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War carves soldiers out of children.
Trauma runs deep in the ridges of his fingers, the gnarled knots of his scars. It seeps down into his veins—it’s in his blood now. He prays to any god who hears that he will not pass down his suffering to his children. If he has the chance to have them, that is.
Percy’s last war, his only war, ended with Kronos. He was sixteen and weary with it. He carried age like a burden meant for Atlas alone. Yet he survived. One life-ending prophecy and he lived to tell the tale. He lived to love. He was luckier than most.
Then luck, squirming under his grip, fled after ten years of captivity.
He wakes up with nothing but Annabeth’s name on his lips and a pen in his pocket. He knows not of who he is or where he is—just her.
Annabeth.
He breathes out her name. He scratches his nails at his jaw, the faint line of stubble nipping at him. Who is she?
Everything, his mind supplies. Yes, he agrees faintly. Her name tucks itself under his ribs, its own hideaway. He will keep her safe there.
He counts to ten just to get his bearings straight and then he stands. Nothing looks familiar. Not even his own reflection. A stranger stares blankly from the blackened windows. He doesn’t know where to go, where to find Annabeth, but his feet point towards the sea. The water beckons him home. So he walks.
He treks for an hour, just as dawn melds into the night sky. Raiding an old shack, he finds some stale chips that he chomps down on for a pseudo-breakfast. It’ll have to do. He doesn’t find water, so he teases droplets from plants and guides it towards his mouth. He accidentally drains a plant whole and it wilts in front of his eyes. A strange feeling passes over him momentarily—a dangerous familiarity seeping into the marrow of his bones as a reminder of what he was created for. He frowns and pats the soil lightly and wills some of the surrounding water from the ground towards it. They’ll be okay.
When he feels the sea nearby, he senses something tailing him. They are not particularly quiet and he is not particularly loud, so he stops. The rustling stops too.
Without any thought, he uncaps the pen he’s been holding onto.
“Stand down, demigod,” a voice calls out, amused. “I am not your enemy.”
He turns around and he furrows his brows when he sees a wolf instead. She is far bigger than he expected, even taller than him, and decidedly less human. Her fur shifts and sways a russet brown, her eyes shining like molten moonlight. He holds Riptide—Anaklusmos, he thinks—with a steady hand. “You’ve got to try a little harder than that.”
“You’re an impertinent one,” she sneers, a hint of a growl in the back of her throat.
He grins toothily and twirls it easily. For some strange reason, he is not cowed by her. “I’ve been called that a few times before.”
He freezes.
“So it is true then. It seems you truly have retained some of your memories. Perhaps not all is lost.” She circles him, nose upturned and sniffing the air. The slightest hint of approval. “Put that down, boy. I cannot hurt you while you still bear the curse of Achilles.”
“The curse of what?” he asks and she pounces. He manages to throw her off with the hilt of his sword, but her claws find their way across his chest. He braces for the pain, yet nothing comes. She walks primly around him again as he swears under his breath.
He reaches up and feels nothing but skin and ripped cloth. Huh. That curse. That’ll be useful. He distantly thinks it has something to do with Annabeth, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. Just a glimpse: a hand outreached for his, a bright laugh. He was drowning, but even he knows he can’t drown. His only memories swim in contradictions.
“I’m beginning to see why she picked you.”
“Who?” He levels Riptide to her neck. “And who are you?”
“I am Lupa, protector of Rome.”
He points to their surroundings. “Uh, we’re not exactly in Rome.”
They’re near the San Francisco Bay, actually. Morning fog covers the Golden Gate Bridge enough to make him think he’s in a dream.
Lupa snorts, shaking her head. “You think too small. A shame you didn’t wake up near the Wolf House—these questions would’ve been safer to answer there.” She walks in front of him and he lowers down his sword. “You know you’re a demigod, do you not?”
“Sure.” He shrugs. It explains his affinity to water, also why he didn’t run for the hills like any sane person would do when faced with a gigantic, talking wolf. Gods and monsters and him. He wonders where she falls on the spectrum.
“Yet you do not remember anything else.”
He tries not to move. He doesn’t want to talk about Annabeth, doesn’t know why. She’s off-limits to everyone except him. He remembers her only in flashes. He needs more.
“Do you still hold memories of your wife?” Lupa asks.
He steps back, pointing Riptide at her again. “How do you know that?”
“So it is about her. Interesting, given… who took you,” she notes, tilting her giant head slightly. It’s kind of off-putting to see a seven-foot-tall wolf just staring at him like an experiment. “You wear your ring proudly, Perseus Jackson, as good men should.”
Perseus Jackson. Is that really his name?
His puzzled expression makes her laugh.
“How do… how do I—” He struggles to finish, to find the words. “Why can’t I remember anything except—”
He can’t say her name. He feels as though every memory will slide through his hands like water if he so much as speaks about her aloud.
Lupa merely stares at him. “You must go south. If you want the chance to remember her again, you must go south.”
“South is pretty vague,” he counters. He’s closer to the sea. It feels more like home than wherever Lupa wants him to go. Something about going south makes him go haywire. He feels wrong to even be on this coast.
“Hone in your senses,” she says. “All roads lead to Rome after all.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but she sniffs the air again, her ears pointing up. “I would’ve taught you more, but you seem well-equipped. You are not one of my pups that come to me. You’re grown.” Her eyes gleam. “A lone wolf lost without his pack. That’s a dangerous thing to be.”
Questions bubble up inside of him and he wants to ask them all but, with a giant leap, she disappears into the trees. Perseus cries out wait. It’s useless though; she’s gone.
He considers his choices: go south or go to the sea.
Annabeth or safety.
It’s not even a choice really. Riptide shrinks down into a pen again and Perseus sighs, tugging lightly on the tears Lupa made on his shirt. South, it is.
Monsters find him soon. Well, more like he finds them.
The closer he gets to wherever south is, the more he wishes he went the other way. He looks like a mess. Everyone who sees him crosses the other street and he can’t blame them. He’s probably not the craziest person they’ve seen, but with his bright orange t-shirt with text so faded he can barely make out the words, he might as well be a walking traffic cone.
There’s a Bargain Mart giving out free samples and Perseus is just hungry enough to want warm, stale food instead of cold, stale pretzels from a vending machine he raided a couple hours prior. From afar, the ladies who run the shop seem to have left through the back, so he shoves a few mini-hot dogs into his mouth. He doesn’t have money, but he’s pretty sure no one’s gonna eat the rest of these with the state of their almost empty parking lot. He turns his back to the cameras and hunches down, picking at the food more.
He’s chowing down fast when the ladies come back. He stills as his ears pick up a low hissing sound. They haven’t spotted him yet, but they stop as well.
“A half blood,” one purrs. “Strong one too.”
They sniff the air again, but Perseus already uncaps Riptide and widens his stance. Their hair hisses at him and he manages to strike one through the heart as she jumps across the counter. She explodes into dust and he quietly mourns the free samples, now tainted.
“That’s my sister, you demigod scum. Idiot, she knows better than to attack like that,” the other one growls, looking down at the dust. She locks eyes with him and her scowl deepens. She spits, “Of course. It’s you. Gorgon slayer. Haven’t you had enough.”
“Lady, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Her eyes narrow and she bares her teeth at him. “I will end you, Perseus.”
If he’s famous, or rather infamous, enough to be known by name wherever he goes, it doesn’t bode well for him. Still, he twirls Riptide just to show off. He grins. “You can try.”
The other gorgon is less prone to jumping the gun and instead lobs snacks at his face before she leaves the counter.
She catches him by surprise when she hurls the cash register at his face. He dodges it swiftly, but walks right into her claws. She looks dumbfounded when they don’t sink into his skin and he smirks. In a beat, Perseus slices her head off and coughs as the dust settles around him.
He blows air through his lips noisily and picks up a generic, black backpack and fills it up with essentials: food, water, and a pocket knife. He gives the pillow pet a cursory glance too and shoves it next to the water. He snatches a dark blue t-shirt from a hanger and goes to clean himself up in the bathroom.
Perseus grimaces as he sloths off the worst of the dirt and grime off of his skin. Throwing on his new shirt, he heads out and finds the car that the monsters apparently owned. It takes a moment for the letters to stop looking weird enough for him to read the license plate. FUDMIGD. Fuck you, demigod? Perseus isn’t surprised, but he chuckles a little.
He throws his bag in the passenger seat once he finally manages to get inside. He hot-wires the car—how he knows how to do this, he can’t say—and it stutters to life. He backs out from the parking lot and heads out onto the highway quickly, the little skeletons hanging off of the mirror clank together noisily.
Hone in your senses, Lupa said. Perseus rolls his eyes. Everything is telling him to get the hell out of dodge, but his memories of Annabeth taunt him. He remembers twirling a curly blonde strand with his finger and kissing her temple as he tucks her hair behind her ear; he remembers her younger and proud with it, a blue Yankees cap tucked in the back pocket of her jeans; he remembers burying his feet in the sand and pulling her close to his chest, swaying in the breeze. She is stitched into the lining of his heart, a mark no one could rid of him, not even himself. But everything else is locked away. He can feel it there, trapped in his brain, but he doesn’t have the key.
He twists his hands against the wheel and turns the radio on. “Should I Stay or Should I Go” comes through the speakers, staticky and low. He snorts. Typical. It’s like the Fates just love to tease. Just as the drums kick in double-time, he spots two monsters in the distance. The crease between his brows deepen. Are they the same—no. They should be reforming in Tartarus, not screaming at him to give him their car back. Fuck it all, they still have their Bargain Mart uniforms.
Perseus revs up his engine and presses down on the gas. The car speeds up and he flinches as they bang into the front of the car, exploding into dust. He switches the windshield wipers on and scrunches his nose up at the mess of their remains. With two fingers, he gathers up the remaining water and wipes it through the leftover dirt. He flicks his fingers and the window’s clean again.
He sighs and turns the volume up as the next song comes on. The faster he goes, the faster he’ll get answers. Gods above, he needs answers.
The car shortens his journey to a quick drive down the interstate freeway.
Instinct tells Perseus that danger’s near, so obviously he’s close enough to wherever the hell Lupa sent him running towards. He’s near Oakland Hills, not that the name brings up anything for him. The gorgons follow him, but they take a bit longer to reform being scattered in the wind and all. Still, he doesn’t have much time.
To his left, the gorgons are scrambling down the hill by foot. To his right, a chain-link fence separates the highway from the cozy suburbs and, not too far off across the highway, he sees a maintenance tunnel guarded by two… kids? Dread creeps up his legs, settling in his stomach. Something tells him he’s the enemy here, even to those kids.
“Camp is just up ahead,” a croaking voice says. Perseus jumps and looks down. She kind of looks like a hippie, except older and probably doesn’t know what a shower is. Her tie-dyed dress of rags seems like it’s falling apart at the seams. She sits cross-legged near a bush, her spindly finger pointing at the tunnels. She gives him a gummy smile. She’s sure-fire dead meat for the gorgons. Fuck. “Come. Would you let a poor woman die here alone?”
Not that he ever would, but something about this woman feels off. Gods disguised themselves all the time; he doesn’t know how he remembers that little fact, but he has an inkling she’s not some poor, old woman. He'd be foolish to leave her there.
His eyes catch sight of the gorgons who’ve managed to shed their uniforms and spout wings. Gods, can this day get any worse? Perseus asks the lady, “Who are you?”
“Hm,” she thinks aloud, “call me June.”
The woman cackles. He prays she isn’t just another monster. He would like to live to know more about the woman he married.
“June, okay, so what do I do?”
“Carry me to camp, of course.”
“Carry… you.” The highway’s not that busy, but between dodging the gorgons and cars going 90 on a 60 highway, he’s less likely to survive dragging June along. He heaves a sigh. Well, if he goes, he goes.
June points at her swollen feet, purpled and bulging and honestly kind of gross to look at. He’d hate to know what those suckers felt like to stand on. “Surely I can’t manage to escape them like this, child. Just take me across the highway, through the tunnels, and across the river. Simple as that.”
Perseus’ grip tightens on his sword, then loosens minutely. River means water and water means strength. He can do this. As long as the possibility of getting the rest of his memories back remains, he’ll do almost anything.
“Will my memories return if I go to camp?” He doesn’t even want to take a step closer, but the gorgons reform just as quickly as he stabs them and he doesn’t have enough water to keep himself afloat. If the answer’s no, he’ll take June and run towards the sea himself.
June taps her chin and hums thoughtfully, like they have time. Perseus wants to tear his hair out. “Eventually.”
Eventually? What the hell does that mean? Well, it’s better than swimming in the ocean back at square one.
She continues, “Be warned. That pesky curse of yours will have to go. You will know pain and misery, demigod, worse than ever.”
Not if he can fucking help it. This curse is what’s keeping his head firmly planted on his shoulders.
In a split second, Perseus picks up the old woman. She’s lighter than he thought she’d be, but he barely manages to find his way across the first few lanes of traffic without a barrage of cars honking at him. June laughs loudly in his ear. The gorgons fly above his head and he books it towards the tunnel doors.
One gorgon hoots, sneering. “A goddess? My, oh my, what a treat. Stheno, look at what we have here.”
A goddess. Of course. He knew he was right. Perseus feels a distinct need to turn to his side to tell Annabeth about it, but the force of her absence shocks him more than he leads on. He purses his lips and keeps running.
“If the demigod scum dented the car, Euryale, I’ll send him to our patron in pieces,” the other mutters angrily.
June gets heavier the closer he gets to the door. He just grits his teeth and yells out a warning to the kids to back away, but one nocks an arrow and aims for the sky. The kid barely looks like he just entered high school. Perseus doesn’t turn around, but he hears a shriek and a high-pitched laugh. Damn. The girl, younger and so short that he marvels at the length of her weapon, gestures at him to hurry and readies her spear.
“Frank, those are gorgons,” the girl yells, throwing her spear. It lands, but the monster reforms just as quickly. This is wrong, so wrong on so many levels.
“Will the door hold them?” Frank asks, worried.
June titters. “Of course not. Onto the river we go, Perseus!”
“I’ll hold them off,” the girl says quickly.
“Hazel, no—”
Perseus breathes harshly. She’s just a kid. Fuck, she’s a child. He can’t leave her alone like this, can’t leave either of them alone. Sweat drips down his face and he turns to them. “Get back.”
“No, we can do this. You need to take—”
“I’m not running away when you guys can get hurt,” he snaps, grunting as he holds June with one arm instead of two now. “Now move.”
They step back instinctively and Perseus raises a hand and closes his eyes. There’s a water line close by and if he can just—his eyes snap open and the water bursts from the pipes. A solid hand forms and he encases the closest gorgon near him.
He twists his open palm up and squeezes it into a fist. The gorgon explodes and he sends the dust-filled water scattering across the highway. Maybe that’ll take them longer to reform. He does the same with the other gorgon and when both are slain, he lets the water drop.
Perseus turns and the kids gape at him.
“Where’s the river?” he asks.
“Um,” Frank says. “Follow us. We’ll take you to camp, sir.”
Sir. That’s a new one. He’s been called demigod, half blood, scum, and a name he doesn’t even recognize. Perseus just nods.
He doesn’t have the energy to really take notice of the fact that the tunnel bleeds into mosaic tiles. June feels heavier than how she looks and she makes his arms ache. She’s a couple of limp sacks of potatoes and Perseus is her human wagon. Great.
Light floods his vision and he almost stumbles at the sight. This camp doesn’t look how he imagined it. Something’s not right with what he thinks camp should be and what’s in front of him. He just runs after Frank and Hazel, legs burning and lungs screaming.
The river stops him in his tracks. It feels alive, dangerous even. It’s current is swift, but it’s not too long or deep. He’s wary enough to not cross through it like they do though.
“That’s the Little Tiber,” says June sympathetically. “It flows with the power of the original Tiber, river of the empire. This is your last chance to back out, child. The curse of Achilles that you bear is a Greek blessing. You can’t retain it if you cross into Roman territory. The Tiber will wash it away.”
“There has to be another way.” For some reason, he feels like his curse is related to Annabeth.
“Tell me, Perseus,” she begins, “have you ever known peace? You can choose to stay here, but the future is waiting for you on the other side.”
Peace looks awfully like Annabeth, he thinks. One golden flash of a memory slides through his mind like a photo reel: Annabeth’s hair tumbling down her back; a smile pressing up against his lips; her arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him close; a soft whisper of his name—she calls him Percy. It feels less foreign that Perseus.
She’s peace. She’s home.
And Perseus is sick and tired of ultimatums. He has a feeling if he comes back to his wife, bloodied and bruised, he’ll break her heart. He doesn’t want that. He needs to come home safe, needs to show her he’s fine.
“Perseus, you need to cross the river,” Hazel yells.
He clenches his jaw. He’s not losing this curse. The Little Tiber is still water and he can control it. He won’t let it touch his skin.
The gorgons barrel through the tunnel and a squad of kids in armor—do these people not have any damn adults around?—march into formation. It’s eerily creepy. Children soldiers, ready for battle. His stomach drops at the thought.
Perseus reaches out and tugs at the river. It resists him, but he wills it to his liking. Water is his territory. Whirlpools form around the gorgons and they cry out as he smashes them into each other, the whirlpool breaking apart their dust. He can see the particles trying to reform, but he sends them down the river.
He waits until he can’t see them any longer and thinks to the water: don’t move.
The river quietens down.
“Perseus,” the goddess warns him.
He grounds his teeth together and parts the water. It struggles, but he drags him and June across the dry land. The moment he passes to the other side, the water roars back and almost bites at his heels. He just flicks the water away. Problem solved.
Everyone stands still. Perseus freezes too.
June hops out of his arms. “Thank you, Perseus Jackson.”
An older woman adorned in purple regalia chokes. “Perseus Jackson?”
He doesn’t know what to do with that. But he’s too busy looking at June as she turns into a seven foot tall goddess. She glows slightly and there’s a mature youthfulness to her face now. The woman who spoke his name like she recognized him kneels immediately and the others follow. Perseus probably has a death wish, but he is not kneeling for the goddess he just carried through oncoming traffic and murderous monsters.
“Juno,” Hazel breathes.
The name doesn’t ring a bell.
“So, Juno,” Perseus says blithely, “can I get my memories back?”
Her stern face pinches. “In due time. That is, if you do well here at camp. Memories of your wife will return, along with everything else of course.” She glances down at his ring. Her expression turns thoughtful. “You’re quite devoted to her. Perhaps there is hope for you yet.”
He purses his lips. Not that he expected to magically get his memories back the moment he stepped inside camp, but he actually did expect it. Sue him, okay? Gods are real. Is it too much to ask for some memories back?
“Romans, I present to you Perseus Jackson, the son of Neptune. For months he has been slumbering, but now he is awake. His fate is in your hands. The Feast of Fortune comes quickly, and Death must be unleashed if you are to stand any hope in the battle. Do not fail me!” Those are Juno’s last words before she shimmers and disappears.
The woman who looks about his age steps up towards him. She eyes him warily and he sighs.
“Look, I don’t remember much,” he says. “Do we know each other?”
She pauses. “No. I am Reyna, praetor of the Twelfth Legion.” She’s lying, obviously.
Her titles mean nothing to him, but they sound important enough.
“Listen,” he says, looking back at the child soldiers. “I really have to ask. Is there a reason why your army’s full of kids.”
Reyna’s lips thin. “War comes for us all, Perseus. Children are not spared.”
“We’re not at war,” he bites back.
“I don’t know where you’ve been, but war never stops for people like us.” Demigods.
Perseus shoves his fists into his pockets, his right hand bumping into Riptide in pen form.
“Come,” she says, tilting her head towards a building on the far left. “You will be questioned.”
He weighs his options. Juno herself said ‘doing well’ at camp is how he’ll get his memories back—how to get Annabeth back. Perseus looks up and gives her a sharp nod.
Time to figure out what cause is worth erasing most of his memories.