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Chapter Text

When Poseidon appears around the corner hidden behind the subway turnstile and the teller, he walks into the 103^rd Street station. The 6 Train rumbles behind him as it makes its way north from Manhattan to the Bronx. He hears rats scurry along the tracks. One of them squeaks after a stray piece of pizza that fell from a drunkard’s hands. Poseidon avoids the poor fellow if only to make sure the man does not become sick all over him.

It is a late summer night. The air in New York City is heavy with humidity. He can feel the ends of the storm he had produced along the ridges of his fingertips. He walks up the steps, metal against the soles of his leather sandals, and splashes into a puddle.

He hides. The water assists him. Little swirls, little lakes. He takes the will of it with him as he walks along the sidewalk. The leftovers of old rain coalesce under his feet, and he taps into that power now. He taps into it because he must.

He hides because he must.

It is easy then to follow his path up the stairs. A walk-up building is not something he wishes for the family he has created. Perhaps in ancient times, this would have been ideal, but he makes a note in his head.

“An elevator would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Poseidon whispers to the superintendent. He is a lanky man with a spindly mustache. Poseidon watches as the man perks up, tapping his chin as if in deep thought.

He leaves the superintendent behind. It is late after all, and the man has work to do. Poseidon winks over his shoulder when he spots the man continuing to mop the third floor.

When Poseidon arrives on the landing of the sixth floor, he knows he would have been out of breath if he were an out-of-shape mortal. He presses his will further onto the man he had met downstairs.

“Elevator,” he suggests more strongly now. He knows that soon something will be done about it even if he must help the idea along.

He reaches the door for the co-op apartment. The number 601 shines before him in rusted gold. He does not bother with a key. He never needed one. He always had her permission.

He closes his eyes, places his hand on the loose knob, and magicks it so that the screw is no longer loose. He melts through the green door, and behind his eyelids, he thinks he can see the remnants of chipped paint still.

Poseidon enters the small living room. The couch is in an older style, a dusty thing left behind by Sally’s Uncle Rich. The muted gingham pattern is enough to remind him that time has ticked on even if he had not bothered to notice it.

He takes a moment to think of her…this young, beautiful woman he had met on the shores of Montauk the previous summer. Over a year ago now, and how things had changed.

He looks around. He had never been to Sally’s home before. Not that he had not wanted to, just that it was never convenient for them. What does it matter anyway? He does not belong there.

He casts his sea-green eyes over the furniture, over the picture frames hanging over a well-loved mantle and a dug-out fireplace that no longer serves as a hearth. It is a decoration now, like many archaic things that used to serve a purpose. Unknown people stare back at him through the glass in the frames. Younger versions of Sally, a version of her Uncle Rich who still lived. A man and a woman who had Sally’s chestnut locks and her clear blue eyes holding a toddler between them.

Poseidon turns away. He stares at the door at the end of the hall and just past the kitchen. He gravitates toward it.

The door cracks open, and he sees her: Sally Jackson. She is fast asleep, her chest rising and falling in tune with her soft snores. On one side of her bed, it is dark, but on the other, there is a window. Gentle moonlight streams from behind its curtain onto the crib below it.

With careful steps, he makes his way over to the crib. Immediately, he feels his shoulders slacken, his being softens. He sees the babe swaddled inside. Black tufts of hair so much like his stick every which way from a tiny head. Peaceful.

He leans over and caresses his rosy cheek. The baby opens his eyes, and Poseidon must hold his breath, for he is met with eyes mirroring his. Gems. Green as the sea.

“Little one,” he murmurs, “Let the waves rock you and fall back into Hypnos’s tender arms.”

Poseidon watches as the baby yawns. A small sound that entangles itself within the strings of his heart.

He wriggles his fingers and soft golden lights dance around the baby’s crib. He conjures leaping dolphins, schools of imaginary fish, and stingrays floating through the air. The baby watches them with awe. A smile forms on his face. His eyes close.

Then the magic lights snuff out. It is silent.

“Perseus,” says a soft voice behind him. “I wanted to name him that because he was a demigod hero who had a happy ending. I want that for him.”

Poseidon turns and sees Sally awake now. Her tresses of hair fall on her back in graceful waves.

“Percy for short,” she continues.

“Percy,” he repeats.

She laughs in that quiet moment, and he forgets that he has been caught spying on their child in the middle of the night. She inches to the edge of the bed after, looking at him with something akin to fondness.

“I appreciate you’re here,” she says. Then her face falls. “But you know you shouldn’t be.”

He stays still.

“It’s dangerous,” she pushes.

“I know,” he finally says.

Sally looks at him once more and presses her palm into the side of his face. He had not realized that he had come so close to her. She always has that effect on him. This mortal. This woman.

“You care for him,” she observes. He stiffens at that. “When you meet a baby, it is easy to care. But…if you do really care for him, you won’t return like this. Not so openly.”

He kisses her temple. He does not agree with her. Percy is merely his to protect.

“Goodbye,” Sally says, and in a second, he is gone.

When Poseidon reappears, he is in his palace under the sea. His bedroom is darker than the one he had left in the world above. The waters rush around him, both warm and cold. He wills them to ease.

Behind him, he hears someone rustle. He looks up and sees his wife, his immortal queen. Something stutters in his chest. She is observing him. Under the sea, her porcelain skin wavers with ripples and her dark hair drifts along the currents, pinned back with a net of silks and pearls. A circlet of elegant crab claws rises from the crown of her head.

“You’ve seen her,” says Amphitrite. Her eyes bore into him. “Your mortal.”

He nods.

“Well?”

“A son,” he replies with a whisper.

She sighs and swims toward him. The white fabric of her gown trails behind her. She takes his hand. “He is yours,” she says. “Therefore, he is of the seas. Like all our children.”

“Do you believe he is the one?”

“I do not know, husband,” she responds. “What I do know is that it has been many years since I have seen the ocean so calm, and if he is that reason, then he is precious. You know I am not Hera.”

“You are not,” agrees Poseidon.

“I did not marry you expecting you to be faithful. All I want is your love and my freedom. After all, I too am as changeable as the ocean. You know what I value most is freedom, and in this, I value his as well,” Amphitrite adds. She squeezes his hand. “He will not come to your brother’s wrath,” she finishes.  

Poseidon wonders sometimes how he deserves Amphitrite. He knows that the millennia the gods have lived morph them all, making them indescribable to humans. He will always find other lovers, and Amphitrite will always be there, the other half of the personification of their sea.

He watches her emerald eyes glow, and he knows that Percy has truly become theirs.

Chapter Text

The ocean above rumbles. Not in a grandiose, intimidating way, but in a fashion that somehow upsets Poseidon. He feels the waves, little as they are, roll on the surface like the pitter-pattering of a child’s bare feet.

Poseidon is restless as he paces around the throne room. He does not understand what is causing him distress, and Triton shoots him an odd look across the way as he enters from the front, conch horn in hand. His eldest son appears both confused and tired. Poseidon had been informed only minutes before that the sea creatures nearest to the shores of Long Island had been running amuck with no clear reason why. Triton sulks as he returns from trying to appease them.

Though Triton shares many of the same traits as Poseidon, he chooses to have a far more otherworldly appearance than Poseidon does. His black hair is long and tied back into a ponytail, his skin as green as seaweed, and his dual tails showcase his rank as a minor god rather than a mere merman. Triton frowns at him now, his reflection shining off the pearls studded in his chest armor.

“The sharks are acting strange,” says Triton. He waves a hand, and his conch vanishes. “As are the crabs. Not that the crabs acting out of touch are much to be concerned about.” He scoffs.

Poseidon steps off the dais. The steps are embedded with white and black nacre and the light from the depths refracts upon it into rainbows along the coral walls.

“Perhaps Nereus is causing a scene again,” replies Poseidon. He shakes his head. “It would not be the first time.”

“Father, you know as well as I that the Old Man of the Sea does not deign to approach the East Coast,” Triton remarks. “He much prefers the sunny, earthquake-ridden West Coast.”

Poseidon pouts. “What’s wrong with earthquakes?”

Triton rolls his eyes.

They continue to shoot ideas back and forth, from another bout with the sea nymphs causing a stir to infighting between the dolphin territories. The waters waver and shake as their voices rise and lower.

Then what had to be nearly an hour passes when Poseidon hears a tiny yelp just outside the door that bounces from column to blue sea stone column.

“Ah!” a small voice screams.

Poseidon glances up, alarmed. Another voice replies with a placating tone.

“It is all right, little prince, it is all right.”

His heart pounds in his chest. Ichor runs fast through his veins, and it is as if everything freezes for him all at once. No, he thinks, it cannot be. But there is no one else it could have been. Poseidon barges through the throne room door, Triton hot on his heels, and he stops at the sight before him.

A little boy with black hair hides his face behind trembling fists. A human. A mortal. But he is so unbelievably small that it all feels so impossible.

But Poseidon sees this boy who does not even reach his hip and he knows. Oh, he knows. And the thought of it stings. It aches, and it causes him to stutter upon his own wanting words. The fact of the matter is, even an all-powerful sea god such as he does not have the wherewithal to calm a frightened child. Much less this boy he had not contacted in four years.

This boy is his own.

“Please do not fear, little prince,” says the nereid who Poseidon now notices had been one of the aides that had been guarding the throne room on her shift. “You are safe here. I promise.”

The boy opens his fingers at the calming words and sea-green eyes peek from between them. He gasps and his hands drop to his sides. “You’re that lady!” he exclaims. “The fountain lady!” He grins and there is a spring to his step.

“Indeed, that is I, little prince,” replies the nereid. Her face is soft, and Poseidon feels grateful that he had chosen her for such a precious role. Though a stone drops into his stomach when he hears her confirm his suspicions. “I have been assigned to watch you when you and your mother go on your walks at Central Park.”

The boy’s eyes glitter with confusion. His eyes shift to Poseidon’s. He tilts his head, observing him.

“You look like me,” he says.

Poseidon hums, glancing away. He feels Triton vibrate at his side, ready to call out his insolence. Poseidon stays his hand with a look.

“Mister, you have my mommy’s necklace.” He points to the black pearl woven onto a leather string that sits on the groove of Poseidon’s clavicle.

Poseidon sighs. He is right, of course. Sally has a matching one with the same string. However, instead of a black pearl, it is white.

“Poseidon is my name,” the god says. He crouches to his son’s level. His eyes never leave his round face.

The boy scrunches his eyebrows together. “Po…say…done?”

Poseidon laughs. He goes to cup the child’s cheek, but the boy flinches away. Something inside him breaks when he sees the fear in his eyes.

“You must return now, little one,” Poseidon whispers. He ignores the way Triton looks at his back, or even the way the nereid coos.

“Percy!” his youngest son retorts indignantly. He puffs out his little chest as if he had not just shied away from Poseidon in the first place.

But Poseidon recognizes the signs, for he is prone to the same habits himself. Percy is trying to hide something.

Poseidon grins and ruffles his hair. “Percy,” he agrees. He drops his hand. “I do not know how you ended up in the center of my domain, but I can escort you home. I guarantee your safety upon your return. I can assure you.”

Percy blinks. His eyes screw up in an emotion Poseidon does not understand. “But…I…”

The water shakes. Percy’s fingers dig into his palms.

Poseidon reaches for his hands, but Percy pulls away.

“It’s pretty,” Percy says. “Can I stay?”

His eyes are dark and gloomy when Poseidon investigates them now. They are hurricanes swirling in anger, in panic. The waters respond to Percy. He realizes now what had made the sea creatures of Long Island so agitated.

“Did you walk into the ocean, Percy?” Poseidon asks. “From Montauk?”

Percy hesitates, but eventually, he nods.

“What has frightened you so?”

Percy gulps. Then, after some time, he says, “Gabe.”

Poseidon startles at the name. He has heard it before, but only from Sally’s lips on the day before her marriage to that man. (“You know I have to do this,” Sally had said. “Gabe is not a kind man, but he is someone who can protect Percy. His scent alone will hide him from the monsters.”) He had vowed that he would watch over them, even if he could not protect them from a mortal like Gabe. He respected her choice then, and he respects her choice now. He knows that there is not much else he can do without revealing their son to Zeus and the Fates.

The best Poseidon can do is keep Percy away. Keep him a secret. Protect him from a distance. He cannot be attached.

“Your mother must be worried,” Poseidon says.

Percy does not respond.

Poseidon opens his palm, inviting the child to hold onto his hand. “I can take you to her.”

“Gabe’s mean,” Percy says instead. “He yells. All week. Mommy took us here. I like water.”

Poseidon gathers his strength despite it all. His power merges into one small point. The water twirls into a miniature vortex and on the same hand he offers his youngest son, a black pearl appears attached to a leather string.

“Here,” Poseidon says. Percy looks at him with wonder. He is allowed to loop the string around Percy’s neck. “Hide it. No one can know you have it. No one except your mother.”

Percy nods.

“This will give you my protection always,” continues Poseidon. “Give it a gentle tug when you need help. When Gabe is too much. And somehow, someone will be there to guide you through it.”

Percy gazes at him now with eyes that are both too old and too young. Poseidon had not told him the truth outright, but this was enough.

When Poseidon eventually leads him to the shore, he does not look for Sally. He only sees Percy’s back as he runs toward the beach house into his mother’s waiting arms. He waves his hand and hopes that the Mist does the rest, that somehow Percy’s memory will be clouded or obscured with something other than the moment they had in the palace.

And Triton meets him just below the surface again, disapproval in his eyes.

“Are you sure you made the right decision?” Triton asks.

“I don’t know,” he responds.

He does not know which decision he has made.

Chapter Text

Poseidon knows something is wrong when he feels a tug in his gut. It is a daunting feeling, and not at all a trivial one. Throughout the last two years, he has rarely had this feeling, this tugging, this pulling.

But when he does feel it, he wants to treasure it. For it is in those moments that he knows that he is needed. That he has the power to do something. No matter how small. But he cannot treasure it. It is dangerous too.

He is in the middle of speaking with Delphin about the upcoming summer dolphin migration patterns when he stills. He props one hand on the haft of his trident and frowns.

“Yes?” Delphin prods. He is the god of dolphins and resembles one too, but the set of brilliant silver armor and the sharp dark eyes that peer beneath his helmet tell him that he is a being not meant to be trifled with. “My lord?”

Triton clears his throat, and Poseidon knows he has once again annoyed his son.

“My apologies, Delphin,” Poseidon replies. “It was not my intent to derail our conversation. However, I have another urgent engagement to attend to.”

Delphin rises and his tailfin twitches.

“Ahem,” Poseidon adds awkwardly. “But I would like to finish this first, of course. It is only right that the bottlenoses continue to do as they please. They shall follow the path of food after all, and the Atlantic has plenty of spots in the Northern Hemisphere when summer arrives this year.”

Delphin tilts his head. “I agree enthusiastically, lord,” he says. “I will tell my kind to continue their path.”

Poseidon smiles, then he gestures to the door. “If you don’t mind,” he adds, “I will attend to that other engagement now.”

“Of course.”

Poseidon rushes out of the meeting room without another word. He wills himself to transform into something more palatable for the mortal world, and he walks out of the palace wearing a button-up floral shirt, khakis, and Birkenstocks. He plops his fishing hat atop his head and in his hand, his trident sizzles, and shapeshifts into a fishing rod.

He is almost outside the capital city’s perimeter when he hears someone call behind him.

“Wait!” shouts Triton.

Poseidon swivels around, eyebrow raised.

“It is Perseus, isn’t it?” Triton pants. He swims up to him now. His form flickers and makes a rapid change into a young man who appears to be a college student. His armor switches into a blue polo shirt, and he wears similar khaki shorts to Poseidon’s. His hair is tied neatly behind his neck. His skin warms into a natural tan. “Let me come with you.”

Poseidon’s eyebrow climbs higher on his forehead. “Have you grown so attached to your demigod brother that you will accompany me to even this?”

Triton shrugs. He begins the march to the surface and Poseidon follows behind.

“I have not often seen him,” Triton says. “The last was months ago when he and his mother attended the beach house in Montauk again.”

Poseidon hums. He remembers it well. Percy had not called for him at that time, but the ocean felt his emotions. He remembers bobbing to the surface, hiding behind a well-placed buoy, and watching as Sally taught their son how to roast blue-colored marshmallows on the beach.

The smell had attracted him. Both he and Triton in fact. Sally’s prayers smelled sweeter than any drop of golden nectar.

Triton is quiet the rest of the way. Poseidon feels the tug grow strong yet. They follow the currents, the streams, however the waters call them.

When the two of them resurface, it is on a street corner in Lower Manhattan. It is drizzling and the sky is a soft gray. A cat screeches as it is chased out of a bodega. It has a sandwich trapped in its maw and the shopkeeper yells after it while waving a piece of soggy rye bread.

Poseidon stops at the chain fence that separates them from the schoolyard. A gaggle of children trickle out from the grade school steps, meeting their parents or friends at the base of the tall building. They fan out into the streets arm-in-arm, their backpacks swinging behind them.

“Summer vacation!” a girl shouts and another girl giggles after her. They laugh on their way to the crosswalk.

He searches, looking for the source of the tugging that still niggles at the back of his mind.

“There,” says Triton. He lifts his arm and points to a little boy standing by himself underneath a large verdant oak tree sprouting from the sidewalk.

“Percy,” calls Poseidon. He watches as his youngest son looks up in surprise. Percy’s hands loosen on the straps of his battered-looking backpack.

“Mister P!” Percy exclaims. He pauses and grins. “Mister Tri’s here too!”

Poseidon cannot help but smile at the nicknames. Two years ago, Percy still struggled with certain words, and though he is older, he has kept the names he had shortened theirs to. Poseidon leans on his heels, satisfied. At least, the power of their names is lessened. Perhaps this is something else that has been done to mask their presence here. He would not give this up for anyone. Percy has never questioned how he met his two odd friends. There was never a story that cropped up, and Poseidon likes to keep it that way.

“You’re alone,” Poseidon observes. He looks around but finds no one else. “Will your mother pick you up from school?”

Percy’s face falls. He reaches for the leather string around his neck and fiddles with it. Rivers of rainwater trek down his cheek from his hairline. “I uh…I called her after school from the principal’s office. Told her I’d go home after going to the playground with Tommy…”

“You lied,” Poseidon says, but he is not disappointed. He senses something else.

“I’m sorry.”

Poseidon pauses, as does Triton. They are both patient when needed. Even the sea waits for the next ship to sail on a clearer day.

“I just…I just—” Percy sniffles loudly. “I saw something,” he says. “A man with lots and lots of arms. He was bullying my classmates and—and I tried to stop him but…well Tommy said I wasn’t ‘sposed to whack someone in the knee. They all saw, and that man wasn’t there anymore. No one believed me.”

“What happened? Are you hurt?” Poseidon presses. He lowers himself to Percy’s eye level.

“Mrs. Aldridge said it was the last straw. I got expelled. I don’t know what I did wrong. What am I gonna tell mom? I just—”

Poseidon feels the tugging again and watches as Percy’s hand unconsciously pulls at the pearl he had given him around his neck. He wants to put his hands on his shoulders. Something. Anything to make this child happy again.

The drizzle continues. It becomes more of an annoyance than anything else. Poseidon almost wishes to turn it into a raging storm, but that would cause more inconvenience for his mortal son who seems to be without an umbrella.

“Sweets,” interjects Triton suddenly.

The three of them stop. Percy blinks owlishly at Triton. His sobbing dries out in one fell swoop and Poseidon wants nothing more than to understand the magic Triton has inflicted upon them to distract Percy so.

“Sweets,” Triton repeats. He taps his chin. He looks over to a colorful shop with curling signs and a rainbow window across the street that sits next to the bodega. “That place looks like a popular spot for ice cream and the weather is rather hot lately.”

Percy wipes his eyes. Poseidon stands.

“Wouldn’t you like…what do the mortals call it?” Triton scratches his forehead. “Ah! A sundae?”

Percy is shaking with laughter in no time. His teeth poke out from behind his trembling lips and lift into a smile.

So, when Poseidon pays too much for a mortal serving of sundae and a thing called banana split, it is only Percy’s delighted expression he can see.

“Mr. P!” marvels Percy. “Ice cream isn’t a hundred bucks!”

Triton shoves a spoonful of vanilla and blue raspberry into Percy’s mouth and the boy is so startled that he looks just like a pufferfish expanding over a coral reef.

Both Poseidon and Triton do not care for human delicacies, but as Poseidon takes a helping of the ice cream himself, he can see the appeal.

Triton leans over when Percy leaves for a moment to use the bathroom and says, “He has Pallas’s smile.”

Poseidon understands both his sons a little more.

Chapter Text

Of course, Poseidon hears. He witnesses it all too.

The day of the winter solstice should have been like any other Olympian Council meeting. But when Zeus came to him with an accusation spewing from his mouth, Poseidon should have known that it would not end there.

For six months they argued, they fought. How Zeus could possibly think that Poseidon had somehow collected a champion willing to risk their life to steal the Master Bolt and a symbol of power at that, was beyond him. He has much better things to do lately than vie for the throne of Olympus.

But Zeus had spat at him before the summer solstice, seething with lightning that roiled through the skies above New York City, and for the first time in centuries Poseidon felt a fear greater than the deepest ocean trench.

If he did not do something, the city would drown, and Poseidon would fight. But the casualties would be great.

And she was there. Percy was there.

Amphitrite was the one who snapped him out of it. “Do what you must,” she had said. “Protect them. Is he not your offspring?”

What Poseidon did not expect was that protecting Percy meant that he had to use him too. His hand was forced that night when the Minotaur slashed after Sally, Percy, and the satyr, Grover. He had tried to distract it by calling upon the rain, but there was only so much he could do when his son was just as stubborn and strong-willed as he was.

Poseidon sits here now on the beach at Camp Half-Blood, his toes stuck in the sand as the hot sun simmers along the horizon line and bakes his back.

He recalls the way the Fates had maneuvered around him, maneuvered around them all. It is a cruel thing, this ending. Or this beginning. He had thought that maybe they could hold out a little while longer. Percy is only twelve. Maybe if he continues to play his cards right, a round of Go Fish with Destiny would not end up looking so bad.

But now the truth is out in the open. Poseidon cannot hide any longer and neither can Percy. He can only hope that what comes ahead does not destroy his son. He can only hope Percy makes it past sixteen.

The waters lap on the tops of his feet. It keeps him calm. He wills the waves to be serene. The sand is wet after the rain that had fallen for so long. He and Zeus had not backed down on each other.

Not until the last moment.

The walkways leading through the forest and onto the beach are damp, as are the wooden panels that make the docks.

A silhouette walks down one of the pathways now. It moves slowly, carefully, with an uncharacteristic ease for someone whose intent was clearly the sea god himself.

As the shadow breaks through the tree line, Poseidon is not surprised to see who has come to visit him. Though he supposes that it is the other way around.

The ocean may be his territory, but Camp Half-Blood is not his. This place is for demigods. This place is for Percy.

Percy slips off his sneakers and stuffs his socks into their insides. He sits down next to him, draws his knees to his chest, and watches as the sun begins to set.

Percy is the one to break the silence. “You’re my father,” he says. It is matter of fact.

Poseidon does not argue. But the way the words are said punches through him.

“Yes,” Poseidon agrees. 

“You…couldn’t be there,” continues Percy, and Poseidon does not answer right away. “But I know you were. I remember.” He touches the cord on his neck.

“I couldn’t tell you who I really am,” says Poseidon. “But I did not hide it either.”

He does not say that the reason why he never wiped his memories of their encounters properly is because it feels wrong. It feels painful. Gods do not endure pain. They avoid it.

Percy lets go of his cord. “All those times I thought of those unexplainable things, mom always smiled and laughed,” he explains. “She never told me they weren’t real, but she never told me they were either. And it’s like I have these vague memories of being underwater, or seeing a pearly palace…” He looks at Poseidon. “That’s how we really met, isn’t it? Not some…random guy I saw on the street selling hotdogs in Washington Square Park?”

Poseidon has to laugh. “After all these years, I finally have the answer to what my meddling with the Mist has brought you,” he says. The smile does not reach his eyes. “I always wondered how you thought you met Mr. P.”

Percy observes him for a long minute and there is a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.

“I’m glad I really remember now,” Percy says finally.

“It has been a long time since then,” Poseidon adds.

They sit in silence, listening to the muted roll of the waves against the shore. The sky burns into orange and pink. Ospreys squawk for prey above them, circling the water and diving for a fresh catch.

For now, it is peaceful.

“I think I always knew,” Percy says. He leans against Poseidon’s shoulder in a gesture that surprises the god. “Somehow, you’re bad at hiding it.”

Poseidon grins and scratches the back of his head. He hides how uncomfortable he feels with nonchalance. His fishing hat falls partially onto Percy’s head. He does not make a move to replace it. Their elbows bump when Poseidon nudges him in the side.

“I don’t blame you, by the way,” Percy says. “I know you claimed me to protect me. I know you had me go on that crazy quest to make sure I wasn’t smote…smitten…? Whatever. I guess…squashed for something I didn’t do.”

“I wouldn’t want you smote or smitten for any god,” Poseidon jokes. He does not tell Percy that he had to use him. That he would use him again.

The sound of a conch shell rings through the air. Percy stands, and Poseidon’s hat lands in the sand.

“Dinner time,” Percy remarks. He hooks his fingers into his shoes and carries them. He looks at Poseidon and smirks. “I’ll make sure to offer you up something good.”

Poseidon decides to be mischievous. “A sundae?” he asks.

Percy’s smile widens. “A sundae.”

Chapter Text

When Mount St. Helens blows up, there is an immediate argument on Olympus that breaks out.

Hera of all the goddesses, wants to interfere.

“Let me guide him!” she shouts at the top of her lungs. The peacock feathers that decorate her hair shudder with each of her demanding breaths. “I have guided those demigods the entire quest. Even Athena’s girl! Let me continue and all will be well.”

“You cannot interfere as much as you have any longer!” Zeus bellows back. Lightning zips through his arched eyebrows too as if for maximum theatrical effect.

Any other day Poseidon would have teased his younger brother about it. Zeus is being overly dramatic, as usual. But this is beyond the usual.

His son is screaming in pain, ash exploding through the state of Washington and blanketing the skies in darkness. It is not time for an argument. If nothing is done soon, Percy would die, and the prophecy would not matter anymore. What prophecy would they have?

You still have the di Angelo child, a voice whispers in the back of his mind. It is the godly, logical voice of his. The one he wants to be silenced at that moment. Hades’s spawn is still left to fulfill what the Fates have in store. It would be so much easier, would it not?  You are supposed to remain detached. 

Poseidon grits his teeth.

“Enough!” he roars. “This is getting us nowhere!”

Athena nods. “For once I agree with Poseidon,” she adds. A few other gods in the council room shoot her startled looks. “We must decide to save this boy now before it is too late. He is too powerful to—”

“I’ll do it!” exclaims Hephestus. He wobbles on his cane, raises his hands over the volcano forge, and—

Nothing happens.

The entire room is stunned.

Dread piles in Poseidon’s stomach. He was so ready to agree, so ready to send his aid. To save his son, the asset. He realizes now that he had hesitated too long to save him. He berates himself and a typhoon forms over the South China Sea. It is a signal five storm. He rages. He tries to control himself. His trident sparks with power and becomes white-hot inside the sheath that is built into his Olympian throne.

“Where is the boy?!” shrieks Hera. She is desperate now, and that is a phenomenon in and of itself. She is not one to fight for the illegitimate offspring of her brothers per se, but she will if it is beneficial to her and her own causes. Most of all, her pride is on the line. She had helped to keep Percy safe thus far, no matter how much Poseidon thinks of it with reluctant gratefulness.

Poseidon tries to steady himself, tries more than anything. His hands jolt for the pearl that rests around his neck, tingling with a need to discover if they are still connected.

He knows Percy is alive. He would know if he were dead.

But there is a space inside his immortal spirit where Percy’s consciousness should be. It is gone. As if a puzzle piece has been taken and stashed away. One missing piece and no one to occupy it.

The panic settles in. The cyclones and tsunamis brew. Zeus is giving him a look that tells him that he is very much aware of the havoc that Poseidon is causing upon the earth below. But more than his brothers, Poseidon’s domain is affected by his emotions.

He chooses when to control it. However, this time, he chooses not to.

He does not know what to do.

He does not know what to do!

What if I have already lost him?

“Don’t worry, father,” a tranquil voice breaks through his thoughts.

Poseidon startles, but eases into it. He does not let the surprise show on his face. The oceans still rage upon violent storms. He senses that his wayward daughter Kymopoleia is riding on this fury as well. She always does best when she augments his anger with hers.

But it is not her who speaks. It is someone very different and so the opposite of dear Kymopoleia that he nearly breaks character. For this daughter who speaks to him is one who was born from his and Amphitrite’s most peaceful manifestations.

“I have him,” she whispers on the edges of his thoughts. “Do not worry. I have the little prince. Trust me. I will watch over him until he is ready. He rests on my island in the safety of the Aegean Sea…Rhodes.”

The meeting is adjourned because there is nothing else that can be done. But when no one is looking, Poseidon vanishes.

He cannot appear on Rhodes for days. He knows this to be true. He must be careful. Discreet. Otherwise, someone could use the information that he holds close to his heart against him.

So, when a week has passed and he has reassured Triton and Amphitrite in secret, making sure that no mortal knows because then it would stir the ire of the gods and their wounded pride, he descends upon his daughter’s island.

He tugs at his necklace, hopeful that Sally knows what it means. He cannot contact her, but he has faith in her wit.

He walks onto a white sandy beach. The mist settles along the shoreline. Kymopoleia had done her job well, Poseidon notes with a grimace. There is a subsequent mist that settles after her storms thunder across what he can see of the island.

“Rhode,” says Poseidon. “You cannot tell me that you planned this all along?” His deep tenor rumbles through the fog and for a moment, he can see spurts of turquoise and clear water, hear the laughter of the humans that live on this island, see the echoes of the ancient past sing through the bay in the fishing village of Lindos, and the boats rock above the surface of the calming seas.

But they are obscured again with this illusion and this mist, so no one but he and Rhode can see what is left…an island that is without the touch of modern civilization.

“I had to, father,” says Rhode’s musical voice.

An ethereal face bursts from the sand, as perfect as a porcelain bowl. Then a body rises, and locks of hair the color of ears of corn and gold leaf combined. Rhode is shorter than Poseidon in his human form, but always much more elegant. She has her mother’s eyes.

Rhode wears an elaborate Ionic chiton that drapes from her shoulders to the floor. It is linen and dyed soft cerulean with silver embroidery. She raises her arm, and on a bed that resembles a seabed surrounded by red coral is Percy.

“He is here, as I said,” Rhode assures him. “I had to save him. I wanted to. He is my brother.”

“You have never met him till now.”

“That is true,” she says, “but he has done so much for me.”

Poseidon quirks his eyebrow, unsure of what she means.

“He has not yet been to Greece,” Rhode explains, “but he has cared for my island. He helps the creatures of the sea, including the ones that end up here. He untangles the sea turtles when he sees them trapped in plastic. He tells the sharks where it is best to hunt. That is so much more than many of your demigod children have ever done.”

“I never knew of this.”

Rhode smiles. “I find that the mortals that do the most good are often the ones who never share what they have done,” she says. “After all, mother says that Percy has brought you all such joy. I wish to see that as well.”

Poseidon relaxes for the first time in days. The mist covers Percy in a blanket. He can heal in a safe place. A place that is also his.

“Care for him well,” Poseidon commands. Then, he takes his leave.

The next day, Rhode sends him news that his son has awakened. He ignores the way his chest twinges when he realizes he was not there to greet him.

Chapter Text

Percy does reach his sixteenth birthday on the day Olympus is nearly razed. The prophecy Poseidon had feared for decades is fulfilled, albeit in a manner that none of them had seen coming. Bodies lay at Percy’s feet, and the other demigods’ feet as well. Marble columns are toppled, and minor gods are left without homes. The gods are not left without sins of their own either.

But despite it all, the Olympians are victorious against the threat that was Kronos.

The demigod Luke is dead, a hero who realizes it too late. Poseidon watched through Percy’s eyes when the boy plunged the cursed knife into his Achilles spot, the vulnerable area underneath his arm. Percy had made the choice that secured Luke’s fate: he had trusted Luke to do what was best for all of them. He had given Luke the knife and had chosen not to fight Luke’s possessed body—Kronos—by himself.  

“Never again,” Poseidon hears Luke say. “Don’t let them forget us. Never again.”

Poseidon watches as Percy stares into nothing as Olympus and the half-bloods cheer. There is blood on his hands.

Percy stands there unflinching from the bottom of the dais in the Olympian throne room. He is small among the gods, a speck that can be flicked off into oblivion if any of them so desire. It is a lucky thing then that none of them desire it.

Percy’s eyes are greener and more alive than before. They appear fractured, and cut, as if they are made from precious stone. The light shines from them in bright lines. They are the sun and the earth in one, the ocean’s deepest, most tantalizing depths.

The Fates whisper in Poseidon’s ear. Wait, sea god, and see.

A cold feeling creeps up his spine. He tries to ignore it.

“Remember them,” says Percy. “He was right.”

Zeus shoots up. “You dare command us!”

Poseidon holds his brother back. He wants to hear what Percy has to say.

Percy looks at them all now, and his eyes seem to glow. “Kronos took advantage of his family, but you don't have to. Claim your kids by the time they reach thirteen. Even the minor gods should have cabins too. Their children shouldn’t be forgotten.”

Poseidon can see Percy’s eyes shimmering, flickering, changing. He can see the way he thinks of the demigods who had changed him too, and the ones who were lost along the way.

No one responds, but the hearth rises and warms.

Percy steps back and walks away. Poseidon wants to reach for him, but the chokehold of the past keeps him back. He stiffens in place. He will lose him.

Something feels wrong.

Wait, sea god, and see.

When the dust settles, the battles are fought, and the sun shines through the orange haze…Percy disappears.

-

At summer’s end, he meets Sally Jackson on the beach. The scent of toasted marshmallows lingers in the air, and he spots a half-opened package beside the campfire on the sand.

She tosses another marshmallow into the fire, her eyes closed, a name he cannot make out caught on her lips as she murmurs a prayer.

“Who are you praying to?” Poseidon asks, interrupting her. “It is not me.”

Sally’s eyes snap open. “No,” she says with a sad smile. "It’s not.”

He goes to ask her what she means, but a man with salt and pepper hair calls from above the dunes.

“I have to go,” she says. She picks up the bag of marshmallows and snuffs out the fire.

-

Offerings rise from the bonfires in Camp Half-Blood like nothing has changed.

Poseidon no longer feels the tug in his gut nor at the rope of his necklace. He worries; he does not. He always watches for him. He waits. Sometimes, it takes a while.

The campers whisper prayers to someone. He is not familiar with them and that puzzles him.

Poseidon misses the taste of a sundae.

He ventures onto the shores of Long Island Sound, curious for the first time in a while about the lives of demigods who are not his own.

“For protection,” the older ones say.

“For safe passage across the sea on this short voyage,” another younger one says.

But these are not prayers to Poseidon himself. They used to be. They should be. The sea is his.

“For everyone who is forgotten,” murmurs the Athena girl, Annabeth. She tosses a blue-dyed cookie into the fire. The sweet fragrance wafts into the air.

A calm feeling settles on Poseidon’s shoulders. A familiar feeling. He cannot pinpoint it.

She sits on the beach and looks at the space Poseidon hides in with a piercing gaze, behind the brush and the debris washed up from the sea.

And Poseidon finally understands. He thinks he does.

He lets out a shuddering breath, salty like a sea breeze. He touches the pearl on his neck and caresses it.

-

Triton swims into the throne room with an unusual report. He is huffing and out of breath.

The sounds of laughter and cheering permeate the walls of the palace. Bellowing conch horns resonate and make a cacophony of music. Flutes sing of glory and passion, and the whales moan tunes only their kind can truly understand.

“Atlantis is celebrating, father!” Triton exclaims. He looks shocked. He blinks rapidly.

“I can hear, son,” Poseidon replies with a sardonic raise of his eyebrow. “I assume it is because of the successful treaty we made with the merfolk in the Antarctic Ocean?”

Triton shakes his head. “It is not that,” he responds. “The humans have discovered a Caribbean monk seal off the coast of Jamaica!”

Poseidon loosens his grip on his trident. “What? But they have been extinct for—”

“For decades!” Triton finishes with unrestrained excitement.

“Even I had…” Poseidon swallows. “Even I had forgotten them.”

Triton does not say anything else. He looks to the open sea where the currents are only broken by small waves.

-

“He visited my island the other day,” Rhode remarks. It is the first thing she says to Poseidon and Amphitrite when she arrives. “That day, it started drizzling. A child who was missing for weeks appeared on my beach and his parents were so happy to reunite with him.”

Amphitrite looks at Poseidon, her eyes ablaze with knowing. She places her hand atop his.

-

Poseidon melts through Lake Erie, the ringing words of a pleading demigod looping through his head. The fog lifts off the ground, soft and gray.

“Take me home,” the little girl says. “Please.”

He is about to send a naiad to her aid when a peculiar sight blindsides him.

The girl who had called out to him is gone, but a figure stands where she stood at the end of a long dock. The shadow lengthens. He can see a familiar profile wavering like a cloud on the horizon.

Glowing eyes, verdant and mystifying. Seaweed, swaying palms, the luster of a rare South Sea Pearl.

The figure smiles.

Poseidon reaches out.

-

Hestia shows herself to Poseidon now at the emerald hearth fire that burns with gentle magic in the center of his palace in Atlantis. She is a little girl dressed in drab brown robes stoking the flames. Her eyes burn like a warm blaze amid a cold winter night.

“I see you understand now,” she says. She pokes at the fire and does not look up. “If I may say it…it took you long enough.”

“I am unsure of what you speak of,” replies Poseidon. He leans back on his throne. He listens to the sound of the ocean outside. There is no one else awake and aside from the hearth, there is not much light left to speak of.

Hestia inclines her head to look up at him. “You finally understand what is most precious to you,” she explains. “What home is to you.”

He narrows his eyes.

Look now, sea god, whisper the Fates.

He turns his head to the door to his throne room. It is the same door he had met a younger Percy so many years ago.

Nothing.

He sets his attention back on his sister.

Hestia laughs and it is a precious thing, a delicate thing. “Puddles, little waves, drizzles, damp walkways, wet soil, and the mist that settles after a storm,” she says. “Ripples that resonate on the water’s surface, all leading to the coastline. Forgotten things.” She taps her cheek. “I suppose there needs to be a god for that.”

Poseidon rises in his seat, alarm rushing through him.

“Let go of your fear, dear brother,” Hestia placates. “Can you admit to yourself what that means?”

“What fear?”

“Once you can, you will see him again,” she continues unfazed. “For only someone who is dearly loved can remember the forgotten.” She gives him one lingering look. “Immortality comes from those who remember, not from brute force or power. It is a bizarre thing, but quite like a half-blood son of the sea god to ascend this way, even if it is not prompted by the gods themselves. He is not one to be restrained.”

Hestia burns brighter and she dissolves into a fire.

Poseidon is left alone.

He looks to the door again and remembers. He closes his eyes. He sees steps that lead up to an apartment, the beach at Montauk, the schoolyard on a summer afternoon, the sand between his toes, and a bed made from the bottom of the sea.

“You look like me,” interrupts a voice he had longed to hear again. “I don’t know if I noticed that before.”

He opens his eyes.

It is not easy for a god to learn to love the way a mortal does, and even less so for one to admit it.