It was a strange friendship, but it worked.
They are both beaten, raw from pain and weathered from betrayal. A demigod and a Titan—who would have ever thought? But they heal each other, piece by jagged piece.
Percy tells the Titan Lord about what life in the mortal life was like, and in return Kronos keeps him safe from the pits of Tartarus. It is a strange friendship. It works.
Percy is not bitter, like The Lord of time. He is wistful, dreamy sometimes. When Kronos offers him revenge, he does not accept. But two hundred years with a person makes them grow on you.
Percy swears the Titan is bipolar. Sometimes, he will break into a fit of rage and Percy has learned to avoid him. But most times he is a companion—not quite a friend, but another being to keep him sane in the hellhole that was his home.
It is a strange friendship. The first time they meet Kronos tries to kill him, and the second time is not much different. By the third time, the Titan has learned that this hero, this boy he has come to despise and somehow admire, is no longer naive.
He hates to admit it, but he is curious. Percy is his source of information, the only one here in Tartarus. The demigod tells him about the life above, about the war with his mother. The boy tells him, and he feels alive.
It is a shame the gods have cast him aside.
When Percy asks him what he thinks, Kronos tells the truth. Despite their less than pleasant past, they now have a common past—a betrayal by the ones they trusted most. He tells the demigod about his golden age, about Zeus's trick that led to his downfall.
Percy is the first demigod to believe him in a long, long time.
The monsters come and Kronos finds they might just hate Perseus more than they hate him. It is strange—he was once their commander, the one they looked up to more than anything else in the world. But then they fell under the siege of demigods, and they cast him aside.
The boy is braver than he was in the Battle for Manhattan. Then, he was still young and naïve, forced into the role of leader by society. Now, all the Titan sees is a man who has seen too much for his own good, too much to be sane.
He fights like a whirlwind, a fitting name for his parenthood. As he fights he talks, and Kronos finds himself stopping every few minutes to just listen. The information of the above is luring, and he doesn't want to admit he misses the mortal world. As annoying as it was, with Luke and his consciousness fighting for control, it was something.
In Tartarus, there is nothing.
Percy tries to find it in his heart to sympathize, and is almost guilty to find it is not hard. Kronos tells how power hungry Zeus was, how he tricked the Titan King into swallowing his own children. He tells how Zeus was then, and Percy finds that the King of the Gods has not changed one bit.
In exchange, the Son of Poseidon gives all the little details about the Giant War. The scowl on Kronos's face is enough to make Percy edge away, but when he does the Titan waves him closer. Percy is not sure what to think.
It's not like it's any worse if I die, He thinks at last, and he does.
In the back of his mind, he knows that if Ouranos and Gaea were to rule the world, the earth would be completely destroyed. At least, if Kronos ruled, there would still be an Earth.
He is somewhat shocked at his line of thinking. As a demigod, he would be sent to a mental Asylum if he says that the Titans are not the worst beings. But the gods have always been restricting. He is used to it, though he should not be. The rules of free speech do not apply to demigods.
Tartarus is exactly how he remembers, from the river of Fire to the steep cliffs he and Annabeth once climbed over. He never gets far into his thoughts before tears prick his eyes.
Then Fury takes over the sadness, and even Kronos edges away.
It is almost like a trance when he wakes, blinking the red haze from his vision and taking his first look around. There is always the moment of stunned silence as he takes in the damage, and then the wry smile as he accepts that he will never fully heal.
"The gods have done nothing for you," Kronos says in the voice he once feared. Now, he is used to it. It is the only thing keeping him sane. "Don't you see?"
He cannot help but agree.
When Annabeth died, the gods did nothing but watch, and then coolly, gently, pried him from her cold dead body. Even in death she was beautiful like an angel. Then the next battle came and with stunning speed she was forgotten.
He should've taken it as a warning, because three months later so was he. The gods had always been suspicious, but he should've know. Should've guessed, but when it came he was too late. Before he knew it, he was plummeting into Tartarus with only a blessing from a handful of gods.
They called him crazy, broadcasted to the campers he had 'gone on a rampage,' but for what reason even he didn't know. He should've remembered that things prayed for in the upper world would show up in the deepest abyss.
For years he lives alone, fighting for his life and basking in wistful memories. One day Thalia sends him a note hastily scrawled on a napkin, and he sends one back.
They exchange notes like this only for a handful of days before the gods find out.
He doesn't tell her about Kronos, about the Titan sitting behind his shoulder while he scrawls out messages in Ancient Greek. Perhaps it is for the best. He does not wish Tartarus upon his worst enemy. It is a literal Hellhole, a cold damp place that sucks dry your soul and spirit until you are nothing but an empty shell.
Then he finds her.
It is like magic, taking a walk one day and finding her stumbling through the fog. Her silver clothes are in tatters and her hair tangled and matted. Zoe Nightshade follows him with surprising obedience, and for once he sees how much Tartarus can change a person.
To say that Kronos is unhappy to see her would be a dreadful understatement. His first words are—"What in the name of Gaea is that girl doing here!" his second words are—"Oh, her. The Daughter of Atlas."Then he tries to kill her.
Joy.
Of course, Zoe doesn't like him much after that.
"Why are thee…with him?" She asks him when they take a walk together, leaving Kronos to his own thoughts. "Do thou not remember what he did?" She eyes him warily. Those volcanic eyes glitter with something like confusion.
Percy shakes his head. For once he has nothing to say. "I don't know," he replies finally. "Maybe because we finally have something in common." He doesn't ask what she is doing down here, and she never asks him. They are comfortable this way.
If he says the words out loud the Titan will chop him into pieces, but Percy can see him warming up to Zoe. The way he no longer calls her a traitor, the way he turns his back and stops cutting into their conversations brusquely. It isn't like they don't know he is eavesdropping, but it is still more comfortable without his two cents.
Finally one of them cracks. "What did thee do?" Zoe inquires one late morning—or is it afternoon? Time is jumbled. "For thou to be left here?" She gestures distastefully to their surroundings, and he can't help but notice that she has lost that regal air.
He shakes his head. "I don't know," He says honestly. It is the truth. All he remembers are the words—'Perseus Jackson, you are a threat.' Then the gods were crowding around him, some wishing their sincere apologies and others cursing him for eternity.
None of it mattered.
He was going to be gone anyway.
"You?" It's out of desperation, fumbling for things to say, but her back stiffens. Volcanic eyes flash dangerously and he draws backward. "You don't have to tell." He of all people knows that it is harder to tell than to do anything else. But Zoe shakes her head.
"My Lady came through," She says. One hand still rests on the bow on her back, which is bent and misshapen but still treasured as a memory. "But Zeus didn't." She gives him a wry smile, one full of bitterness that he sees reflected in her pupils. He knows he looks the same when he returns it, because for once their true feelings are showing through.
"Guess I should never have trusted, no?" And In those seven words, she sums up his life.
Kronos laughs when he tells him, a cruel sound laced with genuine humor. It makes Percy wistful, wistful of the days when he believed the Titan Lord was nothing but pure evil and the gods pure good. But now he saw that maybe, they were a mix of both.
Some of them just had more of one and less of another.
He would say Kronos had more evil, but now he isn't very sure. It gives him a headache, and he sets it aside for 'things to think about later.'
Twenty years later, the gods offer him a way out. As he is dragged to the surface, he remembers Zoe's sad smile, the way her eyes sparkle with tears. He remembers Kronos and his cruel smile, which has become familiar over the years.
"Do you not bow down to the gods?" Zeus is arrogant as ever, those blue eyes flashing with anger. Percy's father stands by his side, looking uneasy. He pulls his son into a hug.
"Brother—"
"You do not deserve my respect," Percy interrupts. As the words fly from his lips he realizes that he no longer cares whether Zeus could blast him to bits.
"Watch your toungue, demigod," Zeus spits. "I can—"
"Send me back to Tartarus?" He gives his father one an apologetic smile, the last one he will ever give him. "Don't worry, Zeus. I would rather go back than be here with you." And he knows that it is true, because he cannot live in a world where the gods control everything and anything.
Poseidon lunges forward, but Percy is already falling, welcoming the pit with open arms. The last thing he hears before darkness swallows him is his father's furious shout—"How dare you! He was my son!"
For in Tartarus, there is no one to save you but yourself.
Part of him will be forever bound. For him there is no going back From the Deepest Abyss.
A/N: I don't own PJO. This just kind of came to my mind in a mix match of ideas. If you don't understand, you can leave a review or PM and I will explain. I felt like every evil villain has a reason behind his thoughts, and Kronos is one villain that has never (Almost never) been truly 'developed.' So I decided to do it...oh well.
Tell me what you thought?
~Johanna