This is the product of an idea that popped into my head while I was reading the Percy Jackson series. Most of it is already written (it will be five chapters long) but I am still trying to tighten up the ending a little bit so I am just going to post the first two chapters for now. I should point out, for those readers who may notice, that I do not make any claims for accuracy of the spelling of proper nouns in this story. Most of them are pretty straight forward but a few had many variant spellings (Kronos? Cronos? Cronus?). I double-checked when I could but I do not know which spelling Mr. Riordan chose because I did not read the books; I listened to the audiobooks. My apologies if I have misspelled the name of your favourite character.
And, of course, what fanfic can start without the usual litany of pseudo legal cautions: The characters in this story are from Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books and were not created by me nor do I own them. Any resemblance of characters or events in this story to real life is purely coincidental. No animals were harmed in the creation of this story.
Chapter 1 – Olympus
I walked through the revolving doors…no, that's not right…I had to push my way through the revolving doors of the Empire State Building into a lobby packed with people. I stopped just inside the doors, staring at all the people, and quickly got pushed to the side, out of the way of the flow of people. Camera-toting tourists milled about staring at everything and snapping pictures of each other. Businesspeople in suits and sharp dress strode briskly through the lobby or stood outside of elevators tapping their toes and checking their watches. I had never been here before in the middle of the afternoon and I guess I had not been expecting all the people. True, a bunch of my friends and I had set up a war camp here when Kronos was attacking Manhattan but since all the mortals were under a sleeping spell at the time that hardly counted.
I began to make my way through the crowd toward the desk. Usually when I came here I could hear my footsteps echoing on the tile. Right now all I could hear was the loud white noise that many voices all talking at once make. I didn't like it; it made me nervous. As a demigod, I generally avoid large crowds unless I am trying to hide. They make it too hard to tell when a monster is around. Of course, if there was any place in America that would be monster-free it would be here. Not that that meant I was safe. All it meant was that if anybody killed me they would immortal, all-powerful, and would not even think twice about crushing me like a bug.
I had not had many dealings with the gods since I fulfilled the last Great Prophecy five years ago. I saw my dad, Poseidon—you know, the god of the sea—from time to time. And of course I knew Ares kept an eye on me even though I rarely ran into him personally. He never had forgiven me for fighting him ten years ago at the end of my first quest. His children made sure I knew that. Mostly, though, I only saw the gods when they would invite some of the campers at Camp Half-Blood to the Winter Solstice meeting or if I happened to run into one them when I was visiting Annabeth.
Annabeth had been spending a lot of time on Olympus ever since the gods appointed her chief architect in charge of rebuilding it after Kronos' attack. I was happy for her but I did not like that she spent so much time away from camp. On the plus side, I liked that I could come and visit just because I missed her. Five years ago I would have had to wait until I had an excuse (however flimsy it might have been) and, of course, telling her that I missed her would have been unthinkable. It was a lot easier since we admitted we liked each other.
I had not been to Olympus in a while because the rebuilding was nearly done and Annabeth spent more time back at camp now. Actually, I was not going to Olympus to see Annabeth today. She was back at camp; I had gone home to see my mom and Paul, my step-dad, for a bit but I had not told Annabeth that I would be stopping at Olympus before I came back to camp. If I had, I knew she would want to come here but this was something I needed to do alone.
When I reached the front desk, I told the guard on duty that I needed to go to the 600th floor and waited. I had been to Olympus enough recently that I knew the guard recognized me but I also knew we had to go through the ritual.
"We only got a hundred 'n twenty floors, boy."
I showed him my key card, a special pass Annabeth had been able to get for me so I would not have to make appointments every time I wanted to come and see her. The guard sighed and waved me over to the elevator. Inside the elevator I put my key card in the slot and the elevator started up to Olympus. I wondered if Annabeth could do anything about the elevator music. Over the years it only seemed to get worse. Today it was playing something noisy that sounded like it was from some '90s boy band. The ADHD part of my brain wondered why Zeus would punish Dionysus for chasing after a wood nymph but never did anything to Apollo for letting his sons create boy bands.
When the doors opened onto Olympus, I felt my breath catch in my throat. Last time I had been here everything had still had scaffolding and construction material piled all around it. Now it looked just about finished and it was pretty amazing. Annabeth had worked with some of greatest architects and builders of history to make the new Olympus a truly wondrous sight. She had scoured the laptop Daedalus had left her and made buildings and temples that looked as though they should not be possible. Lush gardens blessed by Demeter herself sprung straight out of the stone. Parks were lit during the day by diamonds which held captured sunlight and pearls that glowed like stars during the night. I knew that deep in the heart of Olympus, set in a lush green meadow, was a lake. Naiads slipped in and out the lake with ease and fish, hippocampi, and other creatures of the sea leapt in the waters but no human, including demigods, could go more than an inch or two beneath the surface; you could walk out on the water like it was solid concrete. That was where my old friend Bessie, the opheotaurus, was staying these days.
I stepped out onto the flagstone pathway which led up to the mountain. I admired Annabeth's work on my way up the mountain. As I approached the summit, I stopped at the temple she had designed for Poseidon. From a distance, it looked a lot like my cabin at camp. Long, low, and built out of a light grey stone with fossils from the sea embedded in the rock. As I got closer to it, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. The daylight seemed to be fading but it was still the middle of the day. I got to the bottom of the steps that led up to the temple and gasped. The light from all around me was nearly gone—just like it was when I was really deep underwater—I really wanted to know how Annabeth had made that happen—but the temple was glowing from the inside with a soft light. I went up the stairs and saw the inside of my dad's temple.
It was simple and not overly ornate, just like he was. Pillars lined the two long side walls and at the other end was a statue of my dad, Poseidon in full Greek battle armour. He was sitting on his coral throne looking straight at me. In one hand he held his trident, the symbol of his power, which flickered with an unearthly green light. The statue must have been made out of celestial bronze because it glowed with a bit of an aura. The floor of the temple was glass and underneath it was a coral reef with all the colour of the ocean. Dozens of species of fish and other sea creatures swam in and out of the rocks and plants. Other than the glow of the statue, the only light in the temple came from lights hidden in the bottom of the ocean scene. They cast the whole temple in a watery light like a great underwater grotto. I was impressed. I said a quick prayer to my dad, I was going to need all the luck I could get, and continued up the mountain.
When I got to the top, I passed between the statues of Zeus and Hera at the doors of the great hall of the gods and entered a room with twelve enormous, empty thrones arranged in a U-shape around a large fire. I walked down between the two sides of the 'U,' smiling in greeting to the Lady Hestia at the hearth. Today she chose to appear as a grown woman in brown robes. She nodded back with a small smile. I had not told anybody why I was coming but I had a feeling Hestia knew. Ever since I met her just before the Battle of Manhattan, I noticed that she was around all over the place. Very little ever happened that she did not know about. I stopped at the centre throne and bowed, in reverence to Zeus. It was not really required since he was not here but you never knew if he was watching. Then I walked back and stopped at an elegant throne carved out of white marble with streaks of blue in it. I knelt in front of it and waited. I hoped I was not waiting for nothing.
I wasn't. I felt a rush of air and saw a pair of huge feet in front of me. I decided it would be best to be at my most respectful so I waited to look up until I was invited to do so. It felt like forever before I was acknowledged.
"Perseus Jackson," said a strong voice from above me. I looked up to meet the gaze of Athena, goddess of wisdom and strategy and not a big fan of my dad (and therefore not a big fan of me). She held my gaze for a long moment but said nothing. Finally she said, "I am only here as a favour to my brother, Dionysus. I do not know what you did to get him to ask me to meet you but I am here." I hid a small smile. Over the years I had learned that Dionysus liked people to think he was a stuck up, spoiled brat but he was actually a pretty nice guy underneath it all. It really had not taken much "convincing," all I had had to do was give Dionysus a reason to help me other than just being nice. I had threatened to tell everybody that Dionysus once told me that the gods needed heroes.
I took a big breath. "Lady Athena," I started, "I thank you for taking the time to meet me. I know you must have much more important things to deal with than—"
"Stop." She rolled her eyes. "If you want to flatter a goddess into granting you a favour, perhaps you should have called on Aphrodite. But you are right; I do have important business to attend." Athena stood up to leave.
So much for my plan to impress her. I guess should have known better, her being the goddess of wisdom and all. Before she could vanish I blurted out, "I want to marry Annabeth!" I think I genuinely surprised her. I suddenly realized that it was not a good idea to surprise an all-powerful being. She could have accidentally killed me with a stray thought or stepped on me by mistake. Fortunately she simply stared at me and sat back down on her throne to compose herself. Now that I had her attention, I said again, "I would like to formally request your permission to ask your daughter, Annabeth, for her hand in marriage."
"Oh, is that all?" Athena gazed at me intently. "Are you sure that is all? Perhaps while you are at it, you would also like to take Lord Zeus' throne or maybe make the moon shine in the day and the sun at night?" She did not turn me into an insect—this was going better than I thought it would. She took a deep breath. "I suppose I expected this to happen eventually, since my daughter seems able to overlook your faults and put up with you." She paused and seemed to have reached a decision. "Very well, if you wish for my permission you will have to quest for it. I will prepare a quest that will challenge you to the limits of your endurance and beyond. Will you accept it?"
I felt like asking what she thought she could throw at me that was worse than what I had already faced. I had been to the underworld and back twice, sailed the sea of monsters, faced the labyrinth, and barely avoided the destruction of the gods and the whole of Western civilization. Instead I said, "Lady Athena, may I say something?" I took her silence as a 'yes.' "First, if I take a quest I'm sure Annabeth won't let me go without her and she will be placed in equal danger. Second, I doubt any daughter of yours, especially Annabeth, would be happy to be a 'prize' to be won for a quest. I can't accept a quest to win your daughter."
I held my breath, sure that Athena would curse me for daring to challenge her. Instead she smiled. "Very good, young man. My daughter is most certainly not a prize to be won by heroes. If you had accepted the quest you would be one of the training dummies at your camp by now." I gulped. Athena continued, "Perhaps you are not as irredeemable as I thought. But let me ask you this: you do not need the permission of the gods to marry. Annabeth is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. Why have you come to me?"
I had actually thought about this already. I had seriously considered whether or not to ask for Athena's permission and come to the conclusion that I had to do it. "I am asking for your permission because Annabeth wants to be you to be proud of her. I don't want to put her in a position where she would have to choose between pleasing you and being with me."
The answer seemed to satisfy Athena but she still hesitated. I knew that she did not want her daughter to marry a son of Poseidon and it infuriated me that Annabeth and I should suffer because of a millennia-old feud between our parents. I was about to say something about it when there was a rush of air and I suddenly smelled roses in the air. From my left an overly-dramatic voice said, "Reeeeeeeally, Athena, would you just get over your argument with Poseidon, already? It's sooooooooo tiresome and the children are obviously in love. Isn't it just TOO sweet?"
I looked over and saw Aphrodite had appeared in her throne. She was wearing a dress that was a deep red with gold threads woven through it and a garland of red roses in her hair. I felt my knees going weak just at the sight of her. I hated that the gods could do that to me. Some of them messed with your head just by being near you. I shook my head and did my best only to think about Annabeth.
"Sweet?" Athena glared at the other goddess. "I should have known you were behind this, Aphrodite. You are always sticking your nose into other gods' business."
Aphrodite produced a mirror out of thin air and ignored Athena, preening and fixing her makeup. "Hmph," she sniffed, 'I hardly had to do anything at all. They found each other all by themselves. Maybe they're just wise enough," she emphasized the word 'wise,' "to see that their parents' silly feud is not worth giving up their happiness."
Athena looked like she wanted to strangle Aphrodite. Her grey eyes flashed bright with anger. "Oh, really! I would like to see what you would think of another god meeting his girlfriend in one of YOUR temples…" Athena pretended to remember something. "Oh, wait…I forgot, they would probably find you and Ares already there!"
Aphrodite's cheeks turned as red as her dress. She wasn't embarrassed, I realized, just angry. She stood up and her mirror fell to the ground and shattered into a hundred pieces. She started shouting at Athena in ancient Greek and I got totally lost. I am pretty good with conversational Greek and the sort of stuff you might need in battle but I never learned the, uh, the more "colourful" expressions that I assumed the goddesses were using. Athena stood as well and soon they were toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose in each other's faces. I think they forgot I was even there. I backed up a bit so they did not accidentally step on me. As I backed up there was suddenly a roar behind me.
I turned around in shock and saw the fire shooting up over fifty feet towards the ceiling. Hestia stepped out of the fire, suddenly twenty feet tall like the other two goddesses, and shouted, "OTAMATAO!" loud enough to be heard over both of them. I think that's Greek for "STOP!" I had never seen Hestia appear in a giant form before and she looked fairly intimidating with her eyes glowing a dangerous colour of red, almost like Ares' eyes did. Athena and Aphrodite must have thought she looked intimidating, too, or were at least too surprised to continue arguing because they both shut up.
"Listen to yourselves," said Hestia, "bickering like little children. Athena, you should be happy that your daughter—if she accepts Percy's proposal—has found someone that makes her happy. Together Annabeth and Percy have saved your own life and the lives of all the gods…is that not worth forgiving old grudges?"
Athena looked down at me. Aphrodite waved her hand and the pieces of her mirror vanished off the ground. Athena spoke. "Very well, Perseus Jackson. You have proved yourself a worthy hero and I will grant you my permission to ask Annabeth for her hand—" my heart leaped and I knew I had on a big sloppy grin, "—on one condition."
Uh-oh. "What is the condition?"
"I want an apology from your father," she said, "for what he did with Medusa in my temple."
It was all I could do to keep from groaning out loud. "What if he won't do it?" I asked.
Athena smiled grimly, "Then you do not get my permission."
I hardly had any choice. I straightened and looked Athena in the eye, "I will speak to my father."
Aphrodite clapped her hands with glee. "It's been so long since we had a demigod wedding," she gushed. "You have to have it here on Olympus, it'll be grand!"
"But, my mother and Annabeth's dad," I started to say. I knew no mortals were allowed on Olympus and my mother would not be happy if she could not come to my wedding. "They can't—"
"Pish-posh," interrupted Aphrodite with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm sure on such a special occasion we can make an exception for a few mortals." Athena raised an eyebrow and gave Aphrodite a sceptical look. "It would only be for a day. I'm sure Zeus won't mind." Athena cleared her throat pointedly and I heard distant thunder rumbling. Aphrodite heaved another dramatic sigh. "All right, all right, we'll have it in one of the wild places. There's one in Central Park that is still hidden from the mortals. That should do nicely. Oh, there's so much to plan! I'll have Demeter grow food for the reception and Hephaestus can create the most amazing decorations if he's not too upset with me." She looked back to me, "Don't worry about a thing, I'll handle everything. Do you think next Saturday will be good?" I started to say I had not even asked Annabeth yet, much less actually got Athena's permission but Aphrodite cut me off. "Oh, of course it will be fine. I have to dash. So much to do. Ta!" She began to glow and I looked away to avoid being burned by her true divine form. When the glow was gone all that was left was a flurry of rose petals which drifted to the ground and dissolved in puffs of gold light.
I looked back to Athena. "If I can't convince my dad to apologize, and there isn't a wedding, she's never going to forgive me, is she?" I heard stifled laughter behind me and turned around to see Hestia, back to a normal human size, trying not to laugh.
"I feel sorry for you, young hero," Athena said. "It would appear you have until next Saturday to get your father's apology." I grimaced, that was only nine days away. Oh well, us ADHD kids work better with a deadline anyways.
