#maybe this girl's name is Coral 🤷‍♂️ oceanic name sounds sweet makes ppl go what the fuck when they meet her in person lmao

[happyk44]

what if Percy had a Roman Older sister stormy seas kid who, after learning/realizing that Percy was crushing his nature, decided that it was her holy sisterly duty — make him blossom, to surrender to his stormy sea.

she uses various tactics of mental manipulation, presses with all her might, awakens triggers, adjusts stressful situations.

And in the end, in tartarus, Percy [whose consciousness is pretty exhausted by her] still can't stand it and takes Achlys under control.

only unlike the canon, Annabeth fails to appeal to his humanity and Percy is happy to torture Goddess....

When they return through the gates of death and Percy has recovered at least a little physically, his sister comes to him.

She smiles, her smile is almost natural, almost soft and sincere, as if she really loves Percy as her little brother.

And She hugs him.

perhaps her hugs from the outside seem tender and loving, but Percy feels that he is drowning, he feels that he is lost in the sea, he is completely helpless like then in Alaska and he is terribly cold, her body seems colder to him than Alaska.

he feels that he is completely at her mercy.

She briefly presses her lips to his forehead, her bitter salt burns his wounds.

— my younger brother, — she says in a lively, warm voice, — congratulations, you have finally blossomed.

Percy snuggles up to her and cries.

She got her way.

he broke down.

[my God, I got carried away too much..]

Ohhh that's great and painful 🙌

It would be difficult for her to achieve in canon since Percy was only in Camp Jupiter for like. A day 😂 But 🤔🤔 maybe as a travel buddy out of the Wolf House to California? Works better, I think, since Neptune's stormy children would struggle with teamwork due to the social aspect. Cohort members are reluctant to team up with them as well, because they'll often leave teammates behind or be unbothered by capture. So I imagine they're often kept out of Camp Jupiter/New Rome, or, back in the day anyway, regulated to reconnaissance due to its solitary nature.

Amnesiac Percy stumbling across a girl who is just like him and finding kinship. From your description, she's one of the stormy kids who doesn't have SzPD, but carries enough traits of it that she ditched her journey from the Wolf House to Camp Jupiter. Would rather be alone near the ocean than surrounded by people forced to engage.

She senses a suppressed storm inside him. She knows he's different. She can feel it, but can't tell what. Assumes that he favours fresh water versus the storm, and decides that it won't do. Any idiot can turn salt water to fresh water, pull clean water from sludge, sense drinkable liquid nearby.

Dangers are everywhere. He needs to embrace the storm to survive. Fresh water is fine, but he only needs enough for himself. Worse comes to worse, he can just yank it from monsters, from people. In order to do that, he needs to let go and let himself be swallowed by the uncaring depths.

Percy doesn't remember anything but Annabeth. Even past her, there's a gut feeling that other people - forgotten others he tries so desperately to push through the haze to remember - wouldn't be happy if he became nothing but violence. His sister's words make sense as they travel. She does show him useful things. But she scratches at this itch he knows he's been keeping back, even if he can't remember why.

Something in the back of his head calls out for kindness, reminds him to be good. He doesn't recognize the voice, but it's familiar to him, warm and loving, and it's what make him hold back. Why he simply draga her away and apologizes to whoever she ticked off, instead of baring down into a fight like the adrenaline in his veins pumps for.

He knows pissing people off is not intentional with her. Making kids cry in the bus terminal isn't purposeful. It's clear she knows certain social niceties. However, the grand scale of them is beyond her. Combined with her general indifference, she often says or does things that carry unintentional way. Her brows will furrow, like she doesn't know why they're angry or upset.

She is a blank slate most of the time. Any expression shown is confusion or mild annoyance. After just a few days of travelling with her, Percy knows her apathy is not an edgy facade. He's sure she could watch him be tortured and feel nothing. That she might sit by and observe if it kept her entertained. Unless it turned on her, or maybe if she grew bored, it wouldn't stop by her hand.

He doesn't want to be that person. Or at least the voice in his head, the image of Annabeth, the sense of connection in the pit of his stomach don't want him to be that person. Still, he's sure he likes feeling things. Having a favourite burger is better than his sister's "it's just food" opinion because she finds no enjoyment in eating. Feeling has to be better than endless apathy.

Sometimes, though, he's not sure about that. When there's a dam in his chest he's constantly building up. His lack of memory makes knowing why he has to hold his emotions behind the dam hard, but he tries anyway. He knows that the dam is important to Annabeth, important to the foggy other two. He knows the dam is what keeps him good.

His sister isn't stupid though. She's been around people long enough to know how to get them to do things for her. She's not often manipulative, never truly has a reason to be so, she just doesn't care about people enough. But it was useful when she was younger and needed to get people to go away.

The thing about being the perpetual wallflower is that people talk without noticing her standing in the shadows nearby. Secrets abound. There's minimal to no pleasure in the outcome - aunt and uncle screaming because of dual betrayals, other little girls throwing themselves at each other with fists - but it's better than being unentertained and still feeling nothing. At least this way she can focus on something, other than her persistent internal silence.

She knows her brother's lack of memories will make him easier to train. While the girl will be useful in her aim to get Percy to relax, Annabeth confuses her. She's never understood what love is, or why it's important. The word always felt wrong in her mouth. Luckily her mother was understanding. It was spoken very little to her, and her mother never needed any word back. Only other family members demanded the response. They didn't care for her empty tone.

Her vague sense of admiration and gratitude for her mother's defense of her abnormalities was likely the closest she would ever get to feeling love.

Still, she know the emotion is important to people. Friendship, families, lovers - all types of connection that people crave. They will bend easier to the whims of those people. They will soften themselves. They will toughen themselves. They will change.

Both her and Percy are as unrelenting as the sea. They are as stubborn as the bull sacrificed in their father's honour. Forcing Percy's hand is much harder than she'd like. Anhedonia creates a lack of internal motivation to follow through on her goal, but luckily she's been good at forcing herself to do things she has no drive to do.

Turning Percy's gaze away from the inland water, now bottled and caged for vast consumption, to the untamed and thriving sea is the first true goal she's had in a while. Where other kids dreamt of becoming astronauts or doctors, she simply shrugged away the question.

Directionless, the teachers had said every year until she'd been taken to the Wolf House. Doesn't show her full potential.

Certainly those words carry no weight now.

They have closed in on California by the time she sees the first twitch in Percy's gaze. She stands by while he fights. While smaller and seemingly younger monsters do not engage with her, monsters are an unavoidable nuisance. She learnt young how to get rid of them. Bursting blood splattered across grass and trees.

She was five years old when the newspaper of her town reported on spontaneous combustion after she'd been threatened in the park. The Mist made the monster fall in and out of view. When it had exploded, it looked like a little old lady. It was in the aftermath, when people kept asking her if she was okay, and other kids were crying out of shock and fear, that she first realized she was not normal. Both as a mortal, and a person.

Unfortunately for everyone else, she didn't care.

Percy is panting. The monster is fast. Whenever Percy gains the upper hand, it dives towards her. In a rushed follow, Percy loses the upper hand and she steps away from the fight. The cycle continues repeatedly. Percy knows her well enough by now to realize she will not participate until threatened. She wonders if he's upset by that. Other people would be. The kids she had been journeying with after the Wolf House had been.

But Percy never shows bother with her. Perhaps it's his unbreakable skin. Without scratches left behind, it must be easier not to care if she helps out or not.

Nonetheless this battle has carried on longer than it should. Displeasure burns across Percy's face as he chases the monster away from her. In her peripheral she can see another monster coming up. It ignores Percy and the clash of metal to creep closer to her. Partially hidden by the shadows from the trees, it keeps low to the ground.

She's not afraid of dying. Her death is incoming with every passing day. Dying now or later means nothing to her.

Percy disagrees.

She doesn't flinch when monster blood and flesh hit her. Percy's enraged yell echoes in the air, even after he's clenched his teeth shut. His arm falls languid to his side, the tip of his sword scraping the ground. His own monster is nothing but blood on the ground and blood on his person.

The thing they never say about monsters is that only a clean kill instantly dissolves into dust. Pulling their blood outside their body leaves behind a messy corpse. Over time it will dissolve. The skin and all still attached to it goes first, then any guts that had been severed. Then the blood.

She cocks her head as Percy stares at his bloodstained hands. Depersonalization is not unfamiliar to her. She often does not see herself in the mirror, does not recognize the sound of her voice. It's mild. At least she thinks it is. She can reocognize the confusion in Percy's face. The way he flexes his fingers like he's seeking acknowledgement that his hand is his, fingers following his commands.

It never works.

But she doesn't tell him that. This is the first stage of accepting the sea. They were not made for dry land, yet they were banished to it. Forced to walk with spindly legs instead of swimming with strong fins. Smooth skin instead of strong shells. They are not supposed to feel at home in these bodies.

"You should do that next time," she says as Percy clenches his fist and drops his arm. His eyes have cast away, and he does not address her when she speaks. "It will go faster."

He snorts. "Or you could help?"

She cocks her head. "Why? I'm not afraid of dying."

He twists to face her. Upset at her words is clear in his face. Her words hold back her true reason. Yes, she is not afraid of dying, but he is afraid of her dying. He does not want it. And that makes him weak.

I met your step-mother once, her mother had said weeks before the wolves came. They were sat at opposite ends of the living room. Her mother was reading a book. She was doing a puzzle. The TV was on, background noise soft in her head. I asked her why she was worshipped as goddess of the depths, when she was already titled as goddess of the sea and salt water. Surely, the sea included the depths. Why the specification?

She did not respond. It was unnecessary for her mother. Whenever someone spoke of how long it took for her to first speak, her mother simply rolled her eyes and told them that her daughter took after her father. Speaking was not important to him. Of course it would be unimportant to her.

He drowned me, she said, her mother went on. It is what the ocean does. If it loves you, it will keep you. She was once sunlight and warm, but then she took his hand and he dragged her down to darkness and crushing pressure.

Her mother had laughed. It was a melodic sound, one of the few things that let her feel. According to her mother, her father felt the same way about his lover's laugh. A recluse by nature, his children were fewer than others, and only ever born to those who could ignite something in him. He didn't need to know what the feeling was. He just had to know he was feeling.

Did he want to drown you? she had asked.

Her mother snorted. No. If he had, I would have run. Drowning is death, my little guppy. When you find what you love, you will kill them to keep them. When you find what you hate, you will kill them to make them go away.

She had pushed a piece into place and considered her mother's laugh. Can I drown you?

Not yet, guppy, her mother said. But one day, you may.

She knows that Percy does not want to drown her. He does not covet her the way their father covets their step-mother, the way the ocean clings to skin even as people surface and depart across warm sand. He wants her to live because he is fresh water survival and miraculous rains in the heat of summer. For that, he cares.

The ocean is an uncaring thing. It drowns what it wants, even if those who drown, who are dragged to the depths where the world is frozen and dark and crushing, fight valiantly, fight desperately. It kills without mercy. It doesn't care if you suffer in the choke of water in gasping lungs, in the slow sink of vessels, in the salty residue and reflective surface that burns skin under the light of the sun as they float aimless across the waves.

With the bursting kill, the bloody residue, Percy is one step closer to understanding that.

"Did you know they still feel things?" she asks. She pulls the blood from her face and lets it splatter against the mess in front of Percy. "They don't truly die until they are fully dust, and have returned to Tartarus."

He twitches at her words. But he doesn't grimace the way the others had when the daughter of Mors told their group the same thing. He isn't destroyed by her words.

He sighs, a little sad. "Sucks for them."

She thinks that if she were normal, she'd smile. The sadness was minimal. Not like her journeying group. They had been disgusted by her actions. Then distressed by what was said afterwards. They told her to keep the kills clean, unless there was no other choice. Even monsters didn't deserve to suffer endlessly, they had said. She didn't understand the point. So what if they suffered? The battle was won quickly. They could carry on.

They had complained about morality. Complained about ethics. Complained about the blood on their clothes.

It was rude. She was not immoral. Although minimal, she has beliefs. Ethics were followed, even if she did not understand the point. Did she not help them when they needed it? Even when their loss would mean nothing to her. And blood was easy to remove. Another thing she helped with despite her indifference to their state of being, pulling blood off their clothes and skin and hair, just as she was doing with Percy.

He scratches the back of his neck when she's done. "It is easier," he says slowly. Even as she begins to walk off, he stays where he is. His eyes are trained on the blood on the ground. "Isn't it?"

"Yes," she says. "Messy, but fast." She shrugs. "And we can remove the mess, so it's inconsequential."

He pulls his eyes away and caps his sword. It slips into his pocket as he jogs to her. "Right." His voice is soft. His gaze is distance, unfocused. His words aren't meant to be heard. Without thought, they are spoken aloud as he finally begins to acknowledge his true nature. "Inconsequential."

--

Traveling through Tartarus sucks. Both Percy and Annabeth are suffering, but Percy knows their suffering isn't made equal. For starters, Annabeth isn't a child of the Big Three, and is not related to any water deities. Where the river water sucks for both of them, water is water. Relief exists in each gasoline sip. It's disgusting, but in addition to healing his wounds, it wakes him up, gives him a little more energy. Annabeth only becomes tired with every healing but nasty swallow.

But Annabeth doesn't have to struggle with his sister's voice in his ears. With the memories of killing monsters with a firm blast of blood and guts. Once they had been accosted in the street. They drew the monster away into an alley, then Percy reveled in the drench of blood across his skin. There was something invigorating about the wetness.

The homeless man they had woken up when they ran in stared at them in horror. He didn't move or make a sound, but flinched violently when Percy turned and caught sight of him. And for the life of him, Percy couldn't care. He just pulled monster blood off him and carried on.

He was aware, though, that his indifference the man's horror was not the same as his sister's. It was only after his memories came back that he realized. She was Neptune, the cruel and uncaring sea. He was Poseidon, the vicious and tortuous ocean.

She had no emotions. Or rather could not feel them inside her. But where her default was apathy, Percy's was anger. Poseidon had always come across as kind when he and Percy interacted, but Percy knew enough stories about his dad to know he was not the best person. Like Neptune, like his sister, Poseidon didn't care about other people. At least not people that didn't matter to him.

His sister had left him when they closed in on the Bay Area. She didn't say why, but she often didn't give reasons why. She just wished him well, a social rule she had probably memorized, and left.

It was a weird goodbye.

You don't want to drown me, she had said before she left, when they had sat down in the grass of a park to share one final meal together.

He had squinted at her, burger halfway to his mouth. Well, yeah. Why would I?

She stared at him. Her looks always made him feel exposed, as though he was a fish she was cutting open and gutting. Was she seeing things in him? He knew that he could see things in her. She was an open book. A sketchbook though, pages empty. A few of the pages had drawings, marked in pen.

What kind of book did she think of him as? Sometimes he felt like a novel. Middle grade language, and simplified, hinting at harsh topics but never following through, never thinking about them again. Like his want to die, a desire that is rapidly growing the longer they spent in Tartarus. It's harder to push back those thoughts than normal. But even more so, the anger. The rage.

Judging from his sister and himself, that is the difference between Neptune and Poseidon. Neptune is the uncaring sea people speak of. He will drown you, he will let you live, he will float you on a piece of driftwood with no goal in mind. If you fight to live, if you give up and die - it doesn't matter. It means nothing to him. What happens is what happens.

Poseidon is the moody ocean. One minute gentle waves, the next a hurricane. There is no warning. He laughs at toddlers splashing with floaties bigger than their heads and he laughs at drowning passengers fighting to stay afloat in the cold icy waters. He attacks when he's angry, and he can turn angry on a whim. He'll torture you. He'll break you. Then he'll turn soft and happy at the sight of a goldfish in an appropriate tank. People do and don't matter. It depends.

Neptune is without feeling.

Poseidon feels far too much.

The further they walk through the hot painful plains of Tartarus, the more Percy wishes he couldn't feel anything at all. Rage bubbles up in him like a geyser. Annabeth is suffering. It's his fault for not noticing the web, it's the fault of the crew for not helping pull her up. It's the fault of the gods, of the fates, for putting her in this situation after she had already helped save the world the year before.

Anyone else in her cabin could've suffered. It's not like they did as much as she did in the war, suffered as much as she did. Luke was her big brother, her first crush, someone who protected her. She had to watch him change. Had to deal with the constant betrayal. Had to watch him die in front of her.

Why couldn't it have been Malcolm?

Stop, Percy thinks. You're angry, but you're still a good person who doesn't wish harm on other people.

Is he? He doesn't feel like it. After his sister left and he later carried Juno into Camp Jupiter, her influence moved to the back of his mind. It was easy to be good with Hazel and Frank, easy to be good on the ship. But now, with his anger rising fast, the dam holding back the flood creaking under the weight, she was back, echoing in his ear subtle words and reminders.

At the time, he hadn't put much stock into the weird things she said. Now her cryptic montone speech chimes in his brain, like a successful download on a computer. Feel the air, the humidity, she'd say. How does it serve us?

The humidity is a weapon, a threat. The thick water in the air weighs heavy on other people, leaving them sluggish, tired, but keeps him upright and strong. He tries to utilize that one, in the heat of Tartarus, but the exhaustion makes it difficult.

Not all the echoing is useful. Some tempt him to break, to let the dam fall apart. The ocean doesn't hold back. Ships that challenge the sea become crushed beneath its waves. A spill flows as it wants, unbothered by what it leaves behind.

It hurts. He wants to hold back, to let the ships he destroys float on the surface. If he spills, he wants to stay put, be swept up with one swipe of a towel. But does he? The dam holding everything back pushes against his chest, a reminder of the truth.

He doesn't want to hold back anymore. When the Arai came down with their curses, the first slash of their sharp talons against his skin had him wanting to shove them down to the very bottom of the ocean, hoping they stayed alive to suffer as they were crushed into shattered bones and squashed organs. He wants to spill, to flood. To open the dam.

He has morals, he knows the ethics of the world. The rules. But deep inside, his morals are fluid, and the rules don't matter. Nothing does. He feels lawless, beholden to no one and nothing.

Except for the girl stumbling at his side. Except for his mom waiting for him to come home. Except for his best friend pleading for him to stay safe.

They're the only ones that matter.

You don't want to drown me, his sister had said.

He finally understood what she meant.

After this was all over, when the world had righted itself once again, he was going to drown Annabeth, drown Grover, drown his mom. Keep them far below where no one could find them. A protective breathable bubble. Limited space, no way to be out of sight.

In the meantime, the want to drown every threat that approached them is strangling him. He wants every enemy to be obliterated into blood and guts, wants to watch them suffer for even daring to come near them, daring to threaten his girlfriend.

The itch he'd been holding back for years is relentless. Closing in to the front where he cannot escape it. It would be so easy to scratch, he knows it would. But Annabeth. Grover. His mom.

I am a good person, he thinks with gritted teeth as Akhlys argues with Annabeth. The goddess is easy to manipulate. It's not a shock considering her purpose. Still, her agitated shrieks directed at Annabeth makes his blood boil. They need her help. So Percy adds a patch of duct tape to the cracking dam inside him, and repeats, I am a good person.

They follow her warily to the opening of the void of endless night and shadows. The sight of Annabeth withered like a mummified corpse finally exposed to daylight cracks the dam even more. He hastily does his best to apply more tape, caulk, cement paste - what he can to patch up the holes before they leak.

His blood is cold. His stomach turns knots. Dread, despair, distress - it all drips into the threatening waters inside him. The raging waters kiss the edge of the dam with every forceful push of their tides. The threat of a spill burns him.

But he's out of supplies. He can't make the dam higher. He can't patch any more holes.

He grips Annabeth's hand, and makes a joke. It doesn't land as well as he wants. The hole it leaves behind is dug deeper by Akhlys' response, and then again by her cackling betrayal. He wants to run, to keep the dam steady, stay moral, stay ethical, stay good.

But the itch burns now, a rash at the front of his skull. Riptide makes no effect when he slashes at her. His sister's words echo in his ear. The feeling of bursting blood. The ease of it.

Annabeth charges at the goddess, screaming right in her ear. Akhlys startles. Using the distraction, Percy ducks away as best he can. Smoky legs are difficult to maneuver. His sword is useless. Annabeth is faster than him. It's amazing. It's infuriating. It's confusing.

A sea of emotions drip-dropping into the dam. The edge of the dam wets. Little beads of water forms against the concrete. As his mind vibrates ways to defeat the goddess while he's effectively out of commission, Percy trembles.

He yells out uplifting words. Enraged the goddess turns on him. Poison sap flows all around him. The fumes burn his nose. His head turns fuzzy. The itch is the clearest thing left behind. So loud and demanding. The beads of water on the lip of the dam grow bigger.

Water is water, he thinks. The ocean is salt water, but hadn't Percy controlled fresh water before? Controlled lakes, streams, rivers? Controlled blood? Water is liquid. The ocean is liquid.

Poison is liquid.

He had never focused on the water in the monsters. It had just been an explosive burst the first time, and he carried it over each time. Built up the feeling, focused on them, and let go like Mentos in a soda bottle. He hadn't thought much of it. More focused on the complex feelings it left behind. But that's what it was, wasn't it? The water in their bodies, the blood in their veins, the liquid he could sense.

Offhandedly, hs sister had mentioned they could sense water when it was nearby. Sometimes he did, after gym when he was tired, sweaty, and thirsty. His gut pulling him in one direction to his water bottle tucked into his backpack, or the water fountain. But there were background senses. Other gut feelings.

Poseidon is god of the sea. But people see the sea as water, and water is water.

As a crack in the dam forms, chips of concrete falling into the abyss, the growing tide of poison around him stopa. Then violently recoils back towards the goddess. She shrieks and stumbles away, but it encircles her like a cage.

You can't bottle the sea, Percy thinks as he stands. How dare you fucking try.

The goddess chokes on poison fumes. The dam cracks some more. The beads of water on its lip wobble precariously now. They've grown to reach both sides of the dam's concrete lip. His heart hammers as he watch Akhlys gag and crumble to the ground. His sister's voice echoes in his ear. The itch burns.

And finally one droplet wobbles over the edge of the dam and falls down in the abyss.

Everything shatters.

Akhlys suffocates as he pushes her gagged drool back into her mouth and drown her throat. Her dripping nose plugs back up. She claws desperate at her chest. The poison pulls up her thighs and stomach, lancing around her chest. It burns away the fabric of her clothes, leaves behind thick welting wounds.

He gives her a repreive of breath.

Then starts again. Poison flows through veins. It wraps around her lungs, it replaces her golden blood. The ichor flows fast out of her. Distantly he can feel Annabeth grabbing him, can hear her beg him to stop, but the sound of the flood drowns her out.

Why should he stop? Why shouldn't he drown her? Why shouldn't he rake up the water pressure of the blood in her veins and watch her bones be crushed? Why shouldn't he break her bones and destroy her muscles by pulling out the blood inside them? Why shouldn't he fill, her lungs with mucus so each torturous breath he gives her is as painful as the suffocation?

He takes hold of every possible source of liquid, anything that has a speck of water inside her body and turns it on her. The itch quells with every forceful flow of anger out of him. The flood destroys her.

Good. If she wants to be misery so bad, she should know firsthand what suffering feels like.

He doesn't stop, even when it's so clearly over. He toys with her shattered body like a dolphin with a blowfish. But eventually he relaxes. The flood has turned into a gentle trickling stream. The dam begins its rebuilding.

He exhales slowly and turns to Annabeth. Concern hits him fast. To anyone else, it's be emotional whiplash but for him, it's just how he is. As moody and ever shifting as the sea.

Dried tear tracks stain Annabeth's deathly appearance. Even her empty eye sockets are welled with tears. Her hands clench his arms, nails digging into flesh. As he fusses over her, her hands detach slow. Her arms fall limp to her sides. She doesn't flinch or push back when he pulls her in to a tight relieved embrace. She doesn't say anything, even though he can tell there's so much she wants to say about what happened.

But she holds him back just as tight.

Percy clings to that like a lifeline.