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queenlucythevaliant · 10 months ago

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Tell Your Dad You Love Him

A retelling of "Meat Loves Salt"/"Cap O'Rushes" for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves event

An old king had three daughters. When his health began to fail, he summoned them, and they came.

Gordonia and Rowan were already waiting in the hallway when Coriander arrived. They were leaned up against the wall opposite the king’s office with an air of affected casualness. “I wonder what the old war horse wants today?” Rowan was saying. “More about next year’s political appointments, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“The older he gets, the more he micromanages,” Gordonia groused fondly. “A thousand dollars says this meeting could’ve been an email.”

They filed in single-file like they’d so often done as children: Gordonia first, then Rowan, and Coriander last of all. The king had placed three chairs in front of his desk all in a row. His daughters murmured their greetings, and one by one they sat down.

“I have divided everything I have in three,” the king said. “I am old now, and it’s time. Today, I will pass my kingdom on to you, my daughters.”

A short gasp came from Gordonia. None of them could have imagined that their father would give up running his kingdom while he still lived.

The king went on. “I know you will deal wisely with that which I leave in your care. But before we begin, I have one request.”

“Yes father?” said Rowan.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

An awkward silence fell. Although there was no shortage of love between the king and his daughters, theirs was not a family which spoke of such things. They were rich and blue-blooded: a soldier and the daughters of a soldier, a king and his three court-reared princesses. The royal family had always shown their affection through double meanings and hot cups of coffee.

Gordonia recovered herself first. She leaned forward over the desk and clasped her father’s hands in her own. “Father,” she said, “I love you more than I can say.” A pause. “I don’t think there’s ever been a family so happy in love as we have been. You’re a good dad.”

The old king smiled and patted her hand. “Thank you, Gordonia. We have been very happy, haven’t we? Here is your inheritance. Cherish it, as I cherish you.”

Rowan spoke next; the words came tumbling out. “Father! There’s not a thing in my life which you didn’t give me, and all the joy in the world beside. Come now, Gordonia, there’s no need to understate the matter. I love you more than—why, more than life itself!”

The king laughed, and rose to embrace his second daughter. “How you delight me, Rowan. All of this will be yours.”

Only Coriander remained. As her sisters had spoken, she’d wrung her hands in her lap, unsure of what to say. Did her father really mean for flattery to be the price of her inheritance? That just wasn’t like him. For all that he was a politician, he’d been a soldier first. He liked it when people told the truth.

When the king’s eyes came to rest on her, Coriander raised her own to meet them. “Do you really want to hear what you already know?”

“I do.”

She searched for a metaphor that could carry the weight of her love without unnecessary adornment. At last she found one, and nodded, satisfied. “Dad, you’re like—like salt in my food.”

“Like salt?”

“Well—yes.”

The king’s broad shoulders seemed to droop. For a moment, Coriander almost took back her words. Her father was the strongest man in the world, even now, at eighty. She’d watched him argue with foreign rulers and wage wars all her life. Nothing could hurt him. Could he really be upset?

But no. Coriander held her father’s gaze. She had spoken true. What harm could be in that?

“I don’t know why you’re even here, Cor,” her father said.

Now, Coriander shifted slightly in her seat, unnerved. “What? Father—”

“It would be best if—you should go,” said the old king.

“Father, you can’t really mean–”

“Leave us, Coriander.”

So she left the king’s court that very hour.

It had been a long time since she’d gone anywhere without a chauffeur to drive her, but Coriander’s thoughts were flying apart too fast for her to be afraid. She didn’t know where she would go, but she would make do, and maybe someday her father would puzzle out her metaphor and call her home to him. Coriander had to hope for that, at least. The loss of her inheritance didn’t feel real yet, but her father—how could he not know that she loved him? She’d said it every day.

She’d played in the hall outside that same office as a child. She’d told him her secrets and her fears and sent him pictures on random Tuesdays when they were in different cities just because. She had watched him triumph in conference rooms and on the battlefield and she’d wanted so badly to be like him.

If her father doubted her love, then maybe he’d never noticed any of it. Maybe the love had been an unnoticed phantasm, a shadow, a song sung to a deaf man. Maybe all that love had been nothing at all.

A storm was on the horizon, and it reached her just as she made it onto the highway. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Rain poured down and flooded the road. Before long, Coriander was hydroplaning. Frantically, she tried to remember what you were supposed to do when that happened. Pump the brakes? She tried. No use. Wasn’t there something different you did if the car had antilock brakes? Or was that for snow? What else, what else–

With a sickening crunch, her car hit the guardrail. No matter. Coriander’s thoughts were all frenzied and distant. She climbed out of the car and just started walking.

Coriander wandered beneath an angry sky on the great white plains of her father’s kingdom. The rain beat down hard, and within seconds she was soaked to the skin. The storm buffeted her long hair around her head. It tangled together into long, matted cords that hung limp down her back. Mud soiled her fine dress and splattered onto her face and hands. There was water in her lungs and it hurt to breathe. Oh, let me die here, Coriander thought. There’s nothing left for me, nothing at all. She kept walking.

When she opened her eyes, Coriander found herself in a dank gray loft. She was lying on a strange feather mattress.

She remained there a while, looking up at the rafters and wondering where she could be. She thought and felt, as it seemed, through a heavy and impenetrable mist; she was aware only of hunger and weakness and a dreadful chill (though she was all wrapped in blankets). She knew that a long time must have passed since she was fully aware, though she had a confused memory of wandering beside the highway in a thunderstorm, slowly going mad because—because— oh, there’d been something terrible in her dreams. Her father, shoulders drooping at his desk, and her sisters happily come into their inheritance, and she cast into exile—

She shuddered and sat up dizzily. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. She hadn’t been dreaming.

She stumbled out of the loft down a narrow flight of stairs and came into a strange little room with a single window and a few shabby chairs. Still clinging to the rail, she heard a ruckus from nearby and then footsteps. A plump woman came running to her from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and softly clucking at the state of her guest’s matted, tangled hair.

“Dear, dear,” said the woman. “Here’s my hand, if you’re still unsteady. That’s good, good. Don’t be afraid, child. I’m Katherine, and my husband is Folke. He found you collapsed by the goose-pond night before last. I’m she who dressed you—your fine gown was ruined, I’m afraid. Would you like some breakfast? There’s coffee on the counter, and we’ll have porridge in a minute if you’re patient.”

“Thank you,” Coriander rasped.

“Will you tell me your name, my dear?”

“I have no name. There’s nothing to tell.”

Katherine clicked her tongue. “That’s alright, no need to worry. Folke and I’ve been calling you Rush on account of your poor hair. I don’t know if you’ve seen yourself, but it looks a lot like river rushes. No, don’t get up. Here’s your breakfast, dear.”

There was indeed porridge, as Katherine had promised, served with cream and berries from the garden. Coriander ate hungrily and tasted very little. Then, when she was finished, the goodwife ushered her over to a sofa by the window and put a pillow beneath her head. Coriander thanked her, and promptly fell asleep.

She woke again around noon, with the pounding in her head much subsided. She woke feeling herself again, to visions of her father inches away and the sound of his voice cracking across her name.

Katherine was outside in the garden; Coriander could see her through the clouded window above her. She rose and, upon finding herself still in a borrowed nightgown, wrapped herself in a blanket to venture outside.

“Feeling better?” Katherine was kneeling in a patch of lavender, but she half rose when she heard the cottage door open.

“Much. Thank you, ma’am.

“No thanks necessary. Folke and I are ministers, of a kind. We keep this cottage for lost and wandering souls. You’re free to remain here with us for as long as you need.”

“Oh,” was all Coriander could think to say.

“You’ve been through a tempest, haven’t you? Are you well enough to tell me where you came from?”

Coriander shifted uncomfortably. “I’m from nowhere,” she said. “I have nothing.”

“You don’t owe me your story, child. I should like to hear it, but it will keep till you’re ready. Now, why don’t you put on some proper clothes and come help me with this weeding.”

Coriander remained at the cottage with Katherine and her husband Folke for a week, then a fortnight. She slept in the loft and rose with the sun to help Folke herd the geese to the pond. After, Coriander would return and see what needed doing around the cottage. She liked helping Katherine in the garden.

The grass turned gold and the geese’s thick winter down began to come in. Coriander’s river-rush hair proved itself unsalvageable. She spent hours trying to untangle it, first with a hairbrush, then with a fine-tooth comb and a bottle of conditioner, and eventually even with honey and olive oil (a home remedy that Folke said his mother used to use). So, at last, Coriander surrendered to the inevitable and gave Katherine permission to cut it off. One night, by the yellow light of the bare bulb that hung over the kitchen table, Katherine draped a towel over Coriander’s shoulders and tufts of gold went falling to the floor all round her.

“I’m here because I failed at love,” she managed to tell the couple at last, when her sorrows began to feel more distant. “I loved my father, and he knew it not.”

Folke and Katherine still called her Rush. She didn’t correct them. Coriander was the name her parents gave her. It was the name her father had called her when she was six and racing down the stairs to meet him when he came home from Europe, and at ten when she showed him the new song she’d learned to play on the harp. She’d been Cor when she brought her first boyfriend home and Cori the first time she shadowed him at court. Coriander, Coriander, when she came home from college the first time and he’d hugged her with bruising strength. Her strong, powerful father.

As she seasoned a pot of soup for supper, she wondered if he understood yet what she’d meant when she called him salt in her food.

Coriander had been living with Katherine and Folke for two years, and it was a morning just like any other. She was in the kitchen brewing a pot of coffee when Folke tossed the newspaper on the table and started rummaging in the fridge for his orange juice. “Looks like the old king’s sick again,” he commented casually. Coriander froze.

She raced to the table and seized hold of the paper. There, above the fold, big black letters said, KING ADMITTED TO HOSPITAL FOR EMERGENCY TREATMENT. There was a picture of her father, looking older than she’d ever seen him. Her knees went wobbly and then suddenly the room was sideways.

Strong arms caught her and hauled her upright. “What’s wrong, Rush?”

“What if he dies,” she choked out. “What if he dies and I never got to tell him?”

She looked up into Folke’s puzzled face, and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out.

When she was through, Katherine (who had come downstairs sometime between salt and the storm) took hold of her hand and kissed it. “Bless you, dear,” she said. “I never would have guessed. Maybe it’s best that you’ve both had some time to think things over.”

Katherine shook her head. “But don’t you think…?”

“Yes?”

“Well, don’t you think he should have known that I loved him? I shouldn’t have needed to say it. He’s my father. He’s the king.”

Katherine replied briskly, as though the answer should have been obvious. “He’s only human, child, for all that he might wear a crown; he’s not omniscient. Why didn’t you tell your father what he wanted to hear?”

“I didn’t want to flatter him,” said Coriander. “That was all. I wanted to be right in what I said.”

The goodwife clucked softly. “Oh dear. Don’t you know that sometimes, it’s more important to be kind than to be right?”

In her leave-taking, Coriander tried to tell Katherine and Folke how grateful she was to them, but they wouldn’t let her. They bought her a bus ticket and sent her on her way towards King’s City with plenty of provisions. Two days later, Coriander stood on the back steps of one of the palace outbuildings with her little carpetbag clutched in her hands.

Stuffing down the fear of being recognized, Coriander squared her shoulders and hoped they looked as strong as her father’s. She rapped on the door, and presently a maid came and opened it. The maid glanced Coriander up and down, but after a moment it was clear that her disguise held. With all her long hair shorn off, she must have looked like any other girl come in off the street.

“I’m here about a job,” said Coriander. “My name’s Rush.”

The king's chambers were half-lit when Coriander brought him his supper, dressed in her servants’ apparel. He grunted when she knocked and gestured with a cane towards his bedside table. His hair was snow-white and he was sitting in bed with his work spread across a lap-desk. His motions were very slow.

Coriander wanted to cry, seeing her father like that. Yet somehow, she managed to school her face. Like he would, she kept telling herself. Stoically, she put down the supper tray, then stepped back out into the hallway.

It was several minutes more before the king was ready to eat. Coriander heard papers being shuffled, probably filed in those same manilla folders her father had always used. In the hall, Coriander felt the seconds lengthen. She steeled herself for the moment she knew was coming, when the king would call out in irritation, “Girl! What's the matter with my food? Why hasn’t it got any taste?”

When that moment came, all would be made right. Coriander would go into the room and taste his food. “Why,” she would say, with a look of complete innocence, “It seems the kitchen forgot to salt it!” She imagined how her father’s face would change when he finally understood. My daughter always loved me, he would say.

Soon, soon. It would happen soon. Any second now.

The moment never came. Instead, the floor creaked, followed by the rough sound of a cane striking the floor. The door opened, and then the king was there, his mighty shoulders shaking. “Coriander,” he whispered.

“Dad. You know me?”

“Of course.”

“Then you understand now?”

The king’s wrinkled brow knit. “Understand about the salt? Of course, I do. It wasn't such a clever riddle. There was surely no need to ruin my supper with a demonstration.”

Coriander gaped at him. She'd expected questions, explanations, maybe apologies for sending her away. She'd never imagined this.

She wanted very badly to seize her father and demand answers, but then she looked, really looked, at the way he was leaning on his cane. The king was barely upright; his white head was bent low. Her questions would hold until she'd helped her father back into his room.

“If you knew what I meant–by saying you were like salt in my food– then why did you tell me to go?” she asked once they were situated back in the royal quarters.

Idly, the king picked at his unseasoned food. “I shouldn’t have done that. Forgive me, Coriander. My anger and hurt got the better of me, and it has brought me much grief. I never expected you to stay away for so long.”

Coriander nodded slowly. Her father's words had always carried such fierce authority. She'd never thought to question if he really meant what he’d said to her.

“As for the salt,” continued the king, "Is it so wrong that an old man should want to hear his daughters say ‘I love you' before he dies?”

Coriander rolled the words around in her head, trying to make sense of them. Then, with a sudden mewling sound from her throat, she managed to say, “That's really all you wanted?”

“That's all. I am old, Cor, and we've spoken too little of love in our house.” He took another bite of his unsalted supper. His hand shook. “That was my failing, I suppose. Perhaps if I’d said it, you girls would have thought to say it back.”

“But father!” gasped Coriander, “That’s not right. We've always known we loved one another! We've shown it a thousand ways. Why, I've spent the last year cataloging them in my head, and I've still not even scratched the surface!”

The king sighed. “Perhaps you will understand when your time comes. I knew, and yet I didn't. What can you really call a thing you’ve never named? How do you know it exists? Perhaps all the love I thought I knew was only a figment.”

“But that’s what I’ve been afraid of all this time,” Coriander bit back. “How could you doubt? If it was real at all– how could you doubt?”

The king’s weathered face grew still. His eyes fell shut and he squeezed them. “Death is close to me, child. A small measure of reassurance is not so very much to ask.”

Coriander slept in her old rooms that night. None of it had changed. When she woke the next morning, for a moment she remembered nothing of the last two years.

She breakfasted in the garden with her father, who came down the steps in a chair-lift. “Coriander,” he murmured. “I half-thought I dreamed you last night.”

“I’m here, Dad,” she replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Slowly, the king reached out with one withered hand and caressed Coriander's cheek. Then, his fingers drifted up to what remained of her hair. He ruffled it, then gently tugged on a tuft the way he'd used to playfully tug her long braid when she was a girl.

“I love you,” he said.

“That was always an I love you, wasn’t it?” replied Coriander. “My hair.”

The king nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

So Coriander reached out and gently tugged the white hairs of his beard. “You too,” she whispered.

“Why salt?” The king was sitting by the fire in his rooms wrapped in two blankets. Coriander was with him, enduring the sweltering heat of the room without complaint.

She frowned. “You like honesty. We have that in common. I was trying to be honest–accurate–to avoid false flattery.”

The king tugged at the outer blanket, saying nothing. His lips thinned and his eyes dropped to his lap. Coriander wished they wouldn’t. She wished they would hold to hers, steely and ready for combat as they always used to be.

“Would it really have been false?” the king said at last. “Was there no other honest way to say it? Only salt?”

Coriander wanted to deny it, to give speech to the depth and breadth of her love, but once again words failed her. “It was my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know how to heave my heart into my throat.” She still didn’t, for all she wanted to.

When the doctor left, the king was almost too tired to talk. His words came slowly, slurred at the edges and disconnected, like drops of water from a leaky faucet.

Still, Coriander could tell that he had something to say. She waited patiently as his lips and tongue struggled to form the words. “Love you… so… much… You… and… your sisters… Don’t… worry… if you… can’t…say…how…much. I… know.”

It was all effort. The king sat back when he was finished. Something was still spasming in his throat, and Coriander wanted to cry.

“I’m glad you know,” she said. “I’m glad. But I still want to tell you.”

Love was effort. If her father wanted words, she would give him words. True words. Kind words. She would try…

“I love you like salt in my food. You're desperately important to me, and you've always been there, and I don't know what I'll do without you. I don’t want to lose you. And I love you like the soil in a garden. Like rain in the spring. Like a hero. You have the strongest shoulders of anyone I know, and all I ever wanted was to be like you…”

A warm smile spread across the old king’s face. His eyes drifted shut.

#inklingschallenge #theme: storge #story: complete #inklings challenge #leah stories #OKAY. SO #i spend so much time thinking about king lear. i think i've said before that it's my favorite shakespeare play. it is not close #and one of the hills i will die on is that cordelia was not in the right when she refused to flatter her dad #like. obviously he's definitely not in the right either. the love test was a screwed up way to make sure his kids loved him #he shouldn't have tied their inheritances into it. he DEFINITELY shouldn't have kicked cordelia out when she refused to play #but like. Cordelia. there is no good reason not to tell your elderly dad how much you love him #and okay obviously lear is my starting point but the same applies to the meat loves salt princess #your dad wants you to tell him you love him. there is no good reason to turn it into a riddle. you had other options #and honestly it kinda bothers me when people read cordelia/the princess as though she's perfectly virtuous #she's very human and definitely beats out the cruel sisters but she's definitely not aspirational. she's not to be emulated #at the end of the day both the fairytale and the play are about failures in storge #at happens when it's there and you can't tell. when it's not and you think it is. when you think you know someone's heart and you just don'#hey! that's a thing that happens all the time between parents and children. especially loving past each other and speaking different langua #so the challenge i set myself with this story was: can i retell the fairytale in such a way that the princess is unambiguously in the wrong #and in service of that the king has to get softened so his errors don't overshadow hers #anyway. thank you for coming to my TED talk #i've been thinking about this story since the challenge was announced but i wrote the whole thing last night after the super bowl #got it in under the wire! yay!#also! the whole 'modern setting that conflicts with the fairytale language' is supposed to be in the style of modern shakespeare adaptation #no idea if it worked but i had a lot of fun with it #pontifications and creations

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miraclesnail · 5 days ago

Text

kronus AU, title still pending

chapter 16, 17, 18, 19

First chapter, previous chapter, next chapter

@oopsies-i-did-a-thing

To add/rewrite later

Travis zones out

Shadow travel

Build a portal

make the clovers/fix the door?

Will try to heal the wound

Percy and travis look at the window and buildings

Travis tells percy to shut up.

Setting sun

House rules.

End call.

After making sure Bianca is okay, the other-him continues with a hesitant “Get some sleep, guys. We’ll figure out the game plan then. Call me once it’s daylight. Or call me if any problems occur. Call me if you want to talk actually. Second thought, maybe I should just stay on the line and—”

“We’ll be fine. You’re going to grow gray hair with all this fretting, Travis,” Bianca jokes with a trembling voice.

Bianca ends the call and immediately plops down and curls into an impossibly tiny ball. She’s trying to stifle it, but Travis can tell she’s crying. He doesn’t know Bianca all that well. Well, he doesn’t know her at all. Today is their first meeting, but it’s not in Travis to leave someone in distress. Should he… comfort her? How does he comfort her? The same way Nico likes to be comforted? How does Nico like to be comforted? Or should he just wing it and go from there? Maybe he should call Will. Will’s bound to know what to do in this situation.

Silena stops him with a gentle hand on his wrist, shaking her head just slightly. She tucks a thin blanket around Bianca’s shaking body and then passes him his own thin blanket.

Sleep.

They want him to take a nap when he just got delivered the worst bombshell of his life.

No way can they be serious.

But Silena lays down beside Bianca and pats beside her and well… he can’t say no, can he? So he bunkers down and stares at the ceiling and listens to the torrenting rain that once had not stopped.

A minute passes in complete, utter silence before he breaks it.

��So about the zombies—”

“Our Travis will tell you in the morning,” Silena says without facing him.

Alright.

He waits some more and then asks, “So about Annabeth and Lou Ellen—”

“In the morning,” is all Silena says.

“Okay, but how about Michael—”

“Morning,” Silena stresses, rolling over to curl up against Bianca, her back to him now, message loud and clear.

So Travis goes back to staring at the ceiling, definitely not pouting and fuming.

This sucks.

xxxxxx

As soon as Bianca hangs up, the questions start. From Clarisse and Nico and Piper and Leo and Will and Perseus and Connor, about Bianca, about Silena, about him, about their world, about the differences, about the zombies, about this person, about that camper, about Chiron, about the gods, about the camp, about this, about that, about about about and it’s too much. Their voices overlap. Their words bounce and crash off each other. Some go in one ear and out the other. Some stay and linger and he remembers dying screams and pleads of mercy that no amount of blinking pushes away.

He sighs, rubs the heel of his hand into his eyes, and debates running to the forest and hiding until he’s needed.

He wonders if that would be a bad look.

[it would be bad. Especially since you establish some kind of understanding]

Understanding? What understanding?

[That you mean no harm]

Then take over. Answer for me. You basically know it all.

[But what if they ask about what happened before the titan? And I'm wary of Annabeth to be honest. I rather not be near her.]

Well, I want to hide so what is it going to be?

“Hey,” Annabeth’s voice, strong and clear, cuts through the chaos.

He peeks an eye to find the room dead silent now for some reason. They’re all still here, all looking at him, but none of them talk. Annabeth’s kneeling on one knee in front of him, her eyes searching his own with a careful intensity he doesn’t like.

“Are you okay?” is all she asks with an earnest face.

What a ridiculous question. He would laugh if he had the energy. He would laugh if he had the spirit.

“There’s not something else you'd rather ask about?”

He winces when Annabeth’s eyebrows crease with concealed concern.

“Of course, I have other questions. But I can’t interrogate you if you’re feeling unwell. So are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he lies.

“Liar,” Annabeth says without pause, eyes cutting straight through him. “Nectar? Ambrosia?”

He grimaces as a stab of white hot pain punches through his temples. But nothing more. He goes to rub his neck but at Annabeth’s scowl, at Will’s frown, at Connor’s worry, he stops and instead digs his nails into his wrist hidden from everyone’s eyes.

“No thanks. I’m good,” he mumbles, looking down at the floor.

“Right. Sure, you are,” Annabeth says without an ounce of belief in her voice. She stands and pats her knees free of dust. She rests her hands on her hips, staring down at him for a moment with inquisitive eyes. Eyes searching his that makes him uncomfortable.

After a few moments, Annabeth says, “You said the Titan lost his powers? Just that? He’s not scattered into a million particles in the dust like he is here?”

A… million particles? How does that even happen? Sounds like a fever dream. Sounds like a good dream. What he would do to have that… Annabeth reads his face and clicks her tongue, arms crossing over her chest. Her eyes grow a slight bit colder and he can’t help but freeze [fight back] under her gaze, can’t help but be reminded of his Annabeth and her determination for the kill.

“So he’s still whole in your world. Are you still working for the Titan then? Are you here to start another Titan War?”

He shakes his head.

“No.”

Annabeth stays silent, waiting for more.

He should say more.

Everybody stares at him. Someone coughs. Someone else taps their foot.

He needs to say more.

But his mind is blanking on what to say, on where to start, on what actually needs to be said. It all happened years ago. None of it is relevant anymore. So he was Kronos’s spy. So he lost his brother. So Bianca and Silena are alive. So Annabeth is dead. So his world is a mess. Knowing that history won’t help them even a little bit get their Travis back.

So what’s the point of telling them anything?

“Travis. Hey. Are you still with us?” Annabeth says, a hand reaching for him. A hug? A head pat? A light punch on the shoulder? It doesn’t matter. He thinks of sharpened needles and reacts, flinching and halting her by grabbing the wrist. Annabeth immediately withdraws her hand.

And he blurts, “I'm sorry.”

It's the wrong thing to say. He watches Annabwth’s face grow furious and he squashes the urge to run and hide. Not her not her it's not her so don’t attack don’t attack don’t attack.

Annabeth inhales and her face goes emotionless, turning her back on him.

“What are you sorry for?” Annabeth asks. Sorry? What is he sorry for? For Existing. Fucking up. Not being enough. Not doing enough. Never succeeding. Never amounting to anything. Not—

“Nevermind,” Annabeth says, scowling at nothing, “Forget I said anything.”

He could feel her disappointment like a crushing weight and it makes him sicker than he already is.

[I don’t think that’s disappointment.] Then what is it? [Anger. She’s angry but not at you.]

“Everybody out. I need to talk to him alone.”

The awkward silence comes again. Nobody moves. Perseus opens his mouth but shakes his head like he thought better. Clarisse growls, “Are you stu—” but shuts up too. Nobody dares disobey or challenge her. They just file out through the hacked open wall made by Perseus earlier.

When the last demigod leaves through the door, Annabeth turns to him, crouches on one knee so they’re eye-level again, almost hesitantly, asking quietly, “You’re not really… all Travis, are you?”

Oh. [She figured that out fast.] Of course she did. It’s Annabeth. How could he expect anything else? [though I guess it wasn’t really subtle to begin with]

“You’re hosting the titan,” she says, not as a question but as a fact. “And there’s another person in there with you.”

Is it that obvious?

“It’s pretty obvious,” Annabeth announces, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve known you since I was seven.”

He grimaces and immediately wipes it from his face. [you are easy to read]

“Travis, I know you’re overwhelmed right now and want nothing more than to sleep. I have dozens of questions but I'm willing to hold back until tomorrow if you just answer me this. You said you won’t start another titan war. But the titan inside you, is he going to try? If he’s not a million particles then what is his condition?”

“The Titan.” he winces at the spike of pain. “The Titan is weakened, not as bad as when Zeus chopped him up the first time but not as healed when he first started talking with Luke. He’s linked to me and all he sees is what I see. Sometimes, if I'm tired, he can control my body but we have ways around it. It’s not a problem as long as nobody interferes.”

Annabeth's gray eyes harden and he cows a bit under her glare. Even her turning away doesn’t make him feel better.

“What’s his goal then? If it’s not to bring the Olympians down, then what does he want?”

[tell her the truth]

He thinks desperately of a lie that will work.

“Don’t,” Annabeth says without hesitation. “Your eyes are wandering like they do when you’re being dishonest. Tell me the truth, Travis. Stop trying to spare my feelings. What does Kronos want?”

He bites his tongue and considers continuing trying to think up something. [Tell her the truth. You’re the one that ended him. Own up to it. Don’t ruin the fragile peace with secrets] But Annabeth and him are unrelenting and he hates how similar both of them are. He gives in, pathetically, like he always does, shoulders drooping as he leans his head back on the wall.

“Revenge, not against the Gods, but me for burning Luke alive while he was still hosting the titan.”

17 ANNABETH

“Are you fucking stupid?”

Is what Annabeth hears first thing when she steps into the conference room where all the counselors are present. She had Chris and Miranda switch with her to keep an eye over their dimensional guest.

“Hey,” Percy defends, shooting Clarisse a warning glare. “I’m sure Annabeth has her reasons for trusting Travis.”

But Clarisse slams her fist on the conference room table and repeats herself again, louder, angrier, fear disguised as rage. “Are you really that fucking stupid?”

“He had several opportunities to kill us,” Nico says, “Especially that time he froze all of us on the spot. He could have taken a couple of us out before he passed from exhaustion. He had me in a chokehold too. If he wanted, a snap of his leg and I would have died. Plus, he tried to save our Travis from being kebabed by the other-Annabeth.”

“I second Nico,” Will says, “I think Travis is harmless.”

“But he was a spy,” Butch inputs. “He worked against the camp. Who knows who he killed or what he did in that world.”

“Maybe he had a change of heart like Silena did here,” Percy starts but Clarisse’s death glare stops him.

“Silena is different. She died a hero. I don’t see that traitor dead.”

“There’s ways to prove you changed sides without dying, Clarisse,” Percy argues.

“Are we forgetting he tried to kill Percy and attacked two immortals when he first got here,” Leo says.

“How are Mr. D and Chiron doing by the way?”

“Travis,” Annabeth finally says after watching the counselors argue back and forth for minutes. All eyes turn to her, the room quiets. There’s a tumult in the room, Connor is watching her with hope in his eyes, and she watches it disintegrate when she says.

“Travis is hosting Kronos.”

Everybody spoke all at once. Chairs scoot back. Someone drew a sword. The room grows hotter and smoke fills the air.

“Then we should kill him then.” “Are you sure?” “Maybe he’s lying to us?” “No way. I don’t believe it.” “Why did you leave him alone then?! Someone go watch him so he doesn’t escape!”

It’s expected. Her feelings flew through the five stages as she tried to process her thoughts when Travis confessed.

“Travis was the one to deal the final blow to Kronos,” Annabeth says and the chaos comes to a screeching halt.

Percy stares at her, pale. “Not Luke?”

Annabeth nods. “Not Luke.”

“What were you and I doing then?”

Annabeth narrows her eyes. “You’re alive but I’m dead in that world. I don’t look younger than 16 and assuming zombies don’t age, maybe Luke did end up killing me that day.” At Percy’s horrified face, Annabeth rectifies. “Or maybe I died earlier in the war. It’s hard to say unless we asked.”

“Let’s go back to Kronos first,” Katie cuts in, “So Travis dealt the final blow. But Kronos isn’t a million pieces? He’s Kronos’s host now? And without bearing the Achilles’ Curse? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it either,” Annabeth admits, “We would have to ask Travis once he wakes up.”

“How do you know he’s harmless, Annabeth?” Clarisse asks, voice strain. Her fist shakes minutely and there’s a desperate glint in her eyes, like she wants to believe too. “How do you know he won’t start a war again? How can you just trust him like that?”

It’s something she asked herself when she left him in the room. There’s a benevolent titan in her childhood friend who already showed signs of violence. He’s not completely in control either. Travis even said it himself. So why did the more she looked at Travis, the more her worry disappeared? Why was it her worry turned into anger the more she looked? Why did she feel a burning rage and the violent urge to eviscerate whoever hurt him?

Even with the unknown powers. Even with a titan and someone else inside him. It’s still Travis. He’s still that same protective, goofy, sweet, impulsive liar she met all those years ago. Even in pieces and fragments, Annabeth can see him underneath the confident and competent facade he has up.

“Because it’s Travis,” Annabeth states confidently. “And I know Travis wouldn’t hurt us.”

Alright.

Yes.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Of course.

After two solid hours of listening to the rain drops and staring at the barely visible, very moldy and leaky ceiling, Travis can safely say with 100% certainty that he absolutely cannot sleep in these conditions. Shocker, he knows. Totally unbelievable. It’s not like he was delivered one of the worst news one can ever get. Him? A traitor. Connor? Dead. Hotel? Trivago.

Travis pushes up upright, glancing down at his two companions illuminated with the occasional lightning outside. Bianca is curled into a tight ball, face buried in to her knees. Silena is on her back, a frown on her face as she tosses and turns.

But both are asleep. Both unable to stop him from taking a quick walk. Just a walk. All he needs is a walk to clear his thoughts.

So Travis stands and tiptoes out of the room, shutting the door behind him. It’s pitch black in the contained building. Not cool, but not a problem. Travis takes out Silena’s cellphone he snatched before leaving. There’s still Bianca’s phone so it’s okay if he takes Silena’s, right? If Other-Him wants to contact them, he still can through Bianca. Besides, he’s going for a quick walk. There’s going to be exactly zero troubles!

Now to activate the flashlight… all phones have some kind of flashlight right? Travis turns the device in his hand over and over but can’t figure it out so he taps on the screen to turn the screen on and flips it around so the dim light illuminates the way.

Just a quick walk. Should be fine, he reasons.

Just to clear his mind. Then he can finally sleep.

Without looking back, Travis breaks out into a run into the abyss.

xxxx

Rest.

Annabeth left him almost alone to rest and recuperate.

Rest…

Like he has the time and the right to do that. He already took an hour nap. That’s plenty of rest.

[I think you really should though. You still feel exhausted. Your body feels like it’s running on fumes. And—]

“I have to use the restroom,” he announces to his two bodyguards fidgeting awkwardly beside him. He glances at Chris, waiting to see if this version of his half-brother can pick up on lies. Guess not, because Chris isn’t calling him out at all.

“Oh. Sure,” Miranda says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She glances at his alive-again half-brother. “Chris will have to be in there with you if that’s okay.”

“Yeah. That’s fine.”

He stands from his spot against the wall and immediately his head spins. [see?] He grasps the wall for support. [Rest. Please. If not for you, then for me.]

Just let me steal a couple Ambrosia squares for Bianca and Silena. There’s a stash underneath the sink for easy access. Then I’ll sleep. [Promise?] Promise.

So he pulls himself to his feet and walks outside with Miranda and Chris meandering behind him. He passes by the conference room. He can hear Annabeth’s voice and others. Yelling. Arguing. Complaining. And he really doesn’t like the thought of it being about him.

He reaches for the door of the restroom, but it opens on its own from the inside. A body nearly collides with his, but he swerves to the side in time. The yelp of surprise is still grating on the ears though.

“Jesus Christ, Travis. You’re so quiet,” Leo Valdez says, with a high-pitched laugh that borders more on the fearful side, “We need to get you a bell, man.”

He smelled it first before he saw it. The acrid, volatile stench of smoke. And fire.

The smallest of fire, barely a wisp that's snuffed out faster than it's been alive, but fire still the same.

The barest of heat touches his skin. It’s automatic. He could feel the other person shy away from the surface and shut down and go unconscious. The burning on his neck goes from aching and manageable to excruciating and unbearable.

His knees crumple and he hits the floor hard.

Leo’s yelling now. A hand shaking his shoulder. The Titan’s power leaks from his body, manifesting memories into visions. Leo, 14 and scrawny. His push didn’t even make him budge an inch. But fire goes from his hands and onto him. A beautiful, painful array of red, orange, and pink as he burns alive. Leo, 15 and unyielding. Even with him holding a knife against his throat. Even with him pleading to stop it, to let it go, to just live without revenge. Leo, dead, throat slitted, the knife still drips wet with blood and he’s throwing up and why couldn’t Leo just listen to him why did this have to happen this isn’t fair this isn’t fair this isn’t —

Stop it.

He squeezes his eyes shut but he still hears it happening, the memories playing out loud.

Stop it.

[When we’re having this much fun without that wet blanket? Not a chance.]

Stop it, go away, die, drown, disappear like you did here you goddamn stupid loser of an immortal

The ground vibrates with running feet. There’s new sets of voices.

“Leo? What happened? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! I just came out of the toilet and bam! He just fell over.”

New memories come forth. New visions that burst into reality.

Annabeth, fighting against Luke and pleading for him to fight against the titan and come back to them. A blast of magic that goes astray and hits the wrong target. Annabeth, crumbling in a heap, dead in an instant. And ah. He sees this scene enough times, thinks about this moment more than enough, has it embedded to the memory but still he squeezes his eyes shut and covers his ears and pretends he can’t hear Connor screaming Annabeth's name and Luke freezing in horror, gold eyes finally fading back to blue, and Lou Ellen clinging to him with trembling fingers. It was an accident. It wasn’t supposed to hit Annabeth. It was an accident. It was an accident.

“Holy shit. Lou Ellen killed —”

Perseus, bursting into the room, seeing Annabeth’s dead body, Connor’s right beside her, the stupid titan charm dangling on his brother’s wrist, and he doesn’t know why Percy just assumed that they could ever — that Connor could ever hurt — when they knew Annabeth twice as long as Percy and she’s their friend too. They would never hurt her much less kill her. His body moves the instant Percy draws his sword. But Lou Ellen holds him back with an iron grip still muttering (It was an accident. It was an accident) and he could only watch as Connor scrambles back against Percy’s onslaught. When he finally pries her fingers away from his shirt, Connor’s dead, there’s blood on Percy’s blade. Sea-green eyes turn to them and Lou Ellen whimpers, crawling behind him. Connor is dead. Annabeth is dead. Luke ran off to who knows where. Lou Ellen is still here, still clinging to him. Percy is asking if they’re with the titan and he’s coming closer and Lou Ellen is still shaking and Connor is dead, Connor is gone, Connor was killed and he just stood there. He just stood there and let his brother be killed.

“I… killed Connor?”

“Travis? Travis! Will, can’t you do something!?”

Connor. Nothing more than a stumbling corpse, patches of flesh and meat sewn and held together by threads. The lopsided smile they share is off and cold. “What do you say? Wouldn’t it be better if you’re dead with me too? You’re lonely all by yourself, aren’t you? You can’t do anything without me, right?”

“I don’t know what to do here! This is the titan projecting the memories. How am I supposed to stop that?”

Will. Nose missing. Left eye gone. His intestines held inside by his hand. Minutes away from death and high on their last supply of morphine. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Is what he recites to himself as he listens to Will says his final wishes.

“Well, do something! I don’t want to see these crappy images anymore!”

Clarisse’s hand on his shirt as she shakes him hard again. Her eyes are pained but determined, a fire that isn't dampened at all by the rain around them. “Live,” is all she says with defiant eyes. Live? When Connor’s dead? How could he live without his brother? She shakes him again. Harder this time. Almost desperate-like as she sneers with fake belligerence. “Don’t make that pathetic face. Your only option is to live. I don’t want to hear anything about giving up.”

“Let him go. Touch him again and you'll regret it, Clarisse.”

Nico. And Bianca. Both in Manhattan and both wearing armor from the head to the toe. Yelling and shoving at each other. He should break it up. But Will, alive and whole, is asking him what happened, where’s Connor (dead), where’s Annabeth (dead), where’s Perseus (who cares). Michael is pointing at someone stranded in raging waters and seconds away from drowning. Clarisse is shaking him by the shoulders and yelling what the fuck is wrong with you, stop zoning out (everything. Everything is wrong. Connor is dead.). Chris is pleading with Clarisse to drop it. There’s about a dozen more things going on, a dozen more emotions he hasn’t even begun to process, that he just ignores the two children of Hades’ screaming match. Then the ground rumbles and cracks and the undead claw their way up from below.

“Can’t we just knock him out? That’s relatively fast and almost painless.”

Piper, quiet and despondent and hurting and mute and clutching the front of his jacket, not speaking, just mouthing the words, over and over and over. I’m sorry.

Lou Ellen, a hand on his shirt, mumbling, “Why did you protect me? You should have let Percy kill me.”

Chris, pulling him out of rubble, pleading, “I can't do this without you. Don’t give up. You can’t give up on us. Please. Travis, please.”

Luke, a crispy corpse still somehow alive, eyes shifting between gold and blue, looking at him, begging him with pained eyes to do something about the unbearable pain.

Chiron, face weary and resigned as he draws his bow and aims at them as he and they, Katie and Michael and Will, begs for Chiron to please help them, to please side with them and not the gods.

Michael, face hardened, dried tear tracks rubbed away, now the sole remaining child of Apollo, a hand extended towards him, the gauze at his wrist fresh with wet blood. “What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

Connor, humming a song as he dangles from the pipes by the intestines. “Are you mad? Does it hurt? Sorry. Next time, it’ll be instant.”

Connor, grinning as he lops the head off with a single swipe of his machete, body moving without his input. “I’ll make it painless. I swear. Pinkie promise.”

Connor, laughing as he hacks up the bits and pieces of limbs and double-bagging them to toss into the ocean. “I heard free falling isn’t a bad way to go if you land head first. Pretty painless too.”

A tower of water, clashing against New York City. Buildings, toppling like dominoes. Bodies upon countless bodies, in the dark murky water amongst the debris.

A golf-size hole that becomes a giant chasm the size of a football stadium. Spirits that clamber out of the pit and to their broken, destroyed bodies, their screams of agony all starting together.

Their voices all cascade and grind against each other. Snapping back and forth. Overlapping like glaciers trying to stay afloat. Just a constant barrage of memories that refuse to be drowned out.

He can feel the titan grinning in his mind, can practically see his sneer.

He likes it when you’re in pain, Hermes told him once upon a time. So don’t react or give him fuel, is all the advice he gets before the titan’s soul was pulled from Luke’s and pushed onto his.

So he curls up tighter, presses his hands over his ears harder, and pretends he doesn’t hear it at all.

Then somewhere in the middle of it all, he hears someone humming.

19 ANNABETH

“You have bacterial meningitis,” Annabeth, 7, says rather frankly and lowers her book about the myth of Niobe. “Connor has it too. Probably from when you guys were living in the streets. Kind of bad timing. We’re out of nectar from treating the newcomers 5 days ago. Luke went to get more from Mount Olympus. He should be back in a couple more hours.”

Travis, 7 also, stares blankly at her with glassy eyes, fever-ridden and probably delirious and definitely not all there. All of Annabeth’s words probably went over his head and she opens her mouth to recite it all again when Travis’s eyes move past her and around the room. He squirms and tries to rise, falling weakly back to the bed.

“Connor? Where’s Connor?” camp’s newest addition croaks.

Annabeth shifts and juts a thumb to the bed beside her. Connor, 6, is unconscious with a frown marring his features.

Travis stares at his little brother with conflict.

“Do you think I would be a bad brother waking him up?”

“Why do you need him up for?” Annabeth questions with an eyebrow quirked.

“... because I want him to tell me everything will be okay,” Travis mumbles, looking away with shame.

“Yeah,” Annabeth says, “That would be pretty selfish. If I were him, I would punch you and go back to sleep.”

“Okay. That’s what I thought too,” Travis says miserably and Annabeth flips back open her book. She can’t focus on the words though. Travis tosses and turns every few seconds, and it’s hard to focus when someone whimpers and whines every other second.

“Why don’t you go back to sleep? It’ll pass the time faster until Luke gets back.”

“I’m trying. I just can’t sleep,” Travis groans on his side, head tucked between a pillow and arm, eyes squeezed shut.

“Well, close your eyes and try harder. I want to go back to my book.”

“Everything hurts though.”

And Annabeth, 7 and not really good with her emotions, not really good with displaying concern, just in general not good with other people that’s not Luke, sighs and puts her book aside. She stands and ignores Luke’s and Chiron’s warning of not getting too close, else she’ll get sick too. She gets up right to the bed, right next to Travis’s face, arms crossed across her chest.

“Well, what will make you feel better? You’re annoying like this.”

“Connor usually sings for us,” Travis says with his face in the pillow before flipping around then to his side.

“What kind of song?”

“Any song.”

“And if I sing a song, you’ll sleep?”

“Yeah.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Annabeth takes a second to think and sings.

xxxxxx

It was a gamble, a chance, based on the fact that this Travis seems similar enough to theirs. A stupid song she made up on the spot to appease and lull the stupid son of Hermes back to a painless sleep. She doesn’t even know why she thought of it now. Maybe because Travis isn’t responding to any of them, maybe because he’s curled up like how he was when he was sick, maybe because Travis is whimpering and whining just like how he did all those years ago that Annabeth remembered the song and sung it out of desperation.

The images of Manhattan being destroyed by a wave of water, of Percy with dark, hate-filled eyes and a bloodstained Riptide, of Connor hacked and slashed and dead, all of it disappear, replaced with an infirmary and 3 children.

Annabeth watches the memory play out exactly how it happened all those years ago. Everything’s the same. Right down to her little grin when Travis’s eyes started drifting close. To the little pats she gave to Travis’s messy, uncombed hair. To the little sag of her shoulders she did right before Travis fell asleep.

In reality, in the present, Travis’s erratic breathing slows and steadies. A hand grips her wrist tightly, not enough to hurt but enough to be an anchor.

“Jeez,” Her 7 year old self sighs and rests her arms on her hips with the beginnings of a fond smile. “You really can’t do anything by yourself, huh, Travis?”

The memory ends.

Annabeth stops singing.

Travis blinks once. Twice. Focus coming back into his glassy eyes. His eyes roll over to meet hers and a new memory appears. This time of her, 16 and neck bruised purple, her knee on his chest, her hand on the knife digging through Travis’s shoulder, and her other hand pulling that knife out.

“Fight?” Travis whispers in a quiet, heartbroken voice. He stares at her dead counterpart emotionlessly. Not a semblance of pain. Like his shoulder isn’t stabbed. “Without you or Connor?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” other-Annabeth grits out behind clenched teeth.

“You’re going to live.” The knife comes down. It veers off course and shatters against the tile beside Travis’s unflinching ear.

“And you’re going to fight.” A hand snaps to Travis’s throat and squeezes for a second before she lets go.

“And you’re going to try.” A hand fist itself in dirt-caked, brown hair, pulling back and stopping short of slamming down.

“No giving up. Promise me. Promise me you won’t give up, Tr-Tra-vis.”

And Travis, squeezes his eyes shut, tears slipping from the corner of his eye, and nods before he slips his feet under her and kicks her off him and out the open window. She sees Travis’s grief-stricken face mold to something not so fragile, not so open as he turns to the outlines of 4 others running to him.

The memory shifts. To Travis with a pitchfork through her collarbone and pleading as he pins her throat down with his foot. “Please, Annabeth, I know you’re in there. I need your help. I tried like you asked but … but it’s not working out. Nothing I do works out. I can’t plan ahead like you and Connor. I can’t help anyone without you and Connor. I need your help. I-I need Connor. I need—” Travis’s head lowers, but the way his shoulders shake, the way his voice cracks, the rain and thunder does nothing to hide the sob that erupts from Travis. “I need you guys. Connor’s never himself so it’s only you. You’re the only one I can ask… so please, Annabeth… please help me.”

It shifts again, to Travis standing in front of a broken mirror with a messily wrapped gauze around his neck, already saturated with blood. His eyes are a darker shade of blue. A more electrifying shade of blue as hands raise to grip the edges of the bathroom mirror.

“Let’s make a deal,” Travis says to the fractured mirror, voice brimming with uncharacteristic conviction and determination. “I’ll help you. Bianca. Silena. Chris. Lou Ellen. Nico and the others. The undead. I’ll lend you my strength. I’ll help you find safety and peace for all of them. In return, you just keep your head straight.”

Travis blinks and his face falls, conviction turning to uncertainty, eyes a paler shade of blue, the shade of the ocean surface rather than electric-blue. The hands lower to hug his arms. “That’s all you want from me? Seems unfair on my end but I guess I can do that,” Travis mumbles, eyes wandering away from the mirror.

Another blink and Travis with the electric blue eyes is smiling. A sweet and soft smile as Travis’s fist rises to the mirror for a little tap and a spark of electricity flies from Travis’s closed hand.

“Alright, then, partner. It’s you and me. Let’s do our best.”

It cuts to Chris with an arrow flying through his chest, to Lou Ellen tying a tourniquet with blood-slick fingers over her thigh, to Connor as his head is sliced off, to Piper with a hole where her heart should be, to Leo with a knife in his throat, to Holly with a dent in her head, to Laurel blue tinged skin and soaking wet, to Cecil with black veins running all over his body, to Will gored and bitten and in pieces.

To Travis on top of the Empire State Building, soaked under the torrenting rain and frighteningly still with a blank stare to his pale blue eyes as he stare quietly out into the horizon,

To Travis falling off a building head first, eyes closed, body relaxed, falling, falling, before his eyes snapped open, irises electric blue, and the air whirling around him.

To Travis hesitating before a zombie, weapon lowering, stance loosening, eyes wide as the thing stumbles closer and closer and closer. It was a whisper, but Annabeth heard it loud and clear. Connor? Before the thing leans forward and sinks its teeth into Travis’s neck.

To Travis stumbling back with half his neck torn off as Chris rams a baseball bat in between the two brothers.

To Travis writhing and screaming, to Chris frantically pressing a towel against the wound, to Silena cowering in a corner, to Bianca on Travis’s other side, to Lou Ellen standing frozen and Hermes yelling for everybody to shut up, that it’s going to be fine, that Travis isn’t going to die from something as small as that, not with the titan inside him.

And that’s enough.

She has seen enough.

“Travis,” Annabeth grits out behind clenched teeth.

When the memories don’t end, Annabeth shakes Travis by the shoulder. The memory cut to her digging a knife through Travis’s shoulder.

“Travis!” Annabeth shakes harder. A new memory of her snapping Travis’s arm.

“Travis!” Annabeth yells. Another memory of her swinging a shovel and hearing a kneecap shattering. “Look at me.”

Travis does as she asks, ocean-blue eyes staring back at her with barely held back tears and she’s reminded again of her earliest memory of Travis, sick and desperate for his brother.

“I’ll help you,” Annabeth says, hand going to pat Travis’s dirty, unkempt hair. He doesn’t flinch away this time. If anything he clings tighter.

“Jeez, you really can’t do anything by yourself, huh?”

“Your problems, your goals. Whatever they are, leave them to me, Travis. I’ll fix them for you.”

xxxxxx

Hours pass. What used to be all the counselors present is now a select few. Her. Piper. Percy. Will and Nico. Connor.

Exhaustion takes its toll finally and Travis’s eyes droop, little by little slowly closing. Travis digs his nails into his forearm in an attempt to stay awake. Ah, that’s what he’s concerned about, Annabeth realizes.

“Don’t worry,” Annabeth tells him, clasping his hands in hers tightly. “I understand what we have to do. So sleep and trust us.”

Travis is doubtful and he manages to stay awake for five more minutes before Travis’s eyes close and his body slumps over. When they reopen, they’re tinted gold.

The titan barely had time for a second blink before Piper is on it.

“Sleep.”

#watch me post the rest within two or three tumblr post because this thanksgiving break is the only time I have to do so #apparantly the next section for school will be rough :(#but it's fine it's fine it's going to be fine #pjo #my fic #my writing #kronos au #rereading this kiiiiinnnnddaaaaaaa made me realize what my strong points and weak points were #i wished google doc history showed me when I type this so I don't have to scroll a bajillion version #It's kinda like a time capsule #i have an inkling of what show i was watching based of the style I had at the time

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