Percy: Finding help in the war against Prometheus
Gabriel's absence to find who he was left Chiron back in the old position of leading the camp. But he was not about to let Gabriel's preparations continue so easily and I knew he would soon find out what we were doing and try to intervene. After my night with Annabeth, I decided I would take a little journey of my own. A journey to the Palace of Eos, the dawn goddess herself, and find out if there was any way she could help keep Chiron blind from the war efforts or at least help it keep going.
My journey was very short as Eos apparently wanted to see me as soon as I could spare the time. "I needed to see you because I fear for Gabriel and you are the only one who is even remotely close to him besides Annabeth and Thalia. His cousin is recovering remarkably well and remarkably fast but she has told him enough before entering this trance to set him on a destructive path to find himself," Eos said. "What could be so horrifying about his past that to search it would be destructive?" I asked.
"If only you knew the whole story of why we hid the truth from him. Why I was forced to never tell him although I loved him and really wanted," she answered. The look on her face told of an innocence that overshadowed all guilt but just barely. It made me even sadder that she loved him yet could not do what she knew was right without it costing heavily.
"Then show me the full story, reveal to me what happened to his mother that the gods hid from him until now. Tell me why it was so bad that he was never allowed to know the truth," I begged. I added that perhaps I would then know why Eos, her siblings, and Hestia were the only ones he truly trusted. "Percy… don't say I didn't warn you," she said before thrusting a hand onto my head.
Immediately, I was transported to a different time and a different place entirely. I was in an infirmary room where a woman was birthing and although everyone else was black and white in color (keep in mind I was in somebody's memories and could do nothing to change them) Eos maintained her colors. "This was when he was born, do you see anyone missing from amongst the gods?" she asked. At first, I couldn't notice any god or goddess missing from this but then I remembered she had not restricted the gods to just Titans or just Olympians.
"Two are missing: Hera and Kronos, correct?" I asked. Eos nodded and explained why both of them were missing. "Hera was assigned to distract the baby's own father if she couldn't kill him while Gabriel was being birthed. We had to keep his mother alive until then otherwise Gabriel would be unnatural," she said.
"But why would you be worried about Kronos doing anything to him?" I asked. "Because Kronos (not the one you fought but the one who fathered Zeus and Gabriel) would have eaten him like he tried to do to Zeus and almost did to Chiron were it not for the fact he would have to eat his horse part as well. The Titan who fathered the gods, Chiron, and Gabriel feared that if Gabriel were born, he would destroy him unless that cursed deity turned him into his slave," Eos answered. "Wait, I didn't fight the Titan almost two months ago?" I asked, confused.
"No, you fought the Primordial deity of Time itself and his name is spelled K-H-R-O-N-O-S or occasionally with a C rather than a K. The one you thought you fought was the one spelled K-R-O-N-O-S or C-R-O-N-U-S and he was the Titan Lord," Eos answered. "Okay, so the Titan was still roaming free whilst the God of Time played as him in order to give the Titans hope in their attempts to rebel against Olympus. Where was he after the birth of Gabriel to have him gone this long?" I asked.
"I saw that coming before you even thought to ask that of me. Let me show you that Cronus has not remained dormant all this time," Eos answered. Instantly, we were teleported to yet another place and another time where we saw Gabriel as a two-and-a-half-year-old boy that played with his mother and housekeeper. "The housekeeper became Mary's husband after Cronus deserted her and their son; he was a good man in spite of the fact that he knew who his stepson's father was and knew that if Cronus chose to return, he should not expect to defy him and live to tell about it," she explained.
I watched as little Gabriel played with a ball he seemed to like a lot by throwing it to his mother and waiting for her to throw it back at him. Now don't get me wrong, it was the perfect image of a happy family with an adorable little kid that loved to play ball apparently. "He would not have you know it but being a son of a Titan, he's autistic and that usually heightens the reflexes of a demigod even more than an ADHD or dyslexic kid such as yourself could hope for. It's because of that that he doesn't have to rely on the Curse of Achilles for power if he doesn't wish to," Eos explained.
I nodded in understanding and smiled as Gabriel continued to play with his mother and stepfather. Just then, the door came crashing down and a man dressed entirely in black said that he came for his son. "Peter, hold him off at least until I can hide Gabriel, please!" Mary begged as she picked up her son and ran out of the living room. The fear in her voice was genuine but I could tell it was not for her but for her son, just as I figured it would be.
"Where do you think you're going with my son? You dare flee from me when I have come simply to see the latest addition to my collection of children?" Cronus boomed. "You got some audacity yourself man, you broke down my fucking door and demanded to see the kid," Peter replied. Surprisingly, he drew out a long medieval sword that peasants would be seen with.
"Why that heavy weapon when you could have two very light weapons such as what my sickle can become?" Cronus taunted. Then he unsheathed a sickle that he made into two swords that looked like Backbiter and fought with both against the housekeeper. The housekeeper held his ground until at last, Mary returned but for some reason, Gabriel had followed her back out and Cronus took this opportunity to viciously mutilate the mortal man before Mary's eyes. Several links in his small intestine stuck out and he barely managed to keep it in with his hands before Cronus ravaged his face with the blades and stab him in the heart with the sickle.
"I'm sorry sir but I can't have mortal defilers touching the woman who gave birth to my golden son," Cronus said. Then he called Gabriel over to him, Mary to scared to do anything until it was almost too late. But she reached for the nearest thing she could find, which turned out to be a bottle of champagne, and smashed it over Cronus' head. Then she forced Gabriel to run and locked the bedroom behind him as he went in.
"You dare interfere with what must be done? Traitorous whore, you defiled your body with that mortal didn't you!" Cronus shouted. "I didn't defile myself, you left us!" Mary replied. "I had to, Zeus forbids all gods from being with their mortal kids and even I am restrained by this," Cronus said.
"You're the Lord of the Titans, you answer to no one but yourself. There was no way you could have been restrained by the rules of the Olympians," Mary said. She had quite the bravery to defy the Lord of the Titans himself but I had to remember that she was protecting her son, not herself. "You know, I really don't want to kill you so I will subject you to something worse, something only a Titan could think of," Cronus finally said after a small pause.
"What? Being your sex-slave like I was when you and I conceived Gabriel?" Mary asked. "No though that would have been more fun," Cronus answered, catching her off guard. He laughed and said that he would subject her to the tortures of the Heart of Tartarus.
"Deeper even than where my fellow Titans were confined, you will face tortures that no mortal mind has ever experienced. You will experience it all alive and when it comes time for your death, your soul will be sent into oblivion where the memory of you will be erased from this universe," he added. I gulped in fear at having to see that then suddenly, another woman (a little more elderly in look) came out from where Gabriel had been confined and began to carry him out. "Ah Hestia, are you bringing my son to me so that I may cancel Mary's little reservation in the Heart of Tartarus?" Cronus asked.
"Here you go father, he is my brother and your son after all," Hestia answered. Mary screamed and told her not to do it but Hestia turned and winked at her in assurance. Cronus unwrapped the bundle supposedly containing Gabriel to find a stone instead of his son. "You dare trick me, the Lord of the Titans, as your mother had done before you?" Cronus hissed in rage.
He opened a maelstrom of fire that began to suck everything in the room into it. Being a mistress of flames, Hestia was not affected by it but Mary was and she was instantly sent through it to Tartarus. But then Hestia did something interesting: she kept the portal open even when Cronus demanded it to be closed and she grabbed the Titan by the neck before throwing him in it as well. "A mortal can survive the Heart of Tartarus much longer than a god can," Hestia said before closing it.
For a moment, there was only silence in the room when the slight dripping of the housekeeper's blood was excluded. Then Hestia added, "Let it be that though Mary will be tortured as per your orders, father, your godly essence will be absorbed by Tartarus himself for later use while the body containing it is destroyed with no hope of restoration. However, the child must believe his mother is dead and so, this housekeeper serves his final purpose." "Do you see why we kept the truth from him and have kept it from everyone else now?" Eos asked.
"The gods lied to him about all of this?" I asked back. "We had to, Hera forbid the truth from being told to him and refused to listen to Zeus. She said it would be for his own good but I see you think differently," Eos answered. I nodded and I really did think different: it might not have been indeed "for his own good" if he had been told sooner rather than just now.
Especially when one considers his greatest challenge is yet to even come! "Do the rest of his memories consist of his service to the gods and his time at Camp Half-Blood?" I asked. "With a few sidetracks here and there, yes. Come with me, you know the rest and we have to return to the present time," Eos answered.
"Isn't there something missing from all this? Something you have to show me that even Gabriel doesn't know about?" I inquired. She stated that there in fact was something and we had to be quick if I wished to see it. "But promise me on the River Styx that you mouth will remain silent about this unless I say otherwise," she said before we went on.
I swore and she brought us to another time that was in fact, not a memory of Gabriel's but a memory of hers. Here, I saw Nadine in a hospital and giving birth to her twin children by Gabriel's seed. And it was here that I saw my biggest for hating Hera that I ever had. Nadine screamed in pain as she tried to give birth to her children desperately and she barely managed to get one out without practically wearing herself out.
But according to Eos, it had died since it did not receive the proper blessings necessary for childbirth from either Hecate or Iris. Now, Nadine was determined to give birth to a living baby even if it cost her dearly and the shade of Eos begged for Hera to let one of the goddesses bless the birth and let this one survive. But Hera refused to listen and even forbid the hands of either goddess to intervene regardless of the importance. Then I saw Eos do something that I never thought she would have the courage to do: she asked Hera that if neither goddess was going to save the baby then at least let one of them help them both escape the pain permanently.
I watched as Hecate, the only one bold enough to do such a thing, step up and recite the incantation for the death of both mother and child in labor. After that, Nadine was successful in expelling her last child but that was when she and the baby drew their last breaths of life and died. Seeing that innocent woman suffer as well twin babies that would have provided Gabriel with the beginnings of a family suffer brought upon a rage that I had never felt before. "You came to me for help, I shall give it to you now that you have bore witness to this," Eos said.
I wanted to attack Hera first chance I had now and renew Annabeth's enmity against her once this war was over. There was no way in the world I would bow down to a Queen who made her own brother suffer just because he disagreed with her in the only way he could. And now, I had to receive Eos' help and return to Camp before it was too late to do anything. "When your father tried to court me millennia before, he gave me this," she said as she pulled out a conch shell designed to be a horn.
"What am I to do with this?" I asked. Eos laughed and replied that was the same question that she had asked him when he gave it to her. "He told me that if I just thought about something I needed immediately, I only had to blow on it. I think maybe you might need to call your brother Tyson and his Cyclops army with that," she added.
Grateful, I thanked her for her help and made to walk out of her castle. "Oh Percy, I almost forgot!" she shouted to me. I turned around and asked politely what she needed and she surprised me. "Tell Gabriel that his cousin is swiftly recovering and if he battle is won, tell him to call me to Camp before he makes any move to pursue Prometheus who will surely flee," Eos asked me.
"I will be sure to tell Gabriel when he gets back from his little journey," I answered. "He's still traveling from Hyperion's fortress back to Camp? I thought he was using the supersonic speed of the gods," she stated. "I wouldn't know anything about that," I told her.
"No, I suppose not. Off you go now, I just wanted to make those last requests and give you the help you sought from me," she said. "You have been a tremendous help and I will be sure to press for a cabin built in your honor as well as the honor of your siblings," I told her. "You do us too great a kindness," she said before I exited her home.