Thanks to ChaosJackson344 for the thoughtful input regarding 'timeskips'. What a great idea!
Time Skips… 2046 ce
The hierodeacon finished the early morning prayer service. He'd led the monastic community that morning, and for some reason it made him think of the first time he had ever taken part in such prayers. It was many years ago as a young man who had just been accepted into the monastery of Saint Nestorius in Roscoe, New York.
The prayers were second nature to him now, and he fully believed the theology that he had come to as an adult and a novice. He had seen the proof of it as a young man in accepting the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and finally acceptance into the orders of the monastic community. He was now a monk who had been ordained a deacon in his church, the Greek Orthodox Church. He hadn't spoken a word of English since he came to Greece in 2032. He actually had to strain to remember the English words these days and it gave him kind of a chuckle to think that way.
There was no true hierarchy among the monks there on the peninsula of Mt Athos, located in the northeast of Greece, jutting out into the Aegean Sea. The entire peninsula and especially the mountain itself is all holy ground, uninhabited except by monks or priests in various communities, although it might look to the outside world as if they were all one big community. But it wasn't true. There were a number of small, and some not-so-small communities, almost satellites on the main facilities if you could call them that. And they were considered an autocephalous region of Greece, more or less independent of the rest of the nation. They were all led by an ecumenical council, led in turn by an Elder Monk who was usually much older in age and already recognized as a leader in the council by the time he was elected. This "Elder" was the direct interface for all the communities of Mt Athos with the Greek government.
Each smaller community had its own place to say prayers, a refectory in which everyone ate, common kitchens and food storage facilities. Everyone had either a hut or some had caves, and lived and worked in the various monasterys proper. Everyone had a reason of their own for being there, and his was in order to gain peace in his life. And this was a pretty peaceful place. They did all pray and work together, but all retired to their own cell to pray and meditate individually. All slept alone.
When he took his tonsure originally in 2015, he had been barely 22 years old and on the run from his so-called 'family'. They were a collection of misfits and neer-do-wells who constantly caused him nothing but trouble and grief in his life. The deacon, at twelve years of age had been thrust into a war that put him in the middle of a sniping contest between his uncles and his aunts. it almost got him quite literally killed on several occasions. His own family did that. And then there was another war!
When he took the tonsure, his father had been frantic to find him. But because of his baptism and acceptance in holy orders he had been placed beyond his father's reach for all time. Neither his father or his uncles nor his aunts or cousins had any more call on him ever again. Papa Stavrious had guaranteed it to him and from everything that the Deacon had learned, the Papa (priest) knew what he was talking about. The Papa was a priest and was well thought of by the local Episkopos, the Bishop. Papa was able to give instruction to the deacon when he was still new to the faith.
His mother saw his pain and it was she who convinced him to speak to the priest, who she knew from her own childhood in Ohio. The priest now served in a small parish church in Astoria, Queens, New York City across the East River from where Percy's mother and her husband Paul had an apartment. The Deacon, then a young man had been intensely grateful for the older man's time and hard work in educating him in everything that he needed to know about this wonderful faith that put no pressure on a believer, other than to live up to the basic rules and laws that the Deacon had always tried to live up to anyway.
And there was no more killing to be done.
Unfortunately, it also put Percy's little brother Tyson beyond his reach forever. As one person was baptized and sealed against the old world he had lived in, he was claimed by this amazing new world that let nothing of the old pagan ways in. And Tyson was a cyclope. The Hierodeacon missed his "little guy". He loved him so much! At least the Deacon's mother had taken Tyson in. She loved him too, as if Tyson were her own son.
Most people didn't realize that a church, what they thought of as a collection of beliefs administered by people who 'wore funny clothes' was actually very real and in touch with the Creator of the Universe at all times. All the stories from that amazing book, the Bible were absolutely true.
There was a time when the deacon was being hunted by his family, chiefly by his cousin. She was absolutely relentless and her hunting partners were no better. It was back in 2030, and they had actually cornered him in the vestibule of his own church, but for some reason they were unable to see him or touch him or feel him there. They could sense that he had been there at least but could not sense that he was there at that moment although he stood right next to them.
The Deacon had gotten terribly angry seeing them there. Although 15 years had passed since he had first entered the monastic life, they still looked the same as they all had when he entered the church in 2013. He literally shouted the ancient challenge to the Dark One, "ο Σατανάς βγαίνει από το σπίτι του Θεού"!
"Satan, get out of God's house"!
And then he hauled out the BIG guns; "Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τό ὄνομά σου, ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου, γενηθήτω τό θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καί ἐπί τῆς γῆς. Τόν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τόν ἐπιούσιον δός ἡμῖν σήμερον καί ἄφες ἡμῖν τά ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καί ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν καί μή εἰσενέγκης ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλά ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπό τοῦ πoνηροῦ."
"Our Father, who art in Heaven…"
At the same time the deacon, who at that time was a newly ordained deacon, grabbed a flask of water from the holy water fountain in the very vestibule of his church and literally used it to imprison the huntresses and the pagan goddess with them. He threw the water all over them. The water swirled all over them; lightning began to form near the open door and then an unbearable light grew in the vestibule. All of a sudden the doors to the church burst open and they were ejected, all of them right onto the sidewalk. The water weighed them down like a lead weight on a fish, and for a few minutes they could not move, even the goddess. Her powers were negated completely and she realized for that short amount of time she had been rendered powerless, both completely and absolutely.
Some being or something, she knew not what was giving her an unmistakable message; "Do not come into my house ever again or I will smite you down for all time. Do not attempt to go near he who has taken my symbol and left you and yours behind him. He is no longer yours. He is his own, and by his own choice he is Mine. Go back and tell the others to leave him be, even those who mean him no harm. I am keeping him from you all and none of you can do anything about it, all of you who consider yourselves "divinities".
"Who are you?", she called out.
An answer came back but it left her puzzled. Artemis knew that she'd heard it before, the words that is. But she had no idea what it really meant. It didn't apply to her in her world and so she had never really learned about it. Maybe her half-sister Athena would know?
The Voice answered her, "I AM".
She would take her Huntresses and go back to Olympus and there she would ask Athena before convening the council. That way she wouldn't look or sound stupid to the rest. So she called on her Huntresses to pick themselves up so that she could flash them back to the throne room. But they couldn't move, any of them! She had to help each Huntress up physically and then the worst thing in the world happened. She couldn't use her godly powers at all! Nothing!
They all took the subway back to Herald Square in Manhattan and walked into the Empire State Building's main lobby. One dirty goddess, 32 filthy Huntresses and eight hunting wolves who all looked like Lupa had just gotten done kicking their hairy butts and then rolled them in mud afterward all walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building and nearly touched off a riot. They'd been lucky and gotten their own subway car (it was off-rush hour just then), as the only two other occupants of said car took one look at them all and got off the train immediately. The wolves had that kind of effect on mortals… but only when they could be seen. How was it that they weren't made unseen by the Mist?
Artemis had never met the security man who sat the "special elevator desk" before and had to argue with the man and threaten him with her hunting knives in order to get the elevator key card. Everybody piled into the next two elevators with some of the Huntresses sitting on the backs of the wolves like children riding ponies.
It took a few minutes to get up to the top, but once they got out on the 600th floor they made their way to Athena's Temple. Artemis called to her half-sister and fellow goddess, but she needn't have bothered as Athena looked up just then to see the mob dirtying up the lobby of her precious library. Athena got up, her anger beginning to boil over at the mess when Artemis confronted her directly; "Can you tell me why certain things happened to me today just when we thought we found Perseus at some little church in Queens?"
Athena stood there with her arms folded underneath her ample breasts, and looked at the twelve-year-old form of a goddess who looked like she got put through a carwash.
"You had best begin at the beginning sister and leave nothing out".
About 10 minutes and a lot of details later, Athena stood there frowning, staring off into space for a minute.
"Well sister can you tell me what happened? How did a mere demigod eject us from the building with a few stale prayers and water?"
The expression on Athena's face grew cautious and she asked Artemis, "What name did that voice give you again?"
"The voice said simply, 'I AM'..."
Athena looked at Artemis, her face a mask of shock and disbelief.
"No, it cannot be…", and she ran for a small bookshelf near her table that contained a number of very thick books. She pulled one out that was quite thick, and written in funny lettering that Artemis recognized almost immediately as old Hebrew. She couldn't read it until she really concentrated on it and then she realized that the title of the book was one word, "Tanakh".
Athena looked up in her and said, "Do you know what this book is? It is what Christians call the Hebrew Bible. It contains the first five books of the "Old Testament", the first few books having been written originally by the Hebrew prophet Moses. If you will recall your early lessons this prophet approached what looked to him to be a burning bush on the side of Mount Hebron in the Sinai peninsula. It turned out to be a manifestation of the Hebrew God.
"Moses was commanded to go back into Egypt and give Pharaoh a message from the Hebrew God, and the message was to "Let My people go".
"When Moses asked what name he should give to the elders of his people so that they would know who it was gave Moses the message, the Voice in the bush told him simply, "Tell the elders only that you have been sent by 'I Am that I Am".
"In ancient Greece about the time that Christianity was really taking hold, we found that we had no power against the followers of this new faith. And those of our former believers and also of our own children who went over to this Faith were shut off from us. We could not follow them or find them anymore. They no longer belonged to us. Once they accepted the mark of Christian baptism, we had lost the battle. I know that it's amazing to hear this but it's absolutely true.
"I believe that it was Perseus who ejected you by invoking the power of this Hebrew God who is believed in by the Christians as well. If Percy has gone over to this faith, we will most likely never see him again".
Artemis then looked at Athena and asked, "Do you think this God is the reason why my powers seem to have failed? Does He actually have this power to do this to me, a goddess?"
Athena looked at Artemis and guessed that she hurt from head to toe. She was positively a mess. Her hair was completely askew, and had dried stiff and hard in the polluted fumes of the subway system. Her outfit was filthy and spoiled from all the dirt in the polluted air drying on it, and her silver trainers were ripped and in rags on her torn and bruised feet.
Wait….. BRUISED?
Athena shocked Artemis by next raising her voice very loudly and yelling for Artemis' brother, the god of medicine and healing.
"APOLLOOOOOOO! GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW PLEASE! YOUR SISTER IS HURT AND NEEDS…you." The sun god had flashed right in when he heard his twin sister needed him.
Apollo took one look at his sister and started to break out in laughter but managed to hold it back a bit. He was able to put on a more professional air, and asked, "What happened, sister?"
"I was looking for Perseus. We did not go into that church with the intention of disrupting the church or disrespecting the God. We only wanted to find Perseus and bring him back, as father has directed us all to do for so many years".
Apollo frowned and said, "Which god are we talking about please? It might actually help if I knew what kind of powers we were dealing with here".
Athena looked right into Apollo's eyes and said,
"THE GOD. The Christian/Jewish God."
Apollo look like a deer caught in the headlights. He had heard stories of this before. He remembered several situations where minor gods had been stripped of their powers completely when priests of the new religion several thousand years ago began to pray over them when they threatened the members of a small congregation. It had happened just outside of Sparta and the end result was truly not very pretty for the former and now actually deceased gods. They didn't fade, there was no regenerating in Tartarus. They just died. And when they did die, there was no coming back because they died as mortals do. Some great power had turned several perfectly good, sound minor deities into true mortals. Not even demigods, but actual mortals. Apparently they upset this God and rather than allow these few former deities to continue to run around and bother His people, He decided to stop the problem right then and there.
That was about the year 256 AD, and all those deities were long dead now. As in mortally very d-e-d, dead. As in getting run down by an ox cart dead. Very messy. Apollo took a long look at his sister and asked her "Have you been able to use any godly powers? Anything at all?"
Artemis got a bored kind of look on her face, as if she had been asked this question one time too many and replied, "Noooooo dear brother. I've tried all my powers. Nothing is working.".
Apollo got a real funny look on his face and grabbed his sun-bow along with an arrow of sunlight, nocked the arrow and shot it into the sky through the aperture in the domed ceiling of Athena's temple/library. He was calling for a meeting of their fellow gods. Zeus needed to know about this NOW.
"Let's go to the throne room. We will have the Hunters walk over but we three must go right now".
Twenty minutes later everyone was assembled. The king of the gods sat in his throne and looked askance at his daughter Artemis' filthy appearance along with that of her Hunters and their rather washed-out wolves. Normally, the wolves looked rather clean and glowed silver, just like the huntresses. But not now. They kind of looked like they tried chewing on a cement truck and got chewed right back
Zeus was taken completely aback by his own daughter Thalia's extremely bedraggled appearance. Even her tiara that marked her as the lieutenant of the hunt was broken and missing a number of gems. Her black leather jacket was torn and burnt in several spots. Her "Death to Barbie" t-shirt was streaked with mud and filth.
"Thalia, daughter why are you and the other huntresses and even your wolves looking so filthy? How is it that you come before this assembly looking as if you just lost a great fight? Why would you not clean up before you came here?"
"Father, I… I…"; it almost seemed as if the demigoddess had been struck dumb.
She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders at her father and gave him a very lost look that came straight from her eyes. Gone was the usual sparks and brightness that signaled her demigod powers. Her eyes were now a dark brown, and she no longer had the silver glow of a demi-immortal. Formerly, her eyes had been bluish-white.
Zeus continue to look at her inquiringly and Thalia finally just gestured over at Artemis. Zeus looked over at Artemis and gave her the same inquiring look, to which she looked at her father straight in the eye. Zeus could not help but notice that Artemis was still in regular mortal height and form, and not in her usual godly height.
Something was really not right here because he could no longer sense his daughter as a goddess. His brother sitting next to him, Poseidon looked over at Thalia and smiled gently. "Thalia, can you please tell us what happened? Or would you prefer that your lady and sister told us?"
Thalia looked at her uncle and said, "Uncle, great lord I have absolutely no explanation that I can give you. I can tell you what I remember of the incident, but it all seems so fuzzy now. I'm actually having trouble remembering some of it and I think from the looks of my fellow Huntresses so are they".
All the gods now looked at Artemis and Zeus told her, "Daughter, I think that you had best attempt to tell us the story in full. Leave nothing out and do not bring in anything that is emotional. Just stick to the very facts and nothing else and all will be well, I promise you".
Artemis turned aside and walked out to a point in the throne room where she knew all the gods could see her easily.
"I am sure that you are all wondering why I am not at my godly height. To be sure, I do not know. I can only tell you that my godly powers seem to be very restricted right now as a result of an encounter with what my sister Athena tells me may be the Hebrew/ Christian God known simply as God or 'I Am'".
The older gods, the sons of Kronos and Rhea all gasped and stood up in their thrones. There was a lot of shouting and noise from all, which got the younger ones standing up in their seats yelling and screaming at each other to be quiet and let Artemis speak. All of a sudden, the noise was broken by a thunderous explosion from the Central Hearth in the center of the throne room.
A 50-foot version of Hestia stood there with flames emanating from all points on her body as if she were an ancient goddess of fire. Her voice took on earth-shaking proportions as she stared grimly at the entire assembly and ordered them in no uncertain terms to stop and to be quiet and to let Artemis continue her tale.
"CEASE THIS BICKERING NOW, YOU FOOLS! CAN YOU NOT SEE WHAT HAS HAPPENED? LET ARTEMIS SPEAK! WE KNOW NOTHING AS YET AND ALREADY YOU ARGUE AS IF YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN STUPID CHILDREN!"
The other Olympians were caught short by this display of raw and unbridled power. They were not used to Hestia acting in this manner, and it scared most of them half to death. Ares looked at her and could only think to himself that she had one of the most frightening visages he had ever seen.
Both Apollo and Hephaestus dealt with fire everyday; it was their native element, and yet their aunt's fire was something both horrific and frightening even to them. The power of the flames felt to the two gods as if it would sear their souls. And that frightened them.
"Thank you Aunt Hestia. To continue, this 'I Am' spoke to me and my Huntresses after we were all bodily ejected from the vestibule. We had followed Perseus these past two weeks, and we were using our wolves to follow his scent as a demigod. Nothing else seemed to work exactly and this brought us closer to him, I think. We could see the door to this little Orthodox Catholic Church open, and obviously someone had gone inside. The wolves began baying like hound dogs and we let them slip their leads and they ran up to the door of the church, pulling the door and scratching it very badly.
"My forward hunters, Atalanta and Phoebe both burst into the vestibule looking for the source of our wolves' attention. We all followed them inside when suddenly, out of nowhere we were splashed with water".
Poseidon sat up straight in his throne and leaned forward, and said to his niece, "Water? You say that you were all splashed with water, niece? Did you see from where or by whom?"
Artemis turned to her uncle and said, "No my Lord and uncle, none of us could see where the water came from. But we were splashed and all of a sudden we could hear chanting in Greek. Just then a great vibration occurred along with a flash of light, and we found ourselves thrown through the doors of the church, and out onto the concrete sidewalk. And we were all left exactly as you see us now. We haven't been able to clean up or change anything. And my powers will not work".
Artemis hung her head and said this last looking at the ground, her voice very forlorn and childlike. She seemed absolutely lost and with no explanation for what happened.
Her father stood up in his chair and ordered his son Hermes, the messenger of the gods to fetch Lady Hecate. Perhaps the T asitaness of magic and crossroads would know what was happening.
"My daughter, I cannot sense your very being as a goddess anymore. And I am truly hoping that what has happened in the past did not happen now. Perhaps Lady Hecate can help us sort this out, and possibly help you regain your abilities as a goddess. You are still my child, and as far as I know you are immortal. Even if this lasts for a while, time is on our side here".
"No it's not. Time is not on your side. Hermes told me what happened on the way over here just now, and if I am right then there is absolutely nothing to be done".
The speaker was in her human form, tall at about 5'11", with chocolatey dark hair and a generous and beautiful figure. She was dressed in a flowing purple gown bordered with gold and silver cloth, and her hair fell freely down her lower back. Her appearance was almost as interesting as that of Aphrodite's, and as she surveyed the throne room her gaze fell upon the now mortal sized goddess of the Hunt and the Moon.
"My Lady Artemis, please tell me the name that this deity gave you as their own. And please tell me precisely how they said it".
Zeus looked over at the gorgeous goddess, and smiled and thanked her profusely for coming so quickly. The Olympians didn't fear much, but Hecate should have been one of their number and was never permitted on the council because of her origins as a Titan. Her power could be pretty scary and she wasn't afraid to use it in ways that the Olympians didn't necessarily like. But her knowledge of all things arcane and occult was unparalleled by any other Olympian and this included Athena.
"Lady Hecate, I greet you and I thank you for coming so quickly. My daughter is in a rare and bad state this morning. She sought after Perseus Jackson, who disappeared from these precincts many years ago. She seems to have lost her abilities as a goddess and we are not exactly sure why. We were rather hoping that you could look at her and see if there was some way to unlock her powers again, as I am sure that they are still within her; simply locked away and in need of being restarted so to speak".
She looked at Zeus and regarded him with cool eyes. She could feel the amorous desire pouring off the great and well-muscled god, and knew that she was the object of his extreme desires. He had long wanted her as a bedmate, but had learned to his disadvantage that she could more than defend herself. He knew not to try to force the issue any further, but always continued to speak to her well.
"My Lord Zeus, you do know what is happening, and you are ignoring it. You say that she was looking for Perseus Jackson? Could it be then that she found him but could not see him? Could it be that you and your brothers and sisters and children do not now remember what happened so many millennia ago in the second century of the Christian settlement in Greece?"
Zeus looked crestfallen at this last statement. Despite all his paranoia and power-hungry behavior, he was still a loving father to his daughters. And he was very proud of both Athena and Artemis as well as Thalia. he did have a number of children who were spirits and nymphs, but very very few who were human heroes. He had almost as few who were goddesses.
He looked over at Hecate and simply said, "Please just see what you can tell us about this or do about this".
The goddess nodded curtly and turned to Artemis. She walked over to the goddess of The Hunt and put one hand on either of her shoulders. Artemis glanced at both of the hands and then back up into the eyes of the much taller goddess.
"Please keep eye contact with me at all times in the next few seconds and do not look away until I break my eyes from yours".
Artemis nodded somewhat nervously, not being used to such close physical contact with anybody. She met Hecate's eyes with her own and they began looking into each other's eyes very deeply. Artemis did not know what she saw in there, but all of a sudden she was in a different place. A very deep voice sounded around her in a room that was made out of white light. Two, doors appeared one on one side of the room the other on the other side of the room opposite the first door.
"CHOOSE! CHOOSE! CHOOSE!"
"WHAT?! What? What am I choosing? What!?"
"CHOOSE YOUR PATH. CHOOSE ONE DOOR. AND GO THROUGH THAT DOOR. OR DO NOT… AND THEN NOTHING WILL CHANGE FOR YOU AT ALL".
Suddenly Artemis gasped and was in the throne room again with Hecate still gripping her by her shoulders. And the smaller goddess broke her gaze with Hecate. Hecate looked at Artemis' memories and said to her "What? Why did you break eye contact with me? Hecate frowned and asked Artemis, "Why did you break your gaze from mine? Did something happen? Did you see something?"
Artemis looked nervously all over the place and then finally back at Hecate and nearly shouted at her
"YES! YES! I SAW… something".
Artemis quickly related everything that she saw and Hecate's mouth dropped open in shock. "You… YOU were given 'The Choice'?"
Athena quickly looked over Hecate and asked her, "What choice, milady? What choice was Artemis given?"
Hecate dropped her arms from Artemis' shoulders and turned to face the rest of the Olympian assembly. She grew in her height to about 15 feet so that she could meet their gazes evenly and her voice would be loud enough to carry. The other gods were kind of shocked by this, not realizing that Hecate even had this ability. Hestia just smiled, because she knew that Hecate had all of their abilities as Olympians... and then maybe a few that they did not?
"My Lords and Ladies, Lady Artemis is no longer a goddess".
There were gasps from all around the council chamber at this and Hestia again frowned at the lot of them and blew up to her 50 foot size. Everyone drew back at this in surprise, and all were quiet once again.
Hecate looked over at Hestia and nodded her thanks, and Hestia motioned with her hand for Hecate to continue what she was saying.
"Two millennia ago you called me to investigate several minor gods losing their nature and their powers. They had apparently attempted to interfere with a number of Christian priests then coming into Greece and spreading the word of the new Christian faith.
"You all know that Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism and has only the one deity. This one God is said to be the Creator spirit behind all else in the universe. He first appeared to the ancient Hebrews, to their prophet Moses after a 450 year absence from their lives. Their patriarch Joseph, had brought the Israelites into Egypt during a time of great famine and hardship in order to preserve the lives of his family and clan. They were small in number in those days, so close to the original patriarch of their clan, Abraham. This God promised Abraham "enough descendants that they would number more than the stars in the sky".
This God identified himself to the prophet Moses by telling Moses to answer any questions about Him by telling the elders of Israel in Egypt that His Name was "I Am". And this was the name that had been given to the elders of Israel centuries before at the beginning of their bondage in Egypt, by which they would know him who was to be sent by the Creator himself to lead them away from Egypt.
"I believe that it is this very God who destroyed the deification of our lesser brothers and sisters over 2000 years ago. And I further do believe in the complete and absolute Divinity of this one God, and that he is superior to all gods including ourselves. I have had a chance to research him over the intervening millennia, and I have learned much. I have spoken to Popes, Patriarchs, and even to one of the original 12 Apostles, the most personal and closest followers of the one called the Christ.
"The youngest of these apostles was named John and he lived for a time on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. This island has been off-limits to us all for millennia as it was first the residence of John in exile by order of the Roman emperors, and then it became his final resting place. It is holy ground now, sacred to that faith and beyond our control or reach forever. And there are several other islands around the area of Greece and Italy that enjoy the same status.
The goddess of the crossroads looked sorrowfully at Artemis and said to her, "I am truly sorry my lady, but there is absolutely nothing that I can do to help you. What has happened to you is completely beyond me and my paltry abilities to make you whole and as you once were...".
At that she turned away from the Olympians and walked towards the throne room doors; she stopped briefly halfway to the great bronze portals and turned halfway back. And as she turned she uttered these words of great finality, "... And never will be again".
The rest of the session turned into a complete shitstorm. Everyone was yelling and screaming, fingers being pointed and blames being ascribed to various gods and by various gods, and this time Hestia let them be. She returned to her eight-year-old form and to her hearth, and sat there and poked at the coals listlessly. She began thinking back to that fateful day when Percy Jackson last came to Olympus. She could remember it like it was yesterday although it had been many years before.
The greatest demigod, the hero of Olympus, bane of Titans and Giants alike, destroyer of all monsters and greatest leader of both the Roman and Greek camps in millenia had had enough of his life, living it for others instead of for himself. And when you thought about it, what he wanted was not so unreasonable. But Zeus… paranoid and unreasonable and always suspicious of plots against him that never existed except in his own imagination would not let him go and live his own life, away from the memories of a beautiful woman who broke his heart and left him alone forever.
His heart was terribly hurt with everything that he had gone through, and mostly for her. He had followed her willingly into Tartarus, into the hell below hell and this was in order to help her survive and find her way through. The only way to get through was to go through the Doors of Death. And this had to be done because of their quest anyway, but it was an opportunity that could not be passed up when Annabeth fell, and Percy saw his whole existence flashing before him without her. He didn't even have to think about it, he let go of his hand hold at the lip of the Pit and fell in after her. Willingly.
He even shielded her with his own body when it came to the fall so that she would not be hurt as badly, even if it meant his own death. Percy was always selfless that way. He was always more worried about his mother or Annabeth or the camp or Chiron or Tyson… anybody but himself. In his heart he always knew that he had the ability to persevere if he only tried, and he actually did. He and Annabeth walked out of the Doors of Death, helped along by Iapetus the Titan and Damasen the Giant. They brought the battle to Tartarus himself and his own actual personae, as well as over a million monsters so that Perseus and Annabeth could escape through the doors and shut them from their side as their allies shut them from their side of Hell.
No one never did find out what happened to Iapetus or Damasen; and most probably nobody ever would. It was a very sore point with Percy, and he had almost gone back to Tartarus to try and find out if he could help them. It took some very stern talking-to by a lot of people including his cousins Nico and Thalia, and even Jason Grace before he would stop on his self-dispatched mission back to Hell.
After all of that and a couple of years afterward as well, Annabeth suddenly pulled up stakes and left for Europe. She left Percy a note, didn't even say goodbye in person. She never said goodbye to Sally or Paul, but she did talk over her plans with her own father Fred. And he advised her not to go without saying goodbye to everybody and at least get closure between herself and Percy. Fred Chase really liked Percy, and knew that the young man loved his daughter with all his heart. Fred had hopes of walking Annabeth down the aisle to give her away to Percy in marriage, knowing that the young man would die to protect his daughter and surmount any obstacle to give her a good living and a happy life.
But Annabeth didn't have the courage to say goodbye, and she didn't have the heart to tell anybody what was truly in her own; that just being around Percy brought back all the memories of Tartarus and she could no longer go through sleepless night after sleepless night after sleepless night, thinking back on those horrific days in the Pit. She had seen Percy expose a terrible side of himself when he destroyed the goddess Akhlys. Percy sent all the poison back to Akhlys that she tried to kill both Annabeth and Percy with. She saw the glee and the anger and the hatred that was on Percy's face as he did it, savaged as he had been already by the environment in which they found themselves. It was only Annabeth calling out to him not to do it, not to go through with it that eventually stopped him just short of causing Akhlys to fade and go into the void.
That was the breaking point for Annabeth. But she could never "choke that out" to Percy. She just never had the courage to speak to him and tell him the truth, that what he did so frightened her that she didn't feel she could spend the rest of her life with him.
Honestly, she did try and she spent several more years with Percy and they weren't bad years for the most part. They had bad moments, yes they did. But her leaving the way that she did broke Percy as a man. He felt completely hollowed-out, with nowhere else to go emotionally. He had tried to speak to Hestia and his mother, and even tried to speak with Athena about Annabeth.
Athena had simply rebuffed him, thinking that Percy was trying to worm information out of her about Annabeth and that he should not have. She advised him to just move on and forget about her daughter, that her daughter was doing what was best for herself. Percy's last words to Athena before he left that day were, "Oh sure, when it comes to anybody else it's always what's best for them. But what about what's best for me? I never asked for anything for myself except for this. And you won't even help me when I ask for it. What point did it serve, my helping Olympus and protecting it when Olympus won't protect me now that I need it?"
And Athena just shrugged and turned away from Percy. Hestia rather thought that that made up Percy's mind for him. She remembered that he came up to Olympus a few days later and looked around for her at her hearth. When he came in he didn't see her right away, so he just sat and waited. And finally he called for her by name, and so she came to him and sat next to him. She wasn't sure what to expect.
But what he said next absolutely blew her away.