Ye gods, this is bad. I'm probably the most disappointed in this than any other fic, but hey. Whatever.
Yes, this is for the Querencia Quarter Quell. Yes, this is two days late. But our lovely moderators have seen fit to have mercy, and I have been told that my publishing deadline has been extended.
Anyhoo. The prompts were:
Zeus
Mercury
Aphrodite
Trivia
Juno
Overall? Pretty damn hard for me.
Read and review, my good people!
He fell.
The twisting, ravenous winds, the swirling blood sucking frigid winds, the air that he controlled, melded around him and he fell.
The lightning, his power, his heritage and inheritance from his father, snapped and whipped about him, the tendrils of fiery plasma seeking the quickest path to ground.
As did he.
The bronze warship above him, the massive weapon with enough firepower to melt a hole through a mountain, hovered in the sky, the lights on the deck off and cold. No one would know he'd thrown himself off the deck till morning.
The white lightning flashed around him with greater and greater intensity. He knew that if it had the power to destroy him, he would already be ashes floating on the wind.
Percy was able to release his power over the water, let it flow through him and away. Jason wondered if he could do the same. If he let it consume him, would it?
He let it.
It did not.
To storm or fire the world must fall
And he would not be the one to cause the fall of the world. It would be Leo, then. Leo would be the one that the other five had to stop.
And Jason knew they would.
Unbaised, with complete and total judgement unhindered by any desire or hoping, he knew that he was the stronger demigod. He and Percy were evenly matched, for gods' sake. And Percy was said to be one of the most powerful in centuries. Leo… was not. The other five would be able to destroy him, Jason knew.
He kept falling. The wind howled in his ears, a memory of Lupa surfacing in his mind. Do we run from danger? she had once told him. Wolves will not begin a fight they cannot win. We are not cowards. We are survivors.
He had been with the wolves, then. He was back among the wolves now. Wolves of a different kind. Wolves within.
The strain of the quest was too great. As was the destruction he would cause if he remained with the crew. And so he fell, hoping for a quick end.
The son of Mercury, a child of the god of messengers, a Roman, a strong minded legionnaire…
Held the knife to his own throat.
His sandals, his winged sandals that had been a gift to him from his father, fluttered dully at his feet, as if reflecting the black mood that their master was in.
The war was beginning. Soldiers, his friends, had been killed. The attack on the Titan mountain, the stronghold of their dark power, was beginning.
And he could take no more of the pain.
The tramp of hurried footsteps sounded past his tent opening. Soldiers, he knew, reporting, watching, guarding, arming.
They were ready for war. They were stronger than he was.
He had always been peaceful, back in New Rome. He had never enjoyed the war games. Had always had a wish to have a simple job when he grew older, to be a politician or even a postman. Perhaps a medical man.
But here he was, in this dusty military tent, holding a long knife to his throat and praying to his father.
She was a leader.
She hoped she was. Had been. Whichever.
As the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin she had responsibilities to her camp. During this war, this uprising of the Titans, she was a traitor.
She knew she was. She knew, now, that Luke had been lying. He had promised her peace and love, and had twisted his promises into shadows of chaos. The war was partially her fault, she knew. Luke had told her so.
The scythe pendant she kept in her pocket was heating. Burning. It had been growing steadily warmer during the day, until she felt sure it would burn through her clothes.
But she was the only one who could feel it.
Luke wanted to speak with her. When the scythe heated, he was trying to contact her. She had ignored it for the day, had hoped he would give up.
He would know she had ignored him.
She crossed the cabin to the smaller closet. In the back corner of the closet, under a pile of old shoes that were going to become retro soon, was a small box.
In the box she had sleepers. Three small pills that she had bought from someone somewhere, after Charlie had died. She hadn't used them then.
Now? With Luke trying to contact her. With the camp falling apart. With the monster attacks getting worse and worse every day, all because of the information she continued to give to the enemies.
She opened the box.
They were all going to die. All of them. Every sibling that she loved, every friend in this camp. Like Charlie had died. Like any of the sacrifices that were hurried over these days.
If she ended it now, maybe the war would end too.
She held one of the tiny white capsules between her fingers. It glinted in the frail moonlight.
It would be easy. Painless. And the camp would go on, just for a little while longer. Just a bit more. Enough time for Percy Jackson to save them somehow.
Gods knew how.
She was a legacy. Not even a demigod. A descendant of Trivia, somewhere far down the line.
No one knew who she was. Her commanding officers knew, vaguely, that she was in the cohort. Not that it mattered. She was extra. An expendable, to be ordered into a fight as a damper.
Five hours till zero hour. Five hours until the soldiers deployed on the Greek camp. They had camped there under the order of Octavian, the stand-in praetor, and she knew the orders were wrong.
The Greeks were not their enemies. No matter how much Octavian ranted, no matter for how many years the Romans and Greeks had hated each other… they were not enemies.
So she had made her way to one of the loads of ammunition, about to be launched on the Greek camp during the invasion.
She lit a match.
If she lit off this packet now, the entire row of ammunition would go up, as would the ballistae that Octavian had had constructed.
Her life for the sake of peace? Her life for the destruction of these destroyers, and hopefully the command tent as well?
She knew it would be a brave act, and a righteous one. An act that her ancestor, the goddess of magic, sorcery, would be proud of.
She stood over the packet, ready to light it.
She was the queen of Olympus. Jupiter's wife. Kronos' daughter. Mother of fire and war and pain and life.
And the world was fractured beneath her. She saw, as through a darkened glass, the lives and threads of the fates of every mortal, every creature, every demigod. She saw every action they would take, every action they could take. She saw what they saw, knew their thoughts and desires.
Some she passed over. Most she let take their course.
But a select few, a select few to be envied or pitied, she noticed.
She whispered in the ear of her husband's newest illegitimate son. She tapped the son of Mercury on the shoulder, there in his tent. She gave Aphrodite's daughter a sign, a sign as from the heavens. She let a breeze touch the soldier on the hill over the pile of explosives.
She gave them a choice.
Life or death? A sure fate or a changeable one? A quick end or a chance for greater glory?
And they heard her.
And they remembered for what they were fighting.
Jason twisted the winds again, pulling himself out of his fall only meters above the water.
'Gods, what am I doing,' he muttered.
He shot back to the deck of the Argo II.
Marcus dropped the knife, heard it clatter on the earth floor of the tent.
'Not like this,' he whispered. 'Father. Forgive me my weakness.'
He stood and stretched. The battle was coming.
Silena's hand shook, and she knew it was no good. She dropped the pill back into the box, taking a gasping breath as everything came back to the front of her mind.
She touched the scythe pendant in her pocket.
'Gods, Silena,' Luke's voice hissed, angry, in her ear. 'Do you know how long I've been waiting?'
'I'm… sorry…' she murmured.
'News?'
Gloria, as the breeze touched her, took a sudden breath of the frigid air.
She blew out the match.
'Jove help us all,' she said, not caring who heard her. She crushed the cold match beneath her heel.
They would fight. Some would be killed. Most would be hurt. All would feel pain, and none of them would be the same.
But they were fighting for something more than themselves. They were heralds of Olympus, children of the light. They would not cut their own string.
No man may stand for another's hopes.
But every man may stand for his own.