Eventide
part one: civil
ch. eleven: push me out to sea
There was a strangled moan. Percy blinked blearily at the sky, wondering where the sound was coming from, when he realized that he was the one moaning. Sitting up, he hissed at the cobblestone digging into his palms. Examining himself made him realize that something bad must have happened. At any rate, he was covered in bruises already turning into a dark, purplish color, as if he'd hit the ground or something hard.
Percy winced. The next thing he realized was the fact that something had gone wrong. His friends were nowhere to be seen. When he checked his pack, it was covered in dirt, and the thick fabric was torn in places.
Groaning, he pulled himself off the ground, narrowing his eyes and looking around him. An empty street - so maybe this was a highway or something? Glancing up, he could see the sun hiding behind a looming shadow - one, of course, that he recognized as a mountain. Mount Olympus.
He took a wild guess at what happened. (Mostly because his wild guesses were actually pretty good. He was like a seventeen-year old Dumbledore with the good guessing but not the beard.) Obviously, he had tried to "Apparate" onto Olympus with his friends. Some power or divine being had intervened (he himself had begun to suspect Ouranos, the dude who they were looking for.) and bam! Luke and Bianca had ended up gods hopefully knew where, and he'd rolled down the mountain unconscious or something.
Percy didn't know what exactly to do. Finding his friends wasn't a completely good objective, seeing as Zoe Nightshade, former Huntress and hater-of-all-guys, was his technical friend as well. He didn't even know where Luke and Bianca were, assuming they had ended up in the same place.
So it was only reasonable to do what he did. He picked up his supplies and began to follow the yellow brick road to Oz, where he would find the magical wizard to ask where his friends were... Or, in other words, walked along the highway and hoped he didn't look like a toothless hobo.
And then the singing began.
"Io vivat, Io vivat,
Nostrorum sanitas!
Hoc est amoris poculum,
Doloris est antidotum."
The voice, clearly female, kept singing. Percy frowned. He'd heard this before, somewhere. For some reason, he kept thinking of Camp Jupiter. The Romans hadn't really sung, though, not that he knew of. (Okay, most of the time was spent trying not to kill each other, etc, but still.)
"Io vivat, Io vivat,
Nostrorum sanitas
Dum nihil est in poculo,
Iam repleatur denuo."
He mouthed the words to himself. Io vivat, io vivat, nostrorum sanitas... Hey, hey, long live, the sanity of our company. It was Latin - he was sure of it. But what..? Percy walked faster, following the voice. He couldn't see whoever was singing, but he knew he would in a second. The sane part of him warned Percy against being reckless and that this could very well be a trap, but he ignored it. After all, this was the sane part of him and not his instincts.
He translated the words in his head as he went. The song, probably called Io vivat, was pretty much a big metaphor for life. Or so he figured. The voice began to sing louder, song swelling in places and becoming almost alive. He set off at a run.
"Io vivat, Io vivat,
Nostrorum sanitas
Est vita nostra brevior,
Et mors amara longior."
"Hey!" he yelled. In front of him, hobbling alongside the road he was following, was a hunched old lady in what he recognized as a chiton with greyish-white hair pinned up elaborately. As he drew closer, he saw that he was wrong; she was wearing a toga, goatskin cloak wrapped around her shoulders.
He suddenly knew who she was, even as she turned around to look at him. Juno's pale, piercing gaze met his own, and she smiled. Inclining her head, she seemed to ignore the fact that he despised her. Juno - or Hera, as he knew her - made his blood boil and hands clench at his side.
"Perseus," she greeted. He winced at the use of his full name, gritting his teeth together and glaring at the goddess.
"What are you doing here, Juno?" He spat out her name as if it was something utterly revolting. She didn't say anything, continuing the Latin song, the one that he now knew and recognized.
"Io vivat, Io vivat,
Nostrorum sanitas
Osores nostri pereant.
Amici semper floreant."
Grudgingly, he muttered the last verse under his breath, still walking and glaring at Juno. When the song finished, she laughed and clapped her hands in glee.
"Looking for your friends?" she asked, cackling like the evil hag she was. "I'm afraid they're a bit preoccupied with a little present I gifted to them." When immortals said present or gift, it was usually actually something bad.
"What-did-you-do?" Reaching into his pocket, he drew out Riptide, uncapping it in a single, smooth move. She shook her head at the sight of his white knuckles gripping the weapon tightly.
"Nothing they can't handle, of course. Just a little test to see if they are worthy of my help." He frowned.
"And me?"
"You proved your worth over and over again, Perseus Jackson. You need not to do it again." She seemed to ponder something, humming a little. "I could take you there, should you like." With a wave of her hand, they were standing on a grassy hill overlooking a small meadow. In the very center, his friends were fighting off a hydra.
The hydra hissed and spat acid. Coiled around a twisted, gnarled tree, it snarled at the two demigods. On the topmost branch, something gleamed in the sunlight. He had to squint to see it from his vantage point; it was an apple, colored gold.
It all suddenly clicked. The hydra. The tree. The apple. He remembered both Annabeth and Luke telling him about Luke's first quest, retrieving one of Hera's golden apples from the garden of Hesperides. Luke had failed, gaining a scar across his face from Ladon - who he remembered quite well, too. It wasn't a particularly pleasant memory, either.
Hydras weren't the best monsters ever. In his head, he ran over what he'd learned (and remembered) from Monsters 101, the only class that Chiron taught. A hundred heads that would multiply if cut off. But acid?
Thinking about it, Luke and Bianca could really use some Wonder Bread. And fire.
From what he knew, the stumps had to be burned, so they wouldn't multiply again. The two demigods seemed to have that covered, due to the supplies they'd packed. Two sticks and some cloth had created makeshift torches, and he could make out the soft orange glows of the fires.
It seemed to take forever. Heads were cut off and burned. The smell of monster dust, almost sulfur-like, lingered heavy in the air. The valley was filled with it, a dense, golden fog. He had to cover his mouth and nose at times.
Next to him, Juno seemed unimpressed. She spoke: "They are not using their powers." He studied the two figures rolling and stabbing in the distance and noted that they weren't.
Cupping his hands in front of his mouth, Percy yelled, "USE YOUR POWERS." He didn't know if they had heard him or not, but suddenly the ground rumbled. It certainly hadn't been him, but the ground was shaking and cracking as if there was an earthquake.
Juno wasn't letting him help, so the only thing he could do was watch in both horror and awe as the valley split. Pale hands clutched at the air; shadowy figures rose into an army. Luke seemed to be caught off guard, and the hydra head he had been fighting took the advantage and closed in, knocking Backbiter out of his hands.
Just as the fangs were about to crash down, a bony hand intercepted, chopping off the head with something sharp. It appeared to be a rib - he was suddenly reminded of Gray, the skeletal warrior forced to serve Frank.
The valley erupted into chaos - though, not literally. He couldn't make out much, though Juno could. She was laughing, rubbing her hands together in a mad sort of glee. She could have taken Mr. D's title at this point.
Finally, there was silence. The dust slowly began to clear, and as it did, Juno clapped her hands together and made it disappear. He could then see clearly what had happened. Luke knelt at the base of the tree, a golden apple in hand. Bianca stood not far behind, bending over to catch her breath and laughing out of either relief or the adrenaline rush.
"Good job," Juno congratulated. "Yes, very good indeed." Bianca glared as she trudged up the hill.
"Are you going to help us now?" The goddess smiled. Her appearance began to change. Her hair turned black and grew longer. A scepter, adorned with a lotus flower, appeared in an outstretched hand. A cloak made of goatskin fastened itself around her shoulders. Despite his hate for her, Percy had to admit that she looked her part - the oh-so mighty Queen of Olympus.
"Yes," Juno said. She waved her hand without a warning, and Percy let out a surprised yelp as his feet lifted off the ground. There was a tug in his navel; the world spun in circles as they traveled.
Percy would have liked to say that teleportation-by-goddess was enjoyable. It really wasn't. He staggered when they finally appeared in front of the gates to Olympus - the real Olympus. He felt sick, sort of like he was going to throw up, but he wasn't.
"Welcome to Olympus," Juno called. She was standing in front of gates, golden and crumbling, her hand already pushing one open. "Or, in Perseus' case, welcome back."
That didn't help. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, opening them again. No one had seemed to notice his temporary five-second breakdown, so he was good.
"Woah," Luke said. "Oh, man. This is nothing like the Empire State."
"What?" Bianca asked, and he remembered that out of the three of them, she had been the only one to live a lonely, in-the-dark life, as far as the world of gods went. Percy winced at the thought of her death.
"Um, right now, Olympus is on the 600th floor of the Empire State, giant building in New York." Bianca nodded faintly, trying to process all the new information.
While some parts were breaking down, due to millennium of neglect, the magic was still strong. Luscious green plants grew like crazy. White marble tiles paved all the roads, and in the very middle was a huge dome that gleamed brightly in the sun like some precious stone.
"So where's Ouranos' domain?" he asked, turning to look at their guide. He was only trying to distract himself; the other demigods, paired with Hera-slash-Juno (both as annoying) and Olympus, where they'd gone just last year was not helping in terms of emotions. He remembered what Olympus had looked like, stained with red.
Juno gestured into the distance. She was pointing at absolutely nothing - well, okay, she was pointing at the far horizon. But granted, there was nothing really there. It was just sky and ground.
"What?" Bianca said again. Juno sighed, impatient.
"I cannot go further past that point," she told them. "But there, where I'm pointing - that's a cliff. Dead end. Realistically, you would fall through the air, hit the mountain, and break almost all the bones in your body with a guaranteed death. But there is magic there, and you will not die. You must jump, my heroes, for there will always be a jump and a fall. I do not know where you will end up... but there, that's the place you will find Ouranos." Luke was staring at Juno.
"Sorry, you want us to... jump? That's, what, Mount Olympus and you want me to jump?"
"Would you do that for your friend? You may leave her, if that is what you wish. You may leave and never come back, or you may jump and find her. It's your choice." She disappeared soon after.
"Great," Luke grumbled. Bianca was already at the edge, wind blowing her dark hair around as she looked down. He walked towards her.
"You're going?" he asked. She whipped around to glare at him.
"You aren't?" she challenged, eyes gleaming. "I don't care if you're not. I will. Zoe, whether she knew it or not, gave me another chance - so I'll give her the one she deserves." He nodded.
"Wait," he told her. "Let me come with you." Behind them, Luke was grumbling - but he was still here, if that counted for anything.
"On three?" Bianca asked. He met her eyes calmly.
"On three." He ran over and grabbed Luke by the arm, gripping him tightly.
"Three,"
"Two,"
"ONE!" And then they jumped. Well, Bianca and Percy did. Luke had been dragged off the edge with them, yelling as he was. He laughed, letting go of his friend and spreading his arms out. Maybe there would be nothing at the bottom, or maybe there would be something at the bottom. Either way, something would happen.
Wind whistled through his ears. He was moving faster and faster through the air, rocketing downwards at a speed that he wasn't sure was safe. It was cold, wet, almost. There was nothing here but silence and the sound of his blood rushing through his ears, like the crash of waves.
WHOOM! Percy hit the cloud with such force, he bounced back up a couple of times before completely stopping. And then he realized he was on a cloud (which, hello, should've been made out of water and therefore would dissipate if he landed on one). After that, he realized that he was supposed to be dead, but had once again escaped death.
He sat up and almost regretted it. The sight in front of him was almost as unbelievable as sitting on a cloud was. The castle was floating in the sky, made of dark stone spotted with golden chunks. (Stars?) It was perched on a piece of freaking cloud - which kind of did not look like cloud at all, more like a giant, solid, and white block of cotton candy. There were gates, closed, with no guards. Inside was a city, like, a real-and-legit city, that people walked around in with no problem they could fall to their deaths at any minute.
Well, okay, he could fall to his death at any minute.
"This Ouranos guy lives a high life." Percy swallowed and tried not to look down. He had a bad reputation with being high up, especially since his uncle, the king of the gods and blah blah, Zeus, wasn't exactly to keen about his brother's kid in his domain.
"Yeah, really high," Bianca agreed. "Do we just go in?"
"When in doubt, knock." And knock they did. The gates were padlocked with this huge golden thing he didn't even think was possible to open. No one came up to the pounding demigods. No one even paid attention to them, continuing on with their daily lives. Finally, Luke shrugged, closed his hand around the lock, and concentrated, eyebrows coming together.
Click. The lock became unlocked, and Luke put it in his jacket pocket. "Come on, guys." He was too busy staring.
"You can do that?"
"Son of Hermes, man. The whole domain thing, yeah?" He remembered that (unfortunately) Hermes was the god of thieves as well.
"Come on, boys, hurry up," Bianca yelled at them, straining to open the gates. They opened slowly - obviously large and made for more than one person - so they ran to help. It was like pushing a ton of refrigerators. It was hard.
When there was finally a big enough space, the three squeezed through and made a break for it. The townspeople (if they were even people) would do their cause no good. The castle got closer and closer as they ran, pushing through the crowds. People yelled and complained. Music swelled through the air. Still Percy ran.
Bianca grabbed both of their arms and dragged them faster. They stopped at the doors, and Luke knocked on the doors like he'd done to the gates earlier. He was suddenly hit with a sense of déjà vu; he'd done the same thing six years ago, at twelve, in the Underworld.
The doors swung open. Bianca swallowed, now nervous but still determined. "Guess that means entrez vous," she muttered, and Percy bit back his laugh.
The first room in the castle was a throne room for some odd reason - if he could have a giant castle, he sure wouldn't put the throne room as the entrance. The walls were white, with large, old-fashioned windows that allowed light to stream through. There was one throne, made of a deep blue stone.
Perched on top of it was Ouranos. Or who he guessed was Ouranos.
The guy was old, looking like his forties and fifties, with a long white beard and hair. (Dumbledore, anyone?) His eyes were sky blue, like Luke's, but brighter, with flecks of gold in them. He smiled, but Percy was getting an uneasy vibe from this place. His hand twitched towards his pocket.
"Welcome," Ouranos said, still smiling that ugly, twisted smile. "to my home, messengers of Chaos."
"Um, hi," he said, stepping forward. How did you ask for a constellation? "Uh.. You see, we have this friend, right, and we were wondering if maybe we could get her back." He winced at his own words. That didn't sound quite right.
The king's face twisted. The smile faded, and he frowned, but stayed amused by the idea as if he were a madman.
"I'm afraid," The smile was back. "that I cannot allow that. Zoe Nightshade is mine." Uh oh. It looked like they were going to have a problem with this guy.
"You probably shouldn't say that about a Hunter," Bianca growled, stepping forwards and unsheathing a Stygian iron dagger that had been hidden up her sleeve.
"Are you sure, little Huntress?" someone asked, stepping out from behind the large throne, Zoe in his arms, mouth covered with a beefy hand. "I believe she is no longer your kind, isn't that correct, my betrothed?"
Zoe took this moment to rip free of Hercules' hold, kicking back at him with so much force that he was pushed back several feet. When he saw the immortal on the ground in pain, a silver knife lodged in his ribs, he knew that no way in the world was Zoe even close to being Hercules' wife. (But if they had been married, and he was Hercules, he would have divorced. Zoe kicked hard, and he supposed a knife in the ribs wasn't pleasant either.)
"Zoe!" he yelled, ignoring the anger building up inside of him. She caught his eye and smiled, diving for the floor in front of them when Hercules' rose up, roaring. She landed perfectly in a crouch next to Bianca, who was stunned but helping the older girl up.
The man he'd grown to hate roared again, and Ouranos laughed. The king disappeared in a flash of brilliant light, but even when he was gone, Percy had a feeling that the fight wasn't quite over yet.
Sorry? I was doing Camp NaNoWriMo. Which I'll be doing again come July.
Uh, I bet this chapter freaked you out a bit. It freaked me out a bit. On another note, my art is right now in a regional competition, and if I make it past the current level, it'll be STATE! Ah!
So editing this one ay later, I'd like to say I didn't make it to state.
So, what do you guys like doing as a hobby?
achieving elysium
