Am I terrible for . . . basically forgetting for YEARS to put together the summary I promised?

Yes. Yes I am.

As a (weak) defense I can at least say I have a bachelor's degree? And a post-grad? And a . . . rather jobless year since then (thanks Covid)?

But you guys don't care about that. You want the summary.

Very well, I shall oblige.

So, what happened after the monster from the pit appeared? Brace yourselves: my ending was dramatic (if written out properly) and . . . not very well thought out (in hindsight)

Cora battles the monster, with the help of Percy and Annabeth and Hunter. Cora defeats the monster.

Then she turns on Hunter, furious, certain in believing that Hunter has betrayed her to the Darkest Dawn, because she's told no one else about being scared or the goddes in her head. She is hurt, heartbroken. She pushes him off a cliff, intent to kill.

But the monster isn't dead! It rises up and everyone is forced to battle it again! This time it actually dies. How? I never thought that through. Just that this time it IS dead.

And it turns out Hunter landed on a ledge, so he's alive too! But wait, he still betrayed Cora, right? Well, actually there's that sliver of metal lodged in his wound, and THAT was enchanted so the Darkest Dawn could listen in. He didn't actually betray her, the Darkest Dawn is just evil enough that they also wanted to break her spirit and trust of others. Because that's what villains do (okay honestly, I don't remember if there was a real motive, I came up with the plot while in high school, it's been a while).

The Darkest Dawn is defeated, the prophecy fulfillled, everyone goes to Camp Jupiter to crash because they are very tired. For some reason I always wanted to put in scenes of Cora and Hunter bonding with Frank and Hazel. I feel like they'd get along.

Eventually the gang returns to Camp Half-Blood. Cora's memories begin coming back. After they've been back for a while, she tells her friends the truth. She is faced with the decision of staying at camp or returning home. I don't think I ever decided which one she'd chose (I kind of flip-flop between them).

And that's it! That's what happens. That's the end of the plot.

Oh, wait, you guys want to know what and who Cora is, don't you?

Yeah, I should probably tell you.

So Cora's story is this.

She was born as a demigod daughter of Poseidon, but her mother ended up dying in childbirth. Poseidon, feeling kind of bad that she was immediately orphaned and that she'd . . . probably be killed really quick, went "I'll just . . . take her and find her a good home".

And he got caught. I don't know how he intended to hide the fact he was taking care of his newborn demigod daughter.

As a result, the gods fought over what to do about the baby and the broken oath. The final consensus? Well, the gods figure that the prophecy is going to have to come true sooner or later, and wouldn't it be better if we had a hero who was not only strong and fast but endlessly loyal to us? Yes it would! Great plan! We'll all raise the baby together.

The gods take a stab at raising Cora on Olympus. But it's the gods, so it doesn't go great because there's a lot of conflicting opinions. She probably should've died several times over except for one thing: ONE person has been firmly on "we are properly raising this child or so help me I will end all of you". That person? Cora's patron - none other than the titaness Rhea! Rhea's been looking out for Cora since day one, and because she's a titaness and not a goddess and thus not held to the same rules, she's been nudging Cora along on her quest.

Also there was this thing where Cora wasn't sure what to do about Hunter and her feelings because she remembered that Artemis made her an honorary Hunter, so Cora sometimes got to join in on their adventures. She also occassionally visited the Underworld 'cause . . . no one properly supervised this child, she just wandered through different god-realms.

But she was also trained by the gods! Hence why she's so powerful in battle! That's great, right? It is . . . until Percy wounded Ares and angered him, and Ares, ever the jerk, took it out on Cora (who, before then, had no reason to think he was a threat). Ares nearly killed Cora. Like, borderline "we're gonna have to resurrect her soul and hope" nearly. Mortal medicine isn't enough. Godly healing powers aren't quite enough. The solution? Patch up the wounds on the surface and give her a blood transfusion of golden ichor. Which then just stuck around in her system, making her ever HARDER to kill.

So is Cora mortal? A goddess? No one was really sure. And the prophecies passed while she kept training and helped the gods to fight in their own realm. When the world was no longer in eminent danger, the gods went "well, let's try to keep this secret a bit longer, but let's give her a demigod quest and she can chose which she wants to be". And thus the story began.

Cora ends up kind of mad at her godly family for not letting her train with kids her own age and never telling her she had a mortal brother, or about . . . anything, really. They kind of kept her in the dark. But, as I said, I was never able to pick which world Cora would live in.

There's probably some sub-conscious meaning in that, that I'm trying to convey with this story, but it's pretty late as I'm typing this so my brain isn't really interested in sniffing out secret meanings in a story I haven't reread in ages that was created years ago.

And that's it. That's the summary. That's what I had planned for the end of this story. (oh, those wondering about the gold domes Cora can do - it's water vapour. Dunno why I made them gold)

That's the story of The Lost Goddess: a girl, lost between the two worlds she inhabits, unable to place herself in either.

I know this isn't as good as writing the story out properly, but I hope it satisfies some of you.

And now, for an additional note.

A couple things.

First of all, Cora and Hunter have found new lives as characters in an animated series I'm working on writing. They're not main characters - heck, their on-screen involvement is going to be limited to the final, final boss. But they're there, as legendary heroes. The Sword and the Shield. The Godslayer.

They're very different in that world, a completely different version, but they are happy. And they are together.

I hope one day I can get this show made into reality, and that that version of Cora and Hunter can speak to people in the same way they speak to me. (for those curious, I DO have social media for this series, but the series is very much in the "me planning by myself" stage. You can find it as aryoman_unite/Order of the Ar'el)

Second of all, I am planning on posting this story on AO3 as well (you're probably not interested in that, so I'll move on quickly). My reason for doing this? Because this story has always stuck with me. Even years after my last update, this is the one I still get favourites and follows and reviews for.

And I'm thinking, maybe, if the love this story gets here can grow steady through sharing this on another site, then maybe - just maybe, no promises yet, okay? - I could get the motivation to rewrite this thing. To turn it from fanfiction to original fiction. It's gonna need a lot of work to get there, so I don't know if it'll happen, but for years this fic was a comfort for me. It seems it still is a comfort for some people.

So I think, maybe it'd be nice to wrap myself in this comfort once again, and this time share it even further.

But I can't be certain of the future.

It's been a very, very long journey. Much longer than I ever anticipated or intended (really, sorry about being so AWOL). This is the end of it. It's kind of sad. Maybe that's why I dragged my feet so much. But I think it's time for this story, and these characters, to turn over a new leaf.

This version of them will always be here. And for that, I love them, and you, my faithful readers.