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Percy opened his eyes slowly, tiredly, and gazed at the water as it lapped incessantly at the beach. Again and again, the rhythmic, soothing sound of the water and the visual it made worked to soothe his mind, and he swore, it aided him in his healing. How else could he possibly have recovered so quickly?
Calypso, a part of his mind said. She's nursed me back to health, taken care of me, seen to every ailment I've had. Without her, maybe I wouldn't have made a recovery, and if I had, I imagine it'd have taken a lot longer… and yet she's cursed. Cursed to have heroes wash up along her shores and cursed never to leave those same shores.
He felt horrible for her, but he had his friends to go and save. They might not be able to manage without him. Their safety, surely it had to come first, right? Percy wanted to think so — he'd always placed a great deal of importance and priority on making sure everybody close to him was safe and without any kind of wound so long as he could help it. Did he push that aside here and now?
Would it be bad if he did? Like Thalia, he was a part of a prophecy that could bring about so much pain and suffering. It'd be selfish of him to think of the safety of a handful of people over the earth as a whole, wouldn't it? The Titans, most of them that was, weren't exactly the forgiving, leave-you-alone sort as the gods tended to be.
Percy heard singing suddenly, the voice beautiful, but mournful; haunting, he decided. Calypso's voice was as much a thing of beauty as she was, and the magic she could work with it had surprised him to no end. He'd not forget what she'd done for him, for his mind was made up and his desire to 'destroy' the prophecy, at least regarding himself, was great.
He rose to his feet and marched along the path that was well-worn, but no less beautiful than the rest of the surrounding land. Calypso's care of nature and her expertise thereof too great a thing to let anything of poor health remain as much.
At the end of the path, and overlooking much of the water and the vast expanse thereof, he found Calypso. Nature surrounded her, tendrils of vines and stems of flowers, blossomed and beautiful, and all they did was make her all the more pleasing to look at. Easily, he declared to himself, Calypso was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, and one that didn't need to try to claim the title.
Aphrodite gets put to shame by her, he thought to himself, all but enthralled until the singing abruptly ended, and her gaze fell upon him.
As he'd thought, it was mournful and sad, her typical smile nowhere in sight and her eyes red and watery. She knew that he now possessed the chance to leave, to go back where he belonged and probably spend that time with another girl. Her curse had to be one of the cruelest he'd yet heard of… but he resolved to break it, and so he stepped forward, clearing his throat as he made to speak to Calypso.
"I'm not going."
Aside from the ever-constant lapping of the water to the beach below, there was silence. Calypso simply gazed at him with those sad eyes, a few tears falling free when she blinked incessantly — even with tears streaking down her face, her beauty was unparalleled.
Percy took a few steps forward, raising his hands as one might when they needed to calm somebody. "I'm staying… well, if you'll have me, I guess," his confidence had begun to falter under her sad, scrutinising gaze. "I could g—"
"No!" Calypso immediately thereafter raised a hand to cover her mouth, the loud, one-word answer seeming to surprise her just as much as it'd done to him. "I mean to say, I dare not believe you'll be allowed. They always leave, and you are the same as they; a hero, cursed to falter in their affection for me. Cursed to seek out an end worthy of song and theatre."
He shook his head and stepped closer still, and this time, Calypso made to match him. The distance between them was but a metre now, and the enchantress before Percy seemed more enthralling now than she'd ever been before. That beauty, unnatural, perfect, was nearly too much to look at… but how could he look away?
"The Gods sent me here, but it's not they who get to decide whether I'll leave or stay. It's me," he took one last step forward. If she didn't meet him, he resolved to leave so as to respect her wishes. "It'd be better for them if I stayed with you."
Calypso brought a piece of cloth up and dabbed at her eyes in the fashion women of status had done aeons ago. When she put the cloth away, back whence she'd pulled it, she spoke again, but this time without the forlornness and sadness that'd been previously present.
"I'll have you."
She stepped forward.
Percy rolled his head when next he woke, and this time, atop a bed of flowers and plant life that seemed to bear her weight without an issue, was Calypso. He recalled how the two had embraced one another for what seemed as if it'd been an hour, perhaps longer. Eventually, time seemed to become immaterial to him, and the two sat and spoke with one another, discussing the island, as well as one another.
Calypso had been reserved even after she'd seemed to fall for him, but now, she was energetic and affectionate, and desired to the utmost to be in contact with him as oft as she could without it being seen as an inconvenience.
Almost so as to compliment his thoughts, in the midst of her sleep, her form rolled over and cuddled into his side. She sprawled a leg across his as well as an arm across his torso, and her head topped with that wondrous caramel hair, rested atop his chest, right where his heart might be; Percy couldn't help but to wrap an arm around her in return.
With her softness and her heat atop him, and the breese and lapping of the water, he couldn't help it.
Sleep claimed him once more, and a more restful, comfortable sleep, he'd never before had.
When he awoke next, he found that the pair were atop a piece of furniture, soft and luxurious, with a cover across them and the wind outside greater than it'd been during the time of his sleep. He blinked his blurry eyes until the sleep was gone, and immediately sought out the side which Calypso had been laying; she was gazing up at him, a finger near his torso and only slightly lifted off of it.
"My apologies," her soft, sweet voice came, greeting his ears in such a way that he couldn't help but to feel immediately happy. "I wished to trace you whilst you slept and I could sleep no more. You're really here."
The second sentence came almost as an afterthought, it seemed, but all the same he nodded as he tightened his hold around her. "I'm here," he said, yawning a second later. "I'll be here forever now."
"My own hero," Calypso smiled wide, her beauty as certain as first she rose as it was throughout anypoint of the day and her tone covetous, a quality he'd not heard from her before. "You'll stay by my side for time unending. Promise me, Percy Jackson."
He did so readily. "I promise."
How could he resist the siren before him? No. No, Siren didn't do her justice, Calypso was a beauty of unmatched quality, the masterpiece of beings infinitely more powerful than he, and now, she was as much his as he was hers.
Calypso seemed lost in thought for a minute or so, the girl simply gazing at him with a wide smile and her finger resuming the tracing it'd been doing in the midst of his sleep. Eventually, when he had to stretch, she was roused and looked almost sheepish as she made to rise, the sheet falling away from the two.
"You would like to break your fast now that you've risen," Calypso said, quickly rising to her feet as she rang her hands together and looked away from him; not before he made out the red dusting of her cheeks. "Might you do me a favour, Percy?"
"Breakfast is fine, and yeah, anything," he looked around, seeing if there was anything obvious, before he looked back at her. Her gaze was still elsewhere and the curtain her caramel-coloured hair made only mostly concealed the blush that'd seemed to grow.
"Might you forget how I was a mere moment ago? It's entirely unbecoming," Calypso glanced at him, and hastily looked away again when she saw that he was staring at her. "I embarrass myself. I don't mean to smother you so soon after you agreed, you must find it desperate or pathetic. Ofttimes, I think it so as I recall my history."
Percy shook his head. He'd stared at her far more often than he figured she'd stared at him. Any person would.
"I don't think I can forget," he said with a shake of his head as he stood and stretched again. "I'm your hero, after all. I'd have to be a hero with a poor memory not to remember."
He didn't need to remark on her later comments. She hadn't smothered him, and if she was referencing the cuddling they'd done — or rather how she'd draped herself across him for much of their sleep — he didn't dislike it. Somehow, it seemed to make his quality of sleep grow.
Calypso turned to look at him, and this time, her gaze didn't breakaway. "You spoil me."
Percy laughed and opened his arms, and as he thought, she immediately darted into them. She was a cuddle-bug in the words of his mom.
"Only a bit," he said with a goofy, stupid smile on his face as his arms encircled her. "You did the same for me when I first washed up here."
Calypso's eyes lit up. "I need to change a mark I wrote lest I forget and it comes to fruition."
"What?"
"I oft mark correctly how long one might stay here, but you, I was wrong about you," Calypso's arms tightened around him, a surprising show of strength from the girl. "It might be embarrassing to say aloud, but you're truly mine. Mine 'till time ends and the water's gone."
"Until the end of time doesn't sound too bad," he mused aloud.
"You'll not grow bored or tired? I know how a hero can be."
Percy shook his head in an instant. "I like it here," he said, gesturing around, not that she could see where his hands were pointing with her figure wrapped around his own as it was. "I told you before too, I won't leave. Not unless you ever want me to."
"Never," Calypso said resolutely. "My heart has been yours since I first heard you state your meaning to stay the evening prior. I thought you or the gods to be cruel when first I'd heard you, for I was singing a song of farewell and mourning when you found me; already, I wept for another love I'd not have."
As before, her grip around him tightened, but this time she pulled back to catch his eyes with hers.
"I must warn you," she said, a playful smile on her beautiful, sunkissed and freckled face. "I fear I'll be most possessive and cuddly whensoever I can."
"I don't mind. It was nice."
Calypso looked at him queerly then, and when he finished speaking, she did something unexpected.
She placed her lips against his own.