Last chapter of the Lightning Thief section. Quick question, do you people want this split up into different 'books', or just continue this one? I'm open to doing either, I just haven't decided which I want to do, so I'll leave it up to you guys.
Younger kids with an older self. kids with no younger self. The Seven.
Normal talking, telepathy
Sadly, I do not and probably never will own Percy Jackson and associates. I really, really wish I did, though.
Hermes was gone from the room before Zeus could try to demand he stay so they could discuss his sons punishment.
"I think... it would best if we discussed this in the morning. After everybody has had a chance to sleep on it, and cooler heads will prevail." Hestia stared at her younger brother until he was forced to agree with her before flashing out abruptly.
Everybody else flashed out, or otherwise scattered, choosing to take Hestia's advice before he could return and demand that they stay and discuss this now.
"Good-night!" Was heard from the demigods rooms, and then everything was silent.
That morning, there wasn't a race throughout the palace as demigods tried to pry the bag of cookies away from the greedy (for his mother's cookies at any rate) son of Poseidon. Instead, Sally let the kids sleep.
It had been decided (decreed by Hestia) that they would have a few days break in between books, after all, so since they weren't doing anything today, she didn't see the point in forcing the kids up. She knew that some of them, especially Percy, had to be mentally exhausted from the constant emotional whiplash. Throughout the entire book, there would be tense moments, followed by fairly dull moments where nothing really happened in the book, followed by tear-jerking sections, followed by more action and then more boring conversation.
Once the kids got up, they were most likely going to go find the training arena, anyway. She would let them sleep, so they were well rested to release the tension in the best way they knew. With a sword, and a training partner/dummy.
"Where are the children?" Hera asked, looking around once she realized how quiet it was in the Dining Hall without them.
"I'm letting them sleep in, it has been a long few days. We aren't reading today, so they can take it easy." Sally answered and went back to her food.
Hera frowned, but accepted it. Once she sat down, she decided to address the elephant in the room now that everybody had gotten some sleep and time to cool their heads. "So... Luke." She said grimly.
Hermes tensed, and looked over at her. "What about him? We're handling it, and the Fates 'Messengers' won't let you touch him, anyway." Besides, both he and Luke were of the opinion that his being here was part of his punishment, as well as being his chance at hopefully making amends and hopefully talking his younger self into taking a different path. Privately, Hermes thought it was more like the Fates wanted the gods to see first hand just what their petty bickering and their 'child rearing' methods had done. After all, who better to show them, then the one who finally decided enough was enough, and almost succeeded in destroying them?
Zeus' eyes narrowed. "That Traitor will not be allowed back in my throne room, he's going to spend the rest of this reading in the dungeons." He declared. Once the boy was there and away from those upstarts, he could punish him however he pleased.
"That's not your call. He is here because the Fates want him here, and they have their reasons. How are we supposed to know what pushed him to doing what he did, if he's not here to tell us?" Poseidon asked calmly, rolling his eyes.
"That Traitor is not stepping foot into my Throne Room!" Zeus insisted before leaving, not wanting to hear anything more on the matter.
Hermes rolled his eyes. "You know... the weather is pretty nice." He shrugged.
"It won't be in the Throne Room." Apollo agreed.
"What are you two talking about?" Athena asked dryly, rolling her eyes.
"Reading outside when we continue." Amphitrite rolled her own eyes and went back to her food.
"What are we going to do about Luke?" Hera asked again, wanting to get back to the topic she originally wanted to talk about. "He cannot just go unpunished, and he has information we will need."
Hermes snorted. "He's not going unpunished. Why do you think he's here? The kids have a plan on how to deal with it, at least for the younger crowd, the ones who were here for the Solstice meeting. Just leave the younger Luke alone, let me and his peers handle it." If the rest of the council came barging into, it might push Luke in the opposite direction then what they wanted, and might just make him cling even more stubbornly to his current path.
"Nobody will be harmed while we are here." They all turned to see the Messengers (as the gods had started calling them) wander into the dining room, and heading straight for the food. Percy was the one who spoke.
"We weren't expecting any of you to be up yet." Sally murmured, giving her son a hug before he could get his food.
He shrugged. "Couldn't sleep." He said simply. He and Annabeth had been up all night with nightmares again. He scowled when he saw everybody trying to look at his scars without looking like they were, or were trying to avoid looking at him altogether so they didn't start staring and get caught at it.
Well, except for Apollo. The minute Percy turned around to find a seat after getting his food, Apollo was right there, studying his face. He barely kept himself from skewering the god. "Startling me like that isn't a good idea." He breathed out after a moment.
"Sorry." He said, and gripped Percy's chin gently, moving his head around to get a better look. "Were these claws? These wounds were poisoned, and went untreated for a while. You're lucky you didn't go blind, let alone survived." He muttered. Just because he knew what happened to them in a general sense, didn't mean he knew specifics of what they went through down there.
Percy pulled his face away. "Didn't really have much choice." He smiled tightly and stepped around Apollo to sit down. Annabeth squeezed his forearm quickly to reassure him that she was there before she turned back to her conversation with Piper and Hazel. Apollo eyed him in concern, worried that he wasn't dealing with it and it would eventually all come out, in a way that was not going to be good for either him or those around him.
He was worried about why the boy hadn't been able to sleep, as he claimed that was the reason they were already awake. He'd heard him mention having nightmares to his mother the other day, and couldn't help but think that being blindsided by mentions of Tartarus the way they were throughout the book would not have helped the situation. Unfortunately, he knew heroes like Percy. He knew that Percy would avoid speaking up about something like this as much as possible, to avoid 'burdening' his friends and loved ones with his problems. He would probably avoid trying to find help from an outside source in dealing with it for the same reasons, would probably even think that seeking help would make him lesser in other people's eyes.
He sighed.
Truthfully, he was worried about Annabeth, too, but he trusted that she was logical and intelligent enough to know when she needed help, and hopefully her proud nature wasn't going to stop her from seeking that help out.
He was just going to have to keep a close eye on them, that was all. If he felt that their lack of proper sleep was becoming dangerous, he would step in.
He was brought out of his thoughts when the rest of the demigods started stumbling in, half-asleep still. The older ones hadn't had a race to get cookies this morning to wake themselves up with, so they were still groggy, and the younger ones were acting normal.
Sally snickered before she pulled out more cookies and left them on the table the sleepy demigods chose to sit at. They perked up and dove in at the sight of them.
"What are you planning to do today?" She asked, standing behind her son, hands on his shoulders, looking down at his messy head.
"Hit the Training Grounds, then..." Percy shrugged, craning his neck to look back at her. "Probably do nothing in particular."
"Why don't we have a baking spree later on? You can tell me all about what happened for the last several months and we can hang out together like we used to." She suggested. "It's been a while since I had you to myself." She smiled sadly.
"Sorry, mom." He looked guilty, which earned him a pinch to the arm and a raised eyebrow. "I'd like that." He grinned while she nodded in satisfaction.
"We can have our time tomorrow." She called to Percy, who visibly perked up at the thought of spending time with his mother in the kitchen. She wanted to spend time with her sons, but she didn't want to have to divide her attention between them, they may both be Percy Jackson, but they were different versions with different experiences at this point, and they both deserved her undivided attention. So, she would have a day each with them.
After breakfast, they all went their separate ways, with Poseidon and Hades already making plans to start training their sons and Hazel while they were here. It would be good to see what they had already figured out of their powers as well, and help them fine-tune their control over them.
"Hey, guys!" Leo burst into the room where the rest of the demigods (minus both Luke's who were with Hermes and some of the Seven, the rest of the Seven had disappeared somewhere else) were hanging out.
"What?" Jason asked, somewhat wary. Leo was acting like he was hyped up on sugar or (gods forbid) coffee...
"I found the perfect hill to go sledding on!" He was almost bouncing up and down with energy and excitement.
"Right now?" Annabeth muttered, eyeing the other boy who was even more energetic than usual.
"Yeah, why not?" Leo asked, tilting his head to the side.
"I thought we were going to do that tomorrow." Piper piped in, raising an eyebrow. After they hit the training arena earlier, Percy had disappeared in search of his mother and the rest of them had decided that they weren't going to do much more then just hang out and do nothing in general for the rest of the day.
Leo drooped, "Why can't we do it today, too?" He asked, disappointed. He wanted to go sledding!
"Besides, I thought we were going to use Percy's water powers to make snow. He's with his mother right now." Piper reminded him.
"Well... there are two other Percy's here, plus Poseidon and Triton! Can't they make snow for us?" He asked, frowning.
"One of those Percy's is eight and hasn't started training his powers yet. The other is probably off making sure Luke isn't about to die, and I'm sure Lord's Poseidon and Triton have better things to do then make snow for us." Gwen deadpanned.
"Why don't we go to the forge?" Beckendorf asked his younger brother before he could protest anymore, amused. He could tell the others weren't in the mood to really indulge him today. "I had an idea for some new armor, now's as good a time as any to start making it."
Leo blinked for a moment before agreeing and following him to the forge. "Ugh, who gave him sugar?" Piper groaned, watching the sons of Hephaestus leave the room, talking animatedly and using words that she was fairly certain didn't belong in any of the three languages she spoke. "Is that Latin?" She asked Jason, who snorted and shook his head.
"Alright, plenty of flour, butter, eggs, chocolate chips... sugar... I think we got everything." Percy grinned brightly at his mother. "Oh, and food coloring!" He presented the small bottle proudly.
She laughed at his eagerness, but couldn't deny her own eagerness to just spend time with her son. It was inevitable that his life as a demigod would come up and probably dominate the conversation, especially since he didn't exactly have school to talk about right now, but she didn't care. They were going to spend time together without distractions caused by monsters nearby, without demigods showing up unannounced (Nico in particular seemed to have a sixth sense for when they were baking), and even (as much as they loved him) no Paul.
Percy had even set Mrs. O'Leary to guarding the door to make sure they weren't interrupted.
"What are we waiting for, then?" She asked, and reached for a bowl. "What first?" She asked.
"Hmm... you were going to teach me to make Grandma's apple pie." He reminded her. She'd taught him most of her recipes while growing up, but this one was her mothers. She'd finally deemed it time for him to learn it right before Hera kidnapped him.
"I was, wasn't I?" She asked, and pulled out the pile of apples, they would wait to peel them until after the crust was made, that way they didn't go brown and start to get mushy from being exposed to the air. "Ok, here's what you do..." She started showing him how to make an apple pie, unaware of the eyes watching them fondly and wistfully from the corner of the room, draped in shadows.
Poseidon was more then happy to watch his son and Sally spend time together, even though he knew that he couldn't be part of it. Sally was married now, and... well, Amphitrite would probably kill him if he tried to start anything with Sally again. He was glad to see his son was alright, especially since he was considered missing right now in his time.
They had a few days of doing nothing in particular for him to get to know his sons properly, and for his sons to learn more about their powers. For now, though, he would enjoy his family. He nodded in satisfaction before leaving the two to their baking so he could find Triton and Percy.
Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos watched what was happening within the Palace, and nodded in satisfaction. Rhea stood beside them and grinned.
Of her children, Hera and Zeus were being the most difficult so far, while Demeter was being surprisingly quiet towards Hades, and Poseidon and Hades weren't hiding their close relationship anymore. They'd always been closer brothers then they'd ever let others know about, she always wished they would stop pandering to opinion and just be each others brother already. Hestia, well, Hestia was finally releasing her frustrations on how the others treated each other and her nieces or nephews.
"This just might actually work." She muttered, pleased.
"Good. If Western Civilization is to survive, they need each other. They cannot be divided." Clotho commented.
"We should have done this years ago." Atropos sighed.
"It wouldn't have worked." Lachesis denied. "They needed somebody to bring them together." She watched Percy goof off with his friends.
"Our Champion will be what brings them together, and saves us all."