#and that they felt bad nico had come out to jason of all people. like okay what did jason ever do to deserve this treatment dam

[somewhereincairparavel]

i have ALWAYS promptly looked forward to jason grace's povs in the hoo books to the point where'd I'd flip the pages till I find the words "JASON" and would count the amount of povs he has in the whole book before I even finished reading, so I feel excited knowing that I'll get to his povs soon. there, I said it.

[suguwuus]

★ only you

i lied i went and rewrote another oneshot instead of doing my ocs teehee

wc: 2.4k words

contains: unspecified godly parent and mutual subtle pining

"I swear to the gods, Stoll, if you do that one more time, I'm going to drown you."

"Yeah?" Connor mocked, cocking his head to the side and grinning like he was about to push you underwater again. Both of you tread the seawater, chins just touching the cool surface. "And what are you going to do if I splash black dye on all your clothes?"

"I'm gonna change my style, move to the Hades cabin, and stay there," You replied stubbornly. "I can learn to get along with Nico and Hazel, anyway." You glanced toward the shallower part of the beach, where Percy was trying to get the di Angelo to learn how to swim. He was clinging to him and Jason like a scared cat, pale shaky limbs glistening in the sunlight.

"Have you forgotten that Hazel is Roman? Better get used to Will's sweet-talking!" Connor splashed water in your face, getting it up your nose.

"Shit—stop!" You coughed and swam closer to him, despite strands of hair uncomfortably sticking to your forehead and a dull ache in your nose. "Does he really talk like…like that around Nico?"

"No, but he stares a lot. Like he has a really obvious stare and stops doing everything just to stare." Connor glanced at Will, sitting ankle-deep at the shore, waves lapping at his shins. "Who knows, he might be imagining them swapping spit with each other—"

You hissed and clapped a hand over his mouth. He pushed your hand away and laughed. "He's so far. He can't hear us. RIGHT, WILL?"

The blond looked up and squinted in your direction. "Huh?" His voice was barely audible over the sloshing of the waves.

You shot Connor a glare. Then you felt a leg hook around yours. Before you could retort you were pulled beneath the surface again. You grabbed his shoulder and hauled yourself back up out of the water, grumbling and wiping the saltwater from your eyes.

"Fuck. You." You started to swim towards the shore, wading through the water.

"Hey, come back! I haven't had enough fun with you. Can we at least race?"

You called him over and waved your hand, getting an idea. You stopped after a few feet, looking down at the sea floor as your shirt billowed with the movement of the waves. Connor caught up to you. "What is it?"

"I think there's a watch there."

"A watch?"

"Yeah, there."

"I can't see it."

"Yeah, because you have to look closely, dumbass."

"There?"

"Yes, there."

"Is it a Rolex?"

"I don't know." You hoped he couldn't hear the smile in your voice. Then, while he had his head bent over the surface, trying to see what you were pointing at, you took the chance and shoved his head down, creating splashes as you did.

You laughed with satisfaction at getting him back as he coughed and spluttered. While he caught his bearings, you tried to continue swimming. But when Percy asked you a question, you stood still, letting your guard down. This gave Connor an opportunity to sneak up behind you and push you back down under the water by your shoulders, which of course, he did.

"Y/N, Connor's taking forever in the showers." Travis plopped down on the biggest hammock, the one you had taken the liberty of occupying. He threw you off balance and almost made you drop the pretty rock you had found.

Leo Valdez was splayed on another hammock with Piper McLean, making something with twigs and a soda can. "You think he drowned?"

Travis settled down and caused you to drop your rock. "He's not. He answered me when I called him."

You shook your head at the thought of your crush in the shower and frowned. "Why are you asking me about this?" Crush? Yes. Exactly. You found it a bit funny that you developed feelings for Connor, out of all people in camp, but once you looked past the rocks in your pillows and vinegar in your pancake syrup, he wasn't too bad. Then again, you had to endure the water up your nose to be around him as well.

You stuck your arm through the hammock and picked your rock off the soil. "We don't even have bathtubs at camp."

"You never know."

"What the Hades is that supposed to mean?"

For the next hour or two, your mind alternated between wandering off or going blank (and maybe Connor with wet hair). The others who went swimming joined you as well, either climbing the trees to talk with their friends more or laying on the hammocks. Others went back to their cabins. You lay there, soaking up the sun and feeling too lazy to even adjust yourself. You turned the rock over and over in your hand.

Clovis from the Hypnos cabin yawned. "It would be nice to take a nap. I'm tired..." His head drooped down and he snored.

At that, you felt more tempted to nap more than ever, but your doziness was interrupted by a shout.

"Guys!" Connor called. He ran towards your area at full speed. He could've stopped, but he tripped over a tree root. He straightened up, grinning and pushing curls out of his eyes.

You bit back a smirk, not sure if out of pettiness or endearment. "Did you find a serpent in the drain? Is that why it took you three hours?"

"No. Well, kind of. I was, um, I was taking a shower, obviously, and there was a worm. Anyway, we have a new camper! I couldn't find you guys," He pouted.

"Really? Who?" Travis asked. "Where from?"

"Uhm, California."

"Everyone's from California," Someone up in a nearby tree scoffed.

"She's a legacy from Camp Jupiter! Her parents are Greek, children of Nemesis and Demeter! And they actually got to survive past 25, with a house and all. Do you know how cool that is?!" Connor rambled.

Murmurs erupted. Very few adults were seen around Camp Half-Blood. It was even more rare to even hear of them living long enough to have children. You started wondering what it would be like to be a child of two demigods.

Connor jumped, is if an electric shock went through him. "Oh yeah, I forgot. Austen!"

Will had a half-brother named Austin. You looked at him with raised eyebrows and he shrugged, equally as clueless as you.

Connor disappeared again, but came back pulling a girl's hand along. She had shoulder length blonde hair and freckles sprinkled over her nose bridge, her face had strong features and she was dressed in a blouse with a cartoon character on it and jean shorts.

Leo snickered. "Imagine if this one's named Austen River."

You were too busy thinking about how Connor was acting with her. Or maybe you were a little weird for thinking he might have held her hand for a little too long, who knows?

He glanced shyly at her. "So...you're staying in the Hermes cabin for now, right?" He chuckled. "Sorry. We're sorted by godly parent here. Not sure where you're going to be put."

"Actually," Austen tucked a strand of hair behind her ear— "I was told I'll be staying in the Nemesis cabin." Connor's eager smile faded a little.

You spoke up, trying to ignore that last bit. "What's it like in New Rome?" You hoped your voice didn't sound as stiff as you felt.

Whatever she said about New Rome or Camp Jupiter or California or her demigod parents went into one of your ears and left through the other. Instead you had paid attention to how Connor would glance at her or how he laughed whenever she'd slip in a joke or two. He put his hands in his pockets and hooked his thumbs around the belt loops, which made you frown a bit. That was a nervous habit of his.

You felt a bit guilty for being so jealous. Did you often feel like this? Was it normal?

Sometime later, one of the people in our group jumped and yelped that it was almost time for Capture the Flag.

Austen looked down, mumbling something about how she had heard of it but never played or heard of how exactly to play it. Connor perked up, and offered to teach her, even to show her some tricks and spots.

That's alright. Like you gave a shit. Besides, that didn't hurt much. It only stung like a Hellhound's bite. In the ass. Through a tight pair of crispy scratchy jeans.

As if your day hadn't already turned sour enough, you had turned up with a sunburn from earlier at the beach.

You also would have said some more colorful insults and statements, but you felt like keeping it to yourself today. It was because you had seen Connor laughing with Austen with an arm over her shoulders. Your conscience told you that you shouldn't assume, but you snapped back at it, saying it was different when you had a crush. Besides, you knew Connor, and that boy was never that clingy on the first day of meeting someone. He never put his arm around people much, either.

The Fates must have felt particularly mischievous that day, too, because Connor and you had ended up on the same damn team in Capture the Flag. That might have sounded good, but what if he let Austen's team win?

You were left with him on the defensive, guarding the flag and standing on either side of the pole, facing away from each other.

"What do you think of Austen?" He asked.

You rolled your eyes while he couldn't see your face. Wow. No hi, hello, do you have any strategies in mind or anything. Just straight to Austen. Alright. "She's fine."

"Uh huh. Well, do—"

"Do you like her?" You blurted out. When you realized you said it out loud, you decided, fuck it, and faced him. He turned to you as well, looking surprised from what you could see of his face under his helmet.

"What?"

You looked down, mumbling so you wouldn't seem too upset. "Dude, you had an arm around her earlier. And...I saw you staring at her."

"Does that mean you always look at me as well?"

You immediately scowled, digging the sole of your shoe into the forest ground. "Shut up!" When he wouldn't look away from you, you frowned even deeper. That made a victorious smile start to bloom on his face.

He crossed his arms. "What's the matter? Jealous?"

For a moment, your breath caught in your throat. Luckily for you, your mind reacted quickly. "I mean, if you like Austen so much I can go with your buddy Isaac. He has been dropping a lot of hints lately. Then you'll know I'm not jealous, right?"

"Isaac? Dropping hints? Wow. You really think he'd treat you better than I would?"

"What?"

"What?"

You gripped your weapon, feeling your palms get sweaty. Your eyes widened. "You tell me!"

Connor raised his hands in surrender. "Um...You first! Why are you being weird?"

"Why are you so clingy with Austen all of a sudden? Do you like her? It's been, like, 2 hours since she came here, Connor."

Connor took off his helmet. "I don't like her! Chiron told me to give her a tour! I was on my way here when she arrived." He laughed. What was so funny about this? This boy had a strange sense of humor.

"Then what about you going to the Big House with her?"

"Y/N, I twisted my ankle." He glanced down, and you followed his gaze to see some compression gauze around his left ankle peeking out from the collar lining of his dirty shoe. "And besides, I've only liked one person for...um, a long time."

Your expression softened. "Who?"

He took a deep breath, then pressed so hard on the hilt of his sword hanging at his hip, that his hand slipped. He put his thumbs through his pants' belt loops. "Um...please don't get mad..."

Why would you be mad? "It's you, Y/N. Only you. For a year or two." He laughed nervously. "Or more."

"Me?" You asked incredulously, jaw dropping. You felt a shock run through you, not believing what you just heard.

"No, the nymph over there."

A tall, slim girl with braided hair and skin tinted green appeared beside you, scowling. You nearly jumped out of your skin at that. "Don't drag me into your lovers' quarrel!" Then she disappeared into green mist.

You looked back at Connor. "You're serious?"

"No, I'm Connor."

"Connor, please."

"Yes! Yes, of course, you! It's been so damn long, Y/N! I've been scared that you wouldn't like me back, you know, but since you asked, I can't not say it, okay? I haven't crushed on anyone else in years, because of how your eyes look when you talk about something you like, or your smile, or the way you speak, and how clingy you can get without knowing it when you're tired because you want someone to lean on. You're the only one who's on my mind, all the time. Only you." He cleared his throat, then inhaled through his teeth. He looked just as flustered as I felt.

"Oh. Me...me too." You mustered the courage to respond. Your head almost spun from the information, but at the same time your heart was going to break out of your ribcage from joy. "Me too, I-I like you a lot, I like you so much, Con, you keep me awake at night, too."

He sighed, relieved at your response. He then approached you, helmet under his arm. You reached out to take his hand, face breaking out into a grin, but then your thoughts interrupted you two once again, via your mouth. "Hey, Con."

"Yes?" You almost squealed in giddiness with the heart-eyed look he was giving you at that moment.

"What if Austen likes you?"

"Oh, no, I'm gay," Said a third voice. You spun around to see Austen, still in her cartoon design shirt and shorts, a bow slung over her shoulder and a knife in her hand. "...That's okay, right?" She asked.

"Oh, yeah, totally." Connor shrugged.

Austen relaxed. "Okay." Then she tried darting past you two, but you jumped into position, blocking her way.

You realized a second too late that your efforts were directed at a decoy. "Thank you!" Someone shouted. Annabeth Chase stood at your base, holding your flag, grinning proudly.

[sawyer-is-not-my-name]

Requested: Nico di Angelo x Son of Nyx reader

Request: Nico do Angelo x Son of Nyx

Stepping out from the shadows, and into camp half-blood was always odd for you. Sometimes you felt that you didn't really fit in, the looks some campers gave you shadow traveled didn't dissipate that feeling either. The younger campers were usually afraid of you too until you started creating stars above their heads which brought a smile to their face, as it followed them around for a bit.

You understood to some extent why people didn't think you belonged here, a lot of them were of Olympian descent, your mother, however, had been one of the first goddesses. Maybe they were right to some degree, you couldn't help but feel they might be. But the one thing that still kept you tied to this camp was Nico di Angelo, your best friend.

He was a lot like you in many ways. He could shadow travel, and people often gave him weird looks as if he didn't belong there. Maybe that's why you felt so connected to him, you both felt cast out here.

Speaking of Nico, he was currently trying to sneak up on you. Shadows bending around him as he did, if it wasn't for your senses noticing the abnormality he would've been able to. But alas you noticed him, turning around and making the shadows dissipate around him, you smiled at him. "Nice try Neeks." He smiled bashfully at you, after being caught.

You both made your way further into camp while catching the other up on what had happened since you last saw each other. While walking his hand brushed against yours causing your cheeks to flush a bit, it was an odd feeling that hadn't happened before. Why was he all of the sudden having this effect on you?

As you both passed, the tall raven-haired Percy Jackson, seeing the way Nico looked at him almost lit rage in you. You couldn't explain why this was happening. This hadn't ever happened before, so why were you feeling like this now. It put you in a bad mood how it made you feel, why were you jealous of the boy you knew Nico had previously liked.

You muttered a 'see you later' to Nico, as you booked it to your cabin. Crashing on your bunk as you thought through it. You'd never even liked anyone before, so why Nico, why now? So many different thoughts played through your mind, you couldn't get it to slow down.

No one else elicited these feelings in you, not Percy Jackson, not Jason Grace, not Will Solace, not Annabeth Chase, or Piper McLean. No one else had ever even managed to gain your attention like that. So why Nico? Why now?

You were interrupted from your thoughts when your sibling Callisto came into the cabin. "You doing alright?" Something about the question and the obvious nature of the fact that you were not alright, made you angry. You couldn't even control the fact you were mad. Mad at yourself and your stupid feelings for Nico. You stormed out of the cabin, letting your shoulder knock into there's as you left. "I'll take that as a 'no'" you practically growled as he said that, your anger not doing anyone any favors.

The rest of the week was spent with you mad at everyone and hiding in the shadows. Refusing to come out, no matter how much someone looked for you. You didn't understand why you had to have feelings for him, or why any of it was just happening now. It didn't make sense. Nor did your anger, it seemed misplaced. But that's usually how it was.

----

You were sitting in a tree away from most campers, and out of sight. Bending the shadows to keep you hidden. If it wasn't for Nico generating energy to try and shadow travel to you he wouldn't have even known you were here. "Y/n? You here? I just want to talk, you haven't talked to me at all this week. I just wanna know if you're okay. I miss you." His voice was distraught and shaky. You could tell he was upset, and it made you feel bad for hiding away from him. The fact your hiding had upset him, made your anger dissipate into guilt, the shadows surrounding you leaving with the anger.

"I'm sorry," you said rather quietly but enough for him to hear. You made your way down from the tree, standing in front of the raven-haired boy. "What're you sorry for, I'm not mad at you" he replied before pulling you into a hug, you could barely register what he said as your brain seemed to go dumb. The feelings you had for him made an appearance as your cheeks flamed with heat. "I- I'm sorry for hiding away from you." He looked at you a little surprised, "why were you hiding from me?" He seemed a little upset at your admittance.

You scratched the back of your head while trying to come up with an answer that didn't out your crush on him. But couldn't find one. "This isn't because I tried to hold your hand last week, right? Gods, you're straight, aren't you? I'm sorry, gods, I'm so sorry if I made you uncomfortable." Your eyes widened in shock, he liked you? Why did he like you? "You like me, why?" It was odd, you weren't used to these feelings, and now the chance of them being returned was so odd.

"I don't know why, I just do. You're always there, you understand me." Your cheeks seemed to flame, "I like you too, that's why I was hiding. I'm not used to feeling like this, I've never... I don't know at first it made me mad, but then again doesn't everything." He cut off your rambling gently pressing his lips to yours. When he did that, the emotion you felt created stars above you both, you didn't mean to make them it just seemed to happen. Nico pulled away grinning up at the stars that appeared underneath the tree you were under.

"Stop smirking." He snickered shaking his head, "sure thing Starboy" you groaned at the nickname. "Don't call me that." Nico laughed lightly "too late."

[star-dust-shark]

Chapter one: Sugar Glider

Percy’s pov

Being liked is great.

Not being liked is not so great.

It’s pretty black and white, really.

Well, depending on the person. Maybe there are people who don’t like being liked. Maybe they see it as a bad thing.

And maybe there are people who aren’t liked and are satisfied with it.

Percy Jackson wasn’t that kind of person.

He wanted people to like him.

In an ideal world, everyone liked him. He knew that wasn’t possible, but hey.

He could try.

And when he learnt that Annabeth Chase didn’t like him anymore, it basically felt like his world was caving in on him.

Dramatic, he knew, but he couldn’t believe it. One second, his life and relationships felt perfect, the next, he was single, lying on his floor eating ice cream.

Alone.

That word scared him. Being alone was like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly. Like a… yin without its yang.

He couldn’t be alone. He just couldn’t.

He was Percy Jackson for god sakes. He’d saved the world, what, like ten thousand times? He’d been to tartarus and back, swam in the river styx, and dealt with puberty.

And yet…

There he was, staring up at the ceiling of cabin three, the Poseidon cabin, blinking sleep from his eyes while the morning sun shone through the cracks of his blinds.

Alone.

I mean, really, he understood. Sometimes, you meet someone different. Sometimes that someone is a girl, and hey! Turns out you’re lesbian.

Percy didn’t understand being lesbian, obviously, but he understood that sometimes it just doesn’t work.

He didn’t blame Piper, or Annabeth.

He blamed himself.

If only he’d just been… better.

Stronger.

More… boyfriend-y.

He sighed, blowing hair out of his eyes only to have them fall back down and tickle his forehead instead.

But hey! Why be a pity party? Maybe being single wouldn’t be so bad. Nico had done it for years and he was fine, right?

Mostly, at least.

It was just that everyone had someone.

Leo had Jason.

Piper had Annabeth.

Reyna had Thalia.

Frank had Hazel.

So was he weird? Would he feel like an outcast, hanging out with happy couples? This fall they’d all be sharing hot chocolates and Percy would be staring at his feet wishing the ground would swallow him whole.

“Stop, Percy”, He chided himself. “You’re being over dramatic. You’re fine. Now get your lazy ass out of bed”.

Nope. Not happening.

No matter how many times he tried to push himself up or roll over, his body disobeyed.

Knock knock knoc-

“Urghf” Percy managed slurring at the door, muffled by his octonauts comforter.

The door swung open with a bang, revealing a beaming Jason Grace.

“Goooood morning bro! How’d you sleep, man”? He asked, strolling in and ruffling Percy’s raven black hair.

Percy let out an indignant “murmph” in response.

Jason rolled his eyes and glared down at him.

“You told me you’d start trying to get out of bed in the mornings, and there has been zero improvement”.

“Get off my case. You’re not my mom” Percy said pushing the blankets off of himself and sitting up.

Jason scowled, then smirked.

“Nice shorts” he nodded towards his torso.

“Hey, man, I don’t care what you think. Spongebob is a classic” Percy said, though he felt his face get rather warm.

“Whatever. Anyway, we’re all having breakfast together by the water. Chiron said it was okay”.

“Everyone”? Percy asked.

Jason shrugged. “Yeah, you, me, Leo, Nico, Piper, Annabeth”-

“Nope. Not happening” Percy grumbled, shuffling towards his closet stiffly.

Jason sighed, and Percy didn’t have to see his face to know he was obviously already pissed with Percy.

Though it had been… Percy glanced at the clock.

Only three minutes since Jason had came to wake him up. This was probably almost a record.

“Look, Percy, I know it’s awkward with Annabeth, but if you don’t come, she’s going to blame herself and think you’re like… ghosting her, man. And that’s not cool”.

Percy turned to face Jason to give him a falsely sweet smile.

“Oh gee, thanks, Jason! What great insight, I totally didn’t think of that at all. You’ve made me change my mind! Of course I’ll come, and it’ll all be fine and dandy” he said sarcastically, batting his eyelashes just to piss him off more.

Jason scruched his nose and narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything.

There was an awkward silence as Percy searched through his drawers to pull out his camp half blood shirt and a pair of blue ripped jeans.

“Look. I’m sorry, okay? I just don’t think I can do it”, Percy said turning to face Jason.

Maybe if he played up a kicked puppy act Jason would let him go.

Jason laughed. A good, long, hard laugh.

“Oh, I see! You thought I was giving you an option. That’s funny. You’re coming to breakfast, Jackson. Get dressed, and if you’re not ready in ten minutes I will barge in here and pull you by the ear even if you’re naked”.

“Gay” Percy mumbled.

“What was that”? Jason asked, turning back to look at him as he opened the door to leave.

“Nothin, just said okay”.

“Hm” Jason replied mutely as he shut the door.

Well great.

Truth was, it wasn’t completely Annabeth. Percy had been… confused.

Confused as in… questioning? Curious? He didn’t know how to explain it.

Like when you’re a kid and you first learn about a cool unknown kind of animal, like a sugar glider or something.

You kinda start thinking about it a lot, and getting curious about it.

Except Percy’s sugar glider wasn’t sugar gliders.

Percy’s sugar glider was Nico di Angelo.

Nico and him had gotten closer ever since Nico had came out and even closer yet after Annabeth and him had broken up.

He kind of thought of Nico as a sympathetic friend, because obviously Nico didn’t really give a shit, he just felt bad that Percy was lonely.

But Percy gave a shit.

He did, honest to the gods. And he never ever thought he’d say that.

That he cared about the weird emo kid with trust issues.

But he did.

Nico was his sugar glider. He couldn’t help but care.

@cordyline-uki if u still wanted to read, this is the first chapter but just so yk it’s fanfiction of a fandom ur not in lol

[thegnat]

okay so i read the preview for a second time and screenshotted a bunch of moments i have thoughts about, both good and bad. so i’m gonna go through them!

first of all on a reread i did like it more, i do think it is very salvageable so i’m not too upset with it. i’m looking forward to seeing what the official preview will be like on the 10th compared to this

okay here we go

absolute golden moment. this is the best moment of the whole preview. it’s simple and perfectly shows their personalities and their dynamic and it’s funny and yeah. perfection. love it love it love it

ummmmm i’m very confused about this bc it implies that nico heard the prophecy and chose not to tell dionysus the first time he talked to him? but he was already talking to dionysus before he ever heard the prophecy for the first time. so that’s a pretty major flaw imo. correct me if i am wrong

this is what bothers me the most more than anything else. nico DID inherit hades’s dream magic. that’s a whole point in blood of olympus. reyna comments on it being like has he always been able to do this?? and he talks about navigating dreams in his own perspective so wtf. plus i could be remembering wrong but doesn’t nico admit to having visited percy in his dreams in the last olympian once? it’s a really easy fix though all it needs to be is that: nico’s control over his dreams had diminished after jason’s death when all the ptsd started hitting full force. that would make sense. but this is the biggest inconsistency from the previous books and i hope it is fixed.

i’m not a fan of chiron’s characterization as a whole in this but i do love this line. it really felt like the vibe of the previous books

listen i love dionysus caring about nico but he would never say that last sentence out loud. no matter how much he cares about him. i feel like that was a violation of show don’t tell, it should have been implied instead of just stated out loud. that being said i do love what immediately follows this:

and the fact that he does end up sharing at the end is fantastic. THAT was a good moment of showing that dionysus cares about him without explicitly stating it out loud. i think that’s a great moment

i personally LOVE nico’s weak attempt to come up with an alternative to a life for a life. a broom. really? that was a good moment, it really shows that he knows it’s going to be bad and it shows the dread he is feeling about it and is desperately trying to convince himself that it won’t be so bad. i think that’s such a simple and powerful way to show the severity of whatever is going to happen

i like this. a lot. the line “i DO know you, nico” perfection. simple and effective way of showing their relationship and showing how will really does pay attention and love him

anyway those are all the thoughts i have right now that aren’t the obvious ones, i definitely have many more so i will probably make more posts as i think of them! let me know what you think, i would love to hear more people’s opinions too!!

[cabinofimagines]

Trust and Tribulations

I can't believe we're pulling it off, and here we are. Pairing: Platonic the seven + a bunch of other ones x reader Word count: ~1.1k Warnings: Bad puns, hatcanons from me and Danny -Asnyox < prev. - next >

As the midterms were still ongoing, the monthly meeting was half in real life and half via Iris message. You, Nico and Will had ventured out to Percy and Annabeth, whereas Hazel and Frank called from Camp Jupiter. Jason and Piper joined you from Piper’s house and Leo joined from the Waystation with Calypso. 

I don’t know whether you have ever been on a call with multiple friends, but simply said it was chaos. After everyone was in the IM there and said their hello’s a silence slowly seeped into the conversation. 

“So, has everyone gotten their invites?” Frank softly asked, “You know, as we all knew that Halloween was coming up, just checking whether everyone got the invites now.” He was clearly looking for any facial reactions as he made his statement. Percy was quick to give one of panic, and then school it back.

“Grover gave us one yesterday, he mentioned Apollo delivering them?” Percy looked around at the people in the IM. 

“Yeah, he loves helping Meg out. He also told us that you all seemed like you’re dying, so how’s that going?” You asked as most people in the IM except for Leo suddenly looked more tired. 

“Halloween this year is very on brand with the scare factor,” Percy said, “Saving the world? Easy. School?  The scariest of all. Luckily I got my wise girl here helping me out.” he pressed a kiss on Annabeth’s cheek as she smiled.  

“It did take us by surprise,” Hazel bumped into the conversation, “Frank and I had been very busy with Preator duties and then suddenly Apollo was there.” She laughed as if she was embarrassed, “I genuinely was about to fight whatever he was bringing, luckily it was only the invite.” 

“You could’ve brought it better though!” Frank exclaimed, “We have a quest from Apollo,” he impersonated Hazel, “It scared me half to death!” Hazel laughed at her boyfriend's terror, before shaking her head, “Sorry Frank, just wanted you to know how I felt when I opened the door.” 

“Do we know who else is coming?” Piper asked, “Is Reyna invited? Are there going to be more satyrs because it is in a grove?” 

“Coach Hedge is coming,” Nico said, “Don’t know about any other satyrs though. I do think Reyna is coming, if Artemis lets the hunters partake in the celebrations.” 

“Cool,” Piper nodded. 

“Anyways,” Percy drawled out, “How’s the costumes going? As clearly nobody forgot Halloween was happening. We just ran into uh, a problem with ours.” 

“You forgot, didn’t you?” You accused Percy, “Unbelievable.” 

“We might have,” he admitted, “but we’ll have to figure something out, we can’t disappoint Meg like that.” 

“I mean, it’s on her for sending out the invites that late.” Annabeth stated.

“It’s a Halloween party, on Halloween.” You said, “You knew this was coming all year, don’t blame her for your own tardiness.” Annabeth glared at you. 

“Well, I have a plan.” she said. 

“You did not yesterday.” Percy retorted, “Better yet, you wanted to fake sickness because of your construction deadline on friday.” 

“Are you underestimating me, seaweed brain?” You were glad you were not Percy right now, because Annabeth looked like she was ready to go for the kill. 

“... no?” Percy gulped. 

“I don’t have a costume yet either,” Will tried to break up the tension.

"Yes, you do.” Nico interjected, “I have you covered in my costume plans.” Will looked at him questioningly, and after a moment it seemed like he realized something. 

“Wait, you are still doing the thing?” Will asked and Nico nodded quickly, “Seriously? Then who…?”

“Can’t tell you, it would spoil the surprise for the rest of the people here.” Nico smiled crookedly, “Besides, you know you can trust me right?”

“I am not so sure anymore, my sunshine.” Will looked at his boyfriend skeptically as Nico let out a laugh.

“Love you too.”

“Speaking of costumes,” Hazel said, “Leo, could Frank and I borrow some hats from you? We’ll tell you the specific ones later.” 

“Of course! I should bring spare hats to the party anyways,” Leo grinned, “You never know how many people will come with bad costumes that my hats can fix. If a certain couple needs hats as costumes too,” Leo pointedly looked at Percy and Annabeth, “they just have to ask. I know you all love my hat collection!”

“No, thanks.” Annabeth grumbled, “I have a plan.” 

“I haven’t even thought of getting a costume yet,” Jason looked awfully guilty. 

“Jason, do you want to do a costume with me? I need someone to finish my mys-tree costume” Leo lit up. 

“Yes?” Jason hesitated, “Was that a tree pun?” Leo ignored his comment.

“That is such a re-leaf. Our costumes are gonna have so much chemis-tree together, trust me!” Leo’s grin got wider with each pun, “Fir sure we are going to have the pinest costumes at the party.” There was a mix of groans and laughs. 

“You’re not dressing us up as trees are you?” Jason looked scared. 

“Nope! Good guess though.” 

“Well,” Piper bumped into the convo, “Good things come in trees, so do you have room for one more?” Leo shook his head. 

“Sorry pipes, I don’t be-leaf I do but I can always lend out my hats.” 

“Maybe we should get the hats, Annabeth-” Percy whispered but Annabeth elbowed him.

“No way, seaweed brain. Some of them might be cursed, and besides that I have a plan.” 

“What plan?” 

Ignoring the lover’s quarrel, Piper turned to Calypso.

“You don’t happen to have a bunch of time to help me with my costume?” 

Calypso shook her head. “No, I’ve been so busy with (Y/n)’s costume that I have yet to start my own, sorry.” 

“No worries,” Piper seemed to start thinking, “no worries,” she mumbled. 

After some more discussion everyone realized the time, and as most people in the calls had deadlines to make (and costumes to get) you ended the meeting. You looked at Will and Nico as you smiled. 

“I think most people are royally screwed trying to get costumes this close to Halloween.” you laughed and Nico nodded.

“Luckily we’ve been preparing.” He said and Will sighed. “At least I know I won’t be a tree, poor Jason.”

[algumaideia]

Inspired by Grande Sertão: Veredas (The Devil to Pay in the Backlands)

I don't know if this coherent, because although the original plan was to make something about jasico it ended up being something about how I think Nico would deal with social situations and then I did some menta marabalisms to try to make it be a jasico one shot, but enjoy

…

Nico left without telling anybody. It was during tumultuous days, everybody was always doing something so no one noticed. He didn’t want anyone making a fuss. Not that most people would, but Reyna and Jason would definitely say something. He took his horse and ran away. It was not that things were bad, they were okay. People weren’t mean or ignored him, but they also weren’t that nice. Things just were. And this was so much. People were always on conversations which meant he was in conversations all day long. Everything was shared and it was so overwhelming. He wanted to be alone. He wanted silence. He wanted his shadows. Nico missed the days where it was mostly him and the ghosts. He felt ungrateful. Didn’t he want to belong? Why was he running away now that he had what he wanted?

Without a direction or a clear path, Nico rode his horse. He was sad. He didn’t cry, but there was something happening inside him that felt a little suffocating. Like he was drowning inside. 

Tired, Nico stopped under a tree. There was a river in front of him. He had no energy to transpass it. He would just sleep, rest and have peace. 

When he woke up, Nico thought he was dreaming. Jason was sitting right in front of him. The sunlight on him as if it wanted nature to pay attention to the son of Jupiter. The noble being with majestic appearance. The enchanting blue eyes intensely focused on Nico, the soft blond hair dancing with the wind, his charming smile. 

Him. All of him.

“Are you okay?”

Nico blinked. He didn’t know how to answer. It still didn’t feel real.

“How did you know where I was?”

“I followed you from afar. You left out of nowhere and I wanted to make sure everything was alright, if you weren't in danger or something like that.”

“I thought no one had noticed that I left.”

Jason shrugged.

“I did. I’m always paying attention to you.”

With his heart beating faster, Nico still couldn’t decide if he had awakened. It was not the first time Jason said something like this and it wouldn’t be the last, but Nico still didn’t know how to deal with this, whatever it was.

“So, are you doing okay? Is anything bad happening?”

“I… I guess everything is alright, I just need some time alone. I’m not used to spending so much time with so many people without a break.”

Jason nodded.

“I understand. In this case I’ll go back and if you can’t deal with it you don’t need to go back. I’ll find other ways for us to meet.”

It was real. He was going away.

“You don’t need to go, you can stay.”

Jason smiled. His smile…

“As you wish.”

“Does Reyna know?”

“Yeah, she thought it was better to give you space. She said you’d come back when you were ready. I just wanted to make sure.”

“I appreciate you both for the considerations.”

They didn’t talk more, they just stayed close to each other. Curiously, this conversation made Nico feel less guilty. It made him feel loved. 

Jason. Nico didn’t know what to do with him, with the things he felt for his friend, with the things his friend did. He wanted to do something, he just didn’t know what and if he was prepared. He knew he didn’t have to rush himself, Jason made sure he was aware of that with everything he did.

Nico closed his eyes, he got the silence and peace he wanted and he wasn’t alone. He was more than satisfied with how things were now.

[haven-of-dusk]

for the ask game: headcanons for nico di angelo? (if you haven’t read the books, then ricky bowen 🤠)

Sorry this took me so long... I have indeed read the books, so I'll tackle both! Nico Di Angelo:

Sexuality - Gay

A ship - I actually do like Solangelo a fair bit, they're not my faves per se, but I don't have glaring issues with them (especially compared with say, Caleo).

However for the sake of fun, I also love Jasico (I hope I have that name right). Minor aside that I'm about 90% sure Jason is (he's fine, TBM didn't happen I promise) a closeted gay man based on a number of hints dropped in TBM, plus vibes plus he just screams internalized heteronormativity. So I really wish we could've explored more of Nico and Jason's dynamic. Plus they'd be incredibly adorable about one-upping each other's displays of "touch him and die" imo.

A BROTP - Percico, I totally get why shipping them romantically is a thing, but I also adore the dynamic idea that Nico completely got over Percy and Percy's a little salty about it, plus the level of trust they eventually displayed regardless of the definition of their relationship is very special to me. (End of MoA always gets me right in the feels).

A NOTP - I don't have any specific ones...so I guess I'll just say any ship that tries to get him involved romantically with a woman.

A random headcanon - Though he mostly put Mythomagic behind him, he has since become a massive D&D nerd, with multiple fully fleshed out characters and a couple campaign ideas that he badgers people to play with him. (Also the main cast of HoO playing D&D is a podcast I wish was real, Critical Role style...)

General Opinion - I love Nico, top 3 Percy Jackson Universe characters (I think, I haven't gone through and put together an exact ranking ever since I love almost all of them), not super happy when the writing leans too far into the 'edgy' side of him, but his dry wit is always a pleasure, and he's also capable of backing up the edge with badassery.

His original artwork will always give me nightmares though.

Richard 'Ricky' Bowen:

Sexuality - Bisexual

Gender - Cis Male, though he did experiment with they/them pronouns to see if they felt better to him. They didn't, but he's glad he tried.

A ship - Caswen. Obviously. I think my canon rewrite of half the show serves as adequate explanation of my love for them.

A BROTP - Redky. The friendship/brotherhood between Big Red and Ricky was something I really enjoyed in the first two seasons, it felt quite accurate to my high school experiences and I also find their interactions in fanfiction very endearing. Plus it provides more fuel to my fire that Caswen are NOT brotherly since we have a perfect brotherly relationship for Ricky right there and it looks nothing like his relationship to EJ imo.

Plus I'm still extra irritated that in addition to the rampant biphobia in how Big Red's storyline was handled, they also tried to shove him out of the picture and replace him with Jet in S4, with a scene in E3 especially feeling like the dialogue was written for BR and then they had Jet read it for...no discernable reason.

A NOTP - ...Rina /s.

In all seriousness the only answer I can readily come up with is Rily, because wtf was that subplot even supposed to be, but I struggle to think of NOTPs for Ricky since my brain is mostly Caswen or bust. I thought of the EJ alternatives purely because Tim is so militant about Rina, but I really don't know what Ricky would do outside of preferably Caswen or Tim's beloved 'canon' Rina. And while I do think Rini work better as friends, I also wouldn't call them a NOTP since I feel kind of bad for some Rini shippers (not the creepy ones, the normies for lack of a better term).

Idk, I guess I'll just say Rily and move on.

A random headcanon - Ricky loves the Spice Girls. Where did this HC come from you ask? I have no idea. But I feel like it fits.

The urge to write a mini-fic of Ricky and EJ dancing at their wedding to 'Spice up Your Life' is rising. (Totally not influenced by Doctor Who)

General Opinion - I love Ricky. Not quite as much as Elton, but that's a pretty high bar to clear since Elton rose to my top ten of all time list pretty easily. I have mixed feelings about S3 and S4 Ricky since I felt like they made him overly obsessed with Gina and lost a lot of the charm of his earlier plotlines centering on familial trauma and figuring out his own desires in life, but he's still high ranking for HSMTMTS characters, and I obviously love Caswen to death, so it's hard for me to say I don't also adore Ricky as a special little guy.

That spiraled into a bit of a ramble. Point is that I do really like Ricky, I just wish the writing for him later in the show was less...self-parodic...if that makes any sense.

[tagthescullion]

Diplomacy: a Net of Embellished Lies

Fandom(s): Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus

Rating: G

Summary: Five times Nico lied to the people around him, and one time he told the truth.

AO3 link

Chapter 1

Chapter 2: The Ambassador

Jason and Reyna had been working for hours. They were trying to come up with a budget proposal to start fixing their small dock after the battle a month before. 

They didn’t have much to work with, and unfortunately, naval reparations cost fortunes.

“We could leave it for another time,” he suggested. “It’s not often we use those boats, there’s no point in spending all this money on that now.”

Reyna frowned. “If we leave it, then we’ll never do it. Better get it out of our heads now.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Sorry to disturb you.” Gwendolyn’s face poked from behind the door. “We've got a couple of new arrivals.”

Jason raised his eyebrows. It was common for praetors to greet their new recruits, but it wasn’t urgent by any means. Gwen knew times were hectic, which meant whoever these kids were must’ve been something if she was appearing unannounced to introduce them.

“Sure,” he said. “Send them in.”

Reyna gave him a look. 

“We’re a bit busy,” she pointed out. “We can meet them ourselves later…”

“I know,” said Gwen. “But you’ll want to meet them. They weren’t trained by Lupa.”

That piqued their curiosity. Everybody trained with Lupa, how else would they know how to find camp in the first place.

“Right,” Reyna decided. “Bring them to us, then.”

In came two kids. A boy and a girl. Early teens or so, by their looks.

The boy looked pale to the point of Vitamin D deficiency, but Jason couldn’t blame him. He didn’t remember the last time he had spent more than fifteen seconds under direct sunlight. He had bags under his eyes that mirrored Jason’s and Reyna’s, and he seemed to be taking in everything in the room with interest. 

His eyes focused on the two praetors in turn. They startled Jason. They were a deep brown, with a sparkle of unhinged cleverness to them. 

The girl clearly felt more uneasy than her companion. Rather than studying the room curiously, she seemed wary. 

She had a face that many may have disregarded as kind and posing little threat, but Jason could see her muscles tense, ready to react, and the intensity of her gaze. Her eyes, in contrast to her friend’s, were flecked with gold that reflected the light that came in from the windows.

“Welcome to Camp Jupiter,” Jason said. “The Twelfth Legion Fulminata. I’m Jason Grace and this is Reyna, we’re your praetors.”

The children exchanged a glance.

“I’m Hazel Levesque,” the girl introduced herself. Then she pointed at the boy. “And this is Nico di Angelo, my brother.”

Siblings? They didn’t look much alike, but they had different surnames, so most likely they were only siblings by their godly parent.

“Gwendolyn told us you found your way here unconventionally,” Reyna said. 

“Our father sent us,” Nico explained. There was a trace of an accent in his speech, but Jason was surprised by how firm his tone was, at that age —12 or 13– he used to be a lot more nervous when he had to speak to the praetors. “The Lord of the Dead.”

Jason’s eyes widened. Children of Pluto? And two of them! Gods, Octavian would be unbearable when found out about them, going on about bad auguries and treason.

“You’re children of Pluto?” Reyna sounded unbothered, but Jason knew her to be surprised, too. “And he sent you?”

Jason put a hand on her arm. While he understood the concern, he could see how the boy had squared up, as if expecting a disapproving reaction from them. Jason didn’t wish to prove him right, any child of any god was welcome here.

“It’s not common to have Big Three children,” Jason clarified. “There’s not many of us.”

Nico seemed interested in that. “You’re a child of the Big Three?”

Jason nodded.

“It would be Jupiter, right?” Nico guessed. “A leader such as you. You have your father’s eyes. You said your surname was Grace, didn’t you?”

Jason was wrong-footed by the boy’s words. Guessing Jupiter was easy; the kid said it was because of the leading position, but everybody knew Jupiter was… easy-going. Out of the three brothers it was the most likely bet. But what did he mean Jason had his father’s eyes? Why did this scrawny boy know what the King of the Gods looked like?

Startled as he was, he nodded yes to the surname question. 

“When did you meet Jupiter?” Reyna asked when Jason didn’t.

“Last month,” the boy replied. He eyed Reyna’s metal dogs as if daring them to react, and Jason wondered if he had a sixth sense or superpower. Nobody knew about Aurum and Argentum when they first arrived. “I convinced my father to fight in the gods’ war against the titans. Afterwards, he saw it fit that I… met the family.”

The metal dogs tilted their heads in unison, but remained still, meaning Nico wasn’t lying. 

“But not you, Hazel Levesque?” Reyna turned her eyes at the girl. 

Hazel shook her head. “I only met Nico a week or so ago.”

Nico, but not their father. And yet the boy had said the King of the Underworld sent them both.

“And Pluto brought you here,” Jason began. “He told you how to find us.”

“He wishes for Hazel to be trained here,” Nico spoke up. “He’s given me other tasks to do elsewhere, but he hopes you’ll accept me as his ambassador. I would only stay here every so often.”

An ambassador for a god? Had that ever happened? Other than their augury —and that couldn’t be considered as an envoy, despite answering to Apollo’s power— there was nothing even remotely similar.

Hazel had been surprised by her brother’s word. She turned towards him and murmured something quickly.

Nico shook his head, he waved his hands as he muttered some reassurance or other back.

His sister didn’t look happy, but she’d been appeased by his words.

Jason glanced at Reyna and saw her following the exchange carefully.

No wonder Gwen had wanted these two to meet them before they went anywhere. Octavian would be thrilled to have vulnerable children whose secrets to exploit. And a son of Pluto who was frequently in contact with the god? 

“What exactly would Pluto need from an ambassador?” Reyna inquired. 

Nico shrugged. “He didn’t say anything specific. Information, I gather. We learn a lot from the dead, but you can also learn a lot from the living. These past years have been a difficult time for everyone, my father felt… disconnected from the rest of the gods. He only wishes to be kept up-to-date with any threats he might have to face in the future.”

Jason processed the request. 

Well, request. If a god was asking for it —and it appeared to be the case, for Aurum and Argentum had remained quiet so far—, then there was no room for debating. Pluto wanted an ambassador and he would have him, regardless of any reparation their camp might have about it.

Besides, having anybody who was in touch with the gods could come in handy. A few abnormalities had been noticed lately, regarding the dead, and who better than the god’s son to clear things up.

Jason wondered about Hazel, however. She seemed too silent, and not at all aware of anything her brother had said.

“So,” Jason leaned back into the table. “Hazel, you’ll be joining the legion. Nico, you’ll be… around the legion but not staying per se.”

“That’s about it, yeah,” Nico agreed. 

“But I—”

“It’s okay,” Nico interrupted his sister, “We’ll talk later. You can trust these people.”

“But can we trust you?” Reyna demanded, her voice accusing. 

“Have we shown any evidence of the contrary?” Nico wondered. “Other than the —what did you call it?— unconventional arrival.”

Jason thought things were becoming a bit too tense. In their defence, neither he nor Reyna had slept well for months. But that was no reason for which they should be about to get aggressive with a 12 year-old.

“None,” he assured the boy. “We’re interested in your proposal, Nico.” Turning to the girl he added: “Hazel, you’ll be wanting to get better acquainted with the place, since you’ll be staying.”

He walked past the siblings and poked his head out of the door.

Gwen was lying in a bench in the hallway, earphones on and listening to something in a walk-man that looked to be a million years old.

“Gwen?” He called.

She looked up and nodded.

Jason returned to the room and leaned back against the table, as he’d been doing before he left.

Gwen appeared a second later.

“Gwendolyn,” Jason smiled. “Would you be kind and give Hazel a tour of Camp Jupiter? Get her something from the bakery, too.” He then told Hazel: “You’ll love those pastries, they’re amazing.”

Hazel and Nico exchanged a last silent conversation. Jason wondered how they could understand each other so well with looks alone if they’d met only a week before.

“See you later,” Hazel said. 

Jason and Reyna nodded.

Gwen let her leave and stood waiting for the boy to follow.

“Nico we’ll keep for a bit longer, if that’s all right?” Jason stared at the kid.

“Of course,” he said. 

Once Gwen had left, Jason and Reyna took their seats in the high-backed chairs on the other side of the long wooden table.

“So, Ambassador of Pluto,” Reyna said. She gestured towards a folding chair, open on Nico’s side of the table. “There’s been rumours. They say monsters aren’t staying dead.”

Straight to the point. Jason loved that of Reyna, she didn’t have time for bullshit.

And Nico seemed to regard that as a good quality too. He took the chair, folded his arms on the table and nodded his head.

“It’s a long story,” he said. “And not even my father has all the details.”

That didn’t bode well.

“Tell us what you know,” Jason insisted. “Any information is better than no information.”

“There’s a sort of glitch in the Underworld’s security,” Nico told them. “The boundaries between life and death are weaker than they are meant to be.”

“Does that mean people aren’t staying dead?” Reyna asked.

Nico hesitated. “It’s not the same. People —spirits, anyway—, they’d need somebody else to get them out. In Asphodel they seldom remember who they are. In Elysium they’re too happy to care to come back. And in the Fields of Punishment they’re constantly monitored.”

“Right,” Jason said. “So it’s only Tartarus’ security that isn’t working… that’s not much better.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is,” Nico agreed. “But it’ll be much worse in weeks and months to come. When monsters start spreading the word. So far, it’s only been a few of them, and the Furies have the orders to search for any wayward creature that’s left the Underworld unauthorised. But even they have limits, if monsters or spirits start escaping in larger groups…”

“You said if somebody helps them,” Reyna commented. “They could escape. The spirits, I mean.”

She looked worried. Of course, they knew people who had passed who they wouldn’t be too happy to see again. Traitors from the war, old camp leaders who’d run down the place leaving them in the weak mess they were when Saturn came to power… but Jason wondered if her wariness came from something else. A ghost from her past she hadn’t disclosed even to him.

He forced his attention to come back to the conversation.

Nico raised an eyebrow. “And who would help them? The only mortals who can go in and out of the Underworld freely are Hazel and I. Anybody else and my father and step-mother would intersect immediately.”

Jason saw Reyna’s mistrustful expression. Neither she nor him knew the children of Pluto well at all. For all that Reyna’s dogs hadn’t caught them lying, it would be a stretch to say they were ready to trust the kids.

“And do you promise you won’t go bringing back our enemies from the Underworld?” She demanded. 

Nico di Angelo slouched back on the folding chair and looked at Reyna right in the eyes. “I promise I won’t bring any monster or demigod back to life.”

[scarletwix]

request: Jasico old men couple where they've been together for decades and now they're complaining about arthritis

Jasico nation I knew you'd come through!!

A/N: Have 1,320 words of pure, unmitigated sap-itude. Initially this was going to be a couple little scenes that all started with the same question, to highlight their lives together.... but it got away from me a bit in the middle there, ngl. There's truly minimal complaining (about arthritis or otherwise) tbh, not because they wouldn't but because the spirit of fluffy jasico possessed me, and since this is my first time writing for them since 2016(?????) I thought I'd just see where it took me. Enjoy!

"Did you ever think we'd make it this far?" Jason asked Nico, still beaming, still holding tight to Nico's hand, despite the fact that Nico knows his palms are sweaty and have to be gross by now. Nico's lips still burned from the kiss that Jason had bestowed upon him after Nico's (admittedly brash and over-the-top) confession. (He hadn't wanted to look nervous. He hadn't wanted to chicken out. Jason had taken his hands to stop them from shaking anyway.)

"No," Nico admitted. He'd been braced for rejection, anticipated the taste of it like blood on his tongue and been surprised when he was met with the smile on Jason's lips pressed to his instead.

"I..." Jason began, but he fell silent, unable to finish the sentence as his hands trembled at his side. Nico didn't answer him. He knew that some questions were rhetorical, some sentences were too big to articulate, and that some things didn't need to be said aloud.

He let Jason lean on him as they watched the reconstruction of New Rome. He pressed a kiss to Jason's temple, where laurels might have sat, in another life.

~~~

"Did you ever think we'd get to see something like this?" Jason asked, the joy in his voice tangible as Nico let his boyfriend spin him around the dance floor.

"Of course," Nico scoffed, as if he hadn't spent his whole life waiting for the knowledge that his friends had died. Waiting for the moment that he could feel their souls enter his father's realm.

He'd never thought he'd get to walk someone he loved down the aisle, never thought he'd cry at anyone's wedding, because for the longest time, he hadn't thought any of them would live that long. Even while helping plan the whole thing, while learning how to dance with an increasingly-flustered and clumsy Jason at his side.

He gripped Jason's shoulders a little more tightly when Jason swung him back into the circle of his arms. Outwardly, it appeared that he was holding on to keep his balance, but truthfully, the solid weight of Jason's shoulders under his hands grounded him.

He did as his therapist had bid and tried to bid the anxiety farewell, let it slip from his mind. He could always panic later, he reminded himself. He was determined to enjoy the night.

~~~

"I never thought, when I first met you, that you would turn out to be the love of my life," Jason was saying, both of Nico's hands in his.

Nico thought back to the boy that he'd been at fifteen. Gaunt and gangly and lonely enough to hurt, his very presence a weapon of it's own.

That had been before Hazel, really. Before Jason or Will or Leo, even, had dulled the edges of his loneliness and helped him remember how nice it had been, once upon a time, to have people.

He tried to think of how he would react, to meet that boy now.

"Bit of an oversight, on your part," he said, instead of any of that.

Jason snorted a laugh. "I'm - stop it, you're interrupting my speech," he protested. with no real heat behind the words.

"My bad," Nico said solemnly, "I'm listening, I swear," he schooled his features into a perfectly blank mask. "How's this?"

Jason pressed Nico's knuckles to his forehead, their fingers still twined together, as if staving off a headache.

"Insufferable," he said, but there was still a laugh wrapped around his voice. "But I love you anyway."

"Very generous of you," Nico felt the corners of his lips twitch at the sound of the word 'love,' the way that they always did.

"Very generous," Jason agreed. "I don't think anyone else could handle it."

Nico felt his face soften into a smile. Jason was clearly nervous, or he might have noticed the way that his smile widened a bit more. He nearly said 'you're absolutely right,' and let Jason have this, but...

He'd never get an opportunity like this again. Nico heaved a sigh, careful to make sure his smile didn't fade, so Jason's anxiety wouldn't have time to rise.

"Guess you'll just have to marry me, then."

"Guess s-what?" Jason squawked. Nico couldn't hold back the laughter that bubbled up in his throat. He felt his shoulders begin to shake with it. "Did you--" Jason spluttered, half outraged, half delighted, "Did you just hijack my proposal?"

Nico scoffed, though it was undermined quite a bit by the fact that he was still grinning from ear to ear, "Your proposal? I think you'll find that I just proposed to you."

To emphasize this point, Nico reached into his pocket for the ring that he'd asked Leo to help him make months ago. He held it up in the negligible space between them and waited for the shock to wear off and the gears to turn in Jason's head.

The awestruck look on Jason's face as he took in the sight of the ring was well worth the hours bickering with Leo about the design. And the hours upon hours of persuading Leo that no, really, Jason's engagement ring did not need special features.

Jason's cheeks flushed a bright, brilliant scarlet, and he hid his face in Nico's shoulder.

"Is that a yes?" Nico asked, shoving down the fluttering unsure voice that still tried to claw at him, sometimes.

"Of course it's a yes," Jason responded, his voice muffled by Nico's sweater. He sounded nearly offended that Nico felt the need to clarify.

"Hand," Nico demanded, his satisfaction at his victory suddenly overshadowed by the level of sheer joy he was experiencing.

Jason raised his hand, turning his head so he could watch as Nico slid the ring onto the appropriate finger.

He allowed himself a moment to be an absolute sap, safe in the knowledge that they were alone, and pressed a kiss to Jason's new accessory.

"Now," Nico said, unwilling to let it go entirely, "what was it you wanted to ask me?"

~~~

Nico smiled, looking out over their balcony. In the distance, if he squinted, he thought he could see the light from the sunset glinting off of the Campanile de San Marco.

"Need your glasses?" Jason teased, as if his own eyes hadn't gotten gradually worse, until his lenses were nearly as thick as Nico's pinky finger.

"I'm not reading, I'm enjoying the view."

Jason rose, albeit slowly, to join him. A few of his joints popped as he stood and Nico grimaced in sympathy.

"It is beautiful," Jason agreed. When he leaned on the banister, the sunset caught his hair. For a moment, it was the bright, burnished gold of his youth. For a moment, all Nico could see was the bright young man who had saved his life and demanded nothing but his friendship in return. "I'm glad you talked me into coming here."

"Ah, the water levels are still too high," Nico griped, if only because it was his response every time. "I wish you could have seen it before it began to really sink." Entire sidewalks he had walked in his childhood were gone, either lost beneath the water or deemed too dangerous to cross. Some things remained. Some things were new.

""Did you ever think we'd get this much time?" Nico asked, without really meaning to. Jason's face split into a wide smile.

"Not at all," he admitted. He reached out and took Nico's hand, running his thumb over the ring Nico still wore, despite the fact that his knuckles had warped with age, and if he ever wanted to take it off, now, they'd have to cut it off of him. He'd never admit that he liked the sound of that, particularly because from the moment Jason had put it on him, he'd never wanted to take it off. "But I'm glad we did."

[somewhereincairparavel]

Ok, but like I feel like I've never dove in how Jason was probably the youngest in the legion. Probably for a very, very long time. And imagine how it felt to watch as kids played in new Rome, and eventually joined you. And you could never join them as they played in new rome. Imagine all of the kids you know are older than you, and you can't make friends. Imagine having to lead quests of people way older than you that resent you for it because of your parentage. Imagine how happy he was when people his age finally started joining, and I wishing he could he them? Imagine basically being raised by a bunch of teenagers, many of whom dislike you? Would love to hear ur thoughts

honestly, i imagine all of the older members of the legion whispering behind Jason's back about how easy he has it in camp jupiter bc of his dad, about how he isnt "qualified" enough to lead missions, and how he has everything "handed" to him. i feel like he had a LOT to prove and only when his missions started getting successful, people actually accept that he is capable, but even then envious members of the cohort would say that he got lucky or only succeeded bc of jupiter's blessings or smth. could you imagine a baby jason going to the older members of the legion for advice and they just coolly shrug him off? i feel like in a realistic standpoint, they arent outright mean to him bc they are terrified of jupiter's anger but they arent friendly either.

They just let him sit in a corner. i feel like at some point, even when people his age start coming in, he still wouldnt feel loved, because they all would think jason is too scary or intimidating and would avoid him out of fear, also bc he doesnt understand their jokes bc he was brought up too serious. so he would be an outcast. he would be an outcast but not necessarily in a bad way, but like "he's too good for us" type of way which actually hurts jason way more. like when he comes in they all would give him a small bow or something and it gets on his NERVES.

overall i feel like there is too much jealousy surrounding him for him to have any comfortable conversation with people, especially because he is their "leader" even if he was a praetor very late, people still subconsciously saw him as one, even the old praetors consulted him before they came to a decision.

i feel like the moment people even remotely saw him as a human with feelings is when he joined the least reputed legion simply to popularize it. i feel like that was HIS moment where ppl were like "yep this guy is actually a living person with empathy!" but it reverted back to ppl seeing him as an unapproachable artifact

which is why im so upset that frank and hazel didnt have a closer relationship with him, i mean we did see jason and frank talking together on the deck of argo 2 after jason transferred his praetorship to frank, probably filling him in his position, but i wish their relationship ascended beyond just a mentor and his apprentice. because that concept with jason's character gets so old. literally everyone saw him as an advisor and leader that they could learn from, but who really saw something beyond that about him? only leo, nico, reyna, piper and percy tbh.

and in the end, reyna had a subtle fallout with him so they didnt talk, piper broke up with him so they were awkward and tense, leo "died" and never saw him again, the last time nico saw jason was probably during the strawberry field scene when nico told him he's staying at camp, and jason got too busy with his temple project to see anyone else. he was working to keep his promise till the very end, just like a true roman. honestly thanks to you i might actually expand on this in a separate post and tag you in it :)

[https-lawrenceslittleone]

Random PJO OC stuff cuz I’m super bored :P

I know most people won’t read this but uhhh I need to ramble so!

Aurelia Luther:

⚡️ Daughter of Zeus, and currently the only occupant of Cabin 1.

⚡️ Trans woman, lesbian, uses she/they pronouns.

⚡️ Arrived at Camp when she was twelve, just a couple months after Thalia was “revived”. Currently fifteen years old.

⚡️ Immediately clung to Thalia. She was and still is her biggest role model.

⚡️ Also alternative like Thalia, but not punk! She’s more so cybergoth.

⚡️ She has blonde hair with dyed bright blue bangs, a septum piercing, an eyebrow piercing, and a vertical labret. All of which she did herself. Just for fun.

⚡️ Used to have a fat crush on Rachel; was extremely disappointed when she found out that Rachel is not allowed to date.

⚡️ Got along pretty well with Jason when he was alive lol. Aurelia may be chaotic and a bit immature, but she’s also a leader and can step up when needed, which is something that Jason admires.

⚡️ Flip with a caregiver lean! When she does regress, she’s even more hyper and chaotic, and her little ages are around 4-6 years old. When she’s a caregiver, she’s more of a big sister or a cool aunt!

Indra Pruitt:

🌊 Son of Poseidon, and also currently the only occupant of Cabin 3, as Percy has left for college in New Rome.

🌊 Trans man, bisexual, uses he/they pronouns.

🌊 Arrived at Camp at eleven years old. Is currently fourteen years old.

🌊 Gets along relatively well with Percy, although he wishes they were closer. Percy just hasn’t had time to really get to know Indra because of how busy he always is.

🌊 He likes grunge music and grunge fashion, but is often too lazy to actually put any effort into his outfits.

🌊 Has dark brown, short, straight hair, tan skin, sea green eyes, a septum piercing, and has a seashell necklace that his dad (mortal dad— mpreg is canon in this universe LOL) gave him.

🌊 Is currently crushing on BOTH Nico di Angelo and Will Solace and feels REALLY bad about it. Has told nobody this information except Piper, who he often Iris calls.

🌊 He gets really lonely, being an only child and all, so he clings to Connor Stoll when he can. Connor’s like a brother to him.

🌊 Flip, with a little lean! When he regresses, he’s very quiet, reserved, shy, and just wants to watch ocean documentaries. He clings to Connor, who’s his main caregiver, even more. When he himself is a caregiver, he’s very cautious and overprotective.

Floraline Sampson:

🌷 Daughter of Demeter, camp counselor of Cabin 4. Although she’ll stay at Camp Jupiter for weeks at a time occasionally, so someone else takes over for her often.

🌷 Nicknamed “Flora” or “Florie”.

🌷 Cisgender woman, pansexual, uses she/her pronouns.

🌷 Got to Camp Half-blood just two years ago, but she’s a year round camper and really likes it there. She’s sixteen years old.

🌷 Loves gardening, as you can imagine.

🌷 She’s also a huge stoner, and she grows her own weed. Chiron and Mr. D have definitely caught on but, to be honest, they have better things to do than to worry about a teenager doing average teenage bullshit.

🌷 Gets along great with her siblings! She acts more like a mom to them than an older sister. They come to her for advice a lot.

🌷 Dresses kinda indie, but not too overboard. She’ll wear like. A green crop top, overalls, a headband, and some Kandi bracelets or something.

🌷 Had a really big crush on Leo, but was way too scared to confess. And she felt silly about it. She’s still really close to him, and often Iris calls him. Also might still have that crush on him.

🌷 Has long, dark brown, afro textured hair that she usually keeps in bohemian braids. She has light brown skin and hazel-green eyes.

🌷 Best friends with Hazel Levesque! First met her right after the war with Gaia, when the seven were all at CHB (minus Leo for obvious reasons 💀) and they immediately clicked. She confessed to her about her crush on Leo, because Leo’s “death” really broke her heart and she needed to get it out to someone.

🌷 Whenever Hazel visits or she visits Hazel, she does Hazel’s hair. Just because she likes to. Also does the hair of the other black girls at camp.

🌷 Little!! Biggest baby ever. Her age range varies, but it’s always somewhere between 0-4. She regresses harder the more stressed she is, but she’s almost always in at least the toddler stage.

🌷 Hazel and Frank are her main caregivers. She calls them “mama” and “dada” and both Hazel and Frank think it’s super adorable.

🌷 There was this one time, Frank and Hazel were talking to Leo when Leo was visiting Camp Jupiter, and Floraline was SUPER regressed. She just shyly waddled up to Leo, handed him a little pink flower, and then waddled away as quickly as she possibly could.

🌷 Hazel and Frank started laughing. Leo was mildly confused but flattered!

Petra Hansley:

🩸 Daughter of Ares, camp counselor of Cabin 5.

🩸 Demigirl, bisexual, uses she/they pronouns.

🩸 Arrived at Camp Half-Blood four years ago. Is really close to Clarisse. Or at least she was.

🩸 Petra has bad BPD, and Clarisse was the only person she had for a while, so Petra became super attached to Clarisse. But when Clarisse went off to college, Petra saw that as Clarisse abandoning her. So Petra became distant and closed off and stopped Iris messaging her.

🩸 Gets along fairly well with her siblings. She actually likes them, even though they are kind of assholes.

🩸 Instructs the sword fighting and Pegasus riding lessons. Whenever there’s a newcomer, she’s use them as a “demonstration” during sword fighting. Just to embarrass them. She’s mean like that.

🩸 Dating a Hephaestus girl, another one of my OCs.

🩸 Likes punk fashion a lot. Her and Thalia bond over this sometimes. Her and Thalia have a love-hate relationship. One moment, they’re each others biggest supports and hyping each other up. The next, they’re each others biggest haters and are shitting on each other LOL.

🩸 She’s a big sister caregiver. She also gives off a “tough love” vibe, but not in an abusive way. In like a…

🩸 Oh, you scraped your knee? That’s not that big of a deal, c’mon kid. Thug it out, you’ll be alright.

🩸 Takes care of Floraline whenever Hazel or Frank can’t. Also takes care of Indra sometimes.

Theodosia Collymor:

🦉 Daughter of Athena, camp counselor of Cabin 6.

🦉 Cisgender woman, bisexual, uses she/her pronouns.

🦉 Arrived at Camp Half-blood when she was thirteen. She’s now sixteen. She’s a summer camper only.

🦉 When the summer’s over, she goes back to her dad, who’s a renowned psychologist.

🦉 LOVES her siblings, especially Annabeth. Annabeth is her biggest role model and inspiration. Thinks Annabeth is like one of the coolest people ever.

🦉 Immediately bursts into tears whenever she even sees a spider. Someone else has to kill it for her.

🦉 Wants to be a politician so she can make a change in the world. Idiots are running the government right now and the country could use someone smart.

🦉 Had a crush on Jason for the LONGEST time but felt super bad about it because Jason and Piper were dating. She tried to distance herself from Jason when she realized; she still regrets that to this day, knowing that the love Jason and Piper had was all a lie anyway, and that now she will never ever have a chance to tell him how she feels, because he’s gone.

🦉 Usually wears some sort of light academia clothing. She likes the sophisticated look and aesthetic it gives her.

🦉 Likes classical literature a lot. Regularly reads The Iliad.

🦉 A flip with no lean! When she’s regressed, she usually regresses to about 2-3, and it’s usually involuntary. When she’s a caregiver, she’s a LOT like an overprotective mom.

🦉 Helps take care of Aurelia when she’s little, and in turn, Aurelia helps take care of Theodosia when she’s little.

Sterling Shelton:

☀️ Son of Apollo, camp counselor of Cabin 7.

☀️ Demiboy, gay, uses he/they pronouns.

☀️ Arrived at Camp Half-Blood when he was thirteen. He’s now sixteen years old.

☀️ He’s a summer only camper, and when the summer is over, he goes back to his mom, who’s the lead singer of a metal band.

☀️ Best friends with his brother, Will Solace. They bond over their moms being famous artists.

☀️ Sterling is very skilled with music, like his mom. He LOVES the electric guitar.

☀️ Dresses heavy metal and listens to heavy metal. It’s what he grew up with and what he loves.

☀️ He wants to start a band himself when he grows up, just like his mom.

☀️ He’s a caregiver. He’s a very laid back caregiver, but he’s not lazy or inattentive or anything; he just knows how to have fun!

☀️ He’s like the universal babysitter. Anybody can go to him to ask him to help take care of their little and he’ll usually accept. He likes helping people, and he’s good at it.

[the-ghost-king]

Ngl it could have been better if their first kiss happened in the underworld in this book. And like idk some ppl already commented on this but their first kiss happening after Nico learnt about Jason's death and Will coming and kissing him is kinda.... idk. We got all of these 'first kiss' moments with the hetero couples so it could have been nice if we got once for will and nico too. I also do not understand the whole 'outing' thing. First, it was already bad in HoH. but why does Nico have to out himself to the entire camp? It's giving 'you cannot be yourself and you cannot date if you do not openly come out' energy, but you literally can... do that. And Nico outing Will makes no sense. I can understand Nico slowly opening up to others like Piper but why say it to the whole camp? The only good thing that came out of this was Nico's coming out encouraging other kids at the camp, i guess but still... unnecessary.

Everything you've said here is something I agree with and have already brought up multiple times and I expect I will bring it up again in the future as well... I would also like to mention how upsetting it is that the "you have to come out to be fully yourself" thing is aimed at teens and young adults, as if that isn't the group often most at risk for harm in that situation as they have no way to support themself if need be... Also the outing Nico had in HoH was far worse because it was malicious, but being outed unintentionally by people who are well meaning can be just as painful (trust me I've been through both lol) and difficult to cope with. A lot of the queer narrative in the book also felt "preachy" for lack of a better term, so much of it was stated instead of shown and it was like expecting you to automatically agree with what was being said and what you were being told but the way things were worded was very much so from like a queer theory lingo origin? And while I can't think of anything that was said I necessarily disagree with it was a rough transition and I think it was unnecessary as I think they would probably have slightly different culture and customs and beliefs systems around queerness being from camp and having limited internet access... The only thing I can say I liked was Nico saying he never had a moment he realized he was gay but that he was always gay and that he did instead only have a moment where he realized it was something people may look down at him for and he would have to hide/fight for, that felt very accurate to previous character set ups we've seen with him (to me at least) but otherwise he had moments where he came across as more of a mouthpiece and even though like I said I didn't think anything that was put in the dialogue was disagreeable it's still odd and poor authorship imo... And I don't personally think Will kissing Nico at that point was wrong, a little weird or odd though? definitely... It would have been nice to have Will and Nico have a first kiss in text that was comparable to the heterosexual couples in previous books in the series but even if I can't have that I would have just very much not have liked Nico to be outed again and to have that be embraced as a good thing because it once again pushes the idea that the way to be a good ally is to nudge or shove your friend out of the closet when in all actuality your job as a good ally and a good friend (even more importantly) is to wait patiently for your friend to hatch on their own terms instead of trying to crack eggs too early

I think as well having them be together almost a year and then take their relationship in the direction they did was too much... If they wanted to go the route they did with their relationship they should have only been together a couple of months, and if they wanted to have them be together longer they needed to fortify their relationship more yet they tried to do both and of course the relationship fell flat (again though, I do like the idea that love is different for each couple and I like the acknowledgement that love is a constant choice- I just find the way they arrive at that conclusion sometimes to be a little unhealthy?)

[star-dust-shark]

Chapter one: Sugar Glider

Percy’s pov

Being liked is great.

Not being liked is not so great.

It’s pretty black and white, really.

Well, depending on the person. Maybe there are people who don’t like being liked. Maybe they see it as a bad thing.

And maybe there are people who aren’t liked and are satisfied with it.

Percy Jackson wasn’t that kind of person.

He wanted people to like him.

In an ideal world, everyone liked him. He knew that wasn’t possible, but hey.

He could try.

And when he learnt that Annabeth Chase didn’t like him anymore, it basically felt like his world was caving in on him.

Dramatic, he knew, but he couldn’t believe it. One second, his life and relationships felt perfect, the next, he was single, lying on his floor eating ice cream.

Alone.

That word scared him. Being alone was like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly. Like a… yin without its yang.

He couldn’t be alone. He just couldn’t.

He was Percy Jackson for god sakes. He’d saved the world, what, like ten thousand times? He’d been to tartarus and back, swam in the river styx, and dealt with puberty.

And yet…

There he was, staring up at the ceiling of cabin three, the Poseidon cabin, blinking sleep from his eyes while the morning sun shone through the cracks of his blinds.

Alone.

I mean, really, he understood. Sometimes, you meet someone different. Sometimes that someone is a girl, and hey! Turns out you’re lesbian.

Percy didn’t understand being lesbian, obviously, but he understood that sometimes it just doesn’t work.

He didn’t blame Piper, or Annabeth.

He blamed himself.

If only he’d just been… better.

Stronger.

More… boyfriend-y.

He sighed, blowing hair out of his eyes only to have them fall back down and tickle his forehead instead.

But hey! Why be a pity party? Maybe being single wouldn’t be so bad. Nico had done it for years and he was fine, right?

Mostly, at least.

It was just that everyone had someone.

Leo had Jason.

Piper had Annabeth.

Reyna had Thalia.

Frank had Hazel.

So was he weird? Would he feel like an outcast, hanging out with happy couples? This fall they’d all be sharing hot chocolates and Percy would be staring at his feet wishing the ground would swallow him whole.

“Stop, Percy”, He chided himself. “You’re being over dramatic. You’re fine. Now get your lazy ass out of bed”.

Nope. Not happening.

No matter how many times he tried to push himself up or roll over, his body disobeyed.

Knock knock knoc-

“Urghf” Percy managed slurring at the door, muffled by his octonauts comforter.

The door swung open with a bang, revealing a beaming Jason Grace.

“Goooood morning bro! How’d you sleep, man”? He asked, strolling in and ruffling Percy’s raven black hair.

Percy let out an indignant “murmph” in response.

Jason rolled his eyes and glared down at him.

“You told me you’d start trying to get out of bed in the mornings, and there has been zero improvement”.

“Get off my case. You’re not my mom” Percy said pushing the blankets off of himself and sitting up.

Jason scowled, then smirked.

“Nice shorts” he nodded towards his torso.

“Hey, man, I don’t care what you think. Spongebob is a classic” Percy said, though he felt his face get rather warm.

“Whatever. Anyway, we’re all having breakfast together by the water. Chiron said it was okay”.

“Everyone”? Percy asked.

Jason shrugged. “Yeah, you, me, Leo, Nico, Piper, Annabeth”-

“Nope. Not happening” Percy grumbled, shuffling towards his closet stiffly.

Jason sighed, and Percy didn’t have to see his face to know he was obviously already pissed with Percy.

Though it had been… Percy glanced at the clock.

Only three minutes since Jason had came to wake him up. This was probably almost a record.

“Look, Percy, I know it’s awkward with Annabeth, but if you don’t come, she’s going to blame herself and think you’re like… ghosting her, man. And that’s not cool”.

Percy turned to face Jason to give him a falsely sweet smile.

“Oh gee, thanks, Jason! What great insight, I totally didn’t think of that at all. You’ve made me change my mind! Of course I’ll come, and it’ll all be fine and dandy” he said sarcastically, batting his eyelashes just to piss him off more.

Jason scruched his nose and narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything.

There was an awkward silence as Percy searched through his drawers to pull out his camp half blood shirt and a pair of blue ripped jeans.

“Look. I’m sorry, okay? I just don’t think I can do it”, Percy said turning to face Jason.

Maybe if he played up a kicked puppy act Jason would let him go.

Jason laughed. A good, long, hard laugh.

“Oh, I see! You thought I was giving you an option. That’s funny. You’re coming to breakfast, Jackson. Get dressed, and if you’re not ready in ten minutes I will barge in here and pull you by the ear even if you’re naked”.

“Gay” Percy mumbled.

“What was that”? Jason asked, turning back to look at him as he opened the door to leave.

“Nothin, just said okay”.

“Hm” Jason replied mutely as he shut the door.

Well great.

Truth was, it wasn’t completely Annabeth. Percy had been… confused.

Confused as in… questioning? Curious? He didn’t know how to explain it.

Like when you’re a kid and you first learn about a cool unknown kind of animal, like a sugar glider or something.

You kinda start thinking about it a lot, and getting curious about it.

Except Percy’s sugar glider wasn’t sugar gliders.

Percy’s sugar glider was Nico di Angelo.

Nico and him had gotten closer ever since Nico had came out and even closer yet after Annabeth and him had broken up.

He kind of thought of Nico as a sympathetic friend, because obviously Nico didn’t really give a shit, he just felt bad that Percy was lonely.

But Percy gave a shit.

He did, honest to the gods. And he never ever thought he’d say that.

That he cared about the weird emo kid with trust issues.

But he did.

Nico was his sugar glider. He couldn’t help but care.

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 13: I TAKE A PERMANENT VACATION

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! This is a depressing freaking chapter to infuse the holiday with, lol.

For everyone else, I hope you enjoy your day and your life and your year and the hour you spend reading my insanity!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Nico read the new chapter title with a sense of ill. The idea of running across Percy's ghost had come to him plenty in the darkest parts of that maze, he'd been convinced for months at a time those would be his only friends. The one who had gotten Bianca killed had himself died in his own Greek tragedy of trying to come after him and becoming lost in a place Nico was slowly conquering, but Nico would find his wandering spirit and nurse him back enough to guide him to where he needed to go.

The idea that Percy might have died in this volcanic eruption and he didn't even get a hint of knowing that disturbed him slightly less than his old creepy thoughts about how his part in this would end, so he tried to read like it was any other.

"Oh hell," Magnus yelped. "Are we finally going to get an explanation for how you wound up down here? Are you permanently sleeping with the fishes? Did someone," he cut his finger across his throat with sound and everything.

"I don't think I'm actually dead," Percy studied his still trembling hands with uncertainty though, patting absently at his shirt and pants too to make sure it was real.

"And it wouldn't explain the rest of the books?" but Jason's sounded more like stacked questions, because really none of this made to much sense given they had no answers to start with outside of a gods will.

"As far as I'm aware, you are not actually dead," Thalia managed casually enough, but she dreaded this chapter more than anyone. Calypso was not a myth she'd ever dealt with personally, and she knew all she'd be hearing while Nico read was Annabeth's desperate voice through their connection begging her to help find an answer other than the obvious. She'd been prepared to go down to Tartarus and drag his soul back to get that look out of her little sister's eyes.

I woke up feeling like I was still on fire. My skin stung. My throat felt as dry as sand.

"The fact that you still have feeling is the impressive part after being a literal comet," Will told him with a kind of critical, stern tone like he thought Percy was still tempted to try again.

"The kind that only comes around in one lifetime," Percy assured.

"Hopefully they don't name anything after it, or worse, you get some kind of crazy superpowers from it," Alex offered.

"Or worse, aliens." Magnus agreed.

"Why would there be an alien free riding on my comet?" Percy asked.

"I don't know, just seems like every sci-fi movie comes with aliens masquerading as comets," he shrugged.

"My life is weird enough without adding bad costumes and CGI," Percy sighed.

I saw blue sky and trees above me. I heard a fountain gurgling, and smelled juniper and cedar and a bunch of other sweet-scented plants. I heard waves, too, gently lapping on a rocky shore. I wondered if I was dead, but I knew better. I'd been to the Land of the Dead, and there was no blue sky.

"The fact that that is a more normal sentence than you, a child of the sea, not waking up on the beach more regularly, really says something about your life," Magnus couldn't help but inform Percy.

"Who would want to wake up with a sunburn every day?" Percy shrugged. "Plus, that sand really does get everywhere. Nah, I'm good."

Apparently only normal people, Magnus sighed as he answered himself.

I tried to sit up. My muscles felt like they were melting.

"I hear to much exercise will do that to you," Will said wisely.

"And here I thought the more obvious punchline was global warming. We must save the planet, think of the Percy," Nico snickered.

"You're all missing the obvious joke that Percy is clearly an evil green witch in disguise," Thalia chuckled.

"I was just half cooked alive like a lobster, can't I get a pass on all this?" Percy smiled knowing the answer.

"No," they all laughed.

"Stay still," a girl's voice said. "You're too weak to rise."

She laid a cool cloth across my forehead. A bronze spoon hovered over me and liquid was dribbled into my mouth. The drink soothed my throat and left a warm chocolaty aftertaste. Nectar of the gods. Then the girl's face appeared above me.

She had almond eyes and caramel-color hair braided over one shoulder.

She was...fifteen? Sixteen? It was hard to tell. She had one of those faces that just seemed timeless. She began singing, and my pain dissolved. She was working magic. I could feel her music sinking into my skin, healing and repairing my brain.

"Who?" I croaked.

"Shhh, brave one," she said. "Rest and heal. No harm will come to you here. I am Calypso."

"It's nice she came out front with her name," Magnus said. "But huh?"

"If they start by introducing themselves, they're probably going to be very powerful and more fun to defeat," Alex rubbed his hands together in excitement.

"I already feared for my life enough without that, but thanks," Percy sighed.

The next time I woke I was in a cave, but as far as caves go, I'd been in a lot worse.

"I mean, compared to the cyclops cave where Grover was being held hostage, a bear cave sounds like a vacation too," Jason nodded.

"Does the underworld count as a giant cave?" Magnus asked.

"Um, yes?" Nico admitted.

"We did not go into a cave on your last adventure, but you've been mostly underground in this one to make up for it, so I'd say you are a credible enough person to judge this," Thalia nodded sanctimoniously.

Yet in all this talk, Percy's empty hand tingled as if Annabeth had brushed against him, wanting to lock her fingers through his. She had a habit of holding his hand in places like this, but she sure wouldn't be this time, some part of him knew.

The ceiling glittered with different-color crystal formations— white and purple and green, like I was inside one of those cut geodes you see in souvenir shops. I was lying on a comfortable bed with feather pillows and cotton sheets. The cave was divided into sections by white silk curtains.

Against one wall stood a large loom and a harp. Against the other wall were shelves neatly stacked with jars of fruit preserves. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling: rosemary, thyme, and a bunch of other stuff. My mother could've named them all.

"You haven't said anything about Sally being into gardening," Nico said in surprise, though he well remembered that flower box he'd once appeared next to.

"She knows them from cooking, not much of a hobby she can keep up with in the middle of the city to grow her own," Percy said with a wistful kind of smile. He wanted that for his mom. He bet Poseidon would have granted her a whole biome of nature if she asked. Just tap on the bathroom door three times or something, and poof, a hidden world she'd love to be part of.

There was a fireplace built into the cave wall, and a pot bubbling over the flames. It smelled great, like beef stew.

I sat up, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my head. I looked at my arms, sure that they would be hideously scarred, but they seemed fine. A little pinker than usual, but not bad. I was wearing a white cotton T-shirt and cotton drawstring pants that weren't mine. My feet were bare. In a moment of panic, I wondered what happened to Riptide, but I felt my pocket and there was my pen, right where it always reappeared.

"I'm starting to wonder if there's even a limit on what that pen won't come back from," Jason looked more than impressed while he had that critical look on his face again. "If you threw it into outer space would it still come back?"

"I don't currently have any friends with a rocket ship to test that theory, but I'll let you know," Percy shrugged, holding his pen tight to him now just in case Jason wanted to try for himself.

Not only that but the Stygian ice dog whistle was back in my pocket, too. Somehow it had followed me. And that didn't exactly reassure me.

"Yeah, me either," Alex heaved a great sigh of remorse, and he really wanted Quintus and his dog to be a good guy. "Maybe he's trying to be like Chiron, he came across as a creepy stalker at first too."

"Hopefully," Percy wouldn't turn down another cool mentor who gave him good advice and cool gifts, but he was still too suspicious to really hope it would work out.

With difficulty, I stood. The stone floor was freezing under my feet. I turned and found myself staring into a polished bronze mirror.

"Holy Poseidon," I muttered. I looked as if I'd lost twenty pounds I couldn't afford to lose. My hair was a rat's nest. It was singed at the edges like Hephaestus's beard. If I saw that face on somebody walking down a highway intersection asking for money, I would've locked the car doors.

"Percy, you don't have a car," Nico told him.

"My mom's car doors just doesn't give the same ring to it," Percy rolled his eyes, fighting the urge, and losing it to sag in his seat with remembered exhaustion. Thalia was looking like an awfully comfortable prop right now.

Magnus kept his lips tight shut about that. He never spent much time looking in a mirror for a few years now, but he was pretty sure he'd looked that bad before Hearth and Blitz found him.

I turned away from the mirror. The cave entrance was to my left. I headed toward the daylight.

The cave opened onto a green meadow. On the left was a grove of cedar trees and on the right a huge flower garden. Four fountains gurgled in the meadow, each shooting water from the pipes of stone satyrs. Straight ahead, the grass sloped down to a rocky beach. The waves of a lake lapped against the stones. I could tell it was a lake because...well, I just could. Fresh water. Not salt. The sun sparkled on the water, and the sky was pure blue. It seemed like a paradise, which immediately made me nervous. You deal with mythological stuff for a few years, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed.

"Are you telling me I'm most likely to die at a Pottery Barn?" Alex demanded.

"Paradise probably isn't even subjective enough to argue," Thalia agreed with a sigh. "We half-bloods can die somewhere like a dog park or a freaking mall."

"The only paradise we have is places where monsters aren't, and then we inevitably attract them to that place," Jason frowned. "What kind of paradox is that called?"

"Shit, does that make this place a utopia?" Magnus groaned.

"Well this is just getting more depressing the longer it drags on," Nico reminded, and he wasn't even the one causing it. He kept reading loudly and decided he'd blame the book, and Percy's life, rather than himself on the continued trend.

The girl with the braided caramel hair, the one who'd called herself Calypso, was standing at the beach, talking to someone. I couldn't see him very well in the shimmer from the sunlight off the water, but they appeared to be arguing.

"I really don't think it's just a joke when I say Percy attracts fights everywhere he goes, even to a tropical paradise," Will shook his head in exhaustion.

"Task failed successfully," Percy hoped. "They can keep that up while I escape I'm sure." He hadn't felt trapped though, he vividly remembered that. His feelings of this island were more dreamlike than any memory yet given back. Like that old apartment he used to live in with his mom, maybe the few short years before Gabe had come along. A home he could never go back to, but some part of him would always want to.

I tried to remember what I knew about Calypso from the old myths. I'd heard the name before, but...I couldn't remember. Was she a monster? Did she trap heroes and kill them? But if she was evil, why was I still alive?

"All excellent questions," Jason sighed.

"Percy will get answers to all of them as he's running for his life I'm sure," Alex offered, which made nobody feel better.

I walked toward her slowly because my legs were still stiff. When the grass changed to gravel, I looked down to keep my balance, and when I looked up again, the girl was alone. She wore a white sleeveless Greek dress with a low circular neckline trimmed in gold. She brushed at her eyes like she'd been crying.

"Well," she said, trying for a smile, "the sleeper finally wakes."

"If he's Sleeping Beauty, does that make Annabeth Prince Charming?" Magnus snorted.

"Percy sleeps enough to fulfill the role," Thalia chuckled with amusement, "and Annabeth would rock a horse and sword if she needed to."

"I would rather get to the monster killing me part than indulge this further," Percy groaned, or he was going to be suffering kiss of life jokes and endless Halloween costume ideas for days.

"Who were you talking to?" My voice sounded like a frog that had spent time in a microwave.

"What a noble frog, putting up with that to be such a comparison to you," there was nothing but dread in Nico's voice though as he tried not to wonder how Percy knew that.

"Science lab got weird during the dissection class, you don't want to know," Percy shivered.

"Oh...just a messenger," she said.

Will snorted softly, though he felt bad he was the only one who got the joke. Nobody else read that deep into it.

"How do you feel?"

"How long have I been out?"

"Time," Calypso mused. "Time is always difficult here. I honestly don't know, Percy."

"You know my name?"

"Not a shock anymore," Magnus grudgingly admitted. He wished it still were, but the days of Medusa creeping him out for a multitude of reasons were in the past, and that one had never even been able to rank to high considering everything else.

"You talk in your sleep."

I blushed. "Yeah. I've been...uh, told that before."

"How nobody's ever tried to smother you for that I will never know," Thalia said with her own mystified face. The few times she'd slept around Percy, they'd been out in the open taking turns keeping watch for each other, so she'd never had to actually try and fall asleep to his nonsense.

"Yes. Who is Annabeth?"

"Oh, uh.

Percy's brain fried and short circuited in his head like another volcano had gone off. He would be more surprised if steam wasn't coming out of his ears. It would take him less time to say who Annabeth wasn't...

A friend.

He exhaled in relief at how well that summed it up, glad he'd been to tired back then to even try and articulate anything else as his lips still felt more prominent on his face than they ever had before.

We were together when—wait, how did I get here? Where am I?"

Calypso reached up and ran her fingers through my mangled hair. I stepped back nervously.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I've just grown used to caring for you.

The others were oddly quiet, clearly trying to judge for themselves how much they believed her sincerity. She'd had ample opportunity to hurt Percy true, but for all they knew she was just lulling him there and keeping him from getting back to full strength until Luke showed up. She could be slowly sucking the life out of him. There was just no telling what motive could be going on or who she was arguing with until it was to late.

As to how you got here, you fell from the sky. You landed in the water, just there." She pointed across the beach. "I do not know how you survived. The water seemed to cushion your fall. As to where you are, you are in Ogygia."

She pronounced it like oh-jee-jee-ah.

"Was the second jee really necessary?" Magnus huffed. "It feels like they're just being extra."

"No noun should be more than two syllables, it's just exhausting," Percy agreed.

"Your name is three," Thalia looked at him strangely.

"And I stand by what I said," Percy nodded.

"Is that near Mount St. Helens?" I asked, because my geography is pretty terrible.

"Sure Percy, it might be if you travel back in time or something," Will chuckled.

"Maybe I'll find them constructing the Statue of Liberty next door," Percy smirked.

Calypso laughed. It was a small restrained laugh, like she found me really funny but didn't want to embarrass me. She was cute when she laughed.

Percy felt a dull sense of dread thud in his chest, but again, it wasn't vicious. He didn't feel like ripping his heart out in fear it was attacking him. Just an aching feeling, a muscle he'd long since stopped using.

He watched as six pairs of eyebrows shut up around him now with a vague amusement as well. Magnus and Alex seemed immediately suspicious and weary what kind of spell he was being put under, whether he realized it or not. Jason and Thalia looked amused, like they were thinking how best to tell Annabeth about this for maximum teasing.

Will and Nico exchanged weary looks though. Not the, 'Oh Gods, Percy's about to die kind,' but the sort where they weren't sure if they wanted to know the outcome of this. Percy didn't talk about his time out there, and while it was interesting to get some first hand lore on this place, it was coming at a pretty personal cost to Percy.

Nico read swiftly, he didn't want to linger on this.

"It isn't near anything, brave one," she said. "Ogygia is my phantom island. It exists by itself, anywhere and nowhere.

"I wonder if there are other islands out there that can do a bit of both." Alex grinned. "You really didn't explore the Sea of Monsters enough to be sure there's not an island out there that's sometimes there and sometimes not."

"If I find a haunted ghost island that only appears during high tide, I'll call you," Percy promised. Mostly so he could blame Alex for its existence.

You can heal here in safety. Never fear."

"It's not himself he's afraid for," Jason muttered.

Percy heard, and grinned at him. It was a good feeling for at least a moment, to know your friends knew you so well.

"But my friends—"

"Annabeth," she said. "And Grover and Tyson?"

"Yes!" I said. "I have to get back to them. They're in danger."

She touched my face, and I didn't back away this time. "Rest first. You are no good to your friends until you heal."

As soon as she said it, I realized how tired I was.

Magnus still shivered with distaste as he waited for the shoe to drop. That this vacation was just another Hotel, and Percy was soon going to start forgetting everything that mattered to himself except this girl who he had no choice but to fall in love with because she told him that's what he needed to do, or maybe he'd start seeing puncture marks on his neck and this was another kind of vampire, like a subspecies of Kelli.

"You're not...you're not an evil sorceress, are you?"

She smiled coyly. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, I met Circe once, and she had a pretty nice island, too. Except she liked to turn men into guinea pigs."

"A sad fact that is such a major exception," Alex sighed.

"There's no such thing as the perfect utopia," Thalia agreed.

Calypso gave me that laugh again. "I promise I will not turn you into a guinea pig."

"Or anything else?"

"I am no evil sorceress," Calypso said. "And I am not your enemy, brave one. Now rest. Your eyes are already closing."

She was right. My knees buckled, and I would've landed face-first in the gravel if Calypso hadn't caught me. Her hair smelled like cinnamon. She was very strong, or maybe I was just really weak and thin. She walked me back to a cushioned bench by the fountain and helped me lie down.

"Rest," she ordered. And I fell asleep to the sound of the fountains and the smell of cinnamon and juniper.

Percy shivered. The kind of ghost breathing on his neck feeling. Because there was no sense of danger in him. And it was creeping him out.

Where was the adrenaline? Where was the fear and worry? Where was that sense that had guided him through all his past memories of what to trust and to know when he should be about to run?

He kept wanting to watch Thalia for some kind of hint he was missing something, but she seemed as somber over there as he felt. Like a long lost friend had died.

The next time I woke it was night, but I wasn't sure if it was the same night or many nights later. I was in the bed in the cave, but I rose and wrapped a robe around myself and padded outside. The stars were brilliant—thousands of them, like you only see way out in the country. I could make out all the constellations Annabeth had taught me: Capricorn, Pegasus, Sagittarius. And there, near the southern horizon, was a new constellation: the Huntress, a tribute to a friend of ours who had died last winter.

Nico did not like himself for the distaste he had of those words... Why didn't Bianca get a whole constellation? It was Zoe's choice to go on this quest and be slated for death the moment she heard that prophecy, and his sister went in almost blind...

But Thalia was making some stupid joke at Percy about never seeming to find his own constellation and his sister probably would have been over there laughing with them without batting an eye at that passage. She probably would have smiled for her lieutenant.

"Percy, what do you see?"

I brought my eyes back to earth. However amazing the stars were, Calypso was twice as brilliant.

Percy had always wished Annabeth here from the moment he'd opened his eyes. He still did now, to know she was safe and away from volcanoes he'd exploded. He wanted to hear her explain to him already who Calypso was fully.

Most of all, he wanted to watch how she'd be reacting to this. If she was rolling her eyes at him, or jealous, or hurt, or uncaring at all.

He found himself watching Thalia, his best friend in here to figure out the same, but she seemed to be avoiding his eyes as she played with her bracelet. He didn't know what thoughts were plaguing her, and a part of him wondered if it had something to do with why Annabeth wasn't here and what she might know about that.

Or was it something simpler and she already knew the choice he felt stretching ahead of him?

I mean, I've seen the goddess of love herself, Aphrodite, and I would never say this out loud or she'd blast me to ashes, but for my money, Calypso was a lot more beautiful,

Nico winced and looked very much like someone was about to blast him to ashes just for saying that sentence. It would be just his luck to get obliterated into nothing because he'd said what Percy once thought and got away with.

There was a dramatic pause as everybody waited for it to happen, and when nothing did, Nico kept reading with an odd smile on his face like he got away with something.

because she just seemed so natural, like she wasn't trying to be beautiful and didn't even care about that. She just was.

Annabeth's like that too, Percy realized in surprise. Unlike Kelli, who was a terrifying kind of beautiful in her natural way of looking like Aphrodite actually did have a kid with Hephaestus, Annabeth always brushed her hair up into a careless ponytail and had dirt on her at any given time and didn't realize her own allure. The one time he'd seen her in a dress it had shocked him stupid. He was rather glad looking back he'd been a guina pig for that, it made it seem lesser, more like a dream than real memory of how alien perfect she'd been.

With her braided hair and white dress, she seemed to glow in the moonlight. She was holding a tiny plant in her hands. Its flowers were silver and delicate.

"I was just looking at..." I found myself staring at her face. "Uh...I forgot."

Nico heard some of them laughing around him, but it still sounded nervous, they were still waiting for her to sprout into a monster or reveal the 'gotcha' or something. Even knowing that wasn't the case, Nico and Will exchanged a tired look. The usual flippant, enjoyable energy just wasn't getting up in this chapter as they felt how confining this moment in Percy's life was. It didn't feel right to mock him when Percy looked isolated with his confusion over there.

She laughed gently. "Well, as long as you're up, you can help me plant these."

She handed me a plant, which had a clump of dirt and roots at the base.

The flowers glowed as I held them. Calypso picked up her gardening spade and directed me to the edge of the garden, where she began to dig.

"That's moonlace," Calypso explained. "It can only be planted at night."

I watched the silvery light flicker around the petals. "What does it do?"

"Do?" Calypso mused. "It doesn't really do anything, I suppose. It lives, it gives light, it provides beauty. Does it have to do anything else?"

"I suppose not," I said.

"Sounds to me like it's doing plenty," Alex agreed. Not every plant had to poison or cure something, nourish or indue. Things just existed without a purpose, which was their purpose.

She took the plant, and our hands met. Her fingers were warm. She planted the moonlace and stepped back, surveying her work. "I love my garden."

"This is a very odd evil plan," Magnus found himself scratching his head the longer this dragged on. "Is she trying to turn you vegan? Is her ultimate goal to use you as fertilizer?"

"Grover might not bother to rescue me if so," but Percy's smile was lackluster at best. He was growing less convinced by the word this was some trap at all, but this was a Greek legend, he knew that much. He was still waiting for the bad part to show up.

"It's awesome," I agreed. I mean, I wasn't exactly a gardening type, but Calypso had arbors covered with six different colors of roses, lattices filled with honeysuckle, rows of grapevines bursting with red and purple grapes that would've made Dionysus sit up and beg.

"Ah, I see," Jason theatrically clapped his forehead. "They caught the wrong demigod. This is supposed to be a trap for a child of Ceres."

"You've been eating there, haven't you?" Magnus confirmed. "Is this like an underworld situation? You're imprisoned forever because you ate from this awesome place?"

Percy pressed his lips together as that sense of longing only grew. He couldn't find in himself to play along. Imprisoned. Maybe it wasn't him who was on the permanent vacation really.

"Back home," I said, "my mom always wanted a garden."

"Why did she not plant one?"

"Well, we live in Manhattan. In an apartment."

"Manhattan? Apartment?"

"Oh, well, maybe she's not evil after all," Will chuckled. "It's common knowledge all people who are associated with big cities are evil. Clearly, having never even heard of the concept, she's immune to this. Purely innocent and good in her hide-a-way pasture."

"Aren't most horror movies out in the boons where nobody can hear them scream?" Nico asked. Quite a few kids asked if he was born out there enough to make him look up what they were getting at.

Will opened, and closed his mouth with a laugh instead of answering.

I stared at her. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"I fear not. I haven't left Ogygia in...a long time."

"Well, Manhattan's a big city, with not much gardening space."

Calypso frowned. "That is sad. Hermes visits from time to time. He tells me the world outside has changed greatly. I did not realize it had changed so much you cannot have gardens."

"Why haven't you left your island?"

She looked down. "It is my punishment."

"You know Percy, I'm starting to suspect your luck is bad enough to get roped into somebody else's bad luck," Jason admitted. Nothing bad had happened yet, and judging by his silence over there and nobody nearly dying, he was beginning to suspect this wasn't going to be that kind of chapter.

"As long as she doesn't take her punishment out on me," Percy's heart was doing an odd beat in his chest. A thudding, painful number that hurt to concentrate on. Calypso, her name kept swimming around his mind like a piranha that was well fed but shouldn't be ignored. There was just something about her that had nothing and everything to do with Annabeth he was missing.

"Why? What did you do?"

"A classic Percy," Thalia sighed. "A classic boy. Blunt as an arrow to the face."

"I've never used a boxing glove arrow," Percy grinned.

"I? Nothing. But I'm afraid my father did a great deal. His name is Atlas."

"How many kids did this guy have?" Magnus asked in surprise.

"That's like asking how many kids Zeus had. You're just happier not trying to count them all," Thalia sighed.

The name sent a shiver down my back. I'd met the Titan Atlas last winter, and it had not been a happy time. He'd tried to kill pretty much everyone I care about.

"I mean, that's most evil people you meet," Nico said fairly. "I don't know what happy times involves trying to kill people."

"Maybe if Calypso had been there instead of Zoe things would have gone better," Alex snorted. "Girl should have opted a jailbreak for her half sister before the quest."

"I don't think there was really time for that," Thalia reminded with a strained smile. She didn't think it inherently insensitive to laugh about Zoe's past decisions, gods knew she'd done enough of that herself, but it wasn't a topic she wanted to continue to discuss either.

"Still," I said hesitantly, "it's not fair to punish you for what your father's done. I knew another daughter of Atlas. Her name was Zoë. She was one of the bravest people I've ever met."

Calypso studied me for a long time. Her eyes were sad.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Are—are you healed yet, my brave one? Do you think you'll be ready to leave soon?"

"What? I asked. "I don't know." I moved my legs. They were still stiff. I was already getting dizzy from standing up so long.

The fact that he could stand up for any length of time and wasn't sprinting and threatening to get out of there still gnawed at something in Percy. Something about this place, this girl. He wanted to help her, to stay, and it was nothing evil or magical making him. Just Calypso was enough.

"You want me to go?"

"I..." Her voice broke. "I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well."

She ran off toward the beach. I was too confused to do anything but watch until she disappeared in the dark.

"No, that's a classic Percy," Jason couldn't comprehend how Percy hadn't interrogated this girl to know everything about what was going on by now. He was the dopiest, deadliest guy Jason had ever met, and he was quite positive of this fact not even remembering anyone outside this room.

I don't know exactly how much time passed. Like Calypso said, it was hard to keep track on the island. I knew I should be leaving. At the very least, my friends would be worried. At worst, they could be in serious danger. I didn't even know if Annabeth had made it out of the volcano. I tried to use my empathy link with Grover several times, but I couldn't make contact. I hated not knowing if they were all right.

On the other hand, I really was weak. I couldn't stay on my feet more than a few hours. Whatever I'd done in Mount St. Helens had drained me like nothing else I'd ever expected.

Nico could hardly believe the words out of his own mouth. If he hadn't already been struck repeatedly in here that Percy wasn't the guy he'd dreamed he was, this more than anything put the final nail in the coffin. Percy had the motivation to go home, he'd always done everything up to this point by his driving factor being to help others.

He just, was choosing not to this time. It wasn't even a big heroic sacrifice, he had no idea of Calypso's curse yet. He was just, hesitating, and Nico found himself fascinated what had made Percy leave. Had he been unable to put down the mantel of the hero? Had it been Annabeth?

I didn't feel like a prisoner or anything. I remembered the Lotus Hotel and Casino in Vegas, where I'd been lured into this amazing game world until I almost forgot everything I cared about. But the island of Ogygia wasn't like that at all. I thought about Annabeth, Grover, and Tyson constantly. I remembered exactly why I needed to leave. I just...couldn't.

And then there was Calypso herself.

She never talked much about herself, but that just made me want to know more. I would sit in the meadow, sipping nectar, and I would try to concentrate on the flowers or the clouds or the reflections on the lake, but I was really staring at Calypso as she worked, the way she brushed her hair over her shoulder, and the little strand that fell in her face whenever she knelt to dig in the garden. Sometimes she would hold out her hand and birds would fly out of the woods to settle on her arm—lorikeets, parrots, doves.

"You fell into a fairy tell land my friend," Magnus told him. "I bet she turns into an ogre, or a dragon or something once you decided to stay."

Magnus wasn't really kidding, but Percy laughed like he was anyways. That didn't feel like the right answer either. Nothing had felt like the right thing to do since he'd blown up that volcano.

She would tell them good morning, ask how it was going back at the nest, and they would chirp for a while, then fly off cheerfully. Calypso's eyes gleamed. She would look at me and we'd share a smile, but almost immediately she'd get that sad expression again and turn away. I didn't understand what was bothering her.

"She's using reverse psychology on you and makes you think she wants you to leave while really wanting you to stay," Alex joined in.

Percy blinked at him. Something in there finally did feel like an answer, but twisted. She was no manipulator, he knew that, felt that in his memory like his instinctive trust of Thalia.

One night we were eating dinner together at the beach. Invisible servants had set up a table with beef stew and apple cider,

"Is that all she had to eat there? Is that the secret torture?" Will frowned. "Also, where does the cow part come from?"

"She's making those special veggies that taste like beef," Nico snickered.

"Maybe Hermes delivers her yearly rations she can't grow, like toilet paper," Thalia smirked.

which may not sound all that exciting, but that's because you haven't tasted it. I hadn't even noticed the invisible servants when I first got to the island, but after a while I became aware of the beds making themselves, meals cooking on their own, clothes being washed and folded by unseen hands.

Magnus threw his hands up in exasperation. "This is officially the best vacation ever. Can I blow up a volcano too Percy?"

"Not without following the proper steps by sitting through a sex ed class, being chased by Telkehines, and nearly dying." Percy shrugged.

"Geez, I might still consider it," Magnus huffed at this luxury.

Anyway, Calypso and I were sitting at dinner, and she looked beautiful in the candlelight.

"If you mention how pretty this girl is one more time, I might have to revoke your crush on Annabeth," Jason snorted.

Percy brushed at his gray bangs, his stomach in knots. He wished he had some snippy rebuttal for that, but he was disturbingly silent.

"People can have a crush on more than one person Jason, broaden your mind," Alex finally chuckled into the awkward silence.

Thalia was studying her best friend with those electric blue eyes. She'd been really relieved to see him at the beginning, like he'd been missing for a long time. Is this where he'd been? Was she angry with him having taken to long to come back?

I was telling her about New York and Camp Half-Blood, and then I started telling her about the time Grover had eaten an apple while we were playing Hacky Sack with it. She laughed, showing off her amazing smile, and our eyes met. Then she dropped her gaze.

She was scared, Percy tried to put into words that expression, but that didn't quite fit right. She wasn't telling him something about this place, and if he could not resist one kind of torture, it was temptation.

"There it is again," I said.

"What?"

"You keep pulling away, like you're trying not to enjoy yourself."

"You probably scared her with that story Percy," Magnus rolled his eyes. "I might still have nightmares about Grover using a mega-goat bite on me if was drinking apple cider."

"I don't think she could have nightmares on that island," Percy frowned. He certainly hadn't been having any. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was oddly similar to their current prison. Invisible servants, all the food one could eat, the company was mostly tolerable when they weren't annoying. He still missed Annabeth, his mom, Grover and everyone like a physical ache, but there was nothing stopping him from refusing to relearn his memories, hide in a room and stay here forever. The idea was just loathsome if he thought about it for more than a second.

It hadn't been there though. There had been something about Calypso, the constant rest he got. The problem with staying on vacation for to long was that it made going back seem harder than it had before.

She kept her eyes on her glass of cider. "As I told you, Percy, I have been punished. Cursed, you might say."

"How? Tell me. I want to help."

"Don't say that. Please don't say that."

"Tell me what the punishment is."

He wanted to help her, Percy finally realized the obvious. Once he found out how to help break her curse, he could leave with a clear conscience. Of course, it seemed obvious now. This place probably played exactly into one's fatal flaw. He might have just met her, but he could have been life long friends with someone like Calypso.

She covered her half-finished stew with a napkin, and immediately an invisible servant whisked the bowl away. "Percy, this island, Ogygia, is my home, my birthplace. But it is also my prison. I am under...house arrest, I guess you would call it. I will never visit this Manhattan of yours. Or anywhere else. I am alone here."

"Doesn't sound like much of a punishment," Alex muttered. He preferred being alone, all people did was disappoint and judge you.

"Maybe for one lifetime, but all of them?" Magnus frowned. He never would have made it on the streets without Hearth and Blitz. He missed the boy he used to play with who always stopped running too fast when he had to grab his inhaler. He missed being in the back of a class reading and ignoring the teacher until he had his book taken away and then begrudgingly laughing and playing a game of tic tac toe with a random kid in detention. Maybe he'd learn why they were there, maybe they'd just sit in silence together. The idea of never being allowed around another soul again sounded like a curse to him.

Alex heard all of that in his short question, and sighed as he practiced signing the alphabet to himself in random order.

"Because your father was Atlas."

She nodded. "The gods do not trust their enemies. And rightly so. I should not complain. Some of the prisons are not nearly as nice as mine."

"I guess she heard what her dad's going through," Jason said in agreement.

"It's, nice, the gods took it easy on a random kid," Will tried to say in his usual upbeat way, but he wasn't so sure how confident he was of that. He didn't actually know what crime Calypso had committed other than support and what that entailed, yet he'd heard plenty of the gods unjust punishments for lesser things.

"But that's not fair," I said. "Just because you're related doesn't mean you support him. This other daughter I knew, Zoë, Nightshade—she fought against him. She wasn't imprisoned."

"But, Percy," Calypso said gently, "I did support him in the first war. He is my father."

"Ah," Magnus said in understanding as the final piece of it all fit into place.

"One man's vacation is another man's punishment huh?" Alex said with distaste, though for Calypso or the gods nobody was sure.

"What? But the Titans are evil!"

"Are they? All of them? All the time?"

"I've yet met a good one," Magnus said in disgust.

They weren't inherently evil, Nico knew though as he toyed with the edge of the page. Iapetus the Impaler had been cleansed of his family ties and come out as Bob, an innocent who willingly helped. Luke was a child of the 'good guys' and yet he was leading the rebellion. What made good and evil was not an answer he was privy to no matter how many ghosts he talked to about it.

She pursed her lips. "Tell me, Percy. I have no wish to argue with you, but do you support the gods because they are good, or because they are your family?"

I didn't answer. She had a point. Last winter, after Annabeth and I had saved Olympus, the gods had had a debate about whether or not they should kill me. That hadn't been exactly good. But still, I felt like I supported them because Poseidon was my dad.

"And we're back to that whole corruption of infinite cosmic power business," Alex scowled.

"It's more like a few really rotten apples and some bad tempers that need work?" Will offered with a hopeful smile. He could easily understand Percy questioning such a thing, it would have made less sense if he never had. Things had been getting better since Percy demanded of the gods his reward to prevent this all happening again though, some of them had even come around a bit for a brief time before Dionysus mysteriously stopped being there.

"Perhaps I was wrong in the war," Calypso said. "And in fairness, the gods have treated me well. They visit me from time to time. They bring me word of the outside world. But they can leave. And I cannot."

"You don't have any friends?" I asked. "I mean...wouldn't anyone else live here with you? It's a nice place."

"I bet those Hesperides would, sit around and shit talk about half-bloods all day. She might like to hang out with her half sisters," Thalia sounded reluctantly sorry for her. A maiden trapped alone in this eternal place struck a particular cord in her, one strong enough for her to ask if her punishment might ever be lifted. If she asked Artemis to let her join the hunt, would that be an insult to the gods original punishment? Thalia might even consider hiding Jason away on this island once they got out of here while she figured out what had happened to him if this underwater place didn't work out long term.

A tear trickled down her cheek. "I...I promised myself I wouldn't speak of this. But—"

She was interrupted by a rumbling sound somewhere out on the lake.

Percy groaned, a painful sounding noise deep in his chest that usually meant they should all duck and hold their breath for something disastrous about to happen.

It wasn't like that this time. Percy was angry with himself, and this situation, and no one set thing. The ocean sloshed all around them like somebody shaking a jar as he shifted around to try and get comfortable in his seat with no clear ending in sight.

A glow appeared on the horizon. It got brighter and brighter, until I could see a column of fire moving across the surface of the water, coming toward us.

"Because at this point why wouldn't aliens show up," Magnus frowned.

"Why is that your first thought?" Jason looked at him like anything left could be a strange sentence in here. "It's more likely Mercury is popping in again. Maybe he decided to use a pillar of flames this time."

"Haven't you heard stories about aliens appearing as columns of light?" Magnus asked in amusement. "I know this guy on Beacon Street who swears up and down he saw them while flying in WWII, described them just like this. I bet he'll think I'm just as crazy if I tell him it was just a god passing by."

"We're all a little crazy in some ways," Alex cheerfully reminded.

I stood and reached for my sword. "What is that?"

Calypso sighed. "A visitor."

"She doesn't seem that thrilled about it?" Alex frowned, which was weird right? Shouldn't she be jumping for joy when anyone shows up if she's so lonely? She had been cut off though, about to offer Percy something, and it wasn't particularly hard to imagine what.

As the column of fire reached the beach. Calypso stood and bowed to it formally. The flames dissipated, and standing before us was a tall man in gray overalls and a metal leg brace, his beard and hair smoldering with fire.

"Lord Hephaestus," Calypso said. "This is a rare honor."

Will scratched absently at his chin as he said, "yeah, I imagine so. Like I'm trying to think of a scenario where she's ever even met him." If he so rarely visited anyone, why would he go to this random girl. Did he study her plants to make machines out of them?

"Maybe a child of Hephaestus has landed there before," Nico shrugged. She probably hadn't met every god, he doubted they were all kind and sporadic enough to visit on their own and she probably only knew of them through the random demi god kids who passed through.

Thalia kept the thought to herself she was a prisoner because of the war she'd been in to the two. It was plenty likely Calypso knew of every Olympian because she'd had her turn to try and kill them all, possibly by learning of their favorite foods and practicing poisions even. Who knew what she'd been up to back then before coming there.

The fire god grunted. "Calypso. Beautiful as always.

"If I hear how beautiful this girl is described one more time, I'm shaving her head," Alex rolled his eyes. "Aphrodite wasn't praised this much. Annabeth isn't praised this much!"

Nico lost his composure and burst out laughing hard while Percy sighed at the pair of them. They didn't get it, they hadn't seen her in person.

Would you excuse us, please, my dear? I need to have a word with our young Percy Jackson."

Percy felt immediately humbled and worried. Was this about Annabeth?!

Hephaestus sat down clumsily at the dinner table and ordered a Pepsi.

"I wonder if he ever goes to a restaurant, and they tell him they only have coke, and he just like, changes reality to make it so they only have Pepsi now," Magnus frowned.

"I thought it would be simpler, like he just breaks their machine so no soda is carbonated," Will admitted.

"You're both evil for taking it out on the soda," Percy told.

The invisible servant brought him one, opened it too suddenly, and sprayed soda all over the gods work clothes. Hephaestus roared and spat a few curses and swatted the can away.

"Stupid servants," he muttered. "Good automatons are what she needs. They never act up!"

"I do not believe him in any way, shape, or form," Thalia scoffed.

"I think he needs a tune-up in his mind," Percy agreed.

"Hephaestus," I said, "what's going on? Is Annabeth—"

"She's fine," he said. "Resourceful girl, that one. Found her way back, told me the whole story. She's worried sick, you know."

Percy made such a sigh of relief that he cleaved out a gap of air in front of him that made a terrifying noise as the water snapped back into place.

Nico kept reading over him like he heard his life about to end every other day while the others rubbed their ears.

"You haven't told her I'm okay?"

"That's not for me to say," Hephaestus said.

Magnus shivered deep in his seat. He longed to be there for her, how alone she must feel right now. Was she back in the maze by herself? Marching into Daedalus' shop ready for murder because she thought she'd lost her best friend? He had nothing to offer her but his companionship and still couldn't even give that as he sat uselessly in place.

"Everyone thinks you're dead. I had to be sure you were coming back before I started telling everyone where you were."

"Everyone, everyone?" Jason asked critically. "Like Neptune? Who exactly was asking Vulcan where you were?"

"It wouldn't surprise me if some of the gods kept an eye on his quest and knew Hephaestus was the last god he'd seen," Thalia reminded with a scowl. Like Hera, she'd probably been keeping tabs on him enough to know he'd gone missing.

"What do you mean?" I said. "Of course I'm coming back!"

Hephaestus studied me skeptically. He fished something out of his pocket—a metal disk the size of an iPod. He clicked a button and it expanded into a miniature bronze TV. On the screen was news footage of Mount St. Helens, a huge plume of fire and ash trailing into the sky.

"Still uncertain about further eruptions," the newscaster was saying. "Authorities have ordered the evacuation of almost half a million people as a precaution. Meanwhile, ash has fallen as far away as Lake Tahoe and Vancouver, and the entire Mount St. Helens area is closed to traffic within a hundred-mile radius. While no deaths have been reported, minor injuries and illnesses include—"

Hephaestus switched it off. "You caused quite an explosion."

Percy's hand leapt to his mouth like he was going to try and hold in another scream. He just looked so ashamed Thalia instinctively leaned over and hugged him. He cautiously returned it, but his hand stayed in place, the guilt in his eyes more plain than the dark water around them.

It wasn't okay, Thalia knew as she leaned back, and she didn't say as much. Percy looked as torn apart as if he wanted to evacuate his own body, that volcano might as well have erupted inside of him and then proceeded out to the lava.

I stared at the blank bronze screen. Half a million people evacuated? Injuries. Illness. What had I done?

"I-" but Percy couldn't say how sorry he was. He couldn't see the others around him, if they looked at him with fear now. All he could feel was that dormant power in him, the one he touched every other page in here it seemed. Even now he couldn't get a handle on his emotions, his capabilities. Perhaps this place wasn't a punishment at all, but a place to learn why he should be kept away from others.

He'd always been a really bad student though.

Thalia slugged him on the shoulder and said, "and this is why boys should be kept at the bottom of the ocean! I bet if you'd gone to visit the Cyclops forges too you'd have a handle on this, it's all your dad's fault really." Like she wasn't massively speaking from experience her dad had never given her any help on her chaotic powers either.

Will and Nico were muttering away about something as usual, the book held casually in Nico's hand, the kid who had once made the dead vanish without thought and nearly taken the camp with him. Alex was lounging in his seat waiting for things to keep going while Magnus and Jason just looked reserved for the worst.

They'd all been dealing with him nearly killing them since they got in here. This vast showing of his powers didn't surprise a one, it was just a part of who he was. It wasn't a great part of him, but Percy sighed and knew what Annabeth would tell him to do once she was done strangling him for making her think he was dead. All he could do was build a better foundation next time. He had to work on getting control.

"The telekhines were scattered," the god told me. "Some vaporized. Some got away, no doubt. I don't think they'll be using my forge any time soon.

"Oh look, he got what he wanted out of it," Alex scoffed.

"Not exactly a win, win, scenario," Percy muttered. Why couldn't the gods have shown up to stop the volcano from erupting and saved all those people?

For the same reason they hadn't voted to kill him he supposed. They had their own plans, own agenda, other things better to do with their infinite time than worry about him right this moment. A part of Percy still hoped he'd asked his dad to make a few anonymous donations to help... somehow. He didn't even know, he just knew his next prayer to his dad as he scrapped food off his plate would be for this.

On the other hand, neither will I. The explosion caused Typhon to stir in his sleep. We'll have to wait and see—"

"I couldn't release him, could I? I mean, I'm not that powerful!"

The god grunted. "Not that powerful, eh? Could have fooled me. You're the son of the Earthshaker, lad. You don't know your own strength."

Percy felt a horrible pressure deep in his chest at a god telling him that. He'd taken on Ares and come out the other side without a scratch.

His friends didn't see him as a god though. Thalia was nothing but sympathetic beside him. "I've hardly touched my powers since I caused this massive storm once, nearly tore a whole city apart the news later blamed on a hurricane." She admitted. "I don't often need them more than just the minimum with the Hunters. You're still coming into it Percy."

Chiron had warned him of this, way back when, but he still felt like he didn't fully grasp all he was.

That's the last thing I wanted him to say. I hadn't been in control of myself in that mountain. I'd released so much energy I'd almost vaporized myself, drained all the life out of me. Now I found out I'd nearly destroyed the Northwest U.S. and almost woken the most horrible monster ever imprisoned by the gods. Maybe I was too dangerous. Maybe it was safer for my friends to think I was dead.

Thalia fought off the urge to smack him with the greatest of restraint. "That's not for you to decide who we hang out with Percy!"

"You've said yourself what a bad influence I am," Percy said with a reluctant tease.

"You're a pain in the ass who I would never trade away for some boring kid who couldn't blow up a volcano," she huffed.

Percy was rubbing at his arm like she had tried to pummel him, and Magnus couldn't stand watching him beat himself up. Percy had been a good friend to Annabeth, and to him this whole time. It wasn't his thing to say really, but he didn't really think Hearth would begrudge him offering to Percy, "hey, listen, Hearth's told me about how strange it is to hate a part of your own body. Just because it's something you can't control in yourself doesn't make it a bad thing, just something to live around."

"Hearth's not going to blow up half a continent because he doesn't know what he's doing," Percy said sullenly, his eyes on the floor. He assumed anyways. What did he know about elves?

"I might," Nico wasn't to happy about reminding. "Thalia might. Would you want us to stay on an island?" He was very confident of the answer he got, enough he didn't feel any major emotion at still knowing who Percy was. Percy didn't want him, his answer would be the same no matter who's name he'd given.

"No," was of course his automatic response.

"Then you're not that special," Thalia happily concluded.

"How do you think I feel?" Jason agreed. "I couldn't begin to guess what I'm capable of until it erupts out of me too, gods knows what form it'll take since I can't begin to guess at my parentage."

Thalia kept her face very straight to hide her continued guilt over leaving him in the dark on that. He'd know soon enough when she figured out for herself all the answers she could give him. She was not like her father, keeping him at arms length until she was ready...

"You can blame your dad if you need someone to be accountable for this," Alex said in that calm, confident way as he absently played with a strand of green hair. The pale amber eye glittered with a secret, while the dark brown one seemed heavy and tired. "Don't let that excuse you from practicing what you have to all its might though."

Percy rubbed his fingers together, still unsure how much he could let himself agree with that. What would happen one day if he went all out, who would get caught in the crossfire next...

"What about Grover and Tyson?" I asked.

Hephaestus shook his head. "No word, I'm afraid. I suppose the labyrinth has them."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

Hephaestus winced. "Don't ever ask an old cripple for advice, lad. But I'll tell you this.

"Don't ask me for advice but here's some," Alex rolled his eyes.

"No wonder his machines always go haywire, I bet their coding is just as sporadic," Magnus agreed.

"You guys have got to stop saying that kind of stuff," Will said with a nervous laugh. "Just because a god hasn't popped in here yet to kill us doesn't mean they won't."

"Pssh, we've got Percy," Alex brushed off.

Percy blushed. He wasn't sure if Alex meant he was a bigger threat, or he would get between whatever god got annoyed with their commentary. He considered both true.

You've met my wife?"

"Aphrodite."

"That's her. She's a tricky one, lad. Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."

"Never have I said truer words," Nico muttered for himself. It perfectly explained why he always felt...everything he'd ever felt.

I thought about my meeting with Aphrodite, in the back of a white Cadillac in the desert last winter. She'd told me that she had taken a special interest in me, and she'd be making things hard for me in the romance department, just because she liked me.

"And I still haven't forgiven her for that," Percy scowled, now fully suspecting his time with Calypso was a part of this.

"Um, be grateful she doesn't seem to be sending random guys to Annabeth's house?" Magnus offered, but he knew how unhelpful that sounded.

Percy didn't seem to think much of it either, his mind swiveling to Luke and always worried what he was up to.

"Is this part of her plan?" I asked. "Did she land me here?"

"Possibly. Hard to say with her.

Percy made an exhausted noise. He had a headache again and he wasn't even trying to pressure himself to remember what his decision had been. He just knew what it was going to be now. If Aphrodite had put him here, he had to leave. There had never been a choice, just more manipulation by the gods he was helping to win this war. Like a dog doing its job for the reward every night of a good bed and food.

His family was more than that to him though, he instantly regretted his thought as he played with his clay beads. He was picking the winning side not because any god had told him to. His choice was clear. If Kronos won, his family wouldn't.

But if you decide to leave this place—and I don't say what's right or wrong—then I promised you an answer to your quest. I promised you the way to Daedalus. Well now, here's the thing. It has nothing to do with Ariadne's string. Not really. Sure, the string worked. That's what the Titan's army will be after. But the best way through the maze...Theseus had the princess's help. And the princess was a regular mortal. Not a drop of god blood in her. But she was clever, and she could see, lad. She could see very clearly. So what I'm saying—I think you know how to navigate the maze."

"You're going to bring your mom in there?" Magnus asked like he was nuts.

Alex smacked him on the back of the head, and he yelped in surprise before he realized, "oh shit, Rachel."

"There you go," Alex nodded.

"Wow, I've never seen someone literally smack sense into someone," Thalia snickered. "If only it worked on you," it was no guess who she redirected that at.

"Try it Tinkerbell, I will eat your storms for breakfast," Percy smirked. Thalia laughed, mostly out of relief he was trying to pull himself out of his funk.

It finally sank in. Why hadn't I seen it before? Hera had been right. The answer was there all the time.

"Who would have thought of that?" Jason demanded. "Nobody would have thought, hey the girl that can see through mist should go down into the crazy dangerous dungeon and see if she can see...oh. No wait. Yeah it sounds kind of obvious when you put it like that."

"Everything is clearer with hindsight," Will snorted. "I should start carrying a flashlight on me, just in case I ever need to shine it on something already fully lit."

"A UV light," Nico added. "That way we can put secret stamps only we'll know to find."

"Brilliant!" Will cheered.

Nico smiled and shook his head in exasperation he seemed fully jazzed about this joke...but the temptation was there to really do it. Go back into that maze and put up some secret clue or path to let a half-blood know others had been here, and they'd gotten out. So no kid would be trapped in there alone again.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I know."

"Then you'll need to decide whether or not you're leaving."

"I..." I wanted to say yes. Of course I would. But the words stuck in my throat. I found myself looking out at the lake, and suddenly the idea of leaving seemed very hard.

Percy didn't often feel the need to kick everybody out of the room so that he could have some personal privacy, but this. This was definitely one of those moments.

Thankfully, it went without commentary. Not even judgy silence. Percy finally guessed what that reserved look on Thalia's face was. The same one she often had when she stared at her tree to long. Nobody could force him to go back, he had to want to. He could have stayed there and maybe Annabeth would have joined the Hunters after all or anything else that could have happened. He didn't though, he knew that about himself. Nobody had made Thalia take a stand on that hill, but her spirit had lingered in that tree instead of vanishing long ago, enough of her had wanted to come back the fleece could work its magic on her.

"Don't decide yet," Hephaestus advised. "Wait until daybreak. Daybreak is a good time for decisions."

"Will Daedalus even help us?" I asked. "I mean, if he gives Luke a way to navigate the Labyrinth, we're dead. I saw dreams about...Daedalus killed his nephew. He turned bitter and angry and—"

"It isn't easy being a brilliant inventor," Hephaestus rumbled. "Always alone. Always misunderstood. Easy to turn bitter, make horrible mistakes. People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can't be fixed."

Percy thought of Luke. His broken body at the bottom of that mountain, his crooked smile slashing that sword at him. He knew Hephaestus didn't mean physically fixed.

Though a cyborg would be a lot cooler to fight.

Hephaestus brushed the last drops of Pepsi off his work clothes. "Daedalus started well enough. He helped the Princess Ariadne and Theseus because he felt sorry for them. He tried to do a good deed. And everything in his life went bad because of it. Was that fair?" The god shrugged. "I don't know if Daedalus will help you, lad, but don't judge someone until you've stood at his forge and worked with his hammer, eh?"

"He gives pretty good advice for a god who doesn't want to," Jason chuckled.

"I'll—I'll try."

Percy wanted to laugh that off, pretend he'd never have a clue where Daedalus was coming from...but his dad's words from that party he hadn't died at came to mind. How Luke had once been Hermes's pride and joy and look how far he'd fallen.

Percy had spent a lot of time in here wondering at how useful the gods were, how he'd be better off without their constant interference, this of all treacheries putting such a choice in front of him just to see how he'd react.

He didn't have to try anymore to get where a good deed could make you feel punished for the rest of your life. He'd tried to stop an army of monsters from recreating Kronos's full blade and blown up a volcano with his hammer. Daedalus was not perfect, he'd done many a horrible things, but if he was stuck in some punishment now Percy would have to help get him out of, he would without hesitation. Not because they needed him for this quest, but because the gods shouldn't get to decide anybody's eternal fate.

Hephaestus stood. "Good-bye, lad. You did well, destroying the telekhines. I'll always remember you for that."

It sounded very final, that good-bye. Then he erupted into a column of flame, and the fire moved over the water, heading back to the world outside.

"I just like to imagine all of Hephaestus's goodbyes are like that," Will said as cheerfully as ever. "The gods never fully expect to see us again. They blink and it's been a hundred years and oops, that guy died of old age I think."

Percy often thought this guy was a goofball. Nobody could be that naturally happy all the time, he had to be faking it at least every other smile. Not this time though. Will had been in this world longer, he'd had siblings to stay up late laughing about this with.

I walked along the beach for several hours. When I finally came back to the meadow, it was very late, maybe four or five in the morning, but Calypso was still in her garden, tending the flowers by starlight. Her moonlace glowed silver, and the other plants responded to the magic, glowing red and yellow and blue.

"He has ordered you to return," Calypso guessed.

"She'd like that, wouldn't she," Alex sounded blunt, but not cold. "The perfect way to make you stay."

Percy laughed, even though they both knew it was no joke.

"Well, not ordered. He gave me a choice."

Her eyes met mine. "I promised I would not offer."

"Offer what?"

"For you to stay."

"Stay," I said. "Like...forever?"

"You would be immortal on this island," she said quietly. "You would never age or die. You could leave the fight to others, Percy Jackson. You could escape your prophecy."

I stared at her, stunned. "Just like that?"

She nodded. "Just like that."

"But...my friends."

Nico was still adjusting to the feeling of admiration he had for Percy from when Percy had discovered he was a child of Hades and declaring himself the prophecy child. Percy took on the role of leader and responsibility so easily and naturally in a way he shared with Thalia Nico felt nausea over just the idea of.

But it wasn't the power that propped him into the position. It was the people around him he willingly led. Percy hadn't wanted to go back to camp to be the hero, he'd gone back because of them.

No matter how messy his shadow traveling ever got or what near-death experience he might find himself in, Nico was confident he'd never wind up on this island. Calypso would never fall in love with someone like him, but even still he stared absently down at the book for a few lingering moments. It was probably silly to think if he'd even be invited to stay, what reason he'd have to go back.

He wouldn't have had one before he got thrown into this room.

Calypso rose and took my hand. Her touch sent a warm current through my body. "You asked about my curse, Percy. I did not want to tell you. The truth is the gods send me companionship from time to time. Every thousand years or so, they allow a hero to wash up on my shores, someone who needs my help. I tend to him and befriend him, but it is never random. The Fates make sure that the sort of hero they send..."

Her voice trembled, and she had to stop.

I squeezed her hand tighter. "What? What have I done to make you sad?"

"They send a person who can never stay," she whispered. "Who can never accept my offer of companionship for more than a little while. They send me a hero I can't help...just the sort of person I can't help falling in love with."

"Huh," Alex couldn't help but sound admirable. "Somebody got really creative with that curse."

"Can we not compliment someone who tormented someone else for more eons than you can name," Jason sighed for this poor girl.

"I can admire the structure of a building without wishing it would fall on someone," Alex assured.

"Besides, this is Percy here." Magnus grinned. "You can't convince me he's not going to find some way to sneak this girl out. I bet he comes back through the labyrinth connecting to this place and gives her that freedom."

"Does she deserve it though," Alex raised a challenging brow. "She's not a victimless kid here. Who knows what she did to earn a life sentence. The gods are more than capable of just putting her right back and then deciding to destroy the labyrinth to suit their needs if he does."

Magnus looked intently at Alex as he considered debating that. Atlas felt like he deserved that life sentence because of what he'd done to Annabeth and Zoe, but the cruelty of his punishment came with no end in sight. It didn't feel right for these all-powerful beings to smite out immortal punishments that lasted longer than a lifetime.

Nico kept reading, and Magnus didn't get into it right now because he was still an atheist at heart, and had a great distaste of any 'justice system'. These gods were mighty but flawed beings to him, but it was an endless debate that had no resolution they should have to have someone to be accountable to.

The night was quiet except for the gurgle of the fountains and waves lapping on the shore. It took me a long time to realize what she was saying.

"Me?" I asked.

"If you could see your face." She suppressed a smile, though her eyes were still teary. "Of course, you."

The brief laugh that echoed around the room fell on deaf ears to Percy. He felt like he was still processing her warm brown eyes and the smile on her face for the first time. She was the kind of girl he bet his mom would have wanted him to settle down with, a nice normal girl who would garden with him all day and never flee a school on fire with him. The kind of girl who wouldn't have to hide her knife from Paul Blofis and have to explain why she might be on the run from some monsters.

His mom loved Annabeth, Sally Jackson had always nurtured his creative side and had never ordered him around, but this was the girl his mom would have wanted him to pick, he was sure of it.

And he wouldn't have agreed with her.

"That's why you've been pulling away all this time?"

"I tried very hard. But I can't help it. The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart."

"But...I'm just...I mean, I'm just me."

"And what's so wrong with that Percy?" Thalia chuckled with a glint in her eyes that spelled trouble. "It seems more than enough to get you by."

Panic shot through him as he thought Thalia was talking about herself for a moment, before her eyes darted to Nico and he laughed supremely awkwardly. He had no idea if Annabeth still loved him outside of a single memory he had of her that seemed to get more wildly out of context the more this went on. Nico had apparently fallen in love with him at some point too?! He even felt like he was still missing the obvious in someone. Now Calypso...Holy Poseidon, Thalia wasn't wrong, and he felt a tiny kernel of panic if Aphrodite really had placed some kind of curse on him.

"That is enough," Calypso promised. "I told myself I would not even speak of this. I would let you go without even offering. But I can't. I suppose the Fates knew that, too. You could stay with me, Percy. I'm afraid that is the only way you could help me."

I stared at the horizon. The first red streaks of dawn were lightening the sky. I could stay here forever, disappear from the earth. I could live with Calypso, with invisible servants tending to my every need. We could grow flowers in the garden and talk to songbirds and walk on the beach under perfect blue skies. No war. No prophecy. No more taking sides.

The truth was Percy could see how easy it would be to fall for someone like Calypso. Annabeth didn't need him, she was a better hero than him in nearly every way. She would probably figure out a way to convince Luke he was being stupid and stop being evil and this prophecy nonsense would be put off for another thousand years or so.

Calypso thought he was funny. She'd been alone for a really long time and needed help. He bet she'd help him build an awesome skate park and he could sit around all day doing things he'd always wanted to, like learn to play guitar and get an unbeatable high score. It wasn't so much that he wouldn't do it.

"I can't," I told her.

He couldn't spend his time waking up every day in a garden, blissfully happy. He couldn't sit around learning to weave and cook beef stew. He could not step away from his prophecy, his friends who needed him, no matter how much Calypso did too.

She looked down sadly.

"I would never do anything to hurt you," I said, "but my friends need me. I know how to help them now. I have to get back."

She picked a flower from her garden—a sprig of silver moonlace. Its glow faded as the sunrise came up. Daybreak is a good time for decisions, Hephaestus had said. Calypso tucked the flower into my T-shirt pocket.

Nico studied the book in surprise. He'd always greatly wondered why Percy had been rooting around and dumping his canteen in that flower box when he'd shown up. It had felt like a warding off gesture to him, considering how much Nico detested plants and Percy must have somehow known this. Instead, he now understood, it was just a very, very sad reminder at the hint of white that had sprouted up.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me on the forehead, like a blessing.

"Then come to the beach, my hero. And we will send you on your way."

It would have been easier if she'd argued with him. If she'd begged him to stay and cursed him and the gods out for doing this to her again and thrown a fit, ripping up her precious plants.

She was so kind. She'd accepted her life was just going to be like this, and endless cycle of heartache. She accepted her inevitable defeat.

It was that part of her that he knew he would never be happy with.

The raft was a ten-foot square of logs lashed together with a pole for a mast and a simple white linen sail. It didn't look like it would be very seaworthy, or lakeworthy.

"This will take you wherever you desire," Calypso promised. "It is quite safe."

I took her hand, but she let it slip out of mine.

"Maybe I can visit you," I said.

She shook her head. "No man ever finds Ogygia twice, Percy. When you leave, I will never see you again."

Some god owed him for this. Losing his memory, being trapped in this room. Reliving each and every moment of his past as raw and painful as ever.

He didn't know how, he didn't when, but he knew he would not let this be the case. It was a gut feeling. He would see her again.

"But—"

"Go, please." Her voice broke. "The Fates are cruel, Percy. Just remember me." Then a little trace of her smile returned. "Plant a garden in Manhattan for me, will you?"

"I promise." I stepped onto the raft. Immediately it began to sail from the shore.

Alex had never been to Manhattan, but he was pretty confident they had a plant conservatory garden, and he pretended he couldn't hear Percy's ragged breath for a moment as he instead vividly imagined security chasing Percy with pitchforks and trowels for trying to plant something.

As I sailed onto the lake I realized the Fates really were cruel. They sent Calypso someone she couldn't help but love. But it worked both ways. For the rest of my life I would always be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if.

"One even the Fates might not know," Thalia murmured gently. Not even the Titan's had been able to outsmart them. Percy had been the child of the Prophecy. Somehow, some way, he was always going to fulfill that role.

Did that mean there were paths even they couldn't see? A tapestry even they couldn't make? A world beyond the oldest beings?

Within minutes the island of Ogygia was lost in the mist. I was sailing alone over the water toward the sunrise.

Then I told the raft what to do. I said the only place I could think of, because I needed comfort and friends.

"Camp Half-Blood," I said. "Sail me home."

Alex couldn't help but break the tension like a firecracker. "What if you asked to go back to your mom's apartment? Would you appear in the bathtub?"

Percy laughed at this guys never ending sporadicness. It was genuine, but still a little sad as he watched Nico pass the book to Will.

He had somehow been taken out of time over four times in his life already. His life, his choices kept speeding past and around him, colliding with everyone around him whether he wanted them to or not. He could never have stayed on Ogygia anymore than he would willingly stay in this room...but somehow a part of him felt so disconnected from his own future as he floated out on that raft he couldn't begin to guess what came next.

PJOPJOPJO

This was a very big revelation chapter for little kid me. One of the very first instances of showing another point of view.

Reading this chapter, making me realize that Percy was not fighting for the 'right side', but the side his family was on. It wasn't just an obvious choice for good and evil anymore, it was the obligation of family vs duty, the first story this concept was ever introduced to me, and I'll always remember Calypso for that.

I will never understand people who hate Calypso for turning into a shrew by the time Leo comes around. This girl has been dealing with her curse longer than you can conceive of a timeframe, she's earned the right to be pissed and not nice anymore. She was at peace with it for as long as she could be, until she just couldn't handle it anymore. Can you imagine if a god popped in and delivered the news that Kronos was defeated once more and all the gods were now supposed to be taking more responsibility for their kids, and maybe even let slip that she should be let out of her punishment, and they just, didn't?

I imagine it being Demeter or something, all a flutter with excitement for all these new developments and then dropping this bomb, getting distracted by Calypso's beautiful begonias, and then cheesing it leaving Calypso in an understandably bitter future with her curse.

[merverse]

just finished the sun and the star and im posting this from my phone but i have to write my feelings down so spoilers of course:

first of all, i get it. this is not a fanfic, this is an actually rick riordan book and i can't expect it to go dark even though the story and the characters on it totally deserve to be put into a more mature light, so i'm trying to be more open about all this, but..... i'm really disappointed.

the writing was flat. the only reason i had any sort of sympathy to the characters and what they were going through was because i already knew them beforehand, but even then they felt like.... strangers. i think rick needs to stick with first person povs, because (and this also something i struggled with when reading the heroes of olympus series) he can't do multi character stories that well. i thought mark could help with this, but it honestly felt all over the place.

and i was expecting some character inconsistency throughout the book and messed up timelines once again, but it still surprised me how obvious those mistakes were. for example, we have nico being an advocate for change: people change, they learn from their past experiences and evolve throughout their lives and this is the whole reason why we are going into this quest! the whole reason why nyx is after me! and not even a couple of chapters later he finds out one of the giants did just that and found love and acceptance and he just flat out refuses to accept this. uhm, what? will has to remind him he's all about change? nico: oh yeah! my bad! forgot we were doing that

( see: chapter 19: ‘You see the trogs,’ said Screech-Bling. ‘You see Bob the Titan.’ Will smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘Nyx hates what you represent – change.’ / and then, chapter 22: "Nico scoffed. ‘You didn’t meet Geryon. You don’t know what he’s like.’ ‘Was like,’ said Menoetes. ‘Was. Because now you don’t know what he is like.’ Nico was left speechless. ‘Maybe we should give him a chance,’ said Will. ‘We both know people who were once terrible and then turned things around.' )

and don't get me started of the morals on this book. we get it, it's a book for middle schoolers, but you don't have to state the message of it every single chapter for it to be obvious. we get it, this is about changing and owning up the past but trying to be better in the future. not everything is black and white. okay. oh, ur gonna mention it again? oh, ur gonna get a goddess to spell it out for no reason at all? okay.

and god.......... the whole solangelo situation, i'm so SAD. i love them together, i adore them. but those stories about how they got together........ nico somehow deciding he was gonna tell the entire camp he was gay........ will kissing him for the first time just when he was grieving jason after he died (why. why would any of them think this was okay. WHY)........ i know these situations "make sense" and are explained in the book, but i don't like them. i don't. and i refuse to acknowledge them.

well, no. i'm actually going to acknowledge the whole coming out scene and how the story treats the whole thing. (disclaimer: not every queer person has to agree on this, we all have different experiences and that's fine, this is just my opinion on the matter) i hated how it felt like they were using nico's character as this big pamphlet advertising the "gay is okay!". i know his sexuality is a Big part of his character, and he is the first gay character in the pjo universe, but why did it feel he was also the first queer demigod at the camp? why did it have to be a big deal? i think the whole scene about juniper messing it up and him "choosing" to ask will out and also come out to the entire camp at the same time was..... unnecessary. i didn't need him to say he was gay in front of the entire greek camp, he can be used as an inspiring story for any other demigod just choosing to hold will's hand at dinner.

(and is...... a greek camp...... i can understand internalized homophobia on nico bc of his upbringing, and also anyone can have it no matter their experiences, but..... a greek camp..... and a public coming out scene after the whole thing with cupid.......)

(side note: not even one mention of patroclus and achilles. NOT EVEN ONCE.)

and i think what really sealed the deal for me was hazel. well. THE LACK OF HER. does nico remember he has a sister? does mark knows he has a sister? does rick???????? me, throughout the book: oh so this is the chapter where i get some hazel and nico crumbs! no? okay so the next one! oh, still no mention of her? so the next chapt-

she's mentioned 6 times. 6 times. and only once he's allowed to actually think about her. i hated it. and it was worse with reyna.

(the fact nico thought about annabeth and percy AND JASON? (WHO HE WASNT CLOSE WITH AT THE MOMENT) WHEN HE WAS GOING THROUGH TARTARUS ALONE? BUT DIDN'T THINK ABOUT HAZEL? HELLO?)

and even thought the message of the book is about how light and darkness can coexist within one self (as we are... repeatedly told..... all over again...), it still rubs me the wrong way how, at the end, darkness is still portrayed as something.... bad.... that u have to live with. like will says "‘But now I know that it’s not about conquering, or vanquishing, or any of that kind of hero talk. Sometimes it’s better to learn to live with the darkness.’" uhmmmmmmmmmmmm

all that being said, it was a..... fun book. not life changing and I'm definitely ignoring its existence, but the plot was entertaining enough and i did cry when bianca, maria and hades showed up because i adore the di angelo family. also will has powers! that's cool! i guess!

oh, and nico's little demons/children/whatever they are..... cute. in my head they are like those dust bunnies from ghibli.