Chapter Text
Hades stirred upon his throne for the first time in days.
He wasn’t sure why. None had approached him, his realm was fine, and his domains were...
Hm.
He had not inherited Persephone’s domains when she had faded. He hadn’t expected to, but it would have been nice to have something left of her.
Spring had gently slid back into the arms of the horae. Rebirth was unclaimed, with a small link to Dionysus. Fertility had been divided between Poseidon for the ocean and Demeter for the earth, but the goddess of springtime’s fading had been a surprise to them all when it happened just a few decades hence. Sure, Nymphs and minor gods had been fading since the start of the industrial revolution, but Persephone was hardly a minor god.
Humans.
Humans and their filth. The gods needed them, their worship, their belief, but their endless push for industry over nature had killed his wife, just as it had killed Pan, as it was killing Dionysus and Artemis and Demeter and Poseidon. Just a few years ago, Kympoleia had succumbed. Poseidon had been devastated, and the increase in mortal deaths to violent sea storms had been, though irritating because their souls took extra paperwork to process, entirely justified in Hades’ opinion.
And yet... somewhere, his wife’ domain had shifted slightly, perhaps. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed... warmer.
Why was he thinking about this? Hades tasted the air. There was a faint flavour of salt at the border, where the Styx met the elevator. A visitor?
But nothing came. Nobody entered his realm, and he sensed no change. And then the smell was gone. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, to imagine Poseidon would visit him down here, for once.
-
Percy Jackson was a puzzle. The first time Grover met him, he’d been hit with the smell of salty water so strongly he’d believed for a few seconds that he was standing on a beach. A bright-eyed, loyal and stubborn kid, Percy was kind, brave, and easily distracted with sugar.
Definitely a demigod, but Grover had no clue who his parent was.
Because his scent kept changing. Sea salt to fresh flowers to horse hair to frost, to something he could only describe as shadow.
Chiron was fairly sure Percy was a Big Three child, but Grover wasn’t. The plants, shadows and freshness, the way flowers seemed to bloom brighter when he was beside them made Grover guess Demeter, instead, but it didn’t quite fit. The one time Percy had spoken about his father, he was pretty clear that his mother had spent a single summer with the guy.
Key word, guy. Demeter had never taken a male form as far as Chiron knew, and Sally Jackson, while tight-lipped, had referenced Percy’s father several times in email.
And there was no way Percy was Mr D’s kid. Dionysus kept careful track of his children and denied this one.
But the issue then was that there weren't that many nature gods left. They kept fading in increasing numbers after Pan’s disappearance. Honestly, if Persephone hadn’t faded twenty m years ago, Grover might’ve guessed her as the parent, but Hades’ and Demeter’s mourning had not been subtle.
Aphrodite was, perhaps, an option. Percy was aesthetically pleasing and would probably grow up a rather pretty adult, which was a common theme in her kids. A changing scent could be explained by instinctive glamour magic. Aphrodite also had a male aspect, though she took it rarely. But Percy wasn’t persuasive in the slightest (true charmspeak was rare, sure, but most Aphrodite kids held some weak form of it), wasn’t interested in thinking about or analysing relationships, and had, at several points in their friendship, declared his wish to become a nun or monk without the religion, because sex was gross.
Most Aphrodite kids had at least an interest in love.
Percy hadn’t displayed any powers yet beside his shifting scent, so Grover didn’t have anything else to go on at the moment, but his scent was very strong, and that was dangerous.
His mother didn’t want Percy to go to camp yet, though.
And that, Grover worried, was what would kill him.
-
Percy was in a room. A dark-marbled, gilded throne room. Before him there were two thrones - one adorned with skulls, encrusted in gems of all colours and the other overgrown with thorny roses and seamed with lines of sparkling diamonds.
Why did the thrones seem so very lonely?
-
Nancy Bobofit was in the fountain, screaming that Percy pushed her. He was staring, because he hadn’t touched her, but he’d felt a little twist in his gut and then she was in the water, as if by magic. “Percy pushed me!” She shrieked.
Weird stuff tended to happen when Percy was near water or blooming flowers - this was just another example. He always seemed to be blamed for it too, so he didn’t protest when Mrs Dodds appeared beside them. “Mr Jackson,” She said, in that tone he knew meant you’re in trouble.
Grover protested. Nancy complained, and Percy reluctantly followed his teacher into the museum.
He’d always felt Mrs Dodds was vaguely familiar, as if he’d known her when he was younger. She’d given him strange looks too, as if she felt that same connection. It was odd. She was a harsh teacher and had given him detention many times, but her hatred of him felt... complicated and personal.
They passed the gift shop and ended up back in the Ancient Greek section, and Mrs Dodds stared up at the stele for a long moment. “You’ve been giving us problems, honey.” She said.
-
So Mrs Dodds was a monster.
-
So Mrs Dodds was a hallucination?
-
So Mrs Dodds was a monster. And monsters were real. And trying to kill him.
-
So his Mom was dead.
And also the Greek gods were real.
And his Dad was one.
-
“Tell me about the search?” Percy flopped down beside Grover in a patch of wildflowers, watching as a group of bees buzzed through them. He’d never been frightened of bees.
“Have you heard of Pan?”
“God of the wild, right?” Percy tilted his head, not sure if he’d heard that from Annabeth’s lessons or from somewhere else. “A little bit.”
“He’s missing. He went missing two thousand years ago, and Satyrs have been searching for him ever since. We dedicate our entire lives to finding him in the hope we can bring him back.”
Percy’s heart ached for his friend. “And... What if he’s gone? Two thousand years is a long time to be missing, and with the way humans are treating the earth at the moment...”
“Gods can fade. It’s supposed to be super rare, and nobody knows exactly what causes it, but,” Grover said softly, looking at his knees which he’d tucked against his chest. “Nature gods have been dying for decades - Persephone, Kympoleia, Ploutos, and nymphs by the dozens. But we can’t give up on Pan. Finding him is what we train for, what we’re born for- it’s a huge part of Satyr culture.”
In the back of his mind, Percy had always known that the wild was dying. Saving the planet, turning off the lights, saving electricity, recycling- he’d always tried, when he could. But this was bigger than just the little things. It was humanity systematically destroying the wild places of the world without any care for how it would affect the things that already lived there. The world would live on, but the gods needed humans to survive, and humans were killing their own habitable ecosystem in favour of money and progress.
Pan had disappeared when the Roman Empire was at or near its peak, he calculated.
That probably wasn’t a coincidence.
Yeah, there was something there. About the wild and civilization. Maybe because he was a demigod, but there was something in him that understood there were elemental forces at play.
-
So his Dad was Poseidon (not Zeus, despite what Annabeth thought)
-
And he was a thief.
-
“It said ‘I shall go west and face the god who has turned’,” Percy said slowly, twisting his hands in the hem of his t-shirt. He was shaken enough from seeing Gabe’s face and now he had to worry about a stupid prophecy. “‘And find what was stolen and see it safely returned’.”
“That’s great!” Grover said between bites of his cola can.
“Anything else?” Chiron eyed him.
Percy shook his head. He did not want the betrayal line to be overheard by anyone. He couldn’t put that kind of pressure out into the world. “No. That’s about it.”
The centaur looked at him with an unreadable expression. “Very well, Percy. But know this; the Oracle’s words often have double meanings. Don’t dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass.”
Percy got the feeling he knew he was lying, but was letting it go to make him feel better. “Okay. So we’re going West. To find a god.”
Chiron nodded. “Think, Percy. If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?”
“Someone who wants to take advantage of that and take over?” Percy guessed slowly. Nobody immediately came to mind.
“Someone who harbours a grudge, someone who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided so long ago whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath they both have now broken.”
Percy blinked.
He was blaming Hades?
Hades, the peaceful yet firm god of the Underworld, who was fair in justice and generally pretty content with his work?
...he looked at Chiron uncertainly. “You’re talking about Hades?”
Grover paused his chewing. “Wait, what?”
Chiron nodded. “The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility. He sent his Fury after him. Hellhounds come from the Underworld - he must have a spy in Camp who summoned it to attack Percy. He must suspect that Poseidon would use Percy to try and clear his name, and would like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest.”
Percy blinked. Chiron made some good points, but it just didn’t feel right. “Are you sure there’s no other possibilities?” He thought of his dream, the horse and eagle fighting on the beach and the evil voice cackling from below. Had that been Hades?
Or something... else.
“I’m sure, Percy. You must go to the Underworld, find the Master Bolt, and reveal the truth.”
“Maine’s nice this time of year,” Grover offered weakly.
But Chiron seemed pretty set on it. And Annabeth revealing herself made it plain enough that the quest had already been planned out for them. Percy had choice but go along with it.
Something in him still wondered, though, if perhaps Chiron was wrong. He’d said that the oracle’s words often had double meanings after all. Maybe it wasn’t Hades. Maybe it was some other god who they’d meet in the West.
Either way, Percy didn’t have a choice.
He was going on a quest.
-
He sent Medusa’s head to Olympus on the high of adrenaline and then promptly threw up when what he’d done hit him ten minutes later. “Why didn’t you stop me?!” He rasped at his friends, but he knew how he got.
Impulsive. Angry.
Count to ten, Percy, his guidance councillors had always said. Too late. He might have killed his friends.
-
Well, he could breathe underwater. He’d have preferred not learning that after falling 600 feet.
But the message from his Dad was nice.
-
Ares was familiar in a way that was surprisingly comforting. He was Percy’s cousin, he supposed. He bantered with Percy easily, smack talk passing back and forth. When they parted ways, Percy thought perhaps there was a glimmer of respect in the god’s eyes.
The trap, the shield, the water, it was surprisingly enjoyable when Annabeth wasn’t screaming her head off about the spiders.
He asked Annabeth to carry the backpack. Touching it made him feel slimy in the same way being around Gabe did.
-
They lost days in the casino.
-
Santa Monica was beautiful.
But it didn’t escape his notice that there were only three pearls, and they were trying to save his Mom. He didn’t say this to the nereid, because Annabeth had scolded him about his aversion to the backpack already (“You don’t refuse a gift from a god, Percy!”), but he wondered about his father’s intentions here.
-
“I’m Crusty.”
Yes you are, Percy fought the urge to say.
He didn’t resist telling Annabeth and Grover that they looked taller, after he’d freed them from the beds and killed Crusty with his own battleaxe. He preferred his sword. He would prefer even more if monsters stopped trying to kill them, but figured that was what questing was all about, and Annabeth seemed to think it was a good sign.
-
As soon as they reached DOA Records and pushed their way inside, Percy felt his anxiety melt away. Here, he was safe. Here, nothing could touch him.
(Some part of his mind wondered what exactly was going on with him, because this was weird, but most of him was just happy to finally be relaxed.)
He sweet-talked Charon with surprising ease, promising to mention a raise to Hades but not promising he would actually get him one. The lobby full of ghosts was jarring, weirdly. It felt like it shouldn’t be nearly this crowded. He threw in another twenty drachma so Charon would bring another boat down after them.
-
The transition from elevator to boat sent a jolt of freezing agony through him, arcing through his body from his head to his toes and making every muscle lock up in pure resistance. He lost all sense of direction or feeling for a few seconds, and when he came back to himself he found he was curled in a ball on the floor of the boat, tears rolling down his cheeks.
They were on the Styx. He remembered they had to cross it to get to the Underworld.
“Percy? Percy!” Grover was kneeling beside him, shaking him by the shoulders. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Annabeth was adjusting the straps of her backpack as she crouched down on his other side. “It doesn’t feel good to me either, but that’s not normal. How do you feel?”
Percy couldn’t speak. He was shaking too hard. Grover got him sitting up, leaned against the bench they’d been sitting on, and Annabeth sat in front of him and broke up some ambrosia squares to feed to him. The taste of his Mom’s blue cookies helped somewhat, grounding him and reminding him exactly why they were here.
Charon, when Percy looked over, was staring.
“Do you know what that was?” He asked, when he managed to find his voice. The world felt unstable, like a 3D movie, uncanny in a way he couldn’t unsee, like nothing was quite outlined right and if he held his hand out it would fall through the world. His chest heaved and his hands were shaking so hard he had to brace them on the boat’s floor. The pain was gone, but it had left him behind wrong.
The boatkeeper shook his head. “Never have I seen a soul react like that to Lady Styx, child. And you are not the first child of a broken oath to pass over her waters.”
“We-,” Annabeth spluttered.
“Not you. Him. He is born of a broken oath upon Lady Styx, is he not?” Charon said as the boat bumped gently against its dock.
Percy nodded, wiping his face on his sleeve. “The one made by the Big Three. Annabeth told me.”
Charon stepped from the boat and began herding the dead souls down the path, not bothering to look back. “Hurry on, children. You have an audience awaiting you. And you, Perseus Jackson - don’t forget about my raise.”