Perseus went down to his dungeon to speak to Artemis, he didn't bother going into her cell she had heard him coming. So he decided to just talk to her from outside of the door.
"Have you changed your mind about siding with me? If you don't I'll kill every single one of your hunters, even Thalia if I have to," as he looked at the moon goddess through the barred section of the door, he could see dried Ichor on her wrists, she had clearly been trying to get her shackles off and as he would have expected she had failed.
She replied, "I will never side with you. Threatening me with my hunters' deaths only further proves to me that you are no longer the nice respectable young man who once took the sky for me."
"Don't act like you and the other Olympians are so much better than me, I'm sure the other Olympians are planning to try and capture Khione so they can try to use her to manipulate me"
"I can't see that plan working, with how you are now, I can't imagine you actually care about her, you've probably hurt her too,"
Fury was evident in Perseus' eyes after her comment, his rage led to him making use of one of his powers from being the god of torture. The same power he had used to kill Will Solace. Due to her bound state, Artemis was powerless to stop him.
The Strangulation wouldn't kill her, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. While strangling her, he replied, "For your information goddess, I may have changed, but I am still capable of caring about other people. I love her, although I know that's something you wouldn't understand. I have never hurt her unless she wanted me to, that is," a smirk formed on his face after his last comment even though he suspected Artemis wouldn't understand what he had meant. He stopped Strangling her, and once she could speak coherently again she replied,
"Why would she ever want you to hurt her?"
"Artemis by insisting on being an eternal maiden, you have missed out on a lot of things,"
Artemis huffed, before replying, I don't think so, I've just been doing what I can to prevent women from being hurt by men like you,"
"I would watch my mouth if I were you goddess or I might just take you out of there and torture you right now. I'm done arguing with you Artemis, and the next time you see me will be when I decide I want to torture you, It also won't be long before I and my warriors slaughter every single one of your Hunters. Maybe if I'm feeling especially cruel I will spare a couple so they will be the lone survivors out of all your hunters and I will make sure you will never see each other again… or maybe I will bring some of them here and make you watch as I kill them," Perseus left soon after that, obviously annoyed by how that conversation had ended. He had hoped to get Artemis on his side, although he had suspected all along that he probably wouldn't be able to. Despite that, he had thought it was worth a try, but now he had tried and he was done trying.
The next thing he needed to do was something he wasn't looking forward to. He teleported to his base where Nico was waiting for him. Perseus could tell that Nico hadn't been looking forward to this meeting either, but he couldn't really blame him for that, Perseus had killed his boyfriend. A bit awkwardly Perseus said, "Nico swear on the river Styx that you didn't know that Will was a spy and that you didn't knowingly help him in any way,"
Perseus was pretty sure that Nico hadn't known about Will's plan to spy on him, If Nico had known Perseus was sure he would have sensed it. Regardless he was just being cautious.
Nico swore the oath without complaint although his expression made Perseus suspect that he was a bit annoyed about having to do it. The oath proved that Nico hadn't known about Will's plans so Perseus could still trust him.
Next Perseus said, "Did anything important happen at the camp today?"
Nico replied, "Not really other than Will's Shroud burning. Chiron said that there's going to be a head counsellor's meeting tomorrow to discuss the things Will managed to tell him before… Nico trailed off, unable to bring himself to finish his sentence.
Despite that Perseus knew what Nico's unspoken words were. He kind of wanted to say something to try and help Nico, but he didn't. What could he even say that would help Nico? There would be no point in apologizing because he wouldn't mean it. He didn't regret what he had done even though it had clearly hurt Nico.
He felt his actions were justified regardless of how much they had affected Nico. Nico was the only reason why Perseus hadn't tortured Will before he killed him. He cared about Nico but Will had betrayed them both so Perseus believed that killing him was justified and nothing would change that. He had strangled Will because he thought it was a method that would be extremely unpleasant for Will since he wasn't going to torture the demigod.
Perseus said, "We will meet again tomorrow, but I have another task for you as well,"
"What?"
"I believe that with some persuasion Piper McLean can be convinced to join us. Leo spoke to her during the battle at Camp Half-Blood and tried to convince her but at the time he wasn't able to. Despite that, he believes that she was very conflicted so I want you to try and convince her. If you fail and she tells Chiron that you are the spy, come back here and stay here with the rest of my forces. we can live without a spy in the camp for the few days that are left before we take on the remaining gods. Nico nodded, before asking "you captured Artemis didn't you?"
a smirk on his face Perseus replied, yes I did, she found this base and thought she could get away with snooping around, I easily overwhelmed her and imprisoned her in the dungeons under my palace. At first, I thought I might be able to convince her to join our side but it's obvious now that I won't be able to change her mind,"
Nico replied, "I thought you probably had. The hunters are freaking out and they have been pestering Chiron to get permission to go find her. I think Apollo is also trying to find out what happened to her,"
Perseus chuckled, "They'll soon have bigger things to worry about than what happened to Artemis. We will be attacking Olympus a few days from now,"
Nico's eyes widened, He'd known the attack on Olympus was coming, but until that moment he hadn't known how soon it would be. Nico had been one of the first demigods Perseus had recruited to his cause so he'd been on Perseus's side since long before Annabeth's death. Nico got the impression that their conversation was almost over, but he had one more question he wanted to ask. " Where has Khione been? I used to see her here, sometimes checking on everyone to make sure they were training, and sometimes helping them with their training, and the only battle I saw her taking part in was the one at camp half blood. Where has she been?"
Perseus hesitated for a moment, before replying, "She has been staying in my palace most of the time for a while now. She's not happy about it but it's necessary to make sure she stays safe since the Olympians would probably try to capture her to try to manipulate me,"
Nico was confused, "but she's a goddess, she can defend herself, and if she did happen to get into trouble you are always there along with the other gods and goddesses on our side. Isn't making her hide all the time a bit extreme?"
Perseus replied, "That's not the only reason why she's staying hidden. She's Pregnant, and at this point, we are sure she's going to have more than one baby, so now she wouldn't be able to defend herself as well as she would normally"
Clearly surprised, Nico replied, "Oh, that makes sense. Congratulations, I'm guessing that wasn't planned,"
Perseus chuckled, "Yeah it definitely wasn't planned, before she told me I was thinking maybe we would have kids eventually but definitely not this soon,"
Nico also chuckled, and Perseus spoke again, "You can go now Nico,"
Perseus normally didn't mind talking to Nico, and although their conversation had been awkward at first the awkwardness had passed fairly quickly. The main reason why Perseus dismissed Nico was that he wanted to get back to his palace and spend time with Khione. At this point, she could go into labour at any moment and he wanted to be with her when she did.
They had already made plans for when that eventually happened. They had chosen a nymph who would act as a midwife for Khione and planned to put the babies into the room right next to theirs since they intended to do most of the work when it came to caring for them. The only exceptions would be when for one reason or another they couldn't be there.
Nico left so Perseus returned to his palace. He was happy to be able to spend more time with Khione, and he was looking forward to when his children would be born. They had already discussed names and had come up with a few different ones for both boys and girls, they would make the final decision once they knew what they were having.
"How are you doing?" He asked Khione, she had been sitting reading a book,
"Alright, but I kind of wish these babies would just get out of me already,"
He replied, "I'm sure they will soon, think of it this way, it could be worse mortals stay pregnant for nine months before their babies are born, and they also get a whole bunch of other symptoms that you don't have to worry about so it could be worse,"
Khione grimaced at the thought of pregnancy lasting that long before commenting, "you're right that would be worse,"
Perseus chuckled before kissing her, smiling as he glanced down at her swollen belly, he had come to terms with the idea of becoming a father even though he had initially had mixed emotions about it mainly because the pregnancy was accidental so he wasn't sure he was ready to be a father. Now though he was just going to try and do the best he could once the babies came.
The rest of that day was uneventful, he spent the majority of it with Khione and it soon became obvious that the babies weren't coming that day, although he was sure they would come soon. He also had to visit with his parents as well as several of the other primordials to update them on recent events that had to do with the war. Although Perseus would lead the final battle several of the other Primordials were also joining it. And Perseus was just letting them all know how things stood. He had done that a few times since their war preparations had started, but now it was even more important since the final battle would happen in a few days' time.
The next day Perseus was sitting next to Khione and talking to her when she suddenly moved her hand to her belly, and said, "they're coming"
Perseus understood and hurried off to get the nymph who was going to be her midwife. When they returned the nymph got Khione ready and he just sat in a chair beside the bed and held Khione's hand as the process continued. After a while, she pushed out the first baby. As the nymph was picking it up she said, "it's a girl," before passing the baby to Khione. Perseus asked, "So which name are we going to give her?"
Since she had gotten a look at the newborn, Khione replied, "I think Sally fits her," Perseus had already been smiling, but his smile got even brighter after she said that.
He still sometimes missed his mom and Paul who had both suddenly been taken too soon over a year before when their car had been hit by a drunk driver while they were on their way home from a dinner date. Sally had been pregnant at the time so Perseus hadn't just lost his parents he'd also lost a half-sibling before he even got the chance to meet them. He didn't even know if they would have been a sister or a brother since his mom hadn't found that out yet either. He had suggested his mother's name for a daughter as another way to remember her after her life was cut short.
The drunk driver was caught but Perseus felt he had gotten off easy so he found the man and killed him. He let the mortal police find the corpse but he knew their case had gone cold and he doubted they would ever solve it considering there was no way they could find him even if they suspected him.
He hadn't gotten a good look at his daughter yet, but at the moment she was busy getting her first meal. Once she'd had enough, Khione passed her to him and he finally got a good look at her. She was definitely going to have black hair, but that wasn't surprising, and her eyes were brown like her mother's.
Now, the second baby was coming. It also was a girl who Khione named Orithyia after her mother.
Perseus and Khione were thinking that she was probably the last baby when it quickly became obvious that they were wrong and it seemed there was a third one coming. They perhaps shouldn't have been so surprised considering that twins and triplets or even more than that weren't that uncommon for goddesses, but they had still been hoping for twins. The third baby was another girl, the three looked identical and Perseus smiled at his beautiful girls, Khione included, although part of him had been hoping for a boy he was still happy with three girls instead. He stayed there with Khione and his newborn daughters for a while as Khione got some rest. The nymph stayed as well and she helped him care for the babies. About an hour later, Khione woke up from her nap and not long afterwards they all found out that there was still one more baby to come. The nymph set down Melissa, the third girl, and went back to helping Khione.
At this point, Perseus and Khione knew they would have their hands full with quadruplets, but they were going to try and do the best they could to be good parents for them, and luckily immortal children grow up quicker than mortals so it wouldn't take as long for the kids to grow up. The fourth baby ended up being the boy Perseus had been hoping for. It also seemed that unlike his sisters the boy had taken after Perseus rather than Khione since not only did he have a slight fuzz of black hair, but he also had Perseus's eye colour.
Perseus and Khione named him Alexander, and now that all the babies had been born they let the nymph leave, and Perseus and Khione just stayed there for a while with their newborns. Perseus knew he would eventually have to leave to speak to Nico about what had happened at the camp that day, but for now, he was content just spending time with his family.
