(A/N: So I deviated a little more here. REALLY REALLY HOPE YOU LIKE IT GUYS!
Thank you all for reading and thanks to everyone who wished me luck for my induction training, that was really sweet of you guys. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be, thankfully but I realised I had my little sister's high school graduation this evening which is why this chapter is so damned late. SORRY I LOVE YOU GUYS
Anyway: onwards!
Shy x)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The first time Gaea sent her a dream, Calypso nearly woke from the sheer shock of it.
Immortals, generally, did not dream very often and abandoned goddesses even less than that; certainly, she had not dreamt more than a blur of colour and feeling in a very long time.
In spite of this, Calypso felt her surprise melt into tranquillity as the scene overtook her. She couldn't really blamed, the picture was just too tempting to leave.
It was early evening, the sun just set and the sky washed with soft velvet blue. She was sitting on the workbench in Leo's camp but he was there, like he'd never ever left. She was feeding him scraps of bronze after she filed the burs away with her impenetrable fingernails. Being a goddess was, at times, quite an advantage.
Leo stood at the forge he'd built himself, concentrating on the latest piece for whatever contraption he was making. Calypso couldn't tell and didn't really care. Every now and then, he would forget the tongs and reach into the flames himself, bending the heated metal or warping it into the correct shape with his bare hands.
Calypso felt a thrill of fear every time he did so but he barely seemed to realise that what he was doing could seriously injure any other man. "Be careful." She warned.
"I'm fine Sunshine." He replied, chuckling.
"If you persist in calling me that, I will have no choice but to retaliate." She countered with a tiny smile. Her heart pumped wildly when Leo laughed aloud.
"Like what? Leo, Hottie of Ogygia? Master of All Things Mechanical and Magnificent? The Wondrous Leo?" he suggested with a cheeky twinkle in those dark eyes. With his hair curled, the warm haze of the flames highlighting his smooth dark skin, he looked like he was glowing from the inside.
"You are rather wondrous for a demigod." She admitted with a raised brow.
"Why do I get the feeling that's not a compliment?" he asked, dryly.
Calypso let out a slow smirk. "Because I was going to add that it's a wonder you're still breathing."
"Hardy-har." Leo muttered, rolling his eyes.
Look at him, dear grandchild, a voice like shifting sand murmured in her ear as Leo threw her another quick grin. He could have been yours.
"Hand me another piece would you?" Leo asked, not at all concerned by the voice. Calypso obeyed, handing him another scrap which he began to weld to the other. His hands left molten fingerprints on the copper-coloured metal.
You could have made him stay with you, let him love you. You would never be alone again. Gaea added with a hint of a taunt in her tone.
"He had to leave." Calypso replied, watching Leo raise his hammer and pounded out the metal. The movement revealed the deceptively strong muscles of his arms and back and she recalled how she'd flushed when he accidentally burned his shirt off. Even now her cheeks turned a little pink. "He had to stop you."
Did he? Or maybe he has someone waiting for him? Gaea suggested, slyly. Maybe he has a beloved like the one you loved before him. A certain Roman, perhaps…?
"No." Calypso muttered, frowning. "He told me she wasn't his girlfriend. He didn't mention anyone else."
He looked worried when he watched the girl in battle, did he not?
"I-I-" The image of Leo's face studying the bronzed mirror came to her unbidden but different- now, his eyes expressed more concern, his mouth tightened in more horror, his mouth was suddenly whispering words of affection for the Roman called Reyna-
She woke gasping with her whole body tensed, those imagined words still plastered to the front of her mind and scrawled on the inner corners of her heart.
It was not the last time.
Mere days later, Calypso dreamt of a land she had loved with sweet smelling air and a midday sun that blazed brightly on the horizon. Before her stood the immense statue Leo had mentioned once, the Athena Parthenos, looking out over Greece with a peaceful air about her. She had never seen the statue herself nor had she ever met Athena personally but Calypso could feel the power it radiated.
For a moment she almost did not notice the people behind her. Almost.
Percy was there, with his golden-haired Annabeth at his side. Her stomach flipped at seeing him but he didn't resemble the boy she'd once met. Instead, he was sallow and sliced up, his sea-green eyes hard and dark. His cheeks were almost hollow and his features seemed gaunt and harsh. In fact, she realised, both of them were and suddenly Calypso recalled what Leo had said about Percy and Annabeth falling into Tartarus. It was enough to make her shudder as she recalled the ancient god of evil and the pit from which hatred, loathing, greed and rage were born.
There were three Romans in purple shirts though Calypso would've known them on sight. She could tell the difference like a sixth sense, as most gods could.
Finally, her eyes found Leo and she raised her hand to catch his attention but to no avail. His gaze was firmly locked on the angular-faced Roman who circled the Athena Parthenos with an awed air. Her mouth moved but Calypso heard no sound, only watched Leo respond with a shrug and a tell tale flicker of humour in his gaze that told her he was teasing the girl with dark, pin-straight hair.
Above the group an enormous ship floated in the air but Calypso's eyes were firmly on Leo and how tired he seemed.
"Why can I not hear them?" she wondered aloud. She did not expect an answer but when Gaea replied, she wished she'd kept silent.
This is the present, my poor wayward grandchild. You cannot communicate or interfere here. You can only watch your hero as he drifts ever further away. She replied, mock-mournfully.
The group sat down to eat and Reyna sat down across from Leo, their eyes meeting for a moment. The conversation must have begun but Calypso could hear none of it. She could only watch as Leo used a miniature screw river from his ever-lasting tool belt (oh had she grown sick to death of his praising of the magical, wonderful tool belt) and pierced a small chocolate-coated berry to give to the satyr beside him. His mouth moved and the Roman girl responded, studying the statue behind her.
Look how they connect, Gaea noted as the pair caught eyes again and the Roman girl smiled ever so slightly. The image was blurred slightly like a cloud of heat was raised over the scene but still very clear to Calypso's frozen form. She is quite the leader in the Roman camp. He admires her.
"He said she dislikes him. He told me she blames him for firing on their camp." Calypso's voice was far less confident than she wished.
The group conversation continued, both Leo and Reyna chiming in every now and then though they seemed to be speaking to each other a lot. Leo's eyes never left the Roman girl's face. Mortals possess such fleeting natures, Gaea sighed. Their attentions, so malleable. Their fancies, so easily swayed. Their lives so quickly extinguished, don't you think?
"Do not toy with me grandmother!" Calypso hissed suddenly, trembling all over. "If you hurt him-"
Oh no, dear Calypso. I believe he will hurt you far worse than I could ever injure him. With that, the scene changed and the other demigods disappeared entirely, leaving only Leo and the Roman girl beside the Athena Parthenos.
He took her hand (he'd never touched her hand so gently) and she traced his cheek (she'd never gotten the chance to do that) and in the next moment he was kissing her or she was kissing him and when they pulled apart, Leo's mouth was forming words even Calypso could understand. I love you-
"Stop it!" she screeched, eyes opening to the kaleidoscope pattern of red, white, purple and green crystals. The ceiling of her cave was a welcome anchor to reality as she rolled out of bed, clutching her skull. She knew that the dream was an illusion, that the blurriness of it signalled Gaea's trickery. It wasn't actually happening, it was a vision Gaea was tormenting her with. But it had felt so heart-stoppingly real.
"Stop it, now." She demanded weakly.
But of course Gaea did not.
She didn't waste any time in coming up with a plan. The next morning, Calypso set to work growing the plants she needed, harvesting the ones she already had, wording the incantation in perfect Greek, trying to remember all she could about banishing spells. It would not be powerful, not with her limited magic but it would be enough. Ogygia was a phantom island, her birthplace, home and prison. This piece of land, Calypso trusted, would obey her will, even over the Earth Mother's.
The spell needed to be worked during a new moon and so she waited, preparing as much as possible for the next occasion, three nights before the Feast of Spes. She didn't want to sleep. In fact she'd resisted sleeping, dreading the moment her eyes slipped shut. But she also knew that if she was to concentrate for the spell, she would have to rest.
The night before the new moon, she hoped Gaea would overlook her but of course, it did not seem to be the case.
When she closed her eyes, she suddenly found herself in a cave, somewhere darker than she had ever been before and far deeper than she cared to think about. The rocky walls around her shook every now and then, cold and jagged to her questing hands. Calypso tried to calm her quick breaths as she searched for an exit but it was cold, so cold, and her feet practically froze upon contact with the uneven ground beneath her.
"Settle down," she whispered to herself. "She's trying to scare you."
But her heart was pounding despite the words and the cold air felt thin in her throat and lungs. The urge to run away blindly was tempting but as she turned, Calypso suddenly caught sight of a pinprick of yellow light ahead and carefully moved toward it. The closer she came, the more the silence began to give way to a clash of noise that scraped against her eardrums.
Staggering to the pinprick of light, she realised she was in the crossroads between three separate tunnels. There seemed to be light coming from two of the tunnels, the one behind her still pitch black and silent as the grave. The shortest tunnel to her right was cramped and chilly but the light was strongest. When she ducked her head inside and squinted to the end, she realised it opened up into an enormous space. Crawling further inside, Calypso swallowed nervously as the noise grew louder.
When she neared the end, Calypso could suddenly make out the screams and wails coming from around her, surrounding her and there, in the middle of the space, was a legion of giants and monsters revolving around a dark patch of earth that seemed to glimmer in the torch light around it.
This was Gaea's resting place, she realised, her stomach clenching as if frozen. She'd never felt such all-encompassing evil in her entire life and it simply made her more certain. This was the place she intended to rise from. Leo and his friends were destined to stop her here.
Calypso wanted to move closer, to understand why Gaea was showing her this but without meaning to, she crawled backwards on her hands and knees, scraping her palms in her haste to escape the tiny, narrow tunnel. When she finally made it out to the cross-section again, Calypso tried to breathe but she seemed to have brought the wailing and screeching back with her- it enveloped the space and she trembled with fear at the noise. "Be brave," she wished desperately, trying to muster enough courage to go back to that horrible cavern, to figure out why Gaea had decided to fill her dreams with such a horrific sight.
She had just managed to turn back to the tunnel on her right when a sudden blood-curdling howl stopped her in her tracks. She knew that sound- she'd never heard it before but she knew it, somehow in some strange way.
"Leo." She breathed, filled with terror.
You could have kept him, granddaughter, Gaea's voice was much stronger now, sounding almost human again and the sound startled her so badly, she flinched as though expecting to be struck down by the mere voice. If Calypso had been able to see her eyelids, she was willing to bet they would flicker as though preparing to open.
Another scream pierced through the dark, this time coming from the taller tunnel to her left and it sent a chill through her whole body, chewing on her bones with malicious fear.
"Leo?" she called, her voice growing desperate and terrified. She tried to ignore Gaea as she ran left, down the other tunnel. It was tall enough for her to ran through but still tight enough that she had to wriggled around the uneven walls, scraping against her bare arms and legs as she did. Another scream of pain wracked through the passageway; she thought she might've let out a choked yelp in response but it was hard to tell over the sound of her harsh breathing.
Her heart was racing in a thudding tempo that drowned out the monsters wailing behind her but there was a new noise coming from up ahead, a roaring-rushing-spilling-cracking-crumbling kind of sound that filled her with dread. "Leo, where are you?"
Up ahead, the tunnel widened into another cavern, lit from an unknown source and this one was smaller and thankfully empty but-
Oh gods.
The ceiling was giving way, thousands of tonnes of rocks and dirt collapsing into an enormous pile in the middle of the chamber. But it wasn't fear for herself that made Calypso's chest contract tightly. She gasped and sprinted forward, her arms scraping the jagged cave walls as she moved through the narrow passage.
Amongst the cascade of earth, a familiar hand was outstretched toward her.
You could have saved him from this fate. Gaea added, ever present in her ear.
"No," she whispered in a strangled voice, racing forward. She was just about to reach him when the hand began to twitch and claw frantically. She sank to her knees beside the mountain of dirt, nails clawing through the soil but no amount of digging seemed to move the earth suffocating Leo Valdez. "No, stop it. Stop it. This isn't real."
You should have killed him when I gave you the chance. The Earth Mother said, spitefully. It would have been a kinder death than this suffering…
"This is not real. This is an illusion, you trick me Gaea, you trick me!" Calypso found herself chanting as she dug wildly.
Then why can you not stop digging, child?
Suddenly, Leo's hand, calloused and dirt encrusted, went still.
Calypso woke up screaming, her sheets torn from her clawed fingers and wet with her tears.
She performed the banishing spell with a sense of rage and fear and anxiety but she still did not sleep again for a week after the new moon passed. Gaea left her dreams. But the image of Leo's cold dead fingers reaching out for her from beneath a mountain of earth did not.
(A/N: Buahahaha. Future or another illusion, what do you think?
Guest review time! Sorry they're a bit long this week :(
Talia: OMG that's the nicest compliment to give a ff-author, THANKYOU. I'm glad you find this story fits with the original plot, I've been trying to give it the same style as Riordan's books. Also, I make updates to remind myself to update this story too on Mondays and Fridays. It makes me go 8D Anyway. Thanks, I think the job training went alright. I hope. Whatever, it's done. As for when Leo comes back to Ogygia? Well, I'm thinking chapter twenty or twenty-one if everything goes smoothly. FINGERS CROSSED and thanks for reading!
Goddess Timtam: Hello again! Me thinks you are very sweet but no, it's not Uncle Rick. Just an incredibly over-imaginative university student from down under ;) Calypso is a breed of goddess I'm calling 'Titan's child' because she's not really a Titaness but she's as old (if not older) than some of the Olympians so she's kind of in a class of her own, I think. Also: I AM NOW FAVOURITE, ANY WHO CHALLENGE ME WILL FEEL MY WRATH- well actually, I'll probably just cower weakly in the corner of any fight whatsoever but that's not the point. Thank you for taking a minute to review and I hope you liked chapter seventeen :D
Z: Hi! I'm glad Calypso comes across as suitably conflicted: I really wanted to play up her bond with island and how she's simultaneously wishing her little fits of 'madness' are real but is also trying not to hope for more. And they're probably a little awkward because originally, this chapter was three pages and then I went on a rewrite-frenzy and added another three pages in different places, so half was written last week and half was written last night and they don't mesh fantastically, I admit. Anyway, thank you for your good wishes, I think the training went okay but it was really nice to have people wishing me luck. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy seventeen!
Pandalover1994: They are certainly adorable aren't they? Percabeth comes first, of course, but I like Caleo a teeny bit more than Jasiper which are my top three. I typically update on Mondays and Fridays if that helps so I hope you liked chapter seventeen and I'll see you at the end of the week! Thanks for reading :D
Ilovethisfanfic: Awww, I like that image. And Leo would apprentice young demigods who need work and when Calypso comes to visit the garage, they'd all wolf-whistle because Leo gets all excited and grins madly when he kisses her hello but secretly, they really like their boss's girlfriend and might be just a teeny bit jealous of how happy they seem together- oh my god, I need this to happen in Blood of Olympus. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed chapter seventeen!
Aquadrop: No dying! At least not until Leo comes back which will be soon. I hope. Sorry about the late update, today got hectic out of nowhere D: Awww, thanks for recommending it and for taking a minute to review. Hope you liked chapter seventeen :D
Alrighty guys, that's it for this update, have a WONDERFUL WEEK and I'll update on FRIDAY!