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The palace of Atlantis breathed differently compared to Olympus.
Where the divine city above the clouds revealed its grandeur in columns and carved marble and the particular weight of accumulated myth, Atlantis held its magnificence in movement, in the way bioluminescent light traveled through the water beyond the palace walls in slow, sweeping currents, in the way sound travelled differently here, carried by something just as ancient as the sky, rich and resonant, settling into the bones before it reached the ears. The palace itself was built from materials that had never belonged to the surface world, coral and deep stone and something translucent that caught and held light from any discernible source, releasing it in soft pulses that made the whole structure seem like treasure rather than just architecture.
The revelry filled it completely.
Not in the mortal sense of a crowded hall, but in the way the sea filled everything it touched, without gaps, without corners left pristine, music threaded through the celebration in layered currents, divine voices moving through harmonics that remained without a name in any mortal language. Beings of the deep moved through the space with the fluid grace of deities that had never once needed to accommodate themselves to the limitations of the sky and of the land, nereids and older spirits whose names had been old before even the first civilization learned to write. The atmosphere shimmered with the salt sharp scent of deep water and something sweet beneath it, the particular fragrance of a world that had never suffered drought, that had always been wild as the ocean itself.
Percy walked through it with the particular nature of grace he carried in the domain of his father, a familiarity that lived in his blood rather than his memory, his sea green eyes bright and attentive, his dark locks lifting faintly in the currents that moved through the palace even within the walls of the palace. He wore silver, as he always did at divine events, the color chosen quietly and without announcement, the toga catching the bioluminescent light and returning it in soft, pale gleams.
Artemis walked beside him, her auburn curls falling loose around her shoulders, her silver cloak trailing at her heels. She had never commented on the colors he chose, not once in all the events they had attended, yet each time she registered it with a warmth that settled beneath her ribs and stayed there, a quiet and private satisfaction that he declared himself as hers to the world this way, simply and completely, without requiring anyone to ask.
The crowd parted as they moved through it, the divine beings present recognizing Artemis with the instinctive deference granted to the eternal huntress, and Percy with something that had shifted over time from curiosity to respect, the particular regard granted to a hero who had earned it through victories and glory. They bowed as the couple passed, subtle and sincere, and Percy acknowledged each one with the calm dignity he had developed across years of being the son of a god and the lover of a goddess.
Poseidon found them before they had crossed a quarter of the hall.
He moved through the celebration the way he moved through the sea, with complete authority and without particular urgency, the crowd accommodating him without thought, his presence enormous even when he was not trying to be. He wore deep blue and the particular bearing of a king who had never needed to remind anyone that he was one, his dark locks and beard brushed for the revelry, his eyes carrying that unmistakable sea green that he and Percy shared, ancient and luminous.
He reached Percy first and pulled him into an embrace that had nothing ceremonious about it, tight and immediate, his large hand pressing at the back of the dark locks of his son for a moment before he stepped back and held him at the length of an arm with the look of a father who had not seen his child recently enough and was taking inventory, he spoke, and his tone holding something that affection alone was not a sufficient word for, "My dearest son."
Percy replied with the warmth that came from the peace he had long since found with the complications of their relationship and the choice he had made to cherish what was good in it, "Father."
Poseidon turned to Artemis, his gaze shifting into the composed respect of a god greeting his niece, his bearing carrying the formality of equals, "Artemis," he said and inclined his head with genuine deference, "It gladdens me to see you well."
"And you, uncle," she replied, measured and sincere, her silver eyes steady on his.
He led them through the celebration toward the far side of the hall, where the table of the royal family occupied an elevated alcove framed by columns of deep stone wound with living coral that bloomed slowly in the bright light. Amphitrite sat at the center with the composed radiance of a queen who had held her throne gracefully across the millennia, Triton stood nearby, his expression marked by the reserved composure of an elder brother who had long since accepted Percy as family, and the other members of the royal court inclined their heads as the couple took their seats.
Poseidon asked about the Hunt with the genuine interest, he had been following its movements across the world ever since Percy began living with them, the forests it had crossed, the monsters it had driven from mortal lands, the hunters that had been recruited since the last time he had received word. Artemis answered with the quiet confidence she brought to discussions of her domain, precise and measured, and Percy contributed with the distinct warmth that came from belonging to the world she described, loving it from within rather than merely observing it from afar.
The revelry moved around them in its generous, unrestrained way, the emotions of the sea given form and music, nothing held back, nothing performed for the benefit of propriety.
After some time Percy rose from his seat with the effortless manner, his attention drawn to something that had sparked his curiosity, murmured something to Artemis too low for the table to catch, and disappeared into the crowd with the particular familiarity that seemed native to him, he belonged in the domain of the sea regardless of where he stood within it.
Conversation flowed around the table, Triton and Amphitrite exchanging words that Artemis registered without attending to closely, beside her, Poseidon had gone briefly quiet, his sea green eyes tracking the movement of his son through the celebration until the crowd absorbed him and he was gone from sight, then the god turned, not to the table, not to the celebration, but to her.
"How does he fare," he asked, his voice pitched below the noise of the revelry, marked by the directness of a question that had lingered through the pleasantries for the right moment to be spoken, "With the Hunt?"
Artemis raised a brow, her silver gaze settling on him with the composure that served her equally in battle and in divine politics, "You might ask him that yourself."
A chuckle slipped from him then, low and edged with something neither quite bitterness nor regret, but a long settled blend of the both, as though they had learned how to blur into one another over time, "It is not so simple between us," he muttered under his breath, his gaze dropping briefly to his cup before lifting again toward the hall, "Conversation with Percy has never come easily. There are too many hidden empty beneath every exchange, too much left unsaid on both sides, too much history pressing against every word, trying to force its way into the open."
She looked at him for a moment, her expression not softening but settling into something honest, "That is rather common between half bloods and their divine parents," she said, her voice even, offering the observation without cruelty and without comfort, simply the truth as she understood it.
Poseidon laughed then, properly, the sound broke through him with genuine amusement, brief yet real, he shook his head, and a quiet pride settled in his gaze, as though what he had heard was not entirely truth, yet close enough to be worth standing behind, "Percy is not like the others, never had been," he spoke, the certainty in his words shaped by lifetimes spent watching half bloods and heroes rise and fall in the wake of war and fate, "The divine blood runs deep within him, deeper than it has any right to in a mortal, deeper even than in most of the gods who claim such lineage by birth alone," there was a stillness in him then, a kind of quiet certainty that settled into his posture and held him perfectly in place, "He stands among us already, as though divinity did not descend into him so much as recognize its rightful place and settle there."
Artemis did not respond, he lifted her cup of nectar, drank, and set it down with the quiet precision she brought to moments when speaking would have given something away that she had not decided to offer.
They sat in silence after that, the celebration flowing around them in a wild current, until he turned toward her with a directness that set aside the bearing of a king and revealed only a father looking at the lover his son had chosen.
"I feel concerned for him," he said at last, and the words were not adorned, stripped of divine weight and royal authority, just the truth, "You understand that."
She did not respond, her silver eyes on the hall ahead, her expression still.
Poseidon drew a breath, his large hands settling against the table, steady and deliberate, "He is loyal beyond reason," he spoke, voice was low and measured, as though describing something that unsettled him, "He would follow you to the end of eternity, he would walk into any darkness, bear any burden, accept any cost, if you merely asked it of him, even simply needed it of him without asking," he stopped for a moment as he chose his words with a care that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the simple fear of a father, "Even to his own ruin."
The hall moved around them, music and laughter and the bioluminescent light pulsing through the deep stone walls, and Poseidon turned fully toward her, his ancient eyes meeting hers without the buffer of formality.
"Please do not hurt him," he said, his divine pride laid entirely aside, the accumulated authority of a god that ruled the sea for a millennia set down without ceremony, "Not in any form, not through intention and not through carelessness, not through the slow wearing that happens when someone is loved imperfectly for too long," his gaze searched hers with precision and relentlessness, steady in the certainty that deception would reveal itself instantly and was prepared to find it, "I ask this of you, Artemis, as his father."
Artemis held his gaze across the length of that silence, steady and direct, and when she spoke, her voice carried the weight of a goddess for whom a sworn word was not a courtesy but a binding vow, "I swear it."
Poseidon looked at her for a long, searching moment, his ancient eyes reading whatever was beneath the surface of her words, the particular scrutiny of a god who had survived enough deception to recognize its absence when he encountered it, what he found there settled something in the lines of his expression, loosening a tension that had been present on his shoulders, he nodded once, a slow and final motion, and said, quietly, "That is all I can ask for."
He turned back to the celebration, and the formality of a king assembled back around him gradually, the way the sea assembled back around something that had briefly disturbed its surface.
Percy returned not long after, his sea green eyes bright, holding the particular warmth that lived in him when he was in the domain of his father and had remembered that it was also his, he turned toward Artemis, his mouth already forming the beginning of something, a story from the crowd, an observation.
She reached for his hand.
He quieted.
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, slow and deliberate, the kind of kiss that was not spontaneous but chosen, shaped with intention from the first breath of it. She felt his surprise dissolve into a familiar warmth, her fingers tightened lightly around his, and when she drew back, only as far as the space between a shared breath required, her forehead rested briefly against his, silver eyes finding sea green.
"I love you," she said, quietly, her thumb resting at the line of his jaw, her silver eyes holding his with the steadiness of a confession she had said countless times before and would say until the last star would fade from the sky, "And I shall love you for the end of eternity."
He looked at her for a moment in the way he sometimes did when she said something he had not been expecting. Then he smiled. Not the wide, bright grin of amusement, but the deeper kind, the one that arrived when something reached past all his layers, and he covered her hand with his, gently pressed it against his cheek.
The hall of Atlantis moved around them in its ancient, calm rhythm, the light shifting through its deep blues and pale greens, the water breathing above, and the couple sat at the royal table with their hands intertwined between them, belonging entirely to each other.