Hello you beautiful peeps!
Still no traveling. It will happen! Just not when I want it to apparently.
At least it's on time?
Enjoy?

When I woke up then next day (feeling...weird. The sleep I slept was not the sleep I tend to sleep. It was almost like zen-sleep, with a very faint undercurrent of false-calm PANIC RAGE FIGHTITOFF YOUCAN'TDOTHISTOME IREFUSETOBECONTROLLED . Or something), mom took me out to Central Park to have a talk. She led me to a corner of the grounds and actually quite high up in an old oak tree.

She turned and looked me dead in the eye.

"I am a semi-retired Information Broker and capable assassin of the Antennaria Famiglia, a Flame society-specific family in the Italian Underground. Otherwise known as the Mafia. In certain circles I am known as Rain user, Ocelotta."

Okay. What? She looked amused, "My Uncle Rick was a freelance Rain assassin, after the plane crash, he took me in and introduced me to his work. When he got sick, I joined a famiglia he had good relations with in return for aid in paying the hospital fees. After that, I was a feeder, a ground worker reporting whispers and carrying out the occasional assassination contract, until..." her voice drifted into something soft and gooey (I think I know where this is going...), "Until, I met our father. Then I had you, so I appealed to Don Antennaria -ah, that is, the Boss- for nominal retirement and here we are." A smile curled around her lips. "Ironically, my Network is the widest it's ever been."

I blinked, closed my mouth and looked at the woman I knew as Sally Jackson (don't even know your own mother. She's only telling you now because you're a liability now, can't control your own abilities; puts her in danger. ...Feels like the whole world is spinning out of control...).

"So, now that that's out the way, what do you know about your Flames?"

And so it went on, she talked about the social aspect of interaction and relationships between Actives, what to generally expect from a person of each type (pretty similar to cabin stereotypes really) and expectation for me to be a possessive, aggressive territorial prick (I mean I adapted quite easily to living with Lupa's Wolves, but I'm not actually feral).

Then we got to controlling my Flames.

"Alright Percy, the first step to consciously drawing on your Flame is to see it. Listen to the leaves and slow heartbeat. Clear your mind. And sink down into the core of your being..."

I tried. I relaxed my muscles as much as I could, opened my ears and tried to empty my head.

The leaves sounded like whispers.

My lungs shook. I breathed.

Blood pounding in my ears, in my head, in my eyes (redredredredred), suddenly the air burned and I was back in Tartarus and-

I shoved past/away/through it, (I breathed), the whispers screamed and shrieked and sobbed and-

I fell. (I breathed)

~~~∞Ω∞~~~

'It's necessary' She reminded herself.

Meditation was not going well for Percy. Oh, he was in a trance alright, but every muscle was tensed and there were tears rolling down his cheeks, spiralling across skin, wrenching in different directions under the pull of his power as smoky clouds ethereal fire tumbled around him. Wreathed him.

'He needs to learn this' Or he'll never be able to conceal himself. His Flames, the feared fiamma della nuvola, encompassed him like, well...like their namesakes drifting high above in the atmosphere, even when he wasn't using them. They were so pure, so deep...he had an aura of them. A battle aura. A miasma of power. The Propagation effect so strong, just being in his vicinity bolstered her own Rain.

That strength would make him target. A prize. The most exotic of conquests.

A Cloud was a wild, feral thing, a tiger to be locked in a gilded cage and a gem-encrusted collar, to be broken into self-destruction or drugged on Sky until they liked it.

She had seen it happen ( Not her Son) . Had watched Elements fall into Flame-Thrall, watched them break and Discord in a Sky that bled their Flame wells dry ( she wouldn't let them use him. She couldn't stop the gods, but mortals? She'd kill them all ) . Had felt the allure herself ( it was the sweetest poison) .

Percy went still.

'Ah ' she thought, Rain rippling in answer. 'There he is'

~~~∞Ω∞~~~

'I'm in the heart of a whirlpool' was my first impression, which, okay, not the first time, but the other times I had distinctly more...body?... I …'looked' down a myself and saw a core of thrashing deep purple surrounded by pale, pale lilac flowing about and churning up more and more of the unstable pale cotton–wool balls as I watched.

A flicker in the corner of my ... 'eye'. A thick streak of sparkling pale blue, indistinct and rippling in the fluffy sea. As I became aware of it, a bundle of Cloud drifted over and brushed against it and sort of...wrapped around it partially, Blue bleeding into ashy lilac, the clump turning distinctly wet (cool-touch, whisper-safe, protection, Mom) but calmer. Huh. There were others in there too, a soft glowing soothing Paul-blue and a burning ember of brighthappycontent blue that was so innocent (in desperate need of protection)...baby Starfish? Well, Flame is apparently sort of a hereditary trait..

I wonder if...

Yep.

There's loads of different coloured-clouds.

Now that I was looking, it was like a wide-open sky at sunset. Mare's tails washed with faint tones blending together, feeling like Campfire/pinewood/strawberries/laughter/glowing bronze, small fluff-balls in regimented mackerel formation shining gold/rising eagle/safe-calm-old-haven, and closer, a slowly growing pillar of cumulonimbus ( see Annabeth? I did listen...always... ) with bumbling fleecy crimson ( Frank, soft, unrelenting, Storm ), wispy indigo flecked with gold ( Hazel, bright, mercurial, warm, cool ), shining yellow with glint of blue ( Leo, brightwarmmoving , tiedboundbonded to CalypsocalmsadlonelyfreeRain ), dim electric green and gentle amber ( Jason, slightly apart, gentltetentativehopeful ) and shimmering cerulean ( Piper, freehurtunmooredrainfallingwithoutdirection ). Others too, electrisparkgreeThalia, bloodredClarisse with the Greeks, burningvioletReyna spearheading the Roman swathe and a slinky mass of indigomistvioletcloudblackflameNico anchored to goldenbrighthealingSunWill on the periphery.

So beautiful ...my people. Strong and bright. I would go to war for any one of them. ( I have. I would again) . To keep them safe...

Anxiety coiled in my stomach, are they safe? I don't know, I'm not there and they're divided by so many miles, worlds apart, I should go back. Who's teaching swords to the Campers? There was Luke and then me and who takes over? I have to go back ( I can't go back ) I need to protect them ( it would kill me ) they have to be safe (Camp Half-Blood, Jupiter, New York, Mom-Paul- BabyEstelle , what about this familyterritoryhomeplace ? How can I protect them when monsters come hunting just form my scent?) I'm not Roman (not a Wolf, not a Greek, not a civilian kid, not a Cloud, I just don't know what I am anymore! ) can't go to New Rome, can't go to Camp, not without Annabeth...!

My flames raged against the world above me, layered with the screaming sobbing whispers, the serene expanse of m precious sunset clouds wrapped around me, close, beloved, my-reason-why , below me...

A burning Pit as dark as the abyss.

Fury so hot it froze, grief so deep it turned shining amethyst into gleaming obsidian, sharp, immutable, a death-blade wreathed in inky darkness.

This. This was what defeated a Primordial entity as old as existence. This. With Piper's Rain-song Charmspeak, Jason's lightning, Leo's flaming contraptions and my own impossibly strong violet-edged blows...this is what killed Her. These shattered sharp-glass soul-shards in the void that formed even as light-pale-rich-deep-violet roared int Activation, these are what I pulled on to choke a goddess, to hold the Doors of Death shut in transit, to forcefully fade the Earth Mother for what she did to Annabeth Chase.

I drifted closer. It was me-and-not. It was the source of the echo I'd always felt in a fight I wasn't sure I'd win, the cold-intense-predatory edge of ' I'm taking you with me '.

I sighed, sad all of a sudden.

This wasn't a wound that would heal.

No matter what the future holds, whoever I am will always be that little bit shattered from something I shouldn't have survived.

It sort of reminded me of Achilles, standing on the bank of the Styx; of the songs of the Legend of his Rage, so strong as to defy Fate and destroy Troy before it was meant to fall, forcing Zeus himself to intervene; of his Love, the wounded heart that fuelled his Fires in vengeance at the death of Patroclus.

Had my Enemy been any less than She was... I would have turned these agonised fires on myself once the deed was done and probably killed everyone around me in my self-destruction.

Maybe Zeus would have struck me down then. Or Poseidon. Maybe even Hera, her little pawn too strong for the Chess mistress, her lapdog gone feral and rabid.

A fitting end for a ghost with a name that means ' To Destroy' .

I ripped myself away, clawing upupup out of the suffocating weight, twisting past the beauty of my beloved, tearing through the haze of battle mania and Rage, staggering against the screams/grief/guilt, breath burning in my lungs, physical sensation coming back, upupupupupupupupupupupupupup, the sickening redredred light through my eyelids and AwAkE.

Just as the lion pounced.

Cliffhanger!
Because I am a nasty meanie.
*Regrets* I have now spent two chapters on the same section in my outline for one chapter; we are now officially half way through Chapter 3. Huzzah.