SHINING high in the dark night sky, Artemis was at her peak before Calypso could at all consider her hero in any form of a stable condition. While a strong demigod this boy was, Calypso had to resign to the fact that he was not a divine being such as herself and thus could not be healed fully on the golden food of the gods. As such, the constant stream of magic Calypso had to use to heal the boy, magic imbued with such great urgency and conviction that had not been seen in ages, drained her immortal body surprisingly quickly.

Looking down at the boy, Calypso was pleased to see that he did indeed look somewhat better than before. His light red skin, still ever-present and hiding what used to be fair skin, had come down in intensity a decent amount. The once numerous amounts of blisters that dotted his body like the constellations of Ouranos were now almost completely gone, faded into the light red skin of his body.

Taking the almost empty bronze bowl of nectar, Calypso drank the remainder from it hurriedly as the sweet and sticky taste of fresh candied dates danced across her tongue, replenishing her just enough to continue through the night. Setting the bowl down on the ground, discarding it, Calypso began preparations to move her hero.

Carefully, Calypso grasped the raven locked boy before hoisting his body to lay across her shoulder blades. Steadying herself, she began to carry her hero out of the central courtyard, away from the watchful eyes of the stone satyrs, as she made haste to her cave system. A small part of Calypso's instincts fought with her, as the moon was in the perfect position to care for and plant more of her glistening silver moonlace.

Calypso turned briefly to look at the sprawling garden which contained the luminescent plants she so cared for and sighed discontentedly. Her plants would survive a day without her care, but it felt wrong to abandon the garden that was her constant even during the early beginnings of her heroes washing ashore.

Calypso slowly walked to the main entrance of her cave as the latest addition to her curse, Francis Drake, leaned on her body, hobbling next to her as bled profusely from his abdomen. Fate was cruel enough, already depositing to her a second hero that would most likely leave Calypso once more — but to have him appear whilst she was attending to her moonlace was but salt on the wound. Calypso cared for her plants every night, and the constant of it helped to bring her happiness and a reprieve from her misery.

"I… I must say—" he was interrupted by a series of painful coughs that racked his body. Rose-red blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth, slowly seeping into the jagged beard adorning his face. Francis Drake looked startled at the addition to his plight.

Calypso paused, looking at Francis Drake and the garden of moonlace that rested in the distance behind him.

"Come, I have no choice but to begin outside."

If Francis Drake was upset by that he made no indication.

Slowly the pair approached the silver meadow, whilst Calypso lowered her body and helped Francis Drake onto the ground, lying supine.

"It's beautiful," he breathed, turning his head to face her garden. "Homer did you a disservice… No mention of a meadow of glistening silver anywhere." Francis Drake moved his head back to look Calypso in the eyes as best he could, wincing in pain as he chuckled slightly.

Calypso grabbed a bowl of nectar and a square of ambrosia from a floating silver tray, while a watering pot slowly floated towards her in the distance. Perhaps she could achieve care for both of her charges, entertaining herself and her injured guest all at once. Calypso smiled, looking him in the eyes.

"Homer?"

Entering her bedroom, Calypso placed the raven locked boy atop her white cotton bedding. The charred remains of his clothing were like charcoal, and they stained the bedding ever so slightly. It would clean out with a wash later.

Moving to her table, she saw that her servants had already supplied her with the clothing appropriate for a male. White cotton trousers and a matching shirt — articles of clothing which Drake had told her were what people of the day wore now — were neatly pressed and folded and waiting for her. The shirt however was quite different from the kind that Drake had worn and was vastly different from any of the descriptions he had given her regarding the fashion of the time.

"It is called a doublet."

"Dub… dub-le… doub—" Calypso groaned in frustration. "What language did you say this was? I dislike your words greatly"

The doublet, a marvel of clothing that awed Calypso. The article of clothing that the world saw with marvelous buttons adorning the front with intricate designs. It was worn over a shirt, an odd-looking linen fabric that had similar buttons down the middle that stopped midway down, with long sleeves covering the arms. The shirt her servants had prepared for her however had no such buttons, with sleeves that looked as if they would only cover to the middle of the upper arm.

Odd.

Grasping the clothes in one hand, Calypso slowly walked to her bed and began to strip the boy of his threadbare apparel. Her hands grasped at the blackened remains of his shirt, and it fell to pieces at the slightest pull. Calypso gasped at the fragility of it while discarding the weary strips of cloth to the ground, as a servant quickly picked up the pieces before it stained her white sheepskin carpet.

She paused to take in her hero's appearance as Calypso attempted to convince herself that she was merely looking to assess the wounds that were previously obstructed from her view underneath the fabric. Streaks of vivid and bright red skin danced across his body while splotches of similar color landed on his skin in various unsettling locations — his body the canvas for a horrid artist who cared not for any display of beauty but for the cries of terror of a wounded man.

Slowly, Calypso's hand lowered and began to trace outlines of the wounds. Golden light radiated from her fingertips as they hovered over the skin, almost invisible in the candlelight that illuminated Calypso's bedroom. Concentrating her healing magic around minute areas allowed for the wounds of the boy to heal with more precision and speed. Calypso watched in delight and fasciation as the patches of discoloration and areas of dead and peeling skin began to fuse themselves together, leaving no obvious trace of any damage. Already drained of power, however, she had to settle for only healing a small portion of the wounds across his body.

Thus, the golden light faded from her fingertips, while Calypso resumed her journey of disrobing the boy. Calypso's hand stayed, just barely touching the skin as her fingertips followed an imaginary line down from his upper chest as she set an agonizingly slow pace. Firm muscles faintly swelled underneath the burnt skin, reminding Calypso that this boy was indeed a warrior, akin to Odysseus rather than Drake. Not to say that Drake was not a warrior, but he did his battle on the sea and at range with loud booming weapons like an archer — guns, Drake had called them — which produced a different physique than the intense physical combat of swords and spears that Odysseus was so versed in.

Calypso, with her attention now thinking longingly of Odysseus and her past, had forgotten that her hero was not yet fully healed as she brushed against a blister and peeling skin which caused the boy to suck in a harsh breath in pain. Jumping away, Calypso withdrew her hand to prevent causing her hero any more unwarranted pain. She quickly made her way to her dark oak table where there remained a minuscule amount of ambrosia left. The boy had already consumed a large quantity of the golden food of the gods, but she wanted nothing more than to give him the divine substance to help soothe his pain.

Her hero was talking in that foreign tongue she had heard earlier once more, pain evident in his voice, however with it was a sense of urgency and worry with fear imbued into every word. Within those words contained a set of noises that made Calypso stop in her tracks, a set of noises which formed a word that made her realize just the pain and fear her hero felt. A word that she had not heard since her previous inhabitant had first arrived on her island: help.

A loud, pained cry left the man's lips. He was repeating a word in a language unknown to Calypso, every few utterances exclaiming it. Calypso could only assume it had some importance, perhaps it was his lover's name? A befitting thing to cry on Ogygia.

Calypso tilted her head, confused. She worried for him, an impossibly round hole was in his abdomen, staining the white sand beneath him rose-red, appearing black in the high moonlight.

The man again began to speak rapidly in his foreign tongue, before looking to his surroundings. His eyes grazed over the terrain behind her, before resting on one of the many outcrops of her cave and he looked down to the stained sand beneath his knees. Slowly, his eyes widened, brightening as best they could with the amount of pain that must have been radiating through his body from his abdomen as he stared at Calypso intensely.

"This is Ogygia, is it not?" His tongue changed to Greek, speaking slowly and somberly as if he knew what his being here entailed. "That would make you the fair-tressed goddess Calypso, yes?"

Calypso chuckled inwardly at the word goddess. "Indeed, this is, but we do not have the time for this…" she trailed off, gesturing to his person as she realized she did not know his name.

"Francis Drake—" he coughed hard and heavily. An odd name, not Greek in the slightest. She would have to have a discussion on the world he came from once he was healed.

"Francis Drake." A unique name. "I must tend to your wounds as quickly as I can. I do not wish for you to be the first death on these lands. Can you stand and walk?" Calypso started towards the wounded Francis Drake.

"I think…"

"Use me for support then, Francis Drake. It is but a short journey. Ogygia is only so large, as you will learn."

Calypso quickly consumed the golden square with such haste that she did not relish in the slightest at the taste of candied dates and rushed to the side of her still whimpering and pained hero. He continued muttering in the language that Calypso now knew was called English from the few times Drake had attempted to teach her his native tongue.

Reaching further into her well of magic than she had used in centuries, Calypso hovered her hands over his body, her palms almost touching the pained skin, and began to sing as she worked her magic to relieve him. Golden light flickered to life around her palms and encased her hero, and warm satisfaction filled Calypso as her hero exhaled in relief and mumbled incoherently as if to thank his savior.

"Thank… you…"

The Greek words that escaped the boy's lips startled Calypso, distracting her enough to make her end the healing process. However, looking at the exposed skin of his upper body made her realize that she had done quite enough for the boy; blots of the dead, peeling skin had all but sealed together, forming a vast stretch of nearly whole skin while the blisters had once again reduced in size greatly, almost disappearing.

Calypso smiled, this boy being the youngest hero she had received yet, but there was innocence in youth, an innocence she had not been privy to for millennia. And so Calypso began the process of stripping him further, so that she may dress him to protect the delicate healing skin and perhaps, just maybe, allow herself some sleep.

/ / /

Brightfire danced through the white cotton curtains as Helios— Apollon, Calypso had to remind herself, began his cycle again. Calypso watched as the colors of the early morning made a tapestry of her curtains, as the flames began to flicker across the sheepskin carpet on the cave floor, and as the crystals and geodes took the flames and turned them into a numerous amount of colors that always enthralled her.

Sleep found her quite easily after dressing her hero, and she was happy to see that the boy had not magically disappeared from the bed she shared with him upon her waking. Calypso rolled over on her side, gazing longingly at her hero, and her hand reached out to slowly interlace her fingers with his. He looked wonderful in the early morning's light.

"Good morning, my hero."

He stirred in his sleep as if hearing Calypso speak to him.

"No… my name is Percy, Mister D…"

Calypso gasped and smiled, happy that he in his sleep spoke a language she could understand fully. There were still certain sounds — words she supposed — that were out of place, as if the boy was combining multiple different languages, using the one she spoke as a base for the others.

Percy. The name was odd yet almost familiar, and Calypso relished the feeling of a new sound after all these millennia as she attempted to pronounce it — sound vibrating up through her throat as her tongue and lips formed the name, something she had not allowed herself to do with Drake, his situation being too dire for her to appreciate.

"Per… cy… Percy." She looked across at the dark-haired Percy, and her free hand reached to caress his face slowly, with care.

"Hello, Percy, and welcome to Ogygia."

Sorry for the shorter chapter and the long wait, but I was failing to find inspiration for how to take this chapter — outside of the ending — and midterms were destroying me; asynchronous classes are torturous. I know I said that BotL canon would start in this chapter, but I realized that I needed to keep Percy unconscious for longer than I thought for Calypso to form the attachment that she has to him in Canon. We see the first parts of that now with how Calypso touches Percy and how she sleeps with him in her bed, even though Calypso is trying to not form this attachment. Such is the life of a cursed being.