Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Rick Riordan, Greco-Roman mythology, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: I'm excited for this chapter mwahahaha. You'll see why.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Until the next one,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis


~The Finding Home Saga~

~Finding Home~

~Chapter 83: I'm Given Another Offer I Can't Refuse~


"Percy," she returned, smiling. "I wanted to give you time to tell Luke before I came to collect you. I saw that it went all, all things considered."

I wasn't too terribly surprised that Demeter had been watching us. "More than well," I agreed. "But I haven't forgotten about what you said, how you wanted us to do...something together?"

"Very good," she said. "I hope that you do not mind that I would prefer if we were to go now? The sooner, the better. Not because you are in any danger: no one else of the gods knows of your pregnancy yet outside of me, your father, and Despoina, and perhaps Hermes and Apollo," she assured me. "But where we are going to go can be on a...tight schedule."

...Oh, no. Hermes. He hadn't talked with me again at the end of my quest for the Sea of Monsters to chastise me about not convincing Luke to come back over to our side, he had even given me a "thank you" note for just accepting Luke back into my life and had treated me just fine at the council of the gods on the Winter Solstice, even though I'd done my best to avoid another talk with him afterwards. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if his opinion of me was going to change now that was pregnant with his...erm...grandchildren, similar to how my mom currently wasn't overly fond of Luke for not switching sides at my announcement. Well, I couldn't make everyone happy.

And what about Apollo? Why had Demeter mentioned him as potentially knowing? I knew that he was the God of Prophecy and all that, that he had to know at least some things about my and Luke's destiny because Aphrodite had been told those things, but –

I pushed those thoughts aside for now. It wasn't like they were going to help me here in the moment; all they would do was make my anxiety worse the longer I pondered on them. "Yes, Milady," I answered. "I'm ready. But, uh, how are we getting there?"

The flash of teeth that she gave me had a guilty edge to it. "Do you remember how Hades transported you both here to New York towards the end of your quest?"

Terror struck me; the memory wasn't that hard to recall. "Oh, no," I groaned. "Isn't there any other way?"

"To get there as quickly as I would like to, no."

Fuck me.

. . .

. . .

Actually, maybe I shouldn't be saying that, since that was how I'd gotten into this mess in the first place.


Unlike the time that Hades had teleported me, I wasn't able to keep my nausea down well enough this time. Thankfully, there was a trashcan right next to where we appeared, so I didn't have to go too far to expel the contents of my stomach violently.

"Urgh," I said afterwards, wiping at my mouth. People were ogling me and Demeter as they walked past, but more so me than her. I guess it isn't every day that you see a teenager get violently ill in broad daylight, even in a city like New York. "I can't wait until this part is over."

"I think that is a viewpoint you will find many women share with you," Demeter told me.

"I'm sure," I agreed. Them, I looked up, and saw that we were in front of a familiar building. "Why are we here?"

It was the building that the cafe that Luke had taken me to on Christmas night was in.

"This is where we need to go," my patron said. "Come along, Percy."

Not wanting to complain too much, since of course she was the goddess I was the champion of, I followed after her, even as my confusion intensified.

We went inside the building and took the elevator up to the seventh floor, which sparked some déjà vu within me for multiple reasons. When we got there, I noticed that the cafe was indeed a lot emptier than it had been before, but even if it didn't get to the level that it had been the only other time I had been here, since that night was a holiday night, according to Demeter, it probably wasn't going to remain this way for long.

The hostess – a tree nymph, did I specify that before? I don't think I did, maybe because I didn't notice her, pointy, green-tinged ears the first time. I did now, though, and wondered where her tree was, since dryads couldn't move too far away from them – spluttered as soon as she saw Demeter, her eyes going wide as she hastened to curtsy. "Lady – Lady Demeter!" she exclaimed. "It has been a while since you were last here!"

"Indeed, it has. And as I have told you before, you don't have to do that," Demeter replied. she waved her hand to go along with her words. "Where is she?"

The hostess' cheeks flushed a greenish-gold. "In the kitchen, Lady Demeter," she said. "Would you like me to – ?"

"No, I think we will be quite alright."

I followed after Demeter into the restaurant. The few customers in the room all eyed us eagerly; I could only imagine what they were thinking about, why they thought that we were here.

Demeter went to the doors that led into the kitchen and walked through them; I did the same. The kitchen was pretty much what I would've expected from the kitchen of a moral mortal restaurant: the only exceptions were that much of the cooking was being done by magic, like Mrs. Weasley's homemaking in Harry Potter, and there was only one person in the room instead of several. It was the goddess from before: she was kneading some dough by hand, humming a tune I thought I might've recognized under her breath.

Without looking up from her work, she said, "Mm, hello, Demeter. What brings you to my humble cafe?"

"I was not aware that I needed a reason to see you, Mother."

. . .

. . .

...Wait, what?

"Mother?"

"Of course you don't," the goddess – Titaness – retorted. "But all of you children tend to visit me only if you need something, and – ah." As she looked up, and she saw me standing right next to Demeter, something in her expression shifted. It turned to understanding, for more reasons than one. "I see."

I had no doubts that she did.

Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how I hadn't seen this before, when I'd been here with Luke. This Titaness wasn't just any other ordinary deity: she was Rhea, the mother of the gods, the wife of Kronos. She had the black hair of all of her sons – or rather, they had her black hair – albeit hers had those silver tips whereas theirs did not. She had the green eyes of Poseidon, of me, and I was sure that hers was where Demeter had gotten the viridian part of her golden-green eyes, too. Her face, as occurred to me with startling clarity, was almost entirely like Hestia's: her youngest daughter's form was almost always that of a young child, though, which was why I hadn't noticed the similarities before.

Gods, I felt like an idiot. No wonder Luke had found it so funny that I hadn't figured out who she was.

And no wonder why he liked her so much. Even though she had prevented Zeus from being swallowed down by his father and then sided with her children during the Titan War as best as she'd been able to, she must've had quite a bit in common with her husband. Especially since she'd never divorced him, not even after Kronos had been chopped into pieces by his sons and apparently fathered a mortal child in recent memory.

Rhea stopped kneading the dough. She snapped her fingers, and not only did her hands become clean, but the dough began to knead itself like the rest of the objects in the kitchen being put to work. Stepping away from the counter, she walked forwards until she was right in front of me and cupped my cheeks in her hands. "Oh, my dear," she said. "You've gotten yourself into quite a predicament, haven't you?"

Without waiting for my reply, she led me over to one of the chairs in the room and made me sit down. "Morning sickness has been bothering you much, hasn't it? It's not quite the same for women as it is for you. Wait here; I have just the thing," she said breezily.

She flitted about the kitchen, and fast. I barely had time to blink before a cup of steaming liquid was thrust into my hands. "Tea," the Titaness explained with a smile. "Drink. And don't worry about the price, my dear: it's on the house."

Demeter was exasperated, and not in the way that she had been with Despoina. It was...strange. I'd never thought that I would get to see a mother goddess take on the role of the daughter, despite how all of them besides Nyx, the Mother Goddess as the Creator of everyone that had come after her, had to have one. "Mother," she said.

"I know what you want me to do, and I accept it. I will do it," Rhea shot back. "You were right to come to me. Zeus will be...most displeased at this when he finds out – " this had me flinching. If either of the two deities noticed the action, they didn't comment on it " – but I know as well as you do that this will prevent him from doing anything too rash. First, though, allow Percy a moment to drink the tea that I have prepared him." She glanced over at me, scrutinizing my form. "And perhaps something to eat. He is glowing, and not in the good way."

"In my defense, I did just throw up," I said. Not yet doing as I was told, what came out of my mouth next was: "But I don't understand. What are you two talking about?"

Demeter shook her head with mirth. "Percy."

That didn't answer my question.

Rhea was similarly amused as she snapped her fingers again, causing a...tart of some sort to appear on the counter next to my chair, complete with its own plate and fork and everything. "I would have thought that you would have figured it out, considering that you have been through it once before," she spoke. "My dear, we're going to make you my champion."


"What?" I exclaimed with a jolt that would have sloshed the tea in my cup all over myself, had there not been magic keeping it in place.

Rhea clucked her tongue. "Drink," she ordered me. "We will explain."

Unsteadily, I lifted the cup up to my mouth and this time did do as I was told. The taste of the tea surprised me: it was definitely herbal, with honey undertones that made it nice and sweet. I could almost feel it soothing my esophagus, which was sore from all of the times that I had thrown up as of late, and my stomach after I'd swallowed that first sip. I took another one a bit more eagerly.

"The reason why I offered for you to become my champion was to protect you, so that you would not get in as much trouble as you would've otherwise for your choices," Demeter reminded me. I nodded in agreement. "But there comes a point where even the protection of another god can wear thin. Unfortunately, I fear that we have reached that point with your pregnancy. Once Zeus finds out that the father of your children is Luke..."

I didn't need her to finish that sentence. My stomach felt like a huge rock had just been thrown into it. "Oh."

"Do not put down the tea!" Rhea interrupted my action of doing just that. "You need to keep drinking it for its effects to work properly!"

I went back to sipping at it.

Appeased, the Titaness settled down some.

"That is where I come in," she said much more calmly. "My youngest son may...be inclined to make a mistake when you are under only Demeter's protection, especially given your heritage." My right eye twitched. Smiting me and potentially – probably – my babies would be a "mistake?" "But if you are under my protection as well, that will not happen. I may not have raised any of my children, but I am still their mother, and they know not to cross me."

Demeter seemed as displeased as I was at that explanation, albeit for different reasons. I imagine it would probably be embarrassing even for an immortal for their mother to acknowledge that she made sure she kept all of her children in line, when the situation called for it.

I blinked. "Wait, what do you mean, 'especially given my heritage?' And...erm...I don't understand. In the last war, you fought with your children. Why are you playing the neutral party now?"

Rhea laughed, reaching out to ghost her fingers along my cheek. "In time, you will know the answer to the first question. I can sense it at work: your daughter will be just like her," she said. "As for your second question: it is true, I fought for my children before, in order to save them. But you already know the answer as to why I am swearing no allegiance this time, my dear. Tell me, why have you engaged in a relationship with Luke Castellan even when you know it is dangerous and could end up risking both of your lives, if not ending them completely? What did you think when you first stepped into this kitchen and realized who I was, why the son of Hermes must like my presence compared to all others?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

Finally:

"Because...you love him? You love Kronos?"

She gave me a small, sad smile. "Indeed. I have never expected most to understand. He is no longer the Titan that I married, that is true. He has gone down the same route as our father, before he and the rest of our brothers defeated him: mad with his lust, his greed for power." Her eyes unfocused as she stared off into space. "But there was a time, long before our children were born, when our father's curse had not taken ahold of his mind in the way it has since. A time when we were happy. And I know that time will never come again, but I cannot bring myself to fight him once more. He is my husband, for better or worse, until we both shall fade or be killed."

Rhea spoke about the prospect of them both dying, in the sense of how a god can die, so nonchalantly. It sent shivers down my spine.

Clearing my throat, I said, "Um, I think – I can understand where you're coming from."

Her smile widened. "I know that you do. And that is the other reason why I am offering for you to become my champion, my dear. The first – and unless things become more dire than they are now – and only champion that I will ever have." She wiped her clean hands on her apron. "So, do you accept my offer?"

The ball was in my court. Demeter had brought me here with that intent, however she couldn't force me to make this choice. It was one that I had to make all on my own, in order for the ritual I had done two summers ago to work.

Not that there really was a choice for me to make. Like then, I had little doubts about what I was going to have to do. I had become the champion of Demeter then to protect Luke more so than myself, and I knew that I was going to have to become the champion of Rhea now in order to keep my babies safe. There was no other choice if I wanted to protect them. There was no room for error when the alternative was that we could all end up dead, and the threat that Apollo had made to the baby Hermes after stealing his cattle could become a reality for his soon-to-be most recent two mortal grandchildren (as far as I knew, who knew how many mortal kids he currently had out there).

I steeled my breath. "Yes, Lady Rhea, I do."

She grinned, and echoed the words I had heard before: "Then, let us begin."

Perhaps this shouldn't have surprised me too much, since the last time I had done this, it had been in Cabin Three. Nonetheless –

I felt my eyes nictate again. "What? Here?"

A restaurant kitchen didn't seem the best place to do it, everything considered.

Rhea chuckled, and snapped her fingers a third time. There was a whooshing noise from the doors, as if they were being locked shut, and tight. "It is a good place as any other, isn't it?"

"...I guess so."


As like before, I can't really tell you about how the ritual to becoming her champion went. Oath on the River Styx and all that.

What I can tell you is that afterwards, I was woozy and swaying on my feet. The bond between a patron deity and their mortal champion is already powerful enough, but when the mortal champion has two patron deities?

Yeah, that takes some getting used to.

"Urgh, shit," I groaned. My stomach was threatening to commit mutiny all over again.

"Sit down, sit down," Rhea chided me, leading me back over to the chair I'd been drinking my tea in.

I sat down gladly, although I found myself on the receiving end of the two deities' stares as they looked at me, unblinking. Unease washed over me. "Am I going to be alright, or...?"

"You will adjust," Demeter promised me. "It will just take some getting used to. Once you are ready, I will take you back to your mother's apartment."

"Mmph, 'don't think 'm ever going to be ready," I mumbled. "'Feel like somebody gave me some LDS."

"LSD," Rhea corrected me, chuckling. "LDS is another religion, and one I do not think that you would thrive well in. Oh, but before you go – " she went over to the cupboards of the kitchen and began to open them up, one by one. It was a bit of a weird sight, because she stood up on her tiptoes in order to reach them instead of changing her current height as needed " – I have something to give you. Now, where did I put it?"

My eyebrows furrowed. "Didn't you already...give me 'nough?"

"It's not that kind of gift, do not fret," she said airily. "Truly, it goes along with you being my champion – ah, here it is!"

Spinning around, she came back and held out something to me.

It was...a bracelet, consisting of a silver chain and two gemstones, an emerald and what looked to be black opal. Not too unlike the bracelet I had gotten Luke, really, besides the different compositions.

"Thanks," I said, taking the bracelet from her, only to gasp.

The bracelet abruptly wasn't a bracelet anymore.

It was a dagger, a dagger that was silver with those two gemstones embedded on its hilt on either side. As I held it, the metal of the dagger seemed to reach out to me, like it was telepathically communicating, singing.

Oh. The metal was royal silver, the metal that only deities of the sea and their children could touch, as a reminder.

Wait, then how could Rhea – ?

You know what, never mind.

I looked up at her. "What – ?"

"Long ago, I was told that I would have a champion one day, a child of the sea. Naturally, I assumed they would be my grandchild, a son of Poseidon, and as you know now, that is the case," she answered, her eyes twinkling. "So, I had this made by my elder brothers, the Cyclopes. Because it is royal silver, it is considered a cursed blade by many. I don't know if you have been told this before, but the harm it inflicts has given it quite the negative reputation. Still, I think it can be of much use, and is proof that even beautiful things can be judged falsely."

My unease returned, if only briefly.

After wetting my lips, I asked, "What is its name?"

"That is the thing," Rhea said. "Because it is considered to be a cursed blade, there is only one thing that I could think of to name it: Σωτηρία." Or Sotiria, as I'll call it from here on out, like Anaklusma when I refer to it by its proper name.

She didn't say anything more than that. That was fine. My brain was able to translate the word on its own, anyways:

Salvation.


Word Count: 3,503

Next Chapter Title: Obstetrics For Dummies