I MADE SOME MINOR CHANGES TO CHAPTER 34 "SOS I'M GETTING MARRIED, SEND HELP"!!! While I was scrolling around Pinterest, I found a better wedding dress lol, so if you wanna see it, go back to the chapter! It's only 2 images, but I like it better than what I previously chose!
PERCY FOUND THAT SHE ENJOYED exploring Apollo's palace. His palace was like a museum, there was artwork everywhere she turned. And usually she found visits to the museum boring, but his masterpieces were so beautifully done that she could hardly look away. This shouldn't have surprised her, since he was the god of the arts after all.
"Is this you as a baby? You look so cute!" She gushed, pointing at a large painting of a pink haired baby with bright golden eyes.
Apollo laughed, "No, that's my son, Phaethon. He is adorable though, isn't he? He's got his looks from his father." He puffed his chest out in pride.
Ahh, now that she was peering in closer, she could see a few differences. For one, baby Phaethon's pink hair had yellowish tips at the end, kind of like a sunset. Meanwhile, Apollo's hair was completely rose gold.
Wait, Phaethon... that name's familiar... It quickly clicked in her head. She turned back to him. "Isn't Phaethon the kid you told me about? The lil' guy who got you to swear an oath on the River Styx to let him drive the sun chariot and ended up setting fire to Midgard?"
"Which then led to me breaking the oath to try and stop him, being stripped of my godhood, and banished to Midgard for nine years, yes that is the one." He sighed heavily.
She snorted in amusement. "Cool kid."
"It was a horrible nine years," he bemoaned. "I was starving, everything was on fire, I was sweaty all the time, and my hair became flat and lifeless because of it!" He lovingly ran his fingers through his luscious pink hair.
"And that wasn't all," he continued. "After my nine years were over, when I came back, my precious son was already a fully grown god! I missed so much of his life!"
"Whoa, really?" Her eyes widened. "He grew that fast?"
"It's a normal thing amongst gods," he explained casually, but on the inside, he was excited to be able to explain godly biology to her. "You see, godly children are very different compared to mortal ones. They're not even born the same way—sometimes, at least."
"They can be born through reproduction, created through magic, or just... spawn into existence, right?" She listed out, remembering that Beelzebub was the third.
"Correct!" He beamed. "And they can either be born as a baby, or fully grown, like you were."
"...I see," she trailed off nervously. Saying something like 'right' or 'yes' would've been agreeing with his claim, and that would've been a lie that he would've detected. Man, she was beginning to realize how painfully careful she needed to be if she wanted to continue living with him.
"As for those who were born as babies, our development goes quite fast," he continued to explain. "They don't stay as children for long. They grow quickly. It usually takes between four to five years until they become fully developed and they stop aging after that. Of course, they can always manipulate how they look—just like how my father switches between an elderly form to a younger form."
"Or how Kebi prefers to stay as a child," she pointed out.
He furrowed his brows. "Kebi?"
"Oh, sorry, I was... talking about Kebechet. She's Anubis' daughter. I, um, spent a lot of time with her while we were living together," she sighed, and the sadness in her voice didn't escape him.
His eye twitched. Just hearing the name 'Anubis' leave her lovely lips made him want to burst into flames from how angry it made him. From what Artemis told him, she had been deceived by the Egyptian god into marrying him. She should be happy that she was hidden away in his home, so why did she sound like she actually missed that fleabag and his serpentine daughter?!
He forced himself to stay calm, a strained smile curling his lips. "Oh," he said tightly with false cheer. "Anyway! Back to my mini lesson! Humans develop much slower in the younger stages compared to gods. I never really cared about that until I returned from my banishment to find my son already fully grown... I was miserable, I actually started to wish my son would've developed like a human would. At least then, I could still savor his childhood..."
Percy nodded along sympathetically. Yeah, she could totally get that. Kids grew so fast when they were still young—and apparently it was even faster for godly children. If she had a kid, she would've preferred to cherish their younger years for as long as she could.
She knew her mom certainly did the same with her. Her mom had a whole bookshelf dedicated to photo albums from when she was a kid—chronologically ordered from her birth up to when she turned sixteen, and that was only because she had been transported to this universe at that age. If she had stayed, a whole new album would've been added to that collection...
They moved on to the next painting. One that made her pause. It was a painting of a baby, but not a regular godly one, but of a centaur. It had the body of a brown horse with stubby, unsteady legs, and the body of a chubby little baby with warm brown eyes and curly brown hair.
Her jaw dropped slightly. "Is... is this...?"
"This is Chiron, another son of mine. Though he's adopted," Apollo beamed. "He's technically our uncle though. He's a—"
"—Son of Kronos, yeah..." She murmured, staring in awe at the baby. This obviously wasn't her Chiron, but she couldn't help but imagine it anyway. This was probably the closest she was going to get to seeing Chiron's baby pictures.
"Wait, hold on," she realized something. "Kronos died... billions of years ago. And you were only born millions of years ago, so how did...?"
"Ah," he chuckled, but there was no humor in his voice. "It was quite a complicated story. While our grandfather was still alive, he, uh... lusted after an Oceanid, Philyra. He turned himself into a stallion and, well... mounted her."
As Apollo told the story, she could tell that he was trying his best to find a way to keep it as PG as possible, which she appreciated.
"Philyra ended up having an agonizing labor, which is understandable since she was giving birth to a half horse. She was so ashamed and repulsed by the creature she created that she sought to abandon him, but Kronos discovered her plans. He was offended that she was trying to get rid of his child and as punishment, froze them in time."
Percy cocked her head back in surprise. Froze them in time? Well, that was extremely different from what had happened back in her universe. Back home, Philyra actually successfully managed to abandon Chiron on Mount Pelion in Thessaly, but in here, neither of those locations probably even existed billions of years ago.
"Long after Kronos was killed in the Titanomachy, I actually stumbled upon the two. Since Kronos was dead, his curse was weak enough for me to destroy it and free them. When I heard of their story, I offered to take Chiron in and raise him as my own. Philyra agreed, but she was still so full of shame that she begged me to bring an end her, so I turned her into a linden tree."
Percy winced sympathetically. "How did our family react to the news of Chiron?"
"...They weren't very pleased," Apollo's shoulders sank. "Kronos had put them all through hell when he was alive, so they all wanted Chiron dead once they learned of him. They were worried he'd be just like his father."
She shook her head. "We are not our parents, until we choose to be," she stated, quoting Medusa's own words to her during her very first quest where they met.
He nodded in agreement. "Chiron was innocent. Just a baby. And he was mine. I was determined to keep him alive, to raise him properly. He would not be his father."
She wanted to ask how it went, but the answer was pretty obvious. Judging by the proud and loving smile on Apollo's lips as he gazed at his son's painting, she had a good feeling that this Chiron was just as gentle and wise as the one back home.
"I had to beg our fathers and uncles to spare him," he said sadly. "We fought about it for weeks. Poseidon was even harder to hold back. Not only was Chiron a son of Kronos, but his mother was an Oceanid, a daughter of Oceanus. Your father killed him during the Titanomachy, and then went on to ruin his bloodline; he killed his granddaughter, Amphitrite, enslaved the other nereids, and his daughters, the Oceanids, who were once numbered by the thousands, are now a few in-between. He was the most furious to learn that there was another one left."
She grimaced. Of course her father had to have the most murderous reaction to the news of Chiron's existence. Of fucking course.
"It took me forever, but I finally managed to persuade my father to give Chiron a chance." He said with a relieved smile.
"What about grandma?" She asked. "How did she react?"
"Understandably upset. As cruel as he was, Kronos was not known to cheat on her. This was the first time there had ever been a bastard of Kronos," he replied. "But she got over it eventually. She doesn't visit him much though."
She nodded in understanding. Though she was surprised to hear about Kronos' lack of bastards. Really, only one? She didn't know what it was like back in her universe, but she would've expected him to have a whole horde of kids that were the result of numerous affairs. To hear that he was actually—for the most part—somewhat faithful was a huge shocker.
They moved on to the next painting.
"Who's this?" She asked.
It was a painting of another baby, but one with pastel blue hair and gentle sky blue eyes. His meaty toddler hands were gripping onto a pure white blankie while he gnawed on the edge of it as if it were food.
"That's Asclepius, another son of mine," Apollo smiled fondly.
"God of medicine," she remembered.
He nodded, "Yes! I'm so proud of him. I was worried he'd become like his worthless whore of a mother but he became a god of medicine instead!"
Yikes, she inwardly grimaced.
"Can you believe Coronis would actually cheat on me? Me?" He let out a concerningly hysterical laugh. "That wretched little nymph* should've been grateful that I, a god, had chosen her as a lover!"
"Uh huh..."
"I even took care of her when she fell pregnant with Asclepius! And what does she do? She goes behind my back and sleeps with a mortal man!" He raged on. He turned to her, his golden eyes smoldering. "What sort of woman chooses a MORTAL over a GOD?!"
"The crazy kind," she said, mostly because that was probably the sort of answer he was looking for.
"EXACTLY!" He cried out hysterically, as if vindicated by her response. "I was so distraught that Artemis went and killed her for me!"
She was beginning to remember bits and pieces of this story now. "And then... you cut open her stomach to rescue your son, right?" She was pretty sure that was even considered the first Cesarean section in human history.
He had to take several deep breaths to calm down. "Yes, I did. I cut that wench open and rescued my son. I raised him alongside Chiron, who taught him about medicine. It was mostly useless for the gods, but oh did the humans revere him..."
"I heard a story about how he was reviving them back to life and stuff," she said.
"He was," Apollo sighed heavily. "Hades was... furious when he learned of it. Souls were appearing in Helheim awaiting judgment and in the next second, they were gone, returned back to the mortal plane in Midgard. My father was getting worried too since he was upsetting Nature. At Hades' instigation, my father finally decided to punish Asclepius by trying to kill him."
"Seriously?" Percy was wide-eyed. "Why didn't any of them just come down and say 'hey kid, can you cut it out, you're kinda upsetting the balance of things'? They just went straight to trying to kill him?"
"It's insanity isn't it?!" He cried out in agreement, as if he wasn't also as insanely irrational as the other gods.
"So what happened next?" She pressed on.
"I managed to save Asclepius in the nick of time," he said, which was a huge relief. "But I was so enraged at my father's attempts to murder my son, that I went to kill my father's favorite Cyclopes. Aaaaand, well, he wasn't exactly happy about that, so as punishment, he turned me into a human and banished me to Midgard for a year."
"Dude, you were turned into a human again?" He honestly had the worst luck.
"It seems to be a common punishment of mine," he grumbled.
They went on with the 'museum tour'.
Apollo showed her more and more paintings of his children like his son, Aristaeus who was the god of beekeeping, shepherds, cheesemaking, and a bunch of other stuff. He even had paintings of his grandchildren too (and he had a bunch); Hygiea, Panacea, Aceso, Iaso, Aegle, Machaon, Podaleirios, and Telesphoros to name a few—and those were just his grandkids through Asclepius and his wife, Epione.
Good gods, Percy thought to herself as she observed the wall of paintings that never seemed to end. That's a lot of kids. It never ceased to amaze her how large families could be for the gods, though it was a given since they could live forever, so they had all the time in the world to increase their families. They could have a whole line of descendants while still making kids of their own.
Imagine having to deal with that many kids, she thought with a shudder. That's a lot of birthdays to remember. Thank gods that's never gonna happen to me.
‧₊˚✩彡𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟‧₊˚✩彡๋ ࣭ ⭑ ࣭ ⭑
Apollo was somewhere in the upper floors of his palace, painting away while Percy was outside, exploring the garden. She knew he was watching her because he was standing outside of the balcony of his room that overlooked the rest of the island, and she could clearly see him occasionally glancing back to watch over her before turning his attention back to the painting.
She didn't mind it really. She had a feeling he was either painting her, or the garden as a whole. She only hoped her walking around the place wasn't getting in the way of his painting.
It's so beautiful here, she couldn't help but marvel. She wasn't sure if it was just bias, but in her opinion, Apollo probably had the most beautiful garden ever. Everything was so vibrant and colorful, and the way the sunlight shined down on them made it feel like she was in some fairycore aesthetic photo op that anyone could find in Pinterest. The dress she was wearing certainly helped her feel the part too; it was a flowing pink dress decorated with fuchsia colored roses. The top was shaped like an X so her sides and part of her breasts were revealed. And even though she was directly under the sun, she wasn't beading a sweat—probably courtesy to Apollo who had made it his mission to make her as comfortable as possible while she stayed with him.
Percy continued to walk around, wishing she had her phone to at least take pictures. These sort of photos would've gotten her millions of new followers on Gossipmonger!
I see roses, daisies, sunflowers, hibiscus, poppies, azaleas... she tried listing down every flower she could name. There were just so many types and of different shades too. Usually all these colors wouldn't mesh well together, but they were placed around the garden so tastefully that they all fit together perfectly.
He had so many statues too. They were all of himself of course because he was narcissistic like that, and she had a feeling he had made these himself. They were all pure white, carved to perfection, but Percy tried not to pay too much attention to them since most of them didn't even depict him with clothes on... which was pretty awkward. Especially since they were all tall so she was at eye-level with his... yeah, you get the point.
Oooh topiaries! Her eyes lit up when she saw a couple bushes and shrubs that were cut to resemble certain things. She saw one shaped like a lyre, another shaped like a squirrel trying to dash into a rose bush, and even a cute bunny rabbit! And lots and lots of giant floral installations like the ones she saw in that Netflix show The Big Flower Fight.
She wondered if Apollo had made all of these himself, or if he just snapped his figures and created them into existence.
Probably the second, she figured as she glanced back up at him painting away in the balcony. A lot of gods seemed to prefer doing things the quick and easy way, and she doubted he was any different. It was hard for her to imagine him taking joy in creating things through his own hard work and dedication. A funny image of him popped into her head—Apollo happily toiling away in his garden, shaping these shrubs himself, chipping away at blocks of marble, and delicately placing his flowers to create huge installations. Ridiculous. He'd probably freak out the second he got dirt on his clothes.
She turned a corner and paused, the soft smile on her face dropping.
Right in front of her was a field of hyacinth flowers of every shade and shape. At the center of the field were stone steps leading to another floral installation, this time it was floating in midair and circling a lone hyacinth flower.
Curiously, Percy walked forward until she was on the last step. She could see the floating hyacinth flower more clearly now. It was the shade of lavender, and for some odd reason one of its petals was inscribed with the Ancient Greek script of "AI AI", a lamentation she recognized as "alas".
It finally clicked in her head.
Aw shit, she cursed. Please don't tell me this is THE Hyacinthus...!
She started to back away and turned around to get the fuck out of there only to bump into a firm chest. Uh oh.
She stumbled back, staring up at Apollo with a nervous smile.
"Apollo! Oh my gods, hi! My favorite cousin! What're you doing down here? Didja finish your painting?" She laughed, feeling dread pool in her stomach.
He looked down at her with a faint smile. "Please, relax, Percy. I'm not mad. I would've barred you from entering certain parts of my garden if I didn't want you to stumble into this place."
Her shoulders sank in relief. "Oh," she said sheepishly.
His smile became less faint, but there was still a noticeable melancholy to it. His gaze went up to the flower and he let out a heavy sigh. "I take it you know of him?"
She nodded quietly.
He brought his hand up and gently turned his finger into circling motions. The flower started to rotate slowly. "My beautiful Spartan prince. My Hyacinthus. Taken away from me by a jealous god."
"Zephyrus," she murmured.
"Yes," his golden eyes went dark for a bit. "Other people seem to have the annoying habit of intervening in my love life. Zephyrus with Hyacinthus. Eros with Daphne. Hmph," he rolled his eyes.
He looked back at the hyacinth and his gaze softened once more.
"Hyacinth was a human, right?" She couldn't help but ask. "You, uh, have a lot of human lovers?"
"Yes, but none of them lasted long," he said quietly. "Cassandra betrayed me. Bolina leapt into the sea to get away from me. Marpessa chose a human over me..." He trailed off bitterly, but she knew there were a lot more left.
"You know... for someone who thinks so lowly of humans, you sure fall in love with humans a lot." She pointed out.
That actually managed to get him out of his depressive state. He whipped his head towards her so fast she was almost surprised it didn't twirl right off.
"What?!"
"Isn't that a bit hypocritical of you?"
His jaw dropped, his mouth closing and shutting like a fish out of water. "Hold on, this is nothing like what you think! The mortals that I picked are different from the others! Just like you are!"
She snorted in disbelief and started to walk away.
Okay, Percy, get him away from the hyacinths, she thought to herself, purposely leading him further and further away from the field. A dark and brooding Apollo was not an Apollo she wanted to deal with today.
As expected, he was following after her, squawking in indignation.
"I'm not a hypocrite!" He cried out. "These humans are different from the rest! The cream of the crop! That's why I fell in love with them!"
"I'm preeeetty sure I read somewhere about you having more mortal lovers than divine ones."
"HUH!?" Apollo was panicking now. He scrambled forward until he was in front of her, preventing her from walking any further. "W-w-where did you read that?!"
"A lot of books I found," she said, shrugging. It wasn't exactly a lie either. There were a lot of books that listed out Apollo's lovers, and the section for mortals was always longer than the rest.
"T-those books might be lying!"
"Well, were they?"
His lips trembled like he was struggling to force himself to lie, but couldn't. Defeated, he slumped his shoulders and admitted, "No..."
She burst out laughing. "Oh my gods, you're a total hypocrite! You're like one of those super racist white dudes who goes on and on about hating black people but has a black wife!"
He was genuinely aghast. "Are you comparing me to humans?"
"Well, you act like them." She shrugged.
"I'm nothing like them! Nothing!" He whined. "I only tend to fall in love with humans more because I used to frequently visit Midgard thousands of years ago!"
"Ahah! So you admit that you used to like going down there!"
His eyes widened in realization and let out a panicked shriek. "WAIT! WAIT! Y-you're twisting my words! This isn't fair!"
"Am I right though?" She grinned. She was having too much fun with this.
He collapsed into a conveniently nearby bench. "...Yes," he buried his face in his hands. "It's true... I used to enjoy going down to Midgard back in the times of Ancient Greece, but that was millennia ago. Now, Midgard has become filthy with untalented humans mucking up the realm... Don't even get me started on what they call music nowadays, ugh. It is nothing but cacophony to my godly ears."
She plopped down beside him. "Okay, I'm sorry for messing with you, I genuinely don't care whether you secretly like humans or whatever, but why're you so panicked about it? Like, what's the harm?"
The tips of his ears turned golden-ish, the godly form of blushing since they were all full of ichor instead of red blood like her. "You do not understand as you are too young but... a majority of gods here are not fond of humanity."
"I've noticed." She grumbled.
"And for good reason," he said seriously. "Humanity has become a plague to the realms. It was bad enough that they're destroying Midgard, but now they're festering all over Valhalla—or to be more specific, the human side of it. At least they were a little more tolerable back in my day, but they've become a great annoyance now. I cared greatly for my past lovers, but... perhaps they are better off gone."
"Is that really what you believe?" She frowned. "It seems to me you're just scared of what the other gods would think."
His shoulders slumped. "It is... complicated, my dear. I am an Olympian and a son of Zeus, so through that alone I am protected from much of my fellow gods' scorn. I care not for their opinions of me—and I am very well aware of what they think of me—but... I cannot help but understand their side of things. They are not wrong to hate humanity. Humanity has done us no good. They were decent in the ancient times, but now..." He merely shrugged. "Now I hold no love for them."
Perhaps that was Apollo's reasons for his disdain towards humanity, but Percy could see that it was a lot more complex when it came to everyone else. For him, humans today were ruining nature, becoming lazy and destructive. But then she remembered Beelzebub, who didn't give a shit about nature and was the cause of more than half of the atrocities that humans committed and he still hated them anyway.
Their hatred ran deeper than this, she knew that. Gods had all kinds of reasons for wanting the end of humanity, but she knew, deep down, that the real reason was much crueler: they wanted to kill humans just because they could. They have grown tired of the beings they had created and wanted to be done with them. There was no reason other than that when it came to the majority.
"I'm half human," she reminded him. "And yet you took me in."
"You are half human, yes," he nodded in agreement before shooting her a smile. "But not for long."
Those words made her shudder. He gave her a sympathetic look and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. She could feel him give her a boost of healing magic through his touch.
"Worry not," he told her. "You will be one of us soon. Then this pain... all of it will be gone."
‧₊˚✩彡𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟‧₊˚✩彡๋ ࣭ ⭑ ࣭ ⭑
When Percy went to sleep that night, she expected to experience the same blackness as before. An empty sleep devoid of any dreams and nightmares. Peaceful, but dark at the same time.
But suddenly there was a burst of color, and she soon found herself standing inside a dimly lit Greek temple.
"Percy!" A voice gasped and she whirled around, her eyes widening.
"Grover!"
They rushed forward to meet each other and unlike before, nothing was there to stop them from squeezing the other in a hug. Percy almost felt like crying the second they made contact. She could feel the warmth of his skin, the fur of his legs, and his heartbeat racing beneath his chest.
When they pulled away, their eyes were both glassy.
"It's you," Grover started to choke up. "Oh gods, it's really you...!"
"You actually managed to contact me again, G-man," she had to reach up to wipe her tears away. "I was so scared, I was worried that you wouldn't be able to try again—"
"—Because the Morpheus of the universe you're in is blocking your dreams, right?" He finished for her.
She paused, staring at him in astonishment. "Wait... universe... how—how did you—?"
"—We don't have a lot of time," he said regretfully. "I'm gonna try and explain this as fast as I can but Hera's been trying to find you—"
"—What?!—"
"—The Fates have put her on this quest to come and rescue you. She knows that the Norse Pantheon's—yes they exist here—bifrost somehow transported you into a different universe. Hera recruited me and Morpheus—the one from our universe—to work together and try to contact you." He explained in a rush.
Percy blinked repeatedly in disbelief. Hera was trying to save her. Hera. The Hera who hated all demigods in existence and especially her (and Zeus' kids of course).
"Hold on... Morpheus?" She echoed. "The same asshole who sided with Kronos and put all the mortals to sleep during the war? He's trying to help too?"
"Long story short, but after the last time I tried to contact you, Morpheus was made prime suspect number 1 for holding you hostage. Your dad's on a warpath for him, so Hera offered to hide him away in exchange for his assistance."
"How is my dad doing?" She asked immediately.
"He's, um," Grover swallowed thickly. He didn't really want to tell her that Poseidon had been on a nonstop rage since she went missing, that would just make her feel even worse over all the countless deaths. "He's okay, but that's not the point right now."
He brought them back to the topic at hand.
"Hera's been traveling to hundreds of universes every day to try and find the one you're in," he went on. "And right now, I need you to tell me everything about yours to help her narrow it down."
"I, um, o-okay," she racked her mind to try and figure out where to start first. As much as she wanted to have a proper reunion with him, this was too important. "Uh, s-so this universe is separated into three realms: Valhalla, Midgard, and Helheim, and all the gods from all the Pantheons live peacefully together."
He nodded, motioning urgently for her to continue.
"And—Oh! Wait, hold on! Helheim is disconnected from Midgard and Valhalla, so Hera won't be able to sense me if I'm in Helheim or vice versa. I don't know how she's traveling around, but tell her to check all three realms to make sure I'm actually there! She might miss me by accident!"
"Hera's listening in on us right now, so she'll know about this," he assured. "She's gonna travel to you by entering the body of the Hera of the universe you're in. She needs to know how to behave more like her so as to not arouse suspicion, so what's that Hera like?"
"I-I don't know much, but she's nicer here, not as strict either," she answered. "This Hera actually likes me too, which I know our Hera's definitely gonna hate."
They both let out weak laughs at that.
"She tends to be a bit explosive and dramatic sometimes," she added. "She's really big into arranging forced marriages too," she swallowed thickly, remembering the wide smile on Hera's face when she attended her and Hades' wedding.
"The gods here, my father and my uncle, and everyone they—they—," she started to choke on her words before frantically shaking her head. No. She couldn't tell him. She was too scared, too ashamed, too terrified of the prospect of her best friend looking at her differently to tell him the truth. "Just... please," she begged. "Please find me and get me out of here. I can't do this anymore, Grover, I can't..."
She hugged him again, missing the touch of someone kind and familiar, someone who would never hurt her.
"I miss everyone so much," she said shakily. "How's my mom?"
"She's... okay, most of the time," he sighed, unable to lie to her. "She gets sick sometimes, Apollo has stepped in to heal her secretly."
"My mom's sick?" She felt like her heart was being ripped out.
"She'll be fine, Apollo's making sure of it." He assured her firmly. "Everyone at camp's been looking all over the world for you."
She pulled away from him. "They don't know that I'm in another universe...?"
He shook his head. "No. This... 'quest' Hera's in, is supposed to be a secret. The less people who know, the better. I'm not even supposed to know about it..." He hung his head. "Percy... once you get rescued, she's gonna wipe my memories of this ever happening."
"What?"
"This is a big deal, something like this never should've happened," he explained. "You disappearing is altering the fate of everything we know it. You were never supposed to disappear, so Hera's hellbent on bringing you back to make things right again. When she told me she knew where you were, I wanted to help bring you back, but... the only way she would allow me to help is if I swore on the River Styx to keep this quest a secret and let her erase my memory once you're rescued."
"I can't believe it," she muttered angrily. "I really don't like the thought of her messing with your memories."
"I don't mind," he shrugged. "I got to see you again, at least."
They both grinned at each other.
"How's Anthonius?" She asked, more softly this time.
"Stressing himself out," he winced. "He's going around, joining search parties. Yesterday, he just got back from combing through all of Florida. Today, he'll be traveling to Georgia. He really misses you, Perce..."
"If you weren't sworn to secrecy, I would've asked you to tell him that I miss him too," she grumbled miserably.
"You can tell him that yourself when you get back home," Grover told her. "Because we will, Percy. We're gonna find you, and bring you back home. I don't know what you went through, but now that we're together again... I can feel you. Your pain, sadness, and desperation..." He let out a shuddery breath, tearing up at the amount of agony he could feel through her end of the Empathy Link.
"We're gonna bring you home, Percy." He said, determined. "I swear it on the River Styx."
— author's note —
* In the actual myths, Coronis was a mortal woman, but I changed her into a nymph for my story since, you know, gods and humans can procreate.
Meme from thatcatladywrites:
Fanart and fan memes from yagodnyizefir! The first one is the Ra and Percy beef summarized in one meme and the second one is Apollo cutely giving away diseased rats to the other yans 💖:
Percy, baby Kebi, and cranky grandpa Ra fanarts from honeydew-mint:
Percy fanart from littlepotaaatosimp:
Percy vs Loki by wfctfs:
Percy fanart from haruyuzuki using Everskies:
Percades baby and Percy picrew from lilith-rosebelle: