Nothing is mine.

Percy talks about going to the prom with Thalia.

Kourotrophos

Katie slathered red strawberry jelly across her toast with a small knife, rattling it around in the glass jar Percy held out for her as she balanced her plate on her other hand. The other demi-gods drifted from the cabins in twos and threes, clustering at their tables and talking in low tones. Dionysius presided over them from his seat, a can of Diet Coke in one hand and a distant look in the neon purple of his eyes, but Chiron stood behind him, a deep sombre frown upon his face.

'Percy,' Katie murmured, sticking the knife into the jar. 'What happens now?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'But we'll find out soon. Some kind of cryptic unhelpful poetry that will only make sense after it's happened and sounds very ominous, I'm sure.'

'Are you going to ask?' She fiddled with her slice of toast, poking it around in a circle on her plate as Drew and two of her blonde sisters stepped past and threw spoonfuls of yoghurt in the flames. 'Percy?'

'Wait…' One of Drew's sisters spun about on the heels of her knee-high boots and flashed him a bright smile. 'You're Percy Jackson?'

'Last time I checked, I was. Unless you're a naiad, then it's all my lord this, and prince of the sea, that. They never listen to me when I ask them to call me Percy.'

Katie's green eyes narrowed. 'What do you want, Helena?'

Helena flicked her pale blonde hair back over her shoulders. 'Is it true you bathed in the Styx?'

Percy sighed. 'Ye—'

'And that you're hopelessly in love with Calypso but left her behind because you're also helplessly in love with another girl who broke your heart?'

'What? No.' A snort of laughter escaped him. 'But at least that's better than Drew's other made-up stories.' Percy shot Drew a flat stare. 'She knows which ones I mean. And I swear if I hear those again, I'm going to pray to my dad to turn all your clothes into fish pyjamas.'

Drew smirked. 'If you wanted me out of my clothes, Percy, you have to ask me out a few times first.' She offered him an arch look. 'Well, maybe just the once for you; it's not every day a girl gets to spend time with someone who saved the world.'

Heat rushed to his cheeks. 'Nope, nope, nope.' Percy pressed the jelly jar back into Katie's hand as she balled it into a fist. 'You're just asking to be marrowed.'

Katie growled. 'Yes she is.'

Drew half-hid her smile behind her hand and tittered. 'Oh, Katie, if he's not asked you out by now, he's not going to. What would a hero want to do with a girl who just grows strawberries?'

Katie flinched.

A ripple of anger swept through Percy. 'Drew.' He let a little of the weight of the waves trickle into his tone. 'Go away if you can't be nice. Or the next time your mom comes to try and mess with me about girls I might be in love with, I'll throw your name into the mix.'

Drew's brown eyes widened. 'Oh, please do,' she breathed. 'Mom promised me if I found a boy I wanted more than anything, she'd break my heart just right.'

Katie twisted on her heel and stomped off.

'Great work, Drew,' Percy muttered.

'You can come with us instead?' Helena asked.

'No thanks.' He released a long sigh as Katie slammed the door to the Demeter cabin shut behind her. 'I'd rather not hurt Katie any more than Drew hasn't already managed to do and I need to talk to someone.'

Drew shrugged. 'Love is what love is, Percy. It's meant to hurt. Mom says so.'

'You might change your mind after she does break your heart a few times, Drew. Calypso suffers for decades, maybe even centuries, and all she gets are a few selfish days of paradise she knows cannot last.' Percy trudged past the flames and into the trees.

The dryads watched him go, peeking out from behind the trunks of trees. Some gave him shy little waves and smiles as he passed, others dipped their heads, but they all stared after him, a crowd of eyes, coloured every hue of bark and leaf, and a soft tingle swept across the handprint between Percy's shoulders.

'Artemis,' he whispered into the rustle of the leaves and the distant birdsong. 'If you can, watch over Katie. Show her what you showed Zoë. What you showed me. I don't want to break her heart, but…'

But that just seems to be how it works. A clamour of guilt swirled in Percy's gut; it churned like the frothing, clashing waves breaking upon a reef in violent white whirls of cold foam. I can't choose well if I choose someone over everyone.

'But, Perseus?' Artemis's murmur carried to him like the softest breeze.

He twisted around.

She perched upon the branch of a tall beech, one hand on the thick twisted bark, her auburn hair tied up in a simple knot, and her silver eyes as bright and sharp as lightning slicing through the night sky.

The breath slipped from Percy's lips.

He clawed it back with a small smile. 'But I guess I wouldn't be asking you to help her if I didn't think it was going to happen. I just… I don't know how to stop it; I can't give her what she wants—' his heart sunk a fraction, dwindling down into the dark cold depths '—Zoë said…' Percy clutched for it, tried to catch it, to cup it in his hands and drag it back up, but it slipped away. 'I hope…'

Artemis dropped from the branch into a low-half crouch, rising smooth as a fox slinking through the brush and stepping to his side. 'Zoë told you no lies, Perseus. The mortal is not meant to touch the divine; there are consequences for those who do, as you know, as you are. And my father's challenge you might have yet to undertake, but as the greatest child of the Gods since Heracles, you stand upon the precipice of transcendence. Those who seek to stand beside you, even your kin, cannot reach you if they do not follow in your footsteps; they will disappoint, fight, and fail.'

Percy swallowed hard. 'But will you…?'

'I can give her a choice.' She rested a hand on his shoulder, the faintest fragrance of sweet pine sap and juniper reaching his nose, and the handprint upon his spine burnt and stung like a thousand searing silver needles slid into his skin. 'But I think we both know what she will choose, were I to offer it now.'

Percy's heart plummeted, drifting down into dark waters, sinking to the bottom of that cold black, crushed beneath the endless weight of all the waves, a single grain of sand swept out to sea and ground to less than dust. 'Would she choose well if I was gone?' he whispered.

'Close your eyes, Perseus,' Artemis commanded. 'I would have you with your sisters today.'

'My… sisters?'

The corner of her mouth twitched. 'You have met them before. Now—' she lifted her hand from his shoulder and held it out '—close your eyes. You have my word, you will arrive exactly as you are. No antlers. And no breasts. No surprises at all.'

Percy took her hand, his heart skipping like a stone across the sea as Artemis's slim, strong fingers slipped through his, and closed his eyes.

A bright flash of silver stabbed through his eyelids and her hand disappeared.

He opened his eyes.

Artemis's hunters drifted between the four neat rows of tents running across a circular glade, laughing, singing and dancing as they went between them and the stream and the trees beyond; their song lifted Percy's heart back from the black.

'No!' Alexandra stormed from the tents. 'He can't be here.'

'Er… Is this a cooties thing?' Percy glanced at Artemis, but her silver eyes shone with mirth.

'We have thirty-six tents,' Alexandra declared. 'That means from every angle, the camp is tidy. If there are thirty-seven it will all be ruined!'

A snort of laughter burst from Percy. 'What if you leave a gap right in the middle, and put the thirty-seventh tent in there?'

She glowered at him with sharp grey eyes, swiping her blonde hair back from her forehead. 'Lady Artemis's tent goes in the middle, Percy. Obviously.'

'He is only here for the hunt, Alexandra,' Artemis murmured. 'Go tell your sisters, start with Thalia and Iphigenia. I'm sure they would wish to speak to Perseus before it begins.'

'No thirty-seventh tent?' Alexandra's grey eyes brightened. 'Okay, my lady!' She skipped back across the glade. 'Thalia! Iphi! Percy's here!'

A soft sadness tugged at Percy's heart, pulling at it like the last ripples of the tide at the little grains of sand upon Montauk Beach. 'She's a lot like Annabeth. Do you think if I tease her, she'll kick me in the legs? In a weird way, I've kind of missed it.'

'Annabeth Chase would have made a fine companion,' Artemis said. 'I offered once, but she refused.'

'Because of Luke.'

'Neither she nor Thalia—' she pointed across the tents toward where the dark-haired figure of Thalia jogged out of the trees beside Iphi's willowy form '—wished to leave him to fend for himself.'

'He died after he broke his promise to Annabeth,' Percy whispered.

'The Blessing of the Styx requires an anchor, and there is but one strong enough to defy the current of that river.' Artemis favoured him with a small breathtaking smile. 'As you know.'

'Love.' Percy's heart trembled, quivering like a drop of water hovering at the tip of a leaf. 'Yeah, I know. Aphrodite likes to remind me.'

She's usually not talking about the love of a sister, though.

'Percy!' Thalia jumped the last few feet and swept him into a tight hug. 'Why are you suddenly taller than me?'

'I guess because I grew.' He measured from the spiky tips of her hair across to his eyebrows. 'You're forever stuck in your teen emo phase, sucks to be you. Thalia's never going to be prom queen…'

She snorted. 'Good. Can you even imagine me in a fancy pink prom dress?'

'Yes.' Percy grinned. 'I can. You look great. And now you've had all this time learning how to sing well from Artemis, you can finally be the Disney princess that you always secretly wanted to be.'

'I'll show you a princess.' Thalia stomped on his foot.

'I bet you will, all we need is that prom dress.' Percy chuckled. 'Artemis, if I happened to pray really hard, do you think…?'

The corner of her mouth crooked. 'No, Perseus.'

'But she's already wearing the tiara, she's halfway there already.'

'Shut up.' Thalia patted her can of mace. 'Or I'll show you my prom accessories real close up.'

Iphi laughed as she approached.

'Thalia, come and gather your sisters with me,' Artemis murmured. 'Iphigenia wishes to speak with Perseus alone.'

Thalia blinked. 'She does?'

Iphi coloured. 'My lady,' she protested.

Artemis's lips twitched. 'Is something amiss, sister?'

'No, my lady.' Iphi sighed. 'You are correct, I do.'

Percy chuckled. 'She's going to get cooties,' he whispered to Thalia. 'And at her age, illnesses are very dangerous.'

Thalia rolled her blue eyes and swatted him on the arm.

Artemis raised her palm; Percy's battered old bow spun into being upon it with a quiver of sharp, silver-tipped barbed arrows. 'Here, you will have need of these.'

For another hunt. Probably of something as unsporting as the last two.

Percy took them with a murmur of thanks and she turned away toward the camp. Thalia followed, trailing Artemis's slim, auburn-haired form toward the tents.

Iphi smiled at him. 'Percy. It is good to see you again. I hear you've learnt how to hunt?'

'But not how to track properly,' he confessed. 'And I'm still much less dangerous with a bow and a lot of arrows than with a sword.'

'If Artemis hunted with you, you cannot be that terrible.'

'I think she was mostly just laughing at me the whole time,' Percy said. 'I'd just learnt how to shoot straight and she sends me to hunt Mormolyce. And she never even said Mormolyce could turn into a ghost.'

Iphi laughed. 'Well, tracking is something that takes experience.' The smile slid from her face. 'You bathed in the Styx, did you not?'

'I did.'

'And when you stepped in, it was her you thought of.' Iphi nodded. 'Of course it was. You were close, toward the end.'

'I won't let her down. I can't die until I do.' Percy cupped the line of Anaklusmos in his pocket. 'I gave my word not to. To Artemis.'

'Be wary of the mistakes of your predecessors,' Iphi murmured. 'Lady Artemis has had many companions, but not all left her side with grace or honour as Zoë did. Orion and his hubris met with death. Kallisto and her lust for those with power led her to be seduced by Zeus.'

Why would Zeus even do that? He frowned. Perhaps I've just not seen that aspect of him. Something to do with power.

'I gave my word,' he said. 'That's that.'

Iphi's eyes softened. 'Zoë would be proud.'

A small hot lump swelled in Percy's throat. 'I just try to choose well. That's all. And be brave. It's nothing. Everyone else tries to do it as well.'

The high clear note of a horn rang across the glade.

'The hunt will soon begin.' Iphi's smile broadened into a grin. 'A competition I have won more than any other still among us.'

'Sisters.' Artemis's silver eyes flicked to Perseus. 'My companions. Within these woods wanders the Ceryneian Hind, a creature dear to me. It is swifter than your arrows and nimbler than any of you, but if one of you brings it down, you will win a prize, a weapon made from the sacred wood of the trees of my own ancient sanctuaries.'

Percy sighed. 'See, I would quite like a really cool bow, but the chances of me tracking anything faster than anyone else here is basically nothing.'

There are no rules to the hunt, Perseus. Artemis's words whispered through his thoughts like the breeze through the trees. Whatever you have at your disposal is yours to use, be it sword, spear, claw, fang, or the power of your birthright.

'On second thoughts,' Percy said. 'I might be able to.'

'Go, my companions—' Artemis's hair shivered dark as ebony and her eyes bled crimson '—bring me the hind.'

Iphi bounded away into the trees.

Percy glanced around the glade and jogged through the tents, leaping guide ropes and kneeling down at the stream's edge. Artemis's amaranth red eyes tracked him, sharp as the gaze of a hawk, a faint smile on her lips.

He rested his palm upon the surface of the water. 'Hi?'

A slender, dark-haired nymph burst from the broad stream, her big blue eyes wide. 'You're Perseus,' she breathed. 'I was just drifting down to meet my sisters and then woosh I was just a drop of water beside you, nothing compared to all the weight of the waves you carry.'

'I'm just Percy,' he said. 'Can I borrow your waters? It's only for a moment.'

'I'm Emarosa, my lord.' She nodded her head. 'I'm yours. Do as you will with me.'

'So much for just Percy,' he said. 'But thank you, Emarosa.'

A rosy flush rose on her cheeks. 'Are you staying long, my lord?' Her eyes darted past to Artemis. 'You can stay here beside my waters as long as you wish.'

'If you delay any longer, one of your sisters may return victorious before you ever leave the glade,' Artemis called. 'It is still a competition, Perseus. Do not let them win.'

'The great Artemis Aristo has a point.' He grinned as her lips twitched. 'This may feel a little strange, I think, Emarosa, but it won't be for long. I can't do it for very long without getting a splitting migraine.'

Percy scooped Emarosa's stream up like a palmful of water and cast it through the trees in a fine mist, tearing a soft little gasp from the trembling, wide-eyed nymph.

A tangle of leaves, branches, boughs, grass, ferns and brambles flooded his mind, carried to him by the touch of countless drops of water in the fog like a thousand thousand fingertips drifting through the forest. The brush of feathers, fur and the flutter of fly's wings flitted through his thoughts.

But no hind. Percy clawed through them as a dull ache settled into his temples. Maybe I should look further. He forced the fog out through the trunks, wincing as the ache swelled into a stabbing pain.

Among a myriad of tall blades of grass, a soft golden fur brushed through his thousand fingertips.

Found you. Percy drew the mist back in and released it into the stream.

Emarosa shot him a shy smile, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed. 'It was strange, my lord. But I didn't mind it. To be held captive to your touch.'

Naiads are so weird sometimes.

Percy studied the string of his bow, searching for something to say. 'I have to go hunt a hind, but thank you, Emarosa.'

He leapt across her stream, sprinting through the ferns, weaving through roots, trunks, branches and brambles like river winding through the trees.

A flash of gold caught Percy's eye ahead of him and he ducked behind a pine. Drawing an arrow from the quiver, he nocked it, leaning out from behind the trunk and setting his footing.

The slender golden hind trotted through the ferns forty paces beyond the barbed silver arrowhead, its hide gleaming in the sun.

I suppose if I prayed for help, you'd say no, right, Artemis?

Her laughter drifted to his ears like distant birdsong from the trees. It would be unfair of me to favour one companion above the others. This will be a fond memory for all of you before what is soon to come. A gentle balm of remembrance against the loss of those dear and one that we will no doubt again be glad of.

A ripple of unease swept through Percy, but he drew back the string and loosed the shaft at its head. The arrow hissed over the hind's head and it bounded away, leaping through the trees and out of sight. A second flashed after it from away to his right, but the hind accelerated in a blur of gold and left it stuck in the trunk of a birch behind it.

'Foolish boy.' Iphi poked her head out from behind another tree. 'Don't aim for the head, aim for the heart. It is far too swift for a second shot.'

Percy pulled a new arrow out of his quiver. 'Are you even allowed to aim for the heart? Isn't that against your vow to Artemis, Iphi?'

She laughed. 'You are still foolish, but I am impressed you found it before I did; I am the best tracker and among the swiftest of Lady Artemis's companions.'

'I cheated,' he said. 'Sort of. Artemis said it was fine, but it involves no real tracking.'

'The wilderness has no rules.' Iphi smiled. 'And the further the hind runs from us, the more likely my tracking will be victorious over your speed.'

'Sneaky.' Percy folded his arms. 'I guess I'll just wait and follow you, then.'

Iphi shrugged. 'If you wish.' She darted away through the trees.

Percy gave chase further into the forest, arrow in one hand and bow in the other; his heartbeat pounded in his ears and sweat trickled down his temples as Iphi's slender figure weaved through the trunks ahead of him.

She's faster than I am. And she's going to find it first anyway. He groped about for some kind of plan. I guess I have to try to do what Artemis did to me. And shoot from further away as soon as I see it.

A flicker of gold caught his gaze and Iphi slowed, stalking through the undergrowth toward the slim hind beneath the branches of tall oak near two hundred feet away.

This is never going to work for me like it did for you. But I may as well try, right, Artemis?

Percy nocked his arrow, setting his feet still and steady in the loam, and drawing back the string; he took a deep breath, letting the slow wash of the tide sweep through him to the slow thud of his heart, and froze it. He froze it as still as winter icicles hanging from the windowsill of his mom's apartment or the puddles upon the sidewalk outside, and let the arrow fly.

It streaked through trees, whispering through the leaves of a beech sapling and past Iphi's ear, but as it touched the golden hide of the hind, it shivered into a spear of amaranth and bounced off into the ferns.

Iphi whirled around. 'You…' She glanced between him and the hind, lowering her bow. 'Zoë would be proud of that, too; it was a fine shot.'

Artemis leapt down from the branches of the oak, resting one hand on the hind's slim golden neck.

Percy hurried through the trees, Iphi jogging at his side. 'Did I win?'

'The Ceryneian Hind would have been slain by your arrow.' Artemis glanced at him, her eyes bright crimson sharp, as savage as a blood-smeared barbed shaft. 'The triumph is yours alone.' She lifted the spear of amaranth flowers from the ferns and spun it on her palm; it blurred into a slim bracelet of intertwined leather leaves. 'Here, Perseus, your prize—' Artemis held it out upon her palm '—a bow of unerring accuracy for a worthy companion of mine.'

Percy caught the fierce flash of pride in her red eyes; it snatched his heart away like the talons of a hawk, plucking it from his breast and soaring off toward the sky and the stars beyond. 'Thank you,' he whispered.

Iphi cocked her head. 'I didn't know you could shoot like that. I would've tried the riskier shot if I had.'

'The hunter that best knows the lie of the forest, is the one that takes the prize,' Artemis murmured. 'Perseus is no wild offshoot of a lesser god, he lingers at the cusp of divinity by his own choice alone, and knows well now how to use the nature of his birthright to aid him.' The red bled from her gaze and she stared at him with eyes of soft molten silver and the faintest hint of a fond, proud smile, rising from her crouch to rest her warm hand upon his shoulder. 'Always, he chooses well, no matter how heavily the world weighs upon his shoulders.'

Fierce tingling swept across the spot between Percy's shoulder blades, burning through him to the bone. Because you showed me how to. A strange, sweet little ache yanked at his heart, like the sudden tug of the turning summer tide upon his toes. She showed us both, right, Zoë?

AN: More chapters to read via Discord! And all my first draft chapters and original stuff for those who support me!

linktr . ee / mjbradley