Chapter Text
“You only have one tail,” Triton said in disappointment.
As the first words that his immortal brother said to him, it could have been a lot worse. In fact, if Percy considered all the alternatives, Triton could have begun the conversation by picking out all the features that made Percy young, weak, an upstart god, and undeserving of existing let alone setting tail in the palace.
And so, Percy cheerfully pointed out, “Look on the bright side. At least I have two eyes.”
“Why does that matter?” the god asked blankly.
Well, it mattered because two eyes weren’t always a guarantee when one happened to be born the son of Poseidon and a mortal turned nature spirit. Then again, when the alternative was being a cyclops, Percy would have preferred being the ordinary merman he generally resembled rather than one of Triton’s beloved two-tailed merpeople but with only one eye.
(No offense to Tyson or any of his other siblings and definitely not to the elder Cyclops. Percy just preferred his own body as it was, no sudden transformations or constantly amendments necessary, thank you.)
“He’s perfect the way he is,” Poseidon interrupted before Percy could open his mouth and let a quip fly.
“Of course,” Rhodos agreed. “I didn’t know you and mother were planning to have other kids though.”
Considering the number of children Poseidon had, Percy rather doubted any amount of planning had been involved, ever, but he held his tongue.
He wasn’t a son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, after all.
“Ah well,” Poseidon hedged.
“Not again,” Kymopoleia burst out, slamming her hands on the table. “Once again, you’ve gathered us here to celebrate your virility under the guise of celebrating a new addition to the family!”
And what a celebration it was. One of the smaller dining rooms (smaller for a given value as a blue whale could easily fit within) inside Atlantis had been tidied up, festooned with miniature carved horses, dolphins, and bulls, and the table in the centre covered in platters of food Percy could only catch a glimpse of from within the cloches made of bubbles.
As far as Percy had been able to tell, even the corridors he’d passed through on the way had been decorated with vines and glowing pearls, interspersed with tapestries dusted with an iridescent material.
Unless Atlantis always looked this fancy and Percy had never known otherwise because, again, he wasn’t s son of Poseidon and Amphitrite. And while his stepmother had never tried to have him killed in the womb or sent monsters after him during childhood, or even summoned him during his turbulent teenagehood just to trick him into dying, he didn’t think she would have been so calm if he’d insisted on traipsing through her home on the regular.
Before Poseidon could do more than puff up in offense, Kymopoleia sneered, “Has it ever struck you that you keep having more kids but none of the old ones ever come to visit? Maybe if you put a halt on having more kids and focused on taking care of the ones you already have, you wouldn’t have to keep creating more to hide the fact that everyone but a newborn hates you?”
“Depends on the newborn,” Benthesikyme input judiciously. “Some of them are born with a startling degree of perspicacity.”
“So you have problems with him too?” Percy asked, a bright spark of mischief lighting up his chest.
That brought his arguing half-siblings to a stop.
“Too?” Kymopoleia inquired after a cautious pause.
Percy nodded.
“What did he do, promise you the world only to end up locking you up on an island?” Rhodos threw a jibe at Poseidon.
“Call you his prince and then treat you like a glorified errand boy?” Triton shot archly.
“Marry you off to a mortal and forget you exist?” Benthesikyme smiled.
“Or was it even worse?” Kymopoleia grinned with sharp teeth. “Create a being in his image only to retroactively realise that he’s really not all that and the kid’s just too destructive to have around his precious?”
“What are you anyway?” Rhodos followed up curiously. “A shark hybrid that has lungs instead of gills, a seaweed creature that requires meat to survive, a whale that can’t digest water? What problems has your parentage saddled you with?”
Percy tapped a finger on his chin, taken aback by the plethora of complaints. “Um,”
“He’s a god!” Poseidon input forcefully before Percy could come up with a palatable answer. “The newest one in the world, in fact.”
So new he was only nineteen years old. Practically infantile, really.
“What are you a god of?” Triton inquired, leaning back in his chair with an assessing gaze.
“Don’t know,” Percy answered uncomfortably. “I just make storms.”
And have disturbing dreams, create volcanic eruptions, and accidentally destroy bridges. Percy was destruction in a nutshell, really.
But even offering a watered-down version of his skillset or lack thereof didn’t stave off the outburst.
“So not only is there a new god in town, it’s also my replacement!” Kymopoleia shouted.
“I’m not a replacement!” Percy burst out, shaking his hands wildly. “I’m not even god of all storms or anything! Just hurricanes. On land.”
Kymopoleia stared at him incredulously. “Wow. You’re not even a subordinate. Just born, and you’re already halfway to dead.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Poseidon commanded. “He’s a god, he’s your brother, and you’re going to include him while carrying out your duties.”
“So … you mean not only do I have a snot-nosed little brother, I have to babysit the kid now?” Rhodos concluded.
“Don’t take it personally,” Percy commiserated. “First I heard of this was when he came to my birthday, for the first time ever, and gave me a sand dollar and a tour around the palace with my family. Funnily, he never mentioned just who was going to be part of this family trip.”
Not that Percy resented Poseidon for not visiting on his birthday. Much. Somehow, every year, some catastrophe would occur on that very day that necessitated Poseidon’s intervention. It was like the Fates didn’t want Percy to spend time with his father.
Benthesikyme sighed. “He’s insensitive that way.”
“At least you’re all getting along, even if it’s about how much you resent me,” Poseidon said, sounding unsure whether he ought to be worried about that.
Percy dared to pat his father on the elbow. “Get used to it,” he advised. “That’s how all well-adjusted siblings bond.”
Poseidon sighed. “Then I suppose you won’t mind if I were to leave you now to continue your bonding with your siblings?”
A part of Percy wanted to scream out a no, wanted to yell at his father to not leave him alone. But the rest of him had resigned himself to this eventuality the moment his mother had waved him goodbye from the ground after Percy had climbed inside Poseidon’s carriage.
It was too late, Percy had grown too powerful to be hidden behind exertions of Poseidon’s temper. Now he had to build his own reputation, lest the reports of a new god bring hungry creatures desperate for a taste of divinity to his backyard. And while Poseidon might be willing to keep him safe within his arms at all times, his father knew him well enough to realise such a life would stifle Percy.
If he had to build a reputation as a young god – might as well do it under the guidance of his siblings.
“I’d like to get to know them better,” Percy said. It wasn’t even a lie but he couldn’t completely dismiss the apprehension.
He didn’t even know what for. It wasn’t as if he suspected they’d chop him into pieces and throw him to the fish. By Tyson’s recounting, Triton was nothing but professionally kind while conducting assessments of the forge, Rhodos had been graciously polite while he’d designed her new watch, and Kymopoleia and Benthesikyme never ventured to the forges.
None had ever exhibited any worrying tendencies to torment their half siblings even if they clearly weren’t happy with their father for the same siblings.
So what was he worried about?
Not being liked?
Triton crossed his arms once Poseidon exited the room, appearing ten times more intimidating with his bulging muscles. And no amount of Percy’s love for the colour blue could hide the fact that his blue brother could crush his head in a single first.
“You don’t look like a god,” Triton noted dourly.
“Really? Why?” Percy shot back. If his brother wished to insult him with juvenile posturing, Percy could do him the favour of rising to the bait. It wasn’t as if he’d spent years concealing his powers until he could pass as an ordinary merman without hearing a few negative comments.
“Because you’re so–” Triton trailed off.
“Pretty?” Percy offered with a saccharine smile, spreading his hands around his face in a flower shape.
“Short,” Triton retorted.
Percy gritted his teeth. That … was something entirely beyond him. His father swum around the world fifteen feet tall, his siblings at least ten – while Percy was a measly six foot when on two legs. Sometimes, the costs of being in an age where people didn’t believe in the Greek gods outweighed the benefits significantly.
On other days, Percy thought about the deaths, the dismemberments, and the destruction laid out in the so-called Age of Heroes and considered himself lucky.
“So,” Kymopoleia inquired, a tinge of resentment screwing up her face, “what are you going to make him do first?”
“I wasn’t aware I was making him do anything,” Triton rejoined.
Rhodos flipped her hair behind her shoulder, sending the scent of flowers around the room. “I’m certainly not taking him along to my real estate negotiations. I have a big meeting and absolutely cannot afford even an intern to carry coffees.”
Benthesikyme nodded. “I understand completely,” she sympathised with her sister. “And not only because I have zero intentions of taking him to my home and watching him set a hurricane on it.”
“You send him with me at your own peril,” Kymopoleia stated at Triton’ pleading gaze.
The blue-skinned god sighed. “Guess you’re coming with me.”
Percy smiled. “No need to sound so disappointed at my presence.”
After all, it was his dream to one day experience the unenviable position of a dodgeball.
Forever getting tossed away.
***
“I’m bored.”
Apollo would never admit it, but perhaps his voice might have ventured closer to being a whine than the statement of fact he’d intended it to be.
“Too bad,” Artemis dismissed like the cruel, cruel sister she was.
Apollo sighed before hanging half out of the Moon chariot in an effort to catch something, anything interesting. All he captured was a few more stills of white-capped waves crashing against pale moonlit sands.
“I’m really bored,” Apollo complained. Where were the thrill-inducing quests, dramatic betrayals, last-second deux ex machina to save the plot, the lightning splitting the skies open and rending Earth in half?
Where was anything but the monotony that had gripped him ever since he’d made the conscious decision to take a step away from the headache inducing (heart-breaking, terror-eliciting) politics of the council?
“If you’re bored, that just means you’re not working enough,” Artemis shot back without an ounce of sympathy. “Get down there and help a dolphin pod cross the oceans or something.”
“It’s summer – no need to migrate,” Apollo groused.
“One more word of complaint and I’m kicking you out,” his dearest sister warned.
“So that I can break my neck at the impact, sink miles underwater, get my head chopped off by a whale, get surrounded by a bait ball and have bites taken out of me, and then have to excuse my presence in the ocean to uncle dearest on top of it?” Apollo cried out only slightly melodramatically.
Like any creature would bite off his head. Though making his excuses to Poseidon would be a travesty indeed. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, Poseidon would be blinded by the gleam of Apollo’s hair, the mischievous grin on his face, the tunic slipping just off his shoulder, and be transported back to the days when Apollo had required no excuse to be underwater whatsoever.
Before Poseidon had broken Apollo’s heart, bruised his ego, and made the god determined to wrest a painful apology out of his uncle no matter the cost.
“Apollo,” Artemis gritted out.
“I’m trying, ok?” Apollo pleaded. “It’s just … so boring. I can’t even argue with Atty lest we end up sharing a brainwave and get stuck with a baby.”
And that was the last thing either of them needed, especially with the rumours Hermes had heard of a new god being born. If gods were being born again, any progeny of Athena and Apollo would be nothing but the next generation of divinity.
And Zeus would never stand for that.
Plus … his mother would make a face. His Muses would make a face. Artemis would make a face. Apollo would make a face.
Somethings weren’t meant to be and Apollo never wanted to find out whether he had anything to do with Athena’s fascination for blonde genii. Suspicion was quite enough, thank you.
“Pray to great-grandfather,” Artemis told him in tones of great frustration. “Maybe he’ll listen to your plea.”
Apollo snickered, before taking another glance at the sleeping face of Ouranos in the sky. Despite Artemis’s clear disbelief in the possibility, Apollo couldn’t help but wonder whether the stars tracing out Ouranos’ closed eyelashes, the curve of his ear, the line of his nose, and the shadow below his plump lips would listen.
Whether they’d answer.
Deliver me from boredom? He sent out. Please?
He didn’t know why he did it. It was just boredom. A lack of true companionship. A sense of aimlessness that never faded.
What could a sleeping primordial do to change Apollo’s circumstances that wouldn’t make him droop in a well of regret?
A splash below them drew his attention.
Apollo peered down, sharpening his eyesight to track the minute changes in the waves that Artemis’s chariot had left behind seconds ago. The clouds slipping in between them momentarily gave him pause, but Apollo was a god, wasn’t he?
He blew his breath out in a steady stream until the clouds had cleared his vision and Apollo could see the unblemished ocean surface. Artemis, forever obliging her twin’s need for entertainment, brought the chariot lower until Apollo could have skimmed the surface of the water had he so wished.
What had he heard?
A trident breached the crystalline surface of the ocean before someone threw an entire sea serpent at the twins.
Apollo would never be ashamed of the scream he released at the sight of a fifty-foot serpent hurtling at him with its jaws wide open.
Nor of his next reaction, which was to scream “Burn!” while incinerating the creature to its constituent parts of carbon and water.
Ash rained down on the god as he sat flummoxed in the Moon chariot. “Did we get attacked?” he asked after a long moment.
“That better not have been an endangered serpent,” Artemis retorted repressively.
“It nearly made us get endangered,” Apollos shot back before looking back down into the bubbling depths of the ocean.
No more monsters seemed incoming, but Apolllo wasn’t one to attribute events to coincidence that he could blame enemy action for instead.
A string of bubbles made its way from the depths of the water (or the ten feet Apollo could see in the ghostly light of the Moon chariot) before popping with a noxious odour the moment the boils hit air.
Artemis wrinkled her nose. “You should see what’s happening there.”
“You see what’s happening there,” Apollo replied instantly.
Unfortunately, Artemis had this strange notion in her head that if only Apollo spent more time underwater, he’d get over his issue with water – completely disregarding that it wasn’t the water Apollo minded so much as what had happened in it.
“I’m busy,” Artemis pointed out with a gimlet glare. “And weren’t you complaining about being bored? Go do some work – great-grandfather actually designed a crisis for you too resolve.”
Apollo froze before tentatively flicking his eyes upwards. No, right? Ouranos hadn’t peeked an eye open and created this … whatever … just because Apollo had sent out an errant thought, right?
He didn’t know.
That made it doubly dangerous to ignore the sudden sea serpent and poisonous bubbles.
“You stay right here!” he instructed his sister. “You better not run away with my getaway vehicle.”
She made a face. Apollo offered her a brave nod, like a soldier going off to die, before jumping out of the chariot. After all, he didn’t actually doubt that Artemis would be right there behind him.
They were gods – singularity was a fantasy concocted by mortals.
Of course, not being completely devoid of sense, Apollo promptly transformed into a tiger shark before venturing any further. Garbage disposal of the oceans or not, but Apollo always felt much safer when possessing fangs, great strength, and fins that would enable him to flee at 20 mph.
Useful when barely fifty feet deep brought him in smacking distance of an octopus with bright blue spots that struck Apollo’s hind brain as terribly venomous.
Apollo swum to the side, avoided a piece of seabed that someone had thrown with no care for hapless passersby, and caught sight of the perpetrators of this underwater melee.
Triton.
Not that Apollo harboured any particular contempt towards the guy – he just treated Athena abysmally, shared a similar domain to Hermes and hence spent more time with the messenger god than Apollo himself, and had been present when Poseidon had completely ignored Apollo, directed his daughter into Apollo’s arms, and walked off to his next dalliance!
(Alright, so perhaps Apollo was a little salty. But really – they were in the ocean. What did Triton expect? Mercy?)
“You never said creature wrangling was part of your job description,” the minor god next to Triton announced.
A minor god that Apollo had somehow failed to notice until that very moment, but who Apollo couldn’t take his eyes off once he’d seen him.
The golden ichor beading at his lip, the hair pulled back in a small ponytail at the base of his neck, bare muscular chest liberally coated in black and blue monster blood, and a tail double the length of the god’s torso sparkling iridescently with scales the colour of the inside of an abalone shell – it was like the god was designed to attract attention. And since they were gods capable of shapeshifting, he might as well have been.
“It’s not part of my job description,” Triton announced like the pompous prince he was. “As my guard for this trip, however, it is yours.”
The minor god laughed in incredulity even as he grabbed the arm of a squid, impervious to the sharp suckers on the appendage, and tossed it away in a twist of muscles that made Apollo’s mouth dry out.
He surreptitiously parted his mouth and allowed some of the oceanwater in. Never mind the salt – he desperately needed some hydration, however deceptive.
“You sure are popular,” the unknown god remarked.
Triton brushed the conch shell hanging at his waist with mock humility. “Well, I am the prince of the seas. I carry messages of global importance that could pit the ocean at war if they were to fall into the wrong hands. People are always after me.”
The minor god ignored the blades of the seaweed furtively attempting to encircle him and placed a brave, brave hand on Triton’s shoulder. “You should get a bodyguard,” he advised. “Or a PR team that is better at making friends than you.”
If Apollo could, he would have held his breath. Had this god – minor, unimportant, with no backing but his own wits – not only dared to touch Triton, but also tease him in a manner reserved to family?
“At least I warrant a PR team,” Triton said sardonically, folding his arms. “You haven’t even figured out your own domain.”
The completely brazen god pouted. “But that’s what I have you for, isn’t it? To help me figure out what I’m good at!”
Triton rubbed one of the horns on his forehead in a gesture Apollo recognised from the mirror. That of a much-beleaguered sibling.
“You’re good at getting on people’s nerves,” Triton scolded.
“Now, now,” the new god said with arms raised in placation. “You have to admit. I am quite proficient at destruction as well.”
With only his words as warning, the god swung his tail at the weed and ripped all its blades off. Another swing of his tail, a vertical slash this time instead of the previous horizontal curve, and a rift opened up in the seabed.
An explosion of gases had Apollo looking away for a moment, but by the time he’d managed to create protective upper lids, bubbling lava had replaced the initial explosion.
Triton clapped his hands together. “I know what you can be god of! Sudden underwater volcanic eruptions!”
The other god placed his hands on his hips and raised his eyebrows sceptically. “Isn’t that Hephaestus?”
“You can share,” Triton assured.
They really couldn’t, Apollo knew. But it didn’t matter. The heart in Apollo’s chest that he kept around only for form’s sake had begun beating, keeping pulse with the swings of the other god’s tail.
Swings that swept the waters clear of anyone hoping to approach Triton.
Including Apollo.
But it didn’t matter. Because he’d already seen what he’d come there to.
When he resurfaced beside Artemis’s carriage, it was to find her eyeing him with deep approbation. “No,” she instructed firmly like he was a dog to be brought to heel.
“Yes,” Apollo insisted as he climbed inside the chariot, unrepentantly dripping all over the fur rug.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m planning,” Apollo protested.
“I don’t need to in order to recognise that look on your face.”
Apollo pouted.
Artemis pressed a hand to her forehead. “Please, just please, don’t make a stalker shrine this time. I am tired of making excuses for my idiot of a brother.”