Chapter Text
One fine day in May as the setting sun turned the clouds red as blood, three children and a young satyr ran for their lives from a pack of hellhounds. The hill they climbed was not the biggest mountain humanity had ever scaled but to the four of them, it felt larger than Mount Everest. For you see, they had been running for a very long time and they were very tired.
“We’re almost there!” The satyr called encouragement. On his nimble goat legs, he could have outdistanced the hellhounds in a sprint. Unfortunately for him, this was an endurance run. However, seeing home so close gave him one last burst of speed. “Just over this hill!”
None of them saw a sneaky little shadow that appeared in the path of the small blonde girl and wrenched her foot out from under her. It was there only long enough to do the deed. There was a loud crack, a cry of pain, and the girl fell.
The eldest girl in the group scooped the injured girl into her arms. She struggled on. The younger one was slender and small but exhaustion made even her weight feel ten times more than it was. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other. “Is Percy far behind us?” She asked the girl.
The little girl looked back and said, “He’s right behind us.”
This was the truth in the loosest sense.
The young boy named Percy was in fact behind them but the distance grew between the fleeing trio and the boy. Percy had stopped running when he saw the little girl fall because his heart was good and pure and he wanted to buy them some time. He withdrew a pen from his pocket and uncapped it. The pen grew and shifted into a glowing bronze sword just right for a boy Percy’s size.
Alone, the boy faced the pack of hellhounds.
Alone, he fell to the sharpness of their teeth.
Thanks to his sacrifice, the two girls and the satyr reached safety. The elder girl set the younger one down. When she noticed that they were missing someone, she screamed, “Where is Percy?!”
As the salty blood of the boy spilled into the earth, it was known by all gods and goddesses that he was dying. When the boy’s father learned of his son’s fate, his grief and rage made the oceans swallow ships and the earth quake powerfully. He went to the hill and the hellhounds melted into the ground with terror at his mere presence. The god scooped up the broken and bloody remains of his son. “This will never happen again.”
As the god spoke, Percy’s blood flowed and multiplied until it was a river that encompassed the entirety of the sanctuary he didn’t make it to. His bones became stones in the river, his hair became the plants that grew from the sand, his flesh became magical black fish that would let no one except demigods cross the river.
And that was how everyone remembered Percy Jackson, the seven year old son of Poseidon.