304Nothing is mine.
Percy gets to meet a couple of hairy guys (this chapter features some mentions of romance)
The Right to Bear Arms
Moonlight fell in bright silver beams through the broad, strong branches of a tall oak, bathing the clearing in pale radiance. The tree's leaves whispered all about Percy, rustling in the gentle warm night wind ruffling his hair, and through their fluttering silhouettes shone all the stars — a thousand times more of them than Percy had ever seen hovering high upon the heavens.
And something in their light lifted his heart, cupped him in soft hands and raised him aloft; it stuck in the back of his throat, melting on the tip of his tongue into the weight of familiar words.
'Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?' Percy whispered. 'Zoë…'
'Sworn to stars but ever free.' Artemis's murmur carried over his shoulder.
He twisted around, his heart trembling like a drop of water clinging to the tip of a tap.
The molten silver of her eyes shone with light as soft as those distant stars. 'Perseus.' Artemis crouched upon a branch of a broad oak, staring down at him. 'You asked for my help.'
'I did,' Percy whispered. 'I just… want to help show them all. I can't stop, I gave my word I wouldn't disappoint.'
She leapt from the branch, landing silently in the long grass of the clearing upon the balls of her feet. 'You have kept your word, Perseus.'
'But I have to keep going. I have to.' He struggled for the words to fit the sharp waves tugging at his heart. 'You have to keep choosing well and so I have to keep helping.'
'You have helped,' she murmured. 'You inspired the children of the Gods to fight, you showed those lost in their suffering how to look beyond it, you held their hope in your hands and stood strong beneath all the weight of the world. Your father has such pride in you. My father has such pride in you.'
'And you…?' Percy held his breath, his heart quivering, seized by a strange sweet yearning.
Artemis held out her hand and Anaklusmos's gleaming bronze blade spun into existence on her palm. 'While you wield this, you have my pride. I gave my word to you, Perseus, I will not let you plummet from grace and tarnish what you so rightly admire.' She closed her fingers and Anaklusmos's faint weight appeared back in Percy's pocket. 'But I do not think you will.'
'Then how can I help?' Percy asked. 'You can give me a quest. Hunting monsters and protecting children are your domains, aren't they? If the quest is in the domains that belong to you, you can give me one. Chiron said the monsters are still rising…'
'My nature,' Artemis murmured. 'They do not belong to me, Perseus; I am they.'
She blurred: a flickering silver flame; a prowling wolf; cutting cold mountain wind tearing through bare winter trees; a hovering hawk; an amaranth-eyed, dark-garbed silhouette behind a barbed arrow; bright pale light; and a tangle of briars beneath arched boughs, ivy-draped trunks and endless green leaves.
'I am.' Artemis stood before him, auburn-haired and slender as a willow, but the molten silver in her eyes sliced through him like lightning tearing through the night sky. 'I do not have. I am.'
'I get it.' Percy tore his eyes away from hers. 'Sort of. I don't think I can really understand it all, not without…'
Climbing Mount Tamalpais and doing something impossible.
The corner of her mouth crooked into a faint smile. 'Come, sit with me, Perseus.'
The clearing twisted in a blur of green and he found himself staring down from the oak branch at his dangling feet.
'Huh,' Percy muttered, patting the rough bark beneath him. 'That was weird.'
'You have seen stranger things.' A glimmer of laughter shone in Artemis's silver eyes. 'You did make a very good guinea pig.'
'I actually can't remember any of the time I spent as a guinea pig. Probably for the best, though; it'd be something creepy, like Circe petting me with her horrible nail extension claws.' He hunted around for the words. 'I… you didn't say if you would?'
'I will.' She tilted her head back, spilling auburn hair over her shoulders and down her back. 'I will offer you the chance to choose if you wish for it, but be warned, Perseus, if you do not choose well, I will not spare you the consequences.'
'I know.' He mustered a grin. 'That's just how it works, right?'
'In a sense,' Artemis murmured.
'I am terrible at tracking though. I mostly ended up tracking down girls jogging in lycra instead of actual empusa, and I nearly got maced in the face one time. Also, my attempts at archery are really not going well, although I did finally slay that inflatable flamingo yesterday, so, there's that…?' He sucked in a deep breath, biting his ramble off. 'I just want to help; if the monsters are still stirring and Dionysus wasn't just being cryptic to mess with me when he said I might not be able to take a break for a while, then I want to help show everyone what they should do to one day reach Elysium without regret.'
'Like Zoë did.'
And you. Everything she knew came from you.
Heat rushed to his cheeks. 'Nobody showed me anything,' he whispered. 'They just waited to see if I died or succeeded, and I only stumbled my way through a couple of times by blind luck. She was kind. But she's gone, and I know she doesn't regret it, how could she? And so even though I miss her, I want to make sure she doesn't have a reason to regret any of it…'
Artemis's soft smile lit up her face like the full pale moon bursting through night clouds and the words dissipated upon Percy's tongue, swept aside by his soaring heart like sandcastles beneath the wash of the sea.
'The monsters stir because the world is in a state of unrest.' She stared out through the branches into the distant forest. 'Such conflict heralds a change in its nature. Kronos held great power, but his time has long passed; the world cannot truly ever go back to the simple, blissful, ignorant toil of subsistence that defined his golden age. It is in the nature of the world to wish for it, even to struggle for it in times of unrest, but upon the brink, the truth is undeniable, and Kronos is doomed to rise and fall with the cycle of that desire like the seasons. His change will never come. He too is merely a herald.'
Sharp cold waves of unease clashed in Percy's stomach. 'And I'm not yet sixteen…'
'You wished for a quest,' Artemis murmured. 'The children of Polyphonte come from the West. Agrius and Oreius. Half-bear and half-man, but more feral beast than human. They scorn the Gods and feast on the flesh of those they overcome with their great strength. You will find them beside the pond I met you at last; they have tracked your scent there, but my brother's son is not far away...'
'Not more cannibalism. Why is it always people being eaten or eating each other?' Percy sighed. 'Is that what they chose? Is that why?'
She shook her head, the corner of her mouth twitching. 'As with all those mortals who dare to do more than simply desire what they ought not, Polyphonte's offspring were her punishment.'
'Like me.' Percy swallowed the bitter clamour of a storm of guilt. 'Good thing I didn't go back, I guess. Mom gets to get married and have a normal kid and life now.'
That's just how it is, isn't it, Zoë? His heart sank, dwindling down into the bottomless black ocean, a single grain of sand beneath all the sea, ground away by all the weight of the waves until nothing remained. Choice. And Fate.
'You are a consequence of her choice, but no curse, Perseus. Perhaps if she had chosen poorly with you, you might have become one, but here you stand, still strong beneath all the weight of the world…' Artemis's eyes bled red as amaranth, her hair shivering dark as the night sky above. 'I offer no false mercy,' she whispered in his ear. 'Not to those who choose to be cruel, Perseus. They have earnt suffering.'
'Like Lamia.'
'And Medusa. And many many more.' She rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, her crimson eyes sharp as a knife. 'They have grown as monstrous within as they are without; show them no mercy.'
The sea has no mercy. The handprint between his shoulder blades burnt, tingling and prickling like a hundred red-hot needles searing to the bone, and Percy jolted awake breathing hard. The storm knows no pity.
'But I do,' he whispered, staring through the window at the moon fading from the winter sky. 'I get to choose.'
But if suffering is the fate they earned, then I guess that's just how it works, right, Zoë?
Percy dragged his clothes on and snatched a packet of cookies off the side table, stuffing his feet into his shoes and stifling a yawn as he hurried toward the stables.
'Blackjack?'
Blackjack poked his head over the stable door. 'Boss?'
'We're going on a quest.'
'Come back at a more reasonable hour and I'll think about it.'
Percy laughed and waved the packet of cookies. 'It's this or grass.'
'You drive a hard bargain, boss.' Blackjack shoved his nose into the packet. 'If we're flying a long way, you better have more of these.'
'It's not far, just across to Gardener's Bay.' Percy ripped the packet open and watched Blackjack gobble them down, showering crumbs over the stable floor. 'We're going to head out there and pick a fight with a pair of literal cannibals.'
'Just for fun?' Blackjack snorted. 'If you want, boss.'
Percy hauled the bolt back and dragged the stable door open. 'Ready?'
Blackjack spat the mangled cookie packet into the corner and tossed his head.
'I'll take that as a yes.' Percy swung himself onto Blackjack's back and patted him on the neck. 'Just fly west, there's a green park bit with a couple of ponds near a lighthouse. That's where we're going.'
Blackjack trotted out of the stables. 'Did you tell anyone we're going?'
'No.' Percy shrugged. 'It's fine. I'm pretty hard to kill.'
I can't die. Not unless I disappoint.
'The green-eyed girl is going to be cross, boss.'
'Katie?' Percy blinked. 'How do you even know her?'
'She feeds me apples.' Blackjack snickered and spread his wings, flexing them as he picked his way down to the beach. 'Talks about you a lot.'
'Gods, she doesn't know you can talk to me, does she?' Percy groaned. 'I don't want to know, Blackjack.'
'She has her eye on being your mate.'
His heart sank. 'I know. Also—' Percy clawed his heart back from beneath those cold black waves '—never use the word mate again. It reminds me of two things: stuff Drew talked about that I wish I could unknow so much it might be worth bathing in the Lethe just to get them out of my brain, and my time as a guinea pig, which might actually be worse than the Drew stuff, now I think about it.'
Blackjack whinnied with laughter and pawed at the sand with his hooves. 'Whatever you say, boss.' He broke into a run.
The cold wind rushed past Percy, stinging his cheeks, and Blackjack lurched into the sky, soaring over camp and scattering birds from the trees below.
I'm sorry. He watched the Demeter cabin fade behind him as Blackjack flew west. I know you're waiting, but I don't think it's over yet. I'm not sixteen. And Kronos is not a change in the nature of the world. All the weight of the waves flooded over him, pouring onto him, crushing his heart beneath endless dark, grinding away at it like a grain of sand upon the seabed. Hestia never lied; it's all still to come.
Blackjack arced through the clouds, drifting over the sprawl of houses and roads.
Percy closed his eyes and reached for the sea, sweeping the thick winter fog of its waters over them and wrapping it about them like a thick blanket.
I just have to choose well. Some of the weight eased from his heart and a soft tingle settled into the handprint between his shoulder blades. Choose well, and live or die without regret.
Blackjack swooped down upon the road winding through the park with a fierce jolt, his hooves clattering over the tarmac.
Ganna's dark pond sat in the rolling green slopes before the cluster of cedar trees.
'Thanks,' Percy murmured, patting his neck. 'Go toward the pond with the bridge over it. If you see anyone that looks unfriendly, let me know.'
Blackjack trotted across the grass and folded his wings, his dark feathers brushing Percy's legs. 'It's all quiet, boss. You sure this is where?'
'They're around here somewhere.' Percy leapt off and pulled Anaklusmos from his pocket. 'You keep a safe distance, just in case.'
'Be careful.' Blackjack snorted and tossed his head. 'If you get killed, that girl won't come and feed me apples.'
Percy rolled his eyes. 'You won't get any more cookies from me, either.'
He wandered along the edge of the pond, bending to brush his fingers along the surface. 'Ganna?'
The dark waters and the lilies hung still.
She's gone. A small smile spread across Percy's face. She must have chosen to go with your sisters, Zoë.
A flicker of movement below the bridge caught his eye and a vast hairy man crawled out from under its arch, growling and balling clawed hands as broad as baseball gloves into thick fists.
Percy extended Anaklusmos into a bronze blade, spinning the sword in his hand. 'Agrius or Oreius?'
The man growled.
'Is your brother about? I feel like we should make this a two-for-the-price-of-one sort of deal. Send one cannibal to a rather awful place and then send another for free.'
A second huge figure crawled out after the first.
'Excellent.' Percy took a deep breath, letting the steady wash of the tide settle his heart. 'Which one of you is which?'
The second figure growled.
'Right, well then, number one, you're Agrius, and number two, you're Oreius.' He touched Anaklusmos's bronze blade to his lips. 'And I'm afraid you're probably about to end up in a rather unpleasant place. But, you know, you did kind of bring it on yourselves; I'm just the consequences.'
They lumbered forward, their long, matted hair knotted into a loose patchwork hide of stained rags and dirt-crusted, broken bones. A thick raw reek of sweat and spoilt meat reached Percy's nose and he gagged, grimacing.
'Okay, you both need a bath.' He took hold of Ganna's pond and swept the water over them, sending them stumbling up the slope.
'That's a lot better.' Percy closed his fist, wrapping them in a swirling ball of water. 'I would be great at charity car washes. Or water fights. You guys would be picked last, though, you suck at this.'
Agrius roared, releasing a stream of bubbles, and stomped his feet deep into the ground one after the other; his muscles bulged as he strained against the water.
The ball burst, splashing over the grass.
'Okay, fair enough,' Percy said. 'Maybe second last. You guys clearly don't skip any gym days.'
Oreius tore the bridge post from the tarmac and hurled it at Percy, but slipped in the long grass and fell to his knees.
The post sailed over Percy's head and thunked into the grass slope.
'Huh…' He spared the thick, three metre piece of wood and the massive chunk of concrete stuck to its end a glance. 'I mean, I am pretty scratch proof, but I'm not sure about broken bones. I really should have asked Achilles a few more questions about that sort of thing.' Percy grinned. 'Still, you have to hit me to break anything.'
They bared yellowed, chipped teeth and clawed long, wet, tangled hair away from their savage dark eyes. In the damp patchwork of hair and rags upon each of their chests hung a twisted string of hair bearing a bird of gnawed bone and a dozen small, pale teeth.
All the humour drained out of Percy, swirling away like dirty bathwater down the drain. 'Children's teeth,' he whispered.
Rage swelled within him; all the sea swept back into it, a dark wave rising up to scrape the sky, a wall of black water blotting out the stars, its crest smoking like frost in the sun. 'She was right, Zoë—' he clenched his fist about Anaklusmos's hilt '—they have earnt suffering.'
Agrius charged.
Percy let the wave surge forward, bending away from his feral clawing, flowing through their wild swipes and swirling around on his heel, slashing Anaklusmos through Oreius's outstretched wrist.
The huge severed hand thudded to the ground and the vast man recoiled with a howl, clutching at the stump with his remaining hand.
Percy sliced it off and thrust Anaklusmos deep into Oreius's chest.
Golden dust showered across the grass and Ganna's pond, glittering among the lilies.
Agrius roared and fell onto all fours, bounding forward, but Percy leapt over him and spun, shearing Agrius's feet off at the ankle as he smashed into the side of the bridge and sprawled into the grass.
'This isn't even hard,' he murmured. 'But I suppose you're not really meant to be my fate. If I fell, I'd create a much worse monster.'
Or become it. A trickle of cold dread snaked down Percy's spine. Best to avoid that, right, Zoë? He clung to the memory of the fierce pride shining in Artemis's bright silver eyes. She'd turn me into some giant nightmare guinea pig and shoot me full of holes; I'd never live it down.
Agrius rolled over with a snarl, flailing his claws at Percy's legs in a furious frenzy.
Percy cut his hands away one after the other and drove the tip of Anaklusmos through Agrius's chest.
Agrius melted into golden dust.
Done.
A pair of bone necklaces lay in the grass as the glitter scattered into the sea breeze.
Spoils. Percy bent and picked them up with a grimace, studying the gnawed rough bone eagle owl and vulture. And not exactly very useful ones; even Thalia wouldn't wear something this unstylish.
'For Artemis,' he whispered. 'Thank you for helping me. For showing me. And for helping Ganna escape. If I can help more, please show me how.'
The gnawed bones crumbled into silver flames as bright as starlight, spilling through his fingers like water and fading away like wisps of morning mist above the sea.
AN: Follow the linktree for more! Loads more.
linktr . ee / mjbradley