#labyrinth // asks | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

somedaylazysomeday · 1 year ago

Text

An Emissary of the (Goblin) King

Your quiet life as a teacher falls apart when a student wishes you away. Eventually, Jareth has to decide what to do with you.

Jareth x fem!reader (no use of 'y/n')

*This was written for a request in which the reader was supposed to be plus-sized. As such, there are a few scattered references to weight and body shape.

**Not related to my other Labyrinth works.

Rating: Explicit. Minors DNI.

Word Count: 6,800

Warnings: themes of being forgotten, slight loss of identity, bar flirting, slight harassment, oral sex (fem receiving), unprotected sex, creampie.

Masterlist

---

When you had gotten wished away in your thirties, you were… perturbed.

After all, you had been long past the days of fairy tales and make-believe. Magic was a lovely story element for children, a way to encourage their imaginations and allow them to dream of the impossible. But it wasn’t real.

At least, that had been your theory between the ages of ten and thirty-something. Then, one of your second-grade students in the after-school tutoring session had gotten upset with you. You had told him that he couldn’t have a second helping of snacks unless he agreed to work on his math problems with you. He had been struggling with subtraction in particular, but was so energetic that it was difficult for him to focus.

You hadn’t really been able to blame him - it was after school hours and the sun was beginning to set, throwing beams of blazing orange light from beneath a carpet of dark purple clouds. It was the perfect counterpoint to the playfully spooky Halloween decorations you had put up around the room.

Anyway, when you had insisted that your student sit down and focus on his math sheet before you let him have another handful of gummy worms, he had pouted his tiny face. With an impressive amount of venom for a six-year-old, he said, “Well, I wish the goblins would take you away right now.”

You were still wearing an indulgent smile when you appeared in the straw-strewn throne room with an anticlimactic pop!

The Goblin King was lounging on his uncomfortable-looking throne, watching you with his own indulgent smile. “Wished away by a child, were you? Pity. He likely meant nothing by it, but… well, what’s said is said. I doubt he will opt to run the labyrinth, but let us see if he calls.”

Operating under the idea that you had fallen and given yourself a rather nasty concussion, you simply nodded and took a seat on the cleanest section of the stone floor you could find. It was quiet in the throne room, though you could hear the unmistakable sounds of distant chaos.

It had started small - brushing a piece of straw from the stone slab next to you. It fell into the pit and that made you feel a little better. Then you pushed the straw from the next stone, and the next until the section around you was clear. Then you started using your feet to push the straw down the stairs until it was gathered in a neat pile at the bottom.

“Would you like a broom?” the man with the wild hair asked. You were cautious when you faced him, but he simply looked amused.

“And a dustpan, if you don’t mind.”

He shook his head. “Unnecessary.”

You hadn’t bothered asking what that meant. Instead, you applied yourself to neatening the throne room, working from the edges and sweeping all the debris toward the pit in the center of the room. Even the brown dots - ones you hoped were mud but suspected were some kind of dried fecal matter - lifted easily enough under the stiff bristles of the broom.

At last, the room was clean and you swiped your forearm across your perspiring face. You didn’t know how the pit was going to get clean, but you were going to be miffed if the answer was ‘you’.

When you caught movement from the corner of your eye, you jumped. You hadn’t forgotten the room’s other occupant - how could you? - but he moved with such impossible silence that you couldn’t track him with hearing alone.

The man came to stand beside you and you took the chance to study him subtly. He looked… strange.

You shook yourself, reflexively berating yourself for the unkind thought, but you hadn’t been wrong. His face was narrow, flaring out at the cheekbones. His eyes were mismatched, but not in a heterochromatic way. No, one of his eyes was bluish-green while the other was simply black, as if it were entirely pupil.

His hair was long and straight, though cut at various lengths that left it tapering from his head down. Like a shag haircut on steroids. You were a little jealous and had vaguely started wondering whether you would be able to pull off the style when he turned. You realized just how tall he was.

His mismatched stare was heavy and intense, and you redirected your attention as soon as possible. You opted to look at the pit instead, to take in the pile of straw and droppings, but it was gone.

“What happened to the straw?” you asked, bewildered by the empty pit in front of you.

He smirked, lips twisting with an amusement that didn’t reach his eyes. “I discarded it, of course.”

“No, you didn’t,” you contradicted. “I’ve been standing there the whole time.”

“I used magic,” he clarified.

“Magic isn’t real.”

The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed at you. “Have you not yet realized that you’re in a different place than you were when you were wished away?”

“You said that earlier,” you remembered. “‘Wished away’. What do you mean?”

“At last, the typical questions,” he sighed. “Admittedly, far later than they are usually asked. Allow me to explain.”

The explanation that followed had been interesting, if mildly ludicrous: the man was actually a fae named Jareth. He collected lost and wished away items, though the only ones of them people cared enough to chase down were living things. He guarded the Labyrinth, collected the living things that appeared in the Underground - mostly children and pets, as he had explained - and allowed the wishers to run the Labyrinth if they wanted their disappeared item back.

It could have been a far shorter explanation if you hadn’t been far more convinced by your concussion theory.

In the end, Jareth had gotten tired of listening to your counterarguments and had sent you to ask Hoggle the rest of your questions. Hoggle had answered your questions… eventually. With a lot of complaining and work between giving those answers. You didn’t mind - work was something to keep you from running in circles in your own thoughts, and you learned a lot about the Labyrinth and the Underground simply by following Hoggle around.

Jareth didn’t call you back to the throne room for nearly a week.

“It seems as though your wisher is not going to run for you,” he said, taking on an expression he may have thought looked pitying. “He is at home with his mother, playing and eating and sleeping quite well without another thought of you. Quite the heroic youth."

“He’s six!” you reminded, mildly outraged at Jareth’s censure. “Even if he had offered, I wouldn’t want him running your labyrinth. It’s a death trap.”

Jareth’s expression had flattened at your insult, his mismatched eyes glittering with irritation. “Whether he would have run or not is irrelevant in the end. The real question is: what is to be done with you?”

“I…” You disliked asking questions you already knew the answers to, but there was nothing to be gained by playing things cool. “Could I go back home?”

“No.”

The blunt answer, though exactly what you had expected, still made you wilt.

Jareth, for all that he made you nervous, didn’t look cruel about it. In a voice that was kinder than you had hoped, he said, “Even if I would agree to send you home, it would be impossible. You have been here too long. You have eaten and drank from the Underground. A single bite, a single sip… those could be reasoned with. Enough to influence a dream, forge a connection. But anything more? You are of this place now, more one of us than one of them.”

You wanted to argue, but something in your chest agreed, some nameless tangle of a thing recognizing that everyone and everything you had known were ‘them’. And you were not.

Not anymore.

You had expected to be eaten by the Firies or thrown into the Bog or at least turned into a goblin, but Jareth had given you a different job: you were to be his hands and eyes in the human world.

“After all, no one will wish their belongings to me if they are ignorant of my existence,” he had told you. “You will spread information. Books and legends, stories told by firelight and in dark rooms as their occupants drift to sleep.”

And that was your task, had been for an eternity before you thought to check what year it was at all. People didn’t recognize you when you went to the human world, not even if you happened upon someone you had once known. That was fortunately rare, and became more so as the years faded. You didn’t seem to age, not the way you had. Perhaps there was an extra strand of silver in your hair or an aching joint where there never had been before, but it was uncommon.

Oh, you looked the same as you always had. You could verify that any time you were on the surface. Just then, for instance, you were standing outside of a bar and could see yourself in the shine of the old-fashioned, gilt-edged windows. You were generously curved as you had been before, your face the same shape.

If you stared too long, though, you could catch something strange in your face, in the way you walked. Nothing overt, of course, but something that made you look… sharp. Wild. It drew some attention when someone watched you for too long. The mask of your humanity - what remained of it, anyway - fell away with exposure. From there, it could go either way. Sometimes, humans fled like prey before a predator. Other times, they hit on you.

Had humanity always been like this? So willing to run into danger? You didn’t think so, but it was getting difficult to remember.

Either way, you had barely sat down at the bar and ordered a glass of wine before someone slid onto the barstool beside you. To be fair, you couldn’t be too upset about it. You had been searching for company.

“I’ll pay for that,” the man announced to the bartender. The bartender didn’t look like she could have cared less, but she managed a nod. “So, what’s your name?”

“I’m much more interested in learning yours,” you deflected.

The stranger beamed at that and you smiled back. If you had your way, he wouldn’t learn your name. Even if he did, he would forget it before the day ended and you would never see him again. You would feel guilty about that, but you needed him for temporary relief from your body’s needs, nothing more.

He could never be anything more.

You pushed all of that from your mind and focused on your partner for the evening. He was handsome, the type of person you dated before you were wished away. It was getting harder to remember those days.

The man’s personality was a little intense, but that tended to ease back a bit after someone realized that you weren’t going to disappear from them… yet.

Two drinks in, you had offered a smile that was almost genuine and were getting ready to suggest a change in location when your chest vibrated.

That wasn’t quite the right way to phrase it, but it was a difficult sensation to describe. It felt as though your ribcage and all of the organs it protected shook in tandem. The closest you had ever come to pinpointing the sensation was to compare it to the ringing of a gong, though thankfully, without the noise of the actual strike.

The sensation was a warning that the Goblin King wanted you back in the Underground. It would happen more often the longer you ignored the summons, and would eventually grow painful.

You rarely let it continue that long.

“I have to go,” you told your potential partner, standing abruptly from the stool and handing your credit card to the bartender. “Drinks are on me.”

At least, you assumed it was a credit card. It had no numbers or identification on it and you certainly didn’t have any money, but you had never had trouble paying for anything with it. Jareth had given it to you with minimal explanation.

“Hang on-” the man protested, catching at your arm. You looked at his hand, then at him. Some of your strangeness must have shown through, since he slowly withdrew. He wasn’t wary enough, since he continued to speak. “What happened? I thought this was going somewhere.”

“It was,” you agreed simply, accepting your card from the bartender and scrawling a series of loops on the receipt she slid toward you. “Now it’s not.”

Fortunately for your almost-partner for the evening, he thought better of trying to physically stop you again and you left the bar unaccosted.

Transportation to the Underground was rarely as dramatic as it had been that first time. Instead of a sudden, jarring switch in location, it happened as a slow fade. In this instance, you were walking and your surroundings seemed to blur slightly. When you could see clearly once more, you were in the Goblin King's throne room.

Your forward motion hadn’t stopped, but it was far more risky to keep walking with the goblins thronging around your feet. You looked down at the group currently blocking your way and said, “Excuse me.”

The goblins - who had apparently been occupied in some kind of chicken-based game, shrieked and tumbled to either side. You continued toward the throne.

For his part, Jareth was pretending he hadn’t noticed you yet. Instead, he was sprawled across his throne and studying the riding crop he had resting across his knees. Most observers would believe he was pensive, utterly lost in thought, but you knew better. Jareth loved to be watched, and if he could convince you that you had chosen to look without any prompting from him, so much the better.

“You summoned me, sir?” you asked, reaching the base of the throne and offering a small incline of your head.

Jareth glanced over, managing to look surprised, curious, and haughty. “Yes, I want a report on your progress.”

“Do you mind if I dismiss your subjects?”

“As if you do not number among them?” Jareth tested, a corner of his mouth quirking upward knowingly. When you simply maintained eye contact, he gave a slight nod. “Very well, if it would please you.”

With effort, you managed not to shake your head at him. You were well able to focus even with the din of goblins around you, but Jareth took any respite he could get from them.

“Can you all go downstairs for a while?” you asked, directing the question to the room at large. “I need to speak with the king.”

“You’s is speaking to him now,” one squeaky goblin pointed out, sounding sullen.

Before the others could agree, you quickly cut in and diverted them. “You’re right, I am. But we need to talk about some very boring stuff and we need the room to be quiet. If you want to stay, you can’t make any noise. In fact, you could even help clean the throne room…”

You didn’t have a chance to say anything else, the goblins rushed out of the room in a panicked tide. You smirked at the receding wave of excitable, temperamental creatures. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since you had taught six and seven year-olds, but the goblins weren’t so different from human children.

When you turned around, Jareth was sitting on the throne like it was a chair rather than a fainting couch. One of his eyebrows was raised and he looked impressed despite himself. “Someday, you must help me gain such mastery over my subjects.”

“Impossible,” you told him flatly. “They’re too focused on impressing you.”

“That has always been my burden to bear,” the Goblin King drawled, preening slightly as you tried not to roll your eyes.

Jareth was the king. If you were to be technical about it, he was your king. He had left you alive when he didn’t need to. Even more than that, the nature of the job he had given you meant you had certain powers. The Goblin King did not bestow those lightly. You felt like you owed him at least basic respect, if not anything more subservient.

Besides, Jareth had enough people - well, goblins - trying to respond to his every need. You liked to think that he enjoyed the bits of personality you were willing to share with him.

Rather than voice any of that aloud, you gave a shallow nod. "But you summoned me for a purpose. What do you need?"

With the amusement still dancing across his fine features, Jareth tilted his head at you. "The work I gave you has never taken so long. I wanted an update on your progress."

"My…" For the first time since you had found yourself in this strange land, you were thrown off by Jareth. He had never given any deadlines for your work, never ordered you to be done by a specific time. In fact, the opposite had been true. On the rare occasions that you worried about how long something took, Jareth was the first to remind you that he - and, by extension, you - had all the time that would ever exist.

You managed to scrape together a semblance of competence. "An update. Yes. I can- That is, the work you gave me is complete. I distributed the books, set up special showings of the film, and orchestrated the release of some photographs."

"All of that has been done?" Jareth checked. When you nodded, he gave you a stern look. "Then why did you not return to me immediately?"

As if on cue, something low in your stomach gave a heaving, disgruntled throb. You had never been overly desire-driven when you were fully human, and you blamed that for your current awkwardness - sex had never been common enough for you to grow blunt about your need for it. But you still had that need, and your body’s complaints were almost enough to drown out the weight of Jareth’s stare. Almost.

“I was in the middle of a different task,” you replied, trying to make it sound as bland as possible. Jareth’s attention span was stronger than that of his subjects, but he still made a concerted effort to avoid boring subjects. “Nothing of importance.”

Jareth studied his hands. “No, I imagine there is not much of importance in a dirty tavern.”

You froze. Not that you had been moving very much before, but every muscle locked down in response to the pointed revelation that Jareth could and did know where you went when you were Aboveground. “I-”

“You?” Jareth repeated mockingly. “Yes, you. You allowed a human to ply you with alcohol, then to paw at you. Though I suspect, given the tone of your conversation, that is far more innocent than what you would have done if I had not summoned you back here.”

“But how-”

Your question cut off abruptly when Jareth made a noise of impatience, tapping his cheekbone twice, just below his human eye.

“You watch me?” you demanded, surprise turning swiftly to anger and embarrassment. “Why?”

Jareth treated the question as literal rather than rhetorical, musing for a moment before he answered. “At first, to see if you intended to flee. It would not have worked, but it is always amusing to see humans try. Then, to be certain that you were performing your tasks to my standards. And finally…” The smile on Jareth’s face was indolent, with more than a hint of mischief. “Simply because I can.”

Glaring at an omnipotent fae king was probably not the wisest thing you could do, but your fury made you bold. “And have you watched me during my personal time before?”

Jareth let his head loll toward you for the best view of his self-satisfaction. “Yes.”

With a barely stifled noise of outrage, you spun with every intention of storming out of the room. Unfortunately for you, the powers Jareth had allotted you were nothing compared to his own. Without a sound or a motion from him, Jareth ordered the heavy doors to swing closed and there was nothing you could do to force them open once more.

“I do not see why you are so offended,” Jareth told you, conversational tone coming from nearer than his throne. “I am well aware that humans have needs.”

“Then why interrupt me…” Your hissed demand had caught in your throat when you turned to find Jareth much closer than anticipated. The Goblin King twisted his head slightly to one side, matching the smirk that twisted his lips. You cleared your throat. “Why interrupt me when you know I’m occupied? Like you said, I have needs. It doesn’t help anyone if I’m too busy to meet them.”

“You are missing the most obvious solution,” Jareth informed you, spreading his hands to either side. “I can help meet those needs.”

“You?” you repeated skeptically.

Jareth’s arms dropped and he looked almost offended. “And why not me?”

It may have been a rhetorical question, but you gave it as much thought as he had to your earlier question about his reasoning. “Well, you don’t seem like you would be interested. You don’t usually do things unless you have something to gain.”

“Have I not struck you as altruistic?” he asked. You shook your head, opting for honesty above tact. “Good. You are right, I don’t perform favors out of something as naïve as kindness. I have much to gain from this offer.”

“Like what?” you asked. The suspicion in your voice was so thick as to be almost comical, but Jareth didn’t seem offended.

“Pleasure,” he answered simply. “Do you want to meet your needs now? Or will you wait until the next time you have a spare moment to be disappointed by some human in a bar?”

You thought about waiting, you really did. Jareth was cocky enough without giving him access to something as personal as your pleasure. But you were growing close to desperation. That could make you more likely to be careless in Aboveground, something you weren’t willing to risk.

“You’re right,” you said. “It is the most obvious solution.”

The only thing that saved you from the self-congratulatory smile that slid across Jareth’s face was the fact that you erased it with your lips a moment later.

The Goblin King’s teeth were sharp. It had been one of the first things you noticed when you met him so long ago, but you were still a little shocked to be confronted by that sharpness when you slipped your tongue between his lips.

Jareth’s surprise rivaled your own, though for different reasons. For half a moment, he seemed taken aback by your ardor, but he recovered and took control of the kiss before you could get used to the taste of him. He was like the sweetest wine, and you were instantly addicted.

A hand latched around your jaw kept your head positioned just where Jareth wanted it, and he swept through you like a hurricane. It was all you could do to keep up with him, but you were the first one to succumb to wandering hands.

His clothes were always so decadent, and you had been waiting a long time to see if they felt as lovely as they looked. You were delighted to say that they did - textures sliding and dancing beneath your fingertips - but you were more focused on what you felt under those clothes.

The heat of Jareth’s skin was immense even through his clothing, enough to pull an answering sensation of heat from you. Every item of clothing you removed from him ratcheted the temperature further up until you felt like there was fire under your skin.

Halfway through removing Jareth’s ostentatious cape, you pulled away to deposit it safely on his throne. It wouldn’t do to have it trampled by goblins or, worse, land in chicken excrement.

Jareth muttered complaints for every moment you were away from him, pulling you impatiently closer the moment you were in arm’s reach. “I don’t know why you did that. I intend for that throne to be our next destination.”

You cast an assessing glance toward the door. It looked heavily barred, and you hadn’t been able to budge it, but there was a distinct possibility… “Fine with me, as long as you’re sure we won’t be interrupted. I don’t want to toss any of your subjects from the window of your throne room.”

“The door is locked,” he assured you, ducking his head to press wet kisses down your neck before blowing gently across his handiwork.

With a shiver at the abrupt shift in temperature, you nodded. “And no goblin has ever managed to circumvent a locked door before.”

Jareth paused, clearly intent on undoing your shirt, but gave a marvelously exasperated groan. “Fine.”

Your triumph was cut off by an abrupt shriek as Jareth pulled you into his arms so strongly that your feet left the floor. “Jareth! What are you doing?”

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this, pet,” he replied, pouting. “I’m not wasting any more time.”

And then he was striding toward a section of the throne room that looked distinctly… soft around the edges, and you recognized it as a portal. All of that was secondary, of course, to the ever-present awareness of being held in Jareth’s arms.

As someone with a proud set of curves, you could count on one hand the number of times you’d been lifted by a lover. That was a shame, since being carried was something of a weakness for you, especially when you weren’t worried about being dropped. And nothing in Jareth’s expression or posture warned that he was about to run out of strength.

You were still basking in the sensation as Jareth stepped through the portal and into a room that was nearly as large as the throne room. The major differences were that there was no pit and that the place of the throne was occupied by the largest bed you had ever seen.

A smile stretched across your face as Jareth set you down on that large bed, and he frowned at you. “What is amusing you?”

“This bed is enormous,” you explained. “Yet I’ve never seen you with anyone.”

“I’ve had a partner here on numerous occasions,” he told you haughtily. “Perhaps you have not seen them because you are so busy finding partners among the humans.”

“Perhaps,” you agreed readily enough. “Or perhaps it has been such a long time that your last partner and I missed each other.”

“That…” Jareth’s lips pursed, “...is possible.”

You didn’t necessarily remember closing your eyes while you laughed at that, but you must have. When you opened them once more, Jareth was looming over you. “Pleased as I am to provide amusement, there are other noises I would rather pull from you.”

Your breath caught at the rough admission. Jareth’s face descended before you could scrape up a response, and then you were too concerned with meeting the intoxicating rhythm of his mouth against yours.

The next thing you knew, you were resting more securely on the bed with Jareth holding himself above you. Both of you were fully naked and you had no idea how you had gotten that way. Most likely, he had used his magic to remove your clothing, but it was possible that you had been too thoroughly distracted by his kisses to worry about something as minor as what his hands were doing.

In any case, you were reveling in the way your hands could roam over him without encountering any barriers. Jareth’s body was pale, muscles dancing subtly under his skin. That paleness was marked with occasional scars - silvery marks that spoke of injuries from long ago. You couldn’t see much of him below the mid-torso since he was pressed so tightly to you, but you could feel the delicious length of him, hot and hard against your thigh.

When Jareth finally pulled away, he only went far enough to make eye contact without either of you crossing your eyes. “I want to taste you. Is that acceptable to you?”

“You’re the king,” you reminded him with a sardonic smile.

Jareth’s jaw flexed and his mismatched eyes narrowed. “Precisely. Which is why I expect an honest answer when I ask a question. Do you want this?”

“Yes.” The confirmation was a little breathless, but Jareth’s reply had been unexpected for someone who placed such an emphasis on retaining control. “Yes, I do.”

“Good,” he told you with a nod.

His patronizing tone might have set your teeth on edge, but Jareth accompanied it with a praising stroke down the length of your body. His fingertips trailed fire from your collarbone, over one breast, across the swell of your stomach, and down to the part of you that was aching for him. At the same time, he slid down until his face was even with your hips and you could hardly keep still with the anticipation filling you.

With your knees already parted around him, Jareth had only to wedge his shoulders between your thighs to gain full access to your core. The sudden exposure to the air of the room sent a chill through the parts of you that were burning the hottest, but the coolness only heightened the sensations.

Jareth didn’t give you any warning, any time to brace. Instead, he ducked his head suddenly, swiping the flat of his tongue from the bottom of your slit to the very top. He paused for a moment while you made a sound of startled pleasure, his lips quirking.

“Delicious,” he told you. “I wonder if you’re even sweeter inside?”

Before you could offer any reply, Jareth apparently decided to see for himself. One of your legs was tossed over his shoulder while he pinned the other to the bed. That was the only thing that kept you from trying to strangle him with your thighs when he began to torment you in earnest.

Those plush lips and wicked tongue explored every part of you, wringing pleasure from you like it was something precious he could save for later.

An elegant finger pushed into your core, pressing into the heat and slickness of you without a bit of difficulty. Your muscles spasmed so dramatically that it forced you to sit up - or, more accurate, to try. Jareth’s arm across your hips kept you pinned to the bed, leaving you to writhe, squeeze your legs around him, and cry out your pleasure loud enough for the entire castle to hear. The hand pressing you into the softness of the mattress strummed fingers across your hip.

With an expression that felt wild with pleasure, you stared down between your own thighs and clenched even harder around that finger. Your eyes had met Jareth’s mismatched gaze where it peeked over the roundness of your tummy. Mischief glimmered on what you could see of his face, and there was a clear sense of enjoyment in his bearing.

That eye contact sent an electric thrill through you, and you were gone. Your head kicked back against the pillow and you seemed to leave your body for an eternity, shattering into infinite pieces under the onslaught of pleasure Jareth was using to assault you.You may have made a noise - probably had, if you were judging from your experience so far - but you couldn’t hear it over the way your ears rang with the sound of your mind shattering.

When you finally settled back into your body again, it felt too small to possibly contain everything you had felt. Jareth was applying long, luxurious licks to your core, sweeping over the entirety of your slit and it was all you could do to push him away.

Jareth gave you a moment to collect your breath, but soon enough, he was peering down at you with no small amount of pride on his strange face. “Will you recover?”

You were a bit embarrassed by the strength of your reaction to him, but you managed a smile and a nod. “Guess I needed that more than I thought. It’s been a while.”

The fae tilted his head to the side, a hint of a smile showing the white points of his teeth. “My dear, do you honestly believe I have lived so long without learning to draw pleasure from someone? Your state of arousal has little to do with it.”

The post-orgasmic glow kept you from mustering the scoff that deserved. After delivering a sad little huff, you told him, “Humble as ever, Goblin King.”

“I would so hate to leave you with an inaccurate idea of my skill,” Jareth drawled. “I would be happy to provide further proof at your earliest convenience.”

Your breath caught in your throat, leading to an embarrassing cough. On the positive side, that cough gave you a moment to internally puzzle through that. Was Jareth volunteering to do this again sometime? He was technically your boss and your king, and thus a romantic connection you had never experienced before, but you couldn’t honestly say you wouldn’t be with him again. Even ignoring the pleasure - difficult as that was - you… really wouldn’t mind repeating this experience.

“Uh, okay,” you said elegantly.

Jareth simply smiled at you, but something about his intent gaze warned that he understood your thoughts as clearly as he did his own. Still, all he said aloud was, “Did that satisfy you, pet? Or would you perhaps like to continue?”

Before you could fight it, your gaze dropped to the apex of his thighs. He was visibly hard and ready for you, his body betraying an eagerness that was totally hidden in his expression. Despite his state of arousal, Jareth was still giving you the option to be done with him. As he was known for his lack of tact, you recognized and appreciated the effort Jareth was putting into making you comfortable.

And what better way was there to show your appreciation than to offer some relief?

“I think I might need a little more,” you told him, playing coy. You even added a demure drop of your gaze, though you could see him through your lashes.

That was how you watched when Jareth’s expression sharpened, though his voice stayed careless. “I don’t believe in offering partial respite. I shall see this task through until it is complete.”

The smile that fought to spread across your face was only stifled by the way Jareth caught at your ankle and pulled you further down the bed. He surged upward at the same time until you were firmly beneath him. The fae dotted your face, jaw, and neck with kisses as he settled heavily on top of you. Your legs parted automatically to wrap around his waist and draw him closer, but you were taken aback when the length of him pressed against your still-sensitive core.

You were still surfing the wave of heightened sensation when you felt the tip of Jareth’s length notch into your opening.

Jareth’s fingers trailed from your forehead down to your jaw, turning your head until he could peer into your face. “Are you ready for me, pet?”

“Yes,” you agreed eagerly. “Please…”

“Don’t beg, sweet thing,” he instructed. “You never need to beg for me.”

And then he was driving into you - robbing you of any ability to process that.

Jareth had seemed to have an average build below the waist, as you had expected from his elegant physique and slender limbs. Still, he felt earth-shattering as he eased inside of you, enough to take your breath away even considering how wet you were with the remains of your earlier orgasm.

You were utterly still as he pressed in, locked in place by the amount of concentration you had fixed on the feeling of him. But the first time he withdrew from the depths of you, every part of you writhed beneath him. Your hands grasped, your toes curled, your head tilted in an attempt to ease the groan that fought for release from your throat.

Jareth swallowed that groan, dipping down easily to sweep through your mouth just as thoroughly as he had the first time. He plundered you greedily, feeding on the sounds you made for him as his hips danced closer and away, closer and away.

Infuriatingly, he kept you - and himself - poised on the edge of orgasm for an eternity, slowing whenever either of you came too close to the precipice. Jareth chased pleasure eagerly, though, tormenting you with fingers and lips to push you higher without allowing you the relief of release.

“Jareth, please,�� you begged as his hips slowed once more.

He arched a brow at you. “Yes, pet? What do you need?”

“I-” You gave a hoarse gasp as a deliberate twist of his hips left the length of him brushing against your g-spot. It was followed by a noise of frustration when his pace slowed to a fraction of what it had been. “Please, I need to come.”

His smile was so sudden that it looked almost fierce. “My dear, why did you not tell me earlier?”

A retort sprang to your lips, but it died there as he shifted infinitesimally inside of you. That minor change had devastating effects on the angle of his thrusts inside of you, which picked up speed until it was all you could do not to drown in him.

Your body tightened around his as it had done so many times before, but he didn’t slow this time. Instead, his lips caught yours as his thumb strummed your clit.

That kiss was only broken when your orgasm hit you like a train, kicking your head back and dropping your mouth open so you could cry out from the incredible intensity of the pleasure that filled you. Your limbs curled around Jareth, constricting to keep him pressed against you as tightly as possible.

On his side of things, Jareth didn’t seem inclined to fight his imprisonment. His hips pistoned between your trembling thighs, burying himself in you over and over until - finally - his rhythm faltered.

Those sharp teeth were bared in a snarl as he pushed himself as deeply as he could get. The warmth of his release flooded you.

When the frantic pulses of his hips slowed, Jareth let himself drop on top of you. His weight was on you for a fraction of a second before he twisted to pull you on top of him instead. Since he was still buried in your core, the motion left you in the grip of an aftershock, but you recovered enough to move off of him.

Jareth’s eyes were closed, but his hands lashed out to keep you from moving as soon as you started to. “I don’t know where you think you’re going, pet, but you are mistaken.”

“I’m just rolling off of you, Jareth,” you told him, exasperated. “If I crush you, it’ll be regicide and I can’t imagine a goblin trial is pleasant.”

“It isn’t,” he agreed, eyes still closed. “But mostly because they show an inability to focus on a single issue for more than seconds at a time. And as for being crushed by you… Not only is it an impossibility, but it sounds rather pleasant.”

“Jareth…” you sighed.

That made him open his mismatched eyes and you were startled to see the changes in them. The blue-green of his human eye was expanding both toward the pupil and over the white sclera. The pupil-less darkness of his fae eye was doing the same, slowly working out until the entire orb of his eye was dark.

When Jareth finally spoke, it was with a smile that showed his sharp teeth. “Did you know there is a difference in the way you say my name now?”

You paused, scanning over his face for a moment before you asked, “And what does that mean?”

Jareth didn’t immediately answer you, but his smile didn’t fade during the stretch of quiet. At long last, he said, “It means that things have changed between us. It means that I encourage you to seek to satisfy your needs in my bed. And it means that I chose the perfect person to serve as my emissary in the human world.”

That was significantly less worrisome than what you thought he would say. In fact, it was even… sweet. “I certainly never thought I would end up here, but I can’t say that I regret it.”

“Faint praise,” Jareth said dryly. “But praise nonetheless. We shall see whether we can further improve your outlook on your place in my kingdom.”

“I look forward to that,” you admitted, relaxing slightly into him.

Jareth’s arms tightened around you, drawing you even closer. “As do I.”

---

Author's Note - Thanks for reading! I'm not officially accepting requests, but someone sent this one in and it caught my interest enough to help me break through some writer's block.

Happy Halloween!

I don't offer a taglist for spicy fics, but you can find other works on my masterlist.

#labyrinth #labyrinth 1986 #jareth #jareth the goblin king #reader insert #reader insert fic #reader insert fanfiction #jareth x reader #jareth x fem!reader #jareth x you #lemon #spicy #minors dni #not suitable for minors #ink's asks #ink's fics

692 notes · View notes

ameagrice · 3 months ago

Text

Capsize

percy jackson x fem reader

chapter thirty-six | everything in its right place

It wasn’t a real spider. Not completely. But it moved like one over your hands, and so you’d thrown it so far away with one almighty shriek that the spider jumped—a tiny automaton thing, built by Hephaestus himself.

The whole thing felt like one, big joke on you.

It begun as a silver chain previously in Eurytion’s possession. He said he didn’t need it, and had no need to go into the Labyrinth or make contact with Hephaestus. If you needed to find the god, this would lead you right to him. At first, turning it over in your hands, you felt grateful that finally somebody was helping you properly. Until you pressed down on the tiny button in the middle, and it turned into a spider.

The good news: it led you straight to him. Right to Hephaestus’s doorstep. Or, entryway, for a better word. The spider had been scuttling and crawling along the tunnels for a good distance, enough so that you were starting to get tired. Percy had been nearly bouncing in place, both with anticipation for what you might find, and eagerness to get this over with; he wanted out as much as you and Grover.

If you weren’t so good at running, you might have lost the creepy little thing. By the time it finally stopped, all eight legs perched like broken wires, you were hot on its trail and pretty breathless. Grover slowed to a pace at your side, raising his hands to run over his sweaty t-zone from the exertion that was chasing the mechanical spider. Percy slid into your back, and brushed himself off like nothing happened.

You could have described it as developing a funny feeling that something was about to happen.

You stopped only because of one thing.

The giant cave, a spectacular hole in the ground inches away from the tips of your Converse. You watched from the corner of your eye Grover settling back from the jagged edge, and became aware of Percy’s fingers winding round your backpack. Human nature or stupid curiosity, you dug for your flashlight in your pocket, and leaned forward over the abyss. Percy tugged violently on your strap.

“Hey, come on, dont.” He sighed. “If you fall down there—”

“I’m not gonna fall down there!” You protest.

“Do you see with your own eyes right now? You’re literally leaning over a cavern.”

“I’m not gonna fall. But if I did I’d just take you down with me. For company ‘n all.” You drawl, turning to face him with a sly smile. Your brows jump, and Percy huffs, giving your bag one last tug until you avail, and step back.

“How kind,” he deadpans.

“I try my hardest.” You shrug.

“I think we have bigger problems than falling right now,” croaked Grover. He raised his flashlight and flicked it on and off to highlight the problem: a series of metal bars strung up to the ceiling, half-corroded.

You bark a sudden laugh at your luck. “Hope everyone’s had their tetanus shots!”

Between the rotting bars jammed into the cave roof, the tiny spider was swinging across with its strange silky webs, and crawling with its sticky feet across the ceiling. Unless you wanted to stay stuck down here at this junction, you’d have to follow it. And heights were not your speciality.

You clap your hands together; it echoes in the vast space. “So, any first takers” Neither boy answers you. “Brilliant. So, the thing is, I’d rather die than do the monkey bars. Do you guys see my arms? They weren’t made for this shit.”

“Have a little faith,” gulped Grover. “If a mechanical spider with no physical brain can do it, we totally can!”

“I like your enthusiasm!” Percy snapped his fingers. “It’s just the kind of leadership style we need!” He leaned forward and clapped Grover on the shoulder. “Onward, my friend!”

Grover tittered on the spot, and a nervous belch boasted loudly in the air. All the while he argued back and forth with Percy over how he should go first, you decided that it was best to shove down your nerves for the sake of the ever-furthering spider, and stepped back twice. The boys hardly noticed, caught up in their silly back-and-forth debate. You made your choice, and decided to make a run and jump for it.

The second your hands touched the first metal rung, they stung from the impact. You couldn’t prevent the shriek escaping your throat, but everything after that was blocked out. The brain has a funny way of focusing when it senses danger; it blocks out everything it deems unneeded. In this case, you knew though you couldn’t hear them that the boys were probably yelling something. You focussed on the strain in your shoulders, reaching forward for the next bar with halfway decent momentum. Halfway across, your palms started to sweat, and the panic set in even further.

“Guys—” you swallowed, choking on it. “What are the chances I die on impact? Don’t answer that—I already know the answer. It was in this book I read a while ago. It was 31,000 people in 2000. That’s the last time they looked at the statistics. They’ll probably go up—”. Your hand slipped from the bar, and you wiped your palm on your pants before reaching for the next one. You take deep breaths as your body is suddenly hit with panicked sweating and heat, and you know you’re not too far from a panic attack. There’s nothing anybody can do to help you here—it’s all on you. And it’s a horrible feeling knowing that.

It’s hard to move when your fingers start to tingle and grow stiff, another oncoming sign that your body has had enough, it’s working too hard. The brain works in tandem with the limbs—the control centre tells everything else what to do. If it says calm down, it’s going to calm down everything else; even hundreds of feet above a plunging cavern.

When you touch the ground again, you feel rather shaky. But there’s no proper time for rest, or to wait for the boys. The spider is scuttling further away, and it’s literally a race against time to catch up to it. With legs like jelly, you bolt as fast as you can after the spider, the tiny clicking of its mechanical legs sounding through the narrowing tunnel. It’s dark and damp, and your flashlight is beginning to flicker as the batteries run out. You lose all sight and sound of Percy and Grover, and your chest screams with the exertion of holding yourself above ground for so long and then moving instantly into a sprint.

The spider really doesn’t care, though.

You run and run, until something crunches under your feet. You ignore it until you can’t anymore, and gradually slow down, as the crunching becomes too loud. You bend down to inspect the pieces: wood chips, like from…pencils? There’s a shard of lead from the end of one just laying around, and another a bit away from it. Who the hell needs pencils down here? Is somebody else lost, too? The pieces slip through your fingers as you get to your feet, falling back down.

You pick up your flashlight from between your neck and shoulder where you’d been holding it, and twist it in your hand. The light still flickers, except this time it has enough of a glow to show you just who left the pencil scrapings.

Skeletons. Dead, very dead skeletons.

And they look a little different to the ones in gothic movies.

Some are white, like they’ve been bleached, but mainly they’re a weird yellow-brown and mottled, rotting away. They don’t smell, weirdly. They could almost be props. You’re not naive enough to believe that though.

A set of footsteps is growing louder nearing your position. It’s Percy, calling your name. And when he falls to step next to you, a hand on your shoulder, you can’t help but nodding grimly to the skeletons he hasn’t seen yet. You flash your light on them, and he gags.

“Let’s keep going,” you say, and nod to the literal light at the end of the tunnel. You can already see it opens into a big room. “I don’t wanna meet the thing that left those.”

You wait for Grover to catch up before you move on towards the bright light at the end of the tunnel. It feels weirdly intimate, all quiet and settled as you near it.

But…yeah, you take that back. Because you meet the thing that left those skeletons pretty quickly. Just when you thought things couldn’t get weirder down here.

You stop short, and can’t help your jaw dropping in disgust at the creature perched on the glittering dais on the far side of the room. With the body of a lion and the head of a woman, you quite honestly feel like vomming. She wore makeup like a clown, and her stringy hair was tied back way too tightly—how the hell did she even do her hair, with paws?

Grover gagged. It echoed. “Sphinx.”

You scrunch your nose in response. “Ooooh, are we talkin’ that weird thing that does riddles?”

“Funny way of putting it, but yes.”

You want to reply to Grover, but you’ve lost sight of the spider, your only way forward. You can hear it in the quiet, tapping away down the only exit: right next to the Sphinx.

You try your luck; you suck in a deep breath and make a run for it, but the creature is quicker than you are, and it dives down to block your path, roaring in your face with such ferocity that you’re left only with shock. Your face stings with the heat. You gag, and step back. Metal bars slammed down across the exit, and the way you’d come in, blocking your way out indefinitely. Looking longingly through the bars, you lost sight and sound of the spider, heart sinking.

When the bars were settled, the creature smiled. Somewhat horrifying, the voice to leave its mouth was on par. “Welcome, lucky contestants! Are you ready to play…GUESS THE RIDDLE?!”

Spotlights cranked into place and blinded Grover, who slapped a hand over his eyes. Canned applause blasted like there were a dozen soundbars in the room. Something popped from the ceiling, and glittering rained down, sparkling purple, pink and silver in the spotlight.

The Sphinx prowled the room and flicked back her head like you would tossing your hair over your shoulder. “Pass the test, demigods, and you get to advance! Fail, and I eat you for dinner! So! Who will be our contestant tonight?”

“Grover,” you point instantly, and then feel terrible because he looked rather sick. Coincidentally, both boys looked at you. “What, you think I’m smart enough for this shit?” You hiss.

“Absolutely!” Percy encouraged. “And we’ll be right here to fight for you!”

“Totally!” Nodded Grover. He reached into his pocket and produced a stick, and began munching on it instantly. A nervous habit, you’ve come to realise.

“How romantic,” you roll your eyes to Percy, but inside your stomach says SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! You deflated at the shoulders, and squeezed your flashlight between your fingers. Approaching the CONTESTANT podium, it wasn’t difficult to notice the dusty skeleton in a school uniform still leaning over the platform, jaw hanging open.

Holding your flashlight by the very end, you gave the skeleton a shove, and then a kick for good measure. It toppled off the side and clattered to the ground, bones rattling. You side-eyed it and quickly looked away. “So sorry, man.”

“Welcome, daughter of Athena!” The Sphinx cried in a cheesy, televised tone. “Are you ready for your questions?”

You point your flashlight at her. “Uhhhh—no.”

“I need an answer!”

“Sure, yeah. Give me the question, then.” At the side of the room, Percy sends you what is supposed to be an encouraging set of a thumbs-up, and a large smile, nodding his head.

“Riddles, actually, get it right dear. Anywho! Twenty riddles coming your way!” A drumroll sounded overhead, rattling your organs the bass was so deep. There may as well have been a band up in the ceiling. Hell, maybe there was. “What is…the Capital of Bulgaria?”

Embarrassingly, you almost fall flat. “Pffttt, I know this.”

“You know this!” Encouraged Percy from his place, except when you turned to look at him, he was leaning against the wall and sweating. Very encouraging. “You’ve got this, B!”

“Isn’t it, like Sofia, or something? And that isn’t even a riddle, that’s just basic knowledge—”

Applause screamed above. The Sphinx smiled too sweetly, and her sharp canines showed. “Correct! Now, mark down your answers in the booklet with the yellow pencil.”

You eye your empty hands. “What pencil—?” With a solid POP! the pencil, sharpened to a point, appeared on top of the little booklet like magic.

“Now,” said the Sphinx. “If you need to erase an answer, be sure to do it COMPLETELY! Or else the machine is unable to read the answers.” She smiled with closed eyes. A horrible sight, really. The nightmares will be anticipated, when you’re out of here.

Waving around your pencil, and growing slightly annoyed with the creature, you huff. “What machine?”

With a large paw, the Sphinx made a pointing movement to the giant bronze thing situation to the side. It had appeared under a spotlight, and was covered in the Greek letter Êta. If you weren’t wrong, that was Hephaestus’s mark.

Another nail in the coffin of life being a total joke.

“Now!” The Sphinx clapped her paws. “Next question!”

“Shit question,” you mumbled. You set your hands on either side of the podium and waited.

“I beg your pardon?” The Sphinx grew still instantly, clearly annoyed.

“Nothing. Continue.”

“What is the square root of sixteen?”

“Oh. I cant do math. Uhm…”

“Ten seconds on the clock!”

A loud and irritating ticking began with an audible countdown from invisible voices, making your eyes ring. Suddenly uncomfortable, you dip your head and discreetly look at Percy, whose hand moves at his side.

“Four?” You frown.

A bell rang off. “Correct! Which United States president signed the Civil Rights Act?”

“Lyndon. B. Johnson? I th—”

“Correct! Which planet spins clockwise?”

“Venus?”

“Which part of the human body is incapable of healing itself?”

“I think it’s your teeth?” You shift on your feet, feeling way too under pressure.

“Need a definite answer!” The Sphinx pointed to the ceiling with a paw, and the countdown began.

Tiredly, you drawl, “It’s your teeth.”

“Correct again! What comes into the world with more bones than the adult human?”

“A baby?”

“Correct!”

The questions go on, and on until your mind feels like a battered sieve, bent out of shape and a little corroded. You passed twenty questions, and stared at Percy, unimpressed, as a dozen layers of glitter and confetti rained down upon you. A techno electric song began blasting over the invisible speakers in celebration. Grover was taking deep breaths, mumbling under his breath, probably thanking the gods. When you found your place next to Percy, he huffed a laugh, and glitter shifted from your face as he did.

“Oh, you did great!” He offered. The metal bars ground out a horrid noise as they rose back to where they came from. “I knew you could do it.”

“You offered me up like paint at an artist’s house.”

Grover, still praying, took off with his eyes closed, doing a little jig. The Sphinx took a seat at dais, eyes closed. She looked somewhat frozen, barely breathing. When Grover passed on by, it was as if she’d never moved at all.

Clapping a hand down on your head, Percy shook the confetti and glitter like dust from your hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he said so with a humoured smile. “I’ll never do it again. Friends?”

“Suppose so,” you shrug, and glitter dances to the ground.

“Let’s go, disco ball. We need to find that spider.”

You skedaddled past the Sphinx whom paid you no mind, and out the tunnel way, leaving a trail of glitter. After a few wrong turns, and following Grover’s voice, and finally managed to locate your friend and the spider, which threw itself at a metal door, a little bit of light spilling out underneath it. In the middle of the door, old and creaking despite not touching it, was nailed a big sign, wilting like it had been melted, dashed with the same sign as the answering machine ten minutes ago: the Greek Êta.

“Are we ready to meet Hephaestus?” Grover asked nervously.

“I’m ready to ask why he spends his time down here,” you grumbled. “Why not somewhere nice?”

Deciding you’d done enough today, Percy reached out around you for the door handle, and gave it a good push. The door screamed, slowly opening, revealing all inside.

The room was bigger than words could describe. It was filled to the brim with machines and makings, some working, some not. There were cars, half-built just lying around, and bits of mechanical animals waiting to be put together. A fire burned in the corner of the room, not tended to though. A dozen tools hung from the walls and were splashed across work tables.

Nobody noticed him until the door slammed shut, you screamed, and he shifted out from underneath a car. A giant man in dirty work pants, and a leg in a metal brace.

“Well, what do we have here?” He boomed. Maybe it was wrong to be so terrified, but you were, and you found yourself shifting slowly, subtly, taking your place beside Percy.

Unfortunately, your slinking act didn’t last for long. When Hephaestus stood properly, he towered way over the three of you.

“I didn’t make you demigods, did I?”

Percy coughed. “No, sir.”

He was tall, and his beard was smoking. The metal spider perched on his head.

“Good. Terrible workmanship.”

“We’ve met, sir,” said Percy.

“Have we, now?” His tone indicated that he couldn’t care less. “Well, if I didn’t get rid of you the first time I won’t need to now, I suppose. And a Satyr. Wow. You’re all far from home. There better be a good reason for disturbing me.”

“We’re looking for Daedalus—”

The god’s beard flickered ten times brighter, and he seemed to get taller. “Daedalus?” He roared.

“Yes, sir, please.” Grover pleaded nervously.

“You’re wasting your time.” He stomped over to the corner of the room, and began to tinker with some pieces of metal. “I understand you met my mother.”

“Yes, sir,” Percy nodded.

“What did you think of her, daughter of Athena?” You jolt at your place, and wish the ground would open up and take you. Side-stepping, you remain half behind Percy, grimacing. “She’ll smile to your face and talk about important values, family values. Didn’t stop her pitching me off of Olympus.”

Why me? You wish you could ask. Why are you asking me?

“I thought that was Zeus?” Percy tries to deflect.

Hephaestus spun on his feet like a top, facing you. “She likes telling that version. Makes her more likeable doesn’t it? The truth is, my mother loves families, but only certain types of families. She influences, and she lobbies. She likes to get involved.”

Finally, he looked up from the metal in his large hands, and focused on Percy. “Oh, this one doesn’t like me. I’ll bite, demigod—what do you want?”

“We told you,” Percy snapped. “We need to find Daedalus. It’s important. There’s this guy, a son of Hermes, and he’s working with Kronos. They’re trying to find a way to navigate this maze to take over everywhere. If we don’t get to Daedalus first—”

“And I told you, son of Poseidon—you’re wasting your time. He won’t help you.”

Hephaestus shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Some of us are thrown off of cliffs and some of us learn not to trust people. Ask me for gold, or a new sword. I can grant you those things. But a way to Daedalus? Well, that’s an expensive favour.”

“So you know where he is?” Asked Grover. “He’s down here at least?”

“It isn’t wise to go looking.”

But isn’t looking the nature of wisdom?

Hephaestus made a deep, rumbling sigh. “If I help you, there will be a price. I need a favour, too.”

“Name it,” demanded Percy.

“You heroes! You like making your promises. How very…refreshing.” The god reached out with a giant hand to push a button in the wall, and it instantly changed. The concrete and metal combined twisted and glowed until it became a television screen, showing mountains, and a forest. Smoke bellowed from the background.

“One of my forges gone, but this used to be my favourite.”

“But that’s Mount St. Helens!” Pointed out Grover. “But you said it used to be your favourite?”

“Well, the monster, Typhon, is trapped there.”

“What do you want us to do? Fight him for you?” Ah, Percy; ever the brave.

Hephaestus snorted meanly. “Well that’s suicide. Someone or something is using my forges there. They sense me coming, and they go, when I try to search it. There is something ancient and evil waiting there, and I want to know who has invaded my territory.”

“You want us to find out who it is.”

“Correct!” Your brain aches, thinking back to the Sphinx. “Find what you can and report back to me, and then I’ll tell you everything I know. Promise.”

“Fine,” Percy nodded. “How do we get there?”

Hephaestus clapped his hands together, and the mechanical spider fell from the rafters, right at your feet. You jumped about ten feet in the air, and screamed so loud it was bolstered by the metal walls. “My creation will show the way. Try to stay alive, young ones. Humans are much more fragile than automatons.”

For a while, you followed the spider without any trouble. The paths seemed unusually normal, just straightforward tunnels of concrete, or metal park slides the whole way down. But the ground began to change to dirt, and trees sprouted in the darkness, and a singular tunnel led away from the original path—Grover was headed straight for it, as if in a trance. He slowed, and slowed and stopped, just before the entrance.

“Come on,” you groaned. “Let’s go, man, It’s not far.”

“This is the way, guys!” Grover mumbled. “This is it! I can feel it!”

“What way?” Probed Percy. “You don’t mean…you know he’s there? Pan? Really?”

“Yes!” He exclaimed, suddenly reinvigorated. “This is it, guys!”

You followed after the spider, intent on not losing it, but held back when neither Grover or Percy followed.

“I have to follow this. I won’t get this chance ever again. You know that, right?”

On the one hand, you wanted to tell Grover to not be selfish. This was the original quest and it was important. But on the other, saying that would mean you were being selfish, holding Grover back from the only thing he wanted. He’d gone along with your plan for a while now, and outwardly telling him that he shouldn’t be doing the one thing he’d ever wanted would feel like stabbing him.

“Percy,” said Grover, “we will find each other again. We have the empathy link, remember? I have to do this. I have to; he’s…so close!”

Because, at the end of the day, this was all Grover had wanted for so long. Really, it felt cruel to tell him no.

Percy sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I hope you’re right.”

“I swear it, I am.”

“Just be careful, yeah? And find us, afterwards.”

Maybe it was to be your last sight of Grover. Perhaps you’d never see him again, although you really didn’t want to think so. You looked after him, as he wandered into the tunnel surrounded by darkness and tree roots winding from the ground until finally he’d gone completely.

It left a strange feeling that something was going to happen.

“We shouldn’t have split up,” you shake your head. “This is a horrible idea!”

“We’ll see him again…” Percy tried to sound confident, but even he fell a little short. He chewed his cheek, still looking at the tunnel Grover had left through. “Don’t worry. Come on, let’s catch up with that spider. It won’t wait for us.”

And it didn’t. The tiny spider scuttled through tunnels and tunnels, down slopes and up them. They grew tighter, and hotter, until your face dripped with sweat. The flashlight slipped in your hand, and you’d been forced to put away your dagger for fear of it slipping away.

More than once you had to stop in place and wipe the sweat dripping into your eyes, sticky and slippy. Your hair grew damp, uncomfortable around your face.

Percy seemed to be struggling the same way. When you turned back to him, his cheeks were bright red like cherries, highlighting the green in his eyes. Somehow, he managed a smile, nodding encouragingly. You swallowed hard, throat as dry as anything.

“Keep going!” He urged. “It’s not far, now, I know it.”

You didn’t want to tell him that he was a little too optimistic for it to be true, but who were you to burst his bubble?

It realistically didnt take a long time, but it certainly felt like it did. Eventually, the spider stopped short and curled into a ball, rolling down a little decline before it popped back open, and crawled a small distance. At last it waited for you and Percy.

The room before you now was the size of a large football stadium, times two thousand. It was so big you could scarcely see each end. The worst part, when you pushed aside the fact that you couldn’t really see properly, was the fact the floor was not floor at all but a plaza of bubbling lava, and your only way to get across should the need arise was two lengths of metal bridges, which ultimately, if the pool of lava was anything to go by, would be too hot to walk across for human beings. Here and there on little platforms were machines bigger than you, rumbling, whirring. Perhaps they weren’t the weird things though—the creatures, dark and shapeless and moving around the solid concrete platform around the lava, paid you no mind. Maybe they’d yet to see you.

“Let’s go, while they’re not looking,” hissed Percy. He snatched up your hand and pulled you along, despite how sweaty you were.

“Hold up!” You pulled back on him, but he persevered. “Percy, wait! We need a plan.”

“We don’t need a plan. We just need to get some information and get out of here.”

“Exactly why we need a plan!”

Your eyes began to burn from the heat of the lava, and your lungs ached from the smoke. It became difficult to even see, so it didn’t take long at all for something to go wrong.

“Agh!” Percy screamed, and you reached out blindly in the smoky haze to slap your hand over his mouth—you missed, and your palm found his eyes instead. “Ow!”

“Shut up, idiot!” You couldn’t help but laugh. “What did you do?”

“Kicked a cart by accident. I can’t see a damn thing with all this smoke.”

Near enough four years ago, when you met Percy, you wouldn’t have thought you’d be creeping around a pit filled with lava and carrying a deadly weapon in your backpack. At most, you’d believed you’d go through high school and eventually Percy would find other friends. You would see each other in hallways in brief glances and walk on by. Maybe in another life. In a normal life, if you’d been born to both mortal parents. You might have even had a dog in the mix. It was strange to think about, as he pulled you down behind a crate, not caring even a little bit about your sweaty palm, or the fact that you’d accidentally slapped him in the face. Life worked in funny ways. The Fates certainly chose you two for a reason, though you couldn’t be sure what that reason was, yet. Maybe, when you’d asked to be born again, the Judges in the Underworld decided you needed some more excitement in your life. Or maybe they hated you, and you’d done wrong before, whoever you were before, because to be here now you’d have to have been here once—after seeing the Underworld with your own eyes, there was no more questioning life after death. Did you reach Elysium? Were you a nice person?

Being a demigod had its pros, its cons, and its questions. It enabled deep thinking.

“Come on, just go around it,” you nodded to the sight up ahead. Percy went to climb to his feet…

That was when you heard the voices.

“Shit! Get in the cart!”

Pulling back the tarp, stinging your fingers, Percy clambered over the edge and into the pile of metal pieces, flat and smooth between the hot cart. He raised his hands, holding up the tarp as you shot a hasty look in the direction of the voices; shadows were growing bigger on the wall. You flopped into the cart in an uncomfortable position of squashed-up legs, Percy’s longer set digging into your side. You tried to move over as far as you could to make room for him but really there wasn’t much point. He flipped the tarp over your heads, and together you held your breath.

It turned red. With the tarp now covering the pair of you, light from the flowing lava pit illuminated the red tarp, casting an amber glow.

Riptide? you mouthed to Percy. Your dagger sat in your backpack, crushed under your weight and between the cart.

He raised his hand ever so slightly, and twirled the pen in response.

“Bring it in?” One voice asked. It was deep.

“Yeah, movie’s just finished.”

Lowering your gaze from the side of the cart, you meet Percy’s. Movie?

Suddenly, the cart jerked, and tipped forward. You jostled into Percy, and thrust your hands out to either side of the cart. The metal was warm. You slammed your mouth shut, hoping nobody heard the surprised squeak.

“Hey! Thought you said this was a small load? Thing weighs a ton!”

Rude.

“It’s celestial bronze, idiot,” the other voice laughed. “What did you think, it’d be light? Hurry up and set it in the back, for crying out load. Hey, younglings! Watch the damn movie. I’ll answer your questions later.”

Had you found some secret school? Were people living here? Younglings didn’t sound very human, however. Nobody in their right mind would use that language.

But a movie did play. You strained your ears, trying to make some sort of sense of where you were. Growth spurts, and hygiene working in the forges.

“And lastly, don’t neglect your flipper hygiene!” The soapy voice rang over speakers. “Good flippers equal good mind!”

Percy spun Riptide between his fingers, dashing back and forth and swapping hands. His dark brows furrowed in concentration, tired eyes pinned on nothing in particular. They seemed brighter in here, somehow. More ‘calm before the storm’ rather than their usual ‘storm’.

“So, younglings, what is the correct name of our particular species? You, at the back!”

“Sea demons!” A voice cried.

“No,” the ‘teacher’ flatlined. “You?”

“Telekhines!” Another voice grumbled.

“Brill! And why are we here, guys?”

“Revenge! Revenge against the Greek god Zeus, for casting us down to Tartarus!”

“Indeed! And only after we created their weapons, might I add!”

So, you were dealing with a bunch of salty monsters. Great.

“Zeus cast us away,” the teacher continued in a mocking, sad voice. “Down to Tartarus. We had no control in this, young ones, no choice! Which is why now is our perfect time for a takeover! We will start here, in the very forges of Hephaestus! And soon after, the undersea furnaces, too!”

There was a huge uproar of applause and yells, some barking, some screaming. Terrible noise, honestly. And that was only the very tip of the iceberg.

You’d done your research after being at camp for so long. You’d come across their names, the Telekhines, but the gross result of the previous Titan takeover remained a subject to be avoided. To you, even reading about the ugliness of that period was enough, never mind looking at pictures of the creatures produced then. Maybe Ares was right, so long ago—you valued prettiness and vanity so much that you may as well have been a daughter of Aphrodite rather than Athena. Is that why your mother wouldn’t connect with you? Did she see her sister, rather than her daughter? Brains and beauty go hand-in-hand, but the Gods have their own set of values and expectations. You didn’t live up to too many of them. Maybe you were vain—perhaps a little too much. Probably ignorant, too.

On your head it was, then, that you had clue what you were up against.

“Who do we serve, Telekhines?”

“Kronos!”

“And when you all grow to full maturity, who will you serve? Whose army will you fight for?”

“Kronos!”

“Lovely. Now, at the back we have brought some scraps for you to practice making weapons with. Go ahead and take a look—but share! We don’t need any arguments today.”

You scrambled in place. Percy’s elbow kneaded into your stomach as he tried to set up Riptide early. Reflexively, your foot shot out at the feeling, and booted his knee cap. Your hand fell to his shoulder, urgently whispering, “backpack. Open my backpack!”

Alas, you both prepared too late. The tarp was thrown away by…human hands. Except the creatures they belonged to one-hundred percent were not human beings. A dozen faces looked in, with snouts like dogs, wet and slimy, and bodies of sea lions, all black and shiny.

“Demigods!” One growled.

“Eat them!” Cried another; from the back of group, there was a sound like nashers clashing.

Fortunately for you, they had also prepared too late. Riptide appeared in full form, and in one strong swoop, Percy decapitated the whole row. They disappeared in puffs of dust, sent straight back to where they came from.

“Back off!” Percy yelled, jabbing at another one.

You swung your arm back with your torch still in hand, and swatted one on the snout. It barked, but retreated, giving you the room you needed to clamber out of the cart.

You came face-to-face with a hunched over, crouching Telekhine with the features of a Doberman, snarling. Your shoes squeaked the further you backed up, right to Percy’s back. The back of his head very briefly knocked the top of yours. He had your back, and you most definitely had his. Very slyly, his free hand rose and made contact with your side, following the strap of your backpack and skimming across it blindly. What was he doing?

“New lesson, class,” said Percy. You clutched the flashlight harder, as the six-foot Telekhine began to advance, its fangs making an appearance briefly. The zipper of your bag jingled, and—ah, Percy was trying to get your dagger. “Monsters tend to vaporise when slashed with a celestial bronze sword. Just like this—!”

The Telekhines dove, driving Percy into gear. He abandoned your backpack, taking one firm swipe to the next set of monsters. They dissolved instantly, little clouds of ash and dust sending puffs in the air. The warm handle of Riptide was pressed into your palm straight after, and you dropped your flashlight. With both hands around the hilt, you swung the sword over your shoulder and back again like you would a baseball bat. The speed at which you did so enabled you to get a surprise hit on the advancing, taller monster, and you split him down the middle. Its essence went up like a bomb. The rest of the monsters were backed up, but you didn’t have long.

You threw the sword back to Percy blindly. Turning, he reached out a hand for yours. “Let’s go!” With eyes wide in anticipation and adrenaline, still furiously red in the face, he pulled you along. In tandem, you made a dive for the exit tunnel, where a door had been placed.

Bingo. Sliding into the safe space, you threw your body back against the door and held it in place while Percy’s deft hands made quick work of the wheel handle, spinning it until it locked. Monsters thudded on the other side, the sound like thunder in this winding tunnel.

Back in the open lava room, you noticed a couple of things that weren’t there before: one, four sea demons even taller than the rest, at least nine-feet; two, the statue and work of which they hammered away at in the middle of the room by the first bridge; three, the harsh language they spoke did not register in your mind. An old language, then. Old as hell.

“What are they making?” You muttered, trying to get a good look without exposing yourself. Sparks flew from the large piece of metal between them.

Percy sighed. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good. They were banished to Tartarus by Zeus for a reason. Now, I don’t like the guy, but I’m pretty sure he’d have a good enough reason for doing something like that.”

You’d nearly forgotten about the locked door at the end of the tunnel, until the creatures came falling through. Crawling over each other, they began to run towards you.

Percy grabbed you by the shoulders, sword dangerously close to your face. He’d never let it touch you, you trusted, but even the aura of it was unsettling so close to your skin. “Start running. Get a head start.”

You shook your head and scoffed. “Ha, no. We leave together.”

“We don’t have time to leave together!” He exclaimed, “I’m gonna hold them back while you get a head start. If you get to Hephaestus first, he might help us. Tell him what we found out, and I’ll be right behind. Got it?”

You liked to think, later, that the final look in Percy’s eyes was determination. It certainly seemed that way, storming bright, his mouth set firmly. You weren’t to fight a whole army with a flashlight and a dagger stuck deep in your bag with no time to grab it.

“Just go!” He ordered. You took a single step back, unsure, until he reached out with one strong hand and gave your shoulder a confident push. “I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”

The army advanced and by this point, the taller, grown ones had taken notice of what was happening. More of those came out of the walls, too, and the dark shapes from earlier finally paid attention to the two of you.

In one movement, not thinking at all, you threw yourself forward, and threw your arms firmly around Percy’s neck. He smelled like sweat and boy and dirt from being down in the maze for so long, but you didn’t care one bit. He was warm and solid and sure and here, and his free hand touched your back, before tugging on your shirt. You moved away, to see something not unlike real desperation on his face.

“Now go,” he ordered, one last time.

And you listened.

You made a run for the way you’d came, and the sounds of the forge were drowned out the further you ran away. At first, it was fine—lights like the metal ones of an old Cold War bunker lit your path. Nausea reigned, until you and your heaving chest took a break against a wall just for a second. You hadn’t gone too far, but the Telekhines weren’t here yet. Percy said he’d be right behind. You’d wait here for him.

Or you could go back.

Kneeling, you slid your bag from your back and unzipped it. Percy had moved the zipper not even halfway in his mission to get your dagger for you. It sat between your jacket and your packets of food. You pulled out a water bottle and sipped slowly. Shrugging your bag back on your shoulders, you waited a second on weak legs, trying to regain some strength.

The tunnel remained silent if you excused your laboured breathing. The lights on the ceiling began to flicker, dimming and brightening again, probably trying to move you along and change itself. It wouldn’t have been unsettling if Grover and Percy were with you, but they weren’t, and you felt completely alone in this maze despite knowing they were still down here too. You laid your hand on your forehead and ran it through your sweaty hairline, trying to wipe the remains of your overheating from your face. As you did, and slowly got to your feet, the lights flickered even more intensely.

That was just before the ground began to shake. At first it was a tiny amount of trembling, and soundless, beneath your feet. Its intensity grew in size pretty quickly, from a little shaking to full-blown rumbling, like an explosion was popping off and heading your way. You stepped back once, trying to make sense of the direction, and only looked up the way you came just as the lights went out silently. It was like a bomb exploded, or some part of the tunnel had blown apart. A fierce gush of wind blew, so forceful you had no choice in being shoved to the wall, hot air hitting you square in the face. Bits of debris and dirt were blown in your eyes, gritting and painful. Just as it began, it ended, and the sound of the maze changing again came through loud and clear.

Which left you with two bouts of knowledge:

One: Percy had definitely just been killed.

and Two: you were totally, utterly lost, without even a flashlight.

Standing in the aftermath of hot, diffusing air from the direction of the forges, breathing in bits of explosion, there was absolutely no denying that your best friend had just been blown to smithereens. Nobody survived an explosion like that. Nobody.

Even so, your mind turned on autopilot. What happened after the explosion was numbed and distorted, like looking through murky water and only half-awake.

“No,” you mumbled, “no, no, no. Not happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”

Horror began to sink in, and you felt suddenly extremely, permanently wounded. Percy was, without a doubt, very, very dead. You scarcely moved, scarcely breathed. Staring at a wall replacing what you thought was where you came from, but now couldn’t be completely sure, because you’d dropped your flashlight back in the blown-up cavern, and your best friend was lying in bits and pieces of body somewhere you couldn’t reach. The mind runs rampant in panic. All you could think of was blood, and bones.

You might have screamed. You thought you did. Your throat turns sore and raw, and you figure you’ve been screaming for a while in the darkness on your own.

How strange it was that Percy had been the only thing keeping you safe this whole time. Without him, you feel exposed even when nothing can see you. They can definitely sense you. You hear something coming, like a body being dragged along the ground, and decide now would be a good time to get up and go. But your hands and feet are numb and tingling, evidence of a panic attack. Your head swims without sight, and you can’t feel the wall when you touch your fingers to it.

Your feet hurt when they take step after step until you’re running, dragging your fingers blindly along the dark tunnel as some semblance of a path finder. The walls change, and twice you fall. It’s embarrassing, scraping your chin on brick, eating dirt. You stumble up stairs, walk through cobwebs and feel things crawling up your neck, and scream now and again out of sheer annoyance, sheer exhaustion. You begin to pray, muttering insanely under your breath to anyone who will listen: first your mom, and you beg her to forgive any doubts you had. Then you beg Hermes, the patron of travellers, to at least give you direction here. And finally Ares, because the only thing fuelling your body is determination to not die down here.

Someone has your back.

Just as you’re beginning to freak out again, you feel the wall begin to curve around, and dip. And…grow…lighter? And it is, growing lighter. There’s a glow coming from a door at the end of the tunnel, and you’ve seen this door before.

You’ve made it back to Hephaestus’s workshop in one piece.

You think about knocking. And then you realise how stupid that idea is, and burst right in.

Heaving, sweating, and rubbing your sore chin, you stand wilting in the doorway of his workshop. He’s hanging from the ceiling on some sort of platform, but jumps down when he notices you.

“Ah,” he cleared his throat. “It’s you.” Hephaestus raises his hand to his beard and pats at it, putting out a great deal of fire burning there.

“Percy’s dead. And Grover is as good as.” You swallow, and kick the door shut blindly. “I want a way out of here, and you’re going to help me.”

“Look at you, making all the demands!” He laughs. It’s bellowing, and it rumbles the room. “Little demigod. Get a hold of yourself. You’re getting tears on my floor.”

You flinch in place at his cruelty. “My best friend just died!” You yell out. “Percy’s dead, because you told us to do something. This is your fault.”

Hephaestus looks up from the screwdriver in his hand, to meet your eyes head on. It’s like tiny fires are burning there. “Hold your tongue, daughter of Athena. It’s unbecoming. And I didn’t kill the other one—whatever was in there did that.”

“Telekhines,” you spat. A gritty tear rolls down your cheek. “That’s what’s in there. Or, was. It’s all blown apart now. So we went there for nothing. I hope you know they’re all against you. Kronos’s army is rising, and they’re coming for you.” And I can’t say I blame them.

He paused, raised a brow briefly, and scoffed. “Demigods don’t scare me.”

“No, but Kronos does. And he’s still coming whether you like it or not. You killed my friend. So I have a request.”

Hephaestus threw down the instrument in his hand, colliding with a metal worktop and echoing somewhat off the walls. You cringe, but refuse to back up. “Look at you, demigod, making all the requests.” He pauses for a moment. “But I cannot deny you, I suppose. You did as I asked. You want a way home.”

“Of course I want a way home,” you seethed.

He cocked his head and huffed. “Go out of here. Follow the tunnel left, and all the way down. You’ll find your way home, daughter of Athena.”

Without a ‘thank you’ you find yourself marching out of his workshop, abandoning the door. You do as he says, and it feels ridiculously easy, hand on the wall again and sliding your fingers across to follow the way it bends. Left, and all the way down. Your fingers hit a bump in the wall, and that little bump instantly begins to glow dark blue.

It makes you think of Percy, but you have no energy left to cry with.

Hephaestus wasn’t misleading you, then. Stepping away from the hole opening up over your head, dirt caves in and crumbles around your feet. A dirty ladder begins to shake its way out of the dirt wall, all the way up to the new gap in the earth.

You hear voices, as you heave up the ladder. It’s short, and doesn’t take long to reach the opening at the top, where a hand has reached down to help you up, a face peering in—Clarisse.

Her expression is one of apprehension, and it’s as serious and firm as ever. Her muddy eyes flick over your face, and you imagine you must look a state. Your chin still burns with your ground collision, cheek smarted.

For a second, as she pulls you with a strong hand from the Labyrinth, she doesn’t say anything. You barely look at Clarisse, crawling out of the hole. A distance away you can hear voices.

“They’re all patrolling that way,” she grumbled. “Bit of a stupid move on our part. You’re lucky I was here, and not…” she trails off. You’re not quite short who you were lucky she wasn’t to be, because you can’t find anything in yourself to question her.

Instead, you shake your head. Clarisse pulls you to your feet, and you’re vividly aware of the smell of camp, strawberries and the smell of the trees. The air is a cold shock above ground.

Finally you look up. You meet Clarisse’s somewhat concerned look. She stares expectantly.

“Percy’s dead,” you swallow. Clarisse’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second, then everything falls from her face. “Grover’s gone. And I need to talk to Chiron.”

“Wait—” you stumble past her, tearing your arm from her grip. The world feels blurred. “They’re—they’re both dead?! They’re gone?”

“That’s what I said, Clarisse!” You snap, raising your arm to wipe your eyes.

“We all thought that you’d be fine down there!” She follows after you. “You’re—capable, at the least! I don’t understand!”

You walk quickly through the woods, tearing past groups of people on guard, and some kids playing by the cabins. Up ahead is the Big House, your destination. People call your name when they see you, but there’s nothing left to answer them with.

You wished you could smiled, walking into the house. You wished Grover and Percy were right behind you, laughing at something stupid as usual. You might have been greeted by your friends with cheers, quest completed successfully.

Murphy’s Law says anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. If you have a handful of opportunities of things that can go wrong, the one most likely to cause damage will occur. You’ve deducted that Murphy’s Law is charging your life.

So, you walk the creaking, fading steps of the Big House and along the porch. You thought of Percy at the very beginning of all of this, recovering on this porch. It made you think of returning here after Bianca passed. You throw open the door, bordered by white drapes, met with silence.

“Hey,” calls Clarisse. “Hey, look, I know how you feel. But we should get you to the med bay first. You look about to pass out.”

And you feel it, too. But you can’t rest until you’ve settled this.

Chiron’s face lights up when he hears you, standing in the doorway. Brown eyes warm and welcoming sadly fade, like he knows.

You choke on a sudden flow of tears, the back of your hand flying to your mouth. “He’s dead,” you tell him outright. “Percy’s dead.”

That’s the most important thing to tell. Not that you didn’t find Daedalus, or that you insulted a god down there, nor that you abandoned Nico. After all, it is the worst thing imaginable, in your eyes. All-consuming horror, taking over every inch of you. Your best friend, your longest friend, is dead.

“He saved me,” you whisper shakily.

There’s a lot of hush on camp, after that. The daylight was already fading when you came up above ground again, and it’s nearly gone now, the sky a dull, sad shade of dark-blue. Clarisse declared the time to be six o’clock in the evening exactly when you climbed out of the Labyrinth. You spend two hours going over everything in excruciating detail, from the second you stepped foot in the maze and the meeting with Hera, the blown-up forge, and what you saw. Everything feels strange after spending, as Chiron tells you, a week in almost complete darkness, with no way to tell time, in a setting altering itself every few minutes. The distant sound of laughing campers and the kids playing by the lake are long gone, as if the whole camp knows what has happened—maybe they do know. But nobody can feel the grief you feel, the struggle to really accept what happened. Logically, Percy is very, extremely dead and gone. Your heart is beginning something to change.

You don’t sleep well that night. Chiron writes down every little thing you say, and has Clarisse bring up some food for dinner for you. It’s kind, and unusual for her. She keeps her gaze lowered the whole thing you’re there, but she isn’t mean, so that’s something.

It’s nearly nine o’clock, and you’ve washed and dressed, ready for sleep in the spare room on the third floor of the house. There’s absolutely no way you can face company tonight—you’re drained completely, and know the second you hit the pillow you’ll be out. Nursing a cup of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows per Chiron’s sympathy, you settle at the table, swirling around the pink and white delicacies in your mug with a teaspoon. It’s a kind thought to make it for you, but you don’t need hot chocolate; you need to scream. You need to grab the nearest bat, and smash up the kitchen. You notice a rolling pin hanging from the wall…

“We need to talk about the maze,” says Chiron in a low tone.

It’s late and you want to sleep. “We already did.” You clink the spoon against the mug.

“It’s just…my dear, nobody navigates the maze like that. The way you described, coming back in the dark… Chris Rodriguez and Clarisse were down there for weeks, separated, and neither managed to find a way out alone. Someone found them. Alone, they might have been stuck down there for a lot longer than they were. They were the last people to go down before yourself, Percy and Grover. You walked alone, and found your way not only to the workshop, but back out of the maze again in one short go.” He pauses. “How did you do it?”

You swallow and breathe in order to ebb away the annoyance you’re feeling a lot of. You shrug. “I uh…I just knew what to do. Hephaestus told me which way to go before Clarisse found me but—well, I just walked the rest. Couldn’t see a damn thing.”

“You just knew?” He repeats. Raising your head, Chiron is frowning deeply. “To me, it doesn’t seem right. Put it this way, my dear—nobody has been able to navigate the maze like that since Luke.”

You slam down the mug in an instant on the hard wood table, spilling the contents all over the table, dripping to the floor. “Alright, so you think I’m working with Luke? Because I walked a couple of tunnels alone? If you really believe after my best friend was killed by the very people Luke is working with, that I’d work with that guy, your head needs a good tap, no offence.” You stand up swiftly, knocking the chair back. He calls your name but you ignore it and stomp up the stairs to your temporary bedroom.

In there, you lock the door, get on your knees, and pray. Your tears soak your clasped hands at the side of the bed. You get on your knees, and you beg.

I’ve added the song ‘everything in its right place’ by Radiohead to the capsize playlist on Spotify if you want to give it a listen! Figured it worked well with the end of this chapter. After all, these things are Fated to unravel whether our main gal likes it or not ☺️ the song absolutely hits me in the gut. It’s the epitome of ‘oh, it didn’t go the way you planned? tough. it’s meant to be this way’ and the realisation that things are falling as they should.

taglist:

@bl6o6dy @embersparklz @lilyevanswhore @rottenstyx @rory-cakes @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual @marshmallow12435 @lantsovheiress @distinguishedmakerpandapatrol @twsssmlmaa @gayandfairycore @padsfirewhisky @emu281 @charlesswife @jessiegerl @tojismassivemantiddies @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @nothankyou138 @obxstiles @mxltifxnd0m @cxcilla @itzjustj-1000 @sp00kcanwrite @randomesthings @fratbrochrisgf @prongsflower @bugszi

68 notes · View notes