#i fully imagine percy straight up DECKING him for this comment

[stellarhistoria]

unprompted, because i wanna see how this turns out

[ hey percy wanna deck a noble piece of garbage ? ]

@xfindingtrouble

characters: lord cytos & percival de rolo

── ♥

" It has come to my attention that you have been speaking to my child? Prince Cytos? Greetings. I'm their father, Lord Cytos. I figured I should introduce myself, seeing as they have a determined tendency to make the mistake of saying the most inane of things. Surely you've heard them by now. "

── The nobleman can't help but chuckle, as if talking about someone who wasn't family, as if speaking about someone who both of them didn't like, and not someone who wasn't a good person at heart.

[phykios]

the marble king, part 6 [read on ao3]

It came upon him quite suddenly, and with no hint of a warning.

They had stayed two extra days in the ancient settlement at Olbia, for which Percy was extraordinarily grateful. He had spent much of the first day in something of a state of total exhaustion; after his morning ministrations, he had sat himself in front of the Empress , fully intent on making her riverworthy by lunchtime, and the next thing he knew, Annabeth had been shaking him awake, the sun frighteningly low in the sky. Thankfully, she did not comment on his fatigue, but suggested that they extend their rest for one more day, citing her own need for rest, rather than drawing attention to his.

That extra day had worked wonders for his health, however, and on the third morning, they set sail on the Danapris , with clear eyes and bright spirits, leaving the Pontus Axeinos behind entirely. The current did not prove to be much of an issue, thankfully, the waters easily obeying his commands, and they made good time traveling Northwards.

For the first time in quite a while, he was feeling rather good about his situation. Yes, he was cast adrift from his people, and yes, he was harboring the most secret of devotions towards a woman who, were it not for their circumstances, likely would have nothing to do with him--yet the sun was high, the wind was swift, and the Empress sailed smoothly. As a son of the sea, there was not much else that Percy required.

So, of course, that was when he felt it.

His friends had, once upon a time, attempted to relate to him the feeling of suddenly being beneath the waves. It had been mostly described as a feeling of shock, an abrupt disturbance to one’s sense of self, cold and terrible. For Percy, who thrived in the water, he could not sympathize, not one iota. Submerging himself in the ocean felt like coming home, like his father’s warm embrace, a rare and precious gift among children of his kind. To dread and fear it would be anathema to his very being.

He imagined this is what his friends had attempted to describe.

The cold draped over him like a cloak, fastening around his neck, blanketing his shoulders and his spine. Percy felt as though something had scratched long, spindly nails across his most sensitive nerves, jarring and grating, sending shivers up and down his skin.

He felt seasick--a virtual impossibility, but that was the only way he could make sense of it. He felt as though there was something churning in his stomach, pulling him back and forth along an invisible line, so small it could be nearly undetectable, were it not for the fact that, should this continue for much longer, he would be violently ill.

Something pulled at his heart, grasping, fingers threading their way through his ribs and wrapping their digits around his bones, holding him down, holding him back, but the current of the river could not be broken so easily, and he was yanked forward, falling to his hands and knees to the deck with a violent thud .

“Percy!”

He could not even enjoy the fact that Annabeth had rushed to his side in concern.

Her hands patted at his shoulders and his neck, propping him upright against the side of their boat. “Percy,” she said, worry warping her sweet voice, “Percy, what is it? Are you ill? Should we stop? If you require it, we can take another day to rest--”

“What was that?” he wondered, hissing as he tried to sit up straighter. His abdomen ached, the muscles seizing as though he had been put through one of Clarice’s more intense training regimens, and he nearly folded over again, pulled tight. In a flash, one of Annabeth’s hands was at his stomach, rubbing over the taut flesh in a soothing, relaxing manner. “It felt--” he gasped, “it felt like--”

“Breathe, Percy,” she murmured. “Give yourself a moment to breathe.”

Closing his eyes against the cold light of the sun and the sudden sting of tears, he breathed in as Chiron had taught him, first through the nose, then held for a count of four, then released through the mouth. Little by little, he relaxed, the muscles easing beneath her fingers. He shuddered, his breath coming in short, sharp pants, his whole frame shaking as she continued to gentle him.

In any other situation, this arrangement would have felt like something plucked straight from one of his dreams, only now he could feel no pleasure at the touch of her hand. There was only shame and sorrow in him, a groaning loss for something that he could not name swelling deep inside of his body, a coldness from within. He felt empty, as though pieces of him had suddenly vanished, stolen by the chill hand that had crept its way into his body.

But all waves must crest, and this one did as well, crashing over him in a final, agonizing swell, before ebbing back into the fog of unidentified emotion, leaving behind a void of feeling.

“There,” said Annabeth. “Just breathe.”

Slowly, he came back into himself, his consciousness spreading once again into each nerve and extremity. His breath was harsh, panting, and all at once, they both realized that Annabeth’s hands were still on him, long after they should have been. She retracted them, a faint blush dusting her nose and her cheeks.

“Are you alright?” she asked, looking just left of his ear.

“Yes,” he groaned, feeling nothing of the sort, “I am fine, I merely--ugh.” He shook himself, rather like a dog, as though he could liberate himself from the phantom feeling of fingers around his heart. “Did you feel that?”

She frowned, her lip between her teeth. “I… no. Not--not like you, clearly.”

“ Malaka .” Groping around with a hand, his fingers only met the hard wood, until Annabeth, somehow able to divine his needs, pressed her waterskin into his hand. He did not drink from it, but poured it over his head instead, and the familiar feeling helped pull him back into himself. “That was most unpleasant.”

“Should we stop for a rest?” she asked.

On unsteady legs, he pulled himself up, grasping the edge of the Empress for support, Annabeth rising with him, her hands fluttering about his person like frantic birds. “No,” he grunted. “We have tarried here too long already. I shall be fine.”

“Are you sure? I am more than happy to--”

The Empress jerked forward. “Enough,” Percy said. “We continue on. Tighten the sail.”

Casting him a doubtful look, nevertheless, she complied, and they return to their speedy, steady glide. She retreated to the bow of the boat, her gaze turned ever North, so she could not see Percy curl himself over the lip, nearly folded in half, his stomach roiling as he peered into the depths of the Danapris .

The river was freshwater--he could smell it, could sense it in the vapors coming off of the surface, settling into his very skin--its color a deep, deep blue, a careless brushstroke through the emerald green fields and forests which surrounded them, at once familiar and so utterly alien to his sensibilities. It was not empty, no, for he could sense the fish and the insects and the birds which depended on it for its very survival, but it felt… strange.

There were presences, he could tell, down at the bottom of the river, spirits of the water who watched them pass, cold and apathetic. Had he not been a wiser man, he may have mistaken them for naiads, who pledged their fealty to his father, and honored the lord of the sea, though they did not serve in his court. The naiads would give Percy the same honors, should he happen upon their homes, or require their assistance.

These spirits, he knew, would not.

We bear you no ill will, he thought, sending his request down to the spirits below, though perhaps foolishly, as he was unsure whether or not they would heed his words at all, let alone comply. Let us go in peace .

No creature made to stop them, neither magical nor mundane, and Percy and Annabeth carried on in silence.

Then, the voice.

Tarry not, thalassinos, he thought he it say, a slithering, whispering thing, sliding through his ear, winding its way down his spine. Be on your way, and do not return, lest you and the svear come to an unfortunate end.

Annabeth looked back at him, worry creasing her brow. He gingerly sat himself down in the stern of the ship, his hand still clutching the wood of the boat, for support, for something real, something he could grasp and touch and know to be solid.

Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back, breathing as quietly as he could. In the silence of his thoughts, he imagined that he could hear these strange river spirits still, chattering away to themselves in a language he did not understand, honeyed and smooth and dark all at once, words of gossip and of warning.

In its most wild spaces, it seemed that the world still possessed some magic after all. Here in these lands so strange to him, at least there was power to behold, magic to be seen and felt and known. Unlike the Aegean, the court of Poseidon. Unlike his home, now lost to the merciless march of time.

Percy tried to find comfort in that.

***

Seven rapids, Annabeth had told him. Well, by his count, they were on the fifth.

Portaging the Empress had not, as he feared, been too difficult a task to undertake. They were both quite strong for their small frames, as well as, in Percy’s case, bolstered by a quick touch of the river. When they could not tip the boat upside down, as the mast prevented them from doing so, they took their cue from their old Ottoman enemies, and cut down a few of the thinner trees in order to make a portable log road. Annabeth, using her ropes, devised a pulley system, and between the two of them, they made fair enough time.

Fair enough time, he said. In truth, it was long, grueling work. Each cataract took the better part of a day to circumnavigate, and this was just the two of them and their pitifully dwindling amount of food. Percy simply could not imagine the time and effort it had taken to move great, big Viking longships, with all their passengers and cargo, back and forth, South and North. The very thought of it was enough to cause his head to ache.

It was the fifth day, and Percy was unloading the logs which they had taken with them up the river, the Empress docked on the shore. Another clever idea from his companion; this way, they could reuse the wood they had already gathered, and they would not have to waste time cutting more trees for a similar purpose. Annabeth had gone on ahead to scout their path, as she had done each day prior, for the way was no longer so clear, and they did not want to expend their energy on pointless endeavors.

A grave error, as they would soon come to discover.

The roaring of the waters of the rapid could be heard even this far away from it, a wall of titanic sound, yet even that was shattered by the piercing scream which rang out all around him.

Percy froze, casting around his gaze. “Annabeth?” he called after a moment, but he received no response.

Then again, a scream.

It was unmistakably hers.

Dropping the log onto the dirt, he charged North in the direction of the terrible sound, his steel sword drawn and at the ready. He and Annabeth had kept their mortal weapons on their person for this very purpose, in case they should meet mortal danger upon the road, though of course, he had his magical blade in his pocket should he ever require it.

He was not sure which danger he would have preferred.

Up ahead, he could hear men’s voices, talking loudly amongst themselves, in a tongue he could not understand, but oh, he recognized that tone of voice they had, boorish, oafish, and cruel. Skidding to a sort of a stop, he ducked behind a tree, Annabeth’s soft voice suddenly in his ear, bidding him to have a look about his surroundings before he did anything rash or foolish. Heart in his throat, he peeked round the trunk, his battle-honed instincts absorbing the field in a single second: three men, armored in patchwork; no horses that he could see nor sense, which implied a lack of reinforcements to come; three swords brandished, two of a more reasonable size and one absolute brute of a blade, which looked as though it had to be wielded by two hands; Annabeth, on her knees, snarling up at the man who had her hair in his fist.

Percy saw red.

The man nearest him, the poor soul, never even saw it coming. One moment he stood, leering at his captive, then the next, he toppled over, red blooming through the weave of his unprotected back.

Fortunately for the brute who dared to lay his hands on Annabeth, Percy’s path to him was blocked by the barrel-chested man with the long, heavy sword, who leveled his weapon at Percy’s chest, sneering. He should have probably thanked his own god, whoever it might have been, that Percy was so far from the River right now. Because if they had been even a few paces closer, he’d probably already be drowning where he stood.

Ugly, pale-faced, and foul, he jerked his head towards Annabeth. “ Gunai ?” he asked, hairy brow raised, then laughed at Percy’s deepening scowl.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Annabeth move up off of her knees to a kind of crouch, subtle enough that, to the man who held her, it seemed that she was merely struggling. Once she caught his gaze, she flicked her eyes downwards, towards her feet, where he saw that she had moved the bulk of her weight to one leg, the other one outstretched.

She would trip her target, leaving the man with the long sword to Percy. A part of him, eternally fourteen and as annoyed with the daughter of Athena as he was in love with her, rankled at the thought that she did not actually need his help, but the more rational part of himself--even from that time--knew that, sometimes, she did. And in those times, they could work together towards victory, as always.

So to draw the men’s attention from her, he let out a battle cry worthy of Pan, and let loose upon the larger man with a strident clash of metal on metal. In his periphery, he saw a flash of brown, then a yelp and a muted thud. Unfortunately, he could not spare any more attention to Annabeth, who had her situation well in hand, it sounded, as the brute with the giant sword bore down on him.

Percy’s arms shook as their blades met, again and again. Clearly, this man was used to his strength and height working towards his advantage, for he loomed large over Percy, and Percy was not a small man. Step by step, he hammered at Percy’s guard, forcing him back towards the edge of the clearing. His blade skipped off of Percy’s, glancing him in the arm, leaving a line of searing fire, and Percy cried out.

For any normal man, he would have been doomed, up against such a monster. For Percy, however, who at the tender age of twelve had challenged the god of war to a duel and won, it was not so much of a challenge.

Sidestepping the man’s ever-widening slash, he darted in with his shorter sword, cutting a line through the skin of his exposed stomach. As a mighty tree, the man crashed to the ground, falling face first into the dirt.

He turned to see Annabeth similarly victorious over her own opponent, her clothes disheveled and askew, her hair thrown wildly about. Where he lay on his back, the handle of a knife stuck out from his chest, sunken deep into his body. With a growl, she spat on the man’s corpse, and she hissed, “ Patzinak! ”

“Are you alright?” He asked, eyes scanning her body for any sign of an injury.

“I am fine, phykios ,” she snapped, then paused, as she seemed to remember all that had just transpired. She looked at him with a frown, then asked, “Are you?”

“It is only a flesh wound.” He held up his arm so that she could see for herself.

“They probably have a water skin around here somewhere,” she said. “We can treat you and then clean off.”

The men may have had a camp nearby, but perhaps they carried water on them. Kneeling down, he gingerly lifted the dead man’s body from the ground, searching for any supplies he may have had.

“Oh…” he heard Annabeth then groan. Frantic, he whirled towards her, terrified he had missed some life threatening wound upon her person, tormented by visions of her pale and bleeding--but no, she remained upright, standing tall and proud, her long hair gathered in her hands as she looked at it distastefully. “ Malaka ,” she swore under her breath. “This will be an absolute nightmare to clean.”

Percy opened his mouth, ostensibly to offer his assistance, or some comfort, but… well, she was not incorrect.

What was not covered in dirt was hopelessly, perhaps irreversibly tangled up on itself, a bird’s nest of black gold, limp and ragged and lifeless. Where the dead man had grasped it in his fist, it clumped together in thick, rigid lines, matted with dark blood.

Chewing her lip, she contemplated her hair, then turned back to the bandit who still lay bleeding a few feet away. “Percy,” she said, her voice sort of far away. “You should cut my hair.”

He was so startled he dropped his sword, inhaling his own saliva, nearly choking on it. “Wha--” he stammered, “what--”

“It is more trouble than it’s worth, truly,” she said, demonstrating her point as she tried to untangle a particularly stubborn curl. “Rather than waste time trying to fix it, it should be easier for you to remove it.”

“I--” he coughed. “But, why me?” Percy winced at his tone, hoarse and broken. “Surely you could cut it off yourself.” The blood was mostly on the end bits, hanging down over her shoulder and her… well, they were easily within her grasp.

Annabeth pursed her lips, casting her eyes to the ground. “I…” she swallowed. “It will not be even if I do it myself,” she offered, weakly. “And I will not be able to reach it all.”

Stepping over the fallen trunk, she made her way over to him, her knife in her hand, wiping the blood off on her dress, a sight which Percy knew well. Annabeth had had him at knifepoint more times than he cared to remember, sometimes seriously, sometimes in a joking manner, but now she held it out to him, hilt first, grey eyes shaded and unreadable.

“I would ask this favor of you, Percy,” she said. “Please.”

For a moment, they only breathed together. The wind blew gently, the fallen leaves at their feet wrapping them in a circle of jade and emerald, entwined.

He nodded. “Very well,” he said, taking the knife from her hands. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned round, presenting her hair and her back to him.

A dangerous position for a daughter of Athena, he supposed, to turn her back on a son of Poseidon, armed with a knife.

He tucked the knife in his belt, and lay a hand on her shoulder instead, and she jumped. “I apologize,” he said. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

“It--it is fine.” He brought his hand to her hair, and her shoulders tensed even further. “Proceed as you will.”

“I will cut about here,” he said, fingering the muddy strands just below her shoulder. “Above where it is most saturated with blood.” She could still braid it then, though not as gloriously as before.

Her hair moved in his hand as she shook her head. “Further.”

This close, he could feel her shiver as he moved his hand higher. Now, it lay at the base of her neck. Her skin was warm, the little hairs there soft against his palm. “Here?” he asked.

“Further.”

His eyes widened. “You can’t mean--”

“I do,” she said. “I want it all gone.”

This was extreme, to say the least. “Are you certain? Surely it cannot be that difficult to keep so tidy.”

And, well, perhaps he was being selfish. Such beautiful hair, it gave her the air of a princess. Or an empress , his traitorous mind supplied him, a noble, golden woman, whose hair fell down in twin plaits over her body--

“Those men targeted me,” she said, cutting into his poorly-timed fantasy, “because they thought me to be your… because I am a woman.” He could not see her blush, but he could feel it, hot against his hand. “I should not like to experience that again. I can don a shirt and trousers with ease, but my hair is too obviously a symbol of my gender, and thus, I should like to part with it, for we still have a long way to go before we reach my father’s house.”

Of course. This was a precautionary measure, one that might better ensure her safety. Feeling rather ashamed of himself for his impure thoughts towards, he put all notion of her beautiful, beautiful visage aside, and resolved to grant her this favor. Her hair, her appearance, her loveliness, these things did not matter, he chastised himself furiously, in comparison to her health and security.

“Alright,” he said, so softly. “Allow me.”

He had some experience with braids. His darling sister, little Esther, had their mother’s long brown hair, thick and wavy, which puffed up in the humidity of summer, wild and untamable. In this respect, Annabeth’s hair was quite similar, though of course, the mud and blood made it somewhat stiffer. Still, he persevered, weaving strand over strand in order to more easily remove it in one fell swoop, and with each pass of his hand, he felt Annabeth relax, until she nearly dropped out of her perfect posture.

Though he had lost track of the days long ago, he knew that this was the most time he had spent with her since their childhood adventures searching for the fleece of Colchis. During that time, they had found themselves at the mercy of one of several monsters, the beguiling island of the Sirens. Annabeth, in a fit of curiosity worthy of her bloodline, wished to hear the voices of the Sirens for herself, as the great Odysseus once had. Though Percy had bound her to the mast as she had requested, he had foolishly forgotten to relieve her of her knife--the same blade which she had given him just now--and she had escaped her bonds, and would have nearly died upon the rocks, had Percy not leapt in after her, taking her with him underneath the water where the Sirens’ cries could not reach her. In that dark and sacred space, a pocket of air at the bottom of the sea, she had wept in his arms, tormented by a vision of utopia, a piece of which he had mistakenly seen for himself.

They had been so young, then. So young, their friendship so fresh, and yet she still had trusted him with that knowledge. She had trusted him again, during the siege, and now, beside the ever violent rapid, which roared in the distance, churning angrily, yet unable to penetrate the quiet which surrounded them now.

Her plait finished, he ran a hand down the length of it, long and beautiful, and said a silent farewell. “I will cut it now,” he told her, and he felt her nod.

Hesitating for a single heartbeat, he brought the flat of the blade to her ear, and she flinched.

Cutting her hair was not as simple a task as he had imagined it to be. Even the cleaner sections were thick, the knife blade simply not sharp enough to slice through them so easily. It took a little bit of work in the arm, the cut on his bicep aching a bit as he sawed through her locks. There was no sound now, save for their mingled breaths, and the near-silent shick of the knife as it met resistance.

Before either of them had realized it, Percy had reached the other side. Her braid hung on by a handful of threads. “Nearly there,” he said. She nodded, ever so faintly.

And like that, it was gone. With a final cut, he severed the last few strands, and the thing came off in its entirety, that golden rope so heavy in his hand. “There,” he said, sorrowful in a manner he could not quite name. “It is finished.”

She lifted a hand to her head, running her fingers through the newly shorn locks. “It feels so light,” she wondered at it, her fingertips dancing around the base of her skull, searching for something long gone. “As though the burden of the sky has been lifted from my shoulders once more.”

He huffed a laugh. “Surely it could not have been that irritating,” he said. It had been too beautiful for it to be such trouble for her. And she had kept it long the entire time he’d known her.

Then she turned.

Oh, no , he thought.

“Well?” she asked, suddenly quite shy. Her hand still rested on top of her head, her eyes full of trepidation. “Am I sufficiently boyish?”

“You…” he licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. “You…”

If he had thought she was beautiful before with her gorgeous hair, he was utterly unprepared for how adorable she was without it.

Her curls now fell just beneath her eyes, the gold highlighting the silver. Her eyes, seemingly larger than they used to be, now gazed at him free of impediment, from a face entirely unobstructed and free. Without the curtain of her hair, she did seem to stand straighter, the light catching on her high cheekbones and the sweet slope of her nose.

It took a moment to realize that he was staring. “Well,” he said, flushing, “you look… um…”

Before his passing, Carlo had attempted to instruct him in the ways of wooing women. Now that he recalled it, actually, the man did seem to put a strange emphasis on speaking to children of Athena. In any case, one of his chief lessons was thus, that there was a fine line to tread when speaking to a woman about her beauty. One could neither flatter too much nor too little, for both were false claims, and women preferred it when men spoke plainly.

But how could he tell her that she shone even more brightly in his eyes now than she ever had before? How could he be honest with her when her stated goal was to shun feminine beauty, and pass undetected beneath the cruel man’s gaze?

“I am… not certain you could pass as a man,” he said, carefully, “though, perhaps, you could be seen as a particularly delicate one.”

Were she a boy, he wished to say, then she would be the loveliest boy that Percy had seen in his entire life, even more beautiful than Adonis, Narcissus, or Ganymede. He thought back to two of the mortal men whom he had greatly admired, Lukas and Iason, both handsome blond men, and surmised, with a slight air of hysteria, that Annabeth made for an even more handsome man than either of them.

At that, she scowled. “It will have to do,” she growled, stalking back over to the dead man. “Go and gather what is left of our supplies.”

Immediately, he protested. “And leave you here? There could be more bandits around.”

She glared at him, so fierce and full of fury that he physically retreated. “I will be taking this man’s shirt,” she snapped, “and I would prefer to do so without any company.”

Oh. “Ah--of course,” he said, backing up even further and tripping over a dead branch. “I will… leave you to it.” Then, red-faced, he turned on his heel, and ran back to the Empress.