Chapter Text
Will Solace loved spending time with his mom.
She was always busy, whether it was working on new ideas for songs or performing at bars, Naomi Solace was always a busy woman. Even so, he wasn’t lonely.
The times they had when his mom would bring him in tours with her helped filled that dull weighty feeling in his heart that he didn’t know what it was. He was too afraid to tell his mom about it.
Right now, they were in the car heading to New York, and it was silent. Will hated silent. He was one for banging drums, blasting music, even pattering rain. So he decided to ask the two questions he would every time their roadtrips were on the silent side of the scale.
“Momma?”
“Yes Honeybear?”
“What was dad like? And where is he now?”
Will’s mom chuckled at the questions. She knew Will loved hearing about his birth father, even if that question had been answered multiple times.
“He was kind,” she said with a smile. “He was also bright—and dare I say shining! A very caring man, your papa was. You have his hair, you know. And his eyes.”
A huge smile came onto Will’s face at his mom’s comment.
“As for where he is… he never told me much. All I know is that he’s far away.”
His demeanor drooped a little. Will felt this sort of churning in his stomach, and he knew she was lying in some way.
Dang, now he’s really nauseous from car sickness.
“Momma, I think I’m gonna throw up!” He cried.
“William Andrew Solace, grab a bag from the glove compartment before you throw up on the freshly vacuumed floor of this minivan!”
—————————————————
After one of his mother’s absolutely beautiful performances, she decided to take him to Washington Square Park for a walk.
It seemed she knew that Will absolutely 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 going on walks.
It was warm at the moment, but not so hot that the garbage smelled like… well, garbage. It didn’t burn much either, since there was also a cool breeze that in turn chased away most of the mosquitoes. All in all, it was a perfect day as pretty as his mom.
It was just those pigeons at the nearby fountain that threw him off. The energy around them felt weird, but pigeons aren’t supposed to have energy. They’re just pigeons, but they were scary ones. He tugged on his mom’s sleeve, getting her attention successfully.
“Is something wrong?” She asked, a worried tone seeping into her voice ever so slightly.
“There’s a bunch of those pigeons over there, and they’re scary and staring at us!” He said, pointing at the fountain.
His mom only laughed, which totally didn’t hurt his feelings ever so slightly that his eyes started to water. She noticed.
“No no no! Don’t cry, it’s okay!” She said quickly, trying to soothe her child. “There’s an ice cream place near here. Wanna go get some Willy?”
Will’s eyes immediately stopped watering, brightening in turn at the mention of ice cream.
“Momma, of course I want ice cream!”
——————————————————
Both mother and son came out of the ice cream shop calmer than before, and also refreshed.
“Willypoo, hold my hand we’re gonna cross the street.” The mother said, taking her child’s hand.
“Momma, I told you not to call me that anymore!” Will whined, looking at his mom with the meanest glare he could muster.
Apparently it was more cute than scary, considering she started laughing really hard.
When the two reached the park, Naomi crouched down to Will’s level, pulling out a quarter.
“Wanna go make a wish in the fountain?”
Will glanced at the menacing pigeons still at the fountain, seemingly having multiplied as well. He gulped, looking back at his momma. “What about the pigeons?” He asked.
“Oh don’t worry about no pigeons, there’s always a lot of them here in New York.”
They weaved through the multiple people, eventually reaching the fountain. Naomi pointed out a bunch of cool details about it, and Will just listened happily.
And then the birds started attacking
Someone screamed, but he didn’t know which of them made the sound. All around them, it was just a swarm of feathers and flapping and beaks tearing at their clothes.
He cried, trying to swat them away, but it was no use. There were so many of them, and they bit as his hands whenever he tried.
Suddenly, there was the sound of a trumpet playing… Yankee Doodle? Dude, no one liked Yankee Doodle of all songs.
Nevertheless, the sound seemed to scare the birds away, and Will could finally see his mom again. Her hair was messed up with a few feathers sticking out of it, probably just like his. Her clothes were also incredibly torn, and she had multiple cuts.
Remembering the random trumpet playing Yankee Doodle—quickly turned around to be met with a man. Though, from the waist down his legs were all furry and weird and had hooves for feet. He even seemed to have a tail of some sort. Will thought he looked like a furry.
“Oh man that was crazy!” The man said, and then he looked incredibly nervous, and possibly sweaty.
“Uhm… there’s a lot of things to explain. Do you guys have a house or a hotel close to here?”
——————————————————
Camp Half-Blood.
Which was apparently Will’s new home now.
He missed his momma already, and he knew he would have to stay year-round or whatever Maron said.
So, the Greek gods were real. Maron was a satyr. The ‘pigeons’ that attacked them were actually these things called Stymphalian Birds. Apparently, his dad was some kind of god.
He wanted to go back home to Texas.
Maron took him to this big blue barn-like building that he called the Big House, where he met Chiron and Mr. D, who were apparently some guys from Greek mythology as well. Way to add to his crazy day, world!
Well, technically it isn’t mythology anymore. Or well, it never was. Never mind, he didn’t want to think about it. It made his brain hurt! But now that he thought about it, everything just sort of clicked for him. Weird.
The orientation film was… something to say the least. It was apparently made by the god Apollo, and it wasn’t very good despite what Will knew about his domains. Either way, it explained things much better than Maron or Chiron or Mr. D ever could.
After that, he was forcibly taken to the infirmary by Maron.
He never wanted to do that again. It stung like a wasp angry that you crushed it’s nest.
After that whole debacle, the satyr took him to Cabin 11, which housed the children of Hermes. Or those who weren’t claimed. Or those who’s parents didn’t have cabins.
Will didn’t know why they couldn’t just build new cabins, and a really big one for the unclaimed. When asked, the satyr right by him wouldn’t answer.
After a knock on the door, it was opened by some blonde haired girl with a high ponytail. Like most everyone else, she had an orange camp shirt and a necklace with beads on it. She only had one.
“All of you guys shut up, we have a new camper!” She yelled.
Everyone’s eyes turned to him, and he stared to scoot behind Maron, trying to hide away from their stares.
Cabin 11 looked like a place housing too many refugees than it’s capacity. All the bunk beds were filled, and there were a ton of people on the floors as well. At least they had sleeping bags.
“Determined or undetermined?” Asked the girl who opened the door.
“Undetermined.” Maron said sheepishly.
An loud cacophony of groans greeted Will’s ears like a horn right next to his head. He was getting overstimulated at the worst time possible.
“Okay guys, it’ll be fine. A new camper made it to camp alive, and that’s a good thing!” A boy, probably about two years older than him, stated.
The boy had brown hair and blue eyes with a mischievous glint. There was another boy next to him that looked exactly the same, though the only difference was that he was slightly taller than the other, as well as having darker freckles.
The rest of Cabin 11 shrugged and mumbled amongst each other.
The taller one sighed, before grabbing the other’s hand and bringing him over as the blonde girl left.
“I’m Travis Stoll, and the shorter one here is my younger brother Connor Stoll!” He said, holding a hand out for Will to shake.
Connor smacked his brother’s hand away. “Dude, we don’t even know if he’s okay with handshakes!”
Will—in fact—did not like handshakes. So he was grateful for Connor’s help.
“Anyways, we’re the head counselors of Cabin 11.” Travis said, his smile no longer at his cheeks. “Connor’s gonna go grab some toiletries and a sleeping bag for you, while you follow me!”
Will reluctantly left the safety that was behind Maron, the satyr waving goodbye as he left to go inside the cabin, and the door was shut.
Travis lead him to a spot on the floor where he could put his stuff and talked to him until Connor came back with the things he was sent to bring for him. From what information he was told, Travis was older than Connor by a year.
Well, technically two years until Connor’s birthday came about. So Travis was 14, and that meant Connor was 12.
He was also told about the whole war thing that was going on, which he didn’t know how to feel about that.
He really wanted a nap.
Luckily, Connor came back with the sleeping bag and some other stuff and Will got settled down in his ‘lovely’ spot on the floor.
They were really nice to him, which didn’t really happen to people he barely knew.
Will Solace felt like he could make friends here.
——————————————————
All week, Travis and Connor took him to multiple different activities, and he wasn’t good at any of them. Not even at art.
He also had to try out multiple different weapons, because he was an indecisive child. The only one he was somewhat decent with was a gun.
On Friday, it was time for a game of capture the flag, which he knew would be chaotic based on what he was told. Since Chiron wanted to try one more thing, he was placed with the small team of medics from Cabin 7. Which, in all honesty, was incredibly stupid.
He wanted a chance to fight, a chance to prove himself and others that he was good at something. He didn’t want to be a scaredy cat waiting on the sidelines, he wanted action!
Anyways, the ‘team’ of medics was really just a duo. A short angry guy named Micheal Yew, along with Chiron. This was probably gonna be 𝘴𝘰𝘰𝘰𝘰 damn boring!
At least Micheal was trying to lighten up the mood by trying to make small talk with him.
“So… Will, what’s your mom like?”
“She’s an alt-country singer.” He said plainly.
Silence.
And then a scream.
“Oh shii- shoot! Someone’s hurt! Will, come on. I’ll just have to teach you along the way.” Micheal ran into the forest, with Will tailing him.
“I know you were gonna say shit.”
“You’re a ten year old!”
——————————————————
Once they were getting close to the source of that ear splitting scream, one of the campers ran up to them. Probably Silena Beauregard from Cabin 11.
“It’s one of the Demeter kids! He’a screaming in pain and we don’t really know why!”
Will and Micheal were lead to a small clearing, where said Demeter kid—his name was something like Issac, will forgot—was lying on the ground, clutching his leg, and of course screaming.
What was weird about the situation was that he immediately knew what it was.
He had always had that ability. Was always able to tell that his mom had a fever or something like that, but he had never sensed something this serious.
He didn’t know if he should say something. Micheal seemed to have a hand on the situation, but nobody seemed to know exactly what was happening. Everyone seemed stressed and were screaming at each other until Will couldn’t stay silent anymore.
“He tore his achilles tendon.”
Micheal paused his work, turning around to look at him. His face was full of confusion, and he seemed to be thinking about something. “What did you say?”
“I said he tore his achilles tendon!” Will yelled. “Are you deaf?!”
The son of Apollo got to work after that, giving Issac some ambrosia and splinting his leg. In the distance, he could see someone from the red team, who was probably a child of Ares, carry blue team’s flag across the river, the ones chasing them having been too late.
The symbol for Cabin 5 appeared on the flag, and all of team red cheered as everyone gathered around.
“Cabin 5 gets the laurels!” Chiron declared, trotting up to the group of demigods.
Will was tired, but he was restless from doing basically nothing. He looked back down at Issac, who looked at him in turn.
The guy’s eyes widened, shaking Micheal’s arm and pointing at something above his head, everyone slowly noticing what was going on.
“Kid, look above you.” Micheal said, pride very noticeable in his tone, which was strange. But, he still did what the older boy said.
Above his head was a glowing symbol, which was slowly shaped into a sun. The symbol of Cabin 7.
A symbol of Apollo.
“You have been claimed by Apollo!” Chiron shouted loud enough so everyone could hear, and they all bowed. He vaguely remembered that this apparently was part of the tradition that happened when a camper was claimed by their godly parent.
“Leader of the Muses, protecter of young men. Hail Will Solace, son of Apollo!”
——————————————————
Three months since he had came to Camp Half-Blood.
Two months and three weeks since he was claimed.
It was still rather crowded in Cabin 7, but no one had to sleep on the floors, so that was a plus.
Immediately after joining, he was to be trained in healing by Micheal Yew, and therefore was now one of the medics of camp. Safe to say he didn’t like it. He wanted to be a great, strong hero that would be remembered. Someone like Herakles, or Perseus!
The war was still going on, obviously, and he finally got to meet this Percy Jackson guy he heard a lot of people talking about a few days ago. He was kind of hot, sure, but he didn’t really get the hype.
Anyways, after a long day in the infirmary(thanks to capture the flag with the hunters of Artemis), he really needed a nap before dinner. Once he reached his cabin, he flopped down onto his bed without even bothering to talk to anyone or change out of his clothes, and promptly fell asleep.
He was told demigods dream a lot. It was usually just normal dreams, but it could sometimes be seeing something happening in the current moment somewhere else, or even a vague vision of the future!
He had a feeling it was none of them.
He was standing on some random beach. The waters of the sea looked really rough, and the clouds were so dark it seemed it was gonna rain really hard. Even with all of that, it was darker still, and there was this sort of oppressing feeling around this whole place.
A little ways in front of him, the sand started falling rapidly, and he quickly backed away before he could fall in. After the sand was done falling, there was a large gaping hole in the beach. Suddenly, a deep voice that added to the oppressive aura started speaking.
“𝙒𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙢 𝘼𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙬 𝙎𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚,” the voice said. He flinched slightly at his full name being said. The voice continued speaking. ”𝙎𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝘼𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙤. 𝙇𝙪𝙠𝙚 𝘾𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙣 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙠 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙣𝙤𝙬, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙄 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙤𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜.”
Some of the sand got swept up by a wind he couldn’t feel, which swirled together until out came a man with a nasty scar.
Luke Castellan.
He had been told about him, heard about him in passing at camp, but had never seen him. He betrayed all of Camp Half-Blood to join Kronos two years before he came.
“Hello.”
Will didn’t know how to respond.
“I’d like to ask you some questions,” Luke said, though his tone made it clear it wasn’t something he could deny. “First of all, do you think the gods are good parents?”
Again, Will didn’t know how to respond. Though he tried to answer as much as he could. “Uhm… maybe? Not really? It’s just kind of weird seeing so many unclaimed kids in Cabin 11, even children of the minor gods.
Luke smirked, as if that was the answer he wanted. “Tell me then, Solace, do you think that the Olympians will ever change their ways?”
Again, silence fell amongst the two. He didn’t want to respond what he thought, but his reluctance to speak made it clear to the man what his answer was.
“Exactly. That’s what this whole thing in Kronos’ army is all about!” Luke smiled sinisterly, but Will didn’t notice his malice. “The Olympians aren’t good parents. They’ll never change their ways, even if we confront them. That’s why we need to take them down, and bring a new age!”
“But… they’re family!” Will proclaimed. Luke sighed.
“Then you’re blinded. Do you think they even see us as family? Do you think that they’re present in our lives?”
Will’s hands started shaking. He had only been talking with Luke for a little bit, but he was slowly starting to see his point of view. Somehow.
“That’s why I propose this offer: become a spy for Kronos. You’re not even a teenager, so I don’t want to put that pressure of fighting on you. Besides, having spies in camp will help us 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺.”
Luke reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a silver scythe charm, and holding it out in front of Will. “What do you say?”
Will was stuck. He didn’t know what to do. Decline the son of Hermes’ offer and go about his life, or accept and become a spy for Kronos. Olympians’ side, or Kronos’ side. Betray his siblings and friends, or become apart of something bigger than himself.
He reluctantly nodded, grabbing the charm from Luke’s hand, and the man’s smile grew even bigger, along with a chuckle from the voice in the pit—which now that he thought about it, it was Kronos.
“Good. Now, here’s what you need to do…”
——————————————————
The next morning, Will woke up, not feeling rested at all from his dream last night. He still had the charm in his hand, which would be used to communicate back and forth with the army.
Gods, what had he done?
Pocketing the charm, his stomach rumbled loudly. He was starving since he missed dinner yesterday, and didn’t complain when the head counselor—Lee Fletcher—quickly roused everyone up to get to breakfast.
After, the first thing on their itinerary for Saturdays was to go to arts and crafts. That day, they were making some charm bracelets.
Lee and Micheal chose two for his bracelet, and he chose one for each of them. Then he remembered the silver scythe charm in his pocket.
After some thinking, he pulled it out and clipped it onto his bracelet. He saw Micheal looking at him curiously, and looked up from his wrist and made eye contact with him. “What the fuck you looking at?”
“Will, watch your language first of all.” Micheal was a damn hypocrite he cursed all the time, Will thought. “Second of all, where’d you get that charm?”
He swallowed his saliva, slightly nervous now. Micheal couldn’t know about his decision. No one could. So, he did the only thing he knew to do in situations like this.
“My momma gave it to me.”
Oh how the lie twisted and burned in his chest.