Chapter Text
Sing, oh muses, of the child of the sea known as Perseus.
Born of a broken oath brought by love's all consuming arrow
Hidden by a mother's love, into the arms of a monster
As the Fate's weave their tapestry, they knew how it would end
the eyes of the Gorgon would fall upon the monster of a man
And all would be well
But another tapestry was woven here
And a mother learned far more quickly the horrors of the world she lived in..
**********
The storm outside was a real rager.
It was as if the sea was furious, wanting to vent out whatever frustrations it had on the coastlines of New England as the slate-gray skies overhead roiled and churned. Rain had yet to fall, not a single speck of water from the sky had fallen and yet the Atlantic went wild.
A lot of travel had been shut down all around due to the weather and yet his dinky little bus chugged along without a care in the world. From New York to Connecticutt, he made plenty of stops all around even as far as the colonial little town of Gravesfield deep in the Connecticutt woodlands, which as far as his city dwelling heart was concerned was as far from proper civilization as one could get.
He drove the bus, and he tried to keep his spirits up but it was hard because... well...
At the very back of the bus a mother and son sat huddled together, two suitcases sitting on either side of them all they had brought aboard. The mother was tall and willowy, long brown hair tied back in a quick ponytail. The kid had to be seven, black hair and green eyes that were currently closed as he slept. In any other case, he probably would have assumed they were simply off to visit family and never once think about them ever again in the entirety of his life once they made it off the bus.
This was not any other case.
"So..." He said awkwardly to his only two passengers, trying to sound friendly and approachable like he was talking to frightened deer. "How about that weather, crazy right?" He let out a small chuckle that died down slowly as the mother looked up, smiled with a pained look in her eyes, and then went back to running her hand through her son's hair.
He didn't stare at the handprint on the side of her face, nor did he comment on the black eye her son had. He could gather well enough everything he needed to know from the suitcases alongside them.
He simply drove.
Gravesfield was the next stop and, unfortunately, it was the last for them.
She had run out of money a while ago and though he hadn't said anything... he did still have a business to run.
"Never seen the weather so bad, you know?" He tried again, his friendly nature winning out. "Really bad out there right now but, well, it could be worse."
Finally, finally, the mother looked up at him with her blue eyes, brown eyebrow raised as she glanced between him and the stormy weather outside. He chuckled weakly. "At least there isn't a hurricane, right?"
The woman smiled faintly at him. "Yeah, at least there isn't a hurricane.
The bus passed the road sign for Gravesfield, the colonial town boasting about its long history as the bus passed shop after shop and street after street. It was a quiet little town, peaceful even...
He sighed as they pulled up to the bus terminal and he pat his hands on the steering wheel, not wanting to say anything but professionalism forcing his hand. He got up, fixed his hat, and slowly made his way back to the brown-haired woman and what had to be her son. She looked up at him and there was a resignation in her eyes that told him she knew what he was about to say.
"Do you have anything else you can pay me?" He tried not to beg and the woman simply smiled sadly.
"I didn't exactly have time to grab anything but my wallet."
Oh, right in the heart... He was going to be stressing about this for months; he just knew it. "Then, and I truly am sorry about this, believe me... but this is the end of the line."
She nodded and nudged the sleeping boy next to her who woke up with a yawn. "Come on, Percy. We need to get up and out now."
He watched them gather their things and watched them leave the bus, and he knew he was going to feel like a piece of shit if he didn't say anything. "Wait!" He called out before they could move off the sidewalk. The lady looked back at him and he smiled or at least tried to. "There's a mission in the Catholic Church you can stay at; they can help you till you find your feet."
She winced but smiled anyway. "Thank you." And that was the last he ever saw of the two of them.
He sighed and felt like the worst of monsters.
**********
Sally Jackson liked to believe herself to be resourceful.
One had to be with the kind of life she lived: after her parents' death she dropped out of college and had to make her own way in life and she did it without complaining... okay, only mild complaining inside her own head. She liked to look at the world with a smile and try her best to do the right thing.
It was what led her to carving out a small little world for herself out of the flames of her old life... it was what led her to believing she could do anything.
It was what led her into his arms.
She had always been... special. Always able to see things that nobody else could. She had always been able to see the unseen int he world (although for the longest time she simply believed herself to be suffering a decades long psychotic break from her parents' death) but meeting him had been... different.
He believed her, for one. For another: he actually showed her that he was as inhuman as many of the things she had seen. They had met, fallen in love, and had a child together and then he was gone. Most would simply dismiss the encounter as a mad figment and move on but given everything she had seen over her life she knew the truth...
She had fallen for a god; she had fallen for Poseidon from the ancient Greek myths and legends.
Percy, her precious little Percy, was the best thing that could have ever happened to her. Poseidon told her that he would protect the both of them but she wanted a normal life for her son, a normal and mortal life.
How foolish she had been. Percy attracted trouble and danger like a magnet and needed something to protect him. He needed a guardian.
Enter stage left: Gabe Ugliano.
He was... well, not the most handsome of people but he was at least overwhelmingly mortal. She would be with him and, hopefully, something nice would come of it all and she could finally do right by her son.
Sure, Gabe was a bit abrasive and could be casually mean about a lot of things but so was her father. It meant nothing, it was all... nothing.
She laughed suddenly, the dark clouds above churning angrily as she held her son's hand as they walked down the streets of a town she didn't know in a state she wasn't sure about with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a son who had a black eye because, apparently, it was Gabe and Percy's 'guy secret' that if her son didn't fork over the allowance she gave him than he would get hit.
"Mom?" Percy asked her as she just laughed, tears streaming down her face and a hiccup in her voice.
She shook her head and just smiled grimly. "Don't worry about it... you'll never have to worry about it again."
Percy sniffled but nodded.
She was going to do better this time... she had to.
She had to.
**********
The mission was too crowded for them. "I'm sorry, I really am." Father Vasquez said with a grimace. "It's just with the bad weather all around these days it's been hard to find room for everyone coming in from the storms."
She didn't let her heartbreak show as she nodded and turned back. She sighed, it was a long-shot in the first place but she had hoped... ah, well, too late for that.
She opened the doors of the unhoused mission and-
There was a girl talking animatedly to her son. Younger than him with wild chocolate hair that went everywhere, the girl was gesturing wildly this way and that with a gusto she had only ever seen her son have as he animatedly talked to her about... she didn't know why they were talking about which type of fish was the coolest but the girl was giving a good showing in defense of the humble Catfish, though from the sound of it she had never seen one in real life because she clearly assumed it was a fish-shaped cat.
A man with a thick and curly beard and warm, deeply tanned skin was crouched down between them and her heart lurched at the instinctive sight of a stranger near her son but the similarities to the young girl were obvious. He seemed to be nodding seriously along with the... 'fantastical' description of a catfish while Percy defended why Sharks were the coolest.
She smiled at the sight of her son finally untensing after... everything.
A hand holding a juice box was thrust into her vision and she blinked at the sigh of a similarly tanned skin holding it, a glittering golden band on the finger. "Here." A woman's voice said and she turned to see a pretty woman about her age, straightened dark brown hair and a pair of glasses on her hazel eyes. The woman smiled and nodded to the discussion of fish. "My daughter... ah, she rushed ahead of us and we found her talking to what I hope is your son? Otherwise I just handed a juice to a stranger."
She laughed, a bit of tension easing from her shoulders. "Ah, yeah, Percy is mine."
"Camila Noceda." The woman- no, Camila said with a smile. "My daughter is the one describing catfish badly."
She laughed and Camila laughed with her for a moment.
"So... welcome to Gravesfield." Camila said and she nodded.
"So that's where this is." She smiled a bit weakly. "Didn't get to ask the bus driver before we were booted off."
Camila looked at the print on her face and her smile turned sympathetic. "Do either of you have a place to stay tonight?"
She smiled hesitantly. "No." She said honestly. "The mission is too crowded so I guess I get to take my son camping under the stars sooner than I thought." It was a funny thought... and one that had her considering finding the nearest natural water source and praying to his father for help. Obviously, she had utterly failed and she would rather give everything on the surface up than have her son suffer.
The woman paused, turned to the man crouched down by the children who nodded at her before she turned back to her. "We can offer one night."
She blinked and Camila sighed. "I've... we talked to Percy for a bit before you got out. My husband, Manny, and I were worried when we saw a young boy with a black eye sitting in front of the church so we wanted to know if he was okay and... he may have told us quite a bit." Camila smiled at her and she dared to feel hope. "I wont promise more than a night or two tops but... we can help you get settled in Gravesfield."
Her eyes watered and her smile was shaky. "Thank you."
"Just... don't overstay your welcome." Camila said with a shrug.
"I promise, Camila." She said with a smile. "After we get settled in a few days, we'll be out of your hair forever."
**********
Many years later...
**********
The caverns of Ungolianth were especially dark and depressing as the figures made their way into the heart of all evil.
She was radiant: Azure green hair tied down into a long and imposing braid, a pristine white witch's hat sat above her dark-skinned face, white robes with purple lining and a staff that radiated power and prestige with a diadem atop it. Next to her, her trusty sidekick (What the hell? Why am I the sidekick?) Shut up, bro-bro, this is my book report. Anyway, her trusty sidekick hobbled along on his massive and hairy feet, his tiny but stout body clad in a tan linen shirt and brown wool trousers.
(Luz, why did you make me a hobbit?) They're called halflings and they are similar but legally distinct from Hobbits. Now hush up and learn about the greatest heroine who ever lived. (Sure, it's not like you don't talk about her at length for weeks on end...)
It arose from the depths, a mighty drakon of the deep world. It's royal purple body coiled up and hissed in dark evil and evil darkness. "Foolish children, I could swallow you whole!" The Gildersnake, dark emperor of the Dawn Imperium and He Who Shall Devour The Moon, hissed in cruel glee.
The Good Witch Luzura (Ha!) Azura! I said Azura! Azura readied her staff and knocked Percy into the lava below for being a jerk the nameless-because-he-was-a-jerk halfling readied his sling-staff. "I am the Good Witch Azura, warrior of peace..." Azura proclaimed, her voice a song of goodness against the vile evil of the Gildersnake.
A moment passed and then Azura, like a total badass, dropped into a combat roll and readied her staff like a rocket launcher (That's not how the book ends) It is now. "Now eat this, sucka!" Azura cried out as she shot the Lazer of Truth at the Gildersnake.
The Gildersnake, now very dead, fell down into the dark depths of the world below. "Oh no, my one weakness: dying!" The Gildersnake cried out in fear as he fell to his doom.
**********
"And that, my dear audience, is the end." Luz Noceda, age fourteen-and-some-change, raised her hands and closed her eyes. "Snap, snap, snap..." She drawled out theatrically as she made the resounding finger notions. The girl was a menace, a problem child, and a general miscreant that he was forced to deal with.
Percy Jackson, age sixteen-and-some-change, smirked and held up a handful of garden snakes. "And then we release the backup villains to finish off the report." The teenage captain of the Gravesfield Swim Team and all around problem child as well had shown up into the Gravesfield Public School System like a hurricane and he was, quite frankly, done dealing with his nonsense.
"Don't forget the fireworks, my dear apprentice." Luz said solemnly as she nodded to herself and rubbed her chin. Beside him, the mother of problem child number 1: Camila Noceda, sighed into her hand.
Percy gasped as if hurt, placing a hand over his chest. "How could I?" He then reached over and rubbed his knuckles into the younger teen's hair. "Also, if anyone's an apprentice it's you, nerd."
Luz stuck her tongue out at the older boy who rolled his eyes and looked cool for all of five seconds before the door to his office opened and Sally Jackson strode in and stared at her son till he wilted.
Principal Hal Jenkins decided then and there that he was too old for this nonsense. At least the panoramic diorama of the final battle was nice to look at though he resolved to ask who built the damn thing since Luz was the only one with an artistic bone in her body but not to this extent and Percy, her partner-in-crime for many of the girl's nonsense, didn't have one at all. The thing looked like an actual architect put it together... where and how the two problem children of Gravesfield High found an actual architect was beyond him and the answer was frightening in its unknowing nature.
He sighed into his hands. He really was too old for this nonsense.