Chapter Text
Kim Taehyung was almost 6 when his mother went mad and he met his father for the first time. The man had suddenly appeared and, without any explanation whatsoever, had taken him to a camp south of the Ulsan province, right along the coastline and nearing Busan. It was a beautiful camp, he had to admit— the various buildings had a hanok and minka style to them, the sprawling strawberry fields filled the air with a sweet scent, the distant sound of rolling waves was calming, and the children there were kind and fun, if not a little weird. Taehyung liked weird, but he didn't like being separated from his mother and being taken by a father he had just met. The trip from the hospital to the camp was a blur in his young mind, and before he even knew it, his father was already handing him off to another man. Uh, man-horse… person.
Anyways.
That was his first memory of Camp Half-Blood.
The barely-enough-to-be-called-a-greeting greeting he got from his father was apparently the god (oh, that took a while for his little brain to process) in a fairly good mood. Chiron, the man-horse— centaur, he called himself— had shown him around and gave him a crash course on a part of his life he had never known. His father was Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fertility, festivity, and a few other things. The camp was a place where demigods— the children of mortals and gods— were safe and were trained to defend themselves when they left camp. All demigods had a certain skill or attribute that comes from their godly parent, some demigods had stronger gifts than others, and few even had some sort of godly blessings bestowed on them. The stronger the demigod, the more monsters they attracted, especially if they were a kid of the Big Three— the brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Some kids only stayed for the summer while some were year-rounders for different reasons. The separate cabin-houses represented each of the 12 Olympians and a few of the minor gods, and the children were assigned to each house depending on their godly parent. There were a lot of activities and training and curfew and magical creatures and things Taehyung had only seen in cartoons and heard from the stories his mother had told him.
Ah, and that was another thing.
Apparently, it was his powers that made his mother go crazy in the head (not on purpose and not by choice, of course, though he'd come to realise that he didn't have get to choose a lot when it came to god related things) and he had to stay in the camp year round to train himself or become monster lunch. He reacted to all of it like any 5 year old would— cry a lot about not being able to see his mom before asking the kind man if he could play with the shiny swords the older kids were using.
He didn’t hate camp. In fact, he actually really loved it. The circumstances of his stay there, however, were a constant guilt he carried, its baggage getting heavier every year as his mind finally came to somewhat understand his situation. His dad was usually at camp too, so at least he had one parent present. Well, semi-present. Between the sudden council meetings he was suddenly called to and his grouchy personality, Dionysus was actually nice to his children— that is, nicer compared to the other campers, meaning he could tease or bother his dad and only get a glare or some slight verbal lashing instead of being fried to a crisp on the spot.
When he was 10, he met his half-brother, Min Yoongi.
Being the youngest one to ever arrive at camp, Taehyung was used to the doting attention and affection the older campers gave him, even the ones who were wary of him were at least polite. He treated them like siblings, of course, but there was a difference because he finally had a brother he was actually related to. Yoongi was a few years older and had been an only child before he came to camp, so the beginning of their relationship was a bit rocky considering there was a lot of adjustments on both ends, but Yoongi had quickly fallen into the role of older brother soon enough and had become an even fiercer protector of the younger Dionysus kid than Kim Seokjin, one of the older campers who had adopted Taehyung on sight.
Park Jimin was dropped at camp when Taehyung was 12 and they were attached to the hip immediately after their first meeting and a discussion on dumpling fillings.
Jung Hoseok and Kim Namjoon arrived in the summer of Jimin’s own arrival. The former was quickly besotted by Taehyung’s brother and the latter quickly became the target of Seokjin’s affection much to the mixed annoyance and amusement of the older’s siblings.
Through the years, Taehyung had seen campers come and go, some returned and some didn't. He took every loss as his own, considering that they were people who he had grown up with and who had taken care of him, and there was one particular loss that had changed his life— for better or worse.
Kim Taehyung was 13 when he went on his first quest.
Dionysus went on a rampage (a contained one, considering his powers were slightly dampened, but disastrous nonetheless) when he heard of it, saying that he only had 2 kids and that he was not about to send one to his death. Taehyung appreciated the concern, but there was nothing he or anyone, god-turned-kinda-mortal or otherwise, could do when the quest was a personal request. An Aphrodite kid who had died on a quest a few months prior had taken Katoptris, the knife that once belonged to the infamous Helen of Troy, with them on their journey. The love goddess claimed that since it was one of her own that had lost it, then one of her own should find it again and take it back to camp since 'the blade was a lense of truth, murky as it is' and that 'such truth in the hands of the wrong creatures can quickly turn visions into reality, no matter how horrific'. She never specified which of her children should go, but that wasn't the issue. The issue laid in her final instructions.
"The child of madness must come along. I suspect his area of expertise will be needed."
Dionysus had gone up to Olympus himself and had gone sharp tongue to sharp tongue with the goddess who was born even before the king of the skies, a creature of the golden age in her own right, and had returned even more enraged than when he left yet less unwilling to allow Taehyung to go.
"Petty Miss Seafoam has decided to meddle once again, but the issues that would arise without her meddling would be a bigger headache and an absolute pain of the ass to deal with so you better come back alive, boy, or I'll visit my uncle's realm just to make sure you'll reincarnate as a very unfortunate dung beetle for the trouble you'd put me through."
That was that.
Seokjin had quickly taken initiative as the representative of the Aphrodite cabin and leader of the quest to ensure the safety of the Dionysus child. They brought along an Ares kid named Seojoon to complete their group and then they were off to retrieve a knife, appease a goddess, and avoid the wrath of a god.
Taehyung didn't have a lot of memories of the outside world, but he still remembered how his mother's work forced them to move from place to place, leaving their suitcases rarely unpacked, so he had seen his fair share of cities, countrysides, and desolate areas. What he did not remember then that he was suddenly confronted with was the amount of monsters that apparently lurked in every corner and every shadow of every place. It was easy to retrace where the dead Aphrodite kid had gone with the help of the map their companions had given to the three, a large X marking the place where they had died. What was not easy was getting from point A to point B without a whole lot of necessary detours.
They eventually found the damn knife in a den of a hydra. As strong as Seokjin’s charmspeak was and as physically good Seojoon was with weapons, the hydra was not going down at all. Taehyung was defending himself from the creature's tail and failed to see the large claw that swiped at him, leaving long, deep gashes down his left arm. The bracelet his father had given him when he was younger broke and clattered onto the gravel. The hydra's tail came swinging back towards him and sent him flying, a pained yelp tearing through his lips as his back made hard contact with the wall of the cave. The sound made the other two boys pause, as did the hydra.
"Taehyung-ssi!"
"Tae!"
Taehyung had his eyes squeezed shut, his uninjured hand gripping the other. The feeling of blood flowing down his skin was sticky and wrong and nauseating and painful . There was poison mitching with his blood from the hydra's claws and it was burning him from the inside out. He had never felt anything like it before. In his hysteria, he yelled out.
"Just die already!"
There was momentary silence around him before the sound of growls and roars filled the space once again. He heard his companions yelling, but when he managed to keep his conscience from leaving, the words they were saying were quite confusing.
"What in Hades is it doing ?!"
He barely managed to open his eyes to see the carnage. The hydra heads were tearing each other apart, slamming into each other with large maws attacking its own body. The three demigods watched as limb by the limb the creature finished itself off. Confusion made way for cheer and then panic.
"Jin hyung, watch out!"
Taehyung saw everything happen in slow motion from afar. In its thrashing, the hydra's tail had harshly pounded against the walls. A large crack quickly webbed all across, reaching towards the ceiling. Another hit from the tail and cement and dust began crumbling until a large part of the ceiling finally collapsed— right above where Seokjin was nursing his bruised side. In the split second it took for the portion of the wall to meet the ground, Seojoon had rushed to the other boy's side, shoved him away, before being buried beneath rubble. The hydra disintegrated into gold dust just a few seconds after. Seokjin's screams and cries were the last thing Taehyung remembered before the pain finally pushed him into darkness.
He had woken up a few days later, alive in a hospital in Daegu instead of being a corpse somewhere in the outskirts of Gyeongsan. Seokjin had cried and hugged him close to his chest when he opened his eyes, but had quickly grown quiet when the younger had asked about Seojoon. The local nymphs had apparently already helped in retrieving his body and with the damage, they were forced to cremate his remains out of respect. No amount of ambrosia could have saved him, Seokjin had said, since he had already stopped breathing. The ambrosia had saved him , however, but had he been given anymore, he would've burned from the inside. Literally . Seokjin was forced to bring him to a hospital to patch up the rest of their injuries.
“The nurses and doctors were of course concerned about a kid and a teen coming in covered in wounds and blood and all that and,” Seokjin looked towards the door. Following his line of sight, Taehyung found himself looking at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her features were constantly shifting, her hair length growing and shortening and the hue of her eyes never one colour or shade. Her clothes went from goth to boho to vintage to everything in between. When she smiled, it made Taehyung forget his grief for a second and he felt his heart beat a little faster. When she spoke, her voice was a literal chorus that blended into a breathtaking song. “My darling was in a bind and I was nearby, I decided to help you two gorgeous little ones out.”
Swallowing, Taehyung did his best to bow despite the slight throb of his side and him being in bed. “My lady.”
“Oh, none of that honey.” Aphrodite waved a hand as she sashayed to the chair on the side of the hospital bed. Raising a hand to run it through her son’s hair, she directed her smile at him for a moment. “Sweetie, you think you could grab me a cola from the cafeteria and leave me to talk with Taehyung for a second?”
Seokjin looked like he wanted to object, not wanting to leave the younger alone, but he also didn’t want to go against a goddess and his own mother, so he hesitantly nodded before leaving. Taehyung felt like shrinking and preening at having the sole attention of the goddess. Aphrodite stayed quiet, obviously waiting for Taehyung to speak first, so the boy mustered whatever confidence he had left in him, took a deep breath, and said what had been plaguing his mind since the quest was issued.
“Why me?”
The goddess tilted her head. There was no condescension or pity in her tone. “Who else, then?”
“I… did you know… that would happen?”
“I knew that you had the skills to fulfill the task I gave you, yes, but I did not foresee the misfortune that would befall your companion. I admit, my son had my blessing and you had your father's, should I say… less accessible powers, when it comes to what his children usually inherit. I also admit to having occupied Ares’ attention for the past few months,” she glared at the small snort the boy let out, “So I have some fault for him neglecting his child a little.” More than usual went unsaid.
“But why me specifically? Why not one of the older Ares kids with, with their strength, o—or a Hephaestus kid with their big weapons, or—”
“Or literally anyone else other than you?” The goddess sighed, eyeing the flower in the vase on the table by the window. She flicked her wrist and turned the sunflower into a rose. “Because your father is being stupid and stopping you from reaching your full potential.”
Taehyung clenched his hands underneath his blanket and fought back frustrated tears. "Dad may be a bit difficult at times, but he does it for our sake."
"Your father locked away your powers to save you from being shipped away and possibly killed."
That made the boy freeze up, his heart stopping. "What?"
Aphrodite's smile turned a little cruel. "You're a particularly strong demigod, especially considering the fact that you're not a Big Three kid. Do you even understand what you could do?"
"I broke my mother and indirectly killed my friend, what good does having these powers do for me?"
Colorful eyes narrowed at him, making the demigod shrink back in fear. "You can control insanity, child , do you know what that means? It means you're closely connected to the Fates more than any other regular being, even more than most gods. You have some sort of access to a person's thread, which means you can twist it, unwind it, you can even sever it— all that with one thought, if you really wanted to. Zeus wanted you to train with the Fates themselves under his supervision, but your darling father feared he'd sooner kill you than let you learn how to use your powers properly, so he made a deal and gave you that bracelet and then, well, this."
The boy let all the information process in his head for a few beats before burying his face and letting out a muffled scream. When he finally calmed down somewhat, he lifted up to see a teenage boy in place of the goddess, an amused glint in his ever-shifting eyes. Taehyung frowned.
"Uhm, a bit off topic, my lady, but why do you keep shifting?"
Aphrodite arched a brow, leaning closer in interest. "It's a part of being the goddess of love and beauty and whatnot. Tell me, Taehyungie, who do you see?"
"Uhm, well, at first you kinda looked like this actress I saw in a movie my friend made me watch, but now you kinda look like some edgy teenage guy."
The grin on the goddess' face was unsettling, regardless of how beautiful— handsome?— it looked. "Interesting. Very interesting."
Very unsettling.
The goddess stood, stretching her arms elegantly, and let out a sigh. "My gratitude goes to you and my son, and my condolence, of course. I'll make sure that you two make it to camp safely. Is there anything else you'd like to ask while I'm here?"
Taehyung bit his bottom lip, brows furrowing as he thought deeply. "If what you say is right… the thread thing, I mean… Could I fix my mom?"
Aphrodite patted his head like one would a pet, comfortable with a sense of superiority. "It is easier to knot a thread than it is to untangle it, much easier to cut it, though the cutting requires much more focus and strength. You'd have to train that power specifically to be able to undo what you had done to your mother, accident or otherwise."
Taehyung closed his eyes, mind in turmoil. The tears he held back finally flowed freely down his cheeks. "Gods, why couldn't it just be grapes or something? Even your shapeshifting is better than this."
"Be grateful for what you have, little demigod," he jerked at hearing Aphrodite's voice right against his ear. "If you're so jealous, then how about you see what it actually feels like?"
The goddess disappeared into a pink mist, leaving behind the scent of roses and vanilla, the exact same moment Seokjin came in with the can of coke. Taehyung was about to greet him when the older dropped the can to the ground, open face scrunching into one of confusion.
"Joonie?"