Perseus sighed as he watched Alessia pass out on the boundary line of Camp Half-Blood. She wasn't ready, not by a longshot. Even though she was his sister, he couldn't do anything else to help her. The storm raged on but, as per usual, the camp remained dry.
He hopped out of the tree, landing in a crouch without a sound. "Perseus," A voice intoned dryly. "Haven't seen you since you tossed Hades' son's head at him back in '45."
"Artemis," Perseus acknowledged. "I assume you aren't here to catch up on old times, are you?"
The goddess feigned hurt. "I can't believe you'd assume I'd come for anything else!" She said in a high pitched voice, then rolled her eyes. She continued normally, "No. Your involvement with this demigod is worrying father. With the whispers happening lately..." She trailed off.
"...he's becoming more paranoid than usual?" The sky cracked with lightning. "Oh, screw off! You know it's true!" No lightning came in response to this, so Zeus had either stopped paying attention or was finding out which whorehouse he had left his armor in this time.
"He wants you back on Olympus."
The God of Loyalty paused for a moment. He stared at the Moon Goddess' silver eyes, the goddess staring back unflinchingly. "... Huh. Was my mother's throne restored yet?"
The immortal sighed. "No, Hestia's throne is still occupied by Dionysus."
"Mhm... Dionysus, who literally can't even leave this camp, doesn't participate in meetings, and a fraction as powerful as my mother... What's his saving grace, again?" Artemis grit her teeth.
"Enough!" She shouted, finally fed up. "Gah, you're so infuriating."
Perseus winked at her. "You know you love me anyway."
"I'd love to put an arrow between your shoulderblades," Artemis countered, her aura growing around her.
"And I'd love to see you try," Perseus grinned, grabbing Riptide, whose form nowadays was that of a ring sitting on his left hand. His aura started to grow too, ebbing and growing like a flowing river.
"Children!" A voice thundered, and the two immortals were shocked momentarily before catching a glimpse of the age-old trainer of heroes, Chiron, approaching them. "You are cousins who haven't seen each other in over half a century! Can't you go at least a few minutes without trying to kill each other?"
Perseus sheathed Riptide instantly, turning to his old friend, "Chiron," he said respectfully, bowing. Artemis clicked her tongue in annoyance, but sheathed her silver daggers anyway. "We have much to talk about."
"Why did you think Zeus wanted you on Olympus?" Artemis all but yelled.
"Oh," Perseus replied in his sagelike wisdom. "Yeah... that makes sense."
Chiron cleared his throat. "Percy," he started, one of the only people to call him by that name, "I can't believe..." He stopped for a moment, filling the god's heart with dread as millions of possibilities ran through his head. "I can't believe you sat in my Latin class for months and didn't say 'Hello'." Artemis just shook her head in disdain at the interaction.
"The Great Stirring is underway, and sooner than anticipated, too," Perseus spoke. Zeus frowned, although if you asked Percy, he was just a grumpy guy in general.
"Could it be that we are interacting with the mortal world too much...?" Zeus wondered. Of course, it wasn't his fault! That singer, or actress, or whatever she was... She was an exception, of course.
Perseus stared at him. "How is that a...?" He decided not to pursue the thought, it would only lead to him losing brain cells. "I'm going to pretend like I didn't hear that. We need to prepare the campers. War is soon to follow."
"They are just children!" Chiron protested.
Perseus whipped around. "I was just a child."
"And do you never regret the path it took you down?" Chiron asked. Perseus was silent. "They need to be inspired by each other, not drilled into the ground by us," he continued. "I dare believe that the reason you were protected Alessia for so many months was because..."
Perseus had lost all of his fury, and instead looked somber. "Yes... She is a hero. And like so many before her, a hero's tragedy awaits."
"You want me to do what?" Alessia questioned. It had been a few days since she had been claimed by Poseidon, and she had been all but alienated by the camp. She sat alone at meals, she stared at the ceiling all night in her cabin... alone.
"I would like for you to train with me," Perseus repeated himself.
Alessia looked at the god in shock. "Wha... Buh... Why me?" She finally settled on a proper question. The god shrugged.
"I dunno, I'm bored." Alessia didn't buy it for a second.
"You're lying to me," she accused.
"Lie? Me? Never," Perseus held a hand to his heart, faux hurt in his voice. "Just kidding. You're right. I'm incredibly bored."
Alessia eyed him warily. "From what I can tell so far, gods being bored never ends well for mortals."
Perseus shrugged. "Sometimes... Sometimes it isn't so bad."
A few minutes later, Alessia coughed in the arena's dust. "This... is terrible..." She groaned, one hand holding a generic-looking sword, the other hand clutching her stomach, a red mark appearing where Perseus had hit her with the flat of his blade.
"You're learning, though," Perseus noted. Alessia glared at him, huffing.
"Learning how to be a punching bag, more like."
Perseus smirked. "Well, at least you're learning. Why don't you take a break, get some water."
'Finally, a good idea!' Alessia thought, until Perseus continued... "With your powers."
Alessia groaned. "This is like calculus, but at least everyone else is struggling with calc, too."
"Reach out with your senses. There's water over there, waiting for you to reach out and grab it. Indeed, there was a table with a large bowl on it, full of water. Nice, refreshing, cold water... Alessia smiled. She could do this. She felt a tug in her naval as she reached out and grabbed it all. "Are you going to drink that entire bowl at once?" Perseus asked from behind her. She dropped the water back in the bowl, some of it sloshing around.
She turned around, glaring at the god. "You did that on purpose," she accused.
He didn't deny it, just raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to yell at me, or are you going to get some water?" He asked. She growled lightly, but turned back, this time grabbing a lesser, more decent amount of water. She levitated it over to her quickly, but just as it was right in front of her, she felt a stinging sensation on the back of her leg and lost her focus, splashing herself with the water.
She looked back to see Perseus holding the flat end of his sword against her leg. Her anger started to boil over. "You know what? I'm done with this. I don't understand if this is one of your stupid games, like practically faking an entire year of my life was, but I am tired of it!" The water tore itself out of her clothes and formed a blade in her hand. It felt... right to her.
Suddenly, she felt like she knew what to do. She started swinging, restarting her training with Perseus. This time, she was just about keeping up with his pace. And... the whole time, he was smiling.
"There you go,", "Remember, keep your elbow at a...", and "Make sure you..." were all pieces of advice he gave to her, and somewhat belatedly, she realized that he had been goading her into trying harder. After a few minutes, she ran out of breath, and she sword melted as her control over it waned.
"You... Jerk..." She said between huffs as she fell backwards onto the sandy floor.
"I've been called worse," he replied, offering a hand. She took it, pulling herself up and slowly dragging herself over to the bowl of water, greedily sipping from a cup and feeling her energy slowly come back. "Alessia?" He called out. She turned to him slowly.
"Yo."
"Nice job."
Apologies about the late/slow chapter. I'm out on vacation and really can't seem to muster up a whole lot of motivation to write. We're heading back into Perseus' territory! Sorry if you thought we were going to be going forward heavily with Alessia, we will not. Perseus was, is, and will always be the main character of the story.
I hope this chapter showed a bit more of his personality. Artemis is a lot like his godly Thalia, which actually makes sense considering. He is not above small arguments, and before you complain about how OOC that is... it really isn't.