Chapter Text
Starting off, here’s the beginning section for the chapter:
The boat of the dead was, like Chiron, worn down. It was surprising it could still hold weight, much less the weight of all the dead gathered. The pitch black water beneath the boat writhed in a way water never should, almost like it was alive. Alive and angry.
The River Styx. I’d made an oath on that an hour ago.
Chiron raised a skeletal hand, pointing to the ship. “Διοικητικό Συμβούλιο, ήρωας.” Board, hero.
Annabeth, Grover and I shared a glance before I slowly stepped onto the boat. Strangely, the boat didn’t tilt or turn like it would on normal water. It remained still, like it was completely unaffected by the weight of the dead—and living—on it.
Somebody did inform me in the comments last chapter that there were some mistakes with Charon’s lines, so I’ll try and remember to go back and fix them.
Moving on: we’ve got the confrontation/explanation scene that I actually have two versions of because I’m a bit indecisive on what direction I like more (even though they’re mostly the same). There was a lot of italics in these scenes but alas, the device I’m using automatically removes all the formatting and I personally don’t really want to go back and fix it. My apologies 😔
Anyway, here’s the first draft:
Suddenly, Annabeth stopped walking.
“Percy,” Annabeth interrupted. I paused. “Where did they come from?”
It didn’t take much to know that she was asking about Odysseus and Perseus. Grover had stopped as well, turning to stare at me with confusion and barely contained betrayal.
I winced. “I…” Odysseus moved to say something but I shook my head. They deserved to hear it from me. I was the one hiding it, after all. “I don’t know exactly where they came from. But they, uh, they first appeared when I was really young. I don’t remember how old I was, but I was only able to see them when I turned six.”
“So they’ve been with you your whole life,” Annabeth said coldly. “Including your time in Camp Halfblood—inclduing your time during this quest,” she scowled, hurt, “This entire fucking quest. And you never told us.”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d react—”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d react when I told you about my dad!” she yelled. For a second, I thought I saw tears in her eyes, and that hurt so much more. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react knowing that I wasn’t enough for my own fucking FATHER! But I trusted you—I thought I could trust you.”
“Annabeth,” Grover said quietly, trying to calm her down despite his own look of hurt. “We—we need to keep going—”
“NO!” Annabeth argued harshly. “No. We’re dealing with this first,” she turned on me, “did you even need everything explained to you? Or did you just let us explain things you already KNEW? Was it funny to you? Entertaining?”
“It wasn’t—” I scrambled for something to say. “That’s not why I did it—”
“Then why did you?”
“I didn’t know what was going on! I didn’t know who most of you were, I didn’t know if I could trust you!”
“So what, you were gathering information or something?” she hissed. “Listing down everything that you could use against us should push come to shove?”
“No—”
“I told you about my parents! I told you about my family, my step-mom, and you! You didn’t say anything!”
And here’s the second one which was also the very first draft for this scene :D (the previous one was the second draft)
“Percy,” Grover interrupted just as we were walking toward the entrance. “Before we go…” he glanced at Odysseus and Perseus, “I think Annabeth and I need some explanations.”
I paused, glancing between them. “Oh. Right,” I turned to face them entirely, resisting the urge to fidget. “I, uh, don’t really know how to start.”
“You can start by telling us when they started following you,” Annabeth sternly. She’d mostly recovered from the shock now and looked very, very angry. Now that I was looking, I noticed that Grover was pretty upset too. “Was this when the quest started? When you entered Camp Half-Blood? Before then?”
“... it was before,” I said hesitantly. So many things had happened in the past couple of days, and I was still reeling from most of it. Coming up with an explanation took a lot more energy than I thought it would. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Odysseus move to say something. I shook my head.
Odysseus grimaced but took a step back, thankfully. It was nice that he tried to step in but this was something I needed to do. At the very least, that was what Annabeth and Grover deserved after I lied to them so much.
“When I was a kid,” I started, unsure, “I think maybe a year old? They sort of just—appeared. I don’t know why and they don’t either. But somehow, they ended up bound to me, for whatever reason. I could only hear them until I was about six, but after that I was able to see them. Ever since then they’ve been a… support for me. They’ve helped me throughout my whole life. Including with this quest and… and everything that happened before it.”
Bit iffy about this paragraph which was one of the main reasons why I considered scrapping it. But after a long break and writing the previous draft, I actually liked this one more. Of course, this paragraph and some others are pretty weak to me so they’ll likely be rewritten if I do choose this version.
There was so much more I could’ve said, but my voice cut out upon glancing up.
Grover couldn’t meet my eyes, his expression sullen. Annabeth glared down at the floor, refusing to look at me. After a moment, she spoke.
“So why didn’t you say something? Anything? Why didn’t you tell us?” she scoffed as her eyes watered. “You probably knew everything we told you already, didn’t you. Everything about the gods, the monsters, the things all of us taught you—did you ever tell the truth? Did you ever say anything that you actually meant? Or is that too difficult for someone raised by the great liar?”
The “great liar” line was actually the first one I came up with for this scene and I ended up basing the rest of it around it.
Her words stung. A lot. It hurt even more when she moved her arm up to her face, wiping away the tears. “Gods damn it, Percy. You—why?”
I blinked away my own tears. This hurt. “I didn’t know if I could trust you guys yet,” I said quietly. “It’s not exactly something you say as an icebreaker.”
The joke fell flat. Annabeth just scoffed again before crossing her arms and looking away angrily. Grover finally looked up, but he didn’t look me in the eye.
“I understand that, Percy,” he said. “You don’t trust easily very often. But I—what about the time we spent? At Yancy? At camp? What about that? What about me?” he sniffed. “We were friends for so long! But you didn’t tell me anything when we made it to camp! You didn’t tell me anything even after starting this quest!” his voice cracked, “Why?”
I didn’t have anything to say. I was worried that they’d be upset but—this was so much worse. “I tried to tell you,” I forced out, “but I—I wasn’t sure how you’d react. And I…” gods damn it, “I didn’t want to risk losing you guys…”
Annabeth grit her teeth. “We wouldn’t have left if you just told us!”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“You could’ve tried!”
“I didn’t want you guys to leave!”
“We told you things we haven’t said to anyone!” she yelled. “I told you things I haven’t said to anyone. Not after—” her voice broke. “Not after Thalia. I thought I could trust you!”
That destroyed any of the anger I’d started to feel. “Annabeth, I—”
“Stop,” she interrupted. “Just… stop.”
This was from a while ago but this was definitely me not knowing how to continue from that and deciding to end it right then and there.
I stopped. Even Grover paused, glancing at her in concern. He didn’t approach though. About a yard away, Odysseus and Perseus stood with equally pained expressions. But, like I asked, they stayed out of it.
After taking a couple of deep breaths, Annabeth calmed down. Her eyes were red when she glanced up and the guilt felt even heavier.
“We need to focus on the quest,” she said dully. “We’ll deal with this later.”
She walked past me before anybody could say anything. Grover followed her soon after, glancing at me with a hurt look.
I watched them walk towards the entrance to Hades’ palace, feeling a lot worse than when we first entered.
“Percy,” Odysseus began quietly.
“Another time,” I forced out before stepping forward.
End of scene. In the drafts, it’s immediately followed by them walking into the Underworld Palace:
The palace was cold when we entered. The Underworld wasn’t warm, exactly, but I still shivered when the doors shut behind us. Annabeth hugged her arms tightly to herself. Grover just grit his teeth and kept walking.
About halfway through the hallway, a soul with armor approached us. They regarded us coldly before gesturing for us to follow. The emblem on their chest radiated regality which only confirmed what I already knew: Hades was expecting us.
I didn’t write anything for in between this scene and the throne room yet so uh, insert smoothly written in transition.
As we walked into the throne room, the temperature dropped. The palace was already cold, but with every step, it only got worse. If I squinted, I could see my breath. Odysseus and Perseus faltered at the entrance. But I couldn’t ask them why; not with the Lord of the Dead staring me down from his throne.
I wish I could describe what he looked like, but there was something about his appearance that made it hard. Every time I thought I could latch onto his skin color or hairstyle, it would shift or my eyes would struggle to process it—I couldn’t even see his face, which was constantly left in shadow no matter what angle he was at. At most, I could see his clothes, and even then, they seemed to shift and change with every movement.
Went with Supergiant’s Hades I design btw
“Perseus Jackson,” the God said, tone frigid. Slowly, he stood from his throne and approached us. Even when he was closer to us, I couldn’t process anything besides the vague outline of his armor and robes. “The boy with the borrowed souls.”
Odysseus inhaled sharply. I faintly heard Annabeth mutter something to herself in Greek, either a curse or a prayer.
It’s both.
“Lord Hades,” I replied after a moment of hesitation. It was difficult to force any words out when he was staring at me. “I—we come to request you to return the God-King’s master bolt to him. Before a war is started.”
The God of the Dead was silent from where he stood. Faintly, I could hear Annabeth and Grover shift behind me but I couldn’t afford for that to distract me. Not with an Elder God staring down at me with barely concealed contempt. It was then that I noticed he had no pupils, his eyes purely white. That was the only detail that stuck out to me enough for my mind to process it.
“You wish,” he said slowly, “for me to return something that I never stole?”
Oh gods.
“I… we were informed that—that you had the bolt—”
“Well,” he cut in, “you were wrong.”
“I—”
“Do you think I wish for war, child of the wolf?”
I hesitated briefly. “I—I’m… wouldn’t you? It’d expand your domain, give you more subjects—”
“And you think I need war for that, boy?” he spat, the shadows around writhing and shifting into a larger form. “Your kind faces losses every single day. In the few moments you’ve resided in my domain, hundreds have died.”
“But if there’s war,” Annabeth cut in, “then wouldn’t that mean more heroes in Elysium? That would positively affect your domain, wouldn’t it? According to my mother’s records—”
This next bit includes some of my own personal worldbuilding and was one of the main things that made me unsure about this chapter since I didn’t know how it would be received.
The God of the Dead turned to her slowly. “Is your mother the Dead King? No. She’s not. Wisdom has her limits, and my domain is one of them.”
Annabeth looked caught off guard but the God continued.
“The more heroes that reach Elysium, the weaker the constraints of Death become,” he explained. “For Death never chose for Elysium to exist—I did. The more Elysium grows, the less souls she accepts. The more Elysium grows, the harder it becomes to die. Infants that shouldn’t have survived birth live, victims of violence survive their injuries despite the fatality, the elderly hold on to life for far, far longer than they should. Death does not value Life in the way she did before Elysium. Death does not value Death the way she did before Elysium. It is only the blood of a god that she accepts without any struggle.”
I thought it would be interesting if Death and Life were sentient concepts, in a way, with Thanatos being Death’s direct vessel.
With each word, he moved closer, the shadows in the room slowly overtaking our surroundings. Once he was done, I could barely see a couple of inches ahead of me.
“Lord of the Dead,” I tried, “we—we’re sorry for assuming. We should’ve… should’ve gathered more information before assuming that you were responsible, but we—we didn’t have time. The ones who sent us on this quest, this was the only assumption they had. They didn’t know who else would—”
“Quiet.”
I shut my mouth.
“You come into my domain,” he hissed, practically spitting out the words as his volume rose. “You enter my palace, throw accusations at me in my throne room, and just expect me to move past that? I care not whether you were sent by Chiron or by Zeus, I refuse to stand for such blatant disrespect!”
By the end, he was yelling, the noise echoing through the throne room.
The only one of us that gained the courage to say anything was Annnabeth. She stepped forward tentatively, standing just a little bit ahead of me.
“Lord Hades, we apologize for the disrespect but we—you were the only lead we had,” Annabeth explained. Her hands were shaking but she clenched them at her side to hide it. “Our guides had no other suspects besides… you. There weren't any other clues we could follow.”
Hades stared at her for a long time. Above him and his throne, almost near the ceiling of the throne room, I saw two glowing eyes staring down at us. Grover glanced up at the same time I did and quietly gasped. Before I could think any further about it, Hades spoke, voice quiet, stilted and angry.
It’s an owl, btw. Something I added for the major six Olympians is that all of them have varying degrees of blindness from being in Kronos’s stomach (excluding Zeus). Hestia is the only one that’s completely blind while Hera and Demeter can still see shapes, colors and outlines. Hades is kind of in between them with Poseidon being mostly blind in one eye and just having not so great vision in the other. Zeus is Zeus. But they can still choose to see through their domains, such as with the owl that Hades keeps in his throne room. It’s perched in the dark in an area where it can see the entire room and if he chooses to, Hades can see through its eyes. He can also do this with either all or some souls (haven’t decided yet).
“Do you think I care, girl?”
Annabeth stepped back but he continued. “No. I don’t. I couldn’t care less for the matters of Olympus, for the matters of the foolish king you come in the service of. My siblings have long made it clear that I am not welcome in their territory, that I am not important in their decisions. So tell me, owl child,” Hades towered over us, leaning in, “why should I take the blame for the mistakes of the Olympians?”
Annabeth had no answer, her breaths coming faster than they should.
“Lord Hades—” Grover began.
“I care not for your struggles,” he grit out, “especially not after you stole my helm.”
This is me remembering he actually doesn’t have his helm anymore.
“We—” a pause. Grover paled further. “What?”
“My helm,” Hades repeated, seething. “You stole my helm, then came into my domain to accuse me of stealing the symbol of the God-King.”
Once he finished speaking, Grover looked about ready to pass out.
“Your helm was stolen?” he repeated, panicked.
Hades scoffed. “Cease your foolishness. Your act will not fool me, satyr.”
“We didn’t take a helm,” I said. “Not the helm, not the master bolt. I—I didn’t know that your helm had been stolen. Neither of us did!”
“And you expect me to trust the word of you?”
I paused for a bit at the venom in his words. “I know we might not seem trustworthy after accusing you—”
“Not that,” Hades cut me off. He leaned away from us a bit, which I was so grateful for. “You, the Son of the Sea God. You, who was raised by the Hated One. You, who was raised by a child of the God-King. You, who was raised by souls I do not trust.”
Oh. Oh. Ohhhhh. That was why. That reasoning did, admittedly, make sense.
“He speaks the truth, Lord of the Dead,” Perseus cut in, talking entirely in Greek. I’d forgotten he and Odysseus were even there. “As Lady Athena’s daughter said, you were the only one that they suspected. With the time limit set by the God-King, my son and his friends were forced to follow the only lead they had.”
The lines Perseus is saying in Greek are meant to be italized but my iPad unfortunately hates me and did not transfer the formatting. Devestation.
Hades stared at him. For a moment, the pair of eyes above Hades’ throne flashed brightly before dimming once again.
“Son of thunder,” Hades began slowly, also in Greek. “You are the child of Zeus. Your word means little more than Poseidon’s spawn.”
Perseus bristled but didn’t react at all besides that. “This constant arguing serves no purpose, one of good counsel. The children were not informed of the taking of your helm and should not be blamed for stealing it.”
“I will blame whoever I wish.”
“What reasons do you have to believe that they are responsible?”
Hades likely would’ve rolled his eyes if he could. “Poseidon schemes as if it’s second nature. He directed his son to steal both my helm and Zeus’ lightning bolt in hopes of igniting war amongst us. I will not fall for his ploy.”
“What’s the point in starting a war amongst gods?”
“Tell me, King of Mycenae, if you had two other powerful rulers who stood against you, wouldn’t you turn them against each other?”
Perseus had no reply. He glanced at my friends and I for a split second before looking back at Hades. “These children have done nothing,” he said quietly. “At the very least, let them leave your domain alive. Them,” he hesitated for a moment, his hand curling into a fist, “and the woman you took.”
I reeled back because oh gods. My mom. I’d forgotten about my mom. Hades had taken my mom.
And this is me remembering Percy actually doesn’t have his mom anymore.
“You have her,” I muttered before my voice grew louder. I stepped forward next to Perseus, glaring. “You have my mom. Give her back!”
I attempted to get closer, but Perseus grabbed me beforehand.
“Percy,” Perseus warned in Greek before switching back to English. “Percy, that’s enough. You need to calm down.”
“He took Mom!” I yelled back. In front of us, Hades looked cruelly amused. It only made me angrier. I’d been so focused on getting here, and then overwhelmed by the presence of an Elder God, that I’d forgotten the most important reason I’d agreed to this quest—my mom. My mom, who Hades took. “How can we know he hasn’t hurt her?”
Perseus looked physically pained at the possibility my mom could’ve been hurt but didn’t comment on it. Instead, he pushed me back next to Grover, who—after making eye contact with Perseus—held me back. I glared at him.
“Percy, I need you to stay there and be quiet,” Perseus demanded, tone quiet but harsh. He’d turned to face me, but not entirely, making sure his back was never to Hades. “This isn’t the time.”
“But—”
“Perce, please,” Grover interrupted. “Let Perseus handle this.”
“He has my mom,” I argued back.
“And we’ll get her back,” Perseus muttered to me before turning back to face Hades entirely. “From the borders of Camp Half-Blood, you took the woman known as Sally Jackson. Do you remember her, Unseen One?”
“I do,” Hades said. “She remains unharmed.”
“She is not among the dead, is she?”
“No.”
“Then let her leave,” Perseus said. “She especially has no part in this. Let her go.”
Another thing that made me a bit iffy on posting the chapter. Did Not Like how this exchange went. That’s actually where what I’ve got for this scene ended and I moved onto the last bit:
“Until my helm is returned to me, you shall remain here.”
House arrest.
Annabeth paled. “What?”
“We can’t do that, Lord Hades,” I said, panicked. “You—we need to get to Olympus. If not to return the master bolt then to explain what’s going on! To explain that you’re innocent!”
“Please, Lord Hades,” Grover said, “war amongst the Olympians would be devastating! If we can’t explain what you’ve told us, then Olympus will turn against you!”
“They already have, satyr,” Hades said blankly.
“I am the daughter of the Lady Athena, Percy is the son of the Earthshaker,” Annabeth hurried. “If you keep us here, you’ll only make more enemies amongst the Olympians!”
Hades didn’t reply. Instead, he turned to slowly stare at me. Then, and only then, did he speak.
“Santa Monica.”
And this is me remembering the fact that I completely skipped the Santa Monica section last chapter.
We all went silent. I said, “What?”
“The ‘gifts’ from Santa Monica my foolish brother intended to give you,” Hades said darkly, “were Savior Pearls, created from the waters of the Styx and the Lethe in Elysium, used to transport one from the Underworld to the sea where they originated,” I realized then what he was saying, “but in your rush to find your friends and the entrance to my kingdom, you forgot all about your father’s summoning.”
More random world-building that I did on a whim.
The throne room was silent as the realization sunk in.
“Oh my gods,” Annabeth muttered to herself, pale. Grover and I weren’t doing any better. “We didn’t—oh gods.”
I’d forgotten all about Poseidon’s demand. I’d been so occupied with everything that had happened that I completely forgot what the nereid had said.
And that is all I’ve got besides the outline! Hopefully this makes waiting for the next chapter a bit easier! Idk how to end this but thank you guys for reading this series!! I never thought so many people would enjoy my writing and it’s helped me through a lot of things. Anyway, I’m going to go back to procrastinating on this chapter because I have yet to learn the consequences of my actions.