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“I’m like the Greek King Arthur,” Percy says. The slur to his voice and the flush to his face make Poseidon wince. Percy smiles, vague and hazy.
“King,” Percy repeats.
“Of course, little king,” Poseidon says tenderly. He is weak enough to curve a hand around a cheek, framing wan features. Pale, bloodless skin leached of all vitality.
The water laps at Poseidon’s legs. No waves dare to form as Poseidon cradles Percy in his arms. He does not want to let go.
“Annabeth…said…” Percy begins laboriously, “heavy…lies…the…crown.” He exhales on the last word, a soft sigh. His eyes flutter shut.
Oh, Percy...Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. No Annabeth here to correct him. Only Poseidon and Percy in vast swathes of water.
Poseidon stares down at the slow, inconsistent heave of Percy’s chest. Millennia upon millennia but pain never changes. He does not do Percy the disservice of closing his eyes. He stares at Percy as he lets go.
For a few seconds, Percy floats on the water. He always had a buoyant soul, Poseidon muses. Hardship could never weigh him down for long. Yet, he watches Percy begin to sink, drawn under by indeterminate, inexorable forces. Poseidon does not wish to familiarize himself with this section of ocean. He cannot afford the temptation. He lets Percy sink.
It will be millennia before Percy rises again.
Poseidon has more children and he almost hates himself for it. He does not hate his children but he hates himself for wishing they were different. The years pass by but Percy does not fade from his mind. He should fade, one child out of many but Percy was the best of his children, he confides to the sea. All that power and yet his heart had remained clear.
Percy is still alive, slowly healing from divine wounds. He will not awaken for millenia, Poseidon knows for certain. Percy had refused godhood, of living up on high and everlasting in one state. Yet, Poseidon could not give up his mortal son, especially when his divine wounds would bar him from Hades.
The wound was not a physical wound. It was souldeep, almost severing Percy free from his mortal shell. Had Poseidon not been there, Percy’s soul would have dissipated into nothingness, the exact configuration never seen again. Percy would not have died. He would have gone into nonexistence.
He hopes Percy will forgive him.
Sebastian was supposed to be named Percy, short for Perseus, but then Hermes came down from up on high and told his mother otherwise. Or at least that’s what his mom says. Personally, he thinks he got the better end of the deal. Perseus is a big name to live up to. Son of Zeus, y’know, who beheaded the Gorgon.
When Sebastian arrives at Camp Half-Blood and starts making new friends, he tells them to call him Sebas, sort of like Sea-Bass, for short. One of his new friends, Mark, a little bit older and a little bit more tired in the eyes, laughs awkwardly.
Mark says, “We don’t say the s-word around here anymore.” He has a smile stretched taut over his face. “Or the o-word.”
Eddie jumps in, slinging a companionable arm over their shoulders. “Bodies of water are a no-go here, man,” he says. He smiles too.
Sebastian doesn’t know if he should laugh and smile too. It's kinda a weird situation so he ends up with a twitchy mouth and an aborted chuckle.
“Why not?” Sebastian asks.
Mark stops smiling. “Haven’t you noticed? The water levels are rising,” he says.
Sebastian laughs, a nervous reflex. “Yeah, that’s, uh, called global warming,” he decides to say.
Eddie stops smiling too. “C’mon,” he says, “even you gotta know there’s more to it.” His eyes flick upwards to a world up on high.
“Pos—” Sebastian begins to venture.
Mark and Eddie begin to talk over him in an uncoordinated mess.
“No, no—”
“Don’t—”
Sebastian stops. Okay, Camp Half-Blood is weirder than he thought. Are demigods, in general, just super weird or what?
“Don’t say his name,” Mark says severely. “He’ll drown you on dry land.”
Sebastian nods dumbly.
“You’re thinking of the wrong Perseus, Sebastian.”
“Then who?”
“What did you do with your son?”
“Which?”
“Don’t play coy.”
“Do not dare to command me. I was the second.”
The drift of sea foam and the susurration of water.
The time after Percy is the erosion of peace.
“He died for Zeus,” the demigods say.
All bitterness and blasphemy.
“He died a hero,” some of them say.
The implication of inevitability.
“He died,” the gods say.
Stark.
“My son is dead,” Poseidon says.
Cold.
As sea levels rise, so too does Poseidon rise in power.
Percy Jackson gains power of his own.
Perseus Jackson…
...calm waters….
...safe travel…
...grant us bravery…
...help us…
...save us…
...grant us strength…
...Perseus Jackson.
“If Percy Jackson hasn’t woken up, then it’s probably not too bad,” Mel jokes. She pays for the joke with a dodge from a monster’s claws.
“I would not want to be alive when he wakes up,” Alice mutters. The same monster lunges for her but a powerful strike from her sword momentarily stymies it.
They look at Poseidon as a fool, deifying his slumbering son. They tell him, “You’ll lose your power to a sleeping boy.” They do not linger when his face darkens.
Zeus comes near. An odd seriousness flattens the curve of his mouth and dims his arrogance. He says, “We were old long before the first human came to be. We must not lose ourselves.” He does not look Poseidon in the eye.
“Am I so awful,” Poseidon says, “that the loss of one child will ruin me? When I have lost so many already?”
Zeus looks at Poseidon for a long moment. “We are gods,” he says.
He leaves.
Poseidon watches his retreating back.
“I want to be with my son,” Sally Jackson says. Her hand squeezes gently around her daughter’s hand. She does not look her daughter in the eye. She stares at Poseidon.
“Sally,” Poseidon murmurs, either to agree or disagree.
Sally does not let him. She clenches her jaw and looks at this god, whose appearance has never changed and yet something remains different about him. She does not care for his grief, not now when she will inspire grief.
“I am staying,” Sally says. “I won’t go to the underworld.”
“Mom...please,” her daughter whispers.
Sally squeezes tight.
Poseidon sighs.
He looks so old, Sally muses.
“I can make no promises,” Poseidon concedes.
Sally smiles.
She closes her eyes.
It’s like falling asleep.
Yet some demigods say in many parts of the world that Perseus Jackson is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Poseidon into another place; and demigods say that he shall come again, and he shall win in our time of need.