Chapter 14: I teach Ancient Greek philosophy

POV: Annabeth

I stared unblinking at the sky where the goddess had disappeared just now, my brain short-circuiting.

Hearing that the King of the Gods is not only too stubborn to refuse to see a threat when you hit him in his face with it, but is also a power-hungry, paranoid, and short-sighted Tyrant? Incredible that he is somehow able to be scum in so many different ways, but nothing we hadn't already known beforehand.

Realizing that there is likely a second camp, but with Roman demigods? Certainly interesting in how they were able to hide that without us ever finding out, but not too strange in itself.

Finding out your mother most likely broke her oath and with none other than the one she supposedly hates? Extremely weird, but then again, gods breaking oaths happens all the time, so it's not that surprising.

Learning that the gods were idiotic enough to create multiple personalities that hate one another, and realize that prevents them from undoing it again? Talk about embarrassing, but not too difficult to get your mind around.

Knowing that having the enemies of Olympus reawaken while the gods are still busy healing themselves and are not at their full strength means we demigods will suffer because of it? There's really no point in thinking about that, we're already too used to it anyway.

Finally, understanding how and why the normal and mythical worlds work together as they do? Difficult topic, but rather than give more questions, it actually answers them for once – not that I would ever admit that not even we Athena kids really understood before.

But having to fight two different versions of the Goddess of Victory, losing on purpose only to get stabbed in the stomach, get healed and still gaining an unbelievable blessing out of it? Somehow that was the event that made my brain decide to quit its job, forcing me to dumbly stare into the air for who knows how long.

Really brain? You do realize you make us look as stupid as Ares right now, right?

There was no answer of course, and mocking myself certainly didn't help with it either.

Next to me, I could hear Percy audible close his mouth. When I turned, he stared at me, his brows knit together, and I expected the questions that would no doubt follow soon. The questions I embarrassingly wouldn't be able to answer because I just couldn't think straight anymore.

But instead of that, he asked with an overly serious voice, "Since we survived, does that mean I get my kiss now?"

I blinked.

Once. Twice. Until I finally got what he meant and broke into laughter. I grabbed his shirt, pulling him to me, and for a moment, nothing but him mattered.

When we split apart again, my brain gratefully had decided that a kiss was just what it needed to resume operations again.

"Thanks, Seaweed Brain," I said. "I needed that."

He just gave one of his lopsided grins.

"Anytime, Wise Girl," he said. "Let's talk while we walk back? We still need to catch our ride and we don't want to make Grover worry for too long."

I nodded, knowing he had just proposed that to give me an opportunity to sort through all that information while we went to grab our stuff and our two new spoils of war.

When Percy opened Ares' backpack, he looked as if what was inside had just personally insulted his mother. Well, given that Sally getting kidnapped only happened because of the lightning bolt that was inside I wasn't really wrong.

"You know while I'm happy we already have the lightning bolt now and don't have to go close to Tartarus," he said, shivering slightly upon the mention of that place. "And since it was a gift from Ares, I couldn't care any less about the rest of the stuff that was in here, but did Ares really have to take away even the Oreos? Seriously? Why can't we have nice things in the mythical world?"

Percy slung the bag over his shoulder. I thought about how much of a fool we had just made out of Ares and couldn't help but snort.

"Now that's just an overly excessive and undeserving punishment," I agreed.

"I know, right? Talk about rude," Percy said with an exaggerated sigh. "Now that surely had to be against his oath. Stealing our cookies like that."

He smirked and gave me a gentle shove with his shoulder that I returned laughing, and we started to head back.

Now, most people wouldn't see anything unusual with Percy's behavior, but I knew Percy better than most people. Something was nagging at him and I had a feeling I knew what it was. Something that had caused somebody else's death the last time around. Something that he gave himself fault for.

So, by the time we reached the now open and completely demolished gate of the waterpark, I spoke up, "Remember what Themis said? Blessings and curses have to be deserved."

He looked up at me – and wasn't it nice to be taller than him again – slightly startled and I went on.

"Like Nike did just now. I think she had already planned to give us some kind of blessing before Kronos interfered, but it would never have been anywhere this strong," I said. "I mean, she didn't just bless us, but everyone on our side in battle as long as we are the ones in command."

"You said that earlier too. Before we fought her ... or is it them?" Percy asked, " whatever, I got the part about when the blessing is working, but how does the blessing work exactly? Like what happened when I fought Echidna?"

I had to think for a moment about that one.

"Well, that can work in a lot of different ways, but I think it is mostly more subtle," I answered. "Like when there are two decisions you could take and you got the feeling one of them is the better one. Maybe something like getting lucky and have your blade find a weak point in their armor. Stuff like that?"

"Then what about when it is underserving? How does it work then? Does the god just get a slap on the fingers and told not to do that again, or what?"

"Or what," I said. "There are two ways it can go, as far as I understand it. Either it doesn't work at all, or at least it has its strength reduced. Remember last time Ares cursed you? He specifically said every time, but how often did that curse activate?"

"Only once, maybe twice?" Percy admitted with a frown. "Not that it wasn't already bad enough as it was when it did acitve. What would be the other possibility?"

"To force it."

"Force it? Like making sure it sticks? What's the drawback of that? Because I figure there is a drawback."

I nodded.

"There is, but it would change in each individual case," I said. "Like getting cursed with blindness but gaining prophetic abilities in return. Or getting blessed with incredible beauty nobody can resist, but you end up falling in love with yourself - or worse even, animals or monsters fall in love with you."

Percy pulled a grimace at that piece of knowledge.

"Yeah, too much information thank you. I get it, so what do you think Ares did?" he asked. "Last time the curse was weakened, but I get the feeling he was madder this time? You don't think he forced it, do you?"

I could see how tense Percy looked. I gave him an understanding smile and shook my head.

"Against an oath on the Styx? You heard Nike's warning. It's not likely he would risk the consequences. The oath forbids him from interfering or ordering other people to do so, but not if somebody interferes without him asking for it. More likely he will try something along that line. I don't think you have anything to fear from the curse this time at all actually. I'm pretty sure that the oath and Lady Styx neutralize any effect it showed the last time."

Percy gave me a relieved smile in return.

"Yeah, I can live with that. Most likely Ares will just try with those annoying sons of his. I can handle those I think," Percy snorted.

Annoying sons? Did he mean Deimos and Phobos? But when did Percy run into them? Wait, maybe that was the time where he and Clarisse started being frenemies or something?

"Anyway," Percy said. "You think the Romans are anywhere near San Francisco? It would make a lot of sense to put them there, all things considered."

He seemed keen on changing the subject. Hmm, I probably shouldn't dig too deep into that then.

"Yes, and we have to find a way to track it down," I agreed. "Keeping the status quo is not a bad tactic and seemed to have worked the last time. But the titans most likely only kept it a secret because they were too afraid of our camps allying against them. I don't think we can risk it again."

What would Kronos do if we were to prevent him from recruiting the demigods of Camp? His favorite tactic during the war had always been to divide and conquer. Not revealing the existence of the other camp to each other was the safest route for him as well. Considering how easy he played Nike and Victoria against each other, I shivered even thinking about what would happen if he saw no other way than reveal this secret. An all-out war between Greek and Roman demigods might just trigger another World War, and that really was the last thing we needed right now.

This conflict exists because of the gods, but if we were able to fix their problems, help them heal themselves as we did with Nike, we could maybe breach this rift between the camps too. Working together against Kronos would give us the highest chance to keep this war as short as possible. But that meant we had to reveal this secret on our own terms.

Percy seemed to have similar thoughts, because he asked, "How many gods do you think are normal already, and which of them do you think are more like the crazy victory sisters were?" and then added snorting, "Bet you our dear King and Queen are too stuck up to even try."

"Not taking that one," I answered, rolling my eyes at him. "It seems to be connected to both their personalities and their domains and powers. But it's too difficult to just guess from that information alone, isn't it?"

"What about looking at their children?" Percy offered.

"Their children? What do you mean?"

"It's just what Echidna said about me that got me wondering. I got so many different abilities from my father, far more than almost everyone else in Camp, far more than Thalia had, even though we both have one of the Big Three as a parent," Percy explained.

Of course. Most children in Camp showed a clear leaning toward their parents' main domain, missing their parents' other more unique abilities most of the time completely. And even if they had them, those abilities seemed to tire them easily. It would also explain, why the campers from some cabins had a much weaker scent than others.

"You're right, but we can think about that when we return to Camp," I said, shelving that thought for now. "It actually fits perfectly with what I figured out about the reason the split worked as it did, and everything in the mythical world actually. Earlier, when you fought Ares and then when we fought Nike and Victoria, we didn't actually fight them, you know what I mean? And what would happen if we actually had to face their real self?

"And don't pretend to be dumb. That might have worked the first time we did this quest, but I know you better than this now," I added.

It made him swallow his smart-ass comment and pout instead.

"Killjoy," he mumbled, and then in a louder voice, he said, "You're talking about their divine forms, right? That we die even looking at it?"

When I kept waiting and motioned him to go on, he furrowed his brows and I could see his mind working but not finding a satisfactory answer.

"How exactly does that work?" he finally asked. "Mr. D once told me gods can exist in many places at once and it doesn't seem to pose a problem for them. So, what is different in this case? It has to do with their divine form, right? And with the Heart of the West? That Ares confirmed that they created a second one?"

A smile spread across my lips. Even without the excessive background knowledge I had he still found the most important points.

"Exactly," I answered. "The gods are so immensely powerful, that we can't even look at their true form. The gods, the titans, the monsters, the Labyrinth, the Sea of Monsters, even Olympus; In truth, nothing of the mythical world we come in contact with is as we see it. It's similar to Plato's Cave!"

"Whose cave?" he asked completely confused.

"Plato," I said laughing at his expression. "is an Ancient Greek philosopher and Plato's cave is what we call an allegory he made. Anyway, to put it really simply - and I try not to get too philosophical - you have the outside world and a cave with different parts to it. You have a handmade fire at the highest point, a layer with objects below it, and at the bottom, you have chained people who are unable to see anything but shadows of the objects cast by the fire."

I gathered my thought for a moment thinking about how to best explain this.

"See, the real world lies outside of the cave, and the fire and the objects on the middle layer are nothing more than copies or imitations, made by someone who has seen the outside world. Now the people on the bottom of the cave don't know any of that. All they have ever seen in their lives are these shadows on the wall they are looking at. They don't know better, so naturally, these people will believe this shadow-world to be the real thing."

For once Percy wasn't interrupting, instead, he was listening intently to what I was saying.

"In our case, the outside world would be the divine world of the immortals. Only those that reach godhood can lay eyes on it without dying. For mortals, our entire world is just this shadow play at the wall. Science and history are interpreting the shadows, trying to explain them as well as they can. But they will never be able to find the truth without understanding that they are not the real thing to begin with."

I could slowly see understanding appear in Percy's eyes. He seemingly had already understood what I was trying to convey, which only proved my earlier point about how perceptive he really was.

"Most mortals would be at the bottom layer, the Mist hiding anything else but the shadows on the wall from them. They see it, but they can't influence it, as they don't cast a shadow themselves. Clear-sighted mortals and us demigods are not bound by the mist, so we can freely move within the cave. While we can't lay our eyes on the outside world, we can at least go into the middle layer of the cave and see that there is something more. But in the end, we still only see the imitations of the objects from outside, not the real thing. That's the mythical world. The difference between us and the other mortals is, that being able to enter the layer of the objects, we can cast a shadow ourselves, and thus influence the mortal world.

"Of course," Percy realized. "The objects on the middle layer are all something connected to the gods, something they created. The fire on top is the 'Heart of the West'. Its light created the world as we know it, and if it were to disappear, so would our world and like the people in the cave, we would be back in the dark. When the gods split after Troy, they created a second 'Heart', a second source of fire. But having two light sources shine at an object creates multiple shadows of it. And in the mythical world, the demigods fought between each other over which shadow was the true one."

He put on a thoughtful expression.

"But then, shouldn't reducing it to a single fire fix the problem again?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"They can't because they didn't put in a second fire, but actually split the first fire in two. So you could say they didn't create a second shadow but rather split one shadow into two smaller ones of half their former power. When they recombined the fire into one, rather than creating one big shadow again they got two overlapping small shadows. Because those are godly shadows, and we know how self-centered gods are. They both want to be the one real shadow and refuse to merge, both trying to be the one in front."

"And when they realized it wouldn't work they split it again," Percy thought out loud. "But what about my father and Hades? Ares said they refused to physically split their two aspects after Rome again?"

"Remember what else Ares said? Your father followed Hades' lead and moved from Olympus. They wouldn't have been able to heal themselves while there existed two 'Hearts', but they still could have come to a peaceful agreement between their two aspects. They distanced themselves from Olympus to not be pulled into the conflict again," I explained.

By now, there was no longer a need to keep up with the comparison of the shadows.

"Right, and of course that would mean that unlike the others they wouldn't have much difficulties in healing themselves after the gods moved here and tried again," he said.

He thought for a moment and then nodded.

"I think I got the concept. There can be multiple versions of the gods at once because those are actually just manifestations of a small portion of their power, and they are just using those as tools to interact with the world so they don't accidentally kill everything just with their presence alone. And basically, whenever they do that, they create two different versions of themselves, each with half-strength, instead of a single one, because they were idiots and damaged the connection to their own world?"

"Yes, you could say it like that."

"But who decides with how much power they manifest in our world?" he asked. "Because there has to be something preventing the Titans and Monsters to just unleash their full divine power upon us."

"No kidding," I answered. "They would have a field day if they could. But I think their strength depends on two things: the strength of their domain and the amount of recognition they get. That's why gods like your father are so powerful. Their domain is so vast, and the stronger their domain is in one place, the more power they have there."

"Like Pan. His domain was too destroyed to sustain enough of his power and the only way he survived was because the Satyrs refused to stop believing in him," Percy offered. "So, fading would be losing the ability to manifest a physical form in this world anymore? What about the titans and monsters then? Why were they incapacitated during the split?"

"Gods cannot die no matter what you do to them. Fading would be them not only having no strength left, but also giving up on attempting to try to form themselves. Unlike the titans who have lost control over most of their domains, or monsters who never had one to begin with," I said. "Think about it. Well-known monsters reform faster than the lesser-known ones. How monsters tend to have their own shops or even chains. They reform purely based on recognition. Every time somebody names them, they invoke a part of them, strengthening their powers. And the longer they live, the stronger they get again. With the split halving the little power they gained through that, they were too weak to really do much till now. But I think not being able to form themselves before actually prevented them from having the same problems as the gods have."

Percy got big eyes.

"Hold on. You mean they really know when you say their names and can actually, like, appear or something?"

I rolled my eyes at his antics.

"Does names have power ring any bells?" I deadpanned. "Probably not, it's not like you ever listen to everyone repeatedly telling you that."

He smiled sheepishly at me.

"Hey, I listen, I just chose to ignore it because I thought that was just to scare new campers into behaving or something. And it's not like you haven't started doing that as well."

"Fair enough," I said shrugging my shoulders. "Well, the answer is both yes and no. Naming them when they are close by would tip them off to your position or warn them that you are aware of their presence. But unless they are really close to reforming, they wouldn't just appear because you said their names - unless you performed a summoning ritual of course. And it's not like you can hide from gods and titans if they are trying to find out where you are. Unless one of them is helping you hide as Lady Hestia does with us."

For a moment we walked in silence next to each other, while Percy thought over what I said. We had now almost reached the diner again. It was getting darker, but as far as I remembered we should have enough time to catch the truck.

"Was that the reason they ignored it?" Percy suddenly asked. "Hoping to prevent him from regaining power by not giving him any attention?"

I missed my next step in surprise. I hadn't looked at it like this till now, but...

"That sounds actually really likely. It didn't work because he had all those demigods starting to worship him, but if that hadn't happened, then maybe the problem would really have just gone away."

The diner was in sight now, and Grover had spotted us. I could see how visibly relieved he was when they ran to us.

"Who would have thought," Percy voiced. "Putting your head in the sand and ignoring your problems until it is too late seems to be actually a valid battle tactic. And here I thought our dear King God was just an idiot."

And with that last sarcastic remark, we reunited with our friends.

PJ&AC

A while later we were sitting in the back of the same truck as last time. While it still smelled as bad, after a bit of trying Percy had been able to create some ice, like he had during the Capture the Flag game. But from what he said, this ability most likely wouldn't see much use in battle anytime soon, because while he had somewhat control over it, it felt slow and clunky.

I was leaning in a corner on some mildewed feed sacks next to Grover watching Percy and Allapsar having an interesting animated discussion – according to Grover that is because I could only hear half of it – with the zebra. It seemed to be trying to teach them about what perks being a zebra had in contrast to being a "boring normal" horse, and why mythical horses weren't as great as they pretend to be.

I glanced at Grover out of the corner of my eyes and I could see that he was obviously finding their conversation highly entertaining. He looked surer of himself than our counterpart had at this point in time, but I couldn't help but miss our Grover. Percy had been right when he called me out earlier. About how I was sending Grover away all the time. I was trying, but there was something like a … wall between us, and I could tell Percy felt the same way. I knew that if we were to tell Grover the truth about what happened he would definitely have our back, but this wasn't the Grover we had gone through so much with. It would feel as if we were trying to replace our Grover with somebody else, and this Grover would never be able to fulfill our expectations the same way our Grover could. It wasn't his fault or anything, he just hadn't shared the same experiences as us. And while I was trying, it was still hard to accept this fact.

Annoyed at myself, I pushed the negative thoughts away.

We were actually doing far better than one would expect, considering all that happened to us before; the last battle with Kronos, the following fall to Tartarus, and us traveling back through time. Both Percy and I had had terrible nightmares the first few nights. Being close to each other had helped a little, but it didn't just make all the terrible stuff we had lived through disappear. If it weren't for Lady Hestia keeping the nightmares at bay and soothe our pain, I was sure we wouldn't be doing even half as good. Whatever it was she did, I couldn't be more grateful for it.

Relationships with gods, especially godly parents are always strained. You can't help but wonder if what they were doing was because they genuinely cared for you and are trying to help, or if they had other reasons, be it for personal gain, fun, or something else. But Hestia's presence felt different somehow. It always showed that she genuinely cared, gave a feeling of peace.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, letting my mind wander back to Camp. The Camp that was still free from any scars left by war. All our friends, still alive and well. Everything how it always should have been, safe and peacefully. And before long the motion of the truck moving had lulled me to sleep with a smile on my lips.

In my dream, I was some kind of bird.

I was sitting on the high vantage point offered by the branch of a tree. A young girl of maybe nine or ten years old, with shoulder-length, spiky black hair was running in my direction. I kept my eyes trained on her, and even when she passed me, instead of turning my body around, I simply rotated my head further than should be humanly possible.

The girl reached an open field of the small park we seemed to be in. She dropped a book with greek-looking letters she had been holding in her hands, opened it, and started to play some kind of game on her own.

It was strange watching her like this. At first glance, the girl looked no different than any other young and innocent little girl. Only if you looked closer, you could see it. Her clothes were ripped and dirty, and she had a small cut and a faint bruise on her face as if she had been in a fight recently. Honestly, her game wasn't something usual either. She was swinging a wooden stick around, but it didn't look like a child playing knight. Her movements looked precise and collected, and every time she started a new movement, she looked into her book first. She looked like she was attempting to imitate some kind of swordplay from it.

This went for a while until suddenly the atmosphere changed. A gigantic bird-shaped shadow appeared in the park, slowly moving in circles around the girl. She was so deep in her training she didn't even seem to realize.

The girl just looked up from her book again, and I didn't hesitate for even a moment. Completly silently, I swooped down, grabbing the book in my talons, hooting once, and started to fly off.

"Hey, that's mine!" an angry childish voice shouted somewhere behind me. "Come back here you stupid bird!"

I ignored her, swiftly finding my way through the trees until I reached the first buildings of the city. I could tell by the angry cussing from behind, that the girl was running after me. As seemed to do the bird somewhere in the sky above us, based on the fast-approaching shadow on the ground. Skillful I lead the girl back into the city, through streets and alleys, until the shadow seemed to have finally lost us.

"Gi-ve – huff –that back – huff – you hear me."

I stopped in the air, flapping my wings in place, and turned around, looking at the heavily breathing girl. I noticed the freckles across her nose, and for a moment I met her electrical blue eyes looking at me in annoyance. She approached, grabbing after the book, but I nimbly dodged and disappeared into another alley.

"That's it! I'm going to stuff you!" she shouted angrily behind me.

The smell of ozone filled the air, and a small lightning bolt would have hit me, hadn't I dodged it with a small turn of my body. Ignoring her attempt to fry me, I kept leading her through the city. This game of catch kept going for a few more minutes where I had to make sure she could follow, until I lay my eyes on a tall woman with disheveled blonde hair and a stern disapproving face. She looked startled when I dropped the book in her hands upon passing.

The last thing I saw when I turned the next corner, was the woman pulling the girl close to her and into an underground station, her eyes glued at the sky above full of fear.

I woke up with a start, my heart racing.

Thalia, I couldn't help but think. The only thing missing had been the punk clothes and that girl would have looked like a miniature version of her.

My mind was running. Had this been something from Thalia's past? Why she ran away maybe? She never liked talking about her past, so it was possible. But what did it mean?

"You ok?" a voice whispered next to me and I could feel the weight of an arm land on my shoulder.

I turned my head and the moment I met the worried sea-green eyes of Percy my body relaxed and I melted into his embrace.

"The others are asleep. Want to talk about it?" he asked.

I did. Percy stayed silent until I finished, listening thoughtfully to my descriptions.

"It does sound like Thalia's mother as far as I remember," he said after a while.

Hearing that surprised me because I hadn't heard Thalia talk about her mother even once. Thalia didn't even tell anybody her last name, much less anything else.

"You know what her mother looks like?"

"When I was on a quest in the Underworld with Thalia and Nico. That ghost goddess - can't remember what her name was - she took her's and Nico's mother's appearance."

Melinoe. I remembered Percy telling me about that particular quest.

"Ok, so considering that I felt like I was trying to protect Thalia, that still leaves the question open of what type of monster that was."

"Fury?" Percy offered weakly.

I didn't disagree, because it was certainly possible, but I had the feeling it had been something else. There had to be a reason why I dreamt about this particular event, and while it could be a warning being close to the Underworld now, it just didn't feel right.

I most likely would have further talked about it - even knowing it would be pointless to guess - when a thought struck me. It was difficult to see in the dim light, but it was still visible if you knew what to look for.

"Why were you awake?" I asked softly.

Percy froze for a moment but then sighed, pulled his knee to his chest, and laid his chin on them.

"Just thinking," he mumbled. "Are we really doing the right thing?"

That question caught me off-guard. Percy never had shown even a hint of hesitation till now. Why was he second-guessing himself now all of a sudden?

"What do you mean?"

"Nico and Bianca," he said. "Should we really try to get them out? We already have the bolt and helm, so what if something goes wrong in the casino and we can't deliver them in time? And the gods don't know that the Great Prophecy is already completed, do they? What if Zeus tries to kill them... again?"

It was a reasonable point to make, but he had hesitated slightly in the beginning, so there had to be something else too. I decided to return to what was really on his mind later.

"There shouldn't be a problem," I said instead. "You broke free from the influence the last time on your own, and this kind of magic doesn't really work that well if you are aware of its effect. And while I have to admit I don't exactly know how old Bianca is, you are physical still older than her at least. When we found them the last time Bianca had still been only twelve, and Hades had freed them after Thalia's return half a year earlier. Your thirteenth birthday is already in August. That puts the attention still on you, and as long as nothing happens to you, she should be safe. But I don't think Zeus will be able to do anything anyway, not without angering both of his brothers."

Percy hummed in agreement but didn't say anything else.

"Now, do you want to talk about the real reason why you were awake?"

He gave a weak chuckle.

"You can read me almost as good as Grover, even without having his cheat abilities," he said.

I stayed silent, waiting till he was ready to talk. Finally, he sighed.

"I was thinking about everything we have changed so far, and everything that needs to be done. We will have to stay at camp year-round, and I know that it is the right thing to do, that things need to change, but still…"

He ran with his fingers through his hair.

"Doing that means you won't have the opportunity to really fix things with your family again. Neither will I be able to get to grow close to Tyson by spending a year of school with him. It means I will have to leave my mum alone again while we get into dangerous things. I know she will understand, but it will still really hurt her. What if something we do prevents her from getting together with Paul? And I've been trying to not think about all that, but today really drove in that not only the bad won't go the same as last time. And no matter what we do, our friends will never be the same again," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I just wish they were with us, that we wouldn't have to do this all alone. I don't want to put any of them in danger, but I'm just afraid that the two of us won't be enough. That it'll only end up worse than last time…"

I should have known how much this was eating on him. That Percy would hide it the same way he had done with the Great Prophecy.

No, that wasn't true. I knew but had done my best to ignore it. Like I had done earlier thinking about Grover. Pushing problems away had never helped thus far, and we certainly should know better than this, but I had known that thinking about it would hurt too much. It would only result in making me second guess all my decision, that I would risk hesitating again. I had hesitated about Luke and see how that had turned out.

I had done my best to avoid thinking about any of it, but now I realized that had been the wrong decision. This was the same way Zeus acted, and being like him was the last thing I wanted to be. He and his wife were more like the poster examples of how not to be. Now was not the time, but when we returned to Camp, we would need to talk about this again.

So instead of saying anything, I simply pulled Percy in a tight embrace.

Neither of us said anything else that night, silently cuddling, comforting each other in our shared pain until we finally fell asleep again.

And if either of us had ended up crying, there had been nobody awake to call us out on it. And by the time we woke up again, our tears had already dried.

AN: So, I'm finally back.

The chapter ended up being longer than expected so I split it into two. I have to say this chapter was a real pain to write. Can't even tell anymore how often I rewrote it. It has a lot of information in it, but I hope the explanations ended up being understandable. If anything stayed unclear though, feel free to ask.

Upload frequency one chapter a week for now. Should I end up being a lot of chapters ahead, I might make that two a week, but for now I keep it like this.

As the question came up I added in the part about Bianca's age. I don't know if her age was stated anywhere otherwise, but I used the one given by Grover at the beginning of "The Titan's Curse" and Hades taking his children out of the Lotus Casino following directly the end of "The Sea of Monster's". So when she is freed from the Casino, she would be closer to twelve than thirteen.

So the ages the children of the Big Three have either right now or had when their aging stopped and they'll have the moment they are again revived/ healed/ freed is: Percy (Almost 13), Jason (Almost 12), Thalia (13 1/2), Hazel (14), Bianca (12), Nico (10 1/2). For those wondering over Thalia's age, I know that it is said she was twelve when she was turned into a tree, but there is kind of a lot of contradicting information in her backstory so I went with the date from the wiki, and then she would have been 13 when she was turned into a tree.

Also, thanks to everyone who took part in the polls. Leo and Piper are going to stay Greek, and I got an idea of how I'm going to introduce them. I actually didn't plan for Percy to get another weapon anytime soon, but something else (he will also end up getting a shield made by Tyson again), but I'm most likely giving him a permanent second form to Riptide at a later point in the story. I've got multiple events planned where they get their hands on some kind of weapons or magical items, and those are going to be shared with camp and their allies. I haven't decided on anything specific for most characters, so if you have a suggestion for a character weapon pairing feel free to do so.

Next time: We stage an uprising in the prison of eternal fun... (This time really)