked up from his work and snarled.

Fiercely delighting in his twisted form for once, he saw The Huntress cringe away from the sight of his fearsome visage.

“I seek it as well, sister. ” His voice made his forge flare, finally melting the long-heating metal in its crucible. With the pull of a lever, a thousand celestial bronze arrowheads were poured into their place in their molds. “My son seems most judicious in exacting it.”

Artemis’ ethereal features twisted in an ugly snarl, eyes flaring and the moon over Olympus doing the same.

“Your protectiveness would be more believable had it actually amounted to the saving of that daughter of yours.”

Hephaestus drew himself to full height, leg brace creaking as he ignored the pain twisting at his tendons. He hefted his hammer and his eyes grew stormy.

“Speak ill of my children once more and I shall strike you down where you stand, rebuke be damned.” In a twisted echo of a confrontation coming a mere few hours later in the mortal world, Artemis snarled but said nothing. “Sulenë has long held a reputation among our minor Gods for her dark deeds and fouler spirit, and I am dear friends with many of our minor brethren.”

Artemis appeared very displeased with this information, sighing angrily.

“This denial of my services has long been coming to the organization containing a woman who insulted purest Hebe in such a fashion, and I regret only that it took the death of one of my darlings to push me to it.” At that final sentence, Hephaestus pushed himself forward on twisted legs to loom over his sister.

“One of your allegedly precious maidens .” Artemis finally seemed to snap, making to punch her brother. He twisted the bottom of his hammer and his armour appeared over him, bruising her hand as it deflected off the cheek plate of his helm.

“Do not presume to raise a hand in violence in my domain, Artemis! ” His voice cracked like a whip, shaking the ground below Olympus where his forge rested. “Begone! And come not back to this place of creation. Your destructive spirit is not welcome.”

The Moon stormed away, tides rippling across the world in her anger.

Hephaestus huffed and set back to his work.

Hours later, another, much politer knock rapped delicately on his workshop door.

“Come in!” Hephaestus snarled out.

Poseidon strode inside, sandals rubbing over the hewn stone floor and idly twirling his trident as he held it like a walking staff.

“Hello, nephew.” Said the Sea, voice soft and delicate. “I felt your distress through the trembling earth and have sought you out.”

Hephaestus felt his anger drain away under his Uncle’s voice, the cadence rolling and lulling like breaking waves.

“I have begun to calm, Uncle.” Replied Hephaestus, setting to work more cautiously on drawing out the stock of refined bronze into usable ingots. “Artemis visited, seemed to dislike my son’s treatment of one of her Huntresses.”

Poseidon hummed consideringly. “My niece has long been overprotective, insisting her wards can do no unwarranted harm.”

Hephaestus barked a low laugh.

“She has always been surprisingly blind to the world for one who soars so high up each night.” Poseidon barked a twin laugh.

“Succinctly put, Nephew.” There was a long, comfortable moment where Poseidon leaned on a workbench and began to whistle while his nephew kept working.

“Is there any other reason you’re here, Uncle?” Hephaestus murmured out the words around a lip bit in concentration, peering closer at the bronze and not feeling the sparks which kicked up at his face.

“I noticed your blessing upon my son.” Hephaestus paused in mild concern. Whilst the sea would call upon all its might to protect its allies, it was also intensely possessive.

“And does this bother you?”

“Ha!” Poseidon’s head kicked back in a laugh. “Not one bit. In fact, not only is it appreciated, I might’ve asked for it sometime in the future. Your children are much like their father; insular and often unfriendly to outsiders. Knowing my son will be welcomed by his cousins is a blessing of relief.”

Mirth danced in both their eyes as Hephaestus’ ears reddened.

“You are very welcome, Uncle, he has more than earned it. Is there anything you need made?” A shake of a bearded head.

“Not right now, Nephew. I must return to the sea. It was nice to speak.” Hephaestus nodded as a sea breeze blew away some of the stench of sweat and effort settling in his forge.

“It was.” He murmured, and set back to work.

Chapter Text

Zoe Nightshade has served her Mistress with unshaking loyalty for more than three millennia. She was born into an age beyond the recognition of mortal eyes; outside of our ken where monsters roamed free and the Mist was but a thin veil deceiving only the simplest of fools.

She was granted the privilege and heavy responsibility of leading her sisters in her Mistress’ absence, and sometimes this required disciplining them.

Despite her experience and competence at fairly punishing those deserving; it is nonetheless her least favorite task.

“What grief does this boy hold against you, sister?” Zoe is re-stringing a spare Olympian Silver bow stave as she mutters the question, speaking low over the crackling fire in the hearth of Cabin 8.

They are gathered within, and the mood is fractious. Phoebe, second longest serving sister besides Zoe, is sat near her lieutenant checking her arrows for imperfections.

The girl receiving the question is idly rubbing the fingerprint bruises about her throat and scowling into the fire.

“Sulenë. Answer me.” This time, it is not a question.

“Answer our Lieutenant, Sister, or I shall.” Phoebe is a daughter of Ares, built stocky and yet still taller than all her sisters. She was called into the Huntresses far later than most, past two decades and fully grown.

She can project significant presence when she feels the need.

“I lashed him, for I assumed he had slain a maiden in a most foul manner.” Sulenë says it as though commenting on the weather, recognizing the perceived fault but no more.

“You happened upon a boy weeping over a corpse who looked very much like him, with the stench of hellhounds in the air, and you lashed him because you wished to.” Phoebe corrects, eyes glowing a dim red.

With the faint moonlight through the window casting her broad shoulders and angular face in shadow, she appears rather like a hellhound herself.

“How many lashes did he receive?” Zoe growls.

Sulenë is tellingly silent once more.

“ How. Many. ”

“I lost count.” Sulenë admits, in the same breezy tone.

“You lost count.” Zoe repeats, face going flat. “You beat a child without verification and continued to do so despite your duty being to bind him first and then see to ensuring all dead Maidens receive Charon’s fee as soon after their death as possible.”

This time, Sulenë does seem vaguely hesitant.

“You broke our sacred tenets .” Hisses one of the Old Guard, the dozen sisters among their numbers more than five centuries old. “You would have damned a soul to oblivion for the sake of your bloodlust.”

“I feel no remorse for my actions.” Sulenë snarls. “In the same situation I’d do it again. All men deserve such pain and worse .”

“Including my brother?” Rumbles Phoebe. She speaks of Adonis, perfect in body and kind in soul. Her eyes flash in a dare as the fond memory of him overtakes her.

Sulenë faces her most powerful sister and bares her teeth.

“I would do worse to one who masquerades as kind and good. At least the pitiful men will admit to their rotten souls.” Phoebe stands, eyes wide in breathless rage, nostrils flaring like a beast.

“Fifty lashes.” Zoe finally speaks, stopping her sister’s charging steps. “You will be stripped and lashed before Hestia’s hearth here at camp, so your blood may rise to our Mistress in offering and so the First Maiden may be there in judgment.”

Murmuring erupts in their ranks as Sulenë sits speechless in shock.

“Stripped, sister? Before the sight of the campers?” The same Old Guard from before, Natalia, asks in a concerned tone.

“Any boy foul enough to gain visible arousal from such a pitiful sight as one of our number laid low in such pain is one we do not have to seek out for hunting later.” Zoe explains, though all among them know it is a justification very weak in standing.

Truly, this is for Sulenë’s embarrassment as well as her pain, and is very much characteristically brutal for their leading Daughter of Atlas.

By the time Sulenë is weeping and crying, back ablaze with blood and the fire before her watered by tears, I can feel Beckendorf’s kind heart beside me is twisting.

“Enough.” He says quietly. Phoebe briefly pauses, but raises her whip again.

“Enough!” Beckendorf roars this time. “Her actions are forgiven by me. Her Mistress and her guilt will judge her now. Ensure she does not behave so brutally again.”

Phoebe nods, as does Hestia’s glaring image in the flames, and Sulenë weeps in relief as Natalia wraps a shawl around her to conceal her nudity even as Natalia’s face still twists in disgust.

“We shall.” The Huntresses say in a Chorus, nodding as their sister is led away with blood flowing down her legs.

As the campers begin to disperse, Nyssa slips her hand into Charles’. Harley has been left asleep for this late night episode.

“Your sister would be proud of your mercy, Charles.” Nyssa says, the only one beside Chiron and I who often calls Beckendorf as such.

“But not of my actions at the meeting.” Charles replies. His own guilt is heavy in the air.

The next morning, a sleepless Beckendorf hands a flawless bow-stave enchanted with protective blessings and shimmering in Artemis-blessed Moonlight to Zoe.

Her old bowstring is mended and the leather nocking strip in the middle has been replaced. Small curved blades trace the edges of the recurved stave’s tips, and they gleam with the essence of Olympus embedded inside them.

This is a weapon Anathema to monsters, and the half of me that is such grows uneasy in its presence.

“My actions were unfair. This is my thanks for your dispensation of justice. Let the feud between our cabins die here.” Beckendorf’s low rumble is even lower now, rough with lack of sleep.

“Sulenë’s actions demanded justice, I will not deny such. Had I or our Mistress been there at the time she would have been stripped of all blessings and her name attainted from among our ranks. I merely wish our groups were on sufficiently fair terms to have resolved the conflict without such violence.”

Zoe replies, taking the bow with a tenderness normally reserved for infants and crystal vases.

“Then let them be so in the future.” Charles replies.

“Yes; let it be so.” Zoe replies, and a Silver Arrow lights atop Charles’ head as a Flaming Hammer flares above Zoe’s.

With that, the feud in the mortal world is cleansed just as the one in the godly one is alongside it.

That night, in our workshop, Beckendorf is humming and I hear his sister’s voice doing the same from our forge-fire.

Chapter Text

I heard a new voice in the workshop today. I was in the forge itself, in the pit and at my usual entranced work on the anvil. I heard Beckendorf laugh softly and smiled at hearing it; but didn’t look up from my work.

The conversation went on for a while, and it was as the new voice rose that I finally looked up in concern.

“Don’t ignore me!” I scowled, hopping out of the forge, and turned to face the new voice.

Charles looked amused as Nyssa seemed concerned, and I saw why.

Long braided hair, green-tinged skin, a modest silver crown with webbed hands gripping down on a trident. The Atlantean crest was rampant on his chest plate, and he seemed distinctly unbalanced in human legs.

Triton.

He seemed as though he had been calling my name for a while, a perfect eyebrow furrowed in irritation.

“Brother.” I said shortly, and I saw Charles straighten up from my tone. Any amusement fell away from his face and my heart warmed as he fiddled with the hammer hung about his neck.

My cousin was ready to go to war for me, just as I was for him.

“Father wishes to speak with you.” I could tell from his tone exactly how much he hated being used as an errand boy.

“I’m busy today. Just like he was too busy to protect my mother.” Charles’ lip peeled in a snarl, and my hand still holding the oversized peening hammer twitched in anger at my side.

This was an old argument between us, each time Triton had been sent from his half-dominion in the Pacific to visit me where his father or Iris would be too weak to reach; he had said precisely this same request.

Or rather command.

And while I have many flaws, obedience to those undeserving of my loyalty is most certainly not one of them.

“Oh will you drop that?” He finally snapped, hand clenching down on his trident. “Holding too tightly to your precious mortals can only end…”

I overreacted.

Or at least that’s what my father would want me to say.

If anything, I under -reacted.

I threw my trident at his head and sent his crown flying off into the distance.

“Speak ill of my mother and neither of us shall see the next sunrise, Brother .” This time, the tone on his title wasn’t merely short, it was downright dangerous.

He inhaled deeply, biting down on rage as I saw storm clouds gather. I rattled the ground the forge stood on and the piece of me that was The Great Abyss delighted in his hatred as he felt an aspect of our father’s power his Domains didn’t grant him.

“He merely wishes to speak.” Triton finally said, and turned to leave.

“He’s twelve fucking years too late.” I saw Nyssa twitch violently at hearing me swear for the first time.

The half of Triton’s face I could see in its angle away from me went quite sad.

“He is often late.” He admitted, and strode away to the water’s edge. I watched his legs go serpentine and flick water up over his back as he powered away from Camp’s Inlet.

“Well.” Said Will from the door to the workshop. “That was eventful.” Tellingly, I couldn’t even laugh as I dropped back into the pit and smote the anvil again.

Walking up the ramp into Cabin Three covered in soot and sweat was not an unusual night.

My belly filled with stew and my mind aching for a shower, I wanted only to clean and flop into bed.

“Son.”

I would apparently not get that chance.

“Father.” I replied as I stripped my shirt and reached for a washcloth in a basin. I wasn’t giving up a shower, but I wasn’t waiting a second longer to clean my face, hands and shoulders. “I’d thank you for your help with Artemis but I doubt you actually followed anything up with her.”

He took the hit with enviable composure.

“The Moon and the Sea have long been held in lock with each other, we keep a cordial distance.”

“Yet another pair of Divines who won’t confront their issues with each other. What a novel idea.” He did something I didn’t expect.

He laughed .

I hated that it sounded like my laugh.

“I haven’t heard sarcasm that biting since I met your mother.” Despite myself, I cracked a small grin.

With the water seeping into my skin and reinvigorating me, I was in a slightly better mood.

“I miss her.” I admitted, and he nodded.

“I do as well. Throughout her pregnancy with you we would call each evening. When she made way for Alaska I was so worried that even my son finally noticed.”

I had an epiphany.

“You asked him to watch over me.” He nodded. “You commanded your child desperate for your approval to watch over an embodiment of your disloyalty to his mother and was surprised when he was displeased with such a task?” He had the decency to look ashamed.

“Not my best decision.” I huffed a tiny laugh. “But I love all my children. And he knows this, so he obeyed me. He even grew to care for you, though he wouldn’t admit it.”

I formed my brow in a scowl and reached for a paper and pen. I felt his eyes on me as I sketched and hummed.

“What are you working on?” He finally asked. I held up a half-complete outline.

“I’m making him a helm. I owe him a crown, might as well put it in a form that’ll protect that kelpy hair of his.” Poseidon leaned on his trident and wheezed.

“Not that I’d tell you this; but that adjective you’ve happened upon is my wife’s favored nickname for him.”

I was suddenly smacked with the realization that though they were Divine; they were still family.

They had inside jokes, they teased each other, they expressed fondness and felt love.

“I have been unfair with my brother.” I admitted after a long moment, tapping my pencil on the paper.

“And I have been unfair with my sons.” He replied.

I looked over, but he was gone in a mist of seawater. Left behind was a copy of his own crown, and I smiled softly.

“Thanks, Dad.” I said, as I set it by my sketch pad and set to work copying it onto a helm.

A breeze rustled my hair and I huffed, smiling around lips dry from the heat of the forge.

Another breeze came from the other direction and somehow reminded me more of home.

No, of the Pacific .

“Thanks, brother.”

Chapter Text

“It is not often we speak, Brother.” A grin danced over Pluto’s harsh features. Zeus huffed but smiled slightly.

It was always slightly easier to get along with his brothers’ counterpart; while they knew of the feuds between their other halfs, they hadn’t directly experienced them.

Zeus stood upon the precipice of Olympus, Hephaestus’ hammer smiting his anvil far below them in the caverns under the mount.

His Workman son was a calming presence, ever soothing and dutiful in his work.

Hearing the hissing of the bellows and the roar of the ever-burning forge echo up to his favored consideration spot had helped many times.

“No, tis not, brother.” Zeus inhaled bracingly, his bolt planted in the ground near his foot turning into a humble, unadorned wooden gavel slung on his hip.

Pluto seemed to sense the change in the air.

“You have sensed the violation as well, then?” Pluto’s aspect as the God of Justice in Death, now spoke to Zeus’ aspect as the God of Just Ruling.

“I have.” Zeus’ brow furrowed low in an idle frown, lips twitching in contemplation of his words.

“He is far too good.” Pluto said with a dark flashing of teeth, a smile ringed with wry exasperation.

“Indeed.” Zeus sighed. “I had hoped the Child of the Prophecy would not be so morally upright. Not after our behavior has continued to become unacceptable in a ruler.”

Pluto hummed softly. “Entirely too much like our brother. Just and yet brutal; swift and kind with his punishments.” Zeus nodded, beaded braids rattling softly.

“In truth, I had hoped the child would be one of yours.”

Pluto felt his jaw drop.

“Truly?!” A flicker of Hades’ voice slipped out, but as ever, the God’s attention was far away on the matters of his kingdom.

Zeus laughed outright at his brother’s shock.

“Indeed. Your boys are often kind and easy to follow; fiercely protective and possessively loving.” Zeus turned to face his brother and his eyes gleamed a gentle blue. “Rather like you.”

Pluto hadn’t felt a need to blush like this since Vesta had last graced his Palace’s Hearth.

“Whereas mine are boisterous and proud, equally easy to follow but often grating. There is a reason your sons do not get betrayed as mine do.”

Pluto watched the winds curl and slow as his brother sighed sadly.

Pluto delicately placed a hand covered in bejeweled rings on Zeus’ shoulder.

“You must show this side of yourself more often, little one.” Zeus’ eyes flashed at the title, but it was fond and exasperated at worst. “This Justice would be well received by our children.”

Zeus hummed.

“I must go, brother. You should speak to our Hearth-Sister when you can. Perhaps she can put your thoughts in order.”

They cracked twin grins over painfully-alike features and Zeus nodded.

As Pluto turned away, Zeus caught his arm.

“Thank you, Brother. Both of you.” A hell-fire gleam alit in Pluto’s eyes as Hades flickered into place, but they nodded as one being.

“You are welcome.”

Zeus turned back to his view, watching the sky until the sun dipped low and his son far below ceased his work in the forges.

When he turned back to go home, for once; his Bolt stayed in the form presented by the Lord of Justice.

When Hestia saw him walk by and witnessed the humble wood dangling from his side; not hearing the threatening clank of ancient power hitting the flagstones with each step as walking with the Bolt caused, she smiled and every flame on Olympus flared higher.

Zeus tasted true hope in the air of his Kingdom for the first time in a heart-breaking amount of time.

And he wanted it to remain.

Frigga knelt among her flowering garden, her power in every inch of the soil ensuring they flourished in a land as harsh as this.

The early spring had at first disgruntled the hibernating animals and irked the tree-spirits who awoke early and bleary; but at her laughter they generally forgave her.

It was a slip of her power to do so; but Tyr had always had a way to draw free her joy.

However, as with all unusual circumstances, it drew curiosity and attention.

At first this was no problem, a nomadic Clan of Laistrygonians had come wandering along, clomping down the bank of the river near her home, but their Clan-Father had paid the appropriate respects and been allowed to leave in peace.

A herd of Caribou stretching from horizon to horizon had stampeded through before settling in the calm weather under her pine trees and spent a few nights; pleading in their low calls for help with births and for healing.

Not since Percy had been young had the Goddess felt so happy to be so constantly needed.

Her third visitor was less pleasant.

As she did during each winter when no Wards graced her Wolf House, Lupa and her pack blurred through her forest on their annual hunt.

This time, they had investigated the strange godly scent in the area and drawn close enough to see the smoke from her chimney.

Pausing respectfully at her threshold with her pack far away among the trees, Lupa watched in shock as Frigga of the Vanir effortlessly lifted a butchered caribou carcass and placed a pristine side of it before her guest.

“This one passed in her sleep; too old. I made it peaceful. I know how you Romans detest an ending like that.”

Ah, so she hadn’t yet forgiven the feud between their peoples.

Fair enough.

“You honor me with a welcoming meal at all, Lady of the Spring.” Lupa replied simply with a bow of her head, pausing slightly in askance before, at the nod, tearing noisily into the meal offered before her.

“There are more hanging in the back. I shan’t have need of them. Your pack is welcome to the carcasses so long as they do not break or damage the meat hooks. The forgings are the work of my Son and I will not tolerate disrespect to him.”

“Very well, Lady Frigga.” With a low series of barks, the horse-sized children she called pups raced to the outbuilding which reeked of butchery and blood. “You have my thanks. Our Hunt has been long.”

Frigga chuckled slightly as she placed another log on the fire and stirred her stew.

“I am aware. You have ranged further north this year than you do normally.”

Lupa froze, her maw wrapped around a bone but not yet biting through it. Her hackles rose against her control, concern flaring awake in her breast.

This was by far their furthest ranging ever, two hundred or more miles than they usually hunted.

‘To detect us at and beyond that range consistently enough to not be surprised by us this time; how powerful are her people’s gods still?’

Frigga laughed again at the Goddess’ fear drifting into her nose.

For all that she was kind and good; she was still Vanir, and they were not a gentle people.

Nor were they civilized.

“I am the Lady of the Spring, you titled me true Lady Lupa; but I am not just that. I am no mere Persephone to be stolen away; I am the Goddess of Marriage and Home and of Vengeful Mothers. Here in this land, beyond the influence of your kin, I am Hera and Hestia and Demeter all in one. And those who I favor know this well.”

Lupa gulped despite having finished her meal, and bowed low.

“You are kind to proclaim intent first, My Lady. We will not approach your lands without first paying homage in future.” Frigga nodded, her eyes flaring green as she stood tall.

“The Villages nearby are also under my protection. Lakeside, Tall Trees and Pineshaker Basin stand witness to me and I shall not have them interfered with. The towns near the Breakwater are poor stewards of their lands and many of their hunters are not careful. I would advise you to curb your instinct to punish such; they are merely ignorant. I have started work on fixing them.”

Lupa, diplomatically, did not comment. She merely bowed once more and listened for Frigga’s final benediction before she raced off with her pack at her heels.

Frigga watched them leave, and turned to smile at the young Demigoddess hidden in her bedroom’s doorway.

“Hello, Thalia.”

Chapter Text

“Percy.” Chiron rumbled, stopping me on my walk from the breakfast pavilion. Beckendorf murmured that he’d have the forge waiting for me and the Hephaestus Cabin trudged off to their workshop.

I turned and faced the Centaur.

“Hello, Chiron. Business this time, I presume?” He nodded, and his stern expression was unfamiliar.

“Indeed. You have a messenger.” Confused, I nonetheless followed him as he led me to the top of Half-Blood Hill.

Standing there was… perhaps the single most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

She had a winged helm locked under one arm and a massive hand clutched around a spear taller than her.

The point of it glinted silver, and the shaft was crafted of the odd metal which made up my Mother’s otherworldly favorite knot-work pendant.

She stood proud and alert, a soldier in a strange land, with the weight of ages past pressing down on me through aged, kind eyes. Wings tipped in the same other-worldly silver sprouted from her back and flapped idly in the hilltop breeze.

“ Hail, Perseus, Son of the Spring Queen. ” Her voice was rolling, speaking in the same language Mom sometimes sung under her breath.

Somehow, I knew the words immediately, and the response fell from my lips flawlessly.

“ Hail, Sigurd Stormwing, Queen of the Reaping Death. You honor me with your presence. ” Her ethereal features cracked in a craggy grin, dozens of scars revealing themselves along her bared arms and face as she relaxed the flawless divine image required for ceremony.

Chiron twitched at my side, but said nothing.

“ I bear a message from your mother. ” I froze, thinking back to the faintest memory I had.

Of a storming night and what felt like a dream, a cold hand in mine and a child’s blinding loss and grief weighing down on me.

“No…” I whispered, feeling the urge to fall to my knees.

Sigurd smiled kindly.

“ Your birth mother is among my sister’s ranks, she learns well. My Queen commands me to speak to you, for she has a task she trusts only you with. ”

I felt every emotion all at once, but the instant horror of knowing my birth Mother had died in a Land Beyond the Gods and would thus face Oblivion evaporated upon learning she joined the Valkyries.

As I said at the start of this tale; I am a simple boy and I trust my Mother.

So I firmed my brow and spoke.

I grew to full height, flaring my hand and planting the revealed trident in the ground beside my feet.

“ I greet you once more, Lady Sigurd, as Perseus Jackson, son of the Stormbringer and Heart-Son of The Lady of the Spring. I serve at our Queen’s command as always; speak her wish and I shall carry it out. ” Chiron’s aura beside me felt both proud and concerned, but he still said nothing.

Her voice went boundlessly soft as she replied, and I was not unnerved even as I realized she most likely used this tone to soothe the recently-dead.

“ Frigga has come to shelter another Demigod child of the Greeks. She wishes her to be brought here. I shall supervise the means of travel you employ, and intervene when I and my sisters can do so; but it will be up to you and who you choose to bring to return her safely.” I nodded and thought for a long while.

“ You have my gratitude, My Lady. I understand this cannot be easy to split your attention as you are; but every drop of help you choose to gift us with will be treasured dearly.”

She smiled up at me, and slid her helm back over her head. I felt an embarrassed feeling well up inside me as I lost my attention in the perfect lines of the Vanir armor, Steel-Sung into existence as one flawless piece in ancient days.

“ We expect your departure in three days. Do not worry about requesting your Oracle; this is ordained by the Norns and will not allow Greek intervention. ” She turned and fearlessly met Chiron’s eyes, and I realized this was most likely yet another language he probably knew.

Not only was he ancient and scholarly; he had not always trained only Greek heroes.

He nodded and spoke.

“ I shall relay thus to those who would interfere. We are grateful for the warning; Lady of the Reaping. ” A scythe appeared in her hand and her wings flared as she rose off the ground, a devious grin sent at Chiron before facing me with soft features and a gentle smile.

“ It was lovely to finally meet you, Mother-heart.” I swallowed around happy tears and choked out a reciprocation.

She nodded one final time and soared off toward the Bifrost hovering in the sky.

As her figure disappeared over the Rainbow Bridge, the mirage-like structure among the clouds blinked out of existence.

Beckendorf took the news even better than I thought he would.

“I’ll make your armour, you make mine. Nyssa does the enchantment and Harley paints it.” Is all he said, and reached for the plates and the flint and steel.

I smiled around welling emotions and hopped with a thud down into my forge.

On the dawn of the day before we had to leave, the forge fires and ringing hammers finally went silent and we could almost hear the Aphrodite campers groan in relief for a chance to sleep well.

As the paint was drying, the final pieces of mail being secured onto the various leather pieces, and Nyssa’s low chanting prayers along with the voices of her Father’s forges reached their crescendo, a knock echoed on the doorway.

Phoebe stood there, bow slung over one shoulder and hands gripping the short-sword handles hung by her hips.

“I heard a maiden needed rescuing. My Mistress has given me dispensation to assist you.” Her features were harsh, but just like mine, harshness did not equal evil.

Her eyes were kind.

Beckendorf looked a little irritated, but I knew that was more the sleeplessness bothering him.

“We would be grateful for your help. I would advise packing warm; we make for Alaska.” Her eyes widened a bit at the location, but she had clearly been through higher-stakes hunts in her career.

She nodded professionally and turned to leave.

“Wait.” Charles said, and used a long arm with a calloused mitt to grip an entire bundle of arrows and toss it gently at her.

“I made those for you. Heavier, puncturing tips, metal shafts. Figured you’re probably the strongest draw-weight huntress, they should help.” Her harsh features went slightly softer and she nodded her thanks.

With that, all the workstations were cleaned and we made for a shower and sleep.

“So where are we heading precisely?” Phoebe finally asked, as we each dutifully ignored the confused stares around us. A man who smelt like a clear-sighted walked into a pole, and Charles rumbled a low chuckle as the man’s dog whined in disapproval.

“My Mother has granted shelter to a demigod. I don’t know her age, nor her parentage, but our home is sheltered and none would interfere with my Mother.”

Phoebe cracked a craggy grin at hearing of a fierce woman, and I fought down my eye-roll at her one track mind.

Considering I only ever thought of food and forging things, I wasn’t sure how much better I was.

“What makes you say that?” Charles asked as we trudged onto the train heading west toward Chicago. There would be multiple exchanges and stops, but most monsters avoided confined spaces and Phoebe’s scent apparently had quite the reputation.

“We lived near a monster commune.” I said lightly, dropping my backpack on the seat next to me and stacking their packs on it as we settled around a four seat table. “Our first day there a Laistrygonian tried to eat me and a half-dozen Nereids launched out of the river and ate him first.”

As I enjoyed their stunned expressions, I twisted the Mist as prettily as I could and smiled welcomingly at the Steward coming to take our orders.

“Dinner’s at 6:45, your order should make its way down here at around 7:00.” He said with the bluntness of the perpetually-tired, but considering I was half-expecting a scream of terror at my face if the Mist failed, it was a nice relief.

We chirped a thanks and Phoebe’s eyes lasered back onto me.

“What happened next?”

“Mama hunted, butchered and roasted a whole caribou to perfection, and a really old Dryad invited us to build a shelter near her tree. When she died she told us to use her old tree as a center post for our cabin; said she’d offer protection.”

I smiled softly as I recalled the special breezes I’d feel in that clearing near the cabin for a few more years before she moved on to some other plant.

Charles smiled softly.

“That’s… kinda sweet and kinda weird.” He rumbled, and I laughed.

I turned to watch the world race by through the window.

“Yeah. That’s about what to expect with my Mama too actually.”

Charles laughed properly for the first time in a while.

I liked it.

Chapter Text

Mounting the steps onto the Ferry to take us from Chicago to Thunder Bay, I froze in place and had to walk more slowly forward.

Charles noticed immediately, clutching the pendant which turned into his hammer. He’d wrapped the long chain around his giant right wrist for easy deployment, and now I thought we might need the speed.

“What is it?” Phoebe murmured ahead of me, an effortless twist of her wrist swirling the Mist and muffling our sounds.

“Monster. At least three. A clear-sighted spends a lot of time here too, smells faint now. If we get closer to the bridge and it gets stronger I’m gonna choose to hope it’s the captain. Don’t wanna deal with a Steward seeing my face.”

Phoebe hummed but said nothing, but I saw her burly shoulders tense slightly with each new person that stood and shuffled to place their bags.

“Just ahead.” Charles said behind us, and a quick glance told me all I needed to know.

“Be cool. He’s jumpy but he’s not hostile. He’s a friend.” They looked suspicious, but nodded.

Markus was one of the first citizens of the Commune, cursed by Artemis for spooking the Huntress’ prey. He came to live in the commune by meeting a Dryad who brought him to shelter under my mother.

He’d grown up the son of a carpenter father and welder mother, and to get his mind off the transformation and help restore his dexterity Mama had put him to work building our outbuildings and paid him in large quantities of meat and preserved berries.

I worried over Phoebe’s presence, he was sharp enough to recognize her face if she had been there when he suffered the curse, but he loved me more than he hated them.

“Markus!” I boomed with a smile, striding up and greeting the giant half-bear with a brief hug. “It’s good to see you. Heading back home?”

He nodded quietly, taking a quick glance over Charles and Phoebe but not commenting on them.

“It’s good to see you too, old friend.” He spoke low and quiet, soft voice rolling over his slightly squashed ursine/human face. “Your mother sent me and some of the others to check each ferry route into Canada for your approach.” He smiled softly, and though we all noticed Charles’ twitch at the flashing of fangs, no one became hostile.

“It’s very generous of you to offer your time. How is Lya?” I returned simply, thanking the vaguely-confused Stewardess who offered us bottled water.

I assumed even with the Mist obscuring our true features and hidden weaponry, it must have been weird to encounter people of our size anywhere.

Markus sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, claws scraping gently over his thick skin.

“She’s… well.” He murmured. “We’re… well your Mother blessed our Union and we’re expecting a sapling.”

A round of congratulations from everyone there, though Charles and Phoebe were clearly confused by the entire situation.

“Oh, Markus. I’ve been rude, my apologies. This is Beckendorf, and Phoebe. They volunteered to join me to bring back the young one my Mother is caring for.” His brow firmed a bit, but it didn’t seem hostile outright.

“I’d honestly rather she stay with your Mother, Percy. Those greeks can’t be trusted with anything, let alone raising children.” Even before he finished speaking, I was already giving Phoebe a quelling look and placing a palm on Charles’ shoulder.

“While I may very strongly disagree with the childcare of their Gods themselves, the children at Camp are well cared for.” I drew free my wallet and flipped open the display of Polaroid pictures.

Harley featured heavily in most of them; often Pop-Tart stained and each face grinning widely.

I watched Markus’ fierce face go painfully soft and peaceful.

“You are well aware of how we in the Commune view the protection of our young, the Camp is like that but they actually face threats regularly.” His heavy brow firmed again.

He chuffed slightly, humming consideringly.

“I suppose if circumstance forced our Commune closer to population centers it would be forced to grow militarized purely for safety.” He finally nodded. “Very well, old friend, I shall trust you and your mother and put my doubts aside.”

The rest of the ferry ride into the early evening passed in calm contemplation, though Markus and I stayed awake for watch as the others leaned back in their chairs and slept lightly.

With the sheer volume of water under the ferry energizing me, I wasn’t even tired, and Markus’ nature preferred night time anyway.

We spoke low, further assisted by some Mist manipulation, and only stopped when we both smelled something in the very dead of night.

“Phoebe.” I said softly, gently shaking Beckendorf awake. She blinked into awareness as though coming out of a trance, eyes already bright and glaring clearly. “We smell something. Could you weave the Mist to keep as many asleep as possible?” She nodded and closed her eyes, muttering chants and moving her fingers rhythmically.

Charles awoke clutching his pendant, his brown eyes almost black in the New Moonlight reflecting off Lake Superior.

He nodded at our summary, stretching his legs under the table and shaking the last of the sleep from his eyes.

“You follow Markus. Trust his nose.” Though he looked suspicious, he glanced again at the earnest fuzzy teenager and nodded.

I stood and casually strolled toward the bathroom at the aft of the Ferry, watching any remaining passengers awake reading books or scrolling through their phones drop into sleep.

The Mist was seeping into the next divided room when I entered, and only one occupant was awake.

Luckily, he was our quarry.

He was bent over a woman, leaning close and inhaling deeply, scenting her predatorily.

“I wouldn’t.” I rumbled, knowing his kind merely by silhouette.

He spun at me and hissed, but luckily Phoebe’s deft manipulation kept everyone asleep.

“I am Son of the Stormbringer and you are on a ferry.” I stepped forward threateningly as my Trident appeared in my hand. “ I wouldn’t . ”

He froze, but then a fanged grin spread wide over his face.

I didn’t even think, movements driven completely by instincts as I spun and caught his accomplice by the throat with a massive hand.

Through sheer luck, Phoebe finished her enchantment and opened her eyes exactly in time to see mine through the window between walls.

Putting my back to the wall, I snarled as the Unseelie in my hand scratched viciously down my arm.

I squeezed down hard on his neck.

He froze.

“I don’t want to kill you, but I know how you feed. I will not allow it.” The older one, still stood by the woman, hissed angrily.

“Why must you filthy creatures always interfere?!” His voice was a high screech, but no one asleep even twitched. “She doesn’t even know she is what she bears yet, it has not even begun to form! I have subsisted on animals and these half-alive embryos for far too long; it may be high time I simply eat the adult!” He turned toward the sleeping woman, one hand reaching toward her stomach and one for her neck.

I raised my trident, but I knew I’d be too slow.

Phoebe wasn’t slow.

Her arrow punched clean through his skull and embedded firmly within, and I snapped the neck of the maddened Unseelie in my hand before he could react to his friend’s death.

“What was that?” She firmly clamped down on the Mist and settled the few who had twitched, and I strode over to check the woman.

Charles and Markus burst in just behind her, panting slightly.

“We checked the whole front side and didn’t…” Charles began, trailing off. “You found them then.”

Markus huffed a bitter laugh, and just a glance told me he was sorely tempted to spit on the corpses.

“ Victim-makers. ” He snarled in my mother-tongue.

“Yes.” I nodded, yanking out the arrow and cleaning it thoroughly. I handed it back to Phoebe wrapped in a shred of his shirt. “Their blood is acidic, we’ll get some baking soda at the next stop. Try not to let it touch your other arrows.” She nodded and secured it in an open pouch on her quiver.

“They’re…” I heaved the older one up onto my shoulder with a grunt. “Unseelie. Dark Fae, old myths. They eat flesh and have a particular taste for innocents; prey animals in times of famine or when sane but usually unborn human infants.” Charles snarled in rage as he hefted the other corpse and followed me out onto the deck.

A quick glance saw no one out for a smoke, and we heaved the corpses over the deck into the deep, dark water.

“Some of them try to stay ‘straight’, running slaughter houses or living as hermits eating animals, but most are found by Light Fae and put down. I suppose we got to these first.”

Charles spit into the water.

I frowned, but said nothing.

“Well.” Markus chirped. “This was a carnival of misery.” We laughed the breathy laughter of the helplessly upset.

We returned to our seats and awaited the following afternoon’s arrival time.

Chapter Text

We slept in a motel in Thunder Bay, on the outskirts as close to a wooded area as we could find, and slept deeply in pairs.

Fully rested and fed by a surprisingly sunny and completely unphased clear-sighted woman who ran the place, we readied for our overland hike to where Markus said he had a friend waiting with a ride.

The friend turned out to be a fucking Laistrygonian plumber of all things, but his van was spacious enough and he brought a lot of water and some lukewarm burgers.

“Why are you helping us?” Phoebe finally asked as we crossed into Manitoba, nearly bursting with the question.

“My Clan don’t eat humans.” He rumbled, meeting her eyes through the mirror. “We don’t eat ‘em, but we don’t like ‘em much neither. But we agree on one thing; protect the young’uns. I don’t live in the Commune, but plenty of my friends do. The Lady of the Spring gave us a chance. And We of the Blood pay our debts.”

Phoebe didn’t talk until again until we were well past Winnipeg and halfway across Saskatchewan.

Markus and the Giant kept up a low small talk, and we stopped pretty consistently for more burgers, gasoline and some brief walks.

I watched the Aurora Borealis dance over our heads, and I watched Charles do the same.

It was always beautiful, but it was an elementary part of my childhood. For my forge-brother, it was a completely new experience and I lived it all over again watching his expressions.

The Laistrygonian, ‘ Larry ’ of all names; dropped us a few miles north of Fairbanks with a clear-sighted man and his Dryad wife, who ran a motorcycle repair shop.

“I keep a few in y’all’s size.” The man said, his grease-stained overalls proclaiming ‘Gerald’ in tired red stitching. “The Commune’s been good to my wife, helped with our kids and they pay me to help ya.”

He pulled a tarp off a half-dozen oversized dirtbikes, painted a lint green and pale blue to match the Commune’s heraldry.

Charles fell immediately in step with the rugged machinery, pulling his multi-tool and altering a poorly-tuned component of the engine within ten seconds of hearing it.

Phoebe was a little less deft, but she was still a Huntress with two thousand years of agility on her feet and horseback. Markus, just like Me, was very familiar with the main summer-time methods we used to get around.

I slipped a hundred dollar bill to Gerald’s wife Annette when the proud man wasn’t looking, and she packed our bags with some home-made sourdough.

“We head north; it’ll be a long ride. There’s a gas station just after a hundred miles; we’ll properly provision there. A bit of cross country is next; but we maintain the trail well. Just honk if you’re getting tired and we’ll pull over for a bit.”

With some nods traded around and a final goodbye to Gerald and Annette, we roared off toward the Haul Road.

Half the time we stopped it was for Charles to shake off his saddle chafing and to just breathlessly stare at the scenery my home so effortlessly offered.

The gas station we stopped at was gigantic, a square mile of gravel and diesel pumps to carry the enormous trucks which made the Haul Road their home.

Pipeline maintenance crews and a few Nomadic monsters were resting there, waiting to take off up the gravel expanse whenever they felt the time.

Markus chatted idly with most of the welders, who couldn’t see completely through the Mist to the bear underneath but nonetheless looked with the kind pity of gentle-hearted men at the deformed teenager passionate for their trade that they saw.

There was a brief moment of tense comedy where I had to pull Charles away from a Lilin, a seductress creature so old no one’s even sure which myth they came from.

Her hypnotic purple eyes went pouty, but she was good-humored about losing her prey so Phoebe didn’t dispose of her out of principle.

I thought about killing her anyway.

“Welcome to the Arctic Circle, my friends.” I proclaimed, pointing at a sign as we paused about forty miles out from the Commune. We were deep into the Brooks Range, brushing the border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and I smiled at seeing the overcast sky sheltering us from the eternal sun.

I turned and smiled brightly at my exhausted friends. Markus was still invigorated, eager to see his wife and his home.

“We’re about forty miles out; we’ll go off the highway but it’s still beaten trail.” Charles firmed his brow and shook the exhaustion from his frame, snarling not unlike Markus at his foggy head.

Phoebe merely nodded stoically, and we rode a few more miles before turning off onto an unmarked trail.

The woods here were ancient, sheltered by an ancient Mist vortex which prevented even Inuit occupation for thousands of years.

There were beautiful paintings and figures dotted along the trail, left as offerings and benedictions to the ‘Spirits’ sheltered here for significant events among the Inuits who lived around the Vortex.

The Circle of Friends holding hands around The Dancing Lovers for the unity of two warring tribes through marriage.

The Conquered Sasquatch for the slaying of an evil Frost Giant. It was killed by hooking it with a harpoon and drowning it; the only sure way to kill one with only mortal grit and a lack of a blessed metal.

There were dozens of artworks, perfectly preserved as they had been two decades ago when The Lady of the Spring first took up residence here.

Honestly, it was a little embarrassing I never put together that The Lady and my Mother were the same person.

I suppose, deep down, I simply didn’t want to believe that my birth mother was dead.

As we drove past The Rising Sun, an enormous mural painted recently by Inuit visitors and The Commune’s citizens, I felt my sadness melt away.

As we rolled into the Commune, I noticed a few things. The town was more or less the same, settled against the mountainside where avalanches often roared over the trees.

While none could touch the village, enchantments would drive them away; it had nonetheless given the town its name.

“Pineshaker Basin.” Charles rumbled behind me, exhaustion in every syllable. “Cool name.” I grinned as Markus laughed, settling the dirtbikes in the pit-garage near the entrance gate.

The Town welcomed us properly, most of the many dozens of diverse citizens setting aside their work and heading over.

“Markus!” Chimed a musical voice, and the, for lack of a better word, beefiest Dryad I knew came bounding over. Her sturdy body, nearly as tall as Markus himself, slammed into him in a desperate embrace.

“Hello, Lya.” He murmured against her, eyes watering. She carried the weight of pregnancy well.

Dryads didn’t exactly carry young the same way Humans did, no embryo grew inside her; but much of their energy was drained away into new growth.

Lya was always large and strong; slipping free from her ancient tree for the first time a few years ago as the magic here finally reached saturation and allowed her to blossom outward.

Now, the new growth was carried mainly in her enormous mop of hair, each wavy bundle coalescing at the end with a large seedling emerging from her hair itself.

She would most likely return into her tree and emerge a few days later holding their infant any time now.

She traded unafraid hugs with each of us, clinging on extra-tightly to the jittery Phoebe and humming a soothing echo of birdsong as she pulled away.

“Percy! It’s so good to see you again!” I smiled my crooked smile and finally allowed the Mist to drop completely, revealing the angular blocky features I usually kept more rounded and human.

It wasn’t just like finally dropping a weight after a long trudging walk; it also felt like finally coming home .

Lya smiled at me and hugged me again.

“Your mother’s been waiting for you; her and Qunitus barely leave the Manse nowadays, organizing things until you get here.”

I smiled again, feeling eager and giddy to taste my home’s air again.

“Then I guess they shouldn’t keep them waiting, eh?” Markus rumbled, slipping an arm around his wife and pulling her into him with a fanged grin.

“You and I, however my darling, have other concerns.” Lya grinned at her husband and they walked off with a wave.

Some final hellos were thrown around before the crowd returned to their work.

I turned to face the top of the hill and the enormous stone-brick house built there; feeling the rays of spring and light flow down upon us.

Quintus, the strange old Demigod who advised our architecture and since consistently visits is the one who swings the door open for me.

I see him, but I only truly see my mother.

Her eyes are warm, but the wringing of her hands tells me she is nervous.

I’m hugging her before I can begin to assure her verbally.

She clings to me with equal strength, and though the final confirmation of her godly nature and my birth mother’s death comes through this revealed might, I feel no grief.

Only love.

“Hello, Mama.” I murmur into her hair, and she combs a hand down my head.

“Hello, my darling son.” She responds.

Quintus makes greetings and offers refreshments as we all take seats, Charles and Phoebe unashamedly taking the two seats with the backs to the stone walls.

Mother doesn’t comment, as we sit on the couch with hands still interlinked.

“You were right, Mama.” I say, and she cocks an eyebrow.

“Oh?” I can see mirth dance in her eyes.

“I did find my destiny at Camp.” Quintus hums from his seat around his mug of tea.

“And what is your destiny, young Stormbringer?” I smile at the strange uncle figure who has battered his charming way into our family.

“I will fix Camp. The inefficiencies, the abandonment; I shall make certain every child there knows they are loved and protected if it is done with the last breath I have to give.”

As I swear my foremost new Oath to Family and Home; Mother smiles.

“Yes, you shall, my Son .” Her voice changes on the final word, green divinity glinting through her mortal shell as fae winds brush through the room.

My body shifts and changes; becoming denser and stronger as the Spring flowers within me.

I feel the strength of the trees breaking from their slumber and shaking off the snow; feel the boundless energy of the spreading Lichen and the blooming hopeful flowers.

Quintus applauds softly from his seat.

“Hail, Perseus, son of The Spring Queen, Freya of the Vanir. May your growth and justice long bless my young brethren.”

As he speaks, the power finally settles within me; flashing into place as a bristle-back boar skin drapes in a brutal black cloak over my shoulders.

There is a long pause as I stare in wonder at my own hands, feeling energy like never before crackle under my skin.

Then, Charles begins to laugh.

It is a mad laugh, echoing and wild, and Phoebe grows steadily unnerved beside him.

Finally, he settles, and shakes his head.

“Norse. Of course, the fucking Norse too.” He stands, and marches into the kitchen.

Nobody speaks as he returns with a glass of whiskey, and certainly no one mentions his age.

When he throws it back, his father’s power is channeled in his anger and his eyes glow red as he burps out flame.

“Anything else I should know?” The voice which falls from his dark lips is like a distant wildfire.

Mother doesn’t blink, smiling softly.

“Brokkr would like you.” She says simply, and I hear Quintus laugh.

Charles returns to the kitchen for more whiskey.

Chapter Text

Thalia Grace is a violent child.

It’s not surprising; I can taste the Ozone in the air and my blood sings in familial echoes.

“Greetings.” I say, watching her hand grip her spear but I carefully remain facing forward, legs dangling off the balcony and my chin rested on the padded railing.

“So you’re my ride out of here?” Her young voice is a barking growl; and it makes me sad to hear the fierceness she feels she needs.

“I am to provide shelter and supervision for your journey to our people, yes.” I speak as professionally as I can; hands splayed on my thighs calmly.

“Our people? Aren’t you one of the fucking monsters?” This sentiment, while sad, is not surprising.

I gesture slowly with my hand out on the Commune.

“We of the Blood are not like you, this is true. There are many among our number who deserve the title monster and worse. Brutal creatures.” She leans in slightly, interested, despite herself.

“But there are those among us who are not like that. Kind and, though not gentle, not needlessly violent. Just as you look with pity on those who give up in life; we also look with pity on those who give into their baser natures. It is no easy task to fight our urges.”

Her spear morphs into a can of mace as she takes the chair a few feet away, facing out on the town.

“Sometimes I want to kill things. Conquer them; make them know I’m not small.” She admits.

“All are small before some things; just as all are large to others. There are many here of our largest who would never be able to conquer you, even small as you are. Ents are boundlessly strong, but long have their numbers waned. They do not pick fights, though they are capable.”

She looks toward the trees and sees one move strangely. 

“There is always a strength and weakness in all things; and one of the Warrior Blood like you must find the ones within yourself before you will ever be able to overcome anything.” I feel her shoulders rile and her teeth bare before I even look at her.

“I’m not weak.” She snarls. My hand flicks and the point of my trident is hovering before her face, despite never turning toward her.

“No. But you are slow, and easy to catch unaware.” I turn and smile at her. She flinches but doesn’t cower. “This is something I will help you fix; should you come to your people in our home South of here. Then, you shall grow to craft a name none will ever think to conquer.” I see my words take root in her as I shrink the trident and stand.

“The Aurora should be visible tonight; I would advise you stay and watch. I’ll bring you tea and a blanket. You deserve the peace.”

She says nothing, but she looks away at the town under the perfect horizon and nods.

As I open the door; she finally speaks again.

“Thank you. For the lesson.” I hum an answer and step inside.

Mama is sad when we speak.

“I’d rather not let her go. She will face a life of war.” I nod even as her fingers dance through my hair; braiding in beads and settling wild strands.

“All face a war within sometimes; perhaps those of us built for external ones are more at peace inside when at war outside.” I return, watching Phoebe drill her spear work with a fiercely-grinning Mariya, one of a pair of Light-Fae defectors.

“I trust her care to you, my son.” Her power brushes over me openly; tasting of love and joy and peaceful summer nights. “She will face less struggles inside with you to guide her.”

My face flames in a blush at her blunt words.

“Thank you, Mama.” I reply.

She hums and the sunlight peeks through the clouds.

“May we stay to welcome Lya and Markus’ young one?” I ask after a long moment.

She finishes the final braid and bends forward to kiss my crested hair.

“You may stay as long as your friends can bear, my darling Son.”

I smile.

Lya holds a tiny bundle of cloth woven of moss by a fellow Dryad; a richly-green hand no larger than the pad of my thumb peeking out.

My Mother stands, not as Mama, but as Queen of her Commune to speak to the gathered crowd.

“Welcome to the Commune, young Melody Lyasdottir. The first new life to mark a generation of peace and gentleness among my sheltered children.” Her eyes blaze green, warm and strong.

The assembled Monsters, Nymphs, Fae, Giants, visiting Inuit peoples and other People of the Blood kneel without her asking; and Freya’s eyes water gently over.

“Stand, my beloved children, please, and welcome your niece.” The Nymphs rush in first, Nereids handing a basket woven of reeds filled with water-magic protection charms over to Markus who places it on the gift table.

He marvels over them as the Dryads monopolize Lya’s attention; happy noises drawing adorable birdsong coos from Melody.

A young Giant, Magdalog, stomps over as gently as he can and hands over a tightly woven rope.

“Saw rope-swing. In painting. For older.” He rumbles slowly, looking shy, and Lya nearly blinds me with her smile.

“Thank you, Mag. Truly. I will treasure it.” The flustered Giant rubs his head and waves at the infant; who babbles back.

He steps away with his trademark care back to his home in the deeper forest.

A dazzling series of gifts, charms, drawings, talismans, jewels, and even a Fae-made teething doll are all handed over.

Mariya made it herself from a fallen branch from Lya’s own tree.

“It’s enchanted. We use it for our young; the teeth will grow in stronger and fix any jaw shape defects.” She says it with her usual bluntness; and though part of me expects Lya to rile at the insinuation of ‘defects’, she smiles gratefully and takes it with an effusive thanks.

I smile all over again as I’m confronted with her wisely suppressing the pride which some irrational mothers let prevent them from accepting any help she is given.

It speaks well of her character, and as I see my Mother smile, I know she agrees that it is the right thing.

When the Mother of Mothers says you are raising your child right; you’re doing it right .

“You about ready to leave?” Charles’ turned to face me when I spoke.

He was fiddling with some tightly-woven thread wrapped around his wrist, and smiling softly.

“Oh-hooooo.” I said, laughing loudly. “Looks like big brother got attached.”

He blushed slightly and nodded mutely, turning to look at Mariya waving at him with a wide grin.

“She’s really sweet.” Is all he said, as he mounted his dirtbike and waved back.

If anyone else saw the Celestial Bronze knife gifted by his father that was normally slung on one of his hips dangling from Mariya’s belt, they didn’t say anything.

One final goodbye to Markus yielded a tearful conversation.

“Your Mother has blessed me.” He said softly; and I watched as his form rippled into first the shape of a full bear standing on hind legs and then to a handsome pale man in his late teens.

When he shifted back to the half-state I’d always known him as; his face was the same as his natural one but covered in thick fur with a bulkier jaw pushing his lower fangs outward like tusks.

I cried, I’m not ashamed to admit such; as I gathered him and Lya into a fierce hug.

“I’m happy for you both.” I murmured against his fur; my face between the twitching round ears atop his head.

Lya smiled at me as we broke the embrace and pinned a brooch to my chest.

“The other Dryads wove it from my tree for my engagement; I’d like you to have it to remind you that home is always here when you need it.”

I thanked her, over and over as she laughed kindly.

This memory was dancing alight in my mind as I settled atop my dirtbike and turned to wave to my Mother and the gathered Crowd.

As the gate opened, Magdalog, distant in his mountain home; blew the enormous horn he’d crafted from wood and monster bones.

It was a low mourning note which rattled over the entire mountainside and shook the pines just like the avalanches common in the spring time thaws.

It was a final send off from the kind giant; and Markus and many others opened their mouths and roared or snarled or howled or blew their own horns to witness our goodbye.

Charles and I shared a look and I knew our first project when we arrived home would be to craft our own to signal our arrival if we returned.

With that; the three of us and our fourth, unsteady on her own dirtbike, roared off down the trail to the Haul Road and then towards home.

We stopped just outside Fairbanks to drop off the bikes and trade some Naiad charms for more of Annette’s sourdough and then Phoebe rented a car for us to drive back toward Thunder Bay.

Stopping just over the Alberta border, we paid cash and rented bunk space in an empty Oil-Rig barrack building for the night before Charles and Thalia completely passed out.

The seismic activity of the drilling under me kept me awake long enough to trade the second watch to Phoebe before I let the echoing sounds lull me to sleep.

We rose and made good time, stopping on the far side of Winnipeg in a suburban diner to rest before the final leg of the drive to Thunder Bay.

The whole meal felt eerie; and I could see Phoebe growing restless as she also scanned routinely.

As I settled into the drive and Charles and Thalia slept in the back seat, we kept the music quiet and spoke softly.

“This is way too easy.” I finally admitted, flicking the signal and making an exit.

“I agree. You’ve noticed her scent?” Phoebe replied. I nodded, glad the forceful monster exposure of the Commune stay had removed her judgment over my inhuman aspects.

“It’s incredibly strong; but it’s also specific. Even to me, too young to know from experience;  I can tell she’s one of the Big Three’s kids. We should be being pursued more viciously.”

My hands creaked on the steering wheel as I saw a large shadow flash in the woods beside us, and I stamped on the accelerator regardless of whether I was sure it was real.

Charles hummed in his sleep but didn’t wake up.

“That shadow look like anything?” I muttered, but Phoebe didn’t respond. When I turned to look; she was reaching for me, terror written on her face.

Then the impact threw the car and I knew no more.

Chapter Text

Frigga felt a flash of alarm; and Quintus immediately grew concerned.

“What is it?” He asked, dropping the whisk into the bowl of batter.

“My… Son .” Breathed Freya, her aspect as Lady of the Vengeful Mother bubbling to the surface and eyes glinting with fury. “He has been hurt.”

Nodding, Quintus pulled the pendant around his neck and was instantly armoured.

He strapped the belt hanging on the wall to his waist and felt the weight of his sword clack against his greaves.

“Where?” Freya turned to face him; and he saw no friendship or mercy in her eyes.

“Far to the east. I feel a lake.” He nodded, and swung the door open.

“I have a shortcut.” Freya followed robotically; eyes gleaming with revenge and the bushes writhing agitatedly as she passed.

They came to a rock face, and Quintus whistled. A blue glow lit up the side; and he pressed the obscured button.

“I had wondered how you got around.” The Queen commented, some lighter aspect surfacing but not overtaking her.

The Vengeful Mother was a concept long held before Humans even blinked; before even Titans ruled.

Ymir was slain and Freya’s most ancient form prowled over the cosmos already.

Death stalked the Labyrinth as Freya-dauði-móðir came to the surface and Quintus watched the walls of his ancient home shudder and twitch under her wrath.

The Death-Mother was not one to be crossed.

The chains clinked under my wrists as I awoke; legs numb and cramped.

I blinked open my eye and saw bare black stone walls lit by dim ever-burning flames.

The room echoed with the rattling of my manacles as I checked them over instantly for flaws; structural faults to exploit.

I found none.

These were sealed as one piece around my wrists; and I set the issue aside as I stared around.

There were cell grates along the walls and I could hear moaning and screeching from inside some of them.

“So; the prodigal son awakens.” A voice hissed from every corner of the room; feeling entitled and vicious.

The voice whispered over my skin; my heavy jacket and canvas pants stripped from me to leave only my shirt and underwear.

I was nervous; but I was not afraid.

They’d taken my mother’s necklace, my trident bracelet and even Lya’s brooch .

No, I was angry; and though I felt the rushing wrath of scorching summer days roar through me, it was a mere trickle compared to what it should be.

“You are far from home, monster, and your stolen blood-gifts shall grant you no power here.” The voice grew closer and a woman emerged from the gloom.

She was infuriatingly beautiful; her divinity wrapped around her in a cloak so perfect and thick it strained my vision to see.

It was good manners when interacting between those of divine blood, especially demigods, to restrict as much of your divinity as possible to avoid influencing their minds.

“I stole nothing.” I replied, sitting up and crossing my legs to appear unaffected even as my mind whirled in prayers and hymns to my Mother.

The woman’s face grew even colder and devious as I felt her presence scan my thoughts.

“She will not come here. She will not dare to.” She approached me as she spoke; and her far-too-gentle touch ghosted up my chin to leave a hissing cold pain in its wake.

“No pathetic waning goddess would enter my domain, if she wishes to leave alive.”

I blinked open my eye and snarled openly at her; and witnessed her flinch.

Good .

“You are nothing. Nothing compared to the wrath of the Death-Mother and her fury. I am of the Blood, and my people were ancient when whichever second-rate goddess you are crawled free of your parent’s loins.”

Her ethereal features twisted into an ugly glare; flawless teeth bared in a pathetic intimidation tactic.

“He told me your will would be strong.” She admitted; and gripped my face with bruising tightness.

Her finger brushed the lower side of my eyelid and pressed in; and I felt my Father’s power roar into place to fight the freezing of the blood there.

She snarled in vicious glee as tears of pain glinted and froze on my face; but she grew angrier as I refused to make a sound.

“But he also said your friends would be weak.” Horror bloomed within me as she blew the doors open with a fel arctic wind and Charles was dragged in; kicking and throwing around his bulk.

He caught the greave of one of his captors with a bare foot and sent the giant spirit sprawling; and had just connected an earth-shaking punch on the other’s jaw when he dropped suddenly to the ground; clutching his thigh and screaming in agony.

The Goddess before me clutched her hand tighter and Charles spasmed, blood fountaining from his thigh and freezing into razor-sharp fractal monstrosities.

He finally lay still; and without my power I couldn’t tell if he lay dead.

So I let the chains binding my nature slip .

Deadalus had never known his Labyrinth to fear anything.

When Typhon walked and the Earth above shook for a thousand miles around each step; it was peaceful and still.

When the Minotaur snarled and roared within its walls; it didn’t quiver.

When Antaeus channeled the power of his mother, the Earth herself, mere feet from an entrance; it didn’t even seem to ‘blink’.

Here, now; with the Death-Mother stalking its corridors, the Labyrinth trembled .

“He is distressed.” She observed in a rattling hiss which shook his bones.

“We are nearly there.” Is all the Automaton could think to say; cursing his past foresight for failing to ensure this body could run any faster.

“My son…” She breathed out; winter winds flaring within the Labyrinth’s dead halls.

She was silent the rest of his blind sprint, seeming to glide at an effortless walk to keep pace with him.

“Here.” He said finally, remembering leaving this entrance to see the Calgary Rodeo decades ago.

He brushed the Delta on the wall and stepping out beside the road into Kenora.

“Close.” Freya said; and turned to race away.

Deadalus knew he couldn’t keep pace; but he re-tied his boots and took off on her trail of angrily-writhing roots and brush.

A large mansion atop a hill was where her path stopped; and he witnessed the hinges blown off the front door.

“Deadalus.” A voice rumbled; and he turned to see the deformed God of the Forge hefting a hammer and snarling angrily.

Deadalus bowed to his Patron.

“My Lord.”

Hephaestus nodded in response.

“My son is here. Held captive.”

“ Freya-dauði-móðir is here for her son.” Is all Deadalus said in reply; and he watched The Forge God’s beard flare alight in shock.

“Ah.” Hephaestus said; and his armour flashed away. He slid his hammer into his belt. “Then I suppose we wait for her to get to work.” Deadalus heard a fel screeching voice on the wind and a thunderous crash as some unfortunate being was thrown through one of the lower windows.

Their monstrous form powdered on impact with the ground.

They say discretion is the better part of valor, and as a man hiding his existence for four thousand years; Deadalus was very discrete.

When the dust settled and the forest was quiet; they approached the building with hesitant steps.

A shaft of moonlight struck over them and Hephaestus murmured something to his sister; and Deadalus watched the moon alter course slightly as the Chariot descended.

Artemis stepped out as the stags pawed at the ground and shook their heads.

“The ground is wrong here.” She proclaimed; eyes flashing silver and her bow appearing in her hands.

“ Freya-dauði-móðir is here. The Earth roils with her fury.” Hephaestus replied; finally mounting the steps into the building with a grunt and a creaking brace.

Daedalus drew his sword and stepped cautiously inside; the moonlight off Artemis blazing and guiding their steps.

“ Here. ” Whispered Freya’s voice from ahead of them. She emerged from the gloom holding her son in her arms, standing at her full stature in divine form. Even grown to his full Cyclopean size; Percy looked like an infant in her arms.

“ Yours are through the doors. ” Freya proclaimed and walked past them; eyes hollow.

Daedalus felt an eerie chill pass inside him as Artemis bowed her head in mournful respect.

Hephaestus grunted sadly and hobbled as fast as he could for the enormous doors; and knelt just inside beside his still son.

“My baby boy.” Hephaestus said mournfully, his voice small, and Daedalus looked away from the dripping tears.

Phoebe was… affected by the grief.

Freya sat beside a slow fire; nursing nectar into her son’s mouth as Hephaestus mournfully crafted something of bronze and silver.

He heated and bent the metal in his bare hands, not even looking at his work; his eyes far away.

Her Mistress sat beside her, looking over her injuries and brushing her skin with liquid moonlight pulled from her essence into her palms. The bruises from the car crash and the manacles disappeared and the pain faded away, but her heart still twisted.

The noble monster who’d battered his way past her walls with wise words and kind eyes lay near death; and the charming near-man who was a big brother to all the campers lay with an injury enough to cripple any hero.

Even as her body healed; nothing soothed her soul.

Artemis turned and spoke to her brother.

“Hephaestus.” The forge god grunted in reply, showing his attention, but his focus remained on the divine craftsmanship in his hands.

“I can take him to my brother.”

Hephaestus paused, but shook his head.

“My children cannot receive most forms of magical healing. It is too close to a mother’s love and such is anathema to mine own nature. The ambrosia is the most we can do.”

His hands never paused in his work; humming slowly as his words ended to settle the enchantments into the metal.

Phoebe turned her head as he wept and lifted the blanket over the stump where Charles’ thigh ended. The leg clicked into place; adhering through magic beyond her reckoning.

It twitched and flexed flawlessly as Charles moved in his sleep, gliding seamlessly over its twin of blood and bone.

“I have done all I can. The healing is up to him.” Hephaestus sadly proclaimed.

Artemis stood.

“Then let me grant him pleasant dreams.” Hephaestus nodded and watched as Artemis’ hands touched a mortal male in kindness for the first time in decades.

Moonlight bathed the boy over his entire body, and he slackened into sleep so deep he appeared to die.

As Hephaestus took his son’s hand and wept, Phoebe brushed her hand over her face and felt tears of grief for the first time since her brother.

Chiron stood on the beach and watched as Artemis’ chariot descended. The tides roiled as the moon grew close, but the Huntress was undeterred.

Artemis stepped out, holding a sleeping Phoebe in her arms; and Hephaestus did the same holding his son.

A frightened girl with the look of Zeus about her clung tightly to the draping skirts of a Goddess Chiron didn’t know.

With the enormous young cyclops suspended effortlessly in her arms; he could guess.

“The infirmary is ready; my Lord and Ladies.” Hephaestus nodded gratefully, weeping softly, and Chiron felt yet another piece of his soul die as he saw the bronze leg draping over Hephaestus’ arm.

Frigga strode forward with the confidence of a queen; standing taller than the cabins with no shame.

Chiron watched her and heard a small murmured greeting to Apollo as she entered into his domain; shrinking slightly and doing the same to Percy’s body until he was of a size to fit on their beds.

She took the seat beside Percy’s bed and met Chiron’s eyes.

“Inform his friends he is to be spoken to when they have the chance. He has seen things his mind must recover from; and the speech of the soul will aid him.”

Marveling slightly at the new intervention of the Gods in mortal affairs; Chiron nonetheless nodded and walked out to speak to the curious campers.

As he met the eyes of the Hephaestus campers; the forge God’s voice echoed in his head.

“ I shall tell them. Send them to their cabin and tell them to wait. ” Chiron sighed inside as he was given an out of another difficult conversation.

“Young Percy has returned; though not unaffected. He is in a state of deep mental turmoil; and those who wish to speak to him to draw him free may do so in the morning. We will welcome our new camper in the morning as well. Return to your cabins.” There was some grumbling, but they obeyed.

Nyssa glared up into his eyes but he could not say anything.

He walked to the Big House feeling ashamed.

“Charles fought bravely; but we couldn’t save his leg. I’ve crafted a replacement; it will feel the same and offer no pain. He will most likely awaken in a few days; and will need you all. I am sorry, my children. I am sorry we may not interfere more directly.” The sky rumbled; and the cabin watched on in shock as Hephaestus turned to the sky to roar.

“ SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH! ” The roof rattled with the volume, and even as her ears felt like they might explode all Nyssa could do was grin savagely.

The sound of thunder went silent with a shocked choking noise.

“Please, my children, be there for him where I can not.” Nyssa stepped forward and took her father’s hand; ignoring his twisted features and dried tears to look firmly into his eyes.

“We will, father. This; you need not ask for.”

“ Aye. ” Chorused the cabin, even little Harley nodding in time with his siblings.

The Forge God smiled proudly, and just like all his children and the former lovers which bore them, it was a strange, unsightly, utterly marvelous thing to see.

The infirmary was silent; it’s occupants in deep slumber aside from she who watched over them.

Freya held her son’s hand and allowed her Valkyrie wings to flicker into place; and could now witness his soul writhe in agitation within his body.

He clutched to her hand with the unconscious desperation of all the warriors before him who had clutched ferocious to their swords with the hope of being brought up to Valhalla.

It was an unnerving sensation and not one she expected to feel from him for many more years.

The door creaked open and a small figure slipped inside.

She carried a tray of carefully shaped stone; polished to a perfect shine and seeming to glow within.

The Goddess Hestia sung quietly to herself as she nursed a mixture of water and nectar into a sleeping Thalia, and soothed her into a dreamless rest.

As she did the same for Beckendorf and then approached Percy’s bedside, she slid the tray onto the nightstand and settled into the chair beside Freya.

“Greetings, Mother-Queen.” She said softly.

“Greetings, Hearth-Mother.” Replied Freya, rubbing the back of her giant son’s hand with her thumb.

“I have mothered none, and yet many.” Hestia acknowledged.

“I am the same. Few of my children are truly my own, and many of them resent the others.” Freya turned and met Hestia’s perpetually sad eyes.

“Resentment is common in my family as well. Jilted wives, bitter husbands, apologies unheard or unsaid entirely. I have watched it for far too long.” Hestia looked askance at Freya, and, receiving a nod; nursed the same mixture into Percy with a soothing hum and a flare of the hope-flame burning in the infirmary.

Freya watched his soul settle, and felt his hand clench at a different angle in desperate love rather than despair.

She let her wings flicker away, and smiled softly at the Goddess she’d always held a strange relationship with.

Hestia was an Outcast from her own family and entirely too gentle to said family for most of the more ancient parts of Freya to respect.

But the most ancient part; that echo of Maternity who watched as Hestia nursed her own energy into Hades after her little brother ( baby-brother/son/child/soul-star ) was devoured in their father’s stomach.

The echo who watched Hestia sing and dance in her father’s gut to delight her sisters and their piteous gazes.

Who soothed Poseidon and his burgeoning dominion over liquids from ripping apart their father from the inside with his own blood.

Freya spoke those same words now.

“He may be a monster…” She paused, and Hestia smiled sadly as she completed the quote differently for this situation.

“But he is my son.” ‘Our Father’ the past echoed.

Understanding passed in their eyes as Hestia stood.

When Freya looked now; Hestia was not the miserable little girl who poked with despair at a dying hearth; she was a tall and proud woman of noble blood.

Firstborn of her siblings’ Royal Father and the embodiment of Hope herself.

She was no longer the tender of the dying hearth; she was the Hearth-Flame itself, shining bright and defiant.

“Hail, Hestia Elpis. Long may her eyes stay open.”

Freya felt the other goddess’ smile wash over her and the final piece of despair within her flickered and die.

Freya-dauði-móðir finally slipped back to sleep, and gentle Frigga looked upon her darling son with forgiving love welling up inside her soul.

And it felt right .

Charles wasn’t made for sadness.

True, crippling sadness had never had a grip on his soul.

His blood sang for the forge and the effort of sweat and steel; and there was no time allowed for him to wallow in his misery; especially when it didn’t help.

If he wished to repair the damage of a machine or a weapon; he could do so.

If he wished to repair the scar of an argument or hateful words, he could craft something for the person in question and apologize.

Now; if he wished to walk, all he could do was fucking sit and grow used to the sensations of his Father’s godly work.

In a strange way, he would have preferred if it wasn’t divine, if it didn’t feel exactly like his old leg did, even down to giving under his fingers and granting the feedback of scratching his phantom itches.

He would have preferred if he had awoken in a mortal hospital bed; with his clumsy kind stepfather having made him ‘ only’ a mortally-perfect prosthetic of welded rods and cast plastic and a cover painted flawlessly by his sister to match his skin-tone and the birthmark now lost from his original leg.

He would have preferred that outcome because it would’ve meant this horrid fucking world was all a dream .

Charles began to cry silently as he realized he would rather have a normal life and say goodbye to all the people he loved here at camp because he’d never truly love them the way he had his first family.

His Father’s nature sung within him of bonds tested by time meaning the machine would soon break; not grow stronger.

It sung of the fact that the whole, perfect machine called the Beckendorf family he had been born into at his mother’s home in Texas was broken and gone.

And he was all that was left.

A gear, with nothing built around it.

Left discarded on a workbench or in a parts bin.

Useless.

He grabbed the knife used for slicing bandage cloth on the nightstand and cut that same image into his arm.

When Will and Michael saw his new wound and the knife in his hand on their infirmary rounds; they said nothing, just staunched the bleeding and bandaged the wound.

They offered ambrosia, but he refused.

He didn’t want it to heal , he wanted it to scar.

Nyssa grunted and hung the gear-shaped pendant she’d made for him around his neck.

He looked at her hand and saw the bandage, and knew somehow that a piston was carved there.

Harley had taken red paint and smeared a sloppy gear on his cheek, and seemed proud to have an echo of his brother.

Jake cut a bolt into the side of his neck and refused bandages completely.

“My brother cannot hide his injuries; so neither shall I.”

Though he wasn’t awake; Charles was sure Percy would do the same with another part when he did blink his eye open.

Unfortunately; Percy’s injuries were outright invisible even as Charles’ own were merely hidden.

When Charles first limped out of the infirmary, he looked around and nearly wept.

Every camper was wearing a form-fitting celestial bronze greave on their left leg.

They went about their normal lives, at most giving him a wave and a nod on their way to their chores, and laughed and talked with each other.

A few of them were modeling their ‘new legs’ under a sloppy banner proclaiming a “Wet Leg Contest” where the Hermes kids were randomly throwing buckets of water on the crowd, themselves and only rarely on the participants.

Charles did something he hadn’t done since Mariya had run her hand down his cheek.

He laughed softly, and he felt every one of his siblings place a hand on him somewhere.

Charles walked as the campers did; as though nothing had changed, holding Harley and finally noticing the sloppy golden paint smeared onto his little leg.

He felt like a piece in a tired machine; warped but nonetheless belonging.

A beautiful woman was seated by the Main Camp Hearth as they passed by, and she winked at Charles with a smile.

Chapter Text

“You’re more active than I’ve seen in centuries, sister.” Hestia sighed slightly and continued busying herself with the relief work.

Poseidon hadn’t shared the grief she’d felt watching the flames of hope die from his latest hurricane, and Hades had been somewhat unsympathetic, as was his norm.

“The mortals have many problems, sister.” Hestia replied, bundling another loaf of hearth-bread and rice into one of thousands of tins stamped out by Hephaestus as a favor to his aunt. “We would be poor stewards and rulers if we ignored them.”

Hera rolled her eyes and Hestia mourned the kind girl she’d shared Kronos’ stomach with.

“Their problems are beneath ours, sister. We have greater concerns.”

Hestia borrowed a play from her sister and rolled her eyes with a huff, reaching for another loaf and singing a hymn of comfort as loudly as she could.

Each ear in the adjacent room of sheltering refugees would hear a different song, but all would be uniquely soothing.

Though they would forget the details as the Mist did its work, none would forget the peace offered by her power.

“Have I ever told you of the Parable of the Starfish, sister?” Hera took a seat nearby, uninvited, and crossed her arms.

“More nonsense from the brother who created the very mess you lower yourself to treat?” Hestia’s eyes flared, and it was only because Hera faced her older sister’s back which saved her from existence-questioning terror.

“An ancient mortal told it to his hearth to remind himself of what was important. One of your holy men, as a matter of fact.”

Hera shook her head.

“I kept no priests, only priestesses.”

“Ah, well, it’s your loss that you let this man slip from your service.”

Hestia felt her sister bristle and noticed it was far too similar to young Artemis.

“An old man was walking along a beach, after a great storm had ravaged his town and taken all he had.”

Despite herself, something in the Goddess of Marriage heard the calling of the Goddess of Home and settled slightly to listen.

“He was not a rich man, but still he mourned what he had earned and kept all his life of labor. As he walked, he noticed starfish were left behind by the leaving tide, and among them stood a small girl, throwing the smaller ones and placing the larger ones back into the water.”

Hera leaned forward a little further, enraptured by her sister’s words.

“He walked to stand next to her and said “Why do you waste your time doing this? When the tide leaves all these shall dry up and die.” The girl placed one nearly too large for her to lift into the water and turned to him. “I made a difference to him.” Then they watched the starfish scuttle away.”

Hera’s arms uncrossed.

“And so the old man set aside his cane and lifted the ones too large for her, placing them into the water. As they went along the beach, returning each they found to the sea, more people came along and joined them. Soon, all the beach was clear of starfish and the sea glistened in the joy of a thousand thousand stars.”

Hestia finally turned, placing another tin in the outgoing tray as her eyes met Hera’s in a fierce glare.

Hera froze, feeling the wrath of her sister piercing through her gaze.

“The Goddess of Motherhood and Marriage should need no excuse or story to help grieving widows, vilomahs and widowers. I should not have to ask you to tend to your most basic domain.”

Hestia stepped forward and gripped Hera’s hand with bruising strength.

“If you ever dare to suggest that the mortals are somehow beneath us, that I am lowering myself in some way by doing something as unequivocally good as helping those who have lost everything; you may begin to understand why Father was threatened by me first of all .”

Hera, terrified, managed a nod and felt even more fear as Hestia’s countenance went pleasant and soft again horrifyingly quickly.

As Hera rushed from the room in fright, all Hestia did was reach for another loaf and begin singing another song.

“Where do your bright eyes turn, old friend?” The voice was melodious and disarming, easing tension from eternally-stern shoulders and smoothing his brow.

“Strange events unfold on Midgard, Young Loki.” Replied Heimdall, his holy charge of Gjallarhorn rattling slightly as it bounced against the gilded tasset over his hip.

“Strange?” Loki skipped forward in his perpetual mischievous curiosity, clapping hands delicately together in delight. “How so?”

“My Queen has dedicated her time to the raising of a Greek demigod.” Of all the sentences which could possibly have emerged from Heimdall, Loki could confidently state that was the least expected.

“ My Queen or Your Queen?” Said Loki, leaning forward to glance over the rippling Bifrost and catching glimpses of a blazing moon and a rumbling earthquake rippling through soil soaked by bitter rains.

“Freya has taken her mantle most recently. The Death Mother stalked the lands of Men to recover her newest son.”

Loki finally frowned, growing still.

His form flickered in green light, features growing stern and even more elfish than usual.

“Intriguing.” Loki Laufeyson rumbled in a low, resonant tone; dark and thick with intrigue and fascination.

“I imagine you wish for more information?” Heimdall said with a teasing lead on his words; frown-lines smoothing with a gleeful smirk.

“Oh I very much would, old friend. However I presume it shan’t come cheaply.”

Heimdall chuckled, and the rattle of Gjallarhorn on his hip sounded ominous this time.

“Indeed not. A favor, of our normal type, to be redeemed at my discretion.” Loki rolled his eyes but nodded his agreement.

“Then your next step should be to seek Tyr, should you desire your mother’s thoughts without simply asking her.”

Something in Loki grew dim and sad at the prospect of speaking openly with his mother; an ancient longing flickering to life.

“Very well. Would you open the way to my brother?”

Heimdall nodded, and said no more.

Loki disappeared with a howl of the Rainbow Winds which blew over the Bifrost, and an echo of his own joyous whoop.

“Brother!” Boomed Tyr, striding to the door of his room with all four arms opened wide.

Loki felt a piece of him twitch as he always did when he felt the perfect golden hand clasp around him alongside the other natural ones; but he embraced his brother fiercely nonetheless.

“It is good to see you well, little one.” Loki said through a smile, and graciously allowed the golden hand to ruffle his hair as he looked up at the enormous God of War.

“What brings you to my home?” Tyr asked, gesturing grandly around to the picture windows which oversaw the training of the Vanir Honored Dead.

Off in the distance Loki could see the faint sunbeams radiating off Frey’s vacant throne, and felt his Uncle’s dim presence brush pleasantly against him.

“Heimdall informed me you would know the state of our mother.” Loki said, expecting his giant, kind brother to shut down and distract from the topic.

Instead, the “Laughing God” grew ever more joyous.

“Ha!” His barked laugh brought older, more pleasant times welling up inside Loki. “She has taken a son among the Midgardians, you know how she can be.”

Loki nodded, though he was still confused. Luckily, he didn’t need to ask. As Tyr poured them both some Vanir Whiskey, he continued.

“She found this little one, about a decade back. His mother was dead, but out of reach of any Reaping Spirits. She elevated the mother to Valkyrie for her salvation and took her place to raise the lad for her.”

Loki felt his brow steadily rising with each word; until finally his jaw dropped.

For any mortal to be raised directly by a Goddess was extremely rare, the last prominent example was Achilles, and Thetis had long been considered mysterious and her divine status in flux.

“Did she express to you why she would do so?”

Tyr sighed softly.

The sigh of a man in love, and Loki barely avoided rolling his eyes.

“She didn’t have to. Sigurd brought the woman here to learn the craft of War from me; and even in our brief time I grew to understand precisely why our Mother was so moved.”

Loki, despite himself, was impressed. Tyr, while a pleasant one, had attention famously difficult to earn. Scattered myths of his presence among mortals were not due to his weakness and certainly not due to a lack of war among the Norse, but simply because he found so many of even his fellow gods unworthy of his attention.

Mortals, for all their flaring strength and courage, were simply a shorter ‘blip’ on any Gods’ radar.

“Is she truly that remarkable?”

Tyr spoke; in an echo of the words which moved a Great Prophecy in another universe.

“Sally Jackson is a queen among women, divine or mortal.”

And Loki, through the sheer conviction in his perpetually-joking brother’s voice; understood.

As Percy began to stir and awake on the bed before her vigil, Freya felt an abounding font of love awaken from her most distant son, and she smiled.