For kingawesome, prize for correctly guessing the identities of the amnesiac servants in Realm of Sloth.

Nothing is mine.


It's not quite romance, the thing they have.

He often sacrifices large chunks of food to her, and her alone, a wistful smile on his face for no particular reason while staring at the flames she tends.

She gives him her blessing, tiny insubstantial things that make even a small fire on a dangerous quest more comforting to him, more homelike and cheerfully warming. Heartening.

Granted, he didn't walk up to her and pay his respects on his first day of camp, and she isn't the most beautiful goddess (not even close, with the ones he's seen) but they have their reasons for that attraction, because he's got a wonderful, kind, warm heart, and she's just wonderful, kind and warm as much as she can, and who says opposites have to attract?

~Didn't you know? People prefer those that are similar to them, yearning for the comfortable familiar~

Percy's had love at home from his mother. She feels like that, the same comforting aura always present on her, and naturally, the hero seeks after something that he recognizes, that he's seen for such a long time.

He still loves Annabeth; for the daughter of Athena, he would put his life down, no question, but the goddess of the hearth is like a celebrity crush, a star you fondly stare at in a calm night, but can never quite get.

(But it's okay because the hearth glows just a bit more welcoming when he's near and he knows, he knows that it's not quite romance but its okay.)