Prologue
The Ending of an Age
The setting sun cast a golden glow across the twilit waters. The brilliance, the radiance of the sun was strange, the man on the dock thought, leaning out on the railing to look down into the water. So strange. It symbolized brightness, hope, rebirth, but now is seemed to hail the end. The ashes.
They had played with the matches.
They had made all their bets.
Their luck had run dry.
Now, they had to deal with the ashes.
More accurately, he and a few of his select friends had to pick up all the pieces, and try to put something back together out of it. Things were looking pretty bad. Out of college was good – life was going great until… bam! Another enemy, another problem. There was always another problem.
She had said that she was Ῥέα. She had said that some final doom was coming. Of course, like always, the heroes had come and they had defeated her, forcing her back to join her family at the bottom of Tartarus. However, the losses had been so great.
In the very first battle, some of the man's dearest friends had been cut down. In the aftermath, he had watched as families were broken apart, as fathers and mothers wailed over lost children, and as people were scarred. The attack had been devastating. His home was in flames, and everything that he had built over the years had come tumbling down before his eyes. That was what she had said would happen. The enemy had told him that this war would hurt. She had been right about that, at least.
The war had raged on. He had lost so many friends along the way. His own family had even been destroyed as his very own mother was killed. Now, his step-father was struggling to live alone, the love of his life gone. The man on the docks almost knew what that felt like. He'd nearly lost his love.
They had won. They had beaten this new threat, but not before countless others were injured, burned or scarred. But the man on the docks felt like it hadn't been finished then. Something else would go wrong.
"You thinking again?" The voice issued from behind the man. He turned around, and gave a faint smile to his fiancée. In the sunset, her already blonde hair was glowing like heated gold. She, wrapped in a grey wool blanket, came over and offered some of her covering to him. Gladly, he took it and pulled the blanket around his shoulders.
"Of course. You know me, always thinking." The man said, glancing down at the waters. They were choppy, uneven as the waves crashed against the wooden pillars holding the dock out of the water. The woman swatted at him.
"Thinking is my job, Seaweed Brain. Come on now, tell me what about. I won't laugh at you, though I think I already know where your mind is. You should stop thinking about it." She took his hand and squeezed it.
"I can't!" He exclaimed, bursting out suddenly. So many people had told him that. The final battle between good and evil had only been a few weeks ago, and ever since then, the man's mind had never been away from it. He couldn't believe that they had conquered the threat, but at such a cost. He had been in many battles before. He'd lost friends before. But this was painful. It cut him right to the core. It scared him, because the lady that they had been fighting against knew exactly which buttons to push to make him mad.
"Why not?" The woman challenged, giving him a hard look for his outburst. He sighed, and massaged his temples.
"I don't know – whatever Ῥέα said to me, it always made me mad, it always troubled me. I can't get it out of my mind. It's been bothering me ever since the battle." He said. She rested her head on his shoulder, and stared out at the setting sun.
"You let her get to you. That's not good." She murmured.
"Maybe I'm just out of practice. It's been five years since we started college in New Rome. I haven't been keeping up with practicing my witty banter or my snarky remarks for monsters. Maybe that's it." He replied.
"Or maybe you've been thinking about this too much. Did I actually just say that? Di Immortales, I never thought I'd say that." She cracked up, and buried her face in his sleeve. She hitched the blanket up around her shoulders. The man gave her a terse look.
"I'm trying to be serious here!" he complained.
"And you're being serious too? What are you going to do, propose to marry me? News flash, Seaweed Brain, you already did that – over a grave. What was it you said: 'This has made me realize how short life is'?" The man couldn't help but crack a smile at the memory of it. He put his arm around her shoulder.
"Come on, I'm serious too. I don't think this is the end. And look at all the destruction this war caused…" He bit his lip hard, "It caused so much damage."
"Then we'll rebuild. If it's one thing we're good at, it's rebuilding. We'll build something… permanent. Something that we can live with for the rest of our lives. If you are going to be my husband, you may as well get your sense of humor back. That's half the fun." The blonde grinned. The man cracked another smile, and then leaned down and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.
"We seem to be getting pretty good at rebuilding things. But if you're going to design a house…" He trailed off, lost in thought again.
"You're thinking this isn't over, aren't you?" She asked, looking up at him. The sun had nearly sunken completely below the horizon, making the water seem blood red in the light. The man pulled the woman close to him and gave her another kiss on the forehead, before staring out to see.
"I know it isn't over." He told her.
"This is the ending of an age, Percy. The gods told me so. This is the end of our battles. We can live happily, have children, send them to Camp Half Blood… Rachel even said that we wouldn't be fighting any more wars. We're safe." She spoke.
"We're far from safe." The man said. He watched as the final rays of light from the sun disappeared, and night closed in. He knew it in his heart. It was almost like a sixth sense. They were definitely far from safe. This was Percy Jackson and soon to be Annabeth Jackson – the last fighters for a destroyed demigod world. The age may be ending, but whenever one age ends, another one begins.