AN: Another one of those trying-to-make-a-bad-FanFic-cliche-better things that I love. Today's victim is "Daughter of Kronos." Unfortunately, I couldn't work in a falling-in-love-with-Nico bit, because their relationship would have been highly pedophilic. It's a futurefic, takes place in 2024. Take it seriously if you want to, but I write this story as a joke. Enjoy, and review?
Golden
(A Mary Sue Story)
The name's Mary. Mary Sue Smith, to be exact. (Yeah, I know, great name. Thanks, Mom.) Anyway, I would give you the full rundown of my short life, but I really don't have time for that. There are a ton of— well, I'll get to that later. But for now, all you need to know can be summed up in a couple of short sentences.
Born in New York City on March 12, 2010, no father, single mother. By now I've realized that when my mom says that she and my dad "fell in love one night," she really means that she got knocked up after a one night stand. Awkward. We moved to Boston when I was five, where I lived up until a few weeks ago. Pretty normal school experience, except for a few strange substitute teachers. Now I'm fourteen. Blonde hair, blue-ish eyes.
Oh, and sometimes I time travel when I trip. Weird, huh? You have no idea how disconcerting it is when you're running up the stairs, and then suddenly you're in the middle of the French Revolution watching the guillotine do its thing. Trust me when I say that you don't want to get on the business end of one of those.
So, now that you've got the basic facts, I'd better start explaining before they catch me.
The freaky stuff (or, at least, the culmination of all the freaky stuff that's happened in my life) started on a perfectly normal day, which I've learned is how a lot of freaky stuff starts.
I was at the movies with my friends, Emily and Sarah. We always used to joke about how we had the most common names any girl could get. That was the topic of our conversation as we walked out of the theater after watching some chick flick; we were all giggling as we threw out names like "Willyshia" and "Chrysanthemum" and my personal favorite, "Hydroginacia" (a Mary Sue Smith original, thank you very much).
I miss them now. I wish that my life was still made up of chick flicks and laughter and ridiculous names.
Just when Emily, with a peal of laughter, suggested "Annananabonanafeefifomanna," a middle aged man walked up to us. He was short and walked with a weird cane-like thing, so I thought he was crippled or something. His belly looked a little bit too big to be healthy, and his wild beard told me that he really needed to take care of himself better. In summary, he was a total creeper, the exact kind adults always tell you to stay away from. I wish I'd stayed away from him and sprinted away screaming for the police, because it would have saved me all this trouble.
"Excuse me, ladies," he said in a gruff voice. "Which one of you is Mary Smith?" My friends and I looked at each other with wide eyes, but before any of us could say something or move, the guy looked straight at me. "You, of course. Shoulda known."
"How do you…?" I asked shakily.
He adjusted his mustard yellow ski cap, which seemed strange at the time because it was July. "I'm a friend of your father. He—"
"I don't know my father," I said tersely, glaring at him. "Never met him, never will. So please stop bothering my friends and me." Sarah tugged at my purse anxiously, but I kept staring the guy down. He sighed.
"I was afraid it would come to this." He snapped his fingers, and the noise was much louder than it should have been, like a firecracker. All of a sudden, the area outside of the movie theater became layered with fog, which just didn't happen in Boston in July.
"What are you doing?" I backed up and started pulling my friends with me. "Guys, let's—" But then I noticed something strange. Sarah and Emily both had dreamy looks on their faces. Their eyes were unfocused, and they looked like they had been drugged or something.
"Don't worry," yellow-hat guy said in what he probably thought was a soothing tone. "They're fine. It's you we've got to worry about."
A strange, half-strangled squeak came out of my mouth.
"Styx, that probably sounded bad," he muttered. "Okay. You're in danger. Bad things—monsters—are coming to get you, and I'm going to take you to a place where you'll be safe.
"I—I don't believe you." My voice was all shaky and quiet like it gets when I'm scared.
He sighed in exasperation. "We don't have time for this. Chiron will explain when we get there."
I only had time to ask "Who's Chiron?" before he swung one of his crutches up and knocked me out.
If you're wondering, I don't know what they told the police. Everyone else who was standing outside the theater was probably just as befuddled as Sarah and Emily were. For all they know, I was kidnapped by a crazy, yellow-ski-cap wearing cripple and murdered in Guam. (No offense to all you Guamanians out there. I've heard it's a great place.)
That would've been less strange than what actually happened.
I won't bore you with the usual "I woke up in a strange room" routine, because what happened next is pretty much the same as what happens to other demigods.
Yeah. I said demigod. That's what they told me I am, although now I know that I'm not exactly that. Chiron, the camp-director-slash-centaur, explained that the Greek gods are real, that they have kids with mortals, and that monsters attack those kids. I also learned that the yellow-ski-cap wearing cripple was actually a satyr named Ernest, whose job it was to find and transport demigods.
And I'm proud to say that I only freaked out a little bit.
"How old are you, Mary?" Chiron asked at one point.
"Um, fourteen," I answered.
He frowned. "Then you'll probably be claimed no later than this evening." He explained the promise the gods had made fifteen years ago to claim their kids by the time they turned thirteen. I could tell that he was unsettled by the fact that I was a late bloomer, but I decided not to worry. My father had to claim me, right?
Wrong.
I went through the normal new camper ritual. I got some clothes and toiletries from the camp store and deposited my stuff into the Unclaimed cabin, which was rather awkward considering I was the only non-tween there. (Chiron reminded me that it was only a temporary place to put my meager possessions; I would move once I was claimed.)
Someone from the Apollo showed me around the camp. People stared at me as I passed, probably all wondering whose kid I was. My tour guide stopped a few times to talk to her friends, and they reassured me that my dad would definitely claim me tonight. I believed them, trusting person that I am.
I joined the other Unclaimed campers for sword fighting and discovered that I wasn't half bad, although I did stumble one time and ended up watching a battle from the Trojan War. Thankfully, no one noticed anything strange. I had a feeling that trip-induced time travel wouldn't go over well.
The counselors glanced repeatedly at the empty space over my head. I tried looking up there a few times, too, and then realized that even if there was something on top of my head I wouldn't be able to see it.
At the end of my first day, I still hadn't been claimed. "It's okay," they told me, "It's only your first day. Sometimes it takes a bit for the gods to realize their kids have made it to camp."
At the end of my second day, I still hadn't been claimed. "Maybe your dad's just busy," was their explanation.
At the end of my sixth day, I still hadn't been claimed. By this point, they stopped trying to make up excuses. They whispered things and ceased their conversations abruptly when they noticed my presence. The entire camp was on edge; something was obviously not right.
Finally, after a week and a half, Chiron called me to the Big House. I walked in nervously, wondering if he was going to tell me that I was actually just a normal mortal and that was the reason why no one up on Olympus had bothered to claim me.
He turned around, ducking so that his head wouldn't hit the lights, and set an old cell phone down on the ping pong table. It was incredibly clunky; the thing must have been from 2016 or something.
"Hello, Mary. Have a seat," he said. Once I had perched on the couch, he sighed. "I just got off the phone with Percy Jackson—the one who made the gods take the claiming oath, you remember. I asked him to, ah, remind the gods of their promise a few days ago. He did, and we thought that you would be claimed. But, obviously, you haven't."
In the few seconds he paused, I had a small panic attack. Oh gods now's the part where he tells me I'm mortal and makes me pack my bags and…
"And we—a few of the older demigods and myself—started to suspect something. The gods have said nothing on the issue, but your father might not be an Olympian, or one of the minor gods. We think your father might be a Titan."
My mouth hung open embarrassingly for a moment. I was able to choke out, "A Ti… A Titan. My dad is a Titan. Like, the people who tried to kill everyone a while ago."
Chiron looked at me sadly. "Yes, although not all of the Titans were involved in the war."
I perked up. "So, you're saying that my father was one of the peaceful Titans?"
"Not exactly." My face fell. "We also have a theory as to who your father is, specifically. You see, when gods sire children, their children look like the form their parent had when the children were sired." Seeing my blank expression, he explained, "Gods can change their appearance at will. Many have one form that they use most frequently. However, we are speaking of Titans. And the Titan we suspect is your father used a human host to rise from Tartarus."
"Wait," I interrupted. "A human host? That just sounds so wrong. Did he, like—"
"It was voluntary," Chiron assured me. His expression told me that I should not continue asking questions on that particular topic. "As I was saying, he convinced a demigod to host his essence, which meant that he could not change forms. After seeing pictures of you, a few of the older demigods—demigods who fought in the war against the Titans—thought you bore a rather striking resemblance to the demigod who hosted…"
He trailed off, probably because he didn't want to reveal who my father was just yet. I felt myself getting excited, and also a little bit scared. If Chiron was so reluctant to talk about him, he had to have been pretty evil. But he was my father. So he couldn't have been that bad…
"Please just tell me," I said. "I don't care who he is. I just want to know."
Chiron looked at me gravely. "You must understand that once you know your identity, you will be in extreme peril. I don't doubt that the gods will want you dead as soon as they find out. You are the daughter of one of their worst adversaries, a threat that must be dealt with immediately. And when the gods want someone dead, their target is usually terminated within days. It would be safer for you to remain unknowing."
My heart beat double time as I thought over his warning. Certain death and the knowledge that I'd secretly craved since I had discovered what a father was, or ignorant safety.
"I have to know," I told him finally.
He sighed and muttered something that sounded like "always have to know," but I couldn't be sure. He looked me straight in the eye.
"We believe that you are the daughter of Kronos, Lord of Time, King of the Titans, and one of the worst enemies of the Olympians."
I sat in stunned silence.
"So that's why he couldn't claim me," I said quietly. "He's in Tartarus again, right?"
Chiron's mouth became a tight, disapproving line. "That's the most reasonable guess, yes. After the final battle his essence was scattered, blown into fragments so minuscule that we think he may never be able to form a consciousness again."
I let that sink in, and then asked, "I have to leave now, don't I?"
"Yes, I'd say that's the best course of action." I stood up and started walking to the door in a daze. As I gripped the cold metal of the doorknob, I turned around to face Chiron one last time.
"Thank you."
And that's how I left Camp Half-Blood.
It's been two days since then. The gods know about me now; I've been having dreams. They're sending monsters after me, and so far I've managed to outrun them or hide.
But I know that soon, probably within days, one of them is going to catch me and the running and hiding game I've been playing will be over. I'm almost relieved to think that it will end. I'm sick of being hunted for who my father was. The gods won't have mercy on me just because I'm a kid, and I won't be able to hide from their wrath for much longer. It's a fact of life, as sure as the sky is blue.
I'm not stupid enough to deny it any longer.
I am Mary Sue Smith, daughter of Kronos, and I'm ready to face my fate.