Work Text:
"It is the price you pay...for existing"
“It is the price ive paid my whole life, the price ive paid for being alive. It has shaped my string, my path, my future, and that rests, somehow, not on you. You are the reason I owe this debt, that ive paid it over and over again.
And yet, it not once has asked anything of you. All of it has fallen upon my shoulders.
You make claims and oaths and promises, yet they always end up scattered and torn and thrown along others lives. It evades you as you see fit, because you are too cowardice to take some damn accountability!
All of my suffering- Thalias, Nicos, Biancas, Hazels, Jasons!- could have been avoided.
You say you care, that you have always held love in that chest full of star dust which you call a heart, that you would never mean any of your family harm, yet it is all you DO!
Endlessly this cycle has gone on for fucking millenia and not once have you put some action behind the words you speak. Not once have you shown the things you claim are true, are true! Over and over and over.
If you had truly cared, you would have gone up to that River and spoken of your crime, of your failure. You would have accepted the price, you would have spared us from paying it for you. But you did not. You let it fester, and grow, and it swallowed the children you say mean everything to you.
We were lost to the demands it made of us. We have choked on it. On Her.
And that, I believe, is your burden.
And it is bullshit.
You don't get that. You dont get that out, that excuse, that fucking sob story. You do not deserve our forgiveness, for you have done nothing to earn it. Nothing has been done to spare us from it. Not a damn thing. No. We should not have paid your debts, should not have bore the brunt of the curses stacked against you. We should not have bled for you. Died, for you.
But we did. We have. And that is because of you. Because of the path you chose. Because you would not own up to it.
You, both of you, are Oath-Breakers.
And who do you think will continue to hold the weight of it once we are gone? Who will you have left to throw it to, to crush with it? No one.
Because unlike you all, we learn. We grow, and we adapt, and we change. History does repeat, as it always will. But we have gotten this far.
So, when inevitably all of the horrors ive done and been subjected to catch up to me, catch up to the others, it will not fall into another child's hands.
It will lay its weight upon you, and it will break you.
Those after us will know not to bend as we did, to comply and endure it. They will not rip you off the floor and drag you back up as we have. They will let you rot.
And when that happens, wherever I am, I will be laughing my ass off.
And I'll toast with the Styx, for in the end, we fucking got you.
There will be nothing you can do about it, except brace yourself.
I could not, before this, give a singular flying fuck about any of you or your little bitchfests.
And yes, yes, I am glad to know you are capable of change. Its wonderful to know you can learn and apologize and own up to your idiocy.
But, ohh. Oh, am I bitter. I have endured, and fought, and pleaded again and again. Nearly six years worth of it all. Led two wars and walked through the Pit, slain monsters and Gods and faced Primoridal beings no mortal, no anything should have to face. I have done all of these things, in hopes things could be better.
Twice.
And yet… here I am, before you all, learning that all of this could have been avoided, all of the sorrow and loss and torture us Demigods have had to survive, did not have to happen. If all of you had just talked.
All of it. All of it. You were capable of change. This whole time. Every single one of you had it in you to be different, better. But you didnt. You had every opportunity to try. And none of you ever did. Not a single one of you actually tried to fix this broken piece of shit you dare call a family.
There was no need for any of what we endured. If you all had just got over yourselves, got over your bullshit, got over the fact that you are not perfect, and you all have been total assholes for as long as you've walked this DAMN EARTH.
A CONVERSATION. A TALK. A DISCUSSION TO CLEAR THE AIR OVER A MISUNDERSTANDING.
It would have spared so many. And yet, you all just- you didnt you- you would rather throw fits and scream and wage WARS and condemn eachother than just FUCKING TALK?!
No. I cannot sit up here and listen to all of this with a straight face, cannot watch as you throw apologies and hugs and condolences around as if this was some unavoidable tragedy. Because it wasnt.
I have been bitter. For a very long time. And, I know, that if Luke hadn't already filled his role, it would have been me in his place. Because I am so, incredibly bitter.
And I have been for a very. Long. Time.
Since the first dream of Thalia, since being called delusional for seeing things no one else can, for having the only trusted figures in my life lie to me for months, making me think myself crazy. Since I was ripped from everything I knew, since I watched my mom turn to dust infront of me. Since I was thrown in a camp knowing nothing or no one, yet expectations were piled on me as if I knew what they meant.
Since I felt I might have belonged, before being claimed and stripped of that again.
For six fucking years.
You've seen my grief, my failures, my successes, my joy, all of that. My bitterness. My doubt. But you've yet to see my anger. My rage.
No battle i've fought, no friend slain, no agonizing trial, not even the Pit has evoked the feeling I am experiencing right now. At the fact you all sit up here on your thrones crying over things that did not need remorse. Things that could have been avoided. Had you just tried.
Even now, its because im fighting for you. Do you realize that? I needed a letter, quests, to get into the one college that I truly have a chance at, that's safe, because I still owe a debt. Because you felt the need to strip me of this as well.
And here I am. Its because I had no other choice. It took this, airing out your grievances on the request of your sister, at the plea that I may finally get to rest after, for you all to wake the fuck up.
I am beyond fury.
This whole time the Gods could change, and they didnt. Their children needed not to know the stain of blood coating their hands, but they do.
You all, every single of you, are disgusting.
And I hope for the rest of your eternal lives, you carry yourself with the weight of all your failures upon your backs. I hope it aches.
And I hope you never escape it.
For this, for all the children that could have been saved, for all the pain I clawed my way free from. For the simple fact you never once before tried.
I do not forgive you. And I never will.
You are not above effort.
You are not above me.