He woke to the sound of the river, then a gentle probing at the edges of his senses as it reached out to embrace him. Before he'd opened his eyes, the river's flow had etched itself into his mind, painting a map of all the waterways in the area. It went fuzzy around the edges, but he could work with what he had.

Three voices spoke at once, overlapping and bleeding into each other like echoes falling through the present and the past. Knowing dripped off every word and he could feel them in every bone of his body. He let out a groan.

"Yes, moan and groan all you like, but that does not change the fact that there are people who need help."

Steeling his will, he slowly rose to his full height, feeling the ache set into his bones as he settled onto his feet. He settled into an easy stance, still guarded though, anyone who had fought with him before would have seen the signs, they'd have known it. But none of those people were there right now, he noted, and the three sisters were, and right now that meant everything.

"You exist now on the boundary between life and death, and as a curtesy we saw it fit to step in before you were doomed to the endless. A curse laid upon your soul has come to fruition, a monstrous thing made of the combined spite of Gaia and Kronos, one that we cannot undo."

"Wait, what?"

"You are stuck here, until we can find a way to get you back home, if we can find a way to bring you home."

Percy felt like the air had been punched out of his chest. He wanted to say something, needed to even, but the words, the breath, the emotions were stuck in his throat.

"Breathe, Prince." Something in his bones knew that it was Lachesis who spoke, and so he listened and took a deep breath, and then another, and then another until he'd managed to control himself and his emotions. Something about the word, the title, echoed within him, almost making him even more nauseous.

"We have tried to correct the error but as of now, there is nothing to be done, and for that we are deeply regretful. But what we can do is offer you a new path forward."

Percy waited for her to continue talking, hoping that whatever she said would reveal some silver lining that would help him see this as something other than disastrous, and unfair, and altogether cruel. But this was Kronos they were talking about, the very same titan who'd eaten his children in a paranoid madness. He wished the old evil fuck would've had the curtesy to stay chopped up into little pieces and littered throughout Tartarus like evil croutons, in a much eviler salad.

"There is a village not far from here, where life is about to change considerably for a group of young people much like yourself. We ask nothing of you, truly, but we do suggest that you stick around. This world has problems and politics of its own, and though we cannot interfere, we will be watching what ripples you make on this reality."

Percy held the raging emotions that came upon him in a vice like grip. He could already feel the water of the river becoming more agitated. He hears the thunder before he's even realized he'd called upon that aspect of his father power, and lets it go, dismissing the storm that had begun to gather overhead. He did however, let out a groan of frustration.

"Fine! Fine. Okay." He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose; he could feel the headache forming already. "Just point me- "

They were already gone. In their place was a single strapped bag, made for brown leather and seemingly already weathered with time. The son of the sea god let out a sigh as he approached the bag, picking it up and slinging it over his shoulder in one smooth movement. He would check it when he had the time, when he was sure that nothing would try to kill him while he took a much-needed rest. So, with not much to go off, or much of a choice either, he began to follow the river.

Minutes turned into hours turned into days and Percy had found himself talking to the fish for some semblance of comfort. They were still just fish at the end of the day, just like back home, and in that he found some strange sense of comfort. They hadn't started calling him lord yet, which was a plus in his eyes. A small school of them had been able to tell him when he was getting closer a town.

Well, what was left of a town.

He'd arrived at a ruin, the desperate picture of people clinging to each other in the face of catastrophe. He recognized it, too well to keep it from tugging at the strings of his heart. Too well to keep his body, or his mouth from moving on it's own. Words spill out and for the first time in days, he hears himself speak out loud.

"How can I help?"

He spent hours wrapping wounds, subtly holding back the flow of blood so they could be cleaned and stitched closed. He moved from person to person, helping where he could in whatever way he could, wherever he could.

Eventually, he lets himself rest, lets his eyes drift close and let's sleep curl itself around him like a blanket. His dreams aren't what he expects. This is not the crafted slumber of Morpheus, nor the wicked intrusion of his demigod dreams. This is something unknown to him, something primal, something Percy thinks no one is meant to see. With far more understanding, than he should have had room for. Epic sized moats of light floated around and through him, and something, something always just out of the corner of his eye that he couldn't quite make out.

Percy is woken up again by another consciousness nudging at the edge of his own. It was a steady, devoted chant of Help Him Help Him Help Him. A horse, he realized soon enough. His eyes fluttered open and he rose to his feet, towards the entrance of the town, toward the desperate pull in his heart that told him where the horse was coming from. Dream forgotten for the time, he was there to help slide the injured man from the horse's back. He let the healers work and soothed the skittish horse as best as he could. He's okay. Simple as it may have been, it seemed to be enough.

"- my father."

The sun nearly blinds him as he turns, and for a moment, Percy thinks he sees something else. The outline of a figure haloed in light, and then another in shadow. Radiant motes of light flowing toward and around him. But then it's gone, and all he sees are the red hair and hazel eyes.

"What?"

They're almost the same height, and Percy would guess, close in age too. The red head has an inch on him and looked well. More than that though, he looks exhausted and scared. But he's alive, and he's breathing, and that's better than what can be said for other people.

"My father, you helped him off the horse. I was saying thank you." Percy blinks and then nods.

"Rand!"

Percy isn't bothered when the boy, Rand, walks away. He watches him go, run into the arms of a girl with deep brown hair and brown skin. She looked shaken herself, nearly clinging onto him as though he was the lone lifeboat in a storm.

He turned and focused on the horse again.

He tuned back into the world when the hairs on the back of his head stood on end. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a woman and a man approach Rand and his friends, who'd gathered around the boy's father. She wore a blue dress, regal but in a style Percy had never seen before. She wore her long brown hair down but used two stands to keep most of it out of her face.

Behind her was a man, with dark hair and darker eyes. His hair was also pulled back into what Percy assumed was either a bun or a ponytail. He didn't care enough to make the distinction. He wore what appeared to be light leather armor of some kind and the sword strapped to his back at least let Percy know he was a fighter. With the way he followed behind the woman, Percy had to guess that he was some kind of bodyguard.

They we're both attractive people, and Percy could admit that he was Greek after all, but there was also something otherworldly about both. He'd been around gods, immortals, and monsters for a large part of his life, he had a sixth sense for this kind of stuff. This felt slightly different, but still divine all the same.

The group conversed for a bit, and that's when Percy felt it. The gentle change in the wind, the charge in the air and then it was gone. He gave the horse a few more calming rubs around it's jaw

"You show up, then these things the next day." He hears Rand say and he turns around fully his time. Percy doesn't move from his spot though, only watches the scene unfold as it does. Watching until he knows he needs to interfere.

"They're here for the same reason as I am." The woman pauses and turns to look at Rand. "For you."

Rand doesn't respond.

"For the fou-" Her eyes glide over them, and Percy is briefly surprised when they meet his own. Cerulean blue vs. sea green. "For the five of you."

Before he can even begin to interject, she continues speaking. Eyes meeting each of Rands friends and then his again.

"Twenty years ago, there was a woman at the white tower. An Aes Sedai born with eyes so white, she couldn't see anything. Yet still she saw."

Percy hated the feeling that crept into his stomach as she continues talking. How his heart jumped into his throat and then threatened to shrivel up and die.

"Glimpses of the turning of the Wheel. The Dark One is waking. His whispers are already in the back of our minds. But there will be one who can stand against him." She pauses.

"The Dragon has been born again. And it's one of you."

"Have you fully lost your mind."

She chuckles, seemingly tired and amused at the same time, as she begins to respond, he bodyguard speak, eyes trained on something behind him, up in the distance marching down the mountain towards the village. There's a screech in the distance.

"What are those?" The girl Rand had hugged earlier spoke, Percy would have to learn her name soon, all their actually.

"The Dark One's army, more Trollocs."

"Three hundred at least." The bodyguard responded. "How'd they get here so fast?"

"Get the horses." Moiraine says without answering his question.

"What? You can't leave." The dark-haired girl says, more than slightly panicked about the monster parade marching toward her village.

"You're coming with me. The five of you." She only gives them a moment to interject. "Your life isn't going to be what you thought. You've lived in these mountains and pretended that what happens in the rest of the world doesn't won't affect you."

"They can't just leave." Percy speaks for the first time. "There are people here who need them."

"They're after you." Moiraine gives a pointed look up towards the army marching towards them, before meeting his eyes yet again. "They will follow you, and if you stay here, this is where they'll come. They will leave nothing and no one standing, and I can't do anything to stop them."

She pauses, collects herself, and then speaks again.

"We must reach the White Tower and the other sisters of the Aes Sedai. There's no time." A look to all of them, deep and certain of her own words.

"We leave now."