"If you were a god how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lighting? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people will call you a myth to explain how little boys got over losing their mothers?" Chiron to Percy Jackson 5.126
Half-bloods are not immortal, our bodies do not last forever. Eventually they will be damaged or wither away. The only thing that will live on is our legacy. Only with it can we become timeless, only with it can we truly be more than man.
Perseus Jackson will live forever. His story will be told for generations. The selfless son of the Sea God who fell in love with Wisdom's daughter. He was loyal to a fault, fought courageously, and his enemies fell helplessly at his feet. The Minotaur, Medusa, Ares, Kronos, Gaea and so many more, Percy Jackson defeated them all.
In time people will forget that he lost battles too. No one will remember that he was the loner kid at the back of the classroom who'd been expelled from a different school every year and counting. Eventually people will forget he was a sarcastic idiot, another bumbling teenager, a mortal fool who bled red just the same as the rest of us. He will transcend even the most famous of heroes, perhaps even the Gods. People have seen first hand and been at the blunt of many of their mistakes. Percy Jackson will be untouchable and he won't be alone.
She spends her days breaking hearts and crushing dreams.
He spends his days laughing at fate and destroying destiny.Drew Tanaka is infamous, a whispered rumor if you run in the right circles. If you don't you wouldn't even have heard of her existence. Of course the general population knows that Piper McLean, favored daughter of Aphrodite, is head counselor of Cabin 9 not many people are aware of who came before her. Drew's name, her story, her legacy, only certain people know.
Leo Valdez on the other hand is renowned throughout the immortal world. The Fire-User, Tamer of the Bronze Dragon, builder of the Argo II, and the fire to which the world fell. His deeds are known throughout both camps but, like Percy Jackson, his opinions, his secrets, his backstory was lost to history. History may have recorded his name but Leo Valdez was lost to the sands of time.
She spends her nights mocking death and killing gods.
He spends his night stealing stars and vaporizing oceans.
They liked to, whenever the sky was unclouded, meet in a clearing in the woods and watch the stars. Leo's back would be to the tree and Drew's back would rest against his chest. One of his arms would be wrapped around her waist while the other pointed out shapes in the stars and he delighted himself in making stories explaining how the constellations made their way into the sky. Drew's hand would gently rest on his knee while the other would hold a cigarette as she smoked and laughed the night away. Those nights, full of laughter and jokes, smoke and fire, Drew would like to ask pessimistically
"When they write your ballad do you think they'll cut me out of it? I'm supposed to be the villain remember."
Leo would laugh and wrap his arm tighter around her.
"They can't! This will be the first step in us making history, together. "
History tends to forget certain pieces.
Together they will destroy the world.
Drew vanished into the night without so much as a whisper. Her trunk was still full, her bed unmade and her friends unknowing. The only hint to her absence was her dagger and signature pink eyeliner were missing.
Leo was gone two days later.
She shatters mankind with a step of her stilettos.
He burns the world with a twitch of his fingers.
It takes him a month to find her. For someone who revels in the limelight she disappears far too easily.
She is working in a strip club, waiting tables and taking the stage like it is her Gods given right. Considering who her mother is, it might as well be.
When she sees him Drew smiles widely and grabs his hand. She drags him to the bar, orders him a drink, and hands him an apartment key.
She steals the moon with a flutter of her eyelashes.
He creates a supernova with a beat of his heart.
It was two years before their past caught up with them. A burnt down bar, a pile of gold dust and two half bloods were on the run. It reminds me of another story with two teensagers, an explosive, bitter girl and a passionate, angry boy who both hated the world. History will be more reluctant to forget their mistakes.
They are apocalyptic.In the end they reach a poetic justice,a full circle, and find themselves back at camp. They waltz in, past Mr. D and Thalia's tree, and find themselves back, wrapped in the turmoil godly DNA brings.
They don't know half of the campers and the ones they remember they hardly recognize. People have grown up, fought battles, gained scars, lived life. People change. They know that if they looked into the mirror they wouldn't recognize themselves.
Her hunger devours cities and his thirst drains oceans.
Her envy burns suns and his wrath demolished civilizations.
This is when the history books go south, when man really stands up to myth. History likes to say that everybody was overjoyed that the duo returned unharmed, that Drew joined her sisters as an Aphrodite girl and that Leo settled down with a sweet daughter of Hermes.
In the case of demigods, history is often wrong.
Her greed ravished galaxies and his pride explodes nebulas.
Her passion dissolved pantheons and his boredom killed heroes.People, being the social butterflies they naturally are, wanted answers. They wanted details on where they'd been, what they'd seen, and what they did. Leo amused himself with trying to sell a more ridiculous lie every question while Drew amused herself with smirks and "I don't kiss and tell". The reactions were always priceless.
Of course people, the gossips they are, wouldn't let the matter rest and began to ask the best question, the hardest question.
"Why did you leave?"
The newer Aphrodite girls thought Drew was shallow, a coward, that she was running away because Piper was made Head. The older campers, the ones that knew Drew, knew that she isn't the type to let someone else win.
The newer Hephaestus campers thought that Leo was off saving the world, like he was a hero and nothing but. The ones that had been there longer remember the boy who was scared to show his fire.
Yet neither of the campers could figure out why they left.
Alone, they are destructive. Together they are chaotic.
Eventually Katrina, Drew's favorite sister, asked her "Why?" It took Drew two months to answer the open ended question. The answer, written in pink eyeliner on a compact mirror, says only this,
"People die, legends live forever. "
It was all she needed to say.
Drew disappeared one last time that night, Leo Valdez waiting for her in the get away car. This time, she was gone for good.
She is the oblivion, the beginning and the end
Not a whisper or a word of Drew Tanaka ever shows up for Katrina when she looks for her. However, when Katrina had her first baby, eighteen, orphaned and penniless, a basket full of cash appears on her doorstep with a note attached to the top.
"Name her after me. "
It was written in swirling, pink, eyeliner.
He is the void, the nothingness, the darkness that binds.
History will forever wonder what became of Leo Valdez. Legends don't just up and disappear like that. However history will find no other mention of the Son of Hephaestus so the Fire User will become another campfire tale.
Harley will never mention the short Latino or the fair Asian who sat in the back row at his wedding
She is the sun, the moon, the stars.
She is the unattainable beauty that lights up the abyss.
And with that Drew Tanaka floats off the pages of history. She chose to hand the match to someone else and control the explosion. She chose to disappear and limit the casualties. Unlike the other bitter, explosive girl she chose to give up the fight rather than embrace it. History may always remember Thalia Grace but as what? The Daughter of Zeus? The tree atop Half-Blood hill? The lieutenant of Artemis? Another fighter in a family of heroes? Drew chose her own legacy.
He is the supernova, the eclipse, the daybreak.
He is the alluring wildfire that enchants the sky.That ends the legacy of the seventh member of the Prophecy, the so called "seventh wheel". He chose to use his passion to light a hearth rather than burn down the world. He chose to burn bright than to burn hot. Unlike the other angry, passionate boy he chose to douse his flame instead of using it to rebuild the world from the ashes of the last. History may always remember Luke Castellan but as what? The willing host of Kronos? Traitor to his own kind? Mass murderer and genocidal maniac? A hero in the end of a lifetime of villainy?
They hold the cosmos in their hands and the stars in their souls.
In the end they die because, in the end, they were mortal. While their godly parents burn their shrouds at camp a pair of tombstones are built. They read as follows;
Leo Valdez + Drew Tanaka
"Let our legacy last eons, unaltered, for the truth makes it that much more glorious. "