This fic is written for the Rare Pair Project's 2016 Mini-Bang on Tumblr. This work is also betaed by Chris (likemybonfireheart on Tumblr), thank you so much!

Check out the amazing art on Tumblr (bonfire-art on Tumblr /post/149596015275) also by the amazing Chris ❤

The night felt almost mystical in its silence. The wooden hull of a frigate silently creaked as it drifted slowly across the dark waters of the bay, red sails fluttering in the midnight air. The moon was nowhere to be seen, its absence went unnoticed by the stars.

The tide was high that night.

Captain Ethan Nakamura sat idly on the bow of the ship, his posture composed yet cautious. He appeared to be deep in thinking, lower lip bitten and eyebrows furrowed. His first mate, Alabaster Torrington, manned the helm quietly; he knew better than to disturb his friend's odd silence. Besides, steering a massive frigate amidst these strange waters requires great concentration, and Alabaster could not risk the safety of the ship as it was.

Mystical.

Indeed, for the Bay was made of lore. Locals spoke of legends residing the waters, believed to be both spiritual and dangerous. Misfortune is said to befall those who violate the laws empowered by ancient kings hundreds of years ago. A set of rules to please the sea deities and appease their anger.

No one was supposed to sail during the night, hence the absence of fishermen boats and the darkened lines of the beach farther west. Yet the Invidia's Judgement did, her captain unbothered and determined to reach their destination tomorrow's noon. They had escaped the pursuit of a royal brigantine just two days ago, a result of careless judgement (despite the ship's name) and the crews' failure of communication that they were targeted by a legion of armed forces. Piracy seemed to be the only justifiable reason for the pursuit, they could figure that much. They were pirates, after all.

Piracy. It was a word that left a bitter taste in Ethan's mouth. It brought back an ugly part of Ethan's history.

xxx

He was supposed to be a child born of nobility, the only son of a well-known Japanese merchant who travelled the world selling oriental goods and serving a recognized trading company. His father was well-off and rich, and Ethan vaguely remembered the rumour of how his family was then very respected and powerful back in his hometown.

That was until his father met a mysterious woman during one of his many voyages in Greece. It was a tale recounted many times, of how his father's life, a life of practically bathing in gold and silver, was changed when he fell in love with this Greek woman.

Ethan detested her the more his father talked about her.

Yet his father would recall with a fond voice, of how the woman, with her dark hair and alluring eyes, charmed him with a charisma like no other. A realistic woman with the practicality of a goddess. A woman with a heart so expensive that it costed his father almost all of his fortune just to win it over. A treasure, as he would call her, that would never come again even in his next lifetime, to the point that most of his life's savings were laid to waste.

Ethan thought she was an animal.

Because it was misfortunate of him to know that with her, his father had begotten Ethan. He was born in the small hut his father had managed to buy after salvaging over what had been left of his riches. Born as a small little thing covered in a swath of dirty cloth, left on the dusty mattress that served as his parents' bed. A small little pathetic thing, crying helplessly alone while mysteriously, his mother was nowhere to be seen. The midwife was strangely subdued, blabbering nonsense as she cowered in a corner, unable to provide any explanation.

His father had really thought that she was a goddess, back then. Still did even through the last of his days. Ethan disagreed with a vengeance, though he never said it out loud. Goddesses would never abandon their children. Goddesses would never strip their loved ones of their lives. And certainly goddesses would not be as cruel as taking their sons' eye. Or at least from what he had assumed of said deities, being the personifications of divinity themselves.

And yet his mother did.

He was born without an eye. Ethan was thoroughly convinced that she was the culprit, because it was certainly not enough for her to take away his father's riches, she had to take half of his sight too.

So it was impossible that she could be a goddess, when she was even less of a human. How Ethan would love to remain in disbelief and denial, but even he, son of a so-called deity, could not change what fate desired. He learnt the truth when he was at the mere age of fourteen, growing up as a servant of a wealthy family after his father's untimely death. As Ethan was sleeping on the skimpy blanket he called his own, he dreamt of someone he would never imagined meeting.

A woman, dressed in a white chiton, stood before him. Behind her was a passively folded pair of wings. She wielded a sword in her right hand, a broken wheel with the other. Her face was timeless, but just as stern and austere. Cruel, even. An indisputable aura radiated from her seemingly divine figure, causing Ethan to blink once or twice before his eyesight would focus.

'Who are you?' he asked.

'I am your mother,' she replied.

A poisonous bubble of rage seethed and churned in his stomach. He looked away and grunted, 'My mother is gone.'

'Your mother is an immortal, and she stands before you now.' Undeterred, the woman spoke. 'She comes with a blessing, Ethan Nakamura, appearing before you in her merciful form, not as an enemy for your vengeance. She comes with a gift, a compensation for you to have as her rightful child.'

There was a ghost of a smile on her lips, though Ethan doubted with all his heart.

'She comes to see you as your mother.'

'Well, that's a bunch of utter codswallop, I could figure that much. Mothers don't abandon their children and leave them defenceless against this kind of life, do they?' He sighed. 'Might as well leave me to die instead of having me slave around like a dog.'

Her gaze hardened, and she replied, 'As a son of balance and retribution, you may as well know why the Fates have decided so. I am Nemesis, and my duty in this mortal world is to maintain balance, for as long as humanity remains. I have done this for a millennia, and it so remains that I will do so for the next, too.

'Meeting your father was merely my duty, to place something as where it should be placed. To maintain balance is to have something remain perfectly on its axis, never too much yet never too few. A sphere on a needle. A perfect scale. And your father, he has too much than what he should be asking for. How the gods of fortune favour him so much, so much over others, that misfortune befell upon them. And that, I cannot allow.

'Say it be fate or Aphrodite with her dominion over such fickle things like love and emotions, that the arrow of her son struck me just as I was stripping your father over his undeserved riches.' Her voice softened, or so Ethan had imagined. 'I fell in love, and then I had you.

'Regardless of all the happy things granted for us, I could not be with him much longer. My recklessness has rendered the world into all sorts of imbalance. I had to leave the two of you, for my duty as a goddess remains superior over my selfish desires. I had to leave you. But, not without giving you a parting gift.'

'What was it, by taking my eye?' Ethan spat, his boiling rage returned with a vengeance. He couldn't exactly digest these unsightly revelations. How could someone not allowed to have so much that they needed to be punished for what they have? What a ridiculous ideal.

Gods be with him when his sarcasm backfired by a single, 'Yes.'

'W – What?'

'I meant not for a new-born to suffer the loss of his eye, but in order to be fortunate and successful, you have to sacrifice. I meant for you to have a chance in making a difference to your ill-fated world. But in order to do so, you will have to pay a price.

'The sight is one of men's few greatest treasures. To take half of your sight as a sacrifice is to give you an ultimate chance in changing your fate, and so I did. Very few men lived to be blessed with my merciful side. Yet for you I did not hesitate.'

Ethan could remain as stubborn as he wanted, but he began to see the reason behind everything. Having a deity as one half of your ancestry, a member of the immortal beings who control the forces of the universe, you wouldn't exactly expect an attentive parent, much less a loving one.

'Life is not supposed to be a pleasant journey, Ethan Nakamura, and my duty is to ensure just that. I struck those undeserved with my whip, I am feared more than I am worshipped, but for you, my only child, I give you a prospect to have your tilted scale balanced.'

Her left hand glowed for a moment, and when she opened her palm towards Ethan, a compass appeared.

'Life is all about balance, my child. Find yours,' she said. 'Go.'

Ethan woke up with a compass clutched in his bony hands. The needle turned around for a few times before pointing to a fixed direction, and with that, he knew where he had to go. With an empty stomach and a burlap sack filled with his meagre possessions, he sneaked out of his master's home and ran into the unknown.

xxx

It had been days since Luke Castellan last saw the strange ship cruising across the Bay. He wouldn't be the least surprised if they had already set off towards the open sea, to the horizon beyond. Human vessels rarely sail here, they were constantly on the go after all, and rarer it was to see even the smallest of boats afloat during the night.

Yet the ship was there, moving forward in adequate speed. Luke could recognise the silhouette of the ship from down under, the familiar wooden hull littered with barnacles. He wondered about its occupants above, and though he knew the risk of being caught, curiosity won over.

He slowly swam upwards, hands gripping his ornate spear and surfaced into the chilly night air. The deck of the ship was lowly illuminated by a number of lanterns, eerily vacant except for a few crew members silently moving about as they man the ship. Luke swam around the body of the massive vessel, his tail swishing lazily until he saw a familiar sight that made him stop.

It was the human captain, strangely still as he leaned against the railing of the ship, face in a sullen expression as he observed something in his hand. From Luke's vantage point, he could have guessed that it could a small compass. He swam closer, aware of the risks if he was ever seen.

It was oddly fascinating, this one pirate captain. For instance, it was how he looked a little too young to have such a position at his disposal. Yet an eye-patch covered his left eye, and his ears were pierced with studs of matching earrings. Though his skin, too light to be considered a native from around here, was unmarred and… young. Usually humans of his age would be apprentices of trading ships or servants of the royal army, but Luke wouldn't have bet even a few drachmas on how this odd boy became a leader of sea robbers.

It was oddly fascinating too, for Luke to be charmed by such a human. He remembered vaguely of the first time he encountered the boy, who was struggling to release a seal from a fisherman's net he must have found on a boat. It was a simple move, saving a small animal from being notoriously caught for its rare meat. But it was a move done with a big heart.

The seal was unfairly young, so its tender meat would be a prized catch. Life at sea was a constant process of injustice, and fishermen were amongst its many perpetrators. They wouldn't care whether the seal was young or not, when in fact it was unlawful even for the merpeople to hunt for baby animals. Yet that human captain did the complete opposite, and Luke had a newfound respect for the young man.

He could only watch him from afar, but Luke was contented as long as he could follow the frigate to wherever it goes. He was a nomad after all, a soul free from any social attachment. It might sound a bit lonely, but an outcast like Luke would be treated the same anywhere; that strange merman with a crippled fin and a scar across his face.

Luke swam closer, snapping out of his reverie as a voice shouted from the ship. It was possibly another crew giving orders about. The captain was standing as still as a statue, and worryingly so. His gaze was zeroed onto the compass in his hand, eyebrows furrowed into concentration. Sometimes Luke could see how his eye would flit to the side, occasionally gazing to the sea and the horizon. Sometimes he would glance over his shoulder, probably checking how his crew is faring.

One time, he paused looking at the compass before turning his head towards Luke.

Luke dove quickly under, heart beating fast, praying that the dark waters would conceal him. He swam deeper, hoping that the human captain saw nothing but another creature of the sea. After a few moments of swimming a few metres from his previous position, Luke dared himself to surface again.

The captain was still staring at the spot where Luke had carelessly revealed himself. He was still rooted on the spot until another crew, a girl with brown braided hair approached him, hands moving in an anxious gesture. The captain started, his posture straightened in alarm before running to follow her, disappearing into the deck of the ship.

Luke finally knew what was happening when the first sound of cannon teared through the night.

xxx

Ethan had sensed that something felt off when they sailed passed the same coral reef for the third time. The compass in his hand was a bit off putting too; the needle kept rotating without a fixed direction. The crew was bustling about the frigate, manning the sails as the wind picked up in several notches. While it certainly helped in perfect timing with their schedule, it was a bit too odd for a supposedly cloudless night.

There were no signs of a storm but the wind was almost as if it was brewing one.

Eye flitting over the waves, Ethan couldn't help but feel restless. His position as the captain however, compelled him to stay calm and collected. He needed to be a source of high spirits for the crew, and it wouldn't help to agitate them more. He wondered if it was a good decision to sail through the Bay instead of the set route the map had provided for them. The original route would have brought them to a sea supposedly riddled with sea monsters, if the illustrations of the maps explained any better. Compared to that, this Bay provided a safer shortcut to their destination. Worse comes to worst, they would reach it by tomorrow's sunset.

This was it, though. A closure for the years of his journey across the seven seas.

He looked down to the compass in his hand, and for a tad moment, it stopped spinning. Alarmed, Ethan followed the direction of the needle.

And much to his surprise, he saw… a person.

Or was it? He blinked, and the silhouette was gone. His heart beat a tad faster. It could be the waves playing with his limited vision. While it was strange enough to sail through these waters, it was stranger to see shadows amidst the waves. His mind carried off away to the thoughts of sirens and sea-witches, and he shuddered at the thought. He encountered them once and it hadn't been a pleasant experience.

'Captain.' It was Piper McLean, his boatswain, and Ethan turned around to see her uneasy look. Her palm was enclosed tight around her dagger. 'They caught up with us.'

'What?'

'Leo was keeping a lookout up in the crow's nest. Don't you think it's strange to pass the same reef over and over again? Captain,' she took a deep breath. 'The legion is here.'

They were moving in circles for hours, Ethan realised. That was ample time for the legion to catch up. Ethan cursed and followed Piper across the deck.

As if on cue, a brigantine came into view, its sails bearing the royal colours of purple and gold. Ethan's sailing master, Percy Jackson, was rooted to the port side of the frigate, hands tight on the railing. He was one of the many children of gods aboard the ship, and the sea was his father's domain. However, Ethan could see how white his knuckles were from gripping the railing. It was not a good sign.

'It's not working,' Percy let out a shuddered breath. Ethan could see how it did not. Usually Percy would drive the enemies away with waves of seawater obstructing their approach, but right then the sea seemed difficult to be tamed. There was only splashes of water, and that was just about it. Ethan could tell that Percy couldn't harness his abilities much further.

There was only one way. 'Then, we fight.'

A cannon blew up and the frigate creaked and trembled.

'Cap'n, I got this!' Percy shouted. He seemed to be regaining his control as a wave started to build up towards the enemy ship. It was a hopeful move, if not for the burst of lightning obliterating the tower of water and striking the deck. Hooked chains from the brigantine attached themselves onto the railing of the frigate, and the legion began their descent on board the smaller ship.

The lightning died down to reveal a young man with a golden armour and a gladius, electricity crackling from its tip. Ethan's lips pulled down in a scowl. Another girl with similar apparel landed beside him, purple cape fluttering and her hand gripping a sword made of Imperial gold.

'Welcome on board my humble boat, praetors. Considering your grandeur entrance, I wouldn't expect just a friendly visit, would I?' Taunting has been in Ethan's arsenal for the longest time.

'Halt in the name of the senate, son of Invidia. Your crime of piracy ends here.' The man ran a hand over his golden hair, his icy blue eyes trained upon Ethan. The girl spoke up, her fierceness not quite reflected in her calm demeanour. 'Surrender and return the stolen artefact back to our city. If you show cooperation, the senate will consider mitigating your punishments.'

As if. They must have been very desperate, resorting to even risk sailing when they have always neglected their prayers to the sea gods. Percy must have been fuming by now.

Ethan felt the eager atmosphere of his crew, their bloodlust radiated in heated waves from behind him. A few guns cocked. Blades were withdrawn, waiting for their captain's instruction. Ethan withdrew his own Celestial bronze sword, stance still relaxed, face trained to mirror the notorious pirate that he was known as. The son of Nemesis he was feared as.

'Dogs yipping at my feet are nothing new to me. I refuse.'

Percy brought in another wave towards the legion, and the battle began.

xxx

Luke could only watch from afar when the two ships collided. These humans were intriguingly foolish, to even dare initiating a fight in the middle of the Bay. He couldn't even bother counting how many rules the humans had broken on these waters. So he waited in silence, lightly anticipating what would blow over and stop the mess.

It took a few minutes. One moment, there were lightning and giant waves enveloping the battling ships, the next was of both ships crashing on the coral reef. Even with all the tragedies Luke had seen or heard as an aftermath of violating the rules of the ocean, this was by far one of the worst. Without wasting another breath, Luke swam over as fast as he could.

The damage on both ships was severe, but not enough to actually sink them. A few bodies were overthrown off board, as the shouts and lightning and waves died down from above. Luke avoided a few chunks of wood falling from the ship, swimming as fast as he could past the lifeless bodies floating all around him. Some bore the symbol of a great empire Luke had only heard about, but he couldn't care less. There was none he could recognise, anyway.

Boats were lowered to the sea for emergency transportation, both pirates and legion alike. Both sides must have withdrawn themselves from the battle to tend for their own safety and the conditions of their respective ships. Luke submerged himself low enough for only his eyes to observe the occurrences all around him. He could see the legion on massive boats with giant oars paddling farther away to inspect the damage. The pirates were much or less the same on their smaller boats, except for one obvious difference.

Their captain was not with them.

Luke's stomach felt heavy. He could see the panicking crews disoriented without their captain, necks stretched and faces weighted down by worry to see if their captain had survived the ordeal at all. Luke dove down under, his mood a bit affected. He kind of liked the captain, even when he usually couldn't give a walrus' crap over what happens to humans.

There was a sudden explosion on board the pirate ship.

The sound was loud enough to alarm Luke to a halt. He immediately surfaced and saw that the deck was smouldered with smoke, probably fire. There was a huge splash nearby, and Luke saw another body floating a few metres away, its attire terrifyingly familiar.

The humans' boats were not nearby either; they were on the other side of the wreckage after all. Cautious, Luke propelled himself slowly with the help of his powerful tail before swimming a good few metres to a halt. The body did not seem to move, the face obscured by teared up clothing. Luke approached him slowly before carefully lifting over the obnoxious amount of fabric, which swirled around the half-submerged body in the water.

It really was the captain. He was breathing, thank the gods. Luke could see how his pale lips fluttered as they took in weak breaths. He supported the boy with his free arm, noticing how easy it was to manhandle the human body in the water, before swimming away to find land.

The sun was about to rise, Luke noted as the horizon burst into golden light. He had managed to swim to an island that had been his unlikely home, the pirate firmly in tow. The boy hadn't regained any consciousness since Luke saved him, and the fact that his skin was worryingly cold gave the clear warning to Luke that they needed to get on shore.

It was a chore, dragging the heavy mass of body onto land and away from the waves lapping at the sand. In fact, it was so much harder than carrying the body through the water that Luke was panting and sweating by the time he managed to drag the boy, and his own heavy tail, to a considerable distance away from seawater. Mind you, he couldn't remember the last time he sweat, having years living underwater. When he was settled, he slumped over face first onto the ground next to the boy, mindful not to get sand into his eyes. Resting his cheek on the ground Luke faced the boy, taking the time to study the features of his face.

The boy, strangely yet obviously, was not anywhere from around here. At least not from the countries lining along the shores of this part of the ocean. His skin was pale, black hair plastered in contrast against his delicate forehead. For a pirate captain, supposedly to be as far notorious as being targeted by governments, he looked exceptionally youthful and… fragile. Luke could imagine his enemies' disbelief when they find out how a captain of an infamous pirate crew would be this young.

He was by far one of the few humans Luke took notice about, so gods help him that this boy looked a bit too attractive for even his own liking. Despite the strap of eye-patch covering his left eyes and those supposedly unfriendly-looking earrings, there was nothing intimidating about him. Probably because he was still unconscious, but Luke wouldn't take any blame if he was entranced by the person beside him.

Pink lips fluttered feebly as the boy gave out shallow breaths, his chest a slow motion of rise and fall. Luke carefully traced over the coarse lining of the boy's eye-patch with his index finger, before his eyes trailed down his slim figure, damp clothes sticking to his skin. Only then did he noticed that the boy was holding something firmly in his clutched palm, a silver piece of sorts. He sat up and leaned over, curiosity burning through his fingers as they carefully touched the boy's tightly wound ones.

There was a gasp and with a violent jerk, the boy was awake.

Pirates were very protective of their treasures, Luke observed. They probably guard them with their instincts, he mused in silence. The effect was immediate after all. Luke could not so much as pry even a single finger off the gold when the boy woke up in alarming speed, clutching the item close to his chest. He coughed out seawater for half a minute, drawing ragged breaths as his single eye flitted wildly at the surroundings.

Luke touched his forearm carefully, and the boy was able to focus on his eyes, looking understandably troubled. From up close, his single eye was prettily shaped like an almond, hazelnut iris encircling a widened pupil. Luke thought he might have seen golden flecks in them. Leaning closer, he shushed the boy with care, their foreheads almost touching in a move he could only hope as a gesture of comfort.

'W – Who are you?' The boy's voice was hoarse. The human throat was probably not built for seawater.

'Shush, you're safe now. Do you need anything?' Luke said in a voice he could hope to be reassuring.

'I – I need…' the boy's voice trailed off as his eye moved around again before settling onto the shape of Luke's tail. Silence befell upon them. Luke could see how painful it was for the boy to speak, stumbling through his words with his eye so wide his eyeball was about to pop out of his socket. Trying to start over, Luke softly touched his forearm again when the boy squealed, paddling backwards a few feet away from him.

The merman sighed, tilting his head to the side. They needed a lot of work.

Disclaimer: All rights reserved of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus series belongs rightfully to Rick Riordan. The rest of the plot and any significant else are all specifically mine.