Hi, so, I tried to do cute snuggles and comforting fluff, but the I started writing it.
So, personal discovery, I cannot produce softer than bittersweet and realy struggle with dialogue.
Anyway.
Have some sadness!~
The next few days were...hazy. The wounded were healed. Damaged cabins were mended and the Romans built themselves temporary barracks on the open grass by the Arena and Forge. Once the adrenalin faded, so did the hysteria-tinged relief, leaving a subdued silence hanging over the Camp. I... went through the motions. I tended the pegasi (Blackjack was overjoyed to see me, but calmed quickly and didn't push on where I'd been. He didn't even ask for doughnuts.), helped put out fires (water, water, like that could erase the image of my HELLFIRE) and carry materials (I'd gotten much stronger physically sometime -Iknowexactlywhen- in Tartarus; I could leap incredible distances and lift the weight of boulders with just a burning surge of determination, my team-mates made sure no-one said anything).
Seeing the Camp healing helped. Watching the recovery happen felt like...a battered ship mooring in a sheltered harbour, like relief, like safety and being able to rest. Though the wounds left stark scars.
(The satyrs tried to cover the battleground in grass. Blood red poppies bloomed instead, a sea of crimson in another form.)
Then...came the day of the funerals.
~~~∞Ω∞~~~
It was a sunny day.
Of course, it always was at Camp unless the Lord of the Skies was feeling particularly petty.
It was quiet.
There were three hundred demigods present, each was as silent as the dead we were honouring.
There weren't many bodies, but enough. Final count was taken that morning, with the late addition of a Roman Legionnaire who passed in the night from, reportedly from injuries (a severed spine, a mangled stump of an arm and a ruined eye on the other side, with a future of misery besides. Nothing nectar, ambrosia or the Apollo-blessed medics could heal. Nothing a fourteen-year-old aspiring career-soldier of Rome could recover from. Children of Hypnos and Morpheus had been unobtrusively stationed near the critical care units of the infirmaries); a total of twenty-five dead- fifteen from the Twelfth Legion, eight from Camp Half-Blood and two Hunters of Artemis.
The Funeral Pyre was stacked and light, the crackling of flames echoing in the stillness.
The Hunters had taken care of their own dead privately the night before, under the dim light of the crescent moon.
The Romans went first.
The dead were laid out, one at a time, each wreathed in golden laurel. The flames were light at Reyna's signal and the entire Legion came to attention; two-hundred spears bristling, two hundred voices crying out, saluting the dead, hailing the fallen by name and Cohort, a mighty roar of respect, acknowledgement and grief, in the only way the Roman military en masse knows how., with Imperial Gold gleaming deadly bright and shields pounding the ground like a heartbeat.
When the fires burned out, the ashes were gathered in urns, to be returned to New Rome for burial.
The Greeks went next.
Pollux, who I promised Dionysus I'd keep safe (another lost, another failure carved into the ledger of my soul, another thread cut out of my tapestry, when had it got so frayed?), who was cut down while trapped in Gaia's mud, his vines strong enough to save a young girl from Hermes Cabin from the hellhound but not himself, who was finally with his brother again. We learned to weave shrouds as part of training, as Pollux had no cabin-mates and no close friends, with the help of Grover, I made his. He was wrapped in a cloth of green vines, patterned with ripe strawberries, clustered grapes and a bronze sword wreathed in violets in remembrance of his bravery in battle and the unique colour of his eyes. As it burned, it smelled of grapes.
One from Aphrodite Cabin, Drew Tanaka. Her shroud was hot pink and glittered red, bordered with white dove feathers. It burned with the scent of expensive perfume, sickly sweet and heaving on the tongue.
A brother and sister from Hermes cabin who arrived while I was on the streets sans memory. Their shrouds were laid together, a clean white patterned with delicate black and amber that smelled of paper, ink and pine.
Jake Mason from Hephaestus, who fought despite injury and was burned in a cloth of interlocked cogs in every size and material. It burned, somehow, and tasted like iron (blood/BLOOD/youngbloodspilled/toomuch/TOOMUCH/NEVERGETTHEMBACK/DEAD).
A girl from Hecate, inky black shroud threaded with glowing green runes, myrrh lingering in the back of the throat.
A boy from Athena. Wrapped in cloth like the wing of a great grey owl.
Annabeth Chase.
Athena cabin had approached me about her shroud. They had made her one upon her leaving to find me (as per tradition). I saw it and sobbed. It was grey silk, clouded like the storm of her eyes. The main image was an intricate temple outlined in chalky thread, the Parthenon, with a small silver owl and a strong white stallion together in the frieze. At the foot of the temple was the ocean. Azure cresting waves stitched to kiss the base of the pillars, shifting with the cloth to look like water and shimmering all the colours of an abalone shell in the light. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It killed me inside that she needed it.
She was placed on the pyre by the Athena Counsellor, I was grateful he did instead of me. I couldn't move. The heat of the flames was like ice on my skin. The scented smoke coiled and burned in my lungs as I ceased drawing breath, the salty sea breeze and freshly carved stone. My eyes burned with dry and wet as my lids refused to lower and my tears refused to stop. I was shaking, but my heart as silent. I was screaming, but I had no voice.
It was a sunny day
There was rain running down my face.
It was quiet.
The voice of Greece slowly gathered, lifting into the air in mourning, a hundred songs twined together in a haunting melody of love and loss that echoed through the Ages
~~~∞Ω∞~~~
Mom gone in a flash of light –screaming-
The world asleep, fires burning, my people dying, Open the Jar, just Let Hope Go.
Heat, darkness, running through the House of Horrors in the Darkness, hunger, shaking, you choked a goddess on her own poison and DIDN'T STOP WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP MONSTER
Blond hair. Cold skin. Wide eyes staring. Whispers in the wind YoU kILleD hEr.
My eyes snapped opened to sunlight filtering in through my window. The rest of the Seven (Six) were scattered around me, hammocks strung up and sleeping bags laid down in Cabin 3. A warm surge of protect-love-gratitude spread through me and overflowed, I could almost imagine wrapping them up in it like a blanket, or a bubble. They had stuck close. They were the reason no-one had asked for details about my absence. They were the driving force behind getting up each day (despite the grey numbness –what'sthepointshe'sdeadandgoneforever- with painful bright-sharp sparks - loss-ache-agony-failure- and insidious whispers –you're Cursed, don't you See, Everyone dIeS around YoU, Oathbreak-Child, Don't get close-You'llKILLTHEM, Did you think Achilles' Mark was Gone? DoYouReallyThinkYouCanEscapeTheCursesYouTookOn?-). They stuck close. I was never alone and pathetically grateful for that fact, but I could see them getting restless. What we had now was not meant to last (good things always go so fast).
The mourning songs in the back of my mind, ringing in my ears, I breathed.
Frank and Hazel were deep asleep either side of me, her curled up in her sleeping bag, lose to my side and him a muscular ball of bulldog, not far from my shoulder. They, Reyna and the Legion would be returning to New Rome today. (New Rome? Almost home-from-home-from-hearthhome. A new road, a bright path, lost in the too-light-harsh-white iceland it'ssocoldinsidemyheartitaches)
Leo was sprawled in a hammock on Franks side, cloth twisted and limbs hanging out awkwardly, for all his expression showed complete relaxation. Apparently, I'm not the only one who drools in my sleep (ow). He had confessed, quietly in the flickering firelight of his burning hands, when they retreated to Percy's cabin and drew comfort from each other's presence, of his oath to save a lonely girl from her island-cage, a vow to rescue the girl he loved, was loved him back and brought him balance (the lonely girl, another one of your failures wasn't she? You promised. Promised and didn't check. She had to curse your Love. Don't you see what you drive people to? Maybe you should just stop). He would leave when the Legion did.
Piper was next to Hazel, almost under Leo. She, and the rest, had been my anchors to reality. Kind Frank, who felt emotion like whirling storm, but turned that chaos into passion wrapped around his heart, never swirling out of control because he never let the pressure get too much. He acknowledged what he felt and acted on those feelings, increasingly frequently as he gained confidence in himself. Tricky Hazel, who was so like me but different. We resonated like sequential strings but she was steadier, more grounded (probably something to do with her literal affinity for the underground). She taught me how to rest in the moment, that it was okay to linger for a while, unseen in the concealing fog. Bright Leo, who burned like the sun, who was my mirrored image in many ways, who's ember flecked dark brown eyes I looked into and saw pain, who looked at my crooked smile and saw his own shield of humour against the screaming, drowning cold. Piper, who was a stranger but felt familiar. She didn't have a bond with Annabeth, didn't know her enough to grieve as deeply as Thalia (we hadn't spoken. She'd been around camp all week as Lieutenant of Artemis and couldn't stand to look at me), or Grover, or even the rest of the Greek campers. But Piper was soothing like the summer rain, pleasantly cool, constant and unhurried.
She and Jason seemed to have reached some sort of... understanding? Or...just, something felt different between them, like the uncertain trills in the lyrical rush of her river-song and his wide, warm aura had settled into something more...distant, but content, settled.
Jason was closest to the door, a guard to promise them safe slumber if nothing else. We had talked a bit over the last few (days...? No more than a month...surely). With Frank being field promoted to Praetor, Jason now had no responsibility, aside from his long-term goal of bringing worship to all the minor deities and spirits, so he was always found hovering nearby.
It was nice for a while, having someone new to lean back on, but even in my greyed-out state, it didn't take long to start to feel constraining. So, I introduced him to Grover, who had gotten around in his search or Pan (a few days into the reconstruction effort, Grover and I had a long talk. About my disappearance, about Annabeth, about Tartarus. Turns out he had been getting emotional feedback from me the whole time, so he knew exactly what I had been feeling. I told him I didn't think I could survive like this without her long enough to get any better and asked him to cut the empathy link between us, so he wouldn't get hurt. It's the only time I've ever seen Grover truly angry. There was screaming. There was crying. There was just us, clinging to each other, sobbing for a painful ordeal and a lost sister, brothers by bond with the link wide open, saying everything we couldn't put into words). They got along great and would be heading out into the world to the key places Grover had marked as divinely inhabited to get a start on the whole thing.
They would be gone soon. Out of sight, out of reach. Gone, just like-. But not yet. They were here now and something about that made my broken soul hum in contentment. It was all I could do to be near them while I could and bite my tongue to keep the words please stay, don't go, please don't leave me all alone behind his teeth.
Sometime later (a minute? Twenty? After Tartarus, the passage of time didn't register properly; watching the cycle of day and night still didn't feel real), while the rest slowly roused and we lazed together in the sunlight before breakfast, there was a knock on the door. Muscles coiled, eyes darted to the door and window, vulnerable points even though Hazel had layered Mist to keep out intruders over both points on the first night. My hands stilled where I was braiding Hazel's hair (Frank was leaning on my shoulder watching, taking notes for future reference) and suddenly held Riptide, drawn and gleaming. Jason opened the door, bodily blocking the view in, Lupa's training shining through in every detail, from a flash of canine tooth in a not-exactly-smile to the straightness of his spine with a hint of looming. "Yes?" He had a nice voice, middle range and steady, with a hint of rumble and an edge of natural authority.
It was Connor and Travis. "Is Percy here?"
"Chiron wants to talk to him." to their credit, neither showed any weakness in the face of Jason's (low-level) 'Praetor-voice & Wolf-stare' intimidation. I got up and padded over, rocking the 'yesterday's clothes' look. I had always liked the Stoll brothers, ever since I first arrived at Camp. Since meeting Hazel, I had a better idea why; they had the same fog-feel as she did, only they were more whispers-from-the-gloom, raising-hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck sort, which might just be my bias from knowing them and being one of the relative few who could recognize the way they smirk and the anything but innocent light in their eyes as 'who have they pranked and how?'. I dunno (what do you even know anymore? They don't know you now, you're a monster now, can they see it? Please don't see it. Don'tLookDon'tLook). They seemed mostly-serious now though, so I nodded at them and made my way to the Big House, Jason silently at my side.
~~~∞Ω∞~~~
I walked with Percy to meet Chiron. Well, maybe 'walked' is a misleading term. From what I'd seen, Pery didn't 'walk' He flowed. Every move he made melded together into one action, sinuous in the way of athletes, economic like a loping wolf. Innately predatory. Every step like a rolling wave, unstoppable like shadow of a cloud passing high overhead.
It was impressive.
I kept on his right side, far enough out and back to flank him while keeping myself in his line of sight. This was his show. I was here to remind him that he had people at his back whose loyalties (in an unspoken way) were to each other first.
We found Chiron waiting on the porch. I suddenly realised how very old Chiron must feel, surrounded with bright young pups that he had to watch gain shadows in their souls and grow fangs slicked with blood. His white tail flicked once in agitation, "Percy, I had hoped you would never number in those who learn what I am about to tell you, but the Fates are cruel to all that would wish a different path. Come inside, we have much to discuss."
~~~∞Ω∞~~~
Soul-Fire. Flames. Fire-Magic.
Apparently, sometimes a demigod would find themselves in a potentially very lethal situation (surprise, surprise) that no weapon, training or godly intervention could get them out of.
Sometimes they died. A shroud was burned when they didn't return (if they got to a Camp in the first place) if they were lucky, or Lupa's Pack got dinner or they just became anonymous bones in a corner.
Sometimes they said No.
Sometimes they said I will not die this way. Not here. Not today.
And they caught fire. Not like Leo's fire. Rainbow fire.
(What. What does it even matter now anyway?)
The story of Promethius giving fire to humanity was, according to Chiron, a lot more spiritual than literal. See, humans had been created (the current version, the one that didn't get destroyed for being too crazy or too peaceful or something) and had learned all about rock-hit-rock-make-mini-sun fire themselves. The problem was, Zeus saw that what they'd made was a bit too much like the divine White Fire innate to the Olympian gods, otherwise known as their true forms. He was going to just take the fire away, period, but Hera had been getting on his case about rash decision making (Her Royal Hypocrite), so he looked closer before he did anything.
Bad luck, not only were they making civilizations built on the fire they made, but they also had a kind of innate energy. It wasn't White, more like fragmented White Fire, like light split through a prism. Long story short, he freaked took the fire from mortals by locking it deep within them, spreading misery and discord worldwide (what, ages later, Hesiod referred to as Zeus withdrawing 'the means of life'), until Prometheus, being a Titan and quite cunning besides, 'stole' the fire back for mankind using what he'd learned about souls from his half-siblings the Giants.
Once that happened, loads of gods and goddesses jumped in and started sponsoring humans with certain flame-colours, all coming under Iris and Hestia as the top authorities.
Over the millennia, the gods had also noticed that when they had demigod kids, they tended to have a specific type overall.
Apparently, Apollo's kids tended to have sparkling yellow that could heal, among other things, also Demeter's. Hermes' leaned more to a dark bluey purple ('indigo' apparently, like, does anyone even know what that colour is? My Wise-Girl would know) that was all about tricks and deceptions, Ares' had caustic red like blood (typical), Hypnos was all about a light shimmering blue that soothed like nothing else with the odd electric green (MYANNABETHHOWDARETHEYFEELTHESAMEITHURTS) that popped up in Athena and Hephaestus with good shielding and temporary sharpening capabilities. They were all pretty common, following the rainbow order of red being most common, to 'indigo' being comparatively rarer However, there were outliers in the oranges and purples ('violet' or whatever) that just so happened to tie in with the Big Three. Oranges were great leaders (the image of an orange in Praetor purple and toga brightened my mood slightly) while purples were the perfect protectors and defenders of home borders. Zeus' and Hades' kids could be anywhere on the colour chart and might have more than one colour (because that's a thing too), but of all the demigods, they had the most potential to be oranges (there were official Ancient Greek names for each of them, but Chiron was my Latin teacher for a year, he knew me, so he just told me the names once and stuck to colours for the rest of the lecture). Poseidon? Almost exclusively 'violet'. I remember once he told me 'the sea does not like to be restrained', at the time it really struck a chord with me somewhere deep in myself, now I know it's apparently the entire MO of nearly every single one of his kids. Even the ones that have another colour (usually orange or light blue) have the purple like the bruises on my soul.
(The perfect defender. You FAILURE)
And here we are.
Awkwardly sipping drinks because Chiron is now impressing upon us the importance of keeping the fire secret from the mortals, lest they kidnap those like me for nefarious purposes. Not that they could see it anyway. Except the mortals who were Active themselves. Because that was also a thing. And they made a mini society of themselves like the demigod Camps. Because why not?
Jason apparently knew some of this stuff as part of his Praetorial duties to ensure the training and ability of his forces.
Jason was weird. He seemed...softer, now that we weren't in a high-stress suicide-quest to save the world and thwart a Primordial entity. He still carried the bearing of a Leader (Jason was apparently amber-orange with a hard-sharp edge of spectral green, just not quite Active), but was more approachable with his delicate glasses and small smiles that tugged at the scar on his lip. We...were okay. The circumstances we met in were less than ideal and the Death-Match in Kansas was a bit embarrassing in hindsight, but we had come to a sort of...understanding; I trusted him to keep our people safe when I couldn't and he did the same to me. It was still a bit up in the air about leadership and authority (I refuse to subjugate myself to anyone, no matter how much I like and respect them. There was a reason I gained Lupa's approval despite being Greek), but hopefully we wouldn't be in a pertinent situation anytime soon.
~~~∞Ω∞~~~
The Legion left. Dismantling their fortress and driving off in a fleet of black SUV's (their terrestrial transport funding was way better than their naval efforts), Frank and Hazel gone with a tight hug, promises of regular Iris Messages and a place to go if needs be and two small tokens pressed into my palms by large, warm, bow-calloused hands and delicate, cool fingers cleverly infiltrating the walls of my curled fingers.
Leo roared off on Happy the Dragon to the cheers and jeers of the send-off party, leaving only a lingering warmth where he clasped my elbow and looked directly into my eyes, silent words passing between us, and the cool touch of metal threaded onto the cord around my throat.
Jason hesitated. He was reluctant to leave me alone, but his constant supervision rankled something within me. I needed space and lots of it, so we compromised; he and Grover would come with me as far as my mom's house, then we would split.
I stood on top of Half-Blood Hill looking over the place I'd thought of as a second home since eleven, while the dragon eyed me suspiciously, the Golden Fleece swaying in the salt-forest-fire-metal-strawberry-pine breeze high in Thalia's Tree.
"Percy!" Piper came racing up the hill, Jason and Grover following at a normal pace a way behind. "Please take me with you."
I looked at her, not entirely sure what to make of this, "Um."
She steamrollered over my witty reply (gods why do I even try?) "Look, I don't really know anyone at Camp. I'm not your typical daughter of Aphrodite, I like training and fighting, I don't choose to spend my life in front of a mirror checking my makeup and preening my hair. There's nothing for me here and all that's at home is a father I never see or hear from. I know you don't really want company, but...two blades are better than one?" she finished with a wince, losing confidence the longer she went on.
I thought about it. Piper seemed cool in the few moments on the Argo II where we actually relaxed a bit; she showed a good sense of humour, interest in the world around her and a drive to improve herself to better aid those around her. I got that, I could respect that. Also, she was nice to be around, she could read the mood of a room or a person instantly and act accordingly. She was a soothing presence (like the cool rushing streams, the colour of her soul-fire). She had started to fidget a bit, just shifting her weight slightly between each foot. I should probably say something, same rules as Jason? Yeah. "Sure." Ah. Well, I'm not an expert on women, but if Piper is anything like my mom, Annabeth or even Rachel, there would be no getting rid of her now.
Anything you want to see? Don't want to see? Just get a nagging idea out there in a rant so it will leave you alone? Literally anything is welcome.
Also, i'm going to try to kee this a once-a-month sort of thing, but don't hold your breath.
Tara~