AN
I don't own Percy Jackson.
Hephaestus looked up from the automata he was working on when his surveillance system beeped. The two screens that were showing the door of the council chamber focused on it, or rather, focused on the very familiar head that was peeking through it. Smirking lopsidedly, Hephaestus checked that the cameras were recording, then turned his viewing screen off and returned to his machine.
Athena gazed around herself in barely disguised shock, "What happened here?"
Hephaestus stumped into the council room, trailing behind the other gods, "I can show you."
The gods turned to him, a few seemed excited while others were just confused, "You know who has meddled with the council chamber?" Zeus thundered.
"Not at the present time, no." Hephaestus replied calmly, "But this does." He pulled out a projector, complete with a downloaded recording of the events of the past night. Tossing it into the air, Hephaestus grinned as his creation sprouted helicopter wings and flew to the ceiling, attaching itself in a nook specially designed for it.
The small white box twisted open, a black hemisphere popping out and scanning the room. A few seconds later, the lenses lit up and a hologram was projected across the council chamber, covering the gods, trappings, and even the sunshine with the illusion of an empty, moon-dappled version.
"What are we even look-" Aphrodite started, but was cut off by Athena and Artemis shushing her as the door in the illusion opened.
A black-haired head poked through the door and scanned the room, "All clear, come on in." Percy Jackson, as the person was revealed to be, pushed the doors open the rest and led the way into the council chamber, followed by the seven and friends. "All right; Annabeth, Piper, and Hazel can you get started on setting up the rune-" he stopped and stared at where the projector was as the three girls gathered at the center of the room, "… Annabeth, are you sure the cameras are disabled?"
Annabeth smirked, following his gaze then returning to drawing runes on the floor, "Yes, the cameras are disabled. Leo and I made sure." She looked straight at Hephaestus' chair, seeming to look him in the eye, then deliberately winked, making it clear to all that she most certainly knew that the cameras were fully functioning.
"All right, the rune array is set up. Juniper, if you would?"
The nymph stepped into the circle of chalk that the three girls had traced on the floor, "I'm ready."
Annabeth chalked the last rune and the circle lit up, flashing Juniper away and revealing a huge pine tree in her place,
"Yes! It worked!" Percy shouted in excitement.
Annabeth rolled her eyes, "Okay. Frank?"
Frank shifted into a dragon, filling half of the chamber, and picked up the tree, nudging Hestia's brazier to the side and shoving a tree stand – one clearly made by a Hephaestus kid – into the center of the room to prop up the huge tree.
"Whoa, careful!" Hazel shouted, "That's Hestia's artifact."
Frank shot her a guilty look and carefully picked up the brazier and set it next to Hestia's rarely-used throne.
Ares snorted, "Can't even be an intimidating dragon."
He yelped when Hestia smacked him on the back of the head, "Don't mock someone for showing proper respect."
They turned back to the tree as the stand emitted a whirring noise and extended up along the trunk, sending bronze tendrils to wrap around and secure the tree. Some tendrils folded down, sticking out like arrows.
"What are those for?" Artemis wondered aloud, blushing slightly when she was unconsciously echoed in the past by her lieutenant.
Piper smirked at Thalia, then grabbed a spool of lights and ran up the tendrils like stairs, "Some people don't climb trees for a living." She retorted as she started stringing lights around the top of the tree.
Jason followed her, hovering behind her and decking the tree with tinsel in the wake of the lights.
Soon the tree, walls, windows, and even thrones were full of demigods: stringing lights and tinsel, draping necklaces of precious gems, wheat, pearls, and other material on the branches, hanging ornaments both godly and mortal, applying candles that wouldn't melt or catch anything on fire, and dusting the needles with glitter.
"Break out the special box!" Leo shouted, then started chanting, "Special box! Special box! Special box!" he was joined by Piper, Hazel, Calypso, Percy, Thalia, and, grudgingly, Jason, Frank, and Nico.
"Okay, okay!" Annabeth shouted, "But only if you shut up!"
The teens all scrambled into the tree, then the room fell silent as Athena's daughter pulled the last bag of ornaments out of the box. She reached in. everybody held their breath. She yanked her hand out and shoved it into the air, "Artemis!"
The room erupted into cheers.
"Pay up," Percy smirked, waggling his fingers in a 'gimme' gesture.
One by one, all the demigods groaned in realization and flipped a golden drachma into his hand.
Annabeth rolled her eyes, "You bet on the Special Box ornament?"
There was a chorus of 'yep's and Leo added sadly, "I was totally Feeling Hades this year."
This time everyone – even the gods – rolled their eyes.
"Hey, guys," Percy asked, suddenly excited. He waited for their reply, then asked, "What if, since you know, this is a special Christmas tree, we put all the special ornaments on it?"
The demigods traded looks then Leo started chanting 'Do It!' and it was decided.
"Okay, Thalia catch!" Annabeth tossed the ornament in her hand to the Huntress, who lunged half out of the tree to catch it.
Thalia glared at her, then inspected the ornament in her hand. "Whoa." She whispered.
"What?" Jason asked.
In reply, Thalia held the ornament up for all to see. It was elegant wrought silver in the shape of a crescent moon with a howling wolf's head silhouette on the other side. Despite the fact that the entire thing was made of silver, you could almost imagine that the wolf was alive, and was stopping to howl to his goddess before joining his pack on the hunt.
There were gasps all around, in the past and the present, and Artemis whispered, "It's beautiful."
The gods were shaken out of their awe by the demigods of the past,
"It represents her perfectly." Annabeth marveled, "Elegantly beautiful yet ferociously deadly at the same time."
Percy nodded sagely, "Silver silk over steel."
The rest of the demigods and gods stared at him.
"What, I can be wise!" he protested. The rest erupted into laughter at his defensiveness.
"Anyway," Annabeth sighed, "We still have twelve more ornaments." She reached into the bag and pulled another out, "Nico!" she called tossing it to him.
Nico caught the bauble easily: inspecting it before hanging it on the tree. It was carved of obsidian and black opal in a swirling design that reminded everyone of shadow travel. In the center of the swirling shadows was a single flower carved of flawless sapphire. Hades smiled appreciatively at the depiction of the underworld and the calm around Persephone.
"Poseidon, Apollo, Hera!" Annabeth called in quick succession, tossing an ornament to Percy, Will Solace, and Jason respectively.
Percy went first, hanging a gorgeous black pegasus surrounded by delicate glass waves, then Will hung a golden sun with a lyre silhouette cut from the center, and finally Jason clipped a twisting marble peacock feather to a branch near him.
Piper lunged after the silk dove and roses thrown to her after Annabeth called 'Aphrodite.' She snatched it out of the air and was about to pin it to the tree, but suddenly stopped, "Is this enchanted?" she asked suspiciously, handing it to hazel to check.
Hazel held it as far from herself as possible and performed a diagnostic spell, "Yep, it's charmed with – you guessed it – a love spell."
Annabeth frowned, "For who?"
Hazel waved her hand again, "Looks like the spell was set by Drew to activate when it comes in contact with… Jason. I removed it, but Drew still thinks its there."
Piper rolled her eyes and clipped the dove back on the branch, "That girl is getting desperate."
"Okay, we've got… Ares, Hephaestus, and Athena." Annabeth pulled three more ornaments out of the bag and tossed them to the demigods, leaping confidently up the tree herself to hang a wire owl holding an olive branch as Frank dangled a bronze boar head from a branch and Leo activated what appeared to be a solid block of bronze, but with a whir of machinery was revealed to be a wind-up mini anvil complete with automated tiny hammer and bent 'sword.'
"Bets, Bets?" Leo called, "I'll put five drachmas on the next one pulled being an unclaimed ornament!"
"Make it ten!" Hazel decided, and they shook on it.
Annabeth rolled her eyes and rummaged in the bag, "Hecate!"
"Hah!" Leo crowed, turning to Hazel.
She just smirked and caught the shifting torch Annabeth tossed her, "I claimed Hecate."
"…The Hades would you do that?" Leo demanded when he got his voice back.
"She's my patron." Hazel replied calmly as she dangled the ornament from the branch, "And her ornament is my favorite." Everyone looked closer at the torch and realized that the 'fire' was actually orange mist that was changing shape. Turning to everything from a dragon to a hippocampus.
While they were distracted, Annabeth pulled another ornament from the bag. She sighed when she saw the two mechanical snakes twining around it, "All right everyone." The demigods turned to her, "Who wants to do Hermes?" a few beats of silence then Percy pointed at her. Annabeth sighed, "All right, I'll do it." she scrambled up the tree and hung the 'cardboard' box, scepter, and mechanical snakes on a branch.
"Okay, Demeter?" Hazel volunteered and clipped a golden sheaf of wheat to the branch next to her.
'Hmmm,' Demeter thought, 'Maybe all death spawn aren't that bad.'
"Finally, Hestia?" Annabeth asked the tree (or rather the eleven teens sitting in it).
Percy almost fell out of the tree shooting his hand into the air and shouting, "Me, me!" he snatched the flying ornament out of the air and clipped the mini-brazier to a thick branch.
Annabeth reached into the bag again, then yelped and snatched her hand out, she turned back to the tree sourly, "Who wants to do Zeus?"
Silence. Silence. More silence.
"Fine, I'll do it."
Annabeth raised her eyebrow but tossed Calypso the bag.
She reached out to grab it but dropped it when Hazel shrieked, "Don't!"
"What was that!" Annabeth snapped at her, trying to recover from her mini-heart attack.
"Sory," Hazel winced, "but the ornament is enchanted to do something when a divine being touches it, but I didn't know if calypso counted, cause, you know, she's the daughter of a titan."
There was a chorus of 'ohhh's from the demigods and gods.
"So what does it do?" Jason asked.
Hazel jumped elegantly from the tree and cautiously approached the bag, waving her hand over it. Sighing, she relaxed as the results of her scan came up, "It just plays a recording."
Everyone sighed in relief, then Annabeth snatched the electrified eagle statue out of the bag and tossed it to Calypso again. Calypso caught it by reflex, then realized that she set off the enchantment.
The voices of the Stoll twins emitted from the sparking eagle:
"~Jingle bells, Ares smells
Athena laid an egg!
The sunmobile, lost a wheel
And Hermes got away!
HEY!~"
Percy, Leo, Apollo, and Hermes burst out laughing and most of the rest joined, with Ares raging and Athena glaring instead.
Finally containing her giggles, Hazel removed the enchantment and the eagle stopped singing and Calypso hooked it onto a branch near her.
"Okay, everybody down." Annabeth called. She waited till everyone was on the ground, then deactivated the steps.
"Wait." Thalia said, "Isn't there supposed to be something on top of the tree?"
Annabeth faked shock, "Oops, I must have forgotten. Why don't you put it up?" she held a projector out to Thalia, waited for her to take it, then added, "Without climbing the tree."
"Wait, pause," Hermes said, making a 'T' with his hands, and nodding at Hephaestus in thanks, "How and why?"
Athena offered, "Thalia is a daughter of Zeus, so she should be able to fly, the challenge doesn't make sense though."
"Thalia is afraid of heights." Artemis answered slowly, "She has only recently learned to harness her power over wind to fly."
The other gods nodded and Hephaestus un-paused the hologram.
Thalia shot Annabeth a look then took a deep breath. Gathering power around her, she lifted off the ground and hovered up to the top of the tree. She carefully attached the projector to the string of lights and settled it on the peak of the trunk. Then she looked down.
At seeing her feet two dozen feet above the ground with no support, her confidence faded and she plummeted into the evergreen below her, somehow coming out at the bottom without breaking anything – even the ornaments and lights – and mostly unharmed, "I think I swallowed some pine needles."
"Cannibalism!" Leo shouted, then promptly dodged a silver dagger.
"Okay, time to go," Annabeth called, "Early risers should be up soon."
The teens grumbled but filed out. Annabeth pulled one final bag from the pile and set a gift or two on each deity's side table. Then she gathered up all the bags, stuffing them into the largest, and wiped away the chalk runes and lit up the lights.
Annabeth surveyed their work, then sighed and whispered to herself, loud in the silence of the night, "I hope something we did tonight will make an impression, even just a small one. A Pantheon divided against itself cannot stand." Then finally following the other teens, she softly closed the door, leaving Christmas in her wake.
Hephaestus turned the projector off and called it back to him, stowing it in his apron.
Silence reigned in the festive hall. The gods all pondering Annabeth's parting words.
Ares was the one to break the silence, "Presents!"
Artemis rolled her eyes but restrained from commenting on the male's behavior.
Hestia smiled around the room at the end of the day, 'Maybe so, who knows?' Who did know? All she knew was that the demigods had agreed to try, and not a single argument had broken out that day, the first time in over a century they had all been in the same room for more than twenty minutes without arguing.
Only the fates could say in the end, but now Hestia had a hearth and a happy family gathered around a pine tree covered in specialized ornaments and topped with a huntress constellation, and that was enough, for now.
So, what do you think? This came to me randomly when I was reading a Christmas fanfic and I sat down and wrote the whole thing in two hours. I was going to include presents, but I felt it didn't flow right.
R&R please! (especially R!) flames will be used to toast marshmallows and start bonfires.
Signing out with another fanfic:
Life before Death!
- Kitten148