Act 5: The Lost Hero
The winter after Halloween brought an unusual cold to New York. The streets were covered with early snow, and the north wind blew with a force that seemed to contain omens.
Diana and I had fallen into an almost domestic routine that, looking back, should have warned us that something terrible was about to happen. Because in a demigod's life, calm always precedes the most devastating storm.
Three days before everything changed, we were in Central Park, walking among the freshly fallen snow. Diana wore a long dark gray coat over her usual silver clothes, and the blue scarf my mother had knitted for her for Christmas.
"There's something strange in the air," she commented, her breath forming small clouds in the cold. "The birds are restless, the trees whisper warnings."
"Do you talk to trees now?" I asked, half-joking. "Is that a requirement for being a huntress, or just a personal hobby?"
She shot me a look that could have frozen the lake we had just passed. "I don't talk to trees, idiot. I sense nature. And right now, it's screaming that something is coming."
"Something like another attempt at world destruction? Or something more along the lines of a particularly annoying snowstorm?"
Diana stopped, her eyes fixed on the horizon where dark clouds were gathering. "Something ancient," she said quietly. "Older than the titans. And it's awakening."
A shiver that had nothing to do with the weather ran down my back. Diana rarely showed fear, but now there was something in her voice, an uneasiness that bordered on contained panic.
"What can we do?" I asked, suddenly serious.
She turned to look at me, her changing eyes shining with an intensity I had never seen before. "Prepare," she replied simply. Then, doing something completely unexpected, she took my face in her gloved hands and kissed me.
It wasn't our first kiss, but there was a desperation in this one, an urgency that left me breathless. When we separated, her eyes were full of an emotion I couldn't identify.
"What was that for?" I asked, slightly dazed.
"Because I can," she replied with a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "And because I have the unsettling feeling that I should take every opportunity."
That night, as we slept in my room (my mother had established a "don't ask" policy regarding the increasingly frequent times Diana stayed overnight in my room), I had a strange dream. A woman in a goat dress appeared amid ancient ruins, whispering about "exchanging heroes" and "uniting two worlds." I woke up startled to find Diana watching me in the darkness, her eyes glowing like a feline's.
"Another dream?" she asked quietly.
"Something about goats and heroes," I muttered, already feeling the details slipping from my mind. "Nothing clear."
Diana frowned, as if trying to decipher a particularly annoying riddle. "Demigod dreams are rarely casual," she said, brushing a strand of hair from my forehead with unusual tenderness. "Especially in times like these."
"Times like what exactly?"
She sighed, an ancient and tired sound that seemed to come from someone who had seen too many cycles of destruction and rebirth. "Times of change, Percy. When old orders crumble and new dangers emerge."
"You sound like a particularly depressing fortune cookie," I tried to joke, but the humor sounded forced even to my own ears.
Her smile was sad. "Sometimes even the silliest fortune cookies contain truths."
The night before my disappearance, Diana appeared at my window past midnight. It wasn't unusual—in fact, it had become our new normal—but something in her expression immediately alerted me that something wasn't right.
"What's wrong?" I asked as she entered, shaking the snow from her coat.
"I had to take a detour," she explained, her voice tense. "There's... unusual activity. Movements of gods who shouldn't be moving."
"What kind of activity?"
"I'm not sure." She removed her gloves with abrupt movements. "But Artemis has summoned all the huntresses. There are emergency meetings on Olympus."
A knot formed in my stomach. "And will you respond to that call?"
Her eyes met mine, a silent battle raging in them. "I can't," she finally admitted. "Not directly. But I have... ways of finding out."
I wanted to ask her more, to unravel the mystery that always surrounded her, but something in her expression stopped me. Instead, I simply opened my arms, offering the silent comfort I knew she needed.
Against all odds, Diana accepted the embrace without resistance, burying her face in my chest as if she wanted to hide from the entire world.
"I have a bad feeling," she murmured against my shirt. "As if we were on the edge of a precipice and couldn't see what's below."
"Whatever it is," I promised, "we'll face it together."
A promise that, without knowing it then, I was about to break.
That night, as we slept, Diana did something unprecedented. She took a small package from her pocket and placed it on my nightstand.
"What's that?" I asked, half-asleep.
"A gift," she replied, with a solemnity that fully woke me up. "Don't open it until you really need it."
"And how will I know when that is?"
An enigmatic smile curved her lips. "You'll know."
I should have insisted. I should have asked more. But sleep was calling me, and in the safety of my room, with Diana curled up beside me, it was hard to believe that something truly terrible could happen.
I woke up alone. It wasn't unusual; Diana often left before dawn. I got up, showered, ate the breakfast my mother had left.
And then... nothing.
Literally nothing.
The next clear memory I have is from months later, waking up on a school bus headed to the Grand Canyon, with no idea who I was or how I got there. Only with a name in my mind (Diana) and a silver arrow pendant around my neck that, for some reason I couldn't understand, I refused to remove.
Everything that happened between those two points—my disappearance, my journey to Camp Jupiter, my slow recovery of memory fragments—is a story you already know. What you don't know, what I couldn't know then, is what happened with Diana during those months.
This is her story, the one she told me much later, when the wounds had healed enough to talk about them.
Diana knew something was wrong when she returned to my apartment that night and found my mother in a state of controlled panic.
"Percy hasn't come home," Sally explained, her voice tense with worry. "He's not answering his phone, no one has seen him since this morning."
Perhaps someone else would have tried to reassure her, suggest reasonable explanations. Diana wasn't someone else.
"Have any gods entered this apartment recently?" she asked directly, her eyes scanning every corner as if they could reveal divine secrets.
My mother blinked, momentarily surprised by the question. "Not that I know of. Why? Diana, do you know something?"
"Suspicions," Diana replied, already heading for the door. "I'm going to find him, Sally. I promise."
"Diana," my mother's voice stopped her, "be careful. Whatever it is... I feel like this is just the beginning."
A grim smile curved Diana's lips. "It always is."
Her first stop was Camp Half-Blood, where she found controlled chaos. Annabeth was organizing search groups, Chiron maintained communication with satyrs scattered across the country, and campers were preparing for what seemed to be another imminent crisis.
"Where is he?" demanded Diana, bursting into the Big House without announcing herself.
Chiron looked at her with a mixture of surprise and resignation. "Diana. I was wondering when you would appear."
"I'm not in the mood for games, centaur." Her eyes gleamed with barely contained fury. "Percy has disappeared. I want to know who took him and where he is now."
"If I knew," replied Chiron with forced calm, "we wouldn't be organizing desperate searches."
"Who did it?" insisted Diana, coming so close that even Chiron, with his millennia of experience with angry divine beings, backed away slightly. "What god dared?"
"Diana," Annabeth's voice interrupted, entering the room with maps in her hands, "if you know something, anything, we need that information now."
For a moment, something passed across Diana's face, an emotion so raw and vulnerable that it surprised both witnesses.
"I don't know anything," she finally admitted, and the frustration in her voice was palpable. "But I'm going to find out."
The following weeks saw Diana embark on a relentless search. She hunted for clues in the city, interrogated nymphs and nature spirits, even ventured into territories forbidden to normal huntresses. Unlike demigods, she could move more freely, using skills and connections that others could only dream of.
One night, while tracking rumors in Seattle about an army of monsters gathering, Diana felt a familiar presence approaching. Too familiar. It wasn't the kind of familiarity you feel when recognizing a companion or friend; it was more intimate, more disturbing. Like looking in a mirror and seeing your reflection move on its own.
The air itself seemed to change, charging with a silver energy that made the hairs on her arms stand up. Diana held her breath. Not now. Not when she was so close to finding Percy.
"I knew I would find you here," said a voice behind her, a voice identical to hers but more formal, more distant, with a timbre that resonated with the authority of centuries.
Diana turned slowly, facing the only person in the universe who could completely destroy her. The irony didn't escape her: being destroyed by a part of herself.
Artemis, in her form of a twelve-year-old girl, was standing on the roof where Diana had been watching a suspicious warehouse. Her silver eyes—the same eyes, fundamentally, that Diana saw every time she was reflected in any surface—studied the huntress with a mixture of curiosity and something more complex.
Look at yourself, thought Diana, observing her Greek counterpart, millennia of existence and you don't even recognize your own face in another form. How can she be so blind?
"My lady," Diana replied, bowing her head in a gesture of respect that she hoped would hide her panic. The term "my lady" burned in her throat like acid. How could she be her own lady? How could she be a servant of herself? The absurdity of her existence had never been so painfully evident as in these rare encounters.
"My huntresses are looking for you," said Artemis, walking toward her with the grace of a predator. Her steps made no sound on the metal roof, as if she didn't even really touch the surface. "You've been unresponsive to my calls for months."
Diana observed Artemis's face, looking for any sign, however minimal, of recognition. Something that would indicate that the goddess felt that connection, that fundamental bond that united them. But there was nothing. Just the evaluating gaze of a leader before a problematic subordinate.
She doesn't even remember since when I've been in the hunt, thought Diana bitterly. So many huntresses throughout the millennia, and she doesn't realize that I am different, special. Although I never really joined but was always here as one more. How can she not feel that we are the same soul divided in two?
"I've been... following clues about the growing threat," Diana replied, carefully choosing her words as if walking on thin ice. "I work better alone."
Artemis's eyes shone with a flash of approval. It was the same gleam that Diana had seen in her own eyes when hunting. That similarity, that clear evidence of their connection, and yet...
"Is that all you've been doing?" asked Artemis, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "Because my huntresses have noticed strange patterns in your movements. Always near certain... demigods."
Diana's heart accelerated, but her face remained impassive, a skill perfected over millennia. My existence was always a mystery, she reflected while maintaining her serene expression, and she sees it as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Nobody asks questions. To her, I'm just another huntress.
"I followed what I considered the most promising leads," Diana replied, holding the goddess's gaze with more courage than she really felt.
"And they led you to Perseus Jackson?" Artemis's voice was deceptively casual, but it contained centuries of power and authority. Each syllable of Percy's name made Diana feel physical pain, as if invisible fingers were squeezing her heart.
"Among others," Diana replied, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. "The son of Poseidon has been at the center of important events repeatedly. His disappearance is no coincidence."
As she spoke, part of her wanted to scream: It's more than that! He's the only person who has made me feel complete! It's the first time in millennia that I feel something truly mine, not yours, not ours, just MINE!
Artemis studied her for what seemed like an eternity, her eyes identical to Diana's reflecting the moonlight. The silence between them was like a third presence, thick and threatening.
"There's something different about you," the goddess finally said. "Something I can't quite place."
Diana felt a flash of hope immediately followed by terror. Does she finally notice? After all these centuries? But the fear of being discovered outweighed any longing for recognition.
"Times are changing, my lady," Diana replied with a calm she didn't feel. "We all must adapt."
Inside, Diana felt divided, literally. Part of her wanted Artemis to recognize her, to finally understand who she really was. Another part knew that such recognition would mean the end of everything she had built, especially her relationship with Percy.
"Hmm." Artemis didn't seem convinced, but she didn't press further either. Her eyes momentarily drifted to the shadows, as if listening to something Diana couldn't perceive. "Be that as it may, there are more urgent matters. Hera has disappeared, Zeus is furious, and something ancient is awakening."
"Gaea," said Diana. It wasn't a question.
Artemis nodded. "Mother Earth herself. And I fear that Jackson's disappearance is connected."
Hearing Percy's name again, Diana had to fight against the impulse to show too much interest. I feel misunderstood by the other half of my soul, she thought with a mixture of sadness and resentment, but I won't let her ruin the only good thing that has happened to me in my immortal existence.
"How?" she asked in a carefully modulated tone.
"Hera spoke of uniting the camps before she disappeared. Greek and Roman." Artemis paused, and a strange expression crossed her face. "Something that should be simply impossible."
A bitter laugh almost escaped Diana's lips. Impossible? Like the Roman version of Artemis developing a separate consciousness and falling in love with a demigod? That kind of impossible?
Diana carefully maintained her neutral expression, though internally her mind was working at full speed. "Romans? There are Roman demigods?"
She pronounced the question with perfect innocence, as if the existence of Romans was a total surprise to her. The irony was almost unbearable. She, the very personification of Greco-Roman duality, pretending to know nothing about Romans before her own Greek counterpart.
"That's information you shouldn't have," Artemis replied, but her eyes softened slightly. "However, yes, they exist. Separated from us by divine design to prevent another civil war."
And what about us? Diana wanted to ask. What about the civil war that occurs within our own shared soul? But she limited herself to nodding respectfully.
Diana felt a piece of the puzzle falling into place. "And you think Hera... exchanged leaders? Sent Percy to the Romans and brought someone from them to us?"
The idea of Percy among the Romans, without his memories, made something twist painfully inside her. Percy, who looked at her as if she were the moon itself, now wandering without memory. Without remembering her. It was almost unbearable.
Artemis looked at her with renewed curiosity. "You're exceptionally perceptive, as always."
Diana could barely contain an ironic snort. We're the same person, she thought. Of course you find me "perceptive." They're your own thoughts reflected.
"Where are they?" Diana asked, too anxious to maintain caution. The need to find Percy clouded her usual precaution. "The Romans."
"That's not something I can reveal, even to you." Artemis frowned, and for a moment, Diana saw a shadow of suspicion in her eyes. "Your interest in Jackson is... concerning."
The moment of danger made Diana retreat to her carefully constructed facade. So many centuries maintaining this charade, she thought with resignation. Being the shadow of the huntress. The moon reflected in a puddle while the real satellite shines in the sky.
Diana had to choose her next words with extreme care. "My interest is in the survival of our world, my lady. Jackson is a key piece, he has proven it repeatedly."
Artemis took a step closer, and Diana felt the divine power emanating from her like heat from a bonfire. It was the same power that ran through her own veins, but somehow different, more concentrated, purer.
"Is that all he is to you? A piece on the board?" Artemis's voice was soft, but with a dangerous edge.
The critical moment had arrived. Diana knew that her answer would determine whether her secret would remain safe or if everything would crumble. The temptation to confess, to finally free herself from this eternal game of hide and seek, was almost irresistible. But then she thought of Percy, of his crooked smile, of how his hair fell over his eyes when he was tired, of the way he said her name as if it were something precious.
She resorted to her only defense: a partial truth.
"He is an exceptional hero," she replied, keeping her voice firm. "Different from other men. He has shown respect for our order, saved our sisters, and held up the sky to free our goddess." She allowed herself a small pause before adding: "My interest is in preserving someone who could be crucial for the coming battle."
Every word was technically true. She just omitted the small detail that she had fallen hopelessly in love with him.
Artemis studied her a moment longer, looking for any hint of falsehood. Diana maintained her open and sincere expression, using millennia of practice to hide what she really felt.
Finally, Artemis nodded slowly. "I understand your reasoning, though I don't share your... admiration." She made a significant pause. "Be careful, Diana. The line between admiration and something more dangerous can be thin for some."
For some? Diana wanted to laugh. The line isn't just thin, I crossed it a long time ago. And you, the other half of my being, can't even imagine it.
"I have nothing to fear in that regard," Diana replied, and the lie burned her throat as if she had drunk fire from Phlegethon.
"Good," Artemis seemed satisfied, and Diana felt relief so intense she almost became dizzy. "Because nothing would be more tragic than one of my huntresses falling into the trap of love, that prison that enslaves women and makes them abandon their potential."
Diana bowed her head, hiding the storm in her eyes. The greatest irony of all, she thought. That the eternal virgin goddess has a part of herself in love with a demigod. That the defender of female independence yearns to be with a man.
"Of course, my lady," she replied, and thanked whatever cosmic force existed that Artemis couldn't see the truth in her heart. Or perhaps she simply didn't want to see it. Perhaps there were parts of oneself that were too contradictory to recognize, even for a goddess.
When she looked up again, Artemis had already changed the subject, apparently satisfied with her explanation. "The Romans are gathered in California. The camp is called Jupiter. I can't tell you more, and you shouldn't actively seek them out. There are ancient barriers, curses that prevent contact."
"I understand," said Diana, though internally she was already planning her trip west. Artemis could forbid whatever she wanted; Diana would find Percy no matter the cost.
"One more thing," added Artemis, preparing to leave. "It's possible that Jackson doesn't remember who he is. Hera has... particular methods."
Diana's heart froze. It was one thing for Percy to be lost; it was much worse that he didn't remember who he was. That he wouldn't remember her.
And with that, the goddess disappeared in a flash of silver light, leaving Diana alone with a mixture of relief for having survived the encounter and a new and terrifying understanding.
Percy wasn't just lost. He was lost and without memories.
Diana fell to her knees on the roof, breathing raggedly as the accumulated tension abandoned her. The constant presence in the back of her mind, that ethereal echo of her connection with Artemis, faded until it became a barely perceptible whisper.
"She doesn't recognize me," she murmured to herself, the realization hitting her with renewed bitterness. "After all these centuries, all these millennia sharing a soul, she looks right through me."
Diana raised her eyes to the moon, bright and distant in the night sky. The same moon that was technically her domain, as much as Artemis's. And yet, while Artemis summoned her power with the natural authority of one born to wield it, Diana felt that every flash of divinity she manifested was stolen, borrowed, questionable.
"Perhaps it's better this way," she told herself, standing up with renewed determination. "If she doesn't see who I really am, she won't see what I plan to do either."
With Percy she had found something she never thought possible: an identity of her own, separate from Artemis. A love that was exclusively hers, not an echo of the thoughts or feelings of her Greek counterpart. For the first time in her eternal existence, Diana felt she had something she could genuinely call her own.
And no virgin goddess, not even if she was technically herself, would take that away from her.
"I will find you, Percy Jackson," she promised to the night, as she mentally prepared for her journey west. "With or without your memories, I will find you and bring you back. Even if I have to defy all the gods of Olympus."
Including, she thought with an ironic smile, herself.
"Damn you, Hera!" Diana shouted that night, deep in a forest where no one could hear her. Her fury made the trees tremble and animals flee in terror. "I swear by the Styx that if you've done permanent harm to him, I will find a way to make you pay!"
Thunder rumbled in the distance, sealing her oath.
Diana fell to her knees, the exhaustion of months of searching finally catching up with her. She had been so close to revealing everything, to losing the precarious balance she had maintained for so long. For the first time in millennia, she felt tears forming in her eyes.
"I will find you, Percy," she whispered to the night. "Even if I have to defy all the gods of Olympus."
The journey to California was complicated. The divine barriers that separated the Greek and Roman worlds were powerful, specifically designed to keep the two factions apart. Diana, however, had a unique advantage: her own dual nature.
When she finally located Camp Jupiter, after weeks of careful searching, she kept her distance, observing. What she saw chilled her blood: Percy, her Percy, dressed in a purple toga, directing combat exercises for Roman demigods.
But it wasn't really her Percy. Not completely. There was a caution in him, a barely disguised confusion, like someone desperately trying to play a role for which he had no script.
Diana watched him for days, assessing the situation. She couldn't simply approach him. The presence of a huntress of Artemis in Roman territory would unleash chaos. Besides, if Percy had really lost his memories, revealing everything to him could be dangerous for him.
So she waited and watched, coming close enough to ensure he was safe, but never close enough to be detected.
Until one night, when Percy walked alone to the forest surrounding the camp, apparently needing a moment of quiet.
Diana should have remained hidden. It was the most sensible thing, the safest for both of them. But after months of desperate searching, of sleepless nights worried about his fate, the temptation was too strong.
She moved silently among the shadows, coming close enough for him to notice her, but maintaining the distance imposed by her role.
Percy immediately tensed, his hand instinctively going to his pocket where he kept Riptide.
"Who's there?" he called into the darkness, his voice so familiar that Diana's heart physically ached.
She emerged slowly from the shadows, carefully controlling her expression to not show the whirlwind of emotions that threatened to drown her.
"Well," she said, achieving a casual tone that was a miracle given the circumstances, "what's a Roman praetor doing alone in the forest at this hour?"
Percy narrowed his eyes, studying her cautiously. "Who are you? How did you get into the camp's territory?"
The question was like a dagger straight to Diana's heart. He didn't recognize her at all. There wasn't even a flash of familiarity in his eyes.
"I have my methods," she replied, keeping her voice firm despite the pain. "I'm Diana, a huntress of Artemis."
"Artemis?" Percy frowned, as if the name awakened something in him. "You mean Diana? The Roman goddess of the hunt?"
An ironic smile curved Diana's lips. "Not exactly. Artemis is the Greek version of Diana. I'm one of her... followers."
"Greek," Percy repeated, and something appeared in his eyes, a flash of recognition quickly replaced by confusion. His hand went instinctively to the silver arrow pendant that, Diana noticed with a jolt of hope, he still wore around his neck.
"Where did you get that?" she asked, pointing to the pendant.
Percy touched it, as if just noticing he was wearing it. "I don't know," he admitted, and there was frustration in his voice. "I had it when I woke up without memories. I've tried to take it off, but... it feels wrong. Like I'd be betraying someone important."
Diana had to resort to all her willpower not to approach him, not to take his face in her hands and force him to remember.
"It must be important then," she said instead, maintaining a prudent distance.
Percy studied her intensely, as if trying to place her in the fragmented puzzle of his memory. "You seem familiar to me," he finally said. "Do we know each other?"
"All demigods know the huntresses of Artemis," she replied evasively. "We're legendary."
"No, it's more than that." Percy took a step toward her, his eyes fixed on hers. "It's like I've seen you in a dream."
Diana felt her resolution faltering. It would be so easy to tell him everything, to remind him who he really was, what they had been to each other.
But she couldn't. If Hera had manipulated his memories for some reason, forcing the process could harm him. Besides, revealing their connection could endanger his mission, whatever it was.
"Maybe in another life," she replied softly.
Percy took another step toward her, and Diana noticed how his eyes kept returning to the pendant. For a terrible and wonderful moment, she thought something had clicked, that he had really recognized her.
"Why are you here?" he asked instead. "Do the huntresses have some business with the Romans?"
"I'm following my own path," Diana replied, aware of how true those words were. "There's a war on the horizon, Percy Jackson. Bigger than anything you've faced."
"How do you know my name?" His hand returned to Riptide. "I don't remember telling you."
Diana internally cursed her slip. "You're famous, even among the Romans. The son of Ne— of Poseidon who defeated Kronos."
She saw the confusion return to his face. "There are fragments," he admitted. "Images, names, sensations. But nothing concrete. It's like trying to remember a dream that fades upon waking."
Diana couldn't help herself then. She shortened the distance between them and, carefully, touched the silver arrow pendant that hung from his neck.
"This will help you," she said quietly. "When the time comes. It will guide you back."
"Back to where?"
A sad smile curved her lips. "To where you belong."
For a moment, they were so close that Diana could feel his breath, smell that sea scent that always accompanied him. Their eyes met, and for an instant, Diana thought she saw a flash of recognition, an echo of the feelings they had shared.
Then, noises in the distance—Roman voices calling for their praetor—broke the moment.
"I must go," said Diana, quickly moving away. "And you should return to your people."
"Wait," Percy extended a hand toward her. "Will I see you again?"
The question contained more than he himself understood, and Diana felt her heart contract painfully.
"We always find each other again, Percy Jackson," she replied, the same words she had once told him, in another life. "It's our destiny, twisted as it may be."
And before she could say more, before her resolution crumbled completely, Diana disappeared into the night, leaving Percy alone with a silver pendant and the persistent feeling that he had just lost something precious without even knowing what it was.
That night, in the solitude of a Californian forest, Diana finally broke down. Like a dam containing an ocean, the mask she had maintained during her encounter with Percy completely crumbled. For the first time since she began her search, she allowed herself to fully feel the abyss that had opened inside her.
The fury and pain she had contained exploded in a storm of divine power so violent that it made the earth around her tremble. Century-old trees bent like simple blades of grass, the temperature dropped sharply forming frost on the leaves, and the air itself seemed to vibrate with the lament of a wounded goddess.
"I curse you, Hera!" she shouted to the night sky, her voice amplified by her divine essence, resonating through the forest with such force that sleeping birds awakened and fled in terrified flocks. "Was it not enough to separate us? Did you have to steal his memories too? Did you have to take him away from me so completely?"
Her knees hit the ground hard, her hands tearing out handfuls of earth as she tried to anchor her body to something solid, something real, when everything else seemed to vanish.
"He looked me in the eyes," she whispered, her voice breaking. "He looked directly at me and there was... nothing. Not a glimmer, not a spark of recognition."
The memory of Percy's eyes—those sea-green eyes that had so often looked at her with love, with desire, with understanding—now empty of all shared history, hit her with a new wave of agony. Her body shook as if receiving a physical blow.
Lightning crossed the cloudless sky, a divine warning that Diana completely ignored. Olympus could burn in flames for all she cared at that moment.
"You stole his love from me!" she continued, tears running freely down her face, shining like mercury under the moonlight. "You forced me to see him look at me like a stranger! Three years, Hera! Three years of moments that no longer exist for him."
Diana stood up unsteadily, her body radiating a silver glow so intense that the shadows of the forest retreated. The wind swirled around her, responding to her emotional storm, creating a small cyclone of leaves and twigs.
"Do you know what that's like?" she shouted into the void, knowing that somewhere, the Queen of Olympus was probably listening. "Do you know what it feels like when someone who kissed every inch of your skin looks at you as if you were a stranger? When the person who held your heart in their hands doesn't even remember your name?"
She extended her arms and the forest around her responded to her anguish. The moonlight intensified until it became almost blinding, concentrating on her like a celestial spotlight. Small animals emerged from their burrows, approaching the goddess in a reverent circle, feeling the primordial connection with the lady of the wild hunt.
"Every moment," whispered Diana, closing her eyes as memories flooded her. "Every laugh, every tear, every whisper in the darkness. The first time he called me beautiful. The day he met Sally. The way he held Estelle with so much love..."
Her voice broke. Estelle. The little one who called her "mana plata," who looked at her with absolute adoration. Now Percy wouldn't even remember that bond between her and his sister.
"Three thousand years," she continued, her voice barely audible. "Three thousand years of existence, and never, never had I felt what I felt with him. For the first time I wasn't just a reflection, a shadow, an echo. I was me. I was Diana." She clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "And you took him from me."
A new wave of power emanated from her, turning the air into a kaleidoscope of silver light. The small forest animals began to multiply around her, attracted by the pure essence of the goddess of the hunt in her rawest and most vulnerable form.
"I took off my mask for him, Hera," she continued, her voice acquiring a hypnotic quality in her pain. "I let him see parts of me that have remained hidden for millennia. I gave him access to secrets that not even Artemis knows."
The memory of Percy asleep beside her, completely trusting, his head on her chest, listening to the beats of an immortal heart, pierced her like a dagger.
"And for what?" she asked, her voice rising again. "For your political games? To unite camps? Was it worth it, Hera? Was destroying the purest thing I've known in all my divine existence worth it for your little strategy?"
A second lightning bolt, closer and more threatening, illuminated the clearing. This time, Diana raised her face toward it, defiant, with tears still shining on her cheeks.
"Go ahead!" she shouted to the sky. "Strike me if you dare! I prefer annihilation to this agony!"
The entire forest held its breath, waiting. But the lightning didn't fall.
Diana's fury gradually transformed into a resolution as cold as ice. She bent down and took a handful of earth between her fingers, letting it filter slowly as she whispered:
"I swear by the River Styx," her voice now controlled but charged with determination, "that if Percy doesn't recover his memories, if he doesn't recover what we had, I will find a way to make you feel this same pain, Queen of Olympus. I will tear away what you love most, as you tore it from me. No matter how long it takes, no matter what it costs."
Thunder rumbled with a violence that shook the foundations of the forest, sealing her second oath on the Styx that night. There was a finality in that sound, a cosmic recognition of a promise that would alter the fabric of fate.
Diana dropped to her knees again, emotional exhaustion finally overcoming her. The silver glow emanating from her dimmed, and the forest animals came closer, surrounding her as if trying to comfort her with their presence.
For the first time in centuries, she cried openly, without restrictions, without witnesses except the moon that shone indifferently above her and the wild creatures that instinctively responded to her pain.
Her sobs shook her entire body, releasing not only the pain for Percy, but millennia of loneliness, of existing as a fragment, of living in the shadow of her own divided essence.
"He looked through me," she whispered between tears. "As if I were transparent. As if I had never existed for him."
A small deer approached, resting its muzzle against Diana's trembling hand in a gesture of primitive comfort. She stroked it distractedly, finding minimal consolation in the contact.
"Everything we built," she murmured, looking up at the stars through her tears. "Every stolen moment, every shared secret, every whispered promise. All... erased. As if it had never happened."
She brought her hand to her chest, where under her clothes rested the pendant Percy had given her. The silver ring with wave engravings. A symbol of a promise that now only she remembered.
"I should have told you everything," she lamented, as if Percy could hear her across the distance. "I should have told you who I really am, what I am. But I was so afraid of losing you..."
The irony was devastating. Her fear of losing him by revealing her true nature now seemed insignificant compared to this total loss.
Gradually, her breathing calmed, though tears continued to flow. A resolution began to form at the center of her pain, like a pearl being born from irritation.
"He will come back to me," she whispered between sobs, clinging to the ring as if it were a talisman. "He has to come back. Our bond is stronger than any divine manipulation. If I could find him among millions of mortals, I can make him remember me."
Diana closed her eyes, evoking Percy's face. His crooked smile, the way his hair fell over his eyes when he was tired, how his voice softened when he pronounced her name in the darkness.
"Even if Hera has stolen every memory from him," she continued, her voice gaining strength, "his heart will remember me. The soul remembers what the mind forgets. And his soul and mine are intertwined beyond what any god of Olympus could understand."
Somehow, she had to believe it. She had to cling to that hope like the last ray of light in a world of darkness. What they shared was stronger than divine manipulation, more enduring than the machinations of gods and titans.
It was love in its purest, most elemental form. A feeling that had captured a virgin goddess, transforming her millennial existence. That couldn't be completely erased. It couldn't be.
As the first rays of dawn began to filter through the trees, Diana slowly rose, drying her tears. The forest animals silently dispersed, returning to their shelters.
"I will get you back," she promised to the dawn air. "If I have to face the entire Olympus, if I have to defy the Fates themselves, I will get you back. If I have to immerse myself in the Lethe and drink its waters to share your oblivion, I will. If I must reveal my true nature and accept the consequences, I will accept them."
She extended her hand toward a nascent sunbeam, as if she could touch it.
"Because without you, without what we found together, immortality is just an endless sentence."
That night, as Percy slept at Camp Jupiter, his hand unconsciously clutching the silver arrow pendant without knowing why, Diana made a decision. She wouldn't interfere directly—she couldn't, without risking everything—but she would watch, protect from the shadows, and wait.
And when the time came, when the war with Gaea erupted in all its fury, she would be ready.
Ready to fight. Ready to protect. And above all, ready to recover what was hers.
Not by possession or divine whim, but by the right that only true love grants: that of remembering and being remembered.
During the following months, I followed Percy's movements from a distance, like a silver shadow perpetually out of his field of vision. Each day was a new exercise in self-inflicted torture, forcing myself to observe without intervening, to be close without being able to touch him.
I saw him embark on a mission to free Thanatos, the personification of death. I saw him fight alongside Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque, two Roman demigods who quickly became his new allies. His eyes—those same eyes that used to light up every time they saw me—now shone with a new companionship, a loyalty forged in the fire of shared combat.
From my hiding place in the hills surrounding Camp Jupiter, I watched as Percy gradually found his place among the Romans. At first he acted cautiously, confused by his amnesia, but soon his innate nature as a leader emerged. I saw him train with the legion, adapting to their more disciplined and structured style of combat. I saw him earn the respect of Reyna, the praetor, and the admiration of the younger legionnaires.
Each new bond he formed was like a small death for me. Each smile he shared with his new Roman friends reminded me of the smiles we had shared, now lost to him as if they had never existed.
One particularly painful afternoon, I saw Percy sitting by the lake with Hazel. She told him something that made him laugh openly, throwing his head back in that way of his that I knew perfectly. It was the same laugh I had heard so many times during our nights under the stars, on the rooftops of Manhattan, in the small room of his apartment. The same laugh that once only I had provoked.
"You belong to them now too," I whispered from my hidden position, feeling something tear inside me. "And you don't even know what I have lost."
At night, when the camp slept, I came close enough to see him through the window of the Fifth Cohort barracks. Sometimes, even in his dreams, his hand unconsciously moved toward the silver arrow pendant he still wore around his neck. That small gesture gave me painful hope. Perhaps, at some deep level inaccessible even to Hera's manipulation, something of me remained with him.
But then dawn would come, and his eyes would pass over me without recognition when I ventured, disguised, among the Romans.
The night the Argo II appeared in the sky above Camp Jupiter, I was watching from a distant hill. The Greek ship, magnificent and impossible, sailed through the air like a promise of reconciliation between separated worlds. I saw the meeting in the forum, Percy and Jason facing each other as leaders of their respective camps.
And then I saw it: the recognition in Percy's eyes as he embraced Annabeth, as he greeted Grover and the others. His memory had returned—at least partially. I could see how the pieces fit in his mind, how his posture subtly changed as he remembered who he really was.
My heart beat with painful hope. If he remembered the others, perhaps he would remember me too?
But then came chaos. Leo, possessed by an eidolon, fired upon the Roman city. The fragile peace broke into pieces, and the Romans, feeling betrayed, attacked. Percy and his friends fled toward the Argo II while the legion pursued them with a thirst for vengeance.
I wanted to intervene then, run to him, shout my name, beg him to remember me. I had enough power to create an escape route for them, to distract the Romans for the necessary time. But doing so would have revealed my presence, further complicating the situation and potentially exposing my true nature. So I limited myself to watching, helpless, as Percy and his friends fled, embarking on their journey to Rome and, eventually, Greece.
Only afterward, when I knew they were safe at sea, did I allow myself a moment to process what I had witnessed at the forum meeting. Percy had recovered part of his memories—enough to recognize his Greek friends, to remember his identity as the son of Poseidon and his place at Camp Half-Blood—but there were no indications that he remembered me.
I slipped to the shore of the Little Tiber and contemplated my reflection in its waters. The same face that Percy had once held between his hands while swearing he would never forget how my eyes changed color under different lights. That same face that now, for him, belonged to a complete stranger.
"It's personal," I murmured, the realization hitting me with the force of Zeus's lightning. "This isn't just about the war, or uniting camps. It's not collateral damage. This is Hera punishing me specifically."
The water stirred with my fury, small silver ripples emanating from where my tears fell on the surface.
"She knew it all along," I continued, the pieces fitting into a horrifying pattern. "Somehow she discovered about us, saw a huntress, a follower of the gods, daring to love and be happy. Something that she herself cannot have in her marriage with Zeus."
The queen of the gods, the protector of marriage, eternally bound to an unfaithful husband. The goddess who should represent the perfect union and who suffered the humiliation of Zeus's constant affairs. Hera, condemned to eternal fidelity without reward, seeing a huntress—who should be dedicated to eternal chastity—finding the love and happiness that she herself could not achieve.
And she had found the perfect way to punish me: leaving me with all my memories while completely erasing my existence from Percy's mind. She hadn't destroyed our love; she had done something much worse. She had turned it into unrequited love, into a longing that only I would suffer.
Cruel. Meticulously cruel. Exactly the kind of revenge that fit Hera's style.
"That's why she selectively erased memories of me from his mind," I whispered, feeling a shiver run down my back. "That's why she allowed him to remember everyone else but not me. Not a single trace of our time together."
I stood up, feeling how my divine power responded to my anger, making the moonlight intensify around me.
"Do you think that because he doesn't know who I really am you can defeat me?" I spoke to the night sky, knowing that my words would somehow reach the queen of Olympus. "Do you think that because you don't know my true identity as the Roman counterpart of Artemis your little revenge will go unpunished?"
The river water stirred violently, and nocturnal animals dispersed, sensing the divine anger emanating from me.
"Enjoy your little victory, Queen of Olympus," I whispered with a calm that contradicted the storm inside me. "Because this is not over. Not remotely. I will find a way to get him back, and when I do, you will understand that the loyalty and love that you have never experienced can be more powerful than all your manipulations."
As Percy and his friends sailed toward new dangers, I also embarked on a new path. I had consumed enough time in self-pity; now was the time for action. If Hera had manipulated his memories, perhaps there was a way to undo the damage, to recover what she had stolen from us.
I needed ancient knowledge, forgotten magic, secrets that not even the gods remembered. As the Roman version of the goddess of the hunt, my access to certain realms of knowledge was unique. I had links to aspects of the mythological world that even Artemis ignored, paths and allies that only I could summon.
My quest first led me to the depths of the Dodona Forest, where the oldest oaks on earth whispered primordial secrets. Their voices, like dry leaves dragged by the wind, spoke of memory and oblivion, of underground rivers of knowledge that not even the gods themselves could completely control.
"The mind can be altered," they whispered, "but the heart remembers at the level of blood and bone. Seek one who walks between worlds. Seek the weaver of mist."
I followed their advice, traveling to dark places, consulting forbidden texts, seeking creatures that existed on the margins of the mythological world. Beings that had survived in the folds of reality, eluding the attention of the Olympians.
Finally, my steps led me before Hecate, the goddess of magic, crossroads, and mist. I found her in an ancient cave somewhere in the mountains of Macedonia, a place where the veils between worlds were so thin that the stars seemed within reach.
I knelt before her, something I would never do before any other god, risking revealing more than prudent in my desperation.
"I have come to seek knowledge about memory," I said, keeping my words deliberately vague. "About how to recover what has been hidden by divine design."
Hecate's three faces—maiden, mother, and crone—studied me with eyes that contained the wisdom of eons.
"You run a great risk coming before me, huntress," she replied with three voices that spoke in unison. "Or should I say... Diana."
My body tensed, prepared to flee or fight. If she knew my name, what else would she know?
"Fear not," continued the goddess, smiling enigmatically. "Your secret is safe with me. The divisions between Greek and Roman aspects have never meant much to those of us who exist on the margins."
Slowly I relaxed, allowing myself a flash of hope.
"Memory is fragile but persistent," the three-faced goddess told me, extending a hand in which she held what appeared to be silver water. "What Hera has hidden is not destroyed, simply... redirected. Like a river whose course has been altered."
In the silver water, I saw the image of Percy, sleeping restlessly in some cabin of the Argo II, his hand unconsciously clutching the arrow pendant.
"How do I restore it?" I asked, hope blooming in my chest like a nocturnal flower. "How do I make him remember me?"
Hecate smiled, a smile that contained centuries of secrets and tragedies. "Sometimes, huntress, rivers find their own way back to the sea."
"I can't wait for fate to act on its own," I protested. "I need to do something. Anything."
"Patience is a virtue that even immortals rarely master," replied Hecate. "But I will tell you this: when you see him again, when you are before him, let your divine essence shine, just a little. Not enough to reveal your true nature, but enough for his soul to recognize what his mind has forgotten."
"Will that work?" I asked, clinging to any hope, however small.
"True love leaves marks beyond memory," replied Hecate. "Hera can manipulate memories, but even she cannot erase the marks that one soul leaves on another."
It wasn't the answer I was looking for, but it was better than nothing. If Percy's memories still existed, if they were just hidden, there was a possibility they would return. Maybe not all at once, maybe not immediately, but eventually.
"Thank you," I said, bowing again.
"Don't thank me yet, huntress," replied Hecate, her voice suddenly somber. "The path you have chosen is full of dangers that not even you can imagine. Remember: every choice has consequences, and the consequences for beings like us can shake the very foundations of the cosmos."
With that warning resonating in my ears, I left Hecate's cave and returned to the mortal world. With that hope, weak but real, I continued my vigil, following the progress of the Argo II from afar, intervening only when absolutely necessary, always from the shadows.
Until the night I learned that Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus.
The news reached me through the wind, whispered by air spirits who owed me favors. At that moment, something inside me broke and was simultaneously reforged. Tartarus. The primordial abyss. The place that not even the gods spoke of without fear.
And Percy was there. My Percy.
Everything changed in that instant. It was no longer a question of memories or broken hearts. It was no longer about Hera, her jealousy, or her punishments. It was life or death in its most brutal and desperate form.
I stood up, feeling how my divine power flowed through my veins with renewed determination. The moonlight concentrated around me like silver armor, and nocturnal animals approached, sensing my resolution.
"I'm going to find you," I promised to the night. "I'm going to find you and bring you back, even if you don't remember who I am. Even if you never remember me again."
And this time, I wouldn't just watch from the shadows. This time, I would act directly, regardless of the consequences for me or for Olympus.
This time, I would go to find what was mine, even if I had to descend into hell itself to recover it.
Author's Note
Hey guys and girls, what do you think of my interpretation of the Percy Jackson saga? I've stuck as closely to canon as possible. What's my love story between Percy and Diana like? Do you see it? Is there a future for me to continue writing it?
Recommendations, critiques, complaints, any comments, greetings, or whatever?