title: toy soldiers
characters: calypso, percy jackson
summary: i should've known i would fall in love with you from the start. (at least then i would've had a chance to run away.)
a/n: i'm really sorry, ray; i don't really know how to do villains, and i tried to incorporate the prompts but it didn't work very well - hopefully you like this, c:
warning: spag errors. tons of them.
disclaimer: i don't own anything besides the story idea; the characters and everything else belong to Rick Riordan.
dedication: this is for ray (liliths) for fanfiction imagination's winter exchange
prompt: rock, paper, scissors; calypso; chocolate bunnies ; glass rainbows ; just as much right as you.
.
You who never arrived in my arms, beloved,
Who were lost from the start,
I don't even know what songs would please you
- Rilke
[1]
Like all destructive things, it ends with a war —
The War of the Titans, the mortals call it in myth - but this is not a myth, this is not a fairytale; this is a curse, a gruesome tragedy. Daughter of Atlas, they call her forward, the gods in their majestic pantheon, and Calypso thinks that it is not fair - her family, above all, is what she prides upon; the Olympians (for now) hold family above all (besides their issues of pride) and she is punished for doing so. It is not of significance to her whether her family is perceived to be malcontent forces as they are her family, and she will stand them until the end (this is the end), forever and always.
The words are whispered on her lips, echoing around the cavernous chambers and crevices of the cosmos, growing fainter as they fall into oblivion, as promises were meant to be broken, and family is nothing more than a bond of promises. I accept all punishment that I am granted, she murmurs the words slowly, and they rush out in a clump in the end - they are rehearsed, because these are the Olympians, who can and will reduce evil (but there is no good and there is no evil in a world like this - there was good and evil on both sides of the war, and history is only told by the victors; she is just as much right as they are) into a pile of withering ashes with superior weaponry and skill and cunning. My actions were all my own, I accept all punishment.
They stare down at her from their thrones, and she refrains from standing up, because the situation is quite ridiculous in her frank opinion, but the Olympians do not want to hear her frank opinion - people tell them what they want to hear, or are obliterated, because even the bittersweet truth is too much for the omnipotent Gods. It will always be. You will be banished to an island, where you are to spend the remainder of your immortal lifetime upon - your time begins now.
She nods her head in a pretense of meek compliance, because pretending is all Calypso is reduced to, but she is not a compliant servant - she is the daughter of Atlas, revenge is in her blood, and this is not the end. Yet mark my words, she murmurs, Olympus will fall. It's an vicious cycle of conquer, downfall of pride, destruction, conquer, downfall of pride, destruction which continues on until the end of time, and as an immortal, forever is a very long time indeed.
Take her away, the God of Lightning with the affairs commands; there is a flicker of resentment and envy within his malachite green eyes, carved orbs, and hate something from the pits of Tartarus, and Calypso thinks that she has reached a weakness, and weaknesses are always valuable in terms of exploitation - in the far future, perhaps.
.
Ogygia is your home, she is told, but this is not - home is where your family is, where you have fallen into a lull of security; her family has been scattered across the cosmos, into the pits of fiery Tartarus to rocky French mountains, framed by glass rainbows, fragile and easily broken, easily put back together at the same time, where a staggering shadow of a giant with heavy weight on his shoulders can be seen. There is nothing on the horizon for as far as the eye can see - mountainous regions stretch horizontally in the far distance, stubby peaks which are covered with the blanket of snow and winter, and she longs to reach those mountains, to escape the perimeters of the barren island.
It is a phantom island, existing everywhere and nowhere - the shores are bars, and the trees hide her wails from the gods on Mount Olympus - they cannot bear to see a woman wailing, but it is not of importance because she is a villain, not a woman - and she composes herself after a few hours, brushing opal-shaped tears from her eyes, and pressing them upon the barren wasteland. Sand blossoms into flowers, invisible servants and shadows can be seen in the depths of night, reflected by the moonlight; there is a garden at the center of Ogygia, stubby, little plants, but it is life, barely holding on, nonetheless, and she teaches it how to grow. At night, Calypso fingers the stubby roots of moonlace, and watches the effervescent plant root itself into fertile soil along the coast of the ocean, brine and salt mixing in with its roots, leaves and twigs swirling around one another until a bud is opened, and it shines as a pure orb of light, something from outside of the prison, something of the galaxies beyond, and it brings her a little closer to what had been home.
At the depths of night, when winter blankets the shore and snow covers the garden, the days are bearable to pass by - she sits by the edge of the coastline, pushing the boundaries but not breaking them (she is the daughter of Atlas, revenge is in her blood, but she is not stupid - she will gain power, but this is not the time and the place to do so, but she will not forget what they have done), and dreams of paradise.
Ogygia is not paradise —
It is a beautiful world, that much she must acquiesce into believing; absinthe flowers line upon the shores, glowing into the harshness of the moonlight, and the ocean branches off into each tributary that run across the shore, veins bulging and pumping; she taps a pattern upon her hand and sings a melody, voice coarse and rough without the use of Charmspeak, and she thinks that an aeonian life would be more bearable with somebody along side.
The Gods hear her request, and grant a curse.
.
She taps her fingers in rhythmic patterns, acidic droplets falling from the sky, and Calypso clenches her fists and thinks that this is not right; she is the daughter of Atlas, and she is helpless — those two words do not belong together, they repel. Nevertheless, she seeks shelter under swaying branches of a willow tree until the everlasting storm has passed its time.
The acidious flowers are acervulined in bunches, knotting among the ripe balconies of the trees; an alabaster filament runs through her hands (it is sand, she remembers) and it is ephemeral like everything else here, and nothing but the immortality of her life is long-lasting. She walks across the shore, movements in an allegretto at first, then slow and lethargic, as one must when there is nothing to look forward to but isolation and it is not the gift one hoped it might be. The sun sets, a brilliance of amaranth and amber blending together, and she longs to reach her hand into the overwhelming darkness, to reach the orb of light before it rests once more, before the stars gallop in with arbitrary blackness and there is nothing left but the flicker of aeneous stars, on and off.
Night is the worst of times, she thinks, for night is when she lays upon the shore and dreams of paradise, an unattainable lifestyle that she had once lived, but never again, never again, and revenge seems a fruitless now, and she is tired of wicked games and treachery; she longs for peace, alleviation. At night, fraying memories of the War of the Titans resound in the back of her mind; the bloodshed is stored away in the crevices, but it seeps out through the cracks, infiltrating her brain until there is nothing left but the raw feeling of pain - she fingers the overpowering fragrant ambrosia (food of the Gods, she complies) and digs her teeth into their center and tries to forget.
It works as an anyxiolytic, and she drifts into a restless sleep - it is aphotic, and she feels lost underneath the brilliant display of stars in the night sky (don't you remember, you used to be up there, back in the golden days - but memories are all that's left), and the athanasy feels like a burden.
She hums an aria — high and low pitches, scratchy voice trained to be melodic — and wishes on a star (it's simply a childhood aspect of her life, an old habit that she is not ready to give up yet) and dreams of death and strife, but that is not what war is - war is patience and struggle and sacrifice, and Calypso had not grown up with toy soldiers. She had grown up with the best Titan fighting forces. She had learned how to die; she wishes to die. Dying would be more peaceful than this - but villains do not deserve a quick, peaceful death - so she sleeps, and pretends that she is dead.
[2]
The curse of the Gods is the worst of them all —
It is not the seclusion that brings a bittersweet pain, inhaling through corrupted lungs to reach a paper heart, that numbs her rainbow veins, but the heroes that pass by — some retain senses of humor, other stoic heroes, but she falls in love with all of them, because they are tragic in their own right, and their humanity is (dangerous) alluring. It is not as though the Gods pick arbitrary mortals to wash up upon the shores of Ogygia — the Gods are evil, in her own perspective; they handpick the bravest heroes, the ones they know she will end up falling for, and take them away when she's in love deepest. That is the wrath of the immortal beings who declare their good intentions - it is better to fear them than to love them, after all.
She makes the mistake of falling in love too quickly and too deep, and it ends all too soon.
.
The first one washes up on the shores of Ogygia in the midst of summer.
It is a balmy summer, and the smell of cinnamon permeates through the air, mixed with death and bloodshed (because everything smells like the nothingness of death if one smells deeply enough, just to stop and think for a while) and she is still not satiated with living in this paradise (prison). She is the daughter of Atlas, revenge is in her blood, and she will no be satiated until revenge is fulfilled upon the Olympians who have brought her race down — perhaps, it is not the time and the place to do so, but the burdens of immoralities do have their benefits - she could sit here, among the grasses and the flora and plot their destruction (or better yet, get them to destroy themselves, with issues of pride that the Gods often do bicker over) and forever is a very long time as an immortal.
She inhales the scent of roses and there is a crash of waves upon the sea in the distance, as if something is falling from the sky - quite literally, in fact; she stands up, allowing for the sand and grass and dirt to remain embedded upon her legs - she has not found a river to bathe in, and the depths of the ocean would seem to go on forever, and though she would greet death like an old friend, Calypso thinks that there are more honorable ways to die than through drowning, gasping for air as the god of the Waves and Earthquakes spirals you into the midst of a tsunami, until you are nothing left but skin and bones settling at the bottom of the ocean.
There is a mortal on the shore — she thinks that it is a mortal, but knows better. Mortals do not find Ogygia; nobody finds Ogygia besides the plaguing gods and prisoners of war, and more often than not, she likes the peaceful silence, being alone, with all of time (but not space) to travel around with just herself and a muddled, contorted mind whose priorities have needed to be sorted out countless times (revenge or peace, that is the question).
I will not fall into the trap, she tells herself, because everything is a trap in a world like this. I will not make mistakes. Except, there's an inkling of doubt in the pit of her mind (perhaps, he's not like the rest, perhaps he's one of the heroes), and Calypso curses herself for caring, because she is the daughter of Atlas, revenge is in her blood, and it does not seem that way anymore. She makes her way across the beach, and fingers the stray blonde hair that falls off his cheek, teeth biting upon worn lips in the wind, and the imprint of rope marks upon the backs of his teeth - he is a sailor, she presumes - and that is how it ends.
.
His name is Odysseus, son of Great Laertes, king of Ithaca.
He does not mention a family back home for a while, and he tells her of tales and the stories that he has been on - a life with a careless crew who had caused their own demise by not listening to their captain, tales of great wars and great sacrifice, of a son back home whom who barely talks about (family is always a painful subject between the both of them). She picks asphodels from openings and cracks in the ground, and shows Odysseus a garden — he calls it one of the Seven Wonders in the World, and looks around in amazement, and she thinks that this is what it's like to have a friend.
In return, she gives him shelter, and she provides companionship (for however long the Gods forget about their lost hero), and tells him of a war - of how, as the daughter of Atlas, she was cursed to remain on Ogygia for the remainder of her immortal days; he tells her that immortality sounds more like a gift than a curse, but she knows otherwise.
She presses a kiss to his lips one day, because he is tragic, and she is drawn to tragedies.
He presses back, unsure, always one step behind her, because he is mortal, and he is lonely.
.
He stays for seven years (seven wonderful years of heaven, except they are not really, because he spends most of them sitting upon a rock and crying for the men that he is lost in the battles, for his friends, for a wife (Penelope is her name) back home, and a newborn son that will already be a man by the time he returns, if he every returns) before the Gods interfere within the matter.
Hermes, the god of Messages (and Immaturity, she adds in the depths of her mind that nobody is to access, because there are some walls that will never be broken, layers that will never be truly revealed) transports himself down upon the rocky shores, and holds raft construction materials in one hand, and even though this is the first time, Calypso is aware of what is to happen, the inevitable goodbye from her own bastille. You cannot keep doing this with him - he has a home, he has a family to get back to; you cannot keep him on this island for much longer, Hermes declares, as if it makes all the difference in the world and Calypso smiles despite the situation, because it is just like the Gods to blame somebody because they have forgotten about the lost hero. He has a wife.
So does Zeus, she says, fingering the bracelet of shells that is loosely strung around her wrist, and looks back at Odysseus who cries upon a rock, and she wonders when everybody in the world had become an emotional wreck.
Watch your tongue, Calypso. It is not safe to say words like that here —
There is a rumble of thunder from the sky, and Hermes flinches backward, looking at her as though this is all her fault (always blame everybody but yourselves, that's the motto of the Gods, Calypso thinks - the Gods cannot make mistakes, so everybody else must be at fault) but she is not afraid. She would greet death like an old friend, and any alternative than to cycles of heartbreak and isolation and regret seems like an amiable option.
One week. I'll give you week, and that's all. If he's not gone by then, then I'll leave Poseidon to deal with him - and we all know how Poseidon feels about the great hero Odysseus.
.
This is not a fairytale.
I should've known I would have fallen in love with you from the start. At least then, I would have had the chance to run away, she tells Odysseus on a night (in the depths of infinity, Calypso does not see the point of names - what is in a name?), and they are needy words, and this is not who Calypso is (in the end, who she is is all she has left) and Odysseus knows it.
He is a hero - a tragic hero. They all are. She offers him immortality, gives him more than any mortal woman could give him (her name is Penelope, he says reverently, words whispered like prayers and Calypso is jealous of a woman she will never know, and she is back home. Telemachus, just a boy, when I departed for the war.
He speaks of them like children speak of dreams.
She waits for him to build a raft, nimble fingers working quickly (always too quickly, and she wonders if he ever loved her, or if she was simply a way to pass the time, to fill a hole of loneliness left behind by the absence of Penelope, and tries to not think of the inevitable answer of the latter) and watches him fall off the face of the earth and tries to forget.
[3]
Percy Jackson is nothing more than one in a long line of visitors to the island.
It is a day in spring, but the flowers, azuline and azure in color, are always blooming — she fingers a stone of bardiglio, and gifts from the Gods are scattered across the islands; they have emotions too, and they have guilt, but not enough guilt to release her from this endless cycle of pain, so they send her gifts to pass the time in between the cycles, so that there is less time to think of pain and regret, and more to fill her head with simple, meaningless distractions. Apollo sends a violin, a musical instrument, and that is the best gift of all, because it allows her to play into music what she cannot put into words, a blazing ire towards the Gods; her words would result in borascas echoing throughout the skies, thunder and lightning, because the Gods simply frighten and threaten, and that is it.
That is all they are capable of. There is a crash of waves on the shore, and she closes her eyes, and pretends that it is a lulling melody in the background, and plays louder, the bow screeching across the dissonant strings, a tune of a berceuse sounding like wailing and weeping and death and destruction, because that is all there is left into the crevices of her mind. The heroes who pass by and by tell her stories and tales, but happiness is not what is worth remembering, it is not what is easily remembered, because with happiness brings tremendous pain, and she would rather forget everything than remember the happy, ethereal, and fleeting moments that pass all too quickly.
There is a crash of the waves on the shore once more, and lightning echoes in the sky, as if threatening to kill her if she does not receive this hero, and Calypso rolls her eyes up to the heavens, because death would be a nice alternative to hell like this; there is overwhelming silence then, and she finally gets off the sand and the grass and the dirt and moves towards the shore; the sun is sparkling down upon the tranquil ocean, and from afar, the island with the blooming flowers and the beautiful shore and the glistening waves and waterfalls would look like a paradise.
It is more like an alluring poison than anything else. She presses a kiss on his cheek, wiping away the blood wounds and healing him, singing a repetitive melody. He stirs in his sleep, eyes blurry with fatigue, and murmurs, Annabeth?
Calypso flinches back, wipes the tears from her eyes (but she is a stupid, little girl and this is the price she pays) and walks down the shoreline, palms clenched.
.
He only stays for three weeks.
The rest of the heroes had stayed for years at a time, and time stops here, but it doesn't outside the world, and Percy is a boy compared to the rest of them — a boy who has hope and aspirations and dreams. His dreams are filled with happiness (chocolate bunnies and blue foods) and victories, songs and games (rock-paper-scissors, which turns deadly often at Camp Half-Blood with all the rivalries between cabins, he says), prophecies and danger, adventure and malfortune, like the way her dreams used to be before the Titans (her family) had fallen. She pities him, and envies at him, at the same time, and feels ancient and dead next to a boy with a human life ahead of him.
Percy is not like the rest — he is scared of dying.
She offers him the gift of immortality on a Monday (the days are shorter, and she starts to keep track how many she has left, counting towards infinity) and he simply shakes his head. I'm not going to cheat death, he says. If I am to die, I'm going to die - I'm not going to alter my fate and destiny and maybe the fate of Olympus if it comes down to death, because I'm scared. He always talks about destiny, as if it controls his life, and maybe it does.
You're going to leave, aren't you, she says the words like she knows the answer, and Calypso does because that is the fate she is cursed with — they will all leave, because they have lives to get back to, that she cannot be part of.
I have to get back, he says. It's not that I wouldn't want to stay here - I could avoid the prophecy, I would never have to turn sixteen, but I would be avoiding y destiny, and I'm not scared of that. I'm not going to change my destiny because of fear, because of being a coward.
She only nods in response, hums a four-noted melody, and stares up at the heavens, plotting of revenge because thoughts of revenge are forever, and these boys and heroes who pass by are fleeting. Percy tells her of a family in Manhattan, his mother, and their small apartment in New York City, of Camp Half-Blood and his friends (Annabeth, he murmurs in his sleep, dazed and confused) and of a step-father and misfortune, of villains and victors, and Calypso grows attached to the idea of a normal, mortal life.
Except she is not normal, she is not mortal, and she is dead inside.
.
She tells him to plant a garden, something to remember her by, but she knows he will forget) because he is like all the other boys before, but asks of it nonetheless. He promises that he will plant the moonlace, and create a garden in the Manhattan apartment, and she holds onto him for as long as her feeble eyes can stretch across the landscape.
The next time, the Gods grant Calypso a raft to give to him (he does not have to build it, he can leave quicker, she can have her heart broken even more) and watches him fall off the face of the earth and tries to forget — it should be easier after all this time, but it is not.
.
notes: i am sorry this is horrendous please leave a review xx