The first time she comes, he's half-unconscious and drooling on an uncomfortable pillow in the medical wing of the Big House. Soft, delicate fingers are running through his hair. With all the strength he has, he cranes his neck slightly to the right.

A girl he's never seen before looks down on him with an expression he can't recognize. She looks about his age, a little older maybe, with dark brown hair cascading down in delicate, immaculate braids. Her features are incredibly sharp and royal, from her high cheekbones to her narrow, pointed nose. There's a splash of freckles across her cheeks, and her eyes are an impossibly deep shade of crimson.

She is the prettiest girl he's ever seen and, looking closer into her eyes, almost completely and irrefutably insane.

Her eyes grow wide as she notices his half-lidded gaze on her, a touch of fear entering her mesmerizing eyes before it's suddenly squashed as a wide, manic smile crosses her lips. "Hello, pretty boy." She murmurs and even in his half-delirious state he's taken aback by the sheer reverence in her voice. "You were so brave, Perseus. So very brave, striking down that pathetic Minotaur." Her face turns an almost comical white, her hand covering her mouth as if she had something terribly wrong. "Not- not pathetic compared to you, dearest. I only meant that- well, compared to me… Oh, this is going so terribly wrong." She mumbles that last part, the fear that he had thought was vanquished once more coming into view.

"Who're you?' He eloquently slurs. He's dreamt of pretty girls before of course, but none like her. None that ever seemed to be as real or as flawless as she appeared. No, this dream was a strange one and the more he thinks about it the heavier his eyelids become.

She giggles, a melodic, inhumanly perfect tune that wraps him in warmth. "I'm sorry that I've kept you in the dark for so long. I just- Oh Khaos, I can't remember a time where I was this nervous." Her tongue briefly swipes across her blood red lips, an action that demands all of his attention for a reason he can't discern. "But it makes sense. Because it's you. Only you could make me feel like this. You and no one else." There is a confusing level of familiarity in her voice, as if she had known him his entire life.

"'Y'know me?" Every word he speaks seems to take years off his life, but she's absolutely encapsulated him. In a good or bad way, he's yet to decide.

"Oh, yes! How else could you have such an effect on me? I've been quite bad, I suppose. Always watching but never making myself noticed." She does not sound apologetic as her words send his mind into a tailspin. Who, how and why pressed into the forefront of his mind. "I hope you aren't too cross with me for only coming to you now. I couldn't endanger you- I'd never forgive myself if anything were to happen to you. If you suspected anything about me… Oh, I can't even bear to think of it." He sees unshed tears begin to well before he blinks and they're gone. "But you're here now and I can finally, finally come to you. You- You're much more handsome up close." An ethereal, golden hue colors her cheeks and he's utterly transfixed by it. Never in his life had he seen something so… magical.

"Why're you here?" He's on his last legs now and can feel the exhaustion beginning to creep in, sleep clasping a cold hand around him.

"Because- Well, I… This was so much easier in my head." Her dark eyebrows crease together as she closes her eyes for a moment, whispering something to herself. Her eyes open a second later, renewed confidence shining in her eyes as her manic smile (which is quickly becoming familiar) returns. "My name is Eris, Perseus. I am the goddess of strife, discord, contention and rivalry. I am hopelessly, deeply in love with you and I have decided that I am going to marry you."

He's not sure if it's her words that send him tumbling back into the black void or if he truly has so little strength left. It matters little, as his eyes go wide and snap shut all at once.

"Rest, darling." He faintly hears her murmur as a hand once more begins to run through his hair. "Rest."

He does so.

"Pass the salt." Travis Stoll says on his right. He's spent a week at Camp Half-Blood and his world has been effectively turned on its head. There are gods and goddesses and monsters and ghosts that he has to deal with, in addition to his father being a god and his mother being killed. Truth be told he feels as if he could handle all of that, as he's begun to suspect that his mother may well be alive, if not for one glaring issue.

The goddess who stalks him and has proclaimed her undying love to him.

There are several issues with that, so many that he doesn't know where to even begin. He hasn't said a word about her visit to anyone and he has no idea why not. It was probably the smartest, most logical thing to do.

So naturally, he's done the complete opposite.

He absentmindedly passes the small, wooden bowl of salt to the Son of Hermes before it strikes him that he could use this as an opportunity. He opens his mouth. "Do you guys know anything about Eris?"

"Uh… The Goddess of Discord? Yeah, why?" Connor Stoll says from his left, licking his fingers clean of scraps of brisket.

"I have to write an essay on her." The lie comes out easily, as if it had been practiced in front of the mirror a hundred times.

"Why?" Travis asks, biting into a roasted cob of corn.

"I annoyed Mr. D"

"Makes sense." Connor says.

"He's always been touchy like that." Travis adds.

"So could you help me out?" He asked a little more impatiently than he intended.

"Yeah, yeah of course. So… She's insane." Connor says.

"Like, super crazy." Travis adds helpfully.

"She started the Trojan War for fun." Connor.

"And then killed like a million Greeks on the battlefield." Travis.

"She used to work for our dad." Connor.

"She quit a couple years ago though, totally out of the blue." Travis.

"I wonder what she's up to now?" Connor says before grabbing another mountain of brisket.

"Yeah." He says quietly, his stomach doing flip-flops. "Me too."

So, he was a Son of Poseidon. That was cool. Water could heal him and somehow strengthen his swordsmanship. Also cool. What sucked was that he wasn't even supposed to exist.

Very not cool.

He steps into the Poseidon cabin for the first time, taking in the view. The blindingly white walls were made with all kinds of seashells and the floor was a light blue, covered in glossy aquamarine. The room itself was relatively spartan, only holding a queen bed, a small nightstand topped with an old-fashioned alarm clock and a candle, Eris and-

Wait, what?

He locks eyes with his godly stalker. Her crimson eyes flash with… something as she squeals with delight. "Hello, my love!" She moves toward him with blinding speed, only stopping a few inches away from him. "What a show you just put on! The chaos that's boiling on Olympus from you, oh it's just intoxicating."

He stares at her for a long moment, weighing his options. He could run but she was a goddess. He could tell her to leave him alone but she was a goddess. He could try to use his questionable hydrokinesis but…

Well, you get the point.

So he only sighs, wondering how his life had become like this. "Why're you here?" He asks tiredly, looking at the bed longingly.

Eris seems totally oblivious to his inner turmoil as her smile only widens. "How could I not be with what you just caused? You've just turned ageless immortals, who've existed since the first cycle around the sun, into screaming toddlers arguing about what's fair and unfair. I've no idea how you do it, it almost seems effortless. Twelve years on this planet and you're already rivaling me in my own domain." Her smile becomes less, if only slightly, insane and softer, her eyes turning misty. "Look how you've grown in such a short time, dearest. It feels like only yesterday you were content to aim cannonballs at school buses, but now you're on the biggest stage, right where you belong."

Her words should shock him, the way she talks about as if she was right beside him. But for all he knows, she could've been. "I don't exactly enjoy upsetting people." He says as moves toward the bed, laying down with an exhausted grunt. Capture the Flag had tired him more than he'd expected. "It's not a good quality for someone to have." He adds, staring at the blue ceiling, seaweed hanging down in various spots.

"But it's you." Her voice comes directly from his left and he stares at the goddess who'd invited herself into his bed. She only offers an unapologetic smile. "And how can anything that's part of you ever not be good?" Her voice is so angelically soft, a slight breeze that massages his senses, and her smile…

She really is impossibly pretty, and with the way she looks at him he feels a slight surge of confidence. Mixed with all the madness and mania is an unmistakable and unbreakable softness, looking at him like he was the most important thing in the world. But there is something wrong with this. Something wrong with her and something wrong with him for allowing her to be so comfortable with him. "You know you're not really in love with me, right?" He says, but it is half-hearted and only partially directed at her.

Eris huffs slightly, her cheeks puffing out cutely as she pouts. "I had a feeling you'd say something like that, so I had Aphrodite confirm it. I am in love with you Perseus Jackson, and you'd best get used to that before we wed."

"Do you understand that I'm twelve?!" He exclaims exasperatedly. "I literally just started noticing girls like, last month, and now you're telling me that you're in love with me and that you want to marry me!"

"Not want to." Eris says, an iron confidence in her crimson orbs. "Going to."

"Why?!" He almost screams, flipping on his side so he can truly look at her. "What is so special about me? What is so- so important about me that you look at me like that?" He's frustrated, but not necessarily at her. At his own lack of understanding.

Eris, to her credit, is totally unperturbed by his outburst, as one of her hands gently grabs one of his own, entwining their fingers in an incredibly intimate way. "Because you are you." She says, her voice barely above a whisper as she keeps looking at him with that look. "I was first drawn to you because of your ability to inspire chaos on such a magnitude that it seemed divine. It kept happening, so I kept watching you. It got to such a point that I- I started to miss you. I caught myself wondering what you were doing, if you were eating well, if you'd been managing your studies."

Gods above, the sheer amount of tenderness in her voice can't even be described. He's deadly certain that she's telling him the truth, because he doubts even deities could fake the amount of emotion that colors her tone.

"So, eventually, I stopped watching you for the inevitable disaster you would create. I watched so I could just see you. Whatever it was, whatever you were doing, no matter how mundane, was always so… comforting to me." The gentlest, most picturesque smile he can imagine crosses her lips. "So is it any wonder, my heart, that I would inevitably fall in love with you? After everything I've seen, the goodness that's inside of you, the bedlam you cause, the passion and zeal that you live your life with, how could I not love you?"

Words fail him. Her confession fills him with so many confusing and conflicting emotions that anything he says is sure to be something he both means and doesn't mean. So he's silent for a while, utterly spellbound by the impossibly old, literal goddess that wants him and only him. And godsdammit, while he might not understand what she does to him, he doesn't hate it. "I don't…" He trails off, unsure of how to collect his thoughts. "I can't just- just reciprocate everything you say and feel. I just can't. That would be impossible, or a lie."

Eris frowns deeply, and he can see in her eyes that she had expected his words but was not prepared for them. "Of course, my love." She says in a small voice, shrinking in on herself. "I- I did not expect you to. I understand that this is… surprising for you." The way she undersells it is almost funny. "I cannot force you to love me. I mean- I can, but- but I would never- Oh, Khaos help me." She devolves to incoherent mumbles while averting her eyes.

She has such an all-encompassing grace to her that these moments where she seems to lose all confidence, which have all been related to anxiety over what he would think of her, become so disheartening to see. This was a goddess, a being of so much power and might that he was closer to an ant than he was to her. And somehow, for some unholy reason, it was clear that he held an almost worrying level of control over her.

"It- It's okay." He attempts to console her, giving her hand a small squeeze. It seems to break whatever trance she's in, as she sends him another perfect, grateful smile. "I know you wouldn't do that." And he truly believes that. There was no way that he could know for certain, but he feels if she truly wanted him to be as madly in love with her as she was in him, then he already would be. "I only meant that I couldn't reciprocate it now." Oh gods, what is he saying? "Just, y'know, the circumstances. Me being twelve and dealing with," His hands gesture wildly across the room. "All of this. But, I mean, with some time… Well, anything's possible."

He knows it's wrong. He knows he should be shutting her down, putting an end to the madness. But there's a small part of him that tells him he would regret that, that he should at least give her a chance. It is, he decides, the part of him that is as insane as the goddess that lays before him.

He's almost knocked off the bed as Eris throws her arms around his shoulders, squeezing him tightly. He lays frozen for a moment, before slowly and unsurely doing the same. It's nice. More than nice, really. It feels almost right in a way. She clearly had given him her absolute trust, so it couldn't hurt to place a small amount of his in her.

"You're, um," He murmurs in her dark brown hair, temporarily caught off guard but something so simple as how good she smells. "You're really pretty." He says quietly, voicing the first thought that had entered his mind when she'd come to him in the infirmary.

"Oh!" Eris says in an usually high voice, sending vibrations through his chest. "Thank you, dearest. You're very beautiful yourself." She says in the same quiet tone that he'd complimented her in, and from the sudden warmth in his chest he knows her cheeks are colored golden once more. He's never been called beautiful before, and he'd never really wanted to be as it seemed like the thing you'd only say to a girl, but the way she says it?

He'd be content if he was never complimented again.

"So," He clears his throat awkwardly. Was it getting hot in here? "Do you want to, y'know, talk more?"

"Of course!" Eris says, reluctantly removing herself from his arms and settling a few inches away. "Ask me whatever you'd like, my love. Any and everything that pops into your mind, no matter how silly it might seem. I'm just delighted to be talking with you, no matter the subject matter."

"Okay." He says, transfixed by her once more. Did she even know what the words she was saying did to him? Because he certainly didn't. He almost politely asks her to stop calling him her love, but the same part of him that's the reason for even conversing with her stops him. 'It's not hurting anyone' It treacherously whispers at him, and he begrudgingly agrees. "So, I think my mom's still alive."

Somewhere in between the revelation of his mother definitely still being alive, the impromptu history lesson on the entire Trojan war and its consequences, the confusing explanation of how she had no father and the further discussion of how just how terrifying her mother was, he notices that it's well past three in the morning and that they've spent almost five full hours talking. He says as much to her, but she only giggles in the way that he's quickly coming to welcome. "I could spend much more time than this talking to you, my love" She says.

For some reason, he feels the same.

this is an absolutely ridiculously idea that popped into my head and wouldn't let go until i wrote it down. i'm planning on writing this as more of a comedy but let me know if there should be some serious parts interspersed. expect short, anthology style chapters that follow the books with a twist. TLT arc shouldn't be longer than 5 chapters. please leave a comment and drop a follow if you enjoyed it, and even if you didn't tell me why!