Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. - Edgar Allan Poe

Percy ambles through his forest.

For the moment, it is made of bones. The leaves are hands that claw at the air, the branches carrying them fused humeri and femurs. The trunks are interwoven ribcages and cartilage, dense and unyielding, and the roots thick lengths of slimy spines.

The sky glows black, as it always does. The wind moans—softer than the usual screaming. And the clouds, way off past the void, are freshly exsanguinated.

He finds the tallest tree sitting on a pile of granite boulders. The behemoth's roots twist through the rocks, creating a web of spines that bars the way in.

Time to start again.

Percy draws a hilt of ice from his back pocket. The air warps, sucking out all color from his surroundings with a savage rasp. For a moment, all movement ceases.

Then he cuts, the emptiness before the hilt bisects the unnatural life. Color and movement return to the world with a dragging screech as the vertebrae shrivel and rot, revealing a damp corridor.

A primal roar tears the air, reminiscent of the death throes of a sacrificial bull. The earth rumbles and reverberates as a one-man stampede begins.

Percy's mouth quirks. "Once more unto the breach, bud."

Percy emerges from underground through a crevasse. Horns in hand, he'd felt an influx of cold air and seen the luminous black sky far above. Naturally, he stabbed his way up. Endless rock had given way to ice a mile ago, which made the final stretch of the trip much easier.

With one last lunge, stab, and pull, Percy drags himself over the edge to meet the howling wind. Turning around, he tosses the horns back whence they came, then sits, legs dangling over the long drop as he rubs his frosted hands together.

Percy looks across the crevasse, the direction he'd come. A mountain range of ice greets him, the skeleton forest nowhere in sight. But there's always a forest. There has to be. It's his forest, after all.

The wind turns hot, bathing his back with a swarm of cinders. He turns around to see a valley of ash below him. The trees stand proud and tall, all dead gray and smoldering orange. And … flashing silver?

He spies a smear of yellow-white in the sky. He frowns. It shouldn't be here, but he knows why it is.

Percy steps forward, then pauses to look back. A dense swath of charcoal trees greets him, a ditch and a mound the only evidence of the mountain and ravine. He's already in the forest. He never left.

The wind circles him, laughing.

He strolls toward the silver light.

Percy hears the music first. A chorus of flutes serenades the forest, majestic and cheerful and mournful and all too alien in this nightmare.

Then he hears the shrieking. Much more familiar. Then metal clashing with bone. Too familiar.

The sound and light guide him through the woodland of ash and ember to a clearing. He finds a young woman dressed in silver fighting a blessing of unicorns—though he'd rather call these a pack.

He doesn't remember unicorns having dozens of branches on their horn, but these do. The horns are longer than he is tall, with far too many short sharp hollow protrusions that sing or screech through the air as the unicorns charge the girl. And he doesn't remember unicorns having teeth sharp enough to give wolves a run for their prey.

There's six of them, circling the woman, taking turns to charge at her before returning to their trot. Some of the unicorns have ichor in their muzzle or horns. But seven unicorn corpses lie here and there, most with silver arrows deep in their eye or chest or neck.

The monsters haven't noticed him yet, but the woman has. She turns in place, combat knives out and ready and bloody. The corpses at her feet are still twitching, heart beating precious lifeblood out deep cuts in their crippled legs and sliced throats. Her eyes dilate when she meets his gaze, a moment of surprise before they dart away, keeping track of her attackers.

It could've been Hecate. Cerridwen, perhaps, or Khonsu. Maybe even Chang'e. And he hasn't seen Tsukuyomi in ages.

But none of them end up here as often as Artemis.

She won't like this. She never had before.

As another unicorn bears down on the moon goddess, Percy draws the ice hilt once more. As Artemis eviscerates their fellow unicorn, the rest of the pack turns to look at him as their screeching song is sucked from the world. They flee, abandoning their comrade to the Huntress's mercies, or lack thereof.

The goddess turns on him as soon as she's certain the unicorn is dead. "I didn't need your help, boy."

"No, you didn't." Percy nods as he slides the hilt back in his pocket. He hides the satisfaction that wells up within when she blinks, startled. "But I'm not here to help you."

"Then what are you here for?" Her eyes cut through his soul, her lips twisting with distaste. "Who are you, boy?"

"I am here because you don't belong here," he says, ignoring the pit of memories in his chest. "Because this place is a dream, and so am I."

Artemis scoffs and turns back to her most recent kill. She wipes the blood off her blades on the corpse's soft fur with a few deft strokes. "If you're going to lie, at least say something plausible."

Percy chuckles, taking a step forward. In a flash of silver, the goddess appears before him, her knives in his throat and heart. "Mortals," she sneers, "are not allowed to witness my hunt."

"Mortal?" Percy's chuckle becomes a laugh as he steps closer and drives the knives deeper into and through his body. "Do your senses deceive you, Artemis?"

A strangled yelp escapes the goddess as she lets go and retreats to the next corpse. She yanks arrows free from the body and materializes a bow from nothing, drawing upon him. "What are you?"

"Didn't I say?" Percy says through the knife in his throat, blood dribbling from his wry smile. "I'm a dream." An arrow sprouts in his right eye. "And dreams aren't mortal."

His heart aches around the other knife. That look of suspicion and fear—it always begins like this. She never changes.

She never remembers.

"You can't hurt me," Percy continues, yanking the arrow free. The hole weeps black pitch—he blinks—the tears are gone and his eye is back, iris glowing poisonous green. He throws the arrow to the side and tears out the knives with a hiss. Then the mortal wounds are gone, and his bloody clothes immaculate once more; the only hint of anything unnatural is the sound of squirming. He tosses the blades to Artemis's feet. "So you may as well stop trying to kill me."

Artemis stares, the string of her bow tightening, drawn back further. "Gods don't dream."

Percy laughs again, sharp and mocking. He spreads his arms, gesturing to the dead woods. "You're in a place where you're stuck in your body, not able to shapeshift or teleport." He takes a step towards her, his smile widening as her frown deepens.

"You're in a place you don't recognize, a forest unknown to even the Huntress." Another step. She scowls, the silver bow creaking in her grip.

"You're in a place where monsters bleed and die and decay." Step. Her gaze turns to the unicorn corpses, and her brow furrows.

"So maybe I did lie." Percy shrugs, his smile fading as he stops, yards away. His eyes become ice, black and unforgiving. "You're not in a dream, Artemis. You're in a nightmare."

Then, without a single movement, they're face to face, as if the space between them had never existed. She freezes—any other being would've run, but she's too proud to step back. That tension in her core, that fire in her soul … it's as he remembered: fight or fight.

Her silver eyes flicker, reflecting the floating embers. She unnocks the arrow and lowers her bow. "Then are you also my nightmare?"

Percy blinks. Then, for the first time in ages, he laughs with genuine amusement. "Now you're getting it."

"Hello, Lady Artemis." He bows. "Perseus, at your service."