Chapter Text
Perseus loves the sea. He loves the salty-sea smell of it and the feeling of being submerged under the water, and having the pressure over him-- in a sense, it was a source of comfort to him.
Olympia had one river, the Elpeus, which stems from a ravine on the lower banks of the mountain that the kingdom resided on. He knew it existed, but had no idea where it was; so it was complete fate that he ended up there, knee-deep in the water, his royal garbs scrunched up to the top of his thighs so they wouldn’t get wet and his shoes discarded on the shore behind him.
He’s alone, until he isn’t.
Percy doesn’t have to look to know that it’s Prince Apollo who stands next to him, having felt the warmth radiating off the man, whereas Percy was as cold as a corpse.
“You’re leaving soon,” Apollo says it like a question, but he doesn’t phrase it as one, making Percy wonder if he knew it was a statement but couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.
He feels like that a lot, too.
“Yes... I am,” he says after a moment of mouthing the words silently. “It feels as if it has been centuries since I’ve been in Atlantis.”
“A week, barely,” Apollo laughs. They’re quiet for several seconds when the Olympian prince knocks their shoulders together, throwing his head back, gesturing to the shore. Percy frowns at the thought of leaving the water, but follows nonetheless. Apollo sheathes himself of his chlamys, settling it on the sandy floor for them to sit on. “Tell me about Atlantis, will you?”
Percy smiles, “It’s beautiful. It is surrounded by water and beaches, and it is always the right temperature, never too cold yet never too hot. Ironically enough, Atlantis is freezing outside, very unlike Olympia. I do not think you would like it very much.”
“Well,” Apollo hums, and even though Percy is looking forward, he knows Apollo is looking at him as he talks. When Percy glances at him teasingly, Apollo looks away from him, drawing in the sand. “I’m sure there there must be some exceptions, something that I could find and that I could love there.”
“Perhaps, but the challenge is finding it and tying it down,” he shrugs. “Atlantis is big, though not as big as Olympia is. It has wide courtyards and the pavilions are columned to perfection. The buildings are built of pearl and sea stone... they’re white, but in the sunlight they gleam like rainbows. Because it is usually dark there, the outdoors are decorated with glowing pearls to light up the city.”
“There are mosaics everywhere,” Percy exhales. “They are quite beautiful.”
Apollo goes suddenly quiet and Percy turns his head in confusion, and his breath hitches in surprise when he sees that the prince is once again looking at him. “What?” the Atlantean laughs, suddenly nervous. He was sure his face was steaming red.
“No, nothing.” Apollo smiles. His next words are so hushed that Percy cannot hear half of it. “I just could not imagine anything more beautiful than you.”
“Pardon? What... what was that?”
“Nothing!” Apollo laughs, rendering Percy’s face an awful red.
“No, seriously, I didn’t hear you, what’d you say?”
“It was nothing, Percy, don’t worry!”
Five days before Percy has to return home, somebody suddenly knocks on his door. He frowns and goes to open the door. Behind it stands Prince Niccolò of Tartarus, youngest son of Emperor Hades.
The Empire of Tartarus was the only remaining empire as far as the sea stretches away from the horizon. Emperor Hades and his wife Empress Persephone control several countries, such as Tartarus itself, Elysium, Asphodel and the Fields of Punishment.
Percy had heard that the Fields of Punishment had been so underpopulated that the Emperor started to use it as a prison for war criminals.
Most were scared of going to Tartarus, scared of its rulers, so it was ironic that their children were all so sweet and kind.
“Hi,” Nico smiles, it’s small, but it’s there and it makes Percy smile back in almost-shock.
“Nico!” he says with a blink. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m here too,” his older half-sister, Princess Hazel, waves at him with a grand smile.
“And me,” Princess Bianca, Nico’s older sister, chimes from behind her siblings, taller than the two of them.
He had met Nico and Bianca when they were respectively ten and twelve and he was thirteen at a party at Emperor Hades’ palace in Tartarus about five years ago. Apparently, the emperor hadn’t wanted the public to know about his youngest children, considering the harsh backlash he had gotten when he announced the existence of his children Crown Prince Zagreus and Princess Melinoë.
So, the party was exclusive to royalty, so people could be properly introduced to Princess Bianca and Prince Nico before the public knew. Nico was small and tiny and clingy while Bianca was tall and proud and distant.
They had regarded Percy warily for the good part of five minutes, but when Percy had asked them if they wanted to join their table (which was really the kid’s table, but whatever) the siblings had instantly warmed up to them.
Princess Hazel, although she was in fact a member of royalty, had not met Percy in Tartarus or in Atlantis. In fact, he had met her at the City of New Rome on an excursion with his family when he was sixteen. Percy had squinted far too hard at her, seeing far too much of Nico and Bianca in the slope of her nose and far too much Hades in her dark eyes that she told him everything.
Apparently her father, who just happened to be Emperor Hades, had met her mother, Marie Levesque, and had an affair with her unbeknownst of Empress Persephone which resulted in Ms. Levesque ending up pregnant.
Fearing the consequences of his own infidelity, Hades admitted to Persephone that he had cheated on her. Fortunately, she reassured her husband that she knew that the affair meant nothing to him and it was a mistake. Despite that, Marie raised Hazel until the day she died in a freak accident.
Hazel told him how she had been living on her own for a while now, not knowing how to contact her father.
So, he had helped her out by sending a letter to Crown Prince Zagreus, whom he knew would direct the message to the emperor. Barely a month later, Hazel Levesque officially became Princess Hazel of Tartarus.
“Oh, wow, you’re all here?” Percy gapes, though its quickly replaced with a grin when Hazel tackles him with a hug. “Hey, Haze.” When she lets go of him, he puts his hand on her shoulders, “How’s Frank doing?”
Praetor Frank Zhang, or just Frank to those close to him (but, Big Guy to Leo, who constantly teased him up until Frank had completely changed his physique, suddenly strong enough to pick up a carriage with four Poseidons inside), is one of Prince Ares’ warriors. They had a working theory that he was one of the prince’s bastard children, like Clarisse La Rue.
“He’s doing great,” Hazel smiles, a faint redness in her face. “He’s been spending a lot of time training the new Roman recruits alongside Praetor Reyna, so his stress levels have been over the roof. But other than that, he’s been good.”
“That’s awesome. I haven’t seen him nor Reyna in a while,” Percy shrugs. “I hope the Twelfth Legion has been okay after the last war.”
Percy himself had been on the frontlines against the forces of the previous empress Gaea when she attempted to rise back to power.
She had been Empress of Olympia back when it was an Empire and not a bunch of separate kingdoms, then she and her husband were dethroned by Emperor Kronos and Empress Rhea, who was dethroned by King Zeus, King Poseidon and Emperor Hades.
(Eighteen and already a two-time war veteran. He could feel Prince Luke’s blood seeping into his clothes, his body growing colder and he could hear Annabeth’s gasps of pain as she bled out, hand clamped tightly on her side, trying to prevent any blood from spilling out, trying to prevent her death.)
Percy wipes his strangely moist hands on his pants after he hugs Bianca and Nico tightly— just sweat, not blood. Sweat.
“How’ve you been, Neeks?” Percy asks with a grin.
Nico shrugs, “Okay. Will has been working himself dry more than usual, so we haven’t had time to use our daily lunch breaks as dates, since he’s been spending them asleep. But, all in all, doing okay.”
Percy knew that was the most he’d get from the teen for today.
Doctor William Andrew Solace is Nico’s boyfriend and one of Prince Apollo’s top doctors despite him being only a few years younger than Percy himself, his rank only below Doctor Asclepius, who’s his right-hand man.
Will had been the commanding doctor during both the Titan and the Giant War, nursing everybody he could see and ordering other doctors to do the same efficiently while the rest of them fought. It was because of him and his healing team that there were a lot less casualties on their side than there was supposed to be, considering they were expertly outmatched.
“That’s great,” Percy smiles. “Have you been sleeping okay?”
“God, what are you? My doctor? My boyfriend?” Nico scowled, as if those two weren’t the same person.
He snorts. “It’s great to see you guys, but let’s get back to my original question. What’re you guys doing here, anyways?”
“Well, King Zeus invited our dad to come here for a visit,” Bianca says with a frown. “We were supposed to arrive on the same day as you, but we ended up getting derailed. We spent maybe a week at a neighboring kingdom while waiting for our chariots to be fixed.”
“At least you guys are here now,” Percy tilts his head and offers them an easy smile.
Nico tugs his sister towards him, the same way he did when he was four years younger than he is now. “Wanna go play Mythomagic with me?”
“Nico, not right now--“ Bianca says dismissively, but cuts herself off when Hazel gives her a heavy glance. She sighs and smiles at her younger brother. “Sure, let’s go.”
The two make their way to the carpet in front of the bed Percy has been sleeping in. Hazel frowns at him.
“I heard about your engagement,” Hazel says, alost pityingly. She squeezes his shoulder, but her eyes don’t meet his, focused on watching Bianca and Nico play. “I’m so sorry.”
He scoffs, rolling his eyes and finding the floor underneath him quite interesting. “It’s nothing to apologize for, I really should’ve seen it coming. I mean, I did find it weird how my etiquette teacher was suddenly talking more and more about royal marriages since I turned eighteen, but whatever.”
“Do you know who’s your soon-to-be beau? Or belle,” Hazel asks after a moment of awkward silence between the two of them, filled only by the sound of Nico’s mindless chatter of explaining each card.
“No, not yet,” Percy sighs. “Though, my dad said that King Zeus was hoping it would be Annabeth, though, you know more than I do about her whole thing with Piper.”
The princess nods.
“At least I have the right to choose who I’d like to marry,” Percy continues with a half-hearted smile and a shrug. “And I know now that I’ll have to be married by the time I’m twenty. I just... don’t know anybody well enough to have that sort of commitment with.”
A pearly smile and blue eyes fill his thoughts, accompanied by several flashes of golden hair and white garbs.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sure that anybody would be lucky enough to have you,” Hazel tells him reassuringly. “You’re worth way more than any diamond, Perce. Trust me. Me, of all people, would know that.” Percy gives her a genuine smile and she grins. “Plus, if they were to hurt you, you know the Seven’s got your back.”
“Leo would use my broken heart as an excuse to set somebody on fire,” Percy laughs, throwing his head back.
“That little shit has been begging for it ever since he found out fire was practically his best friend,” Hazel groans. “You won’t believe the scare he gave Frank the other day, he nearly lit his clothes on fire!”
“Poor guy,” the prince sighs. “I remember how much those two hated each other in the beginning.”
“Yeah,” she nods. “Then, Leo nearly died. I’ve never seen Frank switch up so quickly. Suddenly, it’s all ‘hey bro’ and bear hugs. It’s sweet.”
Percy smiles. He knows that even if his future husband or his future wife ends up being a total asshole, he’ll have his friends behind him, ready for battle.
He’ll have Leo going in, firecrackers in his hands and maybe in between his teeth, whooping as he launches explosions.
He’ll have Frank raining down arrows with his trusty bow.
He’ll have Piper, Annabeth and Jason running in, guns blazing (more like swords, gladius and daggers sheathing).
Not to mention, himself and his family.
Even if he’s lonely in a loveless marriage, Percy knows that he’ll never be alone as long as he has his friends with him.
(Percy thinks of Apollo, and wonders if he would defend him as well. Percy knows that he himself would.)