Death is not an easy thing to deal with. First a blinding light cuts through your vision. You're trapped in this white room. No walls, no people, no sound, no anything. It's just you, until you fade into a room. With just you and a man, he's a skeleton. Leading you down a green river with a small wooden rowboat, you see he's wearing a raggedy old coat. His sunken face scaring the lights out of people.
We reach a shore and he gestures to me towards lines and lines of people. Stretching across the infinite, I make my way through the lines. The three headed guard dog, Cerberus, watches each and every person. Gooey saliva coming from his sharp fangs, as I'm about to pass under his legs he growls at me. He attempts to swallow me whole, but my powers still hold onto me. I stop him by holding a hand straight out in front of me and walk away from him. He whimpers, and his tail goes between his hindquarters. I start to run, I run into a few fugitive ghosts. They moan warning; I'm coming closer to the palace of Hades.
I reach the black iron gates. I wrap my vine around them, and pull, yanking them open. I run down a gravely path up to the palace doors through the Garden of Persephone. I walk to the doors and pull them open entering a long hallway filled with skeletal soldiers. Ignoring them I continue on, my bravery unwilling. I reach the throne room where two figures sit. King Hades and Queen Persephone. King Hades looks at me with disinterested eyes as if I am nothing special, the scum at his mercy.
"I'm Penelope, demi-goddess, I'm here to see my mother. Goddess of Flowers." Hades looks at Persephone she furrows her brow at me.
"What goddess? I'm the goddess of flowers, and I am not your mother."
"Oh excuse me, Lona."
"Oh… you're Penelope. Well I see." Persephone calls upon one of the skeleton soldiers dressed in a World War II Nazi uniform. He nods and walks out of the palace throne room, and down the corridor. He soon returns with my mother. She turns to me her face instantly forms a smile.
"Penelope!" She yells, I run to her and throw my arms around her neck. We embrace for what seems like such a short time before Hades interrupts.
"Your dead are you not Penelope?" My stomach ties in a knot and my mother looks at me. Her face contorting into sadness.
"Penelope is this true?"
"Yes mother…I died."
"It is not even your time! Hades bring her back! Bring her back now! Please! Now!" My mother drops to her knees and begs to him. Her tears form small little flowers out of the black marble cracks.
"There is nothing I can do; I suggest you just get used to it."
"Hades! You try to take away my granddaughter's life like that. You bring her back this instant, you couldn't be the god of something of more sophisticated, but nooooo you had to be the god of DEATH! Persephone you could do way better." Demeter snaps at him coming into the throne room. She puts an arm around me. My mother looks at her in surprise, and then rolls her eyes.
"Fine if you both shut up! I will! SHUT UP!" He shouts. Then he pulls out of the leather jacket he's wearing a golden light intertwining with a few flecks of green. He steps down from the throne and places the globe right on my heart. It begins to beat soundlessly then becomes stronger. Soon the Underworld begins to fade. I see my mother crying still, she smiles through her tears and waves. I try to holler back, but I can't muster the words.
I wake up in a small cage. An iron cage, soft snores elude my clouded thoughts. A pain shocks through the back of my head. I've come back. I roll over to see Phoenix sleeping soundly. I slowly shake him he opens his eyes a slit. But quickly shuts them again and he wrinkles his forehead in pain.
"Ohhhh." He moans.
"Phoenix, get up. Phoenix get up. Come on Phoenix." I feel a warm heat generate through my body to my hand. I gently place it on Phoenix's head. He is able to open his eyes all the way this time. He looks at me his eyes gentle and they focus on mine. He grasps my hand.
"Penelope…" He softly whispers. I nod and then help him up. Fortuna must have made the cage herself. It hangs over a steep fall to sharp rocks at the bottom of the cavern. No light shows besides my green glowing light. It has been appearing a lot lately. Must be the-getting-closer-god-thing, I get up dizzily. Feeling the world twist and spin. But then it rights itself once more. I send a little green vine monster and it eats away the bars. I pull a rope out from my hand and tie it around the bars. I hold it out to Phoenix he grips onto it, I wrap myself around him. Then we swing off the ledge of the cadge, we land on a ledge of a solid cliff. Phoenix materializes arrows and sticks them into the rock; bits of it fall off from it and crumble down below to the rocks. A shiver runs down my spine. I hold onto him while he climbs. We reach the top when we find her. A familiar face, with beautiful metallic black hair and gorgeous black and a slash of electric blue eyes. She looked down upon me.
"You killed my daughter." She hissed.
"You took my friend then you tried to kill me!"
"I don't like you daughter of Pan. I'm the reason your great grandmother died…" She smiled coldly. Her blue dress waved in the wind.
"You killed Penelope…"
"Yes I did. I hate that nymph since the day she gave birth to Pan."
"You! You let my father fade too! You did it, I know you did it. You're the reason why!"
"Part of the reason…you see it would either be me or Pan who would fade, everyone voted for me. So I made the puny minds of the humans forget about the god Pan, and he faded."
"You're going to pay for that!" I whipped long vines around her legs and arms. She fell to the ground, and then laughed. She broke them and they flung back at me. The dust of the red rock flew upward and a misty wind started to pick up. She smiled and made me fly back against the rock wall. My head slammed against it making my wound start to bleed again. The pain dulling my senses making me fall into a stupor.
Phoenix attacked her with full force of his godly power. Shooting fire at her, she ducked it. Then whipped a fierce wind of something up into his nose. He fell to the ground with a smile on his face. I mustered up just enough strength to throw my medallion at her; it formed into a sword and pierced her heart. She screamed in pain falling to the ground. Blood pouring from the wound, I knew she was dead. I fell to the ground and darkness covered my vision. Then there was just blackness.
I awoke to the sound of a beating heart against my ear. I opened my eyes and saw Phoenix carrying me. His strong arms carrying me like I was as light as a feather.
"Phoenix, what happened?" I asked groggily.
"Shh, Penelope, your fine, but you really wiped yourself out there. It's ok though I gotcha." He smiled at me. His eyes warm and kind, but still so dark and luminous.
"I'm so tired…I feel like I could fall asleep right now."
"Then go ahead were almost to Olympus."
"Ok wake me up when were there." I dozed off in his arms. A few hours later he shook me gently.
"Penelope look." I opened my eyes and saw what he meant. We stood on top of the great Mount Olympus. It overlooked the whole world. Any place you wanted to see, you just had to have a good eye. I saw a group coming up the top of the mountain. Phoenix set me down and I saw it was my friends. I ran to help them, I formed some vine and hoisted it down the mountain. I felt some one grasp it and I yanked it up. They all flew up onto the cliff surface. Once they hit the ground there was a chorus of aching moans.
"Sorry, that went a lot smoother in my head." I smiled a bit. I counted each of them, Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Pearl…Matheus?
"Where's Matheus?"
"He…we lost him at sea. Lilivinth said he drown, we buried his body. But we couldn't have a proper burial for him…" Grover said his eyes downcast.
"He- he died?" Tears welling in my eyes, once more I had killed someone.
"Yes sadly…" Percy said, he glanced at me trying to meet my gaze. Pearl stood with Phoenix. She nodded then looked to me. Then looked back to him. She leaned her head against his chest. He leaned down and kissed it. I looked to see the most beautiful castle gleaming with white marble columns shining in the setting sun. I got up started to walk towards it. When I was stopped by a burning sensation. I looked down and saw myself visually becoming dressed in a beautiful green dress. My hair was curled and straightened, a flower placed in it. I began to continue walking. Two shall perish…I looked down, was I worse then the monsters that killed my mother almost, was I worst then the killers in the world. I killed two goddesses, a demigod, and probably many more in the process.
I stepped up the marble steps; the Greek gods each had a beautiful lifelike sculpture in front of the entrance. The towers of the palace rose too far into the sky that I couldn't see the tops. I walked in the palace and found myself in a center of hallways, and throne rooms. (I'm going to use the description on Clash of the Titans, I really liked it!) I looked down and saw I stood on the world. The actual globe spun slowly beneath my feet. Eleven floating chairs with different symbols on each one, they were different colors and had cool designs on each one.
All were occupied besides one in the middle. Zeus. Poseidon conversed with Percy and Pearl. I watched their conversation. Pearl stood a little shaded. But Percy was all out talkative.
"Pearl your alive?" Poseidon exclaimed.
"Yeah, I uh lived that sea monster attack. Mom was the one who died." She looked down.
"Pearl my sweet girl, I- why didn't you come to me?" He asked grabbing her by the arms.
"Because you- you- never would understood what I was going through, you didn't even love Mom."
"That's not true…you know it isn't." He said quietly.
"Fine you might've, but that wife of yours hated me and Mom, and you know it." She looked straight into the god's sea green eyes. She wasn't afraid of insulting him.
"Yes, I can honestly say she does not have good feelings for your mother and you. Please Pearl come join us though in the palace."
"Father…I can't afford to. You know, I'm too different."
"Please come, love. I miss you terribly."
"I'll consider it." She smiled at him, with that same smile he flashed back at her. They embraced and I turned back to the gods. Phoenix stood nonchalantly next to Apollo's and then talked and laughed with the sun god. Annabeth and Athena argued over politics, and the building structure of the Empire State Building. While I stood in the middle of all of it, I felt very alone.
"Ehmm, Penelope over here dear." I looked and saw my grandmother sitting alone. In a corner, with Hestia.
"Hello Grandmother, Madam." I bowed. They both smiled at me. Hesita's kind warm burning eyes were welcoming. Not at all like Ares which were a scary demon like fire.
"Dear, Zeus will be here momentarily. He's running late eh, Hera." Demeter laughed at my great aunt's expression.
"Oh hush Demeter." Hera said her eyes flashing at me. I sat and watched the gods chat like normal siblings, and then a loud bolt flashed through the room. Hermes appeared.
"The great god Zeus is coming, come on people look alive." He rolled his eyes and took his seat on the side. The room went silent, then lightening clashed. Then Zeus appeared, his eyes gleaming and power shook around him. He was clean shaved, and wore a grey suit and a blue tie, a pin with a Greek symbol on it. Much like the president's, with the United Sates pin.
"Your lord," I bowed, my friends followed my example.
"Good day, Ms. Rondervin. Demeter has not shut up about you. So you must be pretty powerful. I received word from Nemesis that her sister was found dead, yesterday morning. You have anything to say about that?"
"I will be bold sir, and say yes that was me, but I am here on one account too-"
"And it also occurs to me that you killed my daughter, Fiona. So what about that- oh and you bad mouthed me too…hmhm your running up quite a bill Miss. Rondervin."
"Yes, I'm sorry for all of those things. But sir I'm here to ask permission to join the council. It is set in my prophecy."
"Oh in your prophecy- demi-goddess, tell me about it, if I were to say no. Does it say anything about that? Or perhaps it'll say I'm feeling generous that day and I'll let you be the head honcho…tell me what does it say?"
"It says you'll say no then change your mind."
"Oh I see…well then I have to see some proof of your goddesship, you know keep it on hand."
"Zeus, this is ridiculous, you've seen what she can do for goodness sakes." Demeter asserted.
"Shush… Penelope, show me what you can do." I raised my arms and generated my power and pointed it at him.
"You sure, sir?"
"Positive."