The first thing Percy heard was the sound of waves on the beach.
For a moment, he was content to simply exist in the comfort of the noise. The gentle lapping of water on sand was cathartic in a deep and meaningful way. Each beat of the sea was echoed by the heart in his chest. For so long Percy had forgotten what it meant to be the son of the sea god, forgot what it meant to be himself at all. But this close to the shore, the comforting energy of the water was undeniable.
Distantly, so far in the background he could barely make them out, there was a chorus of gentle murmurs. Where the whispers in the void had been harsh, pleading, or accusatory, these voices were contented and peaceful. Percy liked them much better.
It took the sky bearer a few moments to remember what had happened, and a few more to convince himself that it was real. He had won. After uncountable days of suffering and pain, it was over. Perhaps the ghosts on his consciousness could rest easy now, even if he couldn't. Part of him wished he remembered more of them, the people from before. Part of him was scared of the idea - what if he had forgotten for a good reason?
Percy thought of Kronos, of Atlas, of Artemis. He had dealt with the king of Titan's himself, but Kronos' older brother had been absent. Percy had never expected the goddess of the hunt to appear either. Was he to be content with partial retribution? He didn't know.
The first thing Percy felt was light.
Were it not the grit of the sand beneath him, the sky bearer could have sworn his body was floating. The beach was soft as a mattress and plush like a thick wool blanket. Percy sunk into the fine grains, every inch of skin perfectly supported. There was warmth on the exhausted man's face and neck. It was a natural kind he hadn't felt in ages.
Percy was surrounded by a great natural absence, like a heavy piece of his soul had been set free. To another that may have sounded negative, but to the son of Poseidon it was glorious. Each movement of his eyes behind his eyelids, every twitch of his fingers happened so quickly and so effortlessly that it was as if the world was stuck on fast forward.
In an almost literal sense he felt reborn, renewed. The person Percy had been while trapped under The Burden and the person he was now felt so far apart. The son of Poseidon never knew how clear each thought could be, how pure every sensation. He hadn't dreamed that existing could feel this good, this lacking in agony. When the warm ocean water crashed over his half-submerged feet, Percy's entire body was filled with a pleasant energy.
The first thing Percy tasted was homemade chocolate chip cookies.
It was a powerful thing to taste the cooking of his mother after so long. The sky bearer's tongue searched automatically for any leftover bits of chocolate between his teeth. He was disappointed to find none.
For an eternity the only thing in his mouth had been his own sweat and spit. Percy figured that any food, realistically, would have left him emotional at this point. Still, the almost spiritual nature of those blue-colored cookies filled him with both a sense of deep love and deep regret. Love for his mother, regret that he had left her behind.
The first thing Percy saw when he opened his eyes was the sky.
It was so different to see it from below. The clouds having highlights on the tops instead of the bottoms made Percy feel like Zeus had flipped the canvas when no one was looking. They were lazy, wispy things - barely more than puffy tails that meandered from one side of his vision to another. They wiggled back and forth, waving to him as he watched.
The son of Poseidon had expected the sun to sting his eyes, forcing him to come to reality slowly and painfully. He hadn't seen it in ages, after all. Percy found instead that the flaming ball above was rather gentle. It warmed his body and coated his bed of sand, no more than pleasant rays of heat drifting across the beachfront.
Percy had no issue staring right at the sun either. For the first time in his life, the sky bearer was able to watch the star pulse and move with his naked eye. It was like some sort of space documentary, with pieces breaking off and reforming every second. The undulating motion was near hypnotizing. Percy found it a tragic shame that he had never been able to see it before.
The sky bearer decided to enjoy it. Percy figured that's what the woman would have suggested - she had told him how much she enjoyed sunbathing. It had been a lifetime since he had done something like that anyway. How long the man laid there, simply observing and relaxing, he didn't know.
Eventually one of Percy's ears perked when the cadence of the murmurs changed. A couple of the voices had become louder than the others, interspersed with the sound of swishing sand. He realized they were footsteps, seemingly to be headed out towards the edge of the surf. It wasn't long until Percy's hearing, made sensitive by straining against nothingness for so long, could pick out a full conversation approaching.
"Are you sure this will help, my lady?" The first speaker was a woman, voice kind but tinged with stress. "I'm not sure how my cooking could compare to that ambrosia stuff you've been feeding him, especially with what Lord Apollo says. Maybe letting him sleep in the water was the better decision. I know me and your uncle aren't exactly on the best of terms, but . . ." She gave a bit of a laugh, one tight with nervousness.
"Please, belle-mère du futur. You are far too humble." Percy knew that younger female voice. He had become intimately familiar with those sultry tones and pops of seductive French. It filled his body with that familiar yet mystifying fluttering sensation. "Ambrosia is a start, certainly, but it's the love you put into it that really matters. Fais-moi confiance." The voices were just a few yards away. One set of steps stopped while the other continued closer. "And you know you don't have to refer to me with such formality. It makes me feel positively ancient." The younger woman scolded teasingly.
Something new was stirring in Percy's chest. Usually, he would have attributed it to the woman's voice, the one that had pulled him through his endless struggles with The Burden. The fact that she was here, so close and so real, should have had him ecstatic. Strangely though, it was the voice of her older companion that had set his heart beating loudly in his ribcage. Percy lay still as the grave, unsure how to react to this swelling of emotion.
The other woman giggled, this time with real levity. The clarity of her mature voice revealed her as the closer of his visitors. "Oh I remember, dear. It's just, it's a little different when you're with your family than when it was just us at a café. I wish I had aged half as nicely as you." There was an enchanting laugh in response. Even the almost musical crash of waves on sand was crass in comparison.
The nearer set of steps stopped just a few feet off. Percy could still hear sand moving, as if someone was pushing the grains around with their toes. "It's hard, my lady. I just want him to wake up." There was so much heartbreak and longing in those simple words.
"Trust me, Sally."
Percy's breath hitched at the younger woman's reply. The whole world froze.
"If there is one thing that can wake a man like your son-"
Percy's chest breached out of the sand desperately, a waterfall of white grains cascading down a bare set of pale shoulders. The sky above tilted to reveal a gorgeous alabaster beachfront, boxed on the left and right by high marble cliffs topped in greenery. His eyes took in none of it. Someone gasped as he moved - there was a thud as a set of heavy objects dropped to the ground.
"It's the love of his mother."
Every degree Percy's head turned happened in slow motion. It was torturous, as if the air itself was working against him. The son of Poseidon hadn't breathed, hadn't blinked since that name had been spoken. Finally, finally, his shoulders made it all the way around. For the first time, Percy's gaze settled on the woman most dear to his heart. Disbelieving eyes took in every detail in an instant, trying to find every discrepancy from the image that he had held in his mind for so long.
Sally Jackson looked so different than he remembered, and yet also exactly the same.
She was undeniably older, yet no less beautiful. Straight chestnut hair that Percy remembered falling over shoulder length had been cut just below his mother's chin in a tight bob. Intermixed with the brown were long individual streaks of gray, like her hair had aged a chunk at a time. Sally had almost always been smiling when he was a kid, even when times were so hard, but now her mouth gaped with shock and surprise. Percy noticed that there were new wrinkles on her forehead, bags under her eyes.
Percy's mother had always told him he got his look from his father, but gazing upon her now felt like looking in a mirror. They shared that turn of the nose, the same attractive rise of the cheeks. In the warm sun, her features were dusted by a touch of light freckles that Percy hadn't been lucky enough to inherit.
Sally dressed like he would have expected, comfortable yet fashionable in a pair of faded jeans topped by a simple white blouse. Percy's mom wore no jewelry, not that she needed any. Abandoned next to a pair of sandaled feet was a thick glass casserole dish. Its contents were spilling over the beach and completely forgotten.
Sally Jackson had always been a striking woman, but here, now, Percy had never seen anybody more breathtaking. The thing that finally made it seem real were those deep blue eyes, the ones he had held in his mind for years and years. He watched them quickly fill with tears.
"Mom." Percy's voice came out croaked. His cheeks were wet, his throat raw. He hadn't even realized he had started crying.
Percy tried to move but fell to his palms. His elbows buckled. He couldn't find the strength to pull his legs out of the sand. The man who had held up the bottom of the sky suddenly found himself weaker than a newborn. Sally's hands, shaking so badly her son could see them from his seat several feet away, came up to cover the woman's mouth.
"Percy." It was a whisper. His mother's eyes flicked across his form, the first tears slipping down her cheeks. She took a tiny step forward. That first movement turned into a second, and not soon after a third. Each step picked up speed to a dead sprint.
Suddenly Sally Jackson was flying over the white sand before skidding forward like a baseball player on her knees. The woman impacted Percy with the infinite love of a mother reunited with her long-lost son. A set of arms he never thought he'd feel again flew around his bare torso like a bear trap, squeezing so hard the son of Poseidon was surprised he didn't feel his ribs crack.
Undeterred, Percy met her with all the strength he could muster. "Mom!"
The sky bearer couldn't help the tearful exclamation as his hands wrapped around the back of her blouse, clutching the fabric desperately. She smelled sweet when he buried his face in her hair, like licorice and cinnamon and love. His mother seemed so small under his hands. Percy's chest hitched once, twice. His vision wavered, all of his senses completely overtaken by a rush of disbelief, hope, grief, and pure joy.
It wasn't long before great, heart-breaking sobs were tearing from Percy Jackson's throat. Like a babe, the now fully-grown man clutched at the form of his mother, shoulders heaving with each horrible, keening wail. Every scar inflicted on his heart from that infinity holding the sky, every crack in his psyche when Percy had come to terms with his death, every hole in his soul from where he had given up on his dreams seemed so far away in that moment. He felt whole. Complete again. The feeling only brought with it another wave of tears.
"Percy. My son." Sally's voice was a whispered mantra, the woman repeating the words over and over as if to convince herself they were true. Her hands roamed across his back, over his shoulders, buried in his long ashen hair. "I knew it. My baby boy. I love you." If she minded the snot and tears soaking her blouse, Percy couldn't tell. His shoulder was wet with her own.
For a small eternity they knelt on the sandy shore, comforting each other in a way only mother and son could. Percy's grip had only tightened, fearing that if he let go Sally's form would be whisked away and he would be back on Mount Othrys again. He couldn't do it, couldn't go back to being surrounded by the void and alone. That truly would break him, completely and irreparably. Like she had been those years ago, Percy used his mother as the anchor that held him to reality.
Eventually, Percy ran out of tears to shed. Every inhale of the woman's calming presence soothed his body in a way not even the ocean had come close to replicating. His throat was raw and his face puffy. With his ratty gray hair and tangled beard, the sky bearer was sure he looked a complete mess.
It was finally Sally who pulled away first. The elder Jackson brought a hand around to tenderly wipe away the lingering wetness beneath her son's eyes before gently cupping his face. Her hands were soft on Percy's cheek. His sea-green met her rich blue.
"You've grown up so much." Her voice was unsteady, echoing the tremors running across her features.
"I didn't mean to." Percy's response was rushed, desperate. His eyes were wild. "I'm sorry mom. I tried. We couldn't beat them, and then I was- I- Mom-" His explanation devolved into stammering as a man who hadn't spoken more than a sentence or two in eons tripped over his own tongue.
"Shh, Percy." Sally's hand released his back, coming around to hold his other cheek. Percy's mother forced her son to look her in the eyes. He beheld the boundless sea of love and understanding that was contained within, and something in him cracked.
"I forgive you. I never held it against you. It wasn't your fault." Each comforting phrase felt like a punch to the stomach, blowing through all of Percy's emotional barriers. For the first time, his mother's lips curved into a smile. All of the new wrinkles on her face seemed to lift away. "I'm so proud of you, Percy. I love you so, so much."
"I love you too." He couldn't say it fast enough. "I love you, mom." He said it a second time just in case. Percy's eyes began to burn again, a great well of emotion churning in his stomach. There were so many questions he had planned, dreamed to ask - how long it had been, what had happened during the war, how she was doing. None of them seemed to matter in that moment.
"Oh, my boy." Sally's second hug was tender where the first was desperate. The motion was loving to the extreme. "I knew you weren't dead. Thank the gods. Thank the gods."
The beach itself seemed to respond to his mother's words - the sun shone extra bright, the waves crashed more cheerfully, even the distant cawing of seagulls trilled like songs of joy. Percy let his eyes fall closed, for once agreeing with the statement. For another long minute nothing was said as the pair swayed a bit to the sound of the ocean. The weary man felt more content than he ever thought possible.
Their peace was broken when someone sniffled sneakily nearby. The teary inhale was muffled, like the person responsible was trying to hide it. Sally perked up in Percy's arms, causing her son to open his eyes. His head turned a bit too look in the direction of the noise but his mother beat him to it.
"Oh, how could I forget?" Sally's voice was infinitely more happy than it had been a second ago. His mother's cheer turned Percy's eyes back to her, where he found the woman's expression bright. "I want you to meet the person who made this possible, Percy. She brought me to see you as soon as she could." Without letting go of his shoulders, Sally Jackson turned the pair to face a bit more inland. "You won't believe it, but I've actually been-"
"It's you."
Percy's whisper echoed across the beach. His mom stilled mid-sentence, finally glancing up to behold her son's shell shocked expression. Standing just a few yards away was someone that Percy had only ever been able to imagine, the face of the woman with whom he had become so intrinsically linked.
It was as if she had been plucked straight from his dreams.
Flowing cascades of deep auburn faded to black at the tips, sleek yet fluffy like a fox's coat. Each strand was so smooth that Percy's fingers could only beg to play with the waist-long locks. Framed inside a pair of impeccably curled curtain bangs was a rounded face that struck the perfect balance between regal and approachable, like a fair princess had decided to let her hair down for a day. Unblemished skin that sat somewhere between silk and satin, the color of a flawless beach-tan.
There was a set of full lips that would have been the temptation of both men and women, pursed just enough to bring the image of that featherlight kiss on Othrys to mind. The tiny, teasing smile that he had only ever felt once seemed just as intimate the second time. Even the couple of stray tears that dripped from the woman's eyes shone like jewels against her flawless features, as if simply touching her elevated them to something heavenly.
Percy had been raised as a polite boy. Even still, the body the woman possessed touched something deep and primal within his core. The sky bearer's heart beat loudly through his ribs, blood rushing to places that hadn't stirred in ages. She was beautiful beyond comprehension, effortlessly stunning from any angle.
It should have been criminal, how well that slim pink sundress showcased every single curve, every dip of skin. The thing did just enough to hold in her generous bust without subduing her impossible perkiness, hiding the perfect amount from view to leave Percy's mouth dry. That snatched waist and those flared hips were beyond what a supermodel could have even dreamed of, perfect shelves for a set of weary hands to rest.
Percy could barely even look at the woman's shapely exposed thighs without his head spinning, and the way they tapered down to a set of delicate sandaled feet was picturesque. He could only imagine the view from behind. And oh, he was imagining it. The son of Poseidon couldn't help it.
The woman looked impossibly Percy's age and yet also mature beyond reason, like she hit the gym consistently and yet had never exercised a day in her life. Her hands were just as dainty as he remembered from the moments before his last encounter with Kronos. They were flapping about in front of the woman's face, as if trying to physically hold back her tears.
Once again, it was the eyes that tipped Percy off. An impossible cross between a deep red and a glowing amber, they sparkled like diamonds in the sun. The son of Poseidon had never been so captivated before.
All in all, she was flawless. Defectless, beyond compare. Something about the woman's presence, her absolute perfection knocked over a slew of long-buried memories in the son of Poseidon''s head. At that moment Percy remembered her. All of the details, all of the stories fell into place. He knew.
"Bonjour, mon cher."
Percy had spent many days thinking about how those tantalizing lips would move when her seductive accent washed across his ears. None of his fantasies lived up to the real thing.
"I'm- It's so good to see you again." Her voice was nearly tripping over itself. The woman stepped closer, and Percy's heart beat even faster than he thought possible. The sky bearer's nose was tickled by the scent of roses, as if her very essence was reaching out to him.
"Oh!" Sally Jackson stood, brushing off her pants with one hand while keeping the other clutched to her son's shoulder. "I didn't know you two knew each other! Well, I mean I did, but- anyway. I guess introductions would be a waste."
The woman giggled in response. Percy was rocked back on his heels at hearing the chiming sound so crystal clear.
"We met in person, once. It was a long time ago." The woman had settled her restless hands by clasping them tightly in front of her chest. Percy was helpless as she glided towards him, pulled by that same unbreakable chain tugging at his ribcage. Her feet didn't even leave the hint of an impression in the sand with each step.
While his mother probably didn't possess enough strength to physically pull Percy from his sandy seat, all it took was one tug and his body was rising of its own accord. The ashen-haired man's point of view went up and up, until he was literally looking directly over his mother's head. It dimly occurred to Percy that he was the tallest person on the beach, which was a foreign sensation to a person whose last interaction with adults had been as a teen.
Thank the gods someone had put a pair of shorts on his hips. They felt uncomfortably tight at the moment.
The rest of Percy's brain was completely, wholly consumed by the sight of the woman approaching them. The son of Poseidon hadn't even inhaled yet. Each sway of the hips was a ballet step, graceful and alluring in a way he couldn't describe. The weaving motion sent the bottom of the sundress swinging such that it was impossible to look away.
She was only a few feet away, now. Her energy was overwhelming to the senses, figure literally glowing with a halo of gold and pink. The woman's eyes held Percy in chains, a hypnotizing swirl of raspberry dark chocolate. He simply couldn't believe what his brain was telling him - she was the woman all this time? When she stepped up next to Sally it was all he could do to keep his hands clenched at his sides.
"Aphrodite?" Finally, her name fell from Percy's lips. "It was you?"
It felt like a lifetime ago that they had last seen each other face to face. It might as well have been. The scene was lost in that great fog in his mind - Percy thought it was somewhere on the quest that would eventually lead to his imprisonment but he couldn't be sure. The son of Poseidon couldn't remember what they had talked about, nor where the meeting had occurred. All the details were obscured.
What was familiar was the sheer presence the goddess of love commanded. Even the beach around them, picturesque as it was, simply paled in comparison. The very world around her dimmed, like a lightbulb being outshined by the sun itself. He was half certain she hadn't looked this way back then but it hardly mattered now.
For nearly a minute the sight of the Olympian completely stumped Percy. There were many reasons, but the first was the surge of confusion, grief, and anger that erupted within his chest. The last goddess he had talked with had betrayed him, allowed the death of at least one friend, and doomed him underneath The Burden for an eternity. Olympus had used and then abandoned the old Percy Jackson.
He could still picture that scene, frozen in time, as his betrayer had fled Othrys. Only flashes were clear - those raised fingers, the blood on the girl's hair, the corpse outside. Aphrodite's hands looked so similar to her half-sisters, the glow around her form even more distinct than the maiden goddess. To be confronted with the fact that his savior was of the same ilk as the backstabbing Artemis had Percy's whole body trembling in anger and disbelief. Was it all a ruse? Was he nothing but a plaything?
But at the same time, the fluttering in the sky bearer's chest had graduated to a full cloud of butterflies. This was the woman. Her voice was the only reason he was still alive. Her words had molded him, shaped him, occupied his every thought. How much of who he was now was because of her? She was the one who had kept Percy sane, the one who had confided in him, the one who told him stories.
She was the one who came back.
"I'm so happy you still remember me, my love. I confess a large part of me feared you had forgotten." Aphrodite's entire countenance shone after Percy had spoken her name. "Are you surprised, dearest?"
Sally Jackson certainly seemed to be when the love deity stepped right up to her son, tilting her head up a few degrees to meet Percy's gaze. That curtain of hair just happened to fall in a way that intimately circled the goddess' regal features, like the universe was posing her specifically for his viewing pleasure. "I can only hope that it is a pleasant one. Suis-je à votre goût, mon cher?"
Aphrodite's tone was even and her smirk seductive, but the goddess' eyes betrayed something wholly foreign - nervousness. The sight was enough to prompt Percy to push through the haze of desire and take a deeper look. When he peered past the mask of confidence and flirt, what the man found beneath was a face torn in a thousand different directions at once.
Now that she was closer the son of Poseidon could see that the love deity's clasping hands were as much to hide their trembling as anything else. Behind her smile Aphrodite's expression was awed, intimidated, almost skittish. The explosive turmoil in Percy's chest abated as he studied Aphrodite. In the silence, the personification of beauty lifted one delicate hand. Her thin fingers hovered a centimeter above the sky bearer's bare chest.
She seemed afraid to touch him.
The air between them had gradually charged with electricity. Percy was hit by the acute sensation of hot breath on his skin from every side as the goddess' pink aura surrounded his form. His skin erupted into immediate goosebumps, and Percy swallowed thickly to keep down a startled noise. Aphrodite's swirling irises searched Percy's own, but for what he could not say.
"I- you," His brain was unable to form any coherent words. "Huh?"
The Olympian had told him she had changed, but this seemed unreal. A goddess, laughing and joking around with his mortal mother? Proclaiming her affections for him, a half-mortal bastard child of her own uncle? It boggled the mind that the sister of Artemis would speak to the very person the maiden goddess had doomed with such care.
Nothing about it made sense. Percy's whole reality had not just been tilted, but flipped completely over and then thrown out a window. The half-sensation of someone blowing gently on the tips of his ears was not helping. Sally Jackson glanced back and forth, nervous at the tension in the air.
"Why?" It was the first question Percy had to ask. He was consumed with the burning desire to understand, to try to find some reason to reconcile the war in his heart. Aphrodite's smile faded.
"There are many answers to that question, mon coeur, all of which take more time than we are currently allowed." Those perfect pools of color around her pupils turned sad and regretful. "Know that I have been truthful with you, love, as much as I was able." Her words were pressed, searching for approval. Percy wanted to believe her so badly but he didn't know if he could.
"I don't understand." Percy's hands worked furiously at his sides, his voice a rumbling growl. It took all of the man's focus to keep his body still and upright. He wasn't sure what it would do if he released control. "Why do all of this? Why help me?"
The feeling of her fingers just above his bare skin was driving the son of Poseidon several levels of mad, all biting and clawing amongst each other. His calves stung as a sudden wind threw sand against his bare legs. It was a helpful distraction to the spectral hand tracing the back of his neck.
Percy's mother, not knowing what was happening but sensing her son's internal struggle, placed a hand on his shoulder. Aphrodite's eyes flickered Sally's way, so fast Percy barely caught the motion.
When the goddess of love's gaze returned his way, her expression had settled and the cracks in the mask had shrunk. The sudden shift left the son of Poseidon stumped for a half-second and the Olympian pounced on the moment. Aphrodite's face quickly morphed to a deep smirk, one thin eyebrow perking suggestively.
"I may not be able to tell you all of the reasons, dearest, but I can give you one." The goddess' voice was dangerous in too many ways to count. "I personally find it rather . . . obvious." Aphrodite continued, leaning in to keep Percy off-balance. "Besides your humble, kind, attractive, and obviously héroïque personality, of course." The love deity made a show of looking Percy up and down slowly. Each inch her glowing eyes raked over felt as if it caught fire, her hovering fingers only feeding the blaze. "Your mother raised quite the spécimen mâle, mon tigre."
The unexpected transition from hesitant to coy had the desired effect of throwing her target's train of thought wholly off the tracks. Percy had forgotten how quickly Aphrodite was able to flip her emotions one hundred and eighty degrees. Completely off-kilter, the man couldn't help but follow Aphrodite's gaze down his chest.
What he saw nearly made the sky bearer jump out of his skin.
When Percy was a teen, he had always been fit. Not overly muscular, but strong in the ways that counted and lithe enough to stay mobile. A sort of 'pleasant when shirtless, mostly hidden when clothed' type of figure that was good for quests and other missions among mortals. Percy had never really cared that much about his body aside from the fact it kept him alive and was in decent working order. His mother had called it a 'swimmer's frame', which definitely made sense considering his father's identity.
The body Percy found upon looking down, once he got past the tangled ashen beard that covered his sternum, was something wholly different. Simply put, Percy was jacked.
It was like The Burden had swallowed a skinny teen and spat out enough muscle mass to lift a tank. Everywhere he looked was larger and more defined - his chest seemed cut from marble and his abs stood out enough to grate steel in a glorious six pack. Percy's biceps rippled when he turned his hands, and his triceps were almost the same size! The son of Poseidon could only imagine what his back looked like. Even his forearms looked ready to enter a bodybuilding competition.
The sky bearer vaguely remembered his vision of having toothpick legs when he was free from carrying The Burden. If the way Percy's shorts bulged across his quads was any indication, that wouldn't be an issue. And was his skin glowing? The exposed expanse of his torso was literally sparkling, dusted in an invisible glitter. Some sort of sea-green energy seemed to waft off his pale form with each breath.
His body was perfect. Too perfect. Unnatural. Inhuman.
Oh gods.
Percy only realized he was starting to hyperventilate when said chest began to move faster and faster, each breath wheezing. When his head whipped up the beach was spinning, his vision blackening at the edges. The choir of gentle murmurs had risen into screams, so loud they tore through Percy's mind. A yawning darkness gaped beneath his feet. A black fortress of stone rose on all sides.
The only reason Percy didn't collapse was the quick reaction of his mother. With a grunt of effort, Sally's arms wrapped around her son's waist until his unsteady feet found the sand again.
"Percy?" Sally's face and tone were alarmed. "Percy!"
To her son the woman's voice was muffled, as if shouting through a thick pane of glass. Percy's eyes were moving madly in their sockets yet completely blind. The beach was graying as its color was sucked out. The void had returned and was clawing its way back towards him. He couldn't let it get him again, but he was trapped in his own body. Percy couldn't breath, he couldn't see, he couldn't feel his limbs.
Through the haze of panic, a warm pair of dual-colored eyes appeared. A delicate set of hands, real hands, alighted gently against either cheek. The skin to skin contact sent tingles down his entire body, a mixture of warm comfort and white-hot desire.
"Mon grand." It was Aphrodite's voice, her flawless face. "I need you to breathe, love." Percy couldn't help the way his body leaned into her addictive touch, instinctively craving more. "Your powers are out of control, and I fear Sally may be in danger if they remain unchecked. If you can't do this for me, do it for her. Vous est entouré de votre proches, Perseus."
It was the threat to his mother that ultimately knocked Percy out of his mental death spiral. The surrounding world snapped back into focus, and brought with it a momentary splitting headache. The fortress crumbled, the hungry may of the void gave way to sand a sea once again. The man could feel the worried embrace of his mother, see the cliffs that sheltered the beach.
Most of all, Percy could make out the full hypnotizing view of Aphrodite. Her alluring gaze and heavenly figure was only a couple inches away, lips pressed in a nervous line and eyes locked on his. If he were to move just a half a step closer, their faces would be touching.
The man dimly registered that the tops of the greenery on all sides were whipping violently back and forth. A rising hurricane wind sent white sand swirling in great restless circles as high as his calves. Where the clouds overhead had once been bright and buoyant, the sky was now an endless canvas of stormy gray and dark heavy masses.
It was the new lack of something, however, that was so gratingly obvious on Percy's brain. The sound of the waves on the shore, the audible personification of his father's domain, was missing. It felt wrong. When Percy found the strength to wrench his gaze away from the goddess of love, the sight that greeted him over one shoulder had his jaw nearly detach from his head.
Where there once was ocean, there now was nothing.
For almost a hundred yards the very sea itself had vanished, leaving behind everything once contained within. The revealed sand was the color of bone, topped with all manner of collapsed kelp and various dying ocean greenery. He could even see, far past the edges of the cliffs, where the sloping shore dropped off into a shadowy trench. Out there the waves breached up against some sort of invisible divider, no taller than toothpicks to the eye.
The worst of the view was the fish - hundreds, thousands of Percy's father's subjects lay stranded, flopping and gasping and dying in a writhing blanket all the way to the vertical edge of the retreated sea. The noise was fleshy and horrific over the howling gale. And where had the water gone, what must have been hundreds of thousands if not millions of gallons? Percy only found it when his neck craned up towards the sky.
Suspended in mid air was the sea itself. The gigantic mass of fluid distorted the view of the clouds above, casting countless refractions across the sand. All of its motion had ceased mid-swell, as if each water molecule was locked in place by the universe itself. The great block of water was completely still, not a single drop finding its way free from the floating mass. It was an eerie, otherworldly sight.
"Percy?" Sally whispered, awe-struck. "Are you doing all this?" The elder Jackson clutched one at one of Percy's muscle-bound arms tightly, her hands too small to even wrap halfway around.
"Yeah." Her son swallowed thickly. Blinking his eyes didn't change what they revealed. "It's not- I didn't even notice." Percy couldn't believe it, but it would have been impossible to not recognize that familiar tugging in his gut.
"Incroyable." Aphrodite's voice was reverent. "To manipulate such powers without thought . . . L'Olympe lui-même va trembler."
Her hushed words inspired Percy to turn back around. The man flinched when he met the goddess' burning gaze.
To say Aphrodite looked as if she wanted to devour him was a gross understatement. Her cheeks and ears were flushed a red nearly as dark as her eyes. Those swirling pools of crimson and brown seemed to drill beneath Percy's skin, stimulating every nerve ending on their way. Framed in her hungry gaze Percy could almost see a silhouette of her form tackling his to the ground and taking him then and there, audience be damned.
Percy swallowed, his entire face rebounding to its previous perpetual blush. He felt his body twitch, the deep parts of the man's brain so tempted by the vision he almost gave in. Percy struggled through the all-encompassing desire to open his mouth once again.
"Lady Aphrodite." The goddess' expression faltered in displeasure at his cold tone. When Percy raised a hand, there were imprints of his fingernails cut into his palms. Imprints oozing golden blood.
"What's happening to me?"