Chapter 28
Ummmmm… Hey? Yeah, sorry for the long wait. What's it been? Two months? More? I really have no acceptable excuse for not writing anymore except that my interest has waned with Percy Jackson as a whole. I'm currently writing a new fanfiction for Arrow, which I will post when I have it edited by my Beta, LittleMissThunderbird. So, I'll update when I can but I won't make any promises for many updates and time soon.
The silence was deafening, it consumed everything, and lay heavily upon the shoulders of the Gods of Olympus. The air was thick with tension. The only sound was the shallow breathing of the shocked Olympian council, and the remarkably heavier breathing of both Annabeth and Jason Grace.
"How could he be that powerful? He was just a demi-god albeit a powerful one. But the levels of power shown could topple a primordial." Zeus predictably thundered upon finally processing what he had just witnessed.
Athena jumped up in rage, "My daughter has just been revealed to be raped and you're worried about his power levels."
Hestia walked over and changed from her form from a little eight year old to a motherly women in her mid-forties. Placing a comforting arm around her niece, "It appears that Perseus is not as demi-god like as we originally thought, or perhaps none of you considered that he may have been possessed or controlled in some form. Perhaps an instrument for a higher power, wishing for Tartarus and us to suffer. It will do us no good to jump to conclusions. What's done is done. Perseus is safely locked up in the abyss and Annabeth is safe."
Her words had the desired effect of calming down everyone in the room. No longer did any of the gods look ready to destroy New York and Zeus only looked like he was going to destroy half of Manhattan which was a success considering his pride and the unexpected situation. But Hestia was uneasy, she knew Percy had changed in his first trip to Tartarus, something in his very soul had shifted but this was nothing she could imagine. Percy's own power felt like something that was as different as Titans were to Gods as the Gods were to the Giants as the giants were to the monsters in the Abyss and as the monsters were to the primordials of the first three ages.
He was something new and unseen before in the world, like a new race of being that was as dark and dangerous to its enemies as it was good and generous to its friends. A being of the darkest reaches and the lightest light. An arch angel in his own right, neither good nor evil, neither the servant of darkness or the light. A destroyer, a creator, a true balancer. Something as alien to this world than the most imaginative wildest stories of the human mind. Something that can only happen, a being whom understood completely the light and the dark, the evil and the good, the ying and the yang, the day and the night, the pleasure and the pain, the love and the hate of this universe. But exactly what he was fighting for was anyone's guess.
Line break
The room was dark, illuminated faintly by a glowing silver orb. Two forms were intertwined upon the silver bed. The man lay upon his side, exposing the bare skin of his heavily scarred well-muscled upper body, looking down upon the woman that lay beside him, whose black hair spilled out in a dark contrasting fan upon the light silver pillows. His unique silver and green eyes roamed her naked body. His cold hands caressed her face, as he let out the smallest of sighs.
"Are you okay?"
The women aside him, blinked in surprise, surprised by the unexpected question.
"What do you mean?"
"You just tortured your father." As she took a breath to inject, his hand covered her mouth, "Don't." He warned. He took his hand away, expecting a proper answer.
"I… I don't know what I feel, to be honest. I hated him; for throwing me out of my home, for killing me. But he was my father and nothing can change that."
"Good, keep that feeling and you will stay somewhat human. Lose it and not even I could pull you back into the light."
"Why do you love me?" Taking a leap of faith she asked the question that had been burning curiously in her head ever since Percy kissed her when she first fell from the sky.
"Zoe…" His voice was sad and full of regret, "I knew this day would come."
"What do you mean?" Tears threatened to overwhelm her.
"I cannot love, not in that easy sense. When I found out my true heritage, my very soul changed from that of a demi-god to that of a new race of beings. One that does not feel the same way that I used to or that you can now. What I fell for you is remnants of love in my previous form."
"How could you?!" A fury raced through her like nothing she had ever felt before, not when her father killed her or when Hercules betrayed her. This man she trusted like she had trusted no one else before and now he was admitting that he had used her for his own gain, never having loved her, not even having the capacity to love at all. "You-" She scrambled away from him, wrapping the silver sheets around her as if to protect herself from the monster in front of her.
"Zoe, I said I cannot love the way you can. But I care for you, more than anyone else in this world. I may not love you but I feel something else, you keep me from losing what little of myself I have. You keep me more human than I should be. Before I let you in, I could barely feel at all; not anger, not hate, not pleasure, not pain, not any recognisable emotion. If you hate me go, but please you are the only thing that is keeping me from destroying myself and everything in this world with me."
"I… I don't know." Her voice was filled with uncertainty and fear, "I need time. I-" Her eyes closed as if to escape the pain that was about to devastate her.
"Come here." His voice was so soft, so gentle, and so human. She couldn't resist, she walked back to the bed, crawling over the mattress and into his strong arms. It was hard to remember that he was anything but human. His powerful aura washed over her; Dark and dangerous, with this kind of animalistic predatory of a true hunter, that made her feel utterly defenceless, venerable, and even completely subservient. A fiery feeling washed across her delicate skin, prickling at the nerves and setting her whole sensitive body alight with heat and passion.
"It's too late to argue, sleep. We will talk in the morning."
Before he even finished the sentence, Zoe had fell into the realms of Morpheus. Perseus grimaced, hating to use his power over the mind to force Zoe to do what he wanted. But she was his humanity and he couldn't let her go.
*Darkmoon111*
