A/N: gosh, so sorry for not posting last week. i had exams almost every single day and when i didnt have those, i had assignments due. anyway, special thanks to those who r/f/f; i really need those to keep going. it's what keeps me motivated. and now, a chapter that hopefully youll find interesting! enjoy~
Winry's POV (3rd person)
It was winter. Frozen rain in the form of sugar slowly fell down from the heavens, setting down on the camp as a light blanket. The weather was just perfect for cuddling up around the fire with a good book, which is what most of the campers had tried to do despite responsibility and work biting through their time. That is, most of the campers; conveniently excluding Winry Rockbell. Daughter of Hephaestus and master of all things mechanical, she had worked tirelessly throughout the past half a year on her biggest project yet. She could barely contain the excitement growing in her stomach as the whole thing was coming to a close, only taking out a spare moment of her time to work on the small finishing touches.
"This is amazing, Ed," she revered, wiping sweat from her brow. She applied the last sweep of maintenance to his left leg before eagerly moving on to his right arm. "You went through the surgery and rehab in nearly half the time that I expected you to."
"Yeah, it's amazing," Alphonse repeated. He had come down to most of the 'automail' (as Winry had dubbed it) sessions with his friends, enjoying the time spent with the two other blondes as he saw them work together.
Al gave a pointed look at Ed, who shifted slightly under his glare.
"Um, Winry?" Ed's quiet voice breached the comfortable silence, effectively gaining the sweet blonde's attention.
"Hm?" She replied wordlessly, determined to not be distracted from her almost-done masterpiece.
"There's uh, something I've been meaning to tell you..." Ed turned his head to where his best friend stood, nodding and urging him on.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Well, uh, how should I say this..." He stuttered.
"Just come out and say it already," she pressed, not unkindly.
Ed stayed silent for a second before looking at Al once more, who only gave another nod.
Quickly with a deep breath, Ed confessed, "The reason why I recovered so quickly is 'cause I took more nectar and shit than you prescribed."
Winry paused her final check-up. She looked at Ed, then up at Al for some sign of (dis)confirmation. Unfortunately, all the young boy could do was shrug his shoulders in shared disbelief.
She looked back at Ed. "What the hell do you mean you took more than you were prescribed?!" The young girl's voice filled the camp forges, her siblings groaning in annoyance at the now common arguing.
"It means what it means!" He snapped back at her after a second. "I may or may not have asked the nymphs for more nectar and ambrosia than what you... decreed... particularly necessary."
Winry stared at Ed, sky blue boring into determined gold. She just couldn't believe how dangerously stupid he could be at times, and still have managed to get this far in life without killing himself.
"Are you an idiot?" She demanded after yet another silence-filled second. "This is, by far, the worst thing that you've ever done. And that is saying a lot. You are such an incompetent little sh-"
Before Winry was able to finish her insult, Ed's face turned deathly dark; he growled through gritted teeth, "What was that?"
Winry paused again before answering the vertically challenged blond, "You heard me," she said, leaning in closer to him. "You are an incompetent. Little. shit."
The remainder of the campers present took this as their cue to block their ears as they had done countless times before.
"Who are you calling short?! I'll rip out you eyeballs and shove 'em down your throat!"
Even Al, who had by now grown accustomed to Ed yelling insults most of the time, made a face at the notably grotesque image he'd promised Winry.
And of course, being completely done with all his crap, Winry hit Ed with a wrench.
Al stepped out of the way as Ed was sent with enough force that knocked him off the borrowed infirmary cot, sending him sprawled across the floor and guarding his head from further harm.
"Ugh..." He slumped back up, rubbing his forehead. "You know, Winry, you're gonna kill me one of these days with that damned wrench of yours!"
Winry saw out of the corner of her eye Al inching backwards towards the other campers.
"Yeah well, what do you care? You can just fix it right back up with that nectar that you apparently love so much! While you're at it, why don't you just each an entire three course meal of ambrosia? Since, of course, you're such a god of a guy and don't have the same safety concerns as mortals!"
Wait, did I just call him a 'god of a guy?'
Ed huffed. "Well excuse me for just wanting to be on my feet a little earlier! I don't know if you've ever tried it, but not walking sucks."
"Oh, gods. You are so impatient. You know that, right?"
"Oh, so I'm guessing that you know that you're-"
Ed would've finished his accusations, and would've definitely made Winry even more pissed than she already was. But unfortunately, interrupting him in the middle of his sentence a flying and flaming mini bus crashed into the lake.
Al's POV
When Winry and I were rushing down towards the lake, not once did it ever cross my mind that when I arrived at the scene, I could, and would, find out who my father was.
Nor did I expect for there to be a small school bus to have crashed into the lake, or that it would be on fire and boil the winter water and melt the canoes.
A group of girls, maybe about a dozen of them, had just finished emerging from the van, all dressed in silver ski parkas and jeans. Following them was Grover Underwood, a girl and a boy who appeared to be close, Percy Jackson, Thalia Grace and a blond teenager who seemed to be literally beaming.
Before we could approach them and ask if anyone was ok or what had happened, the group of girls started to walk off towards the cabins, lead by the enthusiastic Grover.
Winry and I walked up to the remaining four passengers.
"Take care, sweethearts!" The blond called after the group of girls. He winked at Percy. "Watch out for those prophecies, Percy."
"Um, not to intrude," Winry started suddenly, gaining their attention, "But what...happened here?" She gestured towards the bus.
I noticed Thalia blushing lightly before the blond guy put a hand on her shoulder, "Just a little test drive. Nothing to worry about."
I looked between the two, still not sure what happened. "Okay..."
The blond turned to me and instantly perked up (even more). "Ah! You!" He pointed at me. "Yes, I knew there was something I'd forgotten."
I stayed silent, not knowing what what he meant. I looked to the others for help, but unfortunately they looked just as lost as I did.
"Yes, well," he took my hand and shook it, "this may seem very random and sudden, but pleased to finally meet you, son."
I would've stopped breathing. I stared at him, my mouth open, the others all sharing my surprise.
Wait...so, my father, who by then I had most definitely have accepted was a god, turned out to be a seventeen year old suave peppy kid. What god did that fall under again?
"...What?" I manage to finally say.
"Yep! Son of Apollo, yours truly. Feel proud? You should." He let my hand go, looking at his as if there was a complicated puzzle on it. My mind felt like it was trying to put one together.
"Um..." I said intelligently. Apollo was my father? My father, in front of me. My father, the sun god. My father, the god of medicine. My father, the one who left my mother to die...
He clicked his fingers as if he just figured out the puzzle.
"Yeah," he pointed at me again, "you're the one who got cursed by Hades, right?"
My heart would've stopped dead. I stared at Apollo, focusing on him and only him as my eyes blocked rest of the world.
Cursed...by Hades?
My mind went into overdrive, repeating his sentence over and over again in my head until it was the only thing I could hear. I thought about everything that happened since that day, everything I was burdened with and everything that went wrong.
That was all Hades?
Apollo studied my face and quickly said, "Oh, wait, no. I must've mistaken you for...my other son...Asklepios! Yeah, he was a nasty bugger," He lied.
"N-No-" I tried to say.
He turned away from me and looked at the daughter of Zeus. "Later, Thalia."
"Wait a minute-"
He climbed back into the the bus. "And, uh, be good!"
"Stop..."
His eyes quickly flitted towards me, confusing me further, before he flashed a wicked smile at Thalia.
"Wait..." I said softly, but he'd already closed the doors and revved the engine. I couldn't find it in myself to look at my father as he drove away into the sky, becoming smaller and smaller until he disappeared. He came and went way too quickly, and left far too big a bomb.
My head was reeling and racing. I knew that he wasn't lying when he said I was cursed and I knew that he didn't mistake me for one of my brothers. Especially since I know what happened: my mother told me stories about him. Asklepios wasn't even cursed by Hades; he was cursed by Zeus. And what he did wasn't off his own accounts: he was asked to do so by Apollo's sister, Artemis. But there is one thing that he and I did have in common, besides our father. One thing that we both did, and in turn both had to pay the prices for.
We both tried, and succeeded in, raising the dead.
"You...you were cursed. By Hades." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.
I nodded. "Yeah."
Ed furrowed his brows. "And you only found out just now?"
"Well, I, uh..." I went over it in my head.
It occurred to me that throughout the three years of this curse being implemented, I had never really once thought about who cursed me or what it was, rather just why I had it and the consequences of it.
"...Yeah."
Winry shook her head, "I thought you said you had the Achille's Curse."
"I do. I just...didn't get it willingly."
If it could, my stomach would've felt sick at the fact that I was withholding critical information from my two closest friends.
Ed tutted his tongue. "I can't believe this. Why would Hades curse you anyway? What did you even do?"
I wanted to cry right there on the spot. Or vomit, or faint, or whatever. Anything that both proved I was still human as well as doubling as means of postponing my explanation.
"Uh, about that... There's something I've been meaning to tell you guys."
One good thing about having a body that won't cry: you don't have to choke back any tears.
"Yeah?"
I sat down on Winry's work bench. They way we had set up: me sitting on the bench, the two of them sitting on the cot; it was reminiscent of an adult preparing their kids for some bad news.
"About this curse." No butterflies in my stomach. No lump in my throat to hold the words back. "I...I do know what it is, and I've actually- I've actually had it for a while." Though my physical body had let all the reigns loose and set me free, my mind had me locked down in shackles. "Three years, in fact." I sigh, straining to break through the chains and finally come clean.
"Do you want to know the full story?"
They look at each other, faces contorted with confusion before looking back at me and nodding.
So I confess. And as I retell my past, I find it starts to slowly pull me down along with it, giving me no choice but to relive it as they are told.
"And what happened next? What happened?"
She laughs softly, settling her child.
"Asklepios did revive him. Hippolytos was as healthy as ever, and Artemis was eternally grateful."
He claps. "Yay!"
"But, the other gods disapproved. Aphrodite hated losing. Especially to a maiden goddess. And Hades: he hated it when the dead were revived. So they both went up to Zeus to complain for what had happened, demanding justice upon Asklepios. And do you know what Zeus did?"
Leaning in with anticipation, "What?"
"He found Asklepios...and electrocuted him!"
A gasp, "No!"
"Yes. Sadly, Asklepios died. None of the gods wanted any human having that much power. But, Hippolytos did get a happy ending. Artemis had made sure he stayed safe, sending him off to Italy where he lived to a ripe old age. The end."
"Oh. That's good for Hippopotamus, I guess."
A tut of the tongue. "Aw, are you sad over Asklepios?
A nod.
"It's ok." She pulls him closer for a hug. "He's in a better place now. He's with Daddy. And Daddy will keep him safe."
"Really?"
"Yes. Daddy is big and strong and will protect Asklepios for you. He's protecting you too, you know. And me. He keeps us both safe, even from up there in the sky..."
"In the sky..."
A silence before she starts to hum. She hums a tune that is known by many and sung by all. A tune that when sung, her child shall fall swiftly asleep to, and is comforted by in the night.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey..."
"Hey, Mummy?"
"Yes, honey?"
He walks up to her, a book holding all his attention as it lay open in his arms.
"What does this word say?" He asks, pointing to a word that repeats continuously throughout the book.
"Oh. That says 'alchemy,' darling." She smiles at her son.
"'Al-ke-mi?'"
"That's right," she smiles. "It's a mystical, lost power, once used to alter the natural world. They say it lied somewhere between a magic, art and a science."
Her son's green eyes glittered with amazement.
She smiles again, crouching down to his eye level. "Some even say that the gods gifted us humans with the power of alchemy, so that we could learn to become closer to them."
"Whoa..."
"But...they ripped it from our possession once we became too greedy and arrogant. Most people used it so they could make gold for themselves, making them rank higher than they actually were."
He pouts. "That's not fair. Alchemy looks cool. I wish I could use it."
She chuckles, ruffling his hair as she stands up. "Yeah. Maybe one day. Now, come on. It's time for lunch. You can read that after you eat."
"Hey, Mum?"
"Mum?"
"Mum!"
It was done. It was complete. It was over; finished. They lay sleeping in the dark room, figures surrounded by chalk drawings of perfect circles, shapes, figures and words all taken in for account to make this so successful.
Through heavy eyes, he sees. Her chest rises up and down slowly, her closed eyes darting back and forth as dreams play behind her eyelids. He did it. He brought her back. They can live together again. He did it, he did it, he did it.
Then, the world shook. Wrath of the gods poured down on the scarce countryside, illuminated the night with false flashes of day. A voice in his head. A voice, invading. A voice bringing down the hammer.
Get out. Get out. Get out.
A flame starts. The fire spreads everywhere, engulfing the room and not leaving one inch of ground bare. He catches fire, but does not burn. The same cannot be said for her, though.
She boils. She burns, her limbs dancing in sync with the flames. Her skin bubbling; bubbling across her whole body like milk being blown through a straw. She wails a blood curling wail. Her lungs are being played like a symphony by the flame's fingers until they burn raw.
She is dying. Again. In front of his eyes. Again.
No, this can't be happening. Not again. Not after all I've worked for. After all I've suffered through. After all she's suffered through. It can't be. It's happening again.
She has died. Again.
He wants to cry. His body refuses, knowing the tears for her would be stolen by the fire anyway. He wants his throat to hurt, but his body won't let him. If it does, the fire will eat it all up. So he is left alone. Left with nothing but a prickling on the back of his neck and a bloody puddle on the floor, which too is being slowly consumed by the flames.
His world crumbles around him, and he is left, all alone, sitting at the rubble.
In all that time spent gushing out my past, I did not for one second notice the present. I did not take in how Ed and Winry reacted or how they felt or if they were even paying attention. And in all that time spent gushing out the past, I did not notice for one second Percy Jackson standing there, listening along to my secrets.