The next morning, Lea and Percy ate a depressing meal by themselves at the Poseidon table. Her brother was staring at the fissure in the ground while she gazed at the food in front of her; the words of the prophecy echoing in her ears. When she made it back to the cabin, she waved her absently over it, allowing the mess both the twins had accumulated to go into some sense of order while also getting rid of the bloodstained sheets from her wound.
She sat absently on the floor of the cabin, desperate to gain some semblance of control, but her thoughts would not clear instead the echoes of the prophecy and worries of Hermes plagued her mind. But even so, she could hear words whispering underneath it all, prayers and incantations of faith.
It was unnerving.
She tried to turn her attention to the memories that she had regained from Trent's actions, but it made no sense. Another camp of demigods? Roman demigods at that?
But she pushed past that because she realized that she had heard a part of that prophecy before. Trent had said it on that mountain.
And...
Some distant part of Leaneira tensed. Something within her click. She could absently hear faint echoes of something slithering across the ground. A chill moved through her as if icy cold winds gathered around her. She could hear a symphony of voices, hissing: The tapestry is almost complete.
Lea wheezed, turning her mind away from it.
Instead she focused on her mark and whatever it was that was keeping her from feeling Hermes. There was nothing there. It was as if... as if it was never there to begin with. She didn't like this feeling and she never thought she would actually regret not wanting it. It had been a part of her for basically four years now. It opened her to a new world straight out of a fictional novel and though she had her reservations regarding it all... it was hers.
Salome butted her thigh and Lea sighed, pressing her forehead against the animal.
Absently, she could hear Annabeth and Percy coming through for cabin inspections, but she paid them no mind. She felt Percy rub his hand across her head and she sank into the warmth of his hand before he pulled away to continue with his tasks.
She had things to do.
The new arrows that she made for Drew and she needed to touch bases with Alabaster; and if Trent's words were true, then she needed to know more about these roman? demigods and what they were doing.
(She had the slightest suspicion that they were the reason those titan bases had been torn apart. She would have to ask Hermes later once she found him again.)
Lea had things to do, but at the moment, she didn't even know what to do.
I begin to sing about Leaneíras, the twice-blessed goddess, mother of witchcraft, bringer of storms. O Walker of the Worlds, to be an enchantress of beauty and a being of khaos. Hail Leaneíras, sea born, dark-haired goddess!
That afternoon they had an assembly at the campfire to burn Beckendorf's burial shroud and say their good-byes. Even the Fifth and Seventh cabins called a temporary truce to attend. Beckendorf's shroud was made out of metal links, like chain mail. Lea didn't see how it would burn, but the Fates must've been helping out. The metal melted in the fire and turned to golden smoke, which rose into the sky. The campfire flames always reflected the campers' moods, and today they burned black.
Lea glanced over at Drew who was murmuring to her siblings as Silena sat before the fire crying. The rest of the other campers drifted off to their afternoon activities. Eliza had made her way over to Percy's side as he stood there staring at the dying fire. Lea joined them as they made their way over to Silena while Clarisse and her boyfriend, Chris Rodriguez, tried to comfort her Eliza broke, falling to her sister's side in comfort as the older girl cried.
"Hey, Silena, I'm really sorry." Percy said.
She sniffled. Clarisse glared at them, but she always glared at everyone. Chris would barely look at either of them. He'd been one of Luke's men until Clarisse rescued him from the Labyrinth last summer. Lea figured he still felt guilty though it probably didn't help that she had tried to warn him.
Percy cleared his throat. "Silena, you know Beckendorf carried your picture. He looked at it right before we went into battle. You meant a lot to him. You made the last year the best of his life."
Silena sobbed. Eliza gave him a look of disbelief but there was a thankful smile on her face also as if she realized what Percy was trying to do.
"Good work, Percy," Clarisse muttered.
"No, it's all right," Silena said. "Thank . . . thank you, Percy. I should go."
"You want company?" Clarisse asked.
Silena shook her head and ran off, but Eliza ignored her and followed after her quickly.
"She's stronger than she looks," Clarisse muttered, almost to herself. "She'll survive."
"You could help with that," Percy suggested. Lea's lip twitched. Her brother could be silver tongued when he wanted to, but even she knew that it wasn't going to work for this. "You could honor Beckendorf's memory by fighting with us."
Clarisse went for her knife, but it wasn't there anymore. She'd thrown it on the Ping-Pong table in the Big House.
"Not my problem," she growled. "My cabin doesn't get honor, I don't fight."
"All right," Percy told her. "I didn't want to bring this up, but you owe me one. You'd be rotting in a Cyclops's cave in the Sea of Monsters if it wasn't for me."
She clenched her jaw. "Any other favor, Percy. Not this. The Ares cabin has been dissed too many times. And don't think I don't know what people say about me behind my back."
A shame really. The girl was quite nice once they treated her with respect and stopped talking shit about her.
"So, what—you're just going to let Kronos crush us?" Percy asked.
"If you want my help so bad, tell Apollo to give us the chariot."
"You're such a big baby."
She charged Percy, and honestly, Lea wasn't going to stop her even if she agreed with Percy, but Chris got between them. "Whoa, guys," he said. "Clarisse, you know, maybe he's got a point."
She sneered at him. "Not you too!" She trudged off with Chris at her heels.
"Hey, wait! I just meant—Clarisse, wait!"
Lea decided to take her leave as Percy stood watching the last sparks from Beckendorf's fire curl into the afternoon sky. She headed to the pegasus stables, walking right to Ginevre who moved aside to let the girl in. She went through the familiar motions of cleaning her coat even if Lea hadn't had any real plans to take her out for a spin.
Lea was not a fan of heights and she was less of a fan of flying on pegasus. She had enough of that last summer. She leaned her head against the pegasus, glad for the moment that all of them stopped talking so she could have time for herself without social interaction. She breathed deeply, hands gripping at her own hair as she tried to focus. She needed to focus.
The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap.
"Lævateinn," Poseidon informed her. "It first belonged to the goddess, Até; my brother, Ζεύς', first daughter. She is the goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin, and blind folly, rash action and reckless impulse who led men down the path of ruin. She also led both gods and men to rash and inconsiderate actions and to suffering."
Olympus to preserve or raze.
"Where would the world be if we met the intensity of your love on near equal terms?"
You'd destroy the world in the face of your love."
Her green eyes sparkled like the fiercest waves of the sea. "I am my Father's child."
Lea was her Mother's daughter also, and right now, all she wanted was to hide away in the woman's arms. With a flick of her hand, the stable doors open and Lea climbed a top of Ginevre.
"Take me home," she murmured.
Lea had just walked into the kitchen when she heard a noise come from the living room. Her hand immediately reached for a dagger. If this was Luke's plan, she was going to skin whoever this was like snake and gut them like a fish and use their little intestines as christmas decorations!
There was a muffled yell from the bedroom. Paul's voice said, "Who put this wall of fur in the doorway?"
"Percy? Lea?" their Mother called out. "Are you here? Are you all right?"
"I'm here!" Percy shouted back.
"I'm fine," Lea said, placing the knife behind her back just in case this was a trick. Sure, this seemed to be Mrs. O'Leary turning in a circle to find their mother, knocking all the pictures off the walls. (She met her once before, but she loved her.) But it could also be a trick. Lea remembered those monsters in Virginia that could mimic voices.
It took a few minutes, but they finally got things worked out. After destroying most of the furniture in the living room, they got their parents out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where they sat around the kitchen table. Mrs. O'Leary still took up the entire living room, but she'd settled her head in the kitchen doorway so she could see us, which made her happy. Their mom tossed her a ten-pound family-size tube of ground beef, which disappeared down her gullet. Lea smirked because that had been for Salome and the kitten was not going to be a happy camper about that. Paul poured lemonade for the rest of them while Percy explained about his visit to Connecticut.
"So it's true." Paul stared at Percy like he'd never seen him before. He switched his gaze over to Lea who was peeling an orange as she leaned against the kitchen counter. He was wearing his white bathrobe, now covered in hellhound fur, and his salt-and-pepper hair was sticking up in every direction. "All the talk about monsters, and being a demigod . . . it's really true."
Lea knew he had been indulging them despite the ghosts and the spells and the powers.
"Sorry about Mrs. O'Leary," Percy said, "destroying the living room and all."
Paul laughed like he was delighted. "Are you kidding? This is awesome! I mean, when I saw the hoofprints on the Prius, I thought maybe. But this!" He patted Mrs. O'Leary's snout. The living room shook—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—which either meant a SWAT team was breaking down the door or Mrs. O'Leary was wagging her tail.
The twins smiled as Lea made a note to show him Ginevre who was surely eating her through Lea's herb garden on the roof. Her hand flickered through the air, green mageia twirling about her fingers as the furniture rearrange itself back into place and whole again.
"Thanks for not freaking out," Percy said.
"Oh, I'm freaking out," he promised, his eyes wide. "I just think it's awesome!"
"Yeah, well," Percy said. Lea looked up at the sound of dread in his voice, placing her uneaten orange down, "you may not be so excited when you hear what's happening."
Percy told Paul and their mom about Typhon, and the gods—Lea winced as she recalled that, hand absently going towards her mark—, and the battle that was sure to come. Then he told them Nico's plan.
Their mom laced her fingers around her lemonade glass. She was wearing her old blue flannel bathrobe, and her hair was tied back. Recently she'd started writing a novel, like she'd wanted to do for years, and Lea could tell she'd been working on it late into the night, because the circles under her eyes were darker than usual.
Behind her at the kitchen window, silvery moon lace glowed in the flower box. Percy brought the magical plant back from Calypso's island last summer, and it bloomed like crazy under their mother's care. Lea didn't like looking at it. Something about that flower made her uneasy, but the scent always calmed Percy down.
Their mom took a deep breath, like she was thinking how to tell him no.
"Percy, it's dangerous," she said. "Even for you."
"Mom, I know. I could die. Nico explained that. But if we don't try—"
"We'll all die," Nico said. He hadn't touched his lemonade. "Ms. Jackson, we don't stand a chance against an invasion. And there will be an invasion."
"An invasion of New York?" Paul said. "Is that even possible? How could we not see the . . . the monsters?"
He said the word like he still couldn't believe this was real.
"I don't know," Percy admitted, but Lea tapped her fingers on the table. "I don't see how Kronos could just march into Manhattan, but the Mist is strong. Typhon is trampling across the country right now, and mortals think he's a storm system."
"Ms. Jackson," Nico said, "Percy needs your blessing. The process has to start that way. I wasn't sure until we met Luke's mom, but now I'm positive. This has only been done successfully twice before. Both times, the mother had to give her blessing. She had to be willing to let her son take the risk."
"You want me to bless this?" She shook her head.
"That's not really fair either," Lea cut in. "Ahkilles didn't have a choice in the matter when she dunked him."
"It's crazy. Percy, please—"
"Mom, I can't do it without you."
"And if you survive this . . . this process?"
"Then I go to war," Percy said. "Me against Kronos. Or Lea against Kronos. And out of the three of us... only one of us will survive."
He didn't tell her the whole prophecy—about the soul reaping and the end of their days. Lea understood; she also would have understood if he left her out of that conversation. Because either way it went, one of them would be facing Kronos. Their mother didn't need to know that they were probably doomed, but... well... they could only hope they stopped Kronos and save the rest of the world before either of them died.
"You're my son," she said miserably. "I can't just... My babies..."
And when Percy looked at her, Lea cast her gaze away from him.
"It's your decision," she said to him. He was the child of the prophecy. Not her. Hopefully. Which one of them was the older twin again? "I have sword training and my mageia to give me an edge. You have nothing but a pen and a guilt complex."
"Gee, thanks."
Lea sniffed. "Everyone wants your opinion until you actually give it. Then its all 'burn the witch'." She snickered as best as she could through the clog in her throat as he kicked her playfully. She stopped soon enough, turning her gaze to his and speaking seriously. "The Curse of Ahkilles is not all powerful evident in the way that he freaking died. Truthfully speaking, the Trojans only lost that war not just because they were destined to lose, but also because when Zeus looked at Sparta and Troy; the two royal families that descended from his sons… he decided he liked Sparta more. Ahkilles was a good soldier. One of the best even if he threw a tantrum over the slightest provocation, but he's one of us. His Mother is from the sea." She reached out to grab his hand, tracing her thumb over the back of it. "But remember this, Perseus, he did not like the god. He criticized them and turned his back on them even as he greedily accepted their assistance. He killed Apóllōn's son and incurred his wrath. He dragged Héktōr's body, one of the only two fighting on Trojan's side that they actually liked-he dragged his body across the battleground being incredibly disrespectful to him that the gods finally dropped their support of him."
Green met green as they stared each other in the eyes.
"You want his impenetrable skin, then you must remember that a gift is never given freely. With all the hatred and anger and bitterness he held while alive, tell me, Perseus, are you willing to pay that price?"
He was silent for just a moment before saying, "You don't want me to get it."
Lea was shaking her head before he even finished his sentence. "I want you to be careful. I want to know that if you get this, will you still be my brother?"
"I'm always going to be your brother." he said, twisting his hand to hold hers.
"Then you have your answer." Lea gave him a small smile. She leaned back, the tension between the two of them settling easily. "But if you die, I'm cremating you so you can be put into an hourglass and still be included in family game night."
"Lea," their mother scolded as Percy mockingly scowled, "Can I have one day without an existential crisis from you?"
The twins fell silent, casting a glance at their mother in worry. They both knew that if Percy wanted her to agree, he'd have to push harder. And well, she had always been there for them, always tried make things normal for them, even with the gods and monsters and stuff. She put up with them going off on adventures, but now... now Percy was asking for her blessing to do something that would probably get him killed and if he died... there was a chance Lea would fall too right after him, distracted by grief and going after her carnivorous grandfather.
Percy locked eyes with Paul, and some kind of understanding passed between them.
"Sally." He put his hand over their mother's hands. "I can't claim to know what you and the twins have been going through all these years. But it sounds to me . . . it sounds like Percy is doing something noble. I wish I had that much courage."
Lea felt tears dotting at her eyes and she kind of wanted to take back her own blessing. The nobles were always killed.
"Percy," their Mother said, "I give you my blessing."
Lea exhaled.
Percy glanced at Nico.
He looked more anxious than ever, but he nodded. "It's time."
"Percy," their mom said. "One last thing. If you . . ." She looked at them both because she knew that Lea would be going back to camp after this. "If you survive this fight with Kronos, send me a sign." She rummaged through her purse and handed Percy her cell phone.
"Mom," Percy said, "you know demigods and phones—"
"I know," she said. "But just in case. If you're not able to call . . . maybe a sign that I could see from anywhere in Manhattan. To let me know you're okay."
"Like Theseus," Paul suggested. "He was supposed to raise white sails when he came home to Athens."
"Except he forgot," Nico muttered. "And his father jumped off the palace roof in despair. But other than that, it was a great idea."
"What about a flag or a flare?" their mom said. "From Olympus—the Empire State Building."
"Something blue," Percy said. The two of them shared smiles and Lea felt her own lips twitch. It had been a running joke for years about blue food. It was Percy's favorite color, and their mom went out of her way to humor him. Every year his birthday cake, his Easter basket, his Christmas candy canes always had to be blue.
"Yes," their mom agreed. "I'll watch for a blue signal. And I'll try to avoid jumping off palace roofs."
She gave him one last hug and Lea dove in right after her, tucking her head under his chin.
"If you die, I'll kill you again," she murmured before stepping away so he could shake hands with Paul.
Then Nico and Percy walked to the kitchen doorway and looked at Mrs. O'Leary.
"Sorry, girl," Percy said. "Shadow travel time again."
She whimpered and crossed her paws over her snout.
"Where now?" Percy asked Nico. "Los Angeles?"
"No need," he said. "There's a closer entrance to the Underworld."
Hesiod, Theogony 390 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
"The Olympian Lightener [Ζεύς] called all the deathless gods to great Olympos, and said that whosoever of the gods would fight with him against the Titenes (Titans), he would not cast him out from his rights, but each should have the office which he had before amongst the deathless gods; he said, too, that the god who under Krónos had gone without position or privilege should under him be raised to these, according to justice."
Lea was in St. Louis, standing downtown under the Arch. She had never been there before but her brother had blown it up though.
Over the city, a thunderstorm boiled—a wall of absolute black with lightning streaking across the sky.
A few blocks away, swarms of emergency vehicles gathered with their lights flashing. A column of dust rose from a mound of rubble, which Lea realized was a collapsed skyscraper.
A nearby reporter was yelling into her microphone: "Officials are describing this as a structural failure, Dan, though no one seems to know if it is related to the storm conditions." Wind whipped her hair. The temperature was dropping rapidly, like ten degrees just since Lea had been standing there.
"Thankfully, the building had been abandoned for demolition," she said. "But police have evacuated all nearby buildings for fear the collapse might trigger—" She faltered as a mighty groan cut through the sky. A blast of lightning hit the center of the darkness.
The entire city shook. The air glowed, and every hair on Lea's body stood up. The blast was so powerful Lea knew it could only be one thing: Zeus's master bolt. It should have vaporized its target—the stories said that he threw bolts strong enough that even Khaos trembled— but the dark cloud only staggered backward. A smoky fist appeared out of the clouds. It smashed another tower, and the whole thing collapsed like children's blocks.
The reporter screamed. People ran through the streets. Emergency lights flashed. Lea saw a fiery gold comet in the sky—a chariot pulled by swans. Apóllōn? A streak of silver crossed his path—a chariot pulled by reindeer, but it wasn't Santa Claus driving. It was Artemis, riding the storm, shooting shafts of moonlight into the darkness.
One thing was clear: Typhon had made it to the Mississippi River. He was halfway across the U.S., leaving destruction in his wake, and the gods were barely slowing him down.
The mountain of darkness loomed above her. A foot the size of Yankee Stadium was about to smash her when the scene changed.
She was somewhere else, standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Lea came to the complete understanding that she was terrified of heights as she looked down and could clearly see Manhattan, from the height of an airplane. In front of her, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces-a city of mansions-all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires. Roads wound crazily up to the peak, where the largest palace gleamed against the snow. Precariously perched gardens bloomed with olive trees and rosebushes and were as vast as Boston Harbor. Some of the roofs were made entirely of silver ingots, hammered bronze doors big enough to fly a B-1 bomber through, sturdy stone towers that pierced the clouds. Streets were paved gold. And circling the edge of the city were white ramparts that made the Great Wall of China look like a baby fence.
Lea could hardly believe what she saw.
There was an open-air market filled with colorful tents, a stone amphitheater built on one side of the mountain, a hippo-drome and a coliseum on the other. It was an Ancient Greek city, except it wasn't in ruins. It was new, and clean, and colorful, the way Athens must've looked twenty-five hundred years ago.
A woman stood next to her, hands gleaming with blue mageia. Dark hair braided with threads of gold and her eyes were just as bright as the sun—Kírkē, goddess of sorcery. She looked at Leaneira, her expression grim. "You need to get here quickly, child," she muttered, pointing down below to the streets of Manhattan. Crowds had gathered . . . but it wasn't a normal crowd of tourists and pedestrians. Lea saw spears, javelins, and banners—the trappings of an army. "The army is coming. We can't hold them all off."
Her words washed over Lea as cold as the ocean floor, and her dreams went black.
When she awakened, Drew was throwing open the door to her cabin, expression grim and dressed in armor. "You need to suit up. Percy called. Says something bad is going to happen by tonight. He needs us down at Olympos."
"Yeah," Lea said as she thought about her dreams as she stood to her feet. "And I think I know exactly what it is."
WORD COUNT: 4381
THINGS TO KNOW:
1) Ahkilles was not invulnerable. He was fast, yes. He was strong, yes. But he was not invulnerable. He got injured. I remember rereading the Iliad and he got hit and it started to bleed.
2) None of the sources before Statius make any reference to this general invulnerability.
3) To the contrary, in the Iliad, Homer mentions Akhilles being wounded: in Book 21 Asteropaíos, son of Pelagon, challenged Akhilles by the river Skamandros. He was ambidextrous, and cast a spear from each hand; one grazed Akhilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood".
4) In the few fragmentary poems of the Epic Cycle which describe the hero's death (i.e. the Cypria, the Little Iliad by Lesches of Pyrrha, the Aethiopis and Iliupersis by Arctinus of Miletus), there is no trace of any reference to his general invulnerability or his famous weakness at the heel. In the later vase paintings presenting the death of Akhilles, the arrow (or in many cases, arrows) hit his torso.
5) Another version of Akhilles' death is that he fell deeply in love with one of the Trojan princesses, Polyxena. Akhilles asks Prίamos for Polyxena's hand in marriage. Prίamos is willing because it would mean the end of the war and an alliance with the world's greatest warrior. But while Prίamos is overseeing the private marriage of Polyxena and Akhilles, Paris, who would have to give up Helénē if Akhilles married his sister, hides in the bushes and shoots Akhilles with a divine arrow, killing him.
5A) We been knew Paris was a punk ass bitch though.
COMMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR:
1) This one was a bit harder to write because in canon, Percy had his dreams and his whole adventure to May's house to move the transition. Lea doesn't have that because they're all at war and Hermes is fighting so, yeah.
2) Anyway, RiddlersQuery would we ever see Lea terrorize her foes using an instrument in this fic and while the answer was no for Lea... I can definitely say... we have a background character coming up in this arc.
2A) And in filler between TLO and TLH, we will be seeing more minor gods like Kairos.
3) The Seven will be announced arc by arc, so the TLH trio then the SON trio plus the seventh member.
3A) I can already sense the stress SON is going to give me. Gods above, I really dislike that book (aside from CJ, shoutout to yall!)
3B) (i miss livia. im so ready to get back to the blue-eyed crew)
3C) lmfaoo, Rick: the big bad is mother earth herself! dun dun dunnnn
3D) Lea seeing her enemy: is this a joke to you?
THINGS TO EXPECT IN THE HOO ARC:
1) Drew's gonna be bad ass. Yall know she's my favorite child of doves.
2) Jason is gonna be badass. Like yall know I put him on the same ranking as Percy!
3) Lea's gonna be bad ass and really get unhinged. Remember how Árēs said she was coocoo for coco puffs? Yeahhhh.
4) Leo and Kalypsô are not happening. At all. I don't give a shit how she gets off that island, but he ain't dying for her, i know that.
4A) didn't like it in the books. don't like it in fanfiction. just not realistic to how she is written here.
5) Lea's turning sixteen this arc. Hermês preferred age around her in 17/18/19...
5A) NO GODDAMN GROOMING!
5B) it's like that one friend of your older sibling that you have a crush on but you know you dont have a chance because they see you as a younger sibling. its that kind of trope.
5C) But it's back to the soulmates plotline that this story is actually about. Still a bit adventurous though!