Chapter Text
Percy had a good day at school. That was rare, as school rather hated him and he rather hated school. But today was a good day.
Today they learned about the Greek Gods.
Percy found them fascinating, especially the Titans. They’d been worshipped for thousands of years, he wasn’t sure why anyone stopped.
And! When he’d gotten home! His mom had been home! Normally she worked late, not getting home till shortly before bed. But today apparently she got off early because the store was closed for repairs. Percy quite eagerly told her all about his day.
He told her about the Gods they’d learned about. Zeus, the God of the Sky and the King of the Gods. And Poseidon, the God of the Sea. And also Hades, King of the Underworld. Plus Demeter, the Goddess of Agriculture. And then Hera, Goddess of Family (Percy thought that was awesome, she was probably a great mom, like Percy’s mom). And Hestia, Goddess of the Home (or well, the teacher called it the “hearth” but said it basically meant the home).
And he got to tell his mom about the myth of their birth, which they learned in class. First they’d covered some of the Titans though, specifically Kronos.
Percy had decided Kronos was the coolest.
Okay yeah, he’d eaten his kids (Percy told his mom about that), but Percy was pretty sure that was his parents fault.
See, why Percy thought Kronos was the coolest was because Kronos killed his abusive dad.
Percy could relate to wanting to kill an abusive dad, or well, in Percy’s case step-dad. Ouranos hurt his kids and his wife, and Kronos got rid of him. Percy wished he could get rid of his step-dad.
…
People had worshipped the Greek Gods for thousands of years. And it seemed to have worked out pretty well for them overall.
It would totally be fine, therefore, for Percy to just… ask Kronos… for a little advice… right?
They were probably still around, no one worshipped so many Gods for so long without a reason. Only made sense.
…
Anyways, how did one make an offering to a Greek God?
OO OO OO OO
After a bit of research Percy determined that he was going to wing this.
He couldn’t do animal offerings, nor could he do wine, nor could he do like- eighty percent of the things mentioned he could find.
As a result, he was gonna do other stuff! He couldn’t sacrifice actual animals… but he could draw animals… and maybe draw them being sacrificed? Yeah he could do that. And maybe tear them up like they were being cut up? He could have a bowl just for the torn up pieces.
Yeah, that would work. Percy was gonna do that.
He nodded determinedly and headed off to school. He knew what to do during art class.
OO OO OO OO
So the teacher called a parent-teacher meeting because of “concerning drawings”. Percy didn’t understand the problem, he was just trying to do an offering to Kronos!
And of course Gabe was the one to get the call, so the entire meeting was just insulting Percy.
He scowled and kicked his feet, planning to make an offering to Kronos that night. This was entirely unfair. What happened to religious freedom?
OO OO OO OO
The first offering to Kronos had finally been made, and he very carefully tore up the page, tongue poking out as he ripped it slowly and placed each piece in the bowl he’d snuck from the kitchen.
There.
Wait he was supposed to make a prayer.
Percy quickly sat in front of the bowl, pressing his hands together. Then he pulled them apart. Then he frowned. He didn’t know how to pray to Kronos.
“Um… Lord- er- King? Kronos? Your Majesty? Wait are you still King cause Zeus took over- uh… ex-King Kronos? I’m uh… I’m praying to you because- well I think you’re really cool… Uh- sorry I’ve never done this before.”
Percy could’ve sworn he felt something different, but couldn’t begin to name what it was.
“Well, anyways, uh- I think it was really cool how you killed your dad, cause he sucked, or well, he seemed to suck. He hurt your mom and siblings and you killed him and that was cool. I kinda wish I could kill my step-dad. He doesn’t hurt my mom, I don’t think, but he’s mean to her and stuff and I don’t like it. He hurts me sometimes too, but I don’t want mom to worry. If you have any advice, to like… kill him… could you let me know? Um… well thank you! Sorry for taking up your time.”
Percy stood up and put the bowl in the closet, to hide it from Gabe.
He wasn’t sure that was a good prayer, but he’d done his best. He’d do another offering later.
Maybe he could offer one of his mom’s cookies? His mom’s cookies were the best.
OO OO OO OO
Worshipping Kronos was nice. Like yeah, not much seemed to happen… but Percy could feel something around him nowadays.
Not all the time, not even most of the time. But often times there was just this…. Feeling. Something he couldn’t put words to that he just knew meant Kronos was watching.
He hoped Kronos liked the offerings, it was hard to tell at times. He was new to this whole thing, and was doing his best.
He thought the yellow drawings got more… something positive. He wished he knew how to describe the feeling, but it was just there.
Percy liked the feeling though. Sometimes when he was staying up late, he could just tell he was being judged. And when he prayed it almost felt like approval.
He supposed he could pray to other Gods and Titans and stuff, and he did at times. But Kronos was the one he worshipped. He didn’t know if there were other terms for it, the library didn’t carry many books on it, and he wasn’t able to access the internet much. He just did his best, and hoped it was enough.
Kronos seemed to like it, he was pretty sure.
At the very least he thought that he would know if Kronos didn’t like it.
OO OO OO OO
Kronos was admittedly confused by the child praying to him at the moment. He had gotten the odd prayers through the years, though it had a massive drop over time. Nowadays there were very few voices truly praying to him, and he treasured every one of them.
But this one was new and was a child.
The prayers were clumsy, clearly unpracticed. The offerings were usually drawn on paper, or the odd sweet. The child didn’t ask for much either, in fact the only thing he’d asked for from Kronos was advice on handling his stepdad.
And that was the big thing that Kronos noted.
The child prayed to him because he’d defeated Ouranos.
Most prayed to him for agricultural purposes, or for time. Some prayed to him as the previous king, and others as the king of the Titans. Protection, aid, plant life, more time, those were the things Kronos was usually prayed to for.
But this kid, this kid prayed to him to help him remove his stepdad from his life.
Kronos figured he could help with that.
OO OO OO OO
Percy poked at the flowers growing in the window box.
He hadn’t planted any, Gabe thought it was a waste of time and mom never had time to care for the plants. But there were flowers growing there.
Percy considered the flowers for a long minute. He’d never seen them before, they didn’t seem local. But Percy was no expert on plants.
Maybe he should’ve studied that, agriculture was one of Kronos’ realms, and that meant plants.
Hmm, plants. Flowers. Kronos.
Percy’s face split into a grin. Was that Kronos showing approval for Percy!? He hopped off the windowsill and darted to the kitchen to fill a cup with water.
He’d take excellent care of the plants for Kronos! Maybe he could put some in a vase later, keep them inside. They were pretty flowers after all. Little purple blooms growing that were shaped like bells almost.
OO OO OO OO
NO DON’T PUT THAT INSIDE THOSE ARE DEADLY POISON
Kronos would’ve buried his head in his hands if he could. The child clearly knew nothing about poisons, he was supposed to trick the stepdad into eating it! The berries were sweet, easy to trick one into consuming a deadly amount. And the leaves could be snuck into a salad. If one was really desperate the stem or the roots could be mixed into a meal.
He needed to nudge the child into learning more about poisons. Poison would be the easiest route to getting rid of his stepdad.
He wasn’t strong enough to stab him without getting hurt or killed himself, and it was messy. Mortals these days seemed to have very strict ideas of “right” and “wrong” too. Probably best to avoid something like stabbing.
And he was definitely too weak to just kill him with his hands.
And he didn’t have the money to hire someone else to do it.
Ergo: poison.
But first he had to make sure his little worshipper didn’t get himself killed with the deadly nightshade Kronos had grown for him.
OO OO OO OO
Percy had read several books on plants. He could tell that Kronos was approving of that. And it was a good thing too, the plants growing in the window were apparently very poisonous.
He wondered why Kronos had grown him poisonous plants.
Hmm…
He looked up from his book on plants when he heard the door slam downstairs, signifying that Gabe was back.
…
Hmmm…
He looked at the window.
Hmmmm…
Maybe he could help make dinner today.
OO OO OO OO
Unfortunately, Gabe did not want to eat the greens, and Percy’s mom did. He’d had to act fast to stop her by “accidentally” spilling all the salad he’d made (with some leaves from the flowers) on the floor and then be “too upset” to let his mom (or Gabe, but he didn’t care) try to salvage any.
That was close.
He needed to plan better for his next attempt.
OO OO OO OO
Kronos’ little worshipper really needed to learn how to poison someone. But that was partially on Kronos, he hadn’t given any actual help on the poisoning. Lesson learned; he would come up with a more effective plan next time.
First, he needed his little worshipper to go back to that lovely collection of books and read up on poison.
“What are you doing?” Iapetus asked.
“Helping a worshipper off his dad.”
“Oh, carry on then.” Iapetus wandered off to go bug Hyperion and Kronos turned his gaze back to the child.
Hmm, yeah, some strategizing would be a big help to the murder attempts.
Maybe he could get his little worshipper to read up on strategy.
OO OO OO OO
Planning, Percy found, was hard.
There was a lot to take into account if you wanted to succeed.
For example, Gabe did not like salad, or greens in general usually. He did not eat fruit either. He did like Percy’s moms bean dip, and seven layer dip, and all that. But that was amazing so that didn’t count.
But this meant that Percy needed to sabotage that.
That was easier said than done.
Percy’s mom let him help in the kitchen but did not let him help much with Gabe’s stuff. Gabe was picky and mean.
Percy wasn’t picky, even though he didn’t like some foods cause they felt icky he still ate them for his mom. Gabe was dumb. And rude.
But Percy was gonna figure this out.
He was gonna kill Gabe.
OO OO OO OO
Books on strategy were clearly needed, and Kronos’ familiar presence almost seemed to drape over him in approval.
Unfortunately, people didn’t seem to want to leave out books on how to assassinate people (a new word he learned from one of his books on strategy). Percy just wanted to kill one lousy stepparent. Why was it so hard?
He placed a drawing of a clock on his desk for Kronos and sulked a bit while trying to come up with a new strategy. He couldn’t just stab Gabe, Gabe would smack him down in a second, assuming he didn’t kill Percy himself.
He needed to use poison, or something subtle like that. But how?
His mom made most of the food, and anything Percy made she wanted to try. Percy really appreciated her support and love, but it was making it very hard to kill Gabe.
OO OO OO OO
Kronos would’ve sighed if he were able. As it was his disembodied existence just did the metaphysical equivalence.
His little worshipper’s mom was just so nice. She was so sweet. She cared about his little worshipper so so so much.
It was very good parenting, but it was really interfering with the murder plans.
It was like Gaia, except not in on the murder plot and thus not offering the weapon and helping set the trap.
Well, not everyone can have a mother willing to trap their abusive husband and hand their kid a weapon powerful enough to cut an extremely powerful God to tiny pieces.
Kronos was just lucky that way.
It did mean they’d need to plan ahead.
The child wasn’t allowed to prepare food without supervision at this time. He would need to wait till he was a bit older, and more experienced at cooking so that he was trusted to do it alone.
They’d have to play the long game.
First step, learn how to cook.
OO OO OO OO
Percy paused as the eighth cooking ad in as many minutes played on the TV. It was really into cooking today.
The clock on the shelf started beeping right when he reached to change the channel and Percy scrambled over to turn it off. Why was the alarm set? Percy hadn’t even known it had an alarm.
There were several beers on the shelf, so he guessed that Gabe had set it on accident.
He glanced back at the screen where they were timing one of the cooking steps with an old-fashioned sand clock.
Percy considered it. Then turned back to the clock on the shelf.
Hmm…
Was Kronos giving him a sign? Obviously, the alarm went off cause Gabe hit a button on accident, it made sense. So did the channel playing a bunch of cooking ads, it did have cooking shows in the afternoon… but it could also be a sign.
Percy decided it was a sign and turned on a cooking show.
OO OO OO OO
Learning how to cook was slow, but it meant that his mom was slowly allowing him to cook more!
He got to make pancakes the other day, and cookies the next. It was very yummy. He set aside one for Kronos.
Slowly he was getting more and more freedom, and soon he’d be able to slip some of the poison into the food and off him.
And then carefully clean the dish and put non-poisoned ones in to prevent anyone from being suspicious (thank you book on crime and profiling).
He would probably need to remove the deadly nightshade from his window after, but he didn’t want to. They were the first thing he got from Kronos!
But evidence was evidence. Maybe he could get a different plant and dedicate it to Kronos as thanks? He’d need to get a book on flower language.
Of course, cooking wasn’t the only thing he learned about. If the deadly nightshade didn’t work, then there might be other poisons.
Percy had dedicated a lot of time to learning about plants and their poisons. Mushrooms were great, either tasty, crazy, or deadly. He wished he could grow some but there wasn’t a good spot for it.
There were plenty of other deadly plants too, like white snakeroot. Percy really wanted to get his hands on that. That one would be easy to pass off as just a poisoned cow causing it.
Cases were rare these days, but it was a good solid poison.
He was also wondering if he could get some rosary peas. All it would take is a little scratch on Gabe, and a bit of rosary pea, and Gabe would die in a few days’ time.
He was also curious if he could add some oleander to maybe coffee. Coffee was bitter right? So was that beer Gabe liked. He could probably extract some juice from the plant with a bit of work and then slip it in the coffee and Gabe wouldn’t notice. Oleander was bitter, so he needed to be careful with it.
Course, Gabe was also a smoker. If Percy could get his hands on some unprocessed tobacco he might be able to use that to off Gabe without anyone realizing.
He wished he could get a castor oil plant though, even just one or two seeds would be enough-
Naturally Percy took notes on all the plants he learned about. It was really interesting, shame that he couldn’t use most of them. There were even more plants that grew in other countries, or even just different parts of America that he couldn’t reach.
He wished he could grow them.
Maybe he could ask his mom for a plant?
Ooh, he could sneak a poisonous plant in and get something to dedicate to Kronos and get a pretty plant to decorate his room! Plus, a tool to kill Gabe!
He made a note of that.
Maybe some lily of the valley? That one was a bit tougher to sneak into the food, but he might manage it with some planning.
Fox glove would look nice, and it’s very deadly. Did Gabe take heart medication? Percy might be able to play it off as an overdose if he did.
Dieffenbachia would be a great plant. It looks like a normal house plant, and just a few leaves would finish him off. He’d die of asphyxiation, which Percy understood was pretty slow and painful. Gabe deserved that.
He had a few options it seemed, he’d have to try that.
OO OO OO OO
Now, don’t mistake Kronos guiding his little worshipper to the long game as Kronos not helping him with the short game. He still guided him to try different strategies.
Unfortunately, the little worshipper’s mother was a very good mother and wife, even with trash as a husband. Just more ways she resembled Gaia.
If only she were helping the murder plans. They would probably be done already.
Instead, she kept interrupting them.
His little worshiper tried putting needles in Gabe’s shoes, but she decided to clean the shoes for Gabe because they were dirty. Then she put the needles up so that couldn’t be done again.
He tried to mess up electrical cords to electrocute Gabe, but his mom was cleaning and noticed the messed-up wires right where Gabe always sat and covered them till a handy man could come.
He tried to dump chemicals in the bathroom to off Gabe when he went in, but his mom saw him with the cleaning supplies and stopped him and gave a lecture on how cleaning supplies combined and how that was dangerous.
The point was the danger, but Kronos did appreciate the information the lecture gave, nonetheless.
Especially because he now knew how to make acid (hydrogen peroxide and vinegar), chlorine gas (bleach and vinegar + bleach and Mildew stain remover + bleach and oven cleaner + bleach and drain cleaner + bleach and lemon juice… honestly just be careful with bleach), chloroform (bleach and rubbing alcohol), an explosion (different drain cleaners), and phosphine gas (some pesticides and water).
Chloroform was actually quite useful, and he nudged his little worshiper to make some… at least until it started affecting him. The nausea and dizziness weren’t good. But the fact that drinking water seemed to relieve all of his symptoms made Kronos pause.
Was that just how it worked or was that something… unique to his little worshiper.
Hmm… Kronos would have to keep an eye on that.
Regardless, the chloroform didn’t end up getting used because his mother found the plastic water bottles he’d filled with it, and tossed it.
How troublesome.
OO OO OO OO
Percy was starting to get desperate.
Attempts 10-57 had all failed (1-9 were poisoning attempts). The attempts had occurred over the last few years, from when he was eight to now, at eleven.
He’d even attempted to just burn down the apartment with Gabe inside!
But his mom came back early and noticed the carefully placed newspaper set just over the burner on the stove just before it caught fire.
Gabe did get yelled at for that one, but he was still alive so Percy couldn’t be too happy about that.
He had learned a lot about poisons in the meantime and had made several attempts to off Gabe with them too. Unfortunately, the few attempts that slipped past his mom’s eternal ability to ruin his assassination plots weren’t lethal.
Percy was smug about the time he snuck some seeds from a castor oil plant into Gabe’s mixed nut snack, but unfortunately that only made him sick for a few days.
But he was determined to succeed!
And in the meantime, he was able to honor Kronos more.
He had a little shrine set up for Kronos on his desk, that he passed off as just decorations. It had two little cacti he’d convinced his mom to let him get, the prettiest clock Percy was able to get with his pocket money, a little (fake) gold bowl he put cookies or other sweets in, and a box where he put the drawings and little prayers he’d made for Kronos. He’d even painted a scythe on the box!
And he was pretty sure Kronos liked all of it, he always felt comfy sitting at his desk.
OO OO OO OO
Kronos considered carefully what plan to try next on the stepdad. He was annoyingly difficult to off, and it wasn’t helped by the many times his little worshipper’s mom had accidentally interfered.
Perhaps he could guide his little worshiper to some other deadly plants, he could make a syrup out of the sap and leaves…
“Hey,” Hyperion said. “Are you guys still trying to off that one stepdad?”
Kronos did the metaphysical equivalent of grumbling. “The mother keeps stopping the attempts.”
“Does she know about them?” Hyperion wondered, turning his eyes to Kronos’ little worshiper.
“No, or at least she doesn’t seem to. None of the clean ups are done with awareness of what she’s cleaning up. She’s just being responsible, and helpful.”
“It’s really impressive how she keeps getting in the way,” Iapetus mused. “Almost like someone is guiding her to stop the assassinations.”
Kronos paused, considering that.
That was possible. He didn’t know if any God had their eyes on her, or on the stepdad, but if one did and knew of his little worshipper’s attempts to off him… they could be interfering.
Or it was just bad luck.
“Maybe,” he said after a moment. “What should we try next? I was going to recommend slipping a syrup into his alcohol, a toxic one obviously.”
“I vote stabbing,” Iapetus called.
“You always vote stabbing,” Kronos grumbled. “He’s too small to get away with stabbing right now.”
“Well, you never know if you don’t at least try,” Iapetus argued.
“Leave the kid alone,” Hyperion huffed. “I think you should try fire next.”
“That was the last attempt, it failed.”
“I’ve got nothing.”
“Arsonist,” Iapetus muttered.
“At least it’s more interesting than ‘stab’.”
“I’ll stab you.”
“Hush, I’m thinking,” Kronos grumbled.
“Maybe go back to poison?” Krios chimed in, blatantly eavesdropping.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Kronos agreed. “I was thinking maybe some Oleander, or even some pokeweed-“
“Do you know what grows around there?”
“There are actually a few greenhouses in the city, and the plants themselves are available at local stores. He’d only need a few leaves to work with.”
“Hmm, true. That could work.”
“I want to nudge a few seeds to conveniently end up in his window garden,” Kronos grumbled. “But it was hard enough getting the deadly nightshade in there.”
“Maybe some foxglove? Or Hemlock? Maybe a bit of Larkspur, that one would be best when young.”
“Lots of options,” Hyperion mused. “Maybe just throw in a bit of a variety?”
“Well, they need space to grow.”
“Could try Daffodil.”
“Yes, but those are common, he should be able to find some at the park…”
“Poisoning someone takes so much work,” Krios said. “Never thought about it so hard.”
“That’s because none of you have any finesse,” Kronos sniffed.
All of them stared in the vague direction of his presence.
“What?”
OO OO OO OO
Percy stared at his mom in absolute horror.
He was going to boarding school!? How was he supposed to kill Gabe from there!?
This was horrible. He’d go a whole four months without any assassination attempts. What if the perfect opportunity appeared while he was gone? He was devastated.
First thing he did after finding out was head to his shrine to Kronos.
He always thought best there, ideas flowing easily, thoughts popping up randomly. He was sure that he’d think of something there.
Probably with Kronos’ help, he wasn’t the best at knowing what Kronos was shoving into him and what was his own thought yet, even after so many years.
Regardless, he sat to think.
He needed to off Gabe, but a whole year away- maybe he could practice? Well, he didn’t want to off anyone at school.
…
Probably.
Regardless, he wasn’t out there trying to kill people. That was mean. No, he was just gonna off Gabe.
But he didn’t know how to go about that if he was at a boarding school.
… hmmm
Perhaps he could plan while he was there? He could always grow more plants while there… that could work. Maybe they had a class on plants?
An idle thought drifted in his mind, about how he knew so much about poison… but not nearly as much about medicine.
That was true, he probably needed to know how to fix the poisonings he did. His mom had almost eaten the poisoned food several times, after all. So, knowing how to fix it in an emergency would be good.
He’d need more books on plants. And more plants to practice with. Right now he only had the two little cacti (aloe vera and bishops cap). Aloe vera was good for sunburn, he knew. But he didn’t know how to make it into something to help for sunburn.
He’d have to look into that.
He really wanted a Blue Columnar Cactus, they were blue. But they were too big, mom would never allow it. He’d try to convince his mom to let him get a bunny ear cactus next, those were cute. Maybe a Fairy Castle cactus… Oh, and there were Hen’s and Chick’s, plus lady fingers-
Of course, they weren’t the only plants out there, but mom thought a cactus was good for him, since they didn’t need much water.
Maybe he could convince his mom to let him take some more.
Like some chamomile, or lavender, or basil- He’d need to look into good plants. He vaguely remembered on named… calie? Calen? Calendun?
He picked up one of his plant books and flipped through it till he found the pretty orange flower. Calendula! That was it. It was good for… anti-inflammatory stuff, and for…. Inhibiting bacteria. Did that mean it was good for injuries? Percy thought so.
Yeah, he’d need to study that a lot more.
He supposed this was a good thing, in a way. He’d have plenty of time to plan his next murder attempt and would get some space to study without Gabe leaning over his shoulder.
Yeah, he could work with this. Maybe the boarding school wouldn’t be that bad.
OO OO OO OO
Kronos wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or not with the fact his little worshipper was at boarding school.
Obviously, this interfered with their murder plans. But it did mean that his little worshipper could prepare better, and learn a lot more.
Though the school teaching seemed subpar… he nudged the little one to the books he needed for his studies and eyed the teachers.
The science class seemed useful, ish. The history one seemed very… biased. He didn’t think the math teacher was that good, she was nice he supposed, but wasn’t the most effective teacher.
And English was… a wreck. It taught some important things, Kronos could tell. Critical thinking, analysis, all that. But it was taught in a way that made that hard for the students to learn. And more importantly, it was extremely hard for his little worshipper to work in that class.
He’d long since noticed his worshipper’s struggle with reading, and tried to guide him towards books with pictures, or small chunks of text. He’d even helped him find some coping strategies for his struggles. And Percy could take his time working through the books, and draw little doodles to help him understand it along the way.
But the teacher… did none of that.
There was no patience for his reading speed, there was no understanding for his “dyslexia” as it was called. There was even less understanding for his auditory processing issues.
Overall, it was a pain.
Kronos couldn’t blame his little worshipper for cheating in that class, it was not being taught in an effective manner.
But other than that, things were going well.
His little worshipper was learning herbs and various other medicinal plants. He’d managed to get a few new plants to experiment with.
There was sage, good for inflammation of the mouth and throat. And chamomile, which was going to be great to practice making salves and was perfect for skin inflammation and indigestion. Plus, it helped with anxiety! His little worshipper tended to get anxious when he couldn’t practice his plans. And of course, Basil. It was good for food and for lack of appetite and cuts and scrapes. Feverfew was one Kronos was very pleased with, the leaves helped with headaches and migraines, and when added to teas they could help with arthritis.
Unfortunately, the child didn’t have enough space to really get into it. The Feverfew and Chamomile took up a bit of space, while the sage and basil could be grown in smaller pots. But Kronos appreciated that his little worshipper arranged the plants around his desk, where the shrine for Kronos was.
Kronos did find the extra time where he wasn’t plotting murder attempts to be helpful to dedicate to Luke. He still needed to convince him that stealing the bolt was the best course of action (for Kronos that is, Kronos very much wanted the power that it would give so that he could get a damned body again, he was very sick of being a disembodied form).
OO OO OO OO
Percy’s school year was going well, all things considered. He had a friend (Grover) who was just as interested in plants as him. Grover wasn’t as interested in poison mind you, but he was happy to talk about medicinal plants with Percy.
And yeah, the classes kinda weren’t the best, but Percy had his plans for murder to work on, and books on medicinal plants and how to make stuff out of them.
He’d gotten good at identifying them, he thought at least. He’d need to go out and about to be sure.
He needed to practice making stuff of the plants though. Like- medicine and poultices. He wasn’t sure where to start with that though, the library didn’t have much on that.
He’d have to check the computers some time but wasn’t sure where to start with that.
In the meantime! He was gonna get very knowledgeable on plants.
It was even a way of honoring Kronos! He was learning about plants and taking care of them, that was a Kronos thing. Plus, he’d made a schedule for taking care of the plants, so like- time and stuff. That was also a Kronos thing.
He was doing so good at this whole worshiping thing.
OO OO OO OO
Kronos was frustrated.
Not with his little worshipper, that one could do no wrong. But Luke- that brat had failed at the theft. He’d had to expend far more energy than he would’ve liked to twist Ares to their side for the moment.
He wished, sometimes, that he could speak to his little worshipper in dreams like he could others. But whoever his little worshipers’ parent was had blocked his dreams. It was very annoying.
And it meant he was stuck with Luke for this stuff. Luke was… a bit delusional. A bit power hungry. More than a little desperate for attention and praise. He very much wanted to be “special”.
Kronos could work with that, but it was tedious. He had to play to Luke’s desires quite a bit.
It would all be worth it in the end, and Luke would get some nice position as a reward for the help, but it was annoying to deal with at times. Especially in contrast to the care and devotion his little worshipper gave him.
Luke maybe tossed a piece of bread to him once every week or two, if that.
His little worshipper had a dedicated shrine, a series of plants whose care was dedicated to Kronos, a schedule for that which he’d also dedicated to Kronos. He did weekly if not daily prayers, he wrote little prayers and poems and stories for Kronos, he even drew pictures as offering. And he placed food in an offering bowl for Kronos, and occasionally put a juice box there too.
It was so sweet. And it never failed to give Kronos a little boost to receive something from his little worshipper.
There was a reason he liked his little worshipper more than his minion. One actually put work into it, the other just wanted his attention and praise with minimal work.
Yes, stealing the bolt was a big thing, but he was the son of the thief God. And he’d inherited an immense amount of skill from his Godly parent.
The theft was child’s play for Luke, the only problem was getting away afterwards.
Which, unsurprisingly, he’d failed at.
Ugh.
OO OO OO OO
Percy squinted at his new teacher. His other one had just- vanished. Into thin air. Supposedly on “maternity leave”.
That was suspicious. Her maternity leave wasn’t for another two months.
Percy hummed, leaning back in his chair. He idly poked at Kronos, wondering if he was paying attention. Percy wasn’t sure what was going on, but he didn’t think it was a good thing.
OO OO OO OO
Well, Kronos hadn’t expected that.
It seemed things were getting interesting.