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He doesn't recognize the feeling for what it is, at first. It's strange, not one he recognizes. And then he realizes it. There is someone who is not happy at the beach. Not merely not happy, but unhappy, miserable, even, enough that it has noticeably affected his mood and his domain.
Frowning, he takes himself to that beach. A particular one. Before he is fully there, he remembers to coalesce into a body. It is one of those things that mortals require.
There is a woman there, knees in the surf. She is the only mortal at the beach, at this time of year. Her blonde hair is streaked with gray, and stormcloud eyes observe him, almost as if they can see how he is more than this mere form. They cannot, of course, for no mortal can truly understand the fullness of his form, but the effect is disconcerting.
“Hello,” he says, for lack of anything else to say.
“Percy?” The woman asks, a tremor and coarseness to her voice that surprises him.
She knows him. It takes him an unusually long time, for a god, but he realizes he knows her too. Knew her, perhaps, for she surely does not know him anymore.
“Annabeth,” he says.
“What happened to you?” Her tone is curt, as if she were speaking to an equal.
“I became, and I unbecame,” he answers, which is true enough. It is likely as much as she can comprehend. There is only so well he can express in mortal language what it is like to become a part of the world itself.
She frowns. It seems she does not like the answer he has given her.
Abruptly, he remembers they were married. She still wears her ring on her finger. Idly, he wonders what happened to his ring, for he knows mortals have such things, and he was mortal once.
“How are my children?” He asks, shifting the tone of the conversation.
It does not work. Annabeth's gaze hardens into a glare. “Not here. I've taken every precaution, after last time.”
His father had taken Odysseus, to compel him to ascend. He recalls, dimly, the concern for his son. He had been angry with his father, for he had yet to understand what his father was giving him. He understands it now.
The woman is impertinent, for a mortal. He supposes some of it is earned, for she did save Olympus twice, as he had. It is odd, in comparison to the fear and worship he is owed by the mer of his father's kingdom. He suspects from any other mortal, he would find the insult unforgivable. But she is the mother of his children, his wife, his best friend as a mortal, and the woman he loved once. He loves her still, he supposes, as much as he can. So he allows much of her that he would not, even of any of the other half-blood heroes.
“I would like to see them,” he says.
“Our address is the same,” Annabeth says. “I didn't want to upset them further by moving back to New Rome after this upheaval. But I’ve reacquired our old apartment, just in case. You could come home.”
“I cannot,” he tells her. He is not even sure he can want to, anymore. He is so much more than one mere mortal apartment.
“Atalanta misses her daddy,” Annabeth says. Pleads, almost.
“Bring them to visit my domain,” he placates. “I will see them there as often and as much as I can.”
Annabeth’s expression grows thunderous.
“I am not the mortal you married,” Percy explains.
It is more than most of his kind would give her, but he has always been soft on her. He suspects she may be the reason why beaches near Alaska have been so unusually pleasant for so long. It would not take the sum of him to recall a vague memory and to make the beaches nicer.
It only makes her angrier. “That is bullshit, Perseus Jackson-Chase.”
Almost without intention, the surf begins to froth. Almost. He does not take it further, but he will not hide his displeasure.
She does not back down, meeting his eyes firmly. She knows he will not hurt her. Not as he was.
He leaves the beach, and the angry woman near to tears standing in it. His half-brother will have his head if he keeps upsetting the water so much. Kymopoleia would be delighted, but as a rule, he tries not to delight her too much.
“I have conditions,” Annabeth says. “You will not take our children to coerce me, by guile, force or any other method. You will not coerce our children, and you will not take them from me. You will not endeavor to rip our mortality from us. And you will swear this upon the River Styx.”
He would be offended, but they both learned young to force the gods to swear binding oaths. His wife is many things, but she is not a fool. He would not go to such lengths as his father had, but he cannot say he would be displeased were his remaining mortal family to ascend. Their deaths will not be easy.
Somewhere, all which remains of the mortal boy named Percy Jackson screams. The boy misses his mother, his sister, his wife and children, and his friends. But he is not that boy. He does not notice.
He is not there with her on the beach, but he knows she will hear it, and so he swears her oath.
His wife nods as she leaves his waters, and steps from his sight back into Alaska.
He knows it instantly when his wife brings his children to his domain. She is happy, but it is tinged with the same misery from before, and she is not at peace. Odysseus and Atalanta are excited, glad to be at the beach and too young to have been able to remember his avoidance of the water.
Atalanta is powerful already, that he can tell. He is glad, for he was powerful as a mortal and made a great many enemies. She will need that power to defend herself and her brother, much as he needed it to defend himself.
He coalesces into a singular point, and upon reflection, shrinks himself down further. It is unusual for a god to bend himself so, when it is not physically required—he has certainly not done so for any of his family's subjects—but his children would hardly recognize him at ten feet tall. He manifests before his children and wife, the perfect picture of a father ready for a day on the beach.
Odysseus and Atalanta are being held by his white-knuckled wife, each of them barely touching the water. He could raise the water level, simply to prove a point, but he is not that petty.
“Hello,” he says, grinning.
“Dad?” his son asks, cautious.
“Hey Ody,” he says.
“Daddy!” Atalanta exclaims, twisting out of her mother's grip, evidently satisfied in his identity already.
He intercepts his daughter, picking her up and cradling her. They are precious things, his children.
“Hey baby,” he says.
“Hi Daddy! I missed you! Mommy's been telling us stories about you while you've been gone.”
“I'm glad,” he tells his daughter. He holds her tight before setting her back down within his domain. He can still hold her this way, after all.
“Annabeth,” he entreats, one arm held out.
His wife is still cautious, but she allows Odysseus to enter the water. Finally, both his children are within his reach again. He will not do anything so rash as his father, and would not even without the oath, not yet. But that does not mean it does not please him to have both of his children, brilliant Odysseus and powerful Atalanta, near.
“Why can't you come home, Dad?” Ody asks.
“I would love to, champ,” he lies. He has no desire to return to a mortal existence. He loves his children, in the way that he can, but it is not the way in which mortals love one another. He cannot return to their Fairbanks home, not as he is now. But he is content to see Odysseus and Atalanta when they enter his domain, as the ancient laws allow. He is not his father, kept back by fear of a Great Prophecy. “Your grampa just needs some help from me.”
“Grampa Chase?” Odysseus asks. “Why wouldn't Mom help him?”
He hadn't realized Odysseus had formed a strong enough memory of Annabeth's father when they lived in New Rome to still remember the man. Unless he had gone to visit his daughter and grandchildren since Percy's ascension.
“Not Wise Girl’s dad,” Percy laughs. “My father.”
“Grampa Blofis?” Odysseus asks.
“My biological father,” he corrects. “Poseidon, the king of the seas.”
Odysseus merely nods, as if this now makes perfect sense. He realizes he does not know what his wife has been telling his children about their family, in his absence. Surely she has told them something, to explain his absence.
“Annabeth, my dear, please tell me you will be moving out of that horrible land soon. Somewhere closer, near my domain and where I can easily reach. It would be easier for me to be around more, if you were.”
Annabeth's eyes are calculating.
“It's expensive, to move our life again. And Juneau still needs work, even still,” she hedges.
“There is no need to fear my father, love. Return to New Rome, there will be no need to worry about any of that. You will be treated like the princess you are, I promise.”
She does not reply to that, so he takes his leave to enjoy this time with his children.
When he leaves the beach, his wife wears an old expression on her face.
He is rarely angry these days. So often, as a mortal, he had needed to fear for his life, or fight for someone's, and so many more things. Most often now, he is simply at peace, watching the tiny mortals frolic in his domain, or helping his father, stepmother, and siblings manage the seas.
There is something that brushes against the edges of his mind, almost like fingertips.
A portion of himself goes to investigate the sensation. He finds this part of himself unusually far inland.
It is burgeoning worship, that feeling on the surfaces of his mind, here in a new temple not yet completed. It is respect for his deeds and fear for what he may yet do. It is not as fulfilling as that which comes from his father’s subjects, but it will improve with time.
He is pleased: it is made exactly to his preferences, as it should be. There are few architects who could achieve such a thing, and yet he does not find the one he seeks, when he searches.
He returns to his domain. He will investigate further once the temple is built, although it pleases him that the construction of more temples in New Rome outlived Jupiter's son. It will be useful if Olympus ever faces another war. No risk of any of the minor gods turning against them. He of course would never turn, but it’s also unlikely his father would call upon him to fight—beaches are rarely the picture of violence and bloodshed, aside from when they are so soaked in gore that can be swam in as well. Idly, he wonders if he inherited that as well.
He can feel the trace of his mother-in-law when he arrives. It would be imperceptible to a mortal, but he has not been such for a long time. Perhaps his wife thought he wouldn't know, perhaps she doesn't care if he does.
“I wasn't aware you were speaking with your mother again,” he says in greeting.
“We've reached an understanding,” Annabeth replies. “It is still awkward and fresh, but we're working on it, I suppose.”
“Where is Atalanta?” He asks, extending his senses around the apartment to search for his daughter. Terminus gets upset with him if he puts out too much godly power within city limits. Especially outside his temple.
“She's at school.” Annabeth is curt. Only her tone betrays her mood. “With Ody.”
“A shame, I'd hoped to catch you both today.”
“For some of us, time ticks ever onward.”
“You are upset.”
“Of course I'm upset, my husband is gone, replaced by something that can't even celebrate our children's birthdays! And I can't even be mad at you, because I know why you did it, and I would have done the same in your position, and I just know you should be fucking pissed at all this.”
“I do not like the ancient laws, but I do have to obey them.” He says.
“That! That right there! You used to fucking hate them! You would rail against how our parents treated us, and now it's like you just don't care.”
“You don't understand. How can you? You are a mortal. To understand would be to break you.”
His wife nearly tears her hair out in frustration.
“Percy, I—I can't with this right now. I feel like every time I see you we fight or something happens and—” her breath hitches “—I just want my best friend back.”
“I am sorry,” he says mildly. It is honest, he does not wish her to be upset. But he does not wish to be anything but what he is.
“Just go,” Annabeth says. “I don't think we can talk right now.”
So he leaves.
He realizes, one day, that every time he sees his wife, she is older. Little, imperceptible signs. Another gray hair here, a new line there, that sort of thing. It disconcerts him slightly, when he does not feel any older than when he came home.
“What troubles you, my son?” Poseidon asks.
“Mortals,” he says. “They are so …” he struggles for a way to express it. Mortal language is so restrictive.
His father speaks, and it sounds like the Ancient Greek he'd grown up hearing and speaking, but now he can tell that as the gods speak it, it is so much more. His father is telling him of the waves grinding away at the shore, of the long, long cycles of the tides, and the rise and fall of mortal nations. Of men being drowned and drowned and drowned as the seas rage, and their numbers lessening millennium after millennium.
He is only at best partly sure he understands the fullness of his father's message, but he does get the point, he thinks. They are gods, many of them the ideas and representations of processes hundreds of thousands of years in the making. Their timescales are much, much longer than humans.
Before he can properly reply to his father, his half-brother enters the throne room. Triton has warmed to him since his ascension. They are remarkably similar and now that he is a god too, they get along quite well. Poseidon's favorite sons, rulers of the calmest waters.
“Good, Percy, I was looking for you,” Triton says. “Our uncle wants you up on Olympus for the solstice.”
“Did he say why?” Percy complains, shifting his attention from his father. These days, he and Triton look more alike than not—anyone who didn't know better would hardly believe Percy was the younger brother by so much.
“I only heard from Hermes, so I couldn't ask the king himself,” Triton says. “But I encourage you to question the god king, see how well it goes for you.”
“Fine, fine, I'll be there,” he waves his brother off. He sets the issue to the back of his mind for now. There are other concerns that are more pressing, his uncle’s dramatics among them.
Olympus is, as always, resplendent. There is the portion visible to mortals, the simple illusion draped over the true majesty of the palace of the gods. A part of him wonders how different this is from before the second titan war, if Annabeth was able to make changes to this part, or if her title had been purely honorary nonsense. He hopes she can at least see it, she deserves to see the splendor of the mountain home of the gods.
“Perseus,” his uncle’s words disrupt his musings. Reluctantly, he turns to face him. He is here on the solstice to speak to him, after all.
“Lord Zeus,” he bows his head. They might be family, but his uncle is the king of the gods, and is owed his due respect.
“You visit your children frequently,” the king says.
“I do,” Percy admits. “It’s hardly any danger.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of Annabeth. His wife is different from the last time they spoke. He can't quite identify the change, but it's almost as if there's less mortality to her. It’s impossible, of course, but that doesn’t stop him from becoming distracted.
He watches her carefully, trying to puzzle out what about her has changed. The answer eludes him, and escapes completely when Zeus clears his throat. Evidently the king has noticed the lapse in his attention.
“Perseus,” Zeus says.
He apologizes sheepishly, and files the difference away to wonder about later.
It is summer, the next time his wife brings his children to his domain. He makes sure the water is warm enough for them to enjoy themselves to the fullest. They would never be in danger of course, not while playing within his domain, but he can always make it more pleasant for them, so he does. He cannot stop by himself, it’s been too soon since he last saw his wife, and the ancient laws will not permit it.
The children are happy, as they always are. It is likely they know that their father is with them, in one way or another, when they visit the beach. For once, his wife is at peace. She has always been conflicted, torn between anger and love, and frequently tinged by sadness, when she makes her pilgrimages to his domain. She is sad today, not even the pleasantly warm water abates that. But neither does she allow his children to see it. She plays with his daughter in the waves, laughing and building grand sandcastle palaces with his son.
Satisfied, he retreats his focus to the rest of his domain, noting with a pleased smile the increased tribute from the Greeks as well as the Romans. It does not match the fulfillment he gets from his father’s kingdom, but he sees no need to fuss over it.
There's an echo of an excruciating pain that rips through his mind, something that would be enough to cripple him, if he were mortal. But he is not, so it is merely a curiosity. What could possibly be happening to give him this sensation? His mind scours his domain, his beaches and his waters, only to turn up empty handed. There’s no families being ripped apart by one of his sister’s storms, or rancid pollution despoiling his sands and waters, things that he would expect to hurt.
His children aren’t in his domain, but surely he would know if they were in danger, some knowledge beyond just this pain. If anything he is reminded of his ascension, but he cannot exactly ascend again, so that cannot be it. His wife isn’t in his domain, and as he goes looking for her and his children, he realizes he cannot find her.
And then, as quickly as it came, it is gone, the pain fleeing from his mind once more. He can feel his mind expanding once again, stretching inland from the beaches to the walls of earth used to hold back the tides from the mortal cities. Out into the monopoles the mortals use to hold up their structures. There is a certain defiance in telling the tide it will go no further, or driving a stake into the seabed and declaring that it shall hold. As he feels this change settle into him, he can feel something, someone else there in these new reaches of his domain.
“Husband,” his wife says, wrapping the arms of her mortal shell around his own. They are so much more than these shells, but it is admittedly easier for a mortal wrapping to embrace mortal wrapping than it is for the beach to embrace the skyline of the city behind it.
“Wife,” he replies, kissing the cheek of her mortal shell.
Distantly, he notes their children standing in their domain on the shores of Camp Half-Blood. It will be nice to see them at camp, to watch them competing in the same orange shirts their parents had once worn as mortals. It would be nice to see them lauded as heroes, having earned the glory he always knew they deserved, he thinks. Their oldest is about the age he was when began to earn his own glory, after all.