So so so so sorry for the long wait, and double sorry for saying that I probably won't be updating again for a couple weeks after this one. My excuses for the delay of this update extend to the next one, with vacations that seemed so far away but caught up to me quickly as well as just wanting a break in general.
The specifics are still being tinkered with for this story, but I've cleaned it up for the most part. My only worry is that right now I'm reading stories and books more than writing. I promise I'll finish this story, on my life I promise. The only question is how many chapters and when I'll actually finish. I'm aiming for around the time I actually start university, but that can always change.
Also, chapters might fluctuate in length, I don't wanna string out stupid nonsense simply to fill a word count, just wanted to let you guys know in case a pretty short chapter comes out.
Chapter 31: And Then We Can Talk
Percy was terrified.
Okay, maybe terrified was a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but he was downright trembling. He had looked down once to see that his hand was quite literally shaking.
Artemis walked slightly in front of him, leading him toward an isolated part of the forest presumably so that they could talk. Percy pleaded with every god out there, not including the goddess of the Hunt, that he would make it out of this interaction at least mostly alive.
One thing he noticed was that when he was nervous, his ADHD frequently enhanced in the forms of random, fleeting thoughts and multiple types of jittery fidgets. He didn't necessarily mind the rhythmic taps on his leg or urges to twirl either of his two weapons, he only hated that it was a sign of his anxiety and that other people could easily identify it. He also had a hunch that if he was talking with someone and he whipped out Lazarus in its butterfly knife form, that person would have a sudden overwhelming urge to slap the knife out of his hand.
Usually, Percy would relish every step he took along the forest floor, the sounds of chirping birds and the smell of fresh grass pleasantly distracting him from any past or future events. Currently, however, every dirt-crunching step just brought him more anxiety. Again, he wasn't what one would call terrified, he was just slightly afraid for his life and couldn't find any particular favorable outcome to this incoming conversation.
The only consolation Percy had was that a certain wolf that had recently become oddly loyal to him was right beside him, his fluffy fur coat happily rubbing against Percy's legs every stride. The dark wolf's fur tickled against his exposed calves, and yet the simple sensation was enough to restrain Percy's bursting ADHD habits and rapidly racing mind.
At the very least, Percy could trick himself into thinking that Artemis would spare Grey the traumatic experience of witnessing the utter annihilation of the son of the Sea God. Maybe Artemis would spare him until Grey was gone, and would inadvertently give Percy a chance to run for the hills and live out the rest of his doomed life in hiding. Probably not, but hey, a guy could fantasize.
Percy was so distracted by these random and rather idiotic thoughts that he didn't notice they had stopped until Artemis had roughly placed both of her hands on his shoulders to prevent him from strolling right into her.
Percy blinked, confused for a moment, before it clicked in his head that they were in a satisfactory location. He doubted Artemis truly wanted this conversation to be utterly private, but nonetheless, here they were. Maybe she had taken the long stroll to collect her thoughts along a similar line as Percy's.
Grey yipped excitedly at his legs, the wolf's toothy smile almost teasing at Percy's terrible awareness. The demigod rolled his eyes before diverting his attention back to his main threat… ahem, focus. His main focus.
Artemis was leaning against one of the larger trees surrounding them, her face covered in leaf-shaped shadows from nature's canopy, making the rest of her face look like it almost glowed in the sunny illuminance. Percy hesitantly mimicked the goddess, leaning on his own tree a couple feet across from her while Grey strolled around freely.
Percy attempted to make himself comfortable by shifting between different positions against the tree, and even considered just plopping down on the dirt, but ultimately decided that leaning against the tree while allowing his hands to freely fidget
He cleared his throat, unsure of where they should start and where Artemis wanted to end.
"So… what'd you want to talk about?" Percy asked timidly, a slight inflection in his voice revealing just how nervous he was if it wasn't abundantly obvious already.
Artemis raised her eyebrows, disbelieving of Percy's ignorance. She sighed, and glanced up toward the leaves of the gigantic trees above. She unsheathed one of her shiny silver hunting knives and fingered the sharp edge.
"I'm curious…" Artemis began, "before I say anything - and I want you to give me your honest opinion - what do you think Aphrodite meant, what she means to come of this?" Artemis gestured between them with her rather sharp-looking knife, which didn't help make Percy any less uneasy.
He resisted the urge to gulp.
"And be honest." Artemis added, just to inject a tiny bit more fear into his being. Percy nodded knowingly, realizing that he himself had to figure out what he thought of the situation. Avoiding it was no longer an option when it now stared him right in the face, threatening to quite literally wipe him off the face of the planet.
"Alright." Percy said with a sense of finality, gearing up for an answer that could honestly come from the deepest recesses of his subconscious and surprise even himself. "I… I've done some thinking, and I've asked some other people, and I think that what Aphrodite said is true, or will be true at some point."
Artemis nodded and gestured for him to continue.
"But I also think that she didn't say love. She said connection, and I think Aphrodite was deliberate in her vagueness." Percy continued. "And I honestly don't know why she said that. Maybe she wanted to mess with me, to mess with you even." Again, Artemis nodded.
"And what do you think should happen now?" Artemis asked, absentmindedly tossing her dagger between both hands.
"I…" Percy paused. He didn't know what should happen. It was that ever-annoying part about fate and destiny. Was fate bound to occur no matter what, or did it have to occur naturally? Such as the instance of Michael Varus and his quest to Alaska, if prophecies were pursued unnaturally, the results could be disastrous.
Percy shrugged, and flung out his arms in a helpless gesture before allowing them to flop back to his sides. He made a strangled sort of noise after a small stutter and settled for an exasperated sigh as the expression for what he truly felt.
He had no idea how in the fucking Hades to proceed.
For one, there was the fact that it would just feel weird to romantically pursue someone just because he was told that they supposedly had a "connection". Adding on top of that the fact that it was Artemis, the gods damned goddess of the hunt and an eternal maiden didn't make it feel any less weird.
It's just… nothing about it felt right. He didn't even think about Artemis in that way at all. But maybe that's why Aphrodite mentioned it, maybe it was supposed to awaken some dormant feelings for the maiden goddess.
If Percy wasn't afraid of making the moment any more uncomfortable than it already was, he would chuckle. Everything about this situation was just too ridiculous, and when he got the chance, he was going to kick Aphrodite in the shin for making his life so much more complicated than it needed to be.
Then there was Calypso.
Hypothetically, even if he did feel something for Artemis - which he didn't - it wouldn't feel right to just forget about Calypso. She had been there for him whenever she could, and Percy truly felt that she had an emotional connection to him that nobody else had. The fact that she explicitly told him she was waiting for him didn't make him feel any less sick to his stomach about just the thought of basically slapping Calypso in the face by simply forgetting about her.
"What do you think?" Percy asked hesitantly. Artemis dropped her knife, failing to catch it as it flew middair. She bit her lip subtly, showing a rare moment of unease and hesitation. Artemis sighed and shifted her weight between her legs.
"I think that you're right." Artemis stated simply. Percy's eyebrows rose in surprise before he composed himself to not look as flustered. "I won't pretend I hold some forbidden love for you, and I doubt I ever will. Still, I won't - how shall I say this - act rashly."
Percy raised an eyebrow. That was exactly what he was expecting Artemis to do, if he was being honest. Maybe castrate him or exile him to Alaska or banish him back to Camp Half-Blood, which wouldn't be half bad in the big scale of things.
"I won't deny that you may be the one male I feel closest to, but I can't allow that to cloud my judgement at such a pivotal time. The priority right now is figuring out who wants to overthrow Olympus, and keeping you alive, because someone thinks you're important to this whole mess." Artemis said. She slid the toe of her boot under her knife and kicked it up into her hand, sheathing it while finality. "The Hunt can't do that with distractions, so I suggest we just try to move on naturally, and figure everything out once Olympus isn't so dangerously threatened."
Percy sensed that by the Hunt, she meant herself. He nodded, because he was genuinely in agreement, but he felt like pretending nothing had really happened was something he was going to eventually regret. He didn't want to bottle it up anymore, he didn't want to hold any emotions because his past experiences had finally gotten through his admittedly thick skull.
Still, he recognized that another solution was a far-away fantasy, and that this was probably the best option they would have.
He sighed, and nodded in reluctance.
"Alright." Percy relented. "Let's focus on stopping Olympus from being overthrown, and then we can talk about our feelings."
Percy said this jokingly, sarcastically, but in a sense he wasn't joking at all.
"Glad we can agree." Artemis said. She cleared her throat as Grey went to Percy's side to lick his hand. "There's to be another meeting on Olympus, one of the monthly update meetings where we'll surely discuss other recent events, and I wish for you to be there."
"Me?" Percy asked, pointing toward his own chest. He looked down at Grey, who looked back up with his piercing mismatched eyes and woofed joyfully. He looked back up to Artemis. "Why? Do you need me for something?"
"Indeed." Artemis nodded. "I want you to study the other gods among the council. Ares suredly couldn't be the only one rooting for a change of the ruling of Olympus. Just see if any other gods look suspicious or different in any odd way."
Percy gulped. Was now the time to tell her that Apollo was quite possibly a part of the rebellion? It sure seemed like a pretty opportune time. He debated inwardly, balancing the pros and cons of keeping Apollo's secret, and ended up deciding that he would tell Artemis once he found out why exactly Apollo was trying to overthrow his father.
He nodded, his throat feeling a little more dry than just moments before, and affirmed that he would go with Artemis to the meeting.
He reached down to pat Grey on the head, rubbing the fur between his ears in that way that seemed to make the wolf oh so happy. A clearing of someone's throat made him look back up in quiet surprise, only for him to see Artemis with a raised brow and an exasperated expression.
"Wait, you mean now?" Percy asked. Artemis rolled her eyes and sighed, not even bothering to answer the demigod. She took a few steps toward him, reached out to his shoulder, and before Percy knew it, his eyes were closed and a terribly bright light had overcome his dulled vision.
Percy may or may not have yelped when light flooded his closed eyelids, and he hoped to the gods above that nobody heard him when he blinked his eyes open.
His eyes were met with the golden council of Mount Olympus. He blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing clearly, and once he'd confirmed that he was indeed before the Olympian council.
A rather sharp claw scratched his right pant leg, and Percy looked down to see that Grey had somehow transported with them. He confusedly petted the wolf's head as he took in his surroundings.
"Son." Poseidon greeted from his personalized throne next to Zeus at the head of the council's semi-circle. Percy cleared his throat and nodded, noticing how Artemis had quickly skipped to her own throne next to Apollo. Grey trodded along behind her, laying down at the foot of her throne while Artemis grew up to proper size. It might've hurt Percy just a little bit, but he understood.
It seemed rather unfair that Percy had to still stand up at the center of the council with how many times he had attended, but then again, it made sense. They were gods, and he was less.
"Um… Percy." Artemis called from her seat. Percy's gaze shot to the goddess, who once again sported a raised eyebrow. She made a motion with her hand to beckon Percy over, and gestured to a smaller and less grand chair at the base of her own next to Grey's still form.
"Ahh." Percy said under his breath, his cheeks reddening slightly at his continued obliviousness. He made his way toward his chair, trying his darndest to not trip over his own feet or not make himself any more embarrassed.
It didn't help that everyone sans a handful of a handful of gods gods was just waiting for him to make himself comfortable and ready for the council meeting. Even Grey seemingly teasingly barked at him for looking like an idiot.
It was a weird feeling, being literally seated at Artemis' foot. He had to sort of crane his neck to look at the gods closest to him, and he had a hunch that he would probably avoid studying the body language of the gods next to him. It definitely wasn't because Apollo was directly to his right. No, he simply wanted to avoid a lifetime of chronic neck pain.
He looked around the council, which was more awkward than when he would stand in the center of the circle. He caught the stares of a few gods, but none seemed to be any more malicious than usual. Some were distracted, most were bored, and Aphrodite gave him a wink and a smirk that said they would talk later. Percy had a strange feeling that the goddess of love somehow knew something had happened related to his love life, and knew that she would want to hear everything personally from him.
After everyone had arrived, and a dramatic "Let's begin!" had been boomed around the council from the always dramatic Zeus, Percy tuned out most of the conversation to focus on what Artemis had asked of him. Sure, he didn't really look at Apollo, but he was genuinely curious if he could pick anything up from the body language and general demeanors of some of the other gods.
Sadly, he didn't really pick up much. He had some hunches, some suspicions, but nothing he could really trust his gut on. He had even once looked at Apollo to use his body language as a reference, but couldn't find anything odd in even his demeanor.
Once the meeting had ended and the gods had gotten their updates on new information and what they should do with it, Percy was utterly frustrated. And to top it off, he had a few gods waiting to converse with him once most everybody had left the council.
He sighed, and beckoned Grey to get up from his nap of boredom so that they could leave as soon as possible. He had to ready himself for the coming conversations, and having his faithful wolf at his side made him just the slightest bit more confident.
Hades and Aphrodite were approaching him while Artemis followed behind, and he didn't know in which direction he wanted to run.
Sorry again for the extremely late update, and sorry for the kinda abrupt stop. Just wanted to put something out there before I go on vacation without wifi (backpacking is very fun) for yet another week.
Not gonna do any review responses to this chapter, but if you have any questions or feedback, I'll answer them in my next update.
See you next time, and I hope my next update doesn't come out in August. Bye!