Percy Jackson had seen many things in the short usually chaotic 24 years he'd been alive. He's seen too many people die, and too many broken promises. He's seen all the bad that the world has to offer and then all the extra twists of the universe as well. He knows more about the twisted, seething blackness that corrodes so many good people, that anyone else, anyone normal would have been driven insane with the very knowledge, forever hiding inside the safer depths of their minds. Then again for every dreadful thing he's seen or heard of, he's seen a good idea or gesture shine on the shadows left behind. For every person he's seen die, he's seen another born. For every quest that fails a successful one takes its place. For every nightmare, a dream and for every pain a balm to soothe the ache it brings. Percy will forever be an optimist, someone who looks at life as if it is half full instead of half empty, but life has also taught Percy to be a realist.
Hope can survive, but only if you force it. Happiness can reign but only if you throw out the sorrow that threatens you. The Sea Lord's son knows all about the silver lining when it comes to storm clouds and the power of a smile, but he also knows the power of despair and the feeling that comes when your looking at an angry storm cloud and the day looks devilish and it's all for you to handle because no one else can see the threatening clouds, and no one else knows that overwhelming feeling that only you can know.
The life of a Halfling is never easy. You are open to everything that a mortal can see, and everything a mortal can't. You're open to hits from both sides and more problems then you could count on both hands. The only way to make it through is to find a solution to your problem and to do that you need people. You need connections. The web of connections a Half-Blood can weave is often tangled and heaving with knots and broken strings. Each web is unique to a specific Child and each connection is toppled with secrets and vows, promises and hopeful dreams. Each net is riddled with holes and broken strings from when a ribbon was severed or ripped out of that demigod's life. Each connection has its fair share of broken threads that represent the broken promises for the future and the forgotten memories of the past. Still no matter what a Demigod is a walking meal, if they don't know people. Each alliance is vital, and each friend is necessary if you want to make it too your next birthday, or your next meal. Everyone is family in one way or another, but more often than not-in some convulted way where you're related to a person in more than one way. Friends and foes swapped sides time after time. Enemies are bread in toxic waters while lovers are cherished in the highest regard. Then on occasion those enemies are pulled from the depths and dried off, so that they can be trusted again and those same lovers that you adored become your one fatal regret. Life was one big fickle joke and sometimes there was no other way to describe it.
If knowing people is an invaluable gift, then feelings were a vulnerable mystery. Feelings are dangerous and volatile. Your trust for one person could be the thing that brings you to your knees. Mercy for an enemy becomes disbelief for when they betray you. Familiarity becomes contempt for when you can no longer stand to be in the same room as your closest friend. Love breeds hate and understanding forms an unwanted stance, where you can't stop yourself from caring no matter how much you want to. Sentiments can lead you to your most euphoric states or to your final downfall. Emotions are often too fragile to bear and yet you need them to be human. You lose yourself with out them; you lose the very fibers that make you a person. Everyone needs to feel them no matter how much you wish you didn't.
No matter how hard Demigods, or their families try to be strong moments of weakness do slip in, but it only means you are human when you feel scared before fighting a battle, or when you feel lonely when your friends leave, because you have no one else to turn too. People can ride out a bad day, or a nightmare that's come to fruition for only so long. Then the emotions that are just heaved on top of you like waves; crashing into you and pulling at you, ripping at you and eating you up from the inside out until your carried away and there's nothing left, they finally pull you under. They seek for a crack in your defenses a single mistake in your Armour and then you're not riding out the waves anymore. You've been pulled under and there's nothing you can do but look for the lights that show the way back to the surface, back to the ride, but you can't find it because it's been so long since you've fallen that you don't know how to get back up. You don't know how to make your way out of the festering shadows that threaten to consume you anymore because you've kept yourself in check, kept yourself so strong for so long that when that weakness shows through you can't stop it until the waves settle and recede and everything is calmer, but that's only after you've already been broken, been shattered into so many pieces you don't know where to start building yourself back up at. Even the toughest warrior can fall to their knees as their emotions take over and and become a catatonic explosion, leaving dripping eyes and scattered senses in their wake.
With all that said, Percy knows that he's seen too much. He's seen people let go in a multitude of ways but one thing that bothers him most though is when people cry. The Hero of Olympus will admit that he's seen too many people cry and it bothers him that there's nothing he can do. He always wishes there was some way he could fix it even when it's himself that needs fixing. Sometimes life just gets to be too much and you need to let everything go, and you'll try anything to get that clenching feeling in your stomach to go away, but it just won't leave. Then before you know it you're crying and you can't stop, because sometimes everything is just too much to handle. Sometimes you want life to take a second and stop but time doesn't bow to anyone and there is no stopping it and that just makes it so much worse. Especially when you're a Demigod. The Ocean eyed man knows so much, but there will always be memories that will stay forever fresh in his mind. He would always remember why and when certain people broke. He would always remember where they broke and in front of whom. Tears can come for any reason though, and sometimes Percy wonders if tears could be colored what colors they would be.
