Nothing is mine.

Percy meets his child (sort of).

Border Patrol

The lake lay still beneath the fading sunlight, a shining expanse of clear water between the trees and the cabins. A giant inflatable unicorn ring drifted across the water; its bright rainbow-coloured mane and white plastic glowed before the long shadows of the woods and the thick clouds veiling the dusk sky.

Percy took a deep breath and drew back the string with two fingers. 'Am I still, Metea?'

A quiet giggle came behind him.

'That's a no, isn't it.' He lowered the bow and closed his eyes. 'What's more still than water? It's not working when I try to fire an arrow fast or at something moving, I can't still myself with it.'

'What do you mean, my lord?' Metea murmured.

Percy waved a hand at the lake, opening his eyes. 'Water takes a while to be still. If I try to make myself all still and patient by imagining it, it takes me a few seconds to really feel it.'

Permelia and Theora drifted up from the depths, whispering in Metea's ear.

'I need something else.' Rivers flowed through his thoughts, pouring into lakes and seas, splitting into streams, and pooling into small puddles and ponds. 'But I can't think of anything totally still.'

Maybe something small, like a drop of water. Percy pictured a droplet, but it ran down the glass of the window before his mind's eye, trickling down the door to the shower and the inside of the sink, trembling as it hovered at the tip of the tap and on the end of his finger. Still not still.

'My lord,' Permelia whispered, floating forward. 'Our littlest pair of sisters say their waters were disturbed by a frightful beast.'

Percy's hand flashed to his pocket. 'Did they say anything else?'

She shook her head, her dark brown eyes wide.

'I guess I'll go and find out,' he said, drawing Anaklusmos from his pocket. 'It's not quite dark yet. Where should I go?'

Theora pointed across the lake at the distant strawberry fields. 'Over there, where our smallest sisters' streams flow through the trees and over the boundary of your camp into my waters.'

'Thanks.' Percy tossed the old bow onto the dock. 'Let's hope it's not something really annoying, like a rogue harpy. I'm so not chasing one of those through the trees at dusk.'

He strode across Metea's lake and up Theora's river, stepping from the swift rush of her waters onto the dark soil between the neat rows of strawberry plants. The shadows grew longer as he hurried over the low hill, growing deep and dark.

'I'm going to have to hunt it down quickly before I break an ankle out here.' Percy extended Anaklusmos into a xiphos and pressed the cool flat of the bronze blade to his forehead and lips. 'Artemis, I know you're probably busy doing something much more important, but when it comes to tracking I really need all the help I can get, and that's during the day. Otherwise I'm going to wander around out here for three days, break a leg in a hole, and eventually just get maced in the face by a pair of girls out jogging.'

She said she'd help. And she never breaks her word.

He stepped across the boundary and into the trees, straining his eyes in the half-light beneath their branches and picking his way through the brambles to the small stream bank. A single tall pine leant over the water the dark needles on its lower branches brushed the surface of the stream and its roots snaked out across it.

'Right…' Percy squinted up and down the little gully. 'If there is a monster out here, would you just come out. It'd really save me an awful lot of trouble.'

Quiet laughter echoed through the trees.

'Oh laugh,' he muttered, cold unease pooling in the pit of his stomach. 'Just come out and let's get on with it. There's no need to be creepy.'

A slim girl poked her head around the trunk of the tall pine, her eyes as deep a green as the swathe of needles surrounding her and her hair as dark as the bark.

'Oh.' Percy lowered Anaklusmos. 'You're a nymph, aren't you?'

She nodded and pressed a finger to her lips.

'Do you happen to know where I can find something really dangerous around here?' he whispered, stumbling a few feet closer through the undergrowth. 'I've made the unwise decision of trying to find it now instead of waiting for tomorrow morning.'

The nymph beckoned him nearer.

'Wait…' Percy spun Anaklusmos in his hand. 'If you turn out to be a monster and this is a trap, I want you to know now that I am suspicious of you and not completely fooled. Just, you know, for the record.'

She giggled and shook her head, gesturing with her hand.

'Fine.' He struggled through a patch of thick brambles, wincing at the ripping sounds. 'I think I just lost some more clothing.'

The nymph reached out her small hand and ran her fingertips along a small gash in the bark of the pine.

'Yeah…' Percy studied the small dent and the pale wood beneath her pale fingers. 'I can't fix that. Katie might be able to, but I'll ask her tomorrow, if I go off to find her now, well—' sharp bitter waves clamoured in the pit of his stomach '—she's probably going to get the wrong idea and I'll upset her again.' He mustered a smile. 'I don't suppose you'd tell me anything about this monster?'

She glanced around through the trees, curling her fingers into the dark green chiton she wore and shuffling her feet. 'Snake,' she whispered. 'Big snake. Two heads.'

Percy sighed. 'I really hope that doesn't mean it's another hydra. I'm like halfway through Heracles's labours already and I already did that one once; if they need doing a third time, Zeus can get Heracles back down here to finish them himself.'

The nymph smothered her laughter into her hands.

'Yeah, laugh it up,' he muttered. 'You're not the one who has to try and figure out which head to chop off in the dark.'

She pointed upstream. 'Amphisbaena.'

'Amphi-what?' Percy frowned. 'I thought that was dad's wife. No, wait, that's Amphitrite, isn't it, I remember mom saying. And Gabe. Well—' he untangled his left leg from a bramble '—thank you for helping me. I'll ask Katie if she can maybe help with your tree, she's a daughter of Demeter, but I don't really know what she can do, so I can't give you my word that she can heal your trunk.'

The nymph smiled and melted back into the shadow of the pine, disappearing into the dark.

Percy trudged upstream.

A thick swathe of brambles lay crushed into the ground in a long line crossing the stream back and forth beneath the smaller pines.

'Okay, even I can probably track this.' He glanced up and down it. 'And it squashed all these brambles for me, which is actually rather helpful. Good work, amphisbaena, whatever you are.'

Percy turned right and followed it through the trees, ducking and weaving through the branches as the gloom grew thicker.

A soft rustle came over his shoulder.

'You're right behind me, aren't you?' A fierce tingle settled into the skin between his shoulder blades. 'Wonderful.'

Percy twisted around and leapt back, raising Anaklusmos.

The nymph stood in the trail, giggling into her fingers.

He sighed. 'Well I'm glad one of us is having fun. But you should really go back to your tree, because whatever made this is probably big enough to eat you.'

She nodded, but pointed up the trail the way he'd come.

'Oh, I went the wrong way.' A short chuckle escaped him. 'Of course I did. Thank you.' Percy watched her slip away through the brambles and melt into the woods as he retraced his steps. 'At least if it's a hydra it'll be big enough to see in the dark.'

Silver moonlight poured through the trees, pooling across the undergrowth in beams of bright silver, and the full face of the moon shone overhead, glowing pale as ice among the stars.

'Thank you, Artemis,' Percy whispered.

A low fierce hiss tore through the trees.

The tip of a thick, blunt, brown-scaled nose poked through the branches of a pine, brushing them aside, and a pair of huge yellow eyes fixed themselves on Percy.

'Okay…' Percy tracked the line of the serpentine body. 'She definitely said two heads, so where's the…'

The amphisbaena's tail curved around through the brambles and reared up. A second pair of eyes stared down at him.

'Huh. One at each end. Well, you're not a hydra.'

'Father,' it hissed.

'Er… no?' Percy shook his head. 'In fact, that's not a question. It's completely impossible. Maybe you're thinking of my dad? Which would make me your brother; half-brother, that is, mom would definitely have mentioned having a giant two-headed snake child.' He grinned to himself. 'She would have shook her head at me and told me off for somehow being the more troublesome child of the two of us.'

'Father,' it rasped, tasting the air with two long forked tongues.

'Still no.' He pointed Anaklusmos at it. 'Who would your mother even be? Lamia? We didn't exactly hit it off. I don't like snake girls, and I cannot believe this is the second time I've had to say that. You don't look much like Lamia anyway.' Percy blinked. 'Actually… you do kind of look a bit like Medusa's hair snakes now I think about it, but—' he chuckled to himself '—last time I saw her we had an argument and she totally lost her head.'

The two heads stretched out toward him, each baring a pair of vast fangs.

'Don't get mad just because you got the wrong guy,' Percy said, drawing the sea in within himself. 'I'm sure there's a nice snake-father out there somewhere looking for you?'

It lunged.

He leant away from the first snap and ducked under the second, spinning about and leaping over its body as both heads flashed forward. Percy swirled through the middle of them as the pair of heads crashed through the brambles and the small pine sapling behind him, flowing through a series of hissing strikes and slicing Anaklusmos through the centre of the monster's body.

The two halves writhed and thrashed in the undergrowth, breaking branches with loud cracks, and thick, dark red blood splattered the ground.

'Wait…' Percy glanced from one head to the next. 'Now there are two of you. Please tell me you don't somehow grow back the other half of your body like a worm or something.'

The blood bubbled and burst into a stream of dark ants.

'Nope.' He seized hold of the stream. 'Sorry, Agnete or Agnetha, but I am not being covered in angry ants.' Percy swept the waters across the ground, scooping the ants up and crushing them in his fist.

The two halves of the amphisbaena fell still and the glow of its yellow eyes dulled and faded; they burst into golden dust and trickled away into the brambles.

'That wasn't too bad.' Percy poked through the leaves with the tip of Anaklusmos. 'I wonder if it left me a spoil.'

A large, thick steak lay in the dirt.

'Er… no.' He tucked Anaklusmos back into his pocket. 'No chance. I am not eating the snake creature, not raw, not cooked, and definitely not after it called me dad. I just… Why does everything have to be dangerously close to cannibalism with these monsters? First it was Tantalus, then Agrius and Oreius, now the amphisbaena, and Kronos, of course. Well—' Percy stared at the huge piece of meat '—I am not adding my name to the list.'

He stared up through the branches at the light of the full moon among the silver stars and a small smile crept across his face. 'For Artemis,' he murmured. 'Thank you—' the words stuck in his throat.

For showing Zoë. For showing me. For everything, I guess, right?

The steak burst into silver flames and crumbled away into wisps of pale light.

Percy tore his eyes away from the moon and drifted his way back along the stream toward camp. The nymph poked her head out through the branches of her tree as he passed, waving one small hand and flashing him a small smile.

'I'll go find Katie for you tomorrow morning,' he called over his shoulder, waving back as he stepped into the strawberry fields. 'I promise.'

'Promises, promises.' The sweet scent of figs drifted to Percy's nose on Aphrodite's soft whisper and he froze. 'You could go visit her now, Percy. She would not mind.' Her lips grazed his ear. 'Imagine how happy she would be…'

'Not very,' he muttered. 'I'd get her hopes up, turning up in the night like I couldn't wait to tell her something.'

I'd just make it worse.

Aphrodite's laughter sent his heart fluttering as she rested her head on his shoulder. 'But what if you told her what she wanted to hear? Would it be so bad?'

'I'm not lying to her.'

'Are you saying you wouldn't do it because it would be a lie?' Her obsidian-dark eyes studied him, brimming with playful mirth, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. 'Or are you saying that telling her you love her wouldn't be a lie? Is it her you hold in your heart, Percy? Is she the one who anchors you, who stands at the eye of the storm?'

'I'm still not telling you.'

Aphrodite's red lips curved into a bright smile, snatching the breath from Percy's lips. 'She fills your heart like the storm the skies, sweeping all before her. How long can you deny her, Percy?' She leant in close. 'You yearn. I feel it pull at you like the draw of the tide. Demeter's daughter would be yours with just a word. You could let her love you; it would be so easy...'

Percy scowled. 'I won't.'

'So stubborn,' Aphrodite murmured. 'The world is restless, Percy. Trouble comes anew. This name you harbour in your heart, should you not entrust it to someone? Do they not deserve to know?' She cupped his cheek with warm soft fingers. 'You cannot make their choices for them, no? Surely they deserve the chance to choose…'

'I get to choose too,' he said. 'And I choose not to.'

'You spurned the spoil of the amphisbaena when eating it would have blessed you with the attention of many girls. Perhaps even the one who you so deeply, truly admire.' She bent and plucked a gleaming red strawberry from the nearest plant. 'But you spurn them too. You left poor Calypso to cry alone on her island. You left shy Bianca in the afterlife. Sweet Katie gives you strawberries and you burn them. You spurn their love to chase what you want, breaking every heart you snare along the way.' Aphrodite bit the strawberry in half with a small smirk. 'How selfish of you.'

Percy wrestled with the waves her words had set to churning within him, smoothing them out one by one. 'This is how it has to be. If I stopped choosing well, it would all go wrong. Like Luke.'

Aphrodite's laughter melted his heart into a small warm puddle. 'Oh but Percy, it is love that binds you to this world too, isn't it? If you don't choose it, surely you will fall...' She flicked the remaining strawberry half away into the dirt and burst into white smoke.

'I hate these games,' he muttered, trudging through the strawberries. 'I preferred the two-headed snake amphisbaena thing, it just wanted to eat me.'

AN: More can be found via the linktree. More chapters. More stories. My own original stuff. All of that.

linktr . ee / mjbradley