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[humburgerr]

The Maiden’s Dart (a Percy Jackson fanfiction, first part of the “Sacred Blood” series)

Chapter 1: (LEA) “Welcome to my life, I guess…”

I don’t hate flying.

Like, really, flying is cool: I was six when I first had a plane ride. I recall quite clearly how amazed I was when I glanced out of the window and I saw the mountaintops deep below us, and I will never forget how excited I was, two years later, when dad decided to take me horse-riding with him. The old black pegasus neighed quite a bit when the both of us settled on his back, my father’s arms around me, so that I wouldn’t fall off, as he laughed.

- Blackjack, you know that doughnuts aren’t good for your health! - He told the pegasus.

Then, uncle Jason’s strong grip around me as we darted across the sky Superman style, feeling the cool breeze of Summer’s clouded evenings and joking and laughing…

Yeah, flying is cool, a lot of my good memories are associated with it.

Does that mean I love flying?

Hah, nope.

But let’s start by the beginning of the story, shall we?

It all started last winter, when Athena, my divine granny and caretaker had the incredible incredibly terrible idea that I somehow needed to start practicing early to get my driving licence as soon as possible when I turned sixteen.

Now, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea, right? WRONG.

The thing is, although in the last thirty years or so the gods tried to be closer to their half-blood children, and although many of them actually became better parents, they - being these immortal, super-powerful cosmic beings - still had some trouble actually understanding the way mortal bodies worked, and how many limitations they actually had. They just assumed we had been much like minor deities all along, minus the immortality feat and the sick powers.

So, like, if the King of the gods lost his Master Bolt, none of them saw a gargantuan logic fallacy in assuming that it had been stolen by some weird kid with ADHD. Hermes had stolen Apollo’s cattle mere hours after his birth, after all.

You can imagine the shock when Will Solace, the newly appointed GoAT (as in Godly Anatomy Teacher, and not Mr. Underwood’s lower half) explained to them how slowly human grew up, and how they had to learn everything from scratch. Oh, the look of absolute horror on the gods’ face when they learned that humans shed their first set of teeth and grew new ones.

Now, most of the gods were taking these anatomy lessons very seriously, but some of them… well, let’s say that some gods really liked to skip class.

Granny Athena was one of the latter. Being the goddess of knowledge, she felt extremely disgusted by the thought that she would have needed to learn something - anything - from a mere mortal. Being the goddess of wisdom, she also should have known better than to give up a chance to expand her knowledge.

If you know Athena, however, you probably also know that she is prideful. Too prideful for her own good, I might say (but I won’t).

Anyway, one morning I woke up with the goddess of wisdom storming into my bedroom, up in Mt. Olympus. If I had been a bit more awake and in control of myself, perhaps I would have suppressed it, but given that I had woken up in that same instant and my brain was still set in “this is a dream, you can do whatever you want” mode, I gave her a quick look and burst out laughing right at her face.

She was dressed like a traffic officer, with the uniform and the plastic helmet over her head, the white gloves and the traffic signs hanging from her belt, right near a plastic walkie-talkie. The fact is, the uniform was too perfect, the helmet a bit too shiny, the boots looked like they had never seen a real road in their entire life. She looked less like a real cop and more like a silly tv advertiser, one that stood near a row of happy children traversing the road and said to the camera something like: Make people happy, join our lines! It will be fun, I swear! The kind of propaganda that would have won over the kids in New Rome after like three seconds.

Athena gave me one of her bad looks, and I thanked the Universe that she wasn’t the goddess of gravity, because otherwise my entire body would have been completely splattered all over the pristine clean marble floor. However, her glance still managed to send shivers down my spine and to make my laughter run straight back into my throat.

Finally, she averted her eyes and I started breathing again.

- Gra… Lady Athena. - I caught myself before calling her granny.

- Achillea, - my full name felt like an icy stab in the gut, and she probably noticed, because her voice slightly softened - get dressed, Hatchling. We are going out for a while. I’ll wait for you in the throne room.

Then she vanished into thin air, like she had never been there.

I stared at the door for what felt like a solid minute, with my brain whispering in my ear that it would’ve been pretty sweet if I put my insomniac butt back to sleep. I agreed with my brain for maybe half a second, then the look in Athena’s eyes came to haunt my mind again, and I got out of bed.

“But the pillows! - My brain pleaded - The soft blankets!”

“I know buddy. - I told my brain - but we heard sweet old granny.”

My brain fell silent, which, me being me, was a pretty common occurrence.

The moment my bare feet touched the floor, invisible hands began to fold the blankets, straight up the pillow and generally remake the bed. The maids talked to each other in a sweet, low hum, their words so whispered that I had trouble hearing the full sentences. I cleared my throat, and they became perfectly silent, and totally still, I could guess, since I couldn’t hear their soft breeze anymore.

- Well, guess I’ll be going to take a shower and get dressed. If you need anything, you know where to find me.

I was about to leave the room, when one of the maids spoke up.

- M’Lady, - she started, and by the low hum of her voice, I could identify her as Mia, the First Maid - Lady Athena has sent another servant to your baths.

My veins frosted.

- What.

The maids started whispering to each other, and even tho I couldn’t fully hear them, I picked up a few words: angry… spite… punishment…

It took me an instant to put two and two together. They feared I was angry, and that, since I couldn’t lash out at my divine granny, I would punish them instead. It took me slightly more to realise that I spoke to them in a cold, firm tone, and that I unconsciously channeled some of my power to make that sound even more intimidating.

I regained my cool.

- Hey girls, - I said in a much more informal tone - I didn’t mean to scare you, really. And I am not angry. Neither towards you, nor towards my grandma. It’s just that I felt… surprised.

Surprised wasn’t the word I was thinking at. And, to be fair, I was hating Granny Athena a little bit, but I wouldn’t have dared to punish these friendly spirits just for that.

Mia spoke again.

- If it displeases you so much, M’Lady, I could still tell the servant to leave the place. We truly understand, that after what happened with Rya-

- That was just an incident! - I interrupted her, careful, this time, not to scare them anymore - It was just an unhappy incident.

None of them replied, and if I must guess, they all nodded in agreement.

I waved my hand, and left them to their tidying.

My bedroom was on the farthest side of my small apartment, which was on the farthest side of Athena’s palace, on Mt. Olympus.

Perhaps you might really want to know why I live in Olympus, and not at Camp Half-Blood in New Athens, with the rest of my family? Am I, maybe, a goddess? Did I give up my mortal shell to bloom into a beautiful, undying being?

No, I am very, very human. And well… to say it with an understatement, it is fairly complicated. I didn’t choose to live here, not exactly. It just came with the age, I could say. One day Athena showed up in our living room and demanded for my mom and my dad to give me to her. I don’t remember the details, because as soon as the conversation heated, mom sent me and my big brother, Michael, to play outside.

Then, Athena came out, told me to pack my things, and we both disappeared from our backyard in a ray of cold light.

The End.

Now, now, I can imagine what you are thinking: “OmG LEA WerE yOu AbDUctEd?”

No, I don’t think so. Well, at least I hope not.

From what Athena told me after that, my parents were having troubles with me: my powers were too great, and they were showing up too fast for them to really be prepared to handle the situation. They, however, were stubborn. They really didn’t want to let go of me (and can you really blame them?) but at the same time they didn’t know what to do. Basically, things were getting really dangerous. For me, and for those around me. That’s when my grandmother stepped in and decided to take matters into her own hands.

So, I get to see my parents and my brother during summertime and during mortal festivities such at Christmas and Easter and so on. For the rest of the year, I stay up above the clouds with the gods. I guess I should consider myself lucky, because at first Athena wanted me to stay up here all year round, and trust me, you don’t want to stay up here all year round. Everyone who stayed beside the gods nonstop would either go insane or become as petty as them. And I sincerely can’t decide what might be worse.

Anyway, my apartment had a circular shape, like a Thòlos, although I preferred to think of it as a Monòpteros, the latter not being the direct definition of a Micaenean tomb.

The main walls were surrounded, on the outside, by a circle of twelve white marble columns, each of one bearing the vessel of a different Olympian. It was supposed to be some sort of protection (I didn’t dare to look into it), but to me it mostly seemed like each member of the gods’ Assembly had tried to claim a part of the house for themselves.

On the inside, it was much more cozy: the Central Room’s marble floor was enchanted so that it could appear like any type of pavement i could wish for, and most of the time it showed a forest soil filled to the brim with beautifully colored leaves, like the ones that fell from trees during Fall. As I walked through, however, I noticed that the floor was showing a different scene: sand. Beautiful golden sand, ad if I looked hard enough, I could even spot a seashell here and there. This made me smile. Christmas time was near, and with that, my homecoming was drawing closer at hand. I already felt nostalgic.

As I passed by, I waved my hand at the little girl who tended the fire, right in the middle of the room.

She somehow had the power to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She was right at the Heart of Olympus, in the Throne Room, to make sure that the gods got at least a bit along, and then she was in her own small temple in New Athens, where old campers could ask for guidance of just stop by to have a little chat. She was in Camp Half-Blood’s dining hall too, making sure that all offerings would be split up evenly among the gods.

Hestia wasn’t a difficult goddess, and she didn’t play favourites.

She simply took good care if the fires, and showed up wherever she felt like she was needed.

Since that day of almost eight years ago, when Athena brought me to Olympus with her, the goddess of the Heart stood by my side every single day.

When she didn’t respond to my greeting, I instantly knew something was wrong. Upon closer inspection, in became clear that something was bothering her. She was looking deep into the flames with a frowned expression. No, not just frowned. I knew that something else was happening, that she wasn’t simply looking at the flames, she was seeing straight trough them, as if they were some sort of holo-screen that let her browse for informations.

- Lady Hestia! - I called for her, managing to get her attention, if only briefly - Is everything all-right?

She looked at me wide eyed for a single second, and then she turned back to the fire.

- Oh, good morning dear… - she said with a soft voice that immediately warmed my heart - Yes, everything’s okay, why shouldn’t it be? Don’t worry, dear. Athena’s waiting for you.

She said nothing more, and focused back to the flames.

Don’t worry. As if. The thing about Hestia is that she is so genuinely kind that everyone among gods, demigods, and even some monsters, tends to grow quite fond of her. This means, obviously, that if Hestia has a problem, it becomes everyone’s problem. Because no-one, no-one, wants to see Hestia suffer.

As much as I wanted to help her, however, I figured that wouldn’t be of much aid if my grumpy granny turned me into dust for being late, so I headed for the bathroom.

As soon as I entered, she smell of saltiness spread through my nostrils, and I felt like I was standing right on the seashore. The bathroom’s walls were painted pearl-pink, with sea-green marble furniture. The style was a strange mashup of minimalism and ancient greek sculpture, which made the gods’ bas-relieves carved into the sides of the sink and the bath tub seem like strangely shaped stick-men. The scene of Stick-Apollo fighting Stick-Hercules over a tripod had ben carved right into the lower half of the toilet, and I was been pretty sure that it had been Artemis’ idea.

When I looked at the figure of Stick-Hercules, my brain sprung shortly back to life.

“That’s where you belong, you scumhead!”

Then it fell asleep again.

I flinched, and for a short instant my hands trembled. A familiar sense of headache pierced my head, as if I had just forgot something vital.

Then I shook my head, and the sensation was blown away like petals scattered by the wind.

Something moved at the side of my vision and I reacted faster than I could think. In the blink of an eye I found myself with one hand pressing against a girl’s neck, and the other closed in a fist, fully loaded with adrenaline and ready to strike right at her solar plexus.

- Oh my gods! - the girl squeaked, barely able to hide the rush of terror that had clearly taken her - Do you try to kill every maid that Lady Athena sends you!?

I blinked a couple of times, while my brain translated those words into informations. Then I paled, and let her go. I hadn’t even realised that I had pinned her against the wall.

- Oh my… I’m so, so sorry, I swear I didn’t mean to-

I tried to mutter some apologies, but she raised her hand to stop me, and released a long, shaky breath.

- No, no, that’s okay I guess. Lord Poseidon had warned me that you were quite the wild horse. I don’t know why I dared to expect to meet you in a different way.

When she named my godly grandfather, I took a step backwards and took a good look at her.

She was slightly taller than me, probably by an inch or two, and her skin was grey. She had wide eyes, perhaps a little bit too wide, and they were totally black. She was slim, athletic, with large shoulders and long, webbed fingers. Each of her nails was carefully painted with stylised images of fishes. She had long, kelp-like hair, although this specific type of kelp was bioluminescent and gleamed neon blue light.

She wore a simple blue chiton, and nothing more.

- A nereid - I guessed. A very strange nereid. But I kept the last part for myself.

- Yep.

After a moment of awkward silence, I extended my hand.

- I imagine you already know my name, but please, do not call me Achillea, nor M’Lady. Lea is good enough.

She studied my hand, probably wondering if it was poisoned or boobytrapped with invisible fart-trinkets, but then she shook it with some good energy.

- Ichtya. And don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on calling you M’Lady anyway.

After this first bizzarre encounter, Ichtya the fish nereid and I got to work. I made instantly clear that I was pretty capable of showering by myself and that, no, she didn’t need to clean my butt for me. What she could do, however, was to help me with the scheduling of the bathroom. It wasn’t much, just preparing my toothbrush while I was busy in the shower, putting my laundry right at hand’s reach while I dried myself… as I said, small things that gave me a few seconds of advantage.

- Thank you, really. - I said while she brushed my hair, a task that I was never capable of bringing myself to do.

Her cheeks assumed a slightly darker shade of grey.

- No need to thank me. - She said, but I could feel she had very much appreciated the gesture.

I took a moment to look at my reflection in the mirror: a blonde, sea-green eyed five and an half feet tall girl looked back at me. The girl’s lightly tanned skin, my skin, was full of old scars and bruises, and a sea of clear freckles spread around my nose and my shoulders. The fact that I could see them, even if with some difficult, made my mouth twitch. I looked at my athletic, slightly muscular body for a more few seconds, then I reached out to Ichtya.

She handed me the white, simple peplum, and helped me put it on. The fabric immediately shifted and began to change. The tickling sensation almost made me laugh again. And then I found myself wearing a pair of worn-out light grey jeans and a sleeveless blue T-shirt with a black hippocampus printed on it.

- Wow… - Ichtya whispered, amazed - You really wear these things on a daily basis?

- Uhh… yes? Why shouldn’t I?

She looked embarrassed.

- The only being I’ve ever seen wearing mortal clothes was Lord Poseidon, so I just thought… well…

She didn’t dare to finish the sentence, but she didn’t need too. I nodded sympathetically, imagining a world where everyone wore gross Hawaiian shirts and crocks. The thought alone made me shiver. The girl really needed some good shopping time. This was the least I could think of to restore her faith in humanity.

Then I remembered good old granny, and I left the nereid to her new duties.

Thank the gods I was very, very fast. A normal person would have needed at least thirty minutes to traverse the Olympian Gardens at full running speed. I jogged into the Throne Room in half the time, and yet when Athena looked up from the anatomy text she was reading, I knew that I still was about to get scolded.

- You’re late. - She said. And that was all. But she didn’t need to say anything else. Her cold voice had been harsh enough tor me to tremble before her. I nodded, trying not to look at her in the eyes, but it was impossible. They were like magnets.

As she got up from her throne, I gladly saw that she had changed: instead of the silly advertiser uniform, she now wore her usual sleeveless peplum, adorned with glittering gold edges.

Her stormy grey eyes were still fixed on me. She wore her raven hair down on her shoulders and her pale skin radiated a weak, cold light, that conferred her a certain holiness. If anyone saw me and her side to side, they would’ve never guessed that I was her daughter’s child. Athena looked young enough to be beautiful and old enough to be considered wise. I knew that gods existed in many planes of reality at once, and so that people could see them in totally different ways, but to me she looked like she was in her mid-thirties. An high-school teacher, perhaps. A very lethal high-school teacher.

I averted my eyes from her, and glanced around.

Hestia took care of the Heart, but aside from her, and us, the room was completely empty. As Athena advanced in my direction, her form shrank, until she was about the same size of a normal young woman. She reached her hand out.

I gulped, and then I took it.

Her light blinded me, and the next second we were standing in front of the Bestiarium, the chamber of beasts and monsters. One of the strange additions of my mother’s design, after the Second Titan War.

- Why? - I asked.

- Lesson One. - The goddess replied, before pointing at the enormous bronze doors that towered before us.

They must have been at least sixty feet high, and were adorned from top to bottom with figures of monsters and other mythological creatures. Unlike the ones in my bathrooms, these bas-relieves were so realistic that I almost feared the hellhound would detach from the doors and launch itself straight at me.

- Lesson One? What does it mean?!

The doors opened soundlessly, and the goddess of wisdom escorted me inside.

- It means - she said as we passed through a corridor that was as large as a football field and seemed to have no end - that you will be sixteen soon, Hatchling, and as soon as you age properly, you’ll have to get your godly license.

- My what?!

- Your godly driving license. - She explained, while we walked past one of the cages. The Hydra inside raised her fourteen heads and looked at us, then she went back to sleep.

Athena kept talking.

- Every god has one. Without it, we would be legally restricted from performing air travel, or flying around the world with our godly mounts. Demigods usually do not need it, because they never fly that high, and there is only that much speed that a pegasus can take, but there have been certain… cases… when we had to make an exception.

She then fixed her eyes on me, and I squirmed uncomfortably under her gaze. She kept staring, as if she truly believed that I could give her the names. We walked in silence for another minute, while I tried to remember some of these so called ‘cases’.

- Uhmm… - I said at last - … Phaethon?

Athena nodded.

- That guy was a total mess. - She recalled - He tried to drive the Sun Chariot even before we could give him his first class. You have no idea of how enraged Zeus was when he saw that punk on the heavenly roads.

- Phaethon was a son of Helios, right? - I asked - He set the sky ablaze and created the Milky Way.

- And my father blasted him out of the skies with one of his Bolts. Helios was fired and Selene resigned in protest, and the chariots were inherited by the twins. That - Athena said - had been a very messed up week.

- Anyone else that you remember? - She asked.

I frowned, and then a name came up in my mind. Yes, obvious. It was one of the most famous stories.

- That guy with Pegasus. The one that slew the first Chimera. The one that murdered Bellero, king of Corynth, and took his throne.

Athena’s lips curved slightly upward, and she nodded in agreement.

- His true name was Hipponoos, but people still remember him as Bellerophon, ‘Bellero’s Murderer’. He was one of mine, you know. I gave him the license myself. He was intelligent, knowledgeable. He became a worldwide known hero, who even managed to tame Pegasus himself. He could have lived as a king, but his hybris got the hold of him. His arrogance drove him to think that he could reach the gods, that he could fly even higher than us. Father didn’t like that, and neither did I.

She didn’t need to tell any further for me to know how the poor guy met his demise.

I recalled that one time when Grandpa Poseidon held a meeting with the immortal lord of horses: Pegasus had strange, long scar lines all’over his hide, that reminded me a lot of lightning streaks. Now I knew how he got them.

We walked side by side, and I listened to the many stories she told me. It felt less like a lecture and more like a deep dive into the clean waters of the past. Her tales flooded my mind: tales of demigods and mortals who dreamed of the stars, and tried to reach them in so many ways.

She told me of the first hot-hair balloon, of the Wright brothers and of Leonardo’s tragic attempt at rebuilding Dedalus’ wings. She told me of long dead children and of many former lovers of hers.

Then we stopped.

- Here we are - I heard her say - hi Glaux, long time no see, huh?

[END OF CHAPTER 1]

[humburgerr]

Yeah I TOTALLY love how the power struggle between Percy and Thalia is potrayed in TTC, because it makes SO VERY CLEAR that all of the Big Three (greek) children are basically bound to repeat the cycle of spite and rage and warring that is neverendingly consuming their godly parents, and at the same time they all try so hard to resist the call for violence from their divine blood, and yet they are always on the verge of the abyss and it would take one single step in the wrong direction to make them all go spiral into utter darkness.

I also adore how they all seem to possess each other’s fatal flaws to a certain extent, like Percy being mostly loyal and all but at the same time always unknowingly wanting to be the one in charge (like in the capture the flag scene when BOTH him and Thalia want to lead the campers and they have to settle for an unjolly cooperation but Percy is so clearly not ok with Thalia taking part of the power from him) and also experiencing ever increasing levels of spite and frustration against the gods.

And I also have an headcanon about the fact that even after she joined the Hunt, Thalia still has to struggle and keep at bay her divine blood that sometimes calls for her to do what she was supposed to do all along and take full charge by force and I imagine this scene where she and Artemis enter in the main tent at the same time and Thalia feels the sudden urge to take her Lady’s seat and theres this awkward moment when she takes a step forward and Artemis looks at her with a “dude tf are u doin” face and Thalia has to mentally slap herself and I can imagine how much self loathing she must feel because she KNOWS that this part of her exists and she hates it and does her best to hide it away but the girl really ain’t fooling anyone-

thalia’s obsession with power is STAGGERING in particular. it is such a huge part of her character but it’s hidden so well. she definitely removes herself from it and goes so far as to bend to the status quo to stop it. i think this is one of the only explanations for her attitude towards jason’s death. she has to treat it as if it was his choice, cause i think if she let herself feel any differently, that issue of power would come right back up and swallow her whole

yes yes yes!!! Like, I would kill for a peak inside Thalia's brain because despite how much she hides it, even from Percy's pov her hunger for power was so present?? And its as if she just kept suppressing it and suppressing it but never actually confronts it because when she was presented with this super extreme dire course of action that could help her avoid the issue (joining the hunters) she took it and didn't look back.

And on my post someone in the tags ( @hella-hound ) brought up this great point that Percy and Thalia were constantly locked in a power struggle before she joined the hunters, and that it largely stopped after she joined... and a part of me is screaming, clawing at the walls, because yes, you could attribute their conflict resolution solely to them becoming friends over the course of ttc... but the idea that it's also, in part, due to the fact that some part of Percy recognizes that she's essentially stunted her growth and now poses less of a threat to his power? oh my god. oh my god.