Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Fate is not fickle.

Or at least, Sena Strand does not think it is. She has lived too strangely, too many times, to believe that fate is something as incidental or willful as fickle. For that implies that they chose loyalties to one person or another, and from her own experience, The Moirai had only ever made choices for the order of their own determination. What that is, she hasn’t quite figured out. Whether it be a grand plan, whether it be Chaos or all of that she does not know. One does not deter or change fate, however. That is folly. For fate is a combination of weaving threads of will, and chance. The Moirai weave the strands of lives with the intent of the others, the order of the universe, with a dash of chaos… Maybe.  That just might be her biased opinion. 

It is that chaos that caused… Well. 

Her .

And she thinks it is because of the chaos and the order of the universe that she meets Percy Jackson when they are both twelve years old.

Or maybe its because she rarely feels comfortable in camp, in her cabin space, and feels suffocated in Luke Castellan's dark, sharp gaze. His behavior as of late is escalating, and her only recourse is dodging him anytime they don’t have mandatory lessons. He has been poking and prodding, more and more about her godly parent. Rude and insensitive at best, at worse, dangerous and alarming. Of the fact that she has been in camp longer than anyone- nearly all twelve years of her life, found on the beachside of the camp, ‘wandering’ the sand dunes with naked but the pearls woven around her, all of four years old. That she is ‘unclaimed’, does she not feel sad, little Sena, does she not feel angry?  

He has been paying attention to her now that he had not paid before, giving her smiles and warm touches on her shoulder, tugging at her hair-  Annabeth's glares growing with each fond touch, the teasing press of his lips to her forehead… Trying, trying to carve himself into her heart.

Her mother is Love , after all, even if she has not ‘claimed’ her, and she can feel how he is trying to coax her to feel something other than respect for her Cabin Head. 

She feels it. Feels how he has already weaved and charmed such a spell over several other campers- To a startling degree. And it worries her. It’s almost Charmspeak- not as potent as her sibling's work, but enough to send a shiver down her spine. Worries her heart desperately, because she cannot counter it as her siblings do. Especially since it is not a healthy love, neither philia nor storge, it is mania, it is heavy and cloying and makes her skin itch. No one else seems to feel it- But then, not even most of her siblings feel Love as clearly as she does. They can weave it, and form it, but they do not feel as she does. 

They are not touched by their godly siblings. They are not Blessing and loved by Aphrodite and her beloved Erotes. Because her Mother and her godly siblings love her. Love her with an ache and desperation, the heavy way that all the gods love. Possessive. All consuming. Jealous and perhaps, cloying and too much. Godly love is not easy to hold, to have, it is a heavyweight, a heavy price upon her shoulders.

It is both a privilege and duty to have the love of her godly mother, and her godly siblings, and Sena takes things like that seriously.

Because once, she had studied and studied creatures like them in another life. She who died, who lived and worshiped the Hellenistic Pantheon, but, oh, oh, had she loved Aphrodite and her brood the most. Her memories of the first life, Doctor Dove Little are a little vague- distant as the stars. But she remembers enough and she knew too many stories of Aphrodite and her brood, of her connections to several goddesses, every changing and adaptable across time and landmasses. She was Ishtar, she was Ianna, she was Astarte, she was Aphrodite, she was Venus- She was beauty and war and love, she is brilliant and made the other gods kneel as nothing else did . She was one of the only female deities that acted the same as the King of the Gods and absolutely reveled in it. 

Petty and caprice, generosity and gentleness, beauty, love and war, all of it made her Mother .

And she is both dangerous and brushed aside, both feared and dismissed. Caged and corralled into a space of meaninglessness in a combination of male scholars and eons of people twisting and warping her to be as frivolous as possible. They only see her beauty, her avarice, and do not see her Power .

Or when they do, they do all they can to have it, or suppress it- Perhaps that is why Luke is trying so hard with her. He senses it, senses that fraction of power simmering in Sena’s skin. That comes from her ever-changing eyes like a physical weight… Because her powers- her powers are very different from most of her mortal siblings.

Sena knows why . She is not bitter at her Mother for this difference, for this show of her devotion and her love in her difference. She worshiped her mother in ways her other siblings did not, could not, would not and so she was gifted as her other siblings weren’t. She cannot, does not feel shame in it, because she knows she lives a dangerous balance in her second life. 

She is a cosmic mistake.

A Choas Gift, my Lord Brother had called me, with love in his ancient, wild eyes.

But she is seriously, jealously loved and she is protected, despite, or even perhaps because of this mistake.

“ Chaos Gift ,” a voice calls her in a croon, a flash of something ancient and older than even Mother in it that makes her visibly, physically start at the sound. 

Sena’s heart beats viciously in her chest, a bird, trapped against bars in a cage, her breath hitches, and strangles in her throat, and her palms are slick and cold. Her knees shake at his voice, deep, but somehow boyish, and it takes her more than she can say to turn towards it. A man, or perhaps a boy on the cusps of being a man, stands on the windowsill in her room, tall, silhouetted by the gauzy curtains that her father had chosen. 

He smiles, his eyes glowing a vivid, brilliant red. 

Slowly, he floats into the room, and she realizes upon his back are large, gorgeous wings of the purest white. They beat, once, twice, and she feels a wind on her face. It- the scent is heady, woodsy, and a hint of something dark and sweet. Sena does not flinch, even as the god- and she knows he is a god- lands delicately in front of her.

He towers.

He looms.

She feels Power. On her tongue, in her beating heart, and she can only look up and in awe. The god reaches for her with a smooth, tanned hand. He touches her hair, with a delicate hand, and runs it through the glorious mane of black curls, spun like the finest silk. Curls like his own, and she realizes as he looks up at him that his lips, full and cupid, are hers, as are his cheekbones, as are the set of his lovely brows… Better, more defined, as it is in a young adult, but also perfect, as a god should look.

“My son,” her Mother says, serious and urgent, voice melodic wail, “No one- no one can know of her. They will take her back . Or worse, throw her into the maw of Tartrous for her very defiance of the natural order! Yet she is innocent! And mine! My son, we are in need of help. We must protect her!”

In the other room, Sena’s father slumbered on. He would not wake, Sena knew, until her Mother was gone. He never did. It has been nearly two years since Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty had begun to visit her. She had been a toddler, young enough and pleasing enough for Aphrodite to dote on- and Sena had finally reached the courage to tell her of true her predicament just moments before. 

Her Mother-

Her Mother had stilled, eyes wide, and nearly dropped her from her arms in her surprise.

Instead, she had placed her delicately on her feet and began to pace, furiously, her breath hitching into sobs as she went. She has not realized that she had started to be loved by the goddess- had only clung to the only proof she is not insane after her rebirth to her presence, so obviously supernatural. With her revelation, Aphrodite was wroth and distressed.

Sena ached . 

So, Sena touched gently at Aphrodite’s supple, tan hand. Very much aware of the god who was still running a hand through her hair.

“But I am a mistake,” she tells them, voice gentle, and slightly startling for its highness and coherency, “I remember my past life and Elysusim. I should go back, Mother. I should. I will not cause you harm, or blame for me.”

Something flashed in Mother’s eyes. Something dark sounded like the gurgle of blood and sea in Sena’s ears. It screamed of lion snarls and the furious beats of doves’ wings. The flash of Venus’ light shined in the depths of those ever-changing eyes. Sena could taste seafoam and copper on her tongue.

Sena did not fear, did not flinch.

She only marveled in sheer awe, lips parting at the emotion she invoked on Aphrodite.

“Oh, no, no, I cannot, will not give you back . You were given to me . I do not share with those of the dead if I can help it, little one.”

Sena blinks.

“Your lover as Ishtar or Ianna,” the memory comes the easiest, more so than with the people she had loved, the face she had worn, the life she vaguely remembers she had lived, “Or in the case of this form of you, your lover and your fight for him with-”

A careful hand over her mouth. Aphrodite’s eyes glimmer with love. They shimmer and pull her in. Sena is not scared- she, after all, has eyes like her mother. They shimmer and pull as well. In Aphrodite, it is more potent, more true, and Sena sighs softly in awe and her own love. Aphrodite smiles gently. Her eyes are shining, and she realizes with a start they are all colors, a spectrum around her pupil, with perhaps pink being the strongest color. 

“Names have power, little one,” her accent shifts, and her face grows tanner and different, but no less beautiful, Aphrodite sighs, or perhaps she is instead Ishtar, or always all of them, Ishtar, Ianna, Astarte, Aphrodite, and Venus. Shimmering and shifting between all forms of herself as her eyes shifted, “You know of me .”

She seems pleased at the prospect. Sena tells the truth, because what else could she do for her Mother?

“I was a scholar. I wished to uncover more of your origins and was infuriated how much love and beauty was twisted and bent to suit the needs of men that thought to own you when it was you who owned them . Who could destroy them and their ugliness… Fuck the scholarship of the -Ath- inventors of Democracy . Sparta, Rome- now they worshipped you as you should be. ”

Aphrodite sighed again, lovely and sweet. Stroked at Sena’s face. She beamed.

“Oh, I remember you. Eros. The scholar of love, how much we loved her and she is back and mine-”

“Oh yes, I remember her. Doctor Dove Little. You adored her. I adored her.”

Eros’s eyes gleam.

“And you, Sena, loved us. Worshiped us trying to write of us. We read many of your papers, your devotion of us.”

Sena flushes, and shuffles a touch. She remembers that even if she cannot even remember the color of her eyes. Now her eyes shift in touches of pink and lavender.

“You are part of love and beauty and war. How could I not ?”

Aphrodite beamed.

“So I defy the dead again, brought you to me, if perhaps unconsciously. That makes you mine, little one, and I will not let you go. My love is a jealous and possessive one.”

Another stroke down her face.

Her brother, her brother Eros of love, comes closer to her. His wings flare slightly, and his eyes are intent on her. Sena cannot stop her awed breath, even as he reaches into her space again. His long hand cups her face, carefully, delicately, and she watches as his white wings flex, just as their mother steps aside, hand on her shoulder. Telegraphing her movements, she cups his hands that envelope her face in return. She squeezes gently in complete and utter reverence. She is trembling as the god of love and desire holds her.

He smiles. Glowing, quite literally.

“Beautiful Dove, beautiful Sena ,” he says softly.

She barely breathes.

“I call mighty holy lovely and sweet Ǽrohs, 

valiant archer, bearing wings. On your flaming footpath, you strike quickly,

as you play with Gods and mortal men;

Skillful, two-formed, you hold the keys to everything,

of the upper aithír, of the sea, and of the earth, and as much as mortals

are nurtured by the all-generating winds of Dimítir,

and as far as wide Tártaros and throughout the thunderous sea;

for you alone have command of all these things.

But, happy one, bring pure motivation to the initiates.

And cast out our vulgar desires,” she breathes back, licking her lips.

He beams and kisses her gently on the forehead. 

“You must share this Chaos Gift, Mother. I cannot bear the thought of erasing her from my mind,” he looks back to their mother, “She will reach the age where she will be forbidden to you. But never to me. I am not her parent. I am her brother. I call myself her patron.”

Aphrodite smiled, wide and bright. 

“Oh, with you my son, of course. Perhaps your other siblings in time… But first- We must set to protect our Sena. She is in danger, and mortal, yet.”

Sena swallowed. ‘Yet’.  She knew what that meant. She did not give much thought to immortality, but she would file that away for ‘future-Sena’ to deal with.

“May I say goodbye to Father?” she asks, gently. 

“Of course, sweet one, of course.”

She is reading- a hard feat for a demi-god. But she is nothing if not persistent. She may not remember all of the details of her first life, the Lethe had done that much but, she has retained her love of reading. In this life, it is all the harder. Her eldest brother, Eros is generous, he often gifts her with various tomes in various topics, all in ancient Hellenistic Greek. It’s easier for her, at least. Currently, she is reading a rebuttal of some scholars against her first life’s last paper. She frowned, leg jiggling as she sits at the foot of Thalia’s tree. She is leaning in her roots when the rain begins. She huffs, but she refuses to move. Red pen moving in ancient Greek against the paper in front of her. 

She doesn’t want to see Luke’s face. 

Not yet. She can avoid him now. She is upset. Annabeth spitted words of jealousy over his encouragement at their shared spear lessons with Athena’s cabin had… Had hurt . The head of Athena’s cabin was supposed to be her friend. Where was loyalty to philla, to storge? All for her fleeting infatuation! He had cupped her face with a small smile, and she had watched as Annabeth’s face had grown steadily redder at his actions. From a cupped face to a fleeting forehead kiss that had made a shiver run down her spine… She sends an earnest prayer to her Brother. Please, please, let not my heart be swayed, Brother, he frightens me in his own mania. She receives an answer.

She always does.

  Never, little Bless. Her Eldest Brother is her loophole- he is not her godly parent, so he may interfere with her all he likes, claiming himself her patron god, even if it was done on the sly. The less attention Olympus had on her, the better her mother and her brood think. 

Her mother and her godly siblings viciously exploited the loophole.

Lightning crosses the sky.

Thunder roars mere seconds afterward. The rain turns into a storm, even if Sena is quite safe underneath the brought of Thalia’s limbs. She presses her fingertips to her fellow demi-god's bark and soothes a hand down the roughness of her trunk. The Sky King is in an ill mood, ever since his master bolt had been stolen. Her Brother Eros had told her as much, to keep her head down, to look the other way to the quest that will probably pop up. Be not seen, Sena Strand, had been his exact words.

And demi-god she may be, but Sena Strand is quite content to stay away from such a quest.

But of course, chaos.

She was startled away from her book when there was an explosion. A boom that shook Thalia’s roots, that rattled Sena’s teeth. A large flash of light- A car skids across the foot of Half-Blood Hill.

Lightning flashed as she peek around her fellow half-blood’s tree, mouth gaping.

"GET TO THE BOUNDARY LINE!"

Sena jerks. Drops her book, automatically hiking her backpack up onto her shoulders. Her hand moves to her long bracelet, turning to a bow of celestial bronze as quick as breathing. Her heart beats viciously. She sends more prayers, to her Mother and the Erotes that were her beloved siblings. Her blood is singing as she looks carefully. Their alarm is muted, but present in her head.

{Don't do anything stupid, little Bless,}  that is her eldest goldly sibling, Eros of love and chaos and desire.

His wife, Psyche, goddess of the soul, says to her, { Be calm, little Bless.}

Himeros, the god of sexual desire, twin of Eros, said. { You will destroy dear, Blessing. }

{Kick ass, little Bless, you’ll do really well,} cheered Hedylogus, the god of sweet-talk and flattery. 

{Be safe,} Hermaphroditus, the god of effeminacy and androgyny chorused their voice a double-chorus, feminine, and masculine together, begged her gently.

Anteros, the god of mutual love and love returned fretted, wordlessly alarmed.

Pothos, the god of yearning and desire, also said nothing, but his sent-back prayer felt like a tug at her heart.

I will do my best to be unharmed, she prayed to her siblings and Mother alike.

There are three people crawling up the hill.

Two strangers and Grover . She sucks in a breath. Grover had been the one to find her at the beach, naked and stunned, barely above a child himself. She loved him he was familial love, strong and true. He is being half dragged by the older woman and the boy. Unconscious, or dead, and her heart nearly stops as she sees what is behind them.

The Monster of the Labyrinth.

"Oh no," she mummers.

Because she is going to do something stupid. Forgive me, my siblings, Mother. Their muted alarm turns furious. Sena raises her bow, breathing. May my aim be as true as yours, Lord Eros. May my hunt be fruitful, Lady Astarte. May you all bless me, my beloved Erotes. Arrow after arrow flew. Licking her lips as she looks at the runners, even as she kept a steady stream of arrows.  

Draw. Aim. Release. 

The woman is mortal, the boy is half, and judging by the expression, wild and confused, he has been protected in ignorance. Draw. Aim. Release .  The celestial bronze of her bow and arrows shimmers in the dim light.  Draw. Aim. Release .  She is not as gifted as her Brother with the bow, nor her mother in her Astarte form.  Draw. Aim. Release . Not even near them. But she is not a god.   Draw. Aim. Release. Simply god adjacent, so what she lacks in talent she has made up for in dedication and stubbornness. Draw. Aim. Release . 

When she lets the arrows fly, they hit . Draw. Aim. Release .  The Bull screams in wordless fury. It begins stomping up the hill toward her. She dodges back. Draw. Aim. Release . Nimbly staying across the boundary line, back and forth to taunt his bad sight. Draw. Aim. Release . Even as the woman grabs Grover with her son and starts dragging them in the opposite direction of her as she distracts the monster. Draw. Aim. Release .

She is soaked in seconds. Draw. Aim. Release . Her bare toes squish into the grass as she grips for traction. Draw. Aim. Release.

"Hurry! PAST Thalia's Tree! The big pine one!" She screams.

The Monster was big, his muscles thickly corroded, unless she got a shot into his eyes, her arrows were little more than an annoyance. Draw. Aim. Release. But it would surely piss him off and cause him to follow her as she dodged back and forth from the boundary line. Then she realized her mistake as she dodged back one last time.

The woman was mortal.

She couldn't enter the camp. She would be stuck on the other side with the Bull. She seems to know that. The older woman flings her son and Grover over the line.

"GO!!" She bellowed, even as the Bull turned towards her.

No.

Sena acted. Stupidly. She crossed the boundary line just as the Bull charged for the woman. Draw. Aim. Release. War sang in her blood. Lions snarled in her chest, and sea foam frothed in her mouth with a hot copper taste. She bared her teeth. Draw. Aim. Release .

“MOM!” A scream from the other half-blood.

He crossed the boundary line again. Sena swore as he gave a single, stupid running leap toward the Minator to defend his poor mother. He jumped atop of the bull. The Bull bucked, he roared. The boy held to the horns.

Draw. Aim. Release .

"Your name!" she screeched, to the woman.

Draw. Aim. Release . Draw. Aim. Release .

A gamble. She doesn't know if this will work. She runs to the woman, even as she neatly sidesteps the Bull last moment.

"Sally Jackson!"

"I give permission for Sally Jackson to enter Camp Half-Blood!"

Sena grabbed her arm and yanked.

The woman passed the Wards. Sena nearly sobbed in relief as they skidded past Thalia. Thank you, Thalia Grace, thank you. She turned to Ms. Jackson's son as he yelled. The Bull slammed into the Boundary line just in front of him, roaring as his head smashed, the boy still holding on to his horns. She breathed in another swear.

She ran forward, arrows flying. Draw. Aim. Release . Careful, careful, trying very hard not to get the boy impaled by the celestial bronze.

“ Själ! ” She yelled, loudly.

The wings of her backpack, ‘decorative’ sprout out, a flurry of scales turning real at her command. Butterfly’s wings, because her brother is not subtle in his love, and she feels her bare feet lift off the ground. Quickly, she adjusts, flying high and fast. She is still shooting arrows, flitting about the Bull with as much grace as she can. She has never fought a monster. Her Mother and Siblings had made sure of it. She wonders if they will find it charming or infuriating that the first of her monsters is the Monster of Crete, only made possible by Eros’ actions. 

Somewhere along the way, the bull has realized that the arrows are from the sky now, blindly, as apparently, it has very poor vision, it thrusts its fists into the air. One glances off her right wing, and with a buckle, she is suddenly hurdling to the ground, off balance. A hand nearly wrenches her arm out of its socket when it grabs her, pulling her to the top of the bull’s head. She smashes against coarse fur, foul and smelling of animal and the storm. Her wings are still out, one bent awkwardly at an angle.

The boy had caught her mid-fall.

He screams. And with a mighty roar of anger, he rips a horn from the Minator’s head.

The Bull bellows.

The boy bellows louder.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” He screams.

The horn is in the Bull’s neck. The boy twists it. Viciously, before he takes it out and stabs again.

Again.

And again.

Sena grips tightly at its spare horn as the blow proves deadly, even as the Bull bucks wildly and erratically in its death throes. I never thought I’d bull-ride! The Bull of Minos turns to gold monster dust. They fall nearly ten feet to the ground in an ungainly heap. She is touched when the boy reaches a trembling hand to her wrist. Fluttering at her pulse point. His chest is heaving, and she can hear how hard he is inhaling.

"We need to get in the boundary like Groover and your mother… It’s like a force field. But with magic," she explained, eying the stunned face of the son.

Somehow, they are on their feet. Automatically, the boy hooks his arm around her, and they stumble across the boundary one last time. She breathes easier. No more monsters- but if he’s fleeing Minos’s bull then he was safer in camp.

She nearly slipped on the wet grass as she wobbled towards Grover, dropping to her knees, hands shaking as she pressed herself into his space. Her wings fold back into her backpack, seemingly decorative once again, and she tsks as she realizes her gift is damaged. She’ll have to take it to the forge. She reached deep within herself. Pleading quietly for the aid of Astarte, healing blooming in her as she reached for her friend. Her hands glowed a soft pink that had the other boy gasping. 

"Grover, buddy," she murmured, hand going across his pale face, " Please. "

She thinks something would die in her if Grover died. She loves him- steadily, easily. Storge , family, her brother if she could dare to claim him. He had found her, him barely twenty, her four. She had been wandering the dunes, more than a little stunned at how her Mother had upended her life. All for her own good, sure, but it was still a confusing time. He had looked at her, with his wide, wide eyes, and simply taken her hand and gently guided her to camp proper, not just within the boundaries… She thinks he is the closest thing she had to a friend her age, now that Annabeth is pulling away from her.

"Food," he mumbled, groaning, his eyes fluttering, “Oh. Sena, hi. You‘re looking horrible.”

Sena laughed. She felt like sobbing in relief.

"Fighting monsters will do that, Grover… I'll feed you enchiladas, I promise bud," she reached over and kissed him gently on the forehead.

“Cheese?”

“With that extra spicy salsa. I promise.”

“I failed,” he whimpered, soft.

She cupped his face.

“You’re here, your charge is here, as is his mother. You didn’t fail, buddy.”

"Erh- what's happening? Mom?"

"I didn't know mortals are allowed into camp," said Sally Jackson, and it's directed at her.

Sena frowned. But keeps her attention on Grover. Concussion, twisted hoof. Nothing life-threatening, but it would not look good for Grover’s attempt at a seeker’s license. She soothed her hand down his stubbly face. He leans against her palm.

"They generally aren't. But I figured if you can summon Monsters, Mortals would work the same way. Sorry. Ms. Jackson-"

"Call me Sally, dear. You just saved our lives."

"Mom-" desperation in the poor boy’s voice.

Sena sighs. Runs another hand soothingly down Grover's face. He would be fine…  He just needed rest.

"My name is Sena Strand," she says, simply. Looking up.

She reaches. She carefully presses a hand against the boy's deeply tanned hand. When she meets his eyes-

Sena blinks.

His eyes are like the sea. She breathes. Oh.

"I-I’m Percy Jackson," he sounds a little stunned.

She smiles. She knows she’s pretty. Her mother wouldn’t allow anything but pretty in her children, but it is still flattering when someone reacts to her. She can’t remember if she had been pretty as Dove, but she can remember she had never been anything close to as beautiful , as she is now.

"I know you're confused. And scared . But we have an injured Satyr whom I love very much, and an unauthorized Mortal in a mortal-free zone. We need to deal with those things. Okay?"

He blinks quickly. Slowly nods.

"Okay."

"You any good at pinochle?”

He blinked.

"No?"

She found his confusion adorable, if ill-advised. Her lips quirked.

"Pity. Sally, can you help carry Grover?"

She looked to the older, beautiful woman. She was breathtaking. And Sena felt warmth for her when she realized her eyes shifted colors. Just like her Mother and her’s did. She wondered if she was a legacy. A grand-niece. She was beautiful enough for it. She had this… Barring. Something more that all the children of Love held. The ‘it’ factor. She did not seem to be her sister, but perhaps she was. It wasn’t that odd for the children of Aphrodite to be overlooked, or overprotected in the world. Sena guessed that it was because Aphrodite had an appetite for powerful men, or at least men with some measure of wealth to protect their children. 

Sally Jackson nodded. 

“Percy,” she turns back to the boy of the sea.

His eyes scream of it. She is reminded of Lord Posiden in his gaze. The man that had looked at her and asked gently if she was a child of a naiad of the sea last Christmas. He had been very kind and spoken to her about various things, and she had shyly asked questions that she hoped hadn’t been too disturbing. It was stupid she had caught the attention of one of the Big Three while avoiding the other. She… She had known Hades, and Lady Persephone as Dove, and following her Mother’s urging, she had avoided the death deities and Lady Demeter just in case they recognized her to some degree. No need to rock that particular boat, her mother had warned. 

It was why she looked at Percy’s eyes and kinda… Knew. She swallowed. A child of the Big Three was quiet… Problematic. Especially with the mess with the Sky Father’s missing master bolt. But so was she, as a reincarnated soul with too many memories of her first life, to her Mother and sibling’s true godly love, to the very accidental in-between state of her invoking not just her Helenestic Mother but her other aspects because of her memories of her first life.

“Yeah, uh, Sena?”

“We need to go to the Big House now. Long story short, Percy Jackson,  Hellenistic or Greek mythology is real. The gods, the monsters, just like Minos’ bull. Don’t call any names unless you are directly invited to or want attention. Names have power, okay?”

“Um, okay.”

She smiled.

“You’re father is a Greek god, making you a half-blood, or a demi-god. Like the original Perseus or Helene of Troy. Like me. Okay?”

His eyes were wide. He looked desperately at his mother. She nodded quietly, tears dripping down her face.

“Okay,” his sea eyes were wide and processing. Sena leaned forward and squeezed his hand.

“Cool.”

She looked over to Sally. She licked her lips.

“Sally, I need you to eat and drink something from the camp, now. ”

Sally Jackson blinked, quickly.

“Okay, sweetheart.”

Sena reached for her backpack. She found a container of camp-grown strawberries and a camp flask of water. She handed them to Sally. The woman ate a single strawberry and sipped at the water. She gave the flask to her son, who gulped it down greedily. She knew the water would do the boy of the sea well, and this water tasted sweet and good.

“Ready?”

“Uh, no, but, well, let’s do this?”

She beamed.

“Yeah. Let’s do this. Help your mother with Grover, will you?”

Sena shouldered her backpack. She sent soothing prayers her Mother’s and brother’s way.

All safe, she murmured in her mind,  I didn’t die.

Little Bless, I will utterly get you for this. That was reckless, growled her eldest brother. 

Her godly siblings grumbled and cheered for her in a Chorus… And then a sweet trill of doves. Her siblings fell silent. Sena froze.

Good hunt, my little lioness, cooed her mother.

I didn’t kill anything, Mother Astarte, she replied, her lips quirking slightly. 

Oh, dear lioness, you did well to assist. First blood. Atalanta did much the same against that silly Calydonian boar.

Percy picked up the horn, gingerly, looking a little bewildered. Gently, Sena smiled at him.

He blushed.

Sena pretends not to notice.

Chapter Text

Much as she expected, Mister D and Chiron are on the porch of the Big House, waiting for them. She expects them a sight. Her, in shorts and no shoes, her slight limp with her shoulder aching something fierce, the Jacksons as a duo, frazzled, and Grover sans pants. All of them look worse for wear for their little monster fighting, soaked to the bone. Percy looks at Chiron, particularly on his horse end, and promptly collapses beside her. Dropping dramatically and nearly impaling himself on his spoil of the Bull.

“My Latin teacher is a horse,” he said, simply, covering his face with his hands, horn in his lap.

“A centaur,” she supplies, helpfully.

His slight glare at her, through the space between his fingers, she understands isn’t maliciousness. She gives a helpless little shrug. He sighs into his hands.

“Okay, Gods are real. My Latin Teacher Mister Burner is a centaur . My best friend is a goat?”

“His real name is Chiron. Teacher of Heroes and our activities director. And Grover is a satyr.”

Percy laughed. It was lovely. Even if it was half hysterical. She soothed a hand on his shoulder.

“Sarah Smith,” intones Mister D, frowning, “You have broken crucial rules.”

Sena swallowed. Whipped her gaze goes to him. The watery violet sends a jolt through her.

“I have broken no rules, Sir. There aren’t any specific rules against mortals being in Camp Half-Blood. It’s only implied because they aren’t supposed to be able to get past the Boundary.”

He tsks. The sounds echo in her ears. 

“You left the confines of Camp.”

“All perfectly acceptable if it is in defense of Camp Half-Blood. King Minos’s bull threatened the Boundary.”

He raised a brow.

“The mortal is to be expelled.”

“The mortal Sally Jackson has ingested food from our lands, and water from our streams. She is a guest, Mister D. A guest taken into our hospitality. She may leave when she wishes.”

He bared her teeth. She shivered. The scent of grapes grew heady.

“Clever aren’t you, girl?”

“Sometimes, Mister D,” she replied, politely.

Percy uncovered his face and looked at Mister D with an even bigger frown. Sena not so subtly kicked his outstretched leg. Percy looks at her, surprised. She shakes her head.

‘A god,’ she mouths, face stern.

Percy blinks stupidly.

Looks back at Mister D. Looks back at her. Sena really does not want the poor boy hurt. She drops next to him and grips his hand. She ignores his dropped mouth. She kneels with respect. She stares at Mister D and bows her head, her spare hand going over her heart.

“Mister D, by rights, Perseus Jackson resides within our camp boarders as a demigod, a fellow half-blood… Unclaimed as he is. Sally Jackson is mortal but by rights a house guest for consuming our food, and drinking our water, so she is allowed to stay within our borders. You cannot make her leave until she deems to leave,” she said and is not ashamed to let her head touch the ground.

Her Brother, Eros, connected to her as her patron god, seethes. 

{Love does not bow to anyone, little Bless.}

She trembles.

Love brings many to their knees, she replies, and I will gladly do the same to spare the lives of innocents. That is my love of humanity… I am not love itself, brother, it is Mother, yourself, and our siblings that makeup love. I am mortal and fall to my knees for and before love, again and again.

{We will speak of this further when Madness does not look upon you.}

She forces herself not to cry. She feels Mister D’s gaze on her. She has long learned the attention of a god is a heavy thing. And this- this is attention.

“You tend on dangerous ground, Sena Strand.”

She shivered. Her real name spoken was never a good sign from Mister D. It meant you were in trouble- or you had his attention. That was never good on either score.

"Yes, Mister D."

The scent of grapes is oppressive. They sour, a touch too close to Hellenistic wine. She swallows. 

"You'd make a pretty dolphin," says Mister D.

She shivers. Percy- Percy flips his hand and squeezes. A butterfly lands delicately on her spare hand. Lady Psyche, she thinks, blinking as the scent of grapes dissipates. Mister D looks at the butterfly, a scarce swallowtail… Not something you should see in Rhode Island. 

He huffs. His watery purple eyes linger on her. But he shakes his head.

"Get to the infirmary. Lady Johnson, you will reside within the Hermes Cabin, same as your son… In hospitality ."

Sally bows her head.

"Thank you, Mister D."

He shuffled off. Sena breathed easier and stood on legs that trembled slightly.

“Come on Percy,” she said, softly.

“I’m confused,” he says, eyes wide, “That- That was a god?”

Chiron, thankfully takes over. She feels raw, exposed. Afraid of this move against a god. Sena hums, and touches Grover.

“Hello Grover,” she whispers, “I’ve missed you. You were gone a while.”

He blinks at her and smiles, warm and sweet.

“I’ve missed you as well, pearly girl.”

She smiles and reaches over to hug the satyr. He grips her tight.

"Did you say something about enchiladas?"

Sena can't help it. She laughs so hard she falls over.   

“Maybe the infirmary first?” she says, after a moment, giggling.

“But enchiladas are so much more delicious.”

“Grover, you all got hit with lightning. ”

He grins, sheepish.

“Oh, well, if you put it that way, I guess the enchiladas can wait.”

Percy, red-eyed, holds tightly to his mother. They head around the porch of the Big House and enter through the side door of the infirmary. A bored-looking son of Apollo, Darius mans the infirmary this shift. He perks at the sight of them. Setting aside what looks like a sheet of music from his hands, hands covered in ink stains. He moves, large arms sitting on his hips.

"Whoa, Sena, who spat in your bean curd?"

She huffs. Shuffles on her bare feet and hikes Grover a little higher on her shoulder.

"We have injuries, Darius."

She makes a jazz hand in Grover’s direction with her free hand. Darius doesn’t flinch, amusement gleaming in his vivid blue eyes.

"Seriously, who spat in your bean curd?" he repeats.

She purses her lips. His quirk was he thought that Dinsey movies were the gods’ gift to mankind. Or maybe it was the musical ones. The jury’s out.  

"Minos’s bull. Happy?"

Darius whistles. 

"Did you get a few hits in?"

"First blood," she drawls.

Darius is the son of Apollo. His grin is charming, his dimples pretty. She appreciates beauty, very much. He is tall, he is built like a swimmer,  his skin a golden tan, pretty against his tight golden curls. 

"Arrows?"

"Yes, sir." 

As the Apollo Cabin head, Darius was her very patient instructor in what she found to be critical in her training at Camp Half-Blood. He served as a tutor in medicine and archery. He grinned. His teeth are blinding white as he smiles, even wider than before. She hums in quiet appreciation. In her head, she hears Hedylogos’s giggle. She smiles slightly.

Lord Hedylogos, she prays, quietly, I am appreciating beauty. Beyond that, I do not understand the giggles.

{Oh little Bless,} he returns, { Appreciate him well. He is a pretty one. You should tell him so!}

{She doesn’t want him, Brother. Do not give any mortal to think of our Blessing,} said Pothos, seriously.

{ A compliment will not turn a near man’s head, } Commented Pysche, amused, { Our beautiful Sena is young, and on the cusp of turning through the first steps of adulthood. Let her admire. Let her see the beauty of the boy-man who has taught her kindly in the ways of his father. }

Something in her shifts. She feels it. Her Mother brought her closer to the surface of her mind. Every single one of her siblings, a soft energy in her head, still as their Matriarch speaks. For the second time in less than two hours, she is spoken to by her mother. Sena feels her legs wobble. Something in her head spasms. There was a reason her mother didn’t speak to her directly, often. A sliver of divinity had been woven into her, a physical manifestation of the Gods of Love. A part of all of the Erotes who had been borne of Aphrodite, so small, so minuscule, hidden and woven into the very fiber of her soul, before she had been shipped off to camp. Sena had never been in so much pain than that day. In either of her lives. She didn’t think dying was even close to that amount of pain.

But she had never felt so much connection, so much love , than when her family had woven in their divinity into her soul. Gave her a piece of them to her for her safety.  

{Sena, my lovely Sena. This boy is only a beauty to admire, yes?}

Yes, Lady Mother. He has been kind, and patient to me. Feel it within me, Philia, sweet and gentle and nothing more. 

{ My baby. My sweet little lioness. Yes. I feel it. Just be wary. Anything of Mania or Eros is too much for you, yet. }

I know, Lady Mother. I have no doubt that my dear brother Lord Eros is careful on that score.

{My arrows stay in my quiver, Mother,} Said Eros, serious and stern, {And they will stay that way for a while yet.}  

"You'll do Apollo Cabin proud," said Darius, gently. 

He is touching her wrist. Bringing her from her dazed state from hearing her beloved Gods speak in her head. She is the spacy, quiet Pearly girl, after all. He is used to her zoning out. She bows her head, grinning shyly at the praise. Even if something in her is shrieking at the warning that her Mother had slipped.

"On my better days. I would hope the Slayer of the Python would appreciate my mediocre skills."

"Assessment?"

His voice is serious. As one of the few half-bloods with healing powers who isn't an Apollo descendent, he takes her education very seriously. It isn't 'natural' in her or whatever. She hums.

"Twisted hoof, dehydration, exhaustion. I'm worried about the fact that their car got hit by lightning. "

Darius swore.

"Right. Get your crew in here, Pearly girl."

"Pearly girl?" and that’s Ms. Jackson, voice soft and curious.

Sena can't help it. She blushes.

"Sena was covered in pearls when she arrived in camp," there was fondness in Darius's voice, a gentleness in there. He was one of the oldest campers still present, after all, "Nickname stuck. It doesn't help that they made that the camp bead of the summer."

He flashes the bead. She touches at her own. 

"Naked four years old covered in pearls, it makes an impression," Grover says, gently.

Sena sighs.

"I guess."

Her mother is known for drama.

"Four?" Sally Jackson's voice is soft.

Sena gives the mother a shrug.

"Youngest camper in history to reach Camp Halfblood."

"What… What happened?"

Sena looks at the mother. Her eyes are sad. Sena touches her hand. She smiles softly again.

"Nothing dramatic. I talk to my human parent very frequently. My… Godly parent thought it'd be best that I make it sooner than later," she explains.

"Her godly parent gave her other parent a vision," drawls Darius. He's checking the boy's pulse.  His face is serious, his mouth set in concentration.

Percy himself is staring at her. 

"And they wrapped me up in the pearls. And I was brought on the wind and sea," she replies, simply.

Her mother did like her parallels after all. And the gods themselves were fond of reruns of their past. It was how their existence continued, after all, their stories were told repeatedly, different, and varying. The gods were alive in those stories, as they had lived them. Hence, the gods loved them and loved to see them again in others, for that was how they had survived. The only difference was her siblings who had done the wind part, driven the sea by their wings and their wills. No deity without the blood of her Mother would be allowed to touch her, and her Mother refused to involve the Winds, even if they had originally been part of her landing on Cyprus. That was one thing that her Mother would never allow.

She had nearly slammed into Lord Posiden, the last solstice, after all, when he had reached out to touch the pearls in her hair. She had bared her teeth in the most insincere smile Sena had ever seen on her mother’s face and carefully pulled Lord Posiden away from her. Sending her a furious song of shrieking doves to tell her to move in the opposite direction of Lord Posiden.

"I found her," says Grover, morosely, "The one thing I ever did right."

“You have done more than that, Grover,” she scolds, frowning at the satyr. 

He sighed. He was in a mood, as he sometimes got… Self-deprecating. To extremes. 

“I’ll never be a Seeker,” he said simply, and she felt her heart throb at the tears she saw in his eyes.

“Of course, you will, Grover,” she replied, fiercely, “And you’ll be the one to find him.”

“What’s a Seeker?” asked Percy, twitching with wide eyes as Darius' hands glow a pale gold over him. 

“A stupid dream,” moaned Grover.

He had a twisted hoof. He didn’t have a twisted arm, so Sena didn’t feel an inch of guilt by punching him. He belted in displeasure. She scowled at him. He sighed morosely. 

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” she said, simply, she turned to Percy, “A Seeker is a job Saytrs do. They’re looking for their lost god.”

“How do you lose a god?”

“More like he left. The Satyrs have never lost hope that they will find him,” she returned, "Every year-"

"The bravest and strongest satyrs leave as Seekers," Grover’s voice is drawn, "To find Pan."

"The wilds guy?"

"The God of the Wild, yes. Try to remember, Percy, names-"

"Have power. Right. Don't say them. What about um, you know, those nicknames that the gods have-"

She beamed at him. He blushed. She ignored it. A lot of people blushed around her. 

"That is exactly how you talk about them. That is partly the reason those epithets developed, beyond how the deities functioned, it was a form to respectfully speak of a god or a specific part of the god."

He stared at her.

"You know, when Mr. Burner said this stuff would be important later in life, I didn’t expect it to be literal. ”

Sena felt helpless a his bewilderment. She sees it in his face, the tenseness of his posture. She could not relate. Since birth, she had known the impossible could become real because of her reincarnation. She had known since she was two the gods were real in this life after she had first seen her mother. This sudden reveal was beyond her experience. Once you reincarnate, Grand Truths get accepted without much shaking of your worldview. She carefully places a hand on his shoulder. Percy tenses underneath this touch for a moment, and then he relaxes and leans against her plam.

The sea meets her eyes with his own.

Her heart, fragile and new in this life, is steady in her chest. But something in her shifts, as she meets his gaze.

“It’s a lot,” she guesses, gently.

Percy nods.

Sena gives his shoulder a slight squeeze.

“I’ll help you. We are family, whether close or not, we are together, Perseus Jackson. Okay?”

He looks at her.

“Yeah. Okay. Cool. Now, um, what was that stuff about my mom being a guest? As in, she isn’t supposed to stay?”

“A guest to the Greeks was sacred. Protect, fed, and clothed by their Host,” she lectures, automatically, “There are laws in Ancient Greece for such people. A guest can stay in residence until they are deemed to leave. I… I wanted to make sure your Mom wouldn't be thrown to wolves. Normal mortals aren't supposed to be in camp, but you were chased by the Monster of the Labyrinth. I- I couldn’t let your mom out there with that type of monster after you.”

Percy looks at her, and he's blinking quickly. His face grows red, and he looks- He looks like he’s going to cry. She humed, and gently squeezed his hand before she looked over to Ms. Jackson. She knows there’s something about a young teenager crying, and she gives him space by carefully switching the conversation away from his emotions. 

“My suggestion, Ms. Jackson is to stay long enough for you to train yourself and acquire a bronze weapon. I can also contact my mortal parent to help you with protection and logistics when it comes to your half-blood child outside of camp if that’s what you want.”

Sally Jackson blinked.

“Excuse me?”

She smiles.

“My mortal parent… My mortal parent and I help out demigods and their families. We help with protection; self-defense training and possible relocation if you need it.”

“Oh, that’s-”

“We have a charity set up. You may have heard of the Areia Foundation?”

Sally Jackson blinks once. Twice.

“ ‘ No battle is unfought or impossible when there is love in your heart, ’ ” she replies back, with the slogan.

Sena grins. Areia was one of her mother’s epitaphs. It meant ‘warlike’ and her inspiration when she and her father realized how much they could do for people like them.  In her head, she feels the pleasure of her mother at what she invoked with her name. It was her tribute to her mother. 

“Exactly.”

“Oh,” she said, softly, “That is very generous dear, but-”

“But nothing. We are family. You are kin of my kin, and that is sacred to us. We have options, Ms. Sally. For your sake, for your son’s, please, think about it.”

That is my love, thought Sena, quietly.

In her head, a chorus of lion’s roars, and dove’s coes fill her.

Chapter Text

Dreams from the Brood of Aphrodite always looked like chaos in her mind. 

Especially when it is sent and made by her brother Eros, weaving it from their link, from the connection he had forged between them the night they met. Woven into her soul.  It's like her Siblings have pulled the ocean and the stars, and all the colors they could get their hands on. Then throw it in a blender. Then, they picked pieces that they liked and made them shining and beautiful. It changes with every breath. When she was younger, it had been hard to process. Even now, it's hard.  

Headaches, afterimages, and nausea in the mornings had been quite common after a summon from her Godly Siblings. 

As she grows older, the easier it is for her.

She tries not to think about it. Not seriously. She tries not to think about the fact that she is a conduit for several gods, and what that means for a demi-god like her. She tries not to think what it means to have their divinity woven in her, and how that changes her. She kneels in space, the ground beneath her is a tapestry of stars. Yet, it ripples underneath her form like water, but each ripple is a different, luminous colors. Soft and lulling chirps of sounds with each shifting color. 

Her Eldest Brother looms .

He is colossal. 

He is a god . And he scoops her in the palm of her hand. Cradles her in a single palm like she is a baby bird. She keeps her head down. Kneeled and reverent. She is, as always, awed. The gods are real. She is of divine blood. She does not remember completely her life as Doctor Dove Little, but… But she remembers enough to know that being in his presence makes her weep. 

She lets the tears follow down her cheeks.

She always does. 

“Sena Strand,” his voice is unlike his form. It's as if he is whispering it in her ears. Intimate and safe.

“My lord Patron,” she returns. Lowers her head more. Let her tears slip down her cheeks.

He huffs.

“Stop being cute,” he scolds.

She lifts her head. Tilts it, and widens her eyes just so. 

His enormous face scowls. It’s roughly three times her height. She pouts her lips. His own lips, better, perfect mirror’s to her twitch. She bats her eyelashes. 

“No. You have angered me,” he tells her. 

She sighs.

“First blood,” she returns.

At that, Lord Eros finally cracks. His lips, her lips but perfect, curl into pleasure. He is the archer, one of the greatest among the gods. Doing well on what he sees as his dominion, even tangentially, pleases him. She has no doubt if her mother had not forbidden it, he would have blessed her properly in that regard. But Aphrodite was adamant, no gifts beyond those she had given herself, for she could not stand out too much. Her mother as Aphrodite had given her the Heart of Love, to feel the connections of love, and her mother as Astarte had given her Healing, beyond that, she dared not give her more.  Her eyes, changing as they did, were already a factor that many could point to Aphrodite’s direction.

If people made that connection, they could suspend the divinity that had been woven into her soul, and see that she went beyond normal attention from the gods of Love.

Her mother wanted her safe.

Wanted her to be protected.

To be blessed by the gods, even her siblings, would draw attention, and that is the last thing Aphrodite wanted for her. They risked enough by being in contact with her. Their divinity in her was the most dangerous part of her. But the gods, she understands, were not without their bouts of selfishness. They wanted to be a part of her, be attached to her very being. 

Because they love me.

She is blessed, she is awed by it, always.  

“Well done,” he whispered, softly, gently, he pressed his forehead into her.

She leans in, resting against his forehead, she dares to reach up into his curls. He sighs softly as she runs her hands through the enormous ringlets. Something shifts. He is no longer colossal. His arms are slender as a birch, but strong as marble, and he curls her into his neck as if she is still that four-year-old he met so long ago. He sighs in pleasure, his hands running through her curls. He presses a kiss to her forehead. 

“I will do better,” she promises, “I am safe, Brother.”

He laughs. It is a soft song. He bounces her like a baby. Twirls her in the space he and his siblings have woven into her. 

“Of course, Little Bless. You did well. I am proud of you. You help slay my creation. Fitting for your first bout.”

She hums.

“I’m sorry, Brother,” she breathes deeply in this space of chaos and love, “For risking myself. But they needed me.”

He coos to her. Chirped like a dove. The world shifts around them, drifting like the sky in motion.

“I forgive you, little Bless. How could I not, when I feel your Love ?”

She hums.

“Percy. He is of the sea.”

“Is that attachment I hear, Little Bless?”

“Of course. I love our family, Brother.”

He hums.

“I see. But a boy of the sea, that is dangerous. The King of the Sky will claim him as a pound of flesh. Let him be.”

She frowns. Pulls back from his neck. Look up at ruby eyes. He looked down at her with a sternness that was strange for him.

“He defended me.”

Lips curl.

“After you drew blood for him.”

“His mother. She has eyes that change color.”

He snorts. 

“Sally Jackson is a far-off legacy. Nothing for you to fret for.”

“Grover loves him.”

Eros frowned. She is rocked in his arms. He hums. 

“You have made up your mind?”

“My heart, brother, has been swayed.”

His face stilled. And he reminded her, again, how inhuman her eldest brother was. Something passed across his ruby eyes, something ancient, something that was born even before Istar drew her first breath as the Queen of the Gods.

“You trend on dangerous ground you know nothing about, Sena. The Jackson boy is Prophecy touched.”

She nearly stops breathing. But. But if he indeed is Prophecy touched, and she is meant to be near him, not even her Mother could stop her. Fate had brought her so far.

And Chaos. 

“Love is not cowed,” she returns, “If it is to be I am with Percy, then so be it. Fate made me your sister, after all.”

He smiled.

“So it did.”

“I am sorry about kneeling to Mr. D.”

“It made me angry. He has no right to that. You did it, I know, to protect someone who has touched your heart. But it still made me angry. He threatened you. He will suffer for it.”

She shivers. The wrath of Eros- that was no easy feat for any to endure. She would not wish that on any. Not even if she had become a dolphin.

“I am mortal, Eros. I cannot change that. My love swayed me to fall before him, I would do it again and again. If you punish him… If you punish him, people might make guesses.”

He sighs.

“Oh lovely little Sena Strand, my Blessing, so open your heart, so ready and fierce… You are like Mother in that regard. War is in your heart.”

“It is woven in my very soul, my very flesh.”

He smiled.

“So it is.”

She wakes with love in her heart, the cosmos woven by her siblings and her mother in her eyes. Sena Strand sighs, quietly in contentment. 

Sena’s first sight after the stars fade from her vision is of Sally and Percy Jackson. They are curled, next to each other, in the small bed that she has given up for them. Sally has a careful hand on Percy’s head, and they are both asleep. In the quiet of dawn, there is peace inside the Hermes cabin before everyone wakes.

Sena smiles, softly, at the obvious love. 

Storge. Strong and true. 

It vibrates in the air. It is sweet and warm on Sena’s tongue. Family, children to parents. It is a simmering song in them, and she adores it. Her heart is full with it.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” mumbles Sally, and she runs a careful hand through Percy’s black hair. She wasn’t asleep.

“Good morning, Ms. Jackson,” she replies.

“Sally.”

Sena smiles.

“Good morning, Sally.”

“You didn’t have to give us the bed.”

Sena snorts.

“Sally, you’re a grown woman. My back can take a sleeping bag a little longer. Plus, you got hit by lightning.”

Sally Jackson huffs. That had been the main sticking point that had gotten. Sally, and Percy, exhausted, agreed to her giving up the bed last night. A quick argument in the infirmity, Darius's backup and the Jacksons had settled in her bed. Part of her felt bad for the bed in the first place. She was the longest-standing ‘undetermined’ in Cabin Eleven, and Luke had given her the bed when the last Hermes Kid had left camp for college. It's hard for her not to feel bad. She knows for a fact that there's plenty of space for her in her Mother's cabin. In fact, her Godly Siblings had more than hinted that when the time was right, she would have her space for her ready.

Much like anything her Godly siblings had in store for her future, she tried not to think of it too much. 

“I… Thank you, really, for thinking of making me a guest,” says Sally, gently. 

Sena looks at her hand, running through Percy’s hair.

Warmth and affection strummed her heart like a lyre. She smiled. 

“You’re welcome.”

“Mom,” Percy's voice is soft, a bit of a grumble. 

“Morning, sweetheart.”

Sena smiles gently. 

“Good morning, Percy,” she tells him. 

He bolts. Out of his Mother’s embrace. Cheeks red like an apple. She thinks its adorable. She tilts her head.

“Oh. Morning, Sena.”

{Oh, he's a cutie, so SHY,} giggled Hedylogos, {And Ms. Sally is a MIL-}

{HEDYLOGOS!} shrieked Anteros.

She felt her lips twitch.  Blinked at the taste of Hedylogos’s lingering amusement. 

“Did you sleep okay?” she asked, carefully running a comb to her hair. 

“Er… Yes? You didn't have to give-”

“Car. Hit. By. Lightning,” she returned, sweetly, batting her lashes. 

He blushed again and scowled at her.

“Right. But you get your bed back today.” 

“Let's go freshen up, and then, have your tour!” Sena said brightly, ignoring him entirely.

Of course, she could only hope to leave the cabin early enough-

“Sena, didn't think I'd have you sneaking boys into the Cabin until you were much older,” came Luke's voice. Amused. Warm. Kind. 

She held back a flinch. She plastered on an even sweeter smile. At the door, leaning against the cabin entrance stood Luke Castellon. 

When did he wake up, she thinks, something cold running down her spine, and what was he doing so early?

“And-” Luke froze.

Sally Jackson stood, a smile on her lips. She ran a hand down her nightgown. 

“Not just boys,” she says simply, running a hand through her hair, streaked with gray as it was, “Hello, I'm Sally Jackson. And this is my son, Percy.”

“Hey,” Said Percy with a lazy wave.

Luke started. Something wide-eyed and disbelieving. His gaze was locked on Sally. 

“I- how-”

“Turns out, if you can invite monsters, you can invite mortals,” said Sena, softly, gently as she could. 

Luke takes a whooshing breath. His eyes snap to her. They were bright, eager, and focused. Sena couldn't stop the shiver. 

“Sena?” His voice is a bit raspy, “You did this?”

“... Pasiphae's son was after them,” she defended, hands clenching, “I cou- wouldn't leave anyone out there, Luke. I invoked guest rights for Sally. She's staying .”

His jaw worked. Making his scar come in vivid relief in the dawning sun. 

“Sena, you're amazing. ” 

With a whoop, Luke charged her. She yelped, even as he lifted her up in his arms and spun her around in crazy circles. Her stomach lurched. 

She felt- She felt love. Sena froze. 

Philia. Storge. Mania-

Bile rose in her throat. 

Please. Please, she begged her Mother, and her siblings, Keep my heart unswayed. Please .

She felt a shift. Felt her siblings crowd her space, their divinity like a weight on her heart. But it made her feel stronger. 

“Can you put me down, Luke?” She mumbled.

Luke did. But not before smacking a large kiss on her forehead. His eyes were bright. 

“You made me proud, Sena.”

She ducks her head. Her hands are fisted at her side.

“I did what was right.”

“How did Mr. D react?”

“He threatened to turn her into a dolphin,” blurted Percy. 

Luke's face grew dark. In her head, she felt a shriek of doves and a snarl of lions. 

Mother. 

Sena locked her knees. Because the fury of Love was something she could barely withstand, and it was beginning. 

{Mother, stop,} cried out Anteros.

{It's too much for her,} begged Hedylogos.

She tried to breathe. Seafoam and copper lined her mouth. 

{Later,} snarled her Mother. And her voice was the largest thing, it was colossal in her. 

Sena sighed out a breath. The pressure in her head eased. She felt her Mother like a weight at her neck. Somehow, Eros had blocked that little tidbit from her Lady Mother. To deal with the Lord of Madness himself, or to prevent her mother from tiring her out, Sena wasn't sure. 

“Bathroom, this way, Jacksons,” she muttered, swallowing the taste of blood and salt, shooting Luke another smile. 

And now her Mother’s fury was like a live wire in them all. 

{I'll handle it, Little Bless,} Eros promised. 

Her other siblings sent her love through the connection, and Sena shook her head slightly as she forced her feet into some sandals, and grabbed her toiletry bag from underneath her bed.

“I can sneak you into the camp store,” said Luke, grinning.

She waved him off.

“I got them stuff last night,” she returned, and the Jackson pulled out their own ‘Camp-Half-Blood’ orange backpacks from underneath her bed. She had gotten Chiron to give her the camp store key and had them get what they could from their stock. Luckily, the store did have most of the necessities, from clothing to basic toiletries.   

“Nicely done, Pearly Girl, I’m assuming you’re off to do the grand tour?”

“Yes, I got the okay from Chiron last night.”

Luke huffed. He ruffled her curls. She held in a cringe. 

“I’m Luke, Luke Castellon, by the way, Head Counselor of the Hermes Cabin,” he shot a winning smile at the Jacksons.

Each time it happened, when someone said a god or goddess’s name, Sena jumped. It made her body shiver. 

“Nice to meet you,” Sally said, and she reached out a hand to shake. 

Luke did it firmly. His eyes flickered to Percy and he grinned as the boy gave him a lazy salute.

“I’ll see you at breakfast, in two hours. Be safe, Pearly girl, no more boys in the cabin.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I saw that!” he called after them, as they left.

Sena felt his gaze, heavy and fixed, for too long after that.

Percy Jackson was having a weird day. 

Or, well, he’s been having a weird couple of months since he accidentally vaporized his Pre-Algebra teacher.

That actually happened. 

He needed to ask what type of monster she was. 

Because she was a monster. Who called him honey . At least she was dead.

I bet Sena knows, he thinks. Sena seemed to know a lot. And unlike Mr. Burn- Charon , she takes a moment to explain things to him. Fully. He can even ask questions.

Considering how many old Greek guys talked about breaking down and knowing stuff, the Greeks now didn’t seem to like to explain anything to anyone.

He sighed. 

Then, he blinked and stared at Sena’s curls for a second as she stepped out of their cabin, number 12, the one that looked the most normal of them all. Her curls were glossy, and black, and looked extra soft, even in her weird hairstyle. She had arranged her hair in a strange bow-like thing at the top of her head, with only a few little curls away from her face. She was slim and didn’t look at all like the type of person to fly around shooting arrows. She looked too much like a regular kid at summer camp for that. She wore denim cutoffs and a bright orange tank top that proudly stated ‘Camp Half-Blood’, her backpack from last night, and sneakers. The only weird things were the bronze cuff bracelet that was a freaking weapon, and a couple of rings of pearl choker-necklaces, only offset by several glossy clay beads.

He squinted.

“Why does one of your beads have a centaur in a prom dress?”

Sena giggled. Percy felt his heart stutter at the sound. It was- it was musical or something. It was weird. Not in a bad way. But weird.  

“Charon lost a bet with Mr. D. It was a whole thing,” she said with another giggle, “And each bead means something. The most important event of the year is voted by our Cabin-Heads, and then painted and given out to all campers. Sorry, I didn’t explain it yesterday?”

He snorts. And shrugs. He, admittedly, had been pretty dazed yesterday.

“No sweat. Did he really wear it?”

She shrugged with a half smile. She had a really pretty smile. Really pretty everything, really. Not that he really noticed it. 

At all.

Seriously.

“Yes, he did. But Mr. D also lost the bet, so he hosted a party like a prom that year. If he wasn’t a god, I would have wondered where he got a tiger print suit.”

Percy blinked.

“I guess everyone wanted to forget that,” he laughed, “Your first bead was you?”

She had eight. The detail on them was incredible. The first was a small girl covered in pearls, that looked like her. The second was what looked like a bunch of butterflies. He blinked.

“My second year was a swarm of giant butterflies,” she mumbles, a blush on her face, he thought it was unfair that her blush was soft, as sweet looking. When he blushed, his entire face got red, like a tomato, despite his tanner complexion. She tapped it.

He looked, curiously at the next one, she tapped it.

“A… bunch of swans?”

She kicked her shoe.

“It’s rare that we get new animals in camp. It was a gift from the Lady Μορφω during the Summer Solstice, Cabin Number 10 pleased their mother that year,” she said, and her smile became a little strained, “You can see them when we get to the lake. Um, be warned, they’re… Very aggressive and like, jumbo size. They nearly tore the arm off of one of our campers, and we aren’t allowed to hurt them. They're sacred and a gift, after all.”

He blinked. Somehow, the Greek automatically translated, just like Charon had explained last night about his dyslexia. ‘ Μορφω ’ in this case meant ‘fair shape or shapely form’, not, like, just a shape. It took him a minute to get it. Giant swans. Fair could mean, pretty, he thought.

“Er, Aphro-” she covered his mouth.

Her hands were soft. 

He felt his entire face erupt into red.

“Names have power, Perseus Jackson,” she said seriously, “I wouldn’t invoke the Lady of Μελαινις lightly. I tend to only use epitaphs. I can give you a list. To make it easier?”   

‘Μελαινις’, ‘The Dark Lady’. He frowned. She dropped her hands.

“Sure. But, ‘Μελαινις’?” he asked, and he was confused. Both by the fact that the Ancient Greek rolled off his tongue and the meaning of the epitaph. 

Sena frowned at him.

“What?”

“That doesn’t… Really fit with the goddess of beauty and love, I guess.”

Sena stiffened. Her eyes turned a sharp pink, nearly red. It was a little scary. Okay, a lot scary.

“Yeah. If you look at her from some Hellenistic cities of worship,” she spat, and he froze, because he had never seen her react so viciously to everything, even the Minator yesterday, her voice was sharp, and her hands fisted on the straps of her backpack, “Μελαινις is the epitaph from the Spartans, she was a war goddess to them- They worshiped her as such. Don’t be fooled by that, Percy. There’s so much more to the gods than the general knowledge of-”

She stopped. Her whole face turned pink. A pretty, pretty pink. Her hands relaxed back to her side. 

“Sorry. I- It’s just-”

His mom gently placed a hand on Sena’s shoulder. Sena jumped slightly. 

“You know a lot about the gods?” asked his Mom.

Sena ducked her head.

“I’m very fascinated by the historical progression of mythology and folklore. I want to be a researcher one day. It’s, kinda lame, and all, I know-”

“I want to be a writer,” said his Mom, seriously, smiling.

Sena swallowed. Smiled softly, and wow, that was, he thinks, that is his favorite smile from her.

“That’s wonderful.”

“Just like your dream, sweetheart.”

“And you Percy?” she looks over at him, and she does it by looking up from under her lashes. 

He swallows. Shrugs. 

“Passing the seventh grade would be cool.” 

He- he feels so dumb at his answer - She smiles wider. He doesn’t see it as fake. Sena didn’t smile like that, other than with the older guy, Luke. He had seemed cool, at first, but Percy realized that Sena didn’t like the head counsler of her Cabin. He wondered if it was because she was undetermined, like him, that she didn’t like being in Cabin Eleven. And maybe that made her feel awkward around Luke, especially if she had been at camp as long as she had. She was four when she got here, and had eight beads. She’s twelve, like me.  

“That’s wonderful. I’ve never been to school.”

He blinks.

“What?”

“... I haven’t left camp since I’ve arrived. There are two kinds of campers here at camp, Percy. Year-rounders, like me, and those who stay only during the summer. It depends on how strongly you attract monsters, and your mortal parent, ” Here she frowns, “We should get started on the tour, shouldn’t we? Here, have a snack!”

From her backpack, she takes out two small boxes, wrapped like a gift. Holds it out to both him and his mom. He squinted. The nutritional stuff swam in his eyes. Worse than usual.  

“Is this Swedish chocolate?” his mom, asked, startled, and he breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t just him. 

Sena smiled.

“My mortal parent sent it as a care package a couple of days ago. It’s from a specialty shop in their hometown. It was express mail, so it’s still good.”

Percy usually only ate blue chocolate. But the Swedish? They seemed to know what they were doing. The truffles inside the box were shaped like sea shells, a little mermaid and even a pirate's chest painted gold. He squinted. He wondered how they got it so metallic-looking. It seemed amazing. And it made his stomach growl. The last thing he ate was roasted blue marshmallows at the Cabin. 

“One is salty,” he said, dumbly, as he popped a conch shell into his mouth. But it tasted so good. Melted into his mouth smoothly. 

“It’s a sea-salt one. It’s one of my favorites,” Sena said, grinning.

“Oh, but these must be expensive-”

“My parent sent me like a crate as a care package, like every week. Usually with something for everyone at camp. I have so many of these boxes, Sally. Please, take it.”

His mom sighed but gave a smile. She popped a treasure chest into her mouth. Smiled wider. 

“Oh. Dark chocolate and caramel. Thank you, Sena.”

“Let’s go!”

Percy swallowed a squeak when Sena grabbed both of their hands. His face went hot. He used his spare hand to eat the chocolates. Tried not to make a big deal of Sena holding his hand. At all. Beacuse that would make it really weird, right? 

“Let’s start easy. The are twelve cabins, each for every Olympian. Until you are claimed by your Godly parent you stay in Eleven, as the Lord Thieves, is also one of the patron gods of guests.”

“One of?”

Sena hummed. 

“Yes. Another is the King of the Gods, as one of his domains is hospitality. But… I think it was decided it would be… Presumptuous to enter his Cabin in such a capcity. After all, think of the tale of Bellerophon, who dared to think he could reach the height of Mount Olympus on the merit of his demi-godhood. So the Lord of Thevies was thought a better fit, no doubt. If you look at all of the Cabins, I think you can guess whose god it represents.”

God of Thieves, … Hermes, Percy thought. He blinked. He wondered if he should be worried about leaving his stuff under Sena’s bed without a lock or something.  

She gestured to the one of the ones in the center of the ‘u’ shape all the cabin buildings were. It looked like a fancy bank- marble, with big bronze doors that had some cool-looking effect of lightning bolts going across the surface. Number One, of course, so it had to be Zeus. Percy looked around. The one next to it had to be Hera’s, the peacocks were a dead giveaway, even if the ‘Two’ would have clued him in.  

“Why does-” he scrambled for a way to call the goddess without just saying her name, “Why does the Queen of the Gods have one? Isn’t she… Famous for not having kids outside of her marriage? Making her, like, not like the other gods?”

“It would be rude to not include the Queen,” said his Mom, her face tight as she looked down the line. 

Percy hummed, even as Sena dragged them forward. They looked at Cabin One, Two, and then went to the left. Number Three, Poseidon he bet. The seashells and stuff sort of clued him in. It looked cool, from his perspective. Reminded him of the Cabin of Montauk, but, much nicer, even if it looked nothing like it. Maybe because it looked like it fit in the dunes by their favorite cabin. It smelled like the ocean, or, the best parts of the ocean. Sena walked them across the large football-sized space, and reached for number Four, Demeter, the plants told him that much.

“If you want something like honey, or fresh fruit or veggies, Cabin Four is your Cabin. We work on a barter system, for the most part, other than the Camp Store. They take any currency from anywhere. And people usually trade stuff from the store or if they make stuff.” 

They walked back across to Cabin Five- He blinked.

“Is there a god of pigs and barbed wire?” he asked, dumbly as they walked. The Cabin looked vicious.  

Sena winced.

“That is the Lord who Rallies Men… God of War,” she told him, “Careful with the kids in that Cabin. They can be aggressive. As a rule of thumb, don’t enter any cabin without permission. Every god or goddess of the main pantheon is represented, even if they’re sacred Virgins, like the Goddess of Wisdom and Lady of the Hunt. It’s a respect thing, just like your Mom said.”

“Doesn’t that mean there’s a bunch of empty Cabins?”

Sena nods, even as she pulls them away from Cabin Number Five. Ares, he nods, slightly. 

Six was probably Athena, with the owl over the top of it, and all… They kept walking, skirting around a large bonfire in the middle of the field. A little girl stood tending the coals. Sena bowed her head quickly at the girl, so Percy did too. The little girl didn't even look up from her work. He wondered who was in charge of bonfire duty, and who made the little girl take such an early shift. 

“Isn’t that wasteful? And aren’t they’re like, a million other gods? Not just the twelve? Where do the kids of those gods go?”

Sena stops. 

She looks at them both, first at his mom, and then at him. Her eyes slide to the little girl. Her face turns pale. She let’s go of their hands. Percy flexes his suddenly empty hand.

“They stay empty. And the other kid’s gods stay in Cabin Eleven,” she explains softly.

“That’s stupid.”

She frowns. And her hands curl in front of her in a very formal way.

“Percy,” she says seriously, “I hate to say this to you because I agree with you for the most part. But, there are very specific rules about the Hellenistic gods. And that’s to give them respect. You don’t have to agree with them but to bad mouth them? They could do bad things to you. Please, understand that.”

He feels his jaw set. Feels his hands fist. 

“I don’t-”

His Mom is looking at him. And some of his anger dies at the face she makes. Because she looked afraid. And while part of him is angrier at that, he also nearly immediately understands that she’s making that face because Sena isn’t lying to him.

He remembers some stories, of gods getting mad at people.

He remembers a girl being punished because she said she was a better weaver than Athena, and turning into a spider when she beat or failed in a contest with the goddess, he doesn’t remember exactly. He remembers the horse guy she talked about, Bellerophon dying because he said he wanted to go to Olympus. Falling to his death. He thought of that Queen who said she was cooler because she had more twins than Apollo and Artemis’s mother, and all of her children dying from their arrows, turning into a rock in her sadness.  

“I’ll try,” he mumbles, and it's a phrase that he’s repeated more times than he can count. He hates it. Hates that he can never seem to actually do what he’s tr-

Sena reaches for his hand again. Carefully uncurls his hand from the fist. Laces their fingers together. Her hand is soft and warm, she squeezes so gently that he barely feels it.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and she sounded so relieved.

He looks into her eyes. They’re purple now. Soft, like flowers or something. She looks like she’s about to cry. Percy feels his stomach drop.

“Um,” he blurts.

She cares. 

They’re strangers. 

But Sena really, really cares. 

His Mom surprises him. Because she drops to her knees and throws her arms around them both. Percy swallows thickly. But he doesn’t refuse a hug from his mom. He nearly squeaks when Sena returns the hug, letting go of his hand to curl her arm around his waist and his Mom’s. He does the same. His heartbeat is thundering.

She smells like roses, another flower I don’t know, and… Apples? 

Percy sort of wishes the ground would swallow him whole.

Why am I smelling her?

He lets go, awkwardly, and shuffles back. His mom is touching her eyes. Sena quietly gives her an honest handkerchief. A cloth one. He didn’t even think anyone still carried stuff like that.

“So, um, the tour?” 

Sena smiles. And he grabs his hand again. She… Just likes to do that, he guesses. Holding hands. Touching shoulders or arms- I hope my hand isn’t sweaty. 

The next cabin, Seven hurt to look at, the gold of it shinned too brightly. So, Apollo? Like the sun hurt to look at. Darius, the cool healer guy from last night, was outside, as were several other kids with blond, bright hair and shining smiles. They too, kinda hurt to look at. There were also a lot of them.

“Hey Pearly girl, how’s it going?”

A chorus of several good mornings came their way. All of them... Stared. Percy felt his shoulders stiffen. 

“Camp Tour! Good to see Cabin Seven is up with your Lord Father every day!”

“Sweet. Hey, can I watch the first time Percy climbs the Climbing wall?” Darius's blinding smile is a little shark-like.

Percy isn’t the most athletic of people, but he thinks he can handle it. Maybe it’s very tall, or something. 

“That’s rude, Darius,” Sena says, voice a sigh.

“I mean, I think it’s funny.”

“Hey, Sena, can you help pick a Song for the Sing-a-long after Dinner?” called out a little girl, maybe eight or nine, beaming at Sena, “Like, it’s ‘ Turn Up the Sun ’ by Oasis or ‘ Crazy Frog ’.”

Sena giggles.

“‘ Turn Up the Sun ’, Kayla!” she calls back.

The girl giggles as another boy, maybe fifteen or so, groans. 

“Aw, we’ve had ‘Crazy Frog’ like ten nights in a row!” he says, “I made a bet with one of the Stoll twins that I could keep it all summer!”

“That’s why I demand the other one, Lee! I bet the opposite,” says Sena.

“Boo, you’re no fun! Brutus, betrayer!” calls the boy, Lee, with a scowl. 

She smiles. She does that a lot. Smile, Percy thinks. It suits her sweet face. 

“I’m all the fun. And I get a whole five-pound bag of sour gummy worms if I win. Every two months.”

The boy, Lee sighed.

“Charlie said to leave your backpack in the forge today Sena. He’ll wack your bag of holding into shape,” calls out Darius. 

“Thanks, Darius! Hey, Cabin Seven, come meet the Jacksons!” she turns to them, grinning, “They’re always up the earliest unless Cabin Nine is on one of their building binges… That’s the kids of the Lord of Smithing-”

She jerks her head to the Cabin next to the Apollo one. It has… Smoke stacks? Hephestus. The guy who got flung off Mount Olympus and married Aphrodite, he remembers, he makes stuff.

“Whoa. They, like make stuff?”

“All of our weapons and armor.”

That brings him to a stop- armor? but then he’s suddenly surrounded by like, a dozen kids. All blond. All with a lot of shining teeth and bright blue eyes. They all look at his mom like… Like she is the weirdest thing they’ve ever seen. He doesn’t know what that means, really, about this weird new world that he suddenly realizes is his own. When a mom or even an adult that isn’t magic or whatever is weird to the kids like him. They get introduced, and they’re bright and happy and really, really nice. He tries, really hard, to remember names.

Their... Niceness that makes him remember how nice Luke had been, but how different his nice seemed now that he was surrounded by the Apollo kids.

Maybe that’s why Sena didn’t like him?

“See you around, Percy, Ms. Jackson!” they chorus, in perfect sync, and whoa, a bit creepy.

Sena keeps holding his hand. The entire tour. It’s a little weird.

But nice . 

They see the rest of the Cabins, they see the honest-to-god Amphitheater, looking like all those postcards of Greece, but brand new. They see the dining area, with its large Greek pillars. They see an arts and crafts area. They see the lake, and yup, freakishly large swans. They're the size of go-carts. So he’s happy they see them from a distance. Because Percy likes his arm not broken. He can see a pier on the far end, with canoes. He can’t wait to do that if they can work around the giant swans. They see the strawberry fields, the training areas, with an archery range, a sword fighting arena, the forge and-  

“ Is that magma!? ” shrieks his Mom.

Sena winces.

“It’s technically lava? When it’s above the earth-”

“ Why? ”

“Reflexes.”

“I’m going to die,” Percy mutters, eyes wide.

“Don’t be silly. You’ll get the hang of it. I promise.”

“But-”

“Grover can do it.”

That stops Percy short. 

“Really?”

“Yeah. His time is kinda bad, but he can do it-”         

I still think I’m going to die, thinks Percy, watching as the lava spewed down the wall. 

“How does it not burn down?” he asked, curiously.

Sena hummed.

“The Lord Of Many Crafts gifted it to the camp in 1780, so it’s nearly indestructible. The lava wasn’t added until two hundred years later when a camper accidentally threw Greek Fire on it… I think the Lord of Many Crafts thought it was funny, so he didn’t do anything to change it.”

“Huh.”

“What’s your time, Sena?” asks his Mom, voice a little horrified and curious.

Sena hummed.

“Um, like, maybe five minutes? I don’t keep very good track of it.”

Percy stared at the wall. It was, like, 200 or 300 hundred feet, he wasn’t sure. He gaped.

“ Five? ”

Sena grinned. Let go of his and his Mom’s hands to flex both her arms. He was more than a little surprised that they had a decent amount of lean, supple muscle. 

“I’m athletic! It’s, like part of being a demi-god. Don’t worry, you’ll do great. That’s a pretty average score, actually.”

“... I still think I’m going to die,” he depans, looking up. 

Five minutes was average?

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, Percy… But maybe practice. Before the… Uh, lava,” mentions his mom, wincing as the Climbing wall gives one last spurt of real lava.

“I saved the best parts for last. The stables, and then the beach-side!”

The stables are awesome… But- what gets him is the freaking pegasus. The Minator was one thing. In the light of the Rhode Island sunshine, with the scent of strawberries in the air, Percy could maybe but it down to a freaky dream.

But…

Horses.

With wings.

“Holy crap,” he whispers.

“Percy!”

He winces. His mom hates swearing.

“But… Mom. Look .”

He stares. He… He’s never seen anything cooler. Or impossible. And he killed a Minator. With its own horn. 

“I’ll ask Luke if we can bump up our equestrian class,” said Sena.

He looked at her, her eyes soft pink. She was smiling again. Softly, as a small breeze made her fly-away curls around her face. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything prettier.

Percy jerks his head back to the Pegasus. Pegasi? And pretends his face isn’t burning from the tip of his forehead, down his neck, at the thought. 

Chapter Text

The first time Percy sees a nymph slip out of a tree, Sally is amused by how he jumps, and the way that he leans slightly into Sena’s side. The girl laughed. Sweet and easy. It was a sound that reminded Sally of a bird, a sort of musical trill to it. She wondered, briefly, if Sena’s immortal parent was one of the bird-winged gods. There were several. And the way sometimes moved her head made her think of a cautious, but curious bird. Quick and easy movements. Her mind filtered through a couple before she dismissed it. None that she knew of had healing abilities. And the wings of her backpack, obviously a Godly gift, were a butterfly. She thought of Lady Psyche- 

She then dismissed her, for the goddess of the soul didn’t align with Sena’s healing as far as she knew.

It didn't matter. 

Sena's parents were her own. Sally wasn't an idiot. She realized quickly that Sena was being extremely careful not even to state the gender of either of her parents. Which made Sally think that her deity parent was either very private to her or someone it shouldn't be. Maybe it was like her son. A powerful deity that shouldn’t have children. Sally swallowed thickly at the thought. It didn’t make her happy if there was something wrong with the circumstances around Sena’s birth. If she was like Percy, a child who was forbidden. It made her sad, afraid to think it. 

But part of her was also hopeful which meant that her son wasn’t alone.   

“She came out of a tree,” Percy said, a whisper, and Sally felt her lips twitch despite her worry. 

She watched as Sena reached over and squeezed Percy’s shoulder. She did smile when she realized that the gesture caused her son to blush. For what felt like the hundredth time since the girl had dragged them into camp.  Sena was a very sweet girl, Sally had realized quickly. One did not trick a god for strangers without being intrinsically kind. But even worse, she was very, very beautiful . 

Her son was going to be in trouble if Sena kept this up. 

“A nymph. Long-lived beings connected to the tree they inhabit. That's Ashely. She's… Well, a nymph of an Ash tree. Don’t let her body fool you. She’s Seventy-Five. Nymphs and Naiads age differently.”

Percy gave a bewildered laugh. Sena squeezed his shoulder again. And then waved at the nymph. The girl, who looked no more than eleven or so, threw Percy an air kiss when he waved as well. Sally was amused, even as she raised her hand to wave as well. 

The nymph stumbled. 

Stared. 

Sally felt her own cheeks heat at the very obvious surprise. 

“A nymph named Ashely. How come I never seen stuff like this-” her son's voice was frustrated. 

Sena sighed softly. 

“You have. But there's something called the ‘Mist’, capital ‘M’. It distorts the reality of magic and monsters to mortals. It can be manipulated, too, but that's an advanced skill,`` Sena looked at her, “Sally, you can see through the Mist, can't you ma'am?”

Sally smiled. She nods. 

“How did you know?”

“You didn't jump at Ashley. It's a rare gift, a Sighted mortal. Even demi-gods can struggle to see through the Mist, especially if they aren't aware.”

“Why's that?” Percy blurts, “Is that why- Is that why no one believed about Mrs. Dodds?”

Sally was very glad that her child was getting an easy transition into realizing his heritage.

Well, easy after the Minator. 

Sally swallowed thickly. 

He was twelve.  

But Posiden had not lied to her. As his son, Percy attracted the worst of the Monsters-

“Who is Mrs. Dodds?” She asked, seriously. 

Percy looked at her, wide eye. 

She knew her son. Saw the guilt and the embarrassment. 

“ Percy. ”

Her son flinched.

“Don't freak out?” 

“Percy.”

Her son glared at the ground. His shoulders hunched. Sena looked at them both. 

“Do you need a minute?” She asked, softly. 

Percy surprised them both. His hand reached out and gripped Sena's hand. 

“Uh… it… I kinda want to know what type of monster she was,” he sighed and looked back at Sally, “She was my Pre-Algebra teacher. That everyone forgot. Because I killed her with Mr. Bur- Charon's pen sword.”

“You were attacked at Yancy?” Sally asked, and she felt as if the Gaia herself could swallow her whole. Percy had been attacked .

The snake corpse in his daycare cot still gave her nightmares. But it hasn't… Hasn't happened in recent years. To know it had, and that Percy hadn't told her-

“During the field trip to the Met,” he whispered. Ashamed.

Field Trips are cursed, she thought, wincing. The only story of her son’s field trips going well was the incident at the aquarium, and that was only because Sally knew no natural creature of the sea would ever harm her son. Sally looked into her son's bright sea-green eyes. She saw it. The fear. The frustration. The field trip had been months back. If everyone had been made to forget because of the Mist-

She was furious, she realized. 

Because this must have been done by Chiron. The Centaur had no doubt done it in a bid to protect her son. Keep him ignorant just a while longer. But didn't change the fact that her son must have felt like he was going crazy. It was no wonder his grades had taken such a dip. 

“Oh, honey. It's okay.” 

Her son flinched. 

“She called me that. She was- she was like an old lady. At first. But then- she changed. I guess she made the Mist show me her real self. She was, like, bat-winged with long claws and-”

“Oh Percy,” Sena whispered, “You fought a Kindly One. The errand Monsters of Lord of the Underworld. They- They are dangerous. ”

Sally felt the breath still in her lungs. 

The very same monster that chased Orestes to the ends of the Earth for the murder of his mother. It had taught her son.  

I should have brought him to camp sooner, she thought in despair. 

Her son had fought a creature no child should have to fight. 

She felt like throwing up. Instead. She got on her knees and threw her arms around her son. Sena was wrenched forward. Sally didn't hesitate. She brought the girl into her embrace as well. 

“You're safe,” whispered the girl, and something Sally warmed at her words, “Both of you. The Kindly Ones cannot reach you here.”

Sena shuddered at her own words. 

Sally held them tight. 

“We will train,” she promises her son, fiercely, “And we'll get through this together.”

When she pulls back-

She sees something in Sena Strand's eyes. Something alive and fierce. 

Something that calls to something in Sally in kind. 

She swallows. Then she looks to the sea.

Please, she prays to her once love, Give us strength. 

The tour ends with breakfast. They have the rest of the day off, apparently, but tomorrow they're going to join all regular camp activities. Like Gladiator-style sword training and arts and crafts and stuff.  Percy is embarrassed by how excited he is for that first one. 

He did okay, after all, against the Kindly One with the pen sword.

He frowns. He doesn't remember what monster that one was, other than dangerous. Something about making up the court system or something? He'll ask Sena after breakfast. Percy is so hungry he ate all of his fancy chocolates, and maybe a second box when his Mom wasn't looking. He wonders if he'll stop blushing, at one point, because Sena had slipped him the second box with a wink. Had offered a third one in his pocket with another wink.  If he could actually not trip over his feet, that’d be great.  He didn’t think he was such a self-conscious guy around pretty girls, at all. 

And it isn't that Sena is just pretty . 

Percy wouldn't be shallow about it. Yeah, Sena is one of the prettiest people he's ever seen. That's just a fact. She looks like a kid actor or something. She looks like she wouldn’t be strange to see on screen or gather attention like that.

But…  She's just…

Nice. 

And it's so weird for Percy to be on the receiving end of real, genuine niceness. He's been the new kid every new school year of his life. Each and every time, he had to earn a place somewhere. It's part of being a misfit- having low grades, ADHD, dyslexia, often being the poorest in his class and the troubled history that somehow always gets out. Any initial politeness was quick to go. He was from New York. Polite and nice weren’t the same. Most kids started off polite before they quickly lost the urge when all of his issues made the rounds the rumor mill.  Not to mention clashing with teachers whose sympathy, if it was there in the first place, quickly dried up and made his life worse. When the adults in the situation don’t care about him, the kids follow their lead and get worse.  

Sena…is nice. She's just nice. It’s not fake. It’s not waiting for something from him. Sena is just a genuinely nice girl, and he doesn’t know how to react to that. It's unsettling to him. In, well, the best way. Sena is nice. Just nice and she seems to just- Want to help him and his mom. She did help him and his mom.

She tricked a god.

She tricked a god and she’s spent the entire time he’s been in camp emphasizing that the gods could mess you up if you got them mad. If you disrespected them.

Yet, not even thirty minutes after knowing them, Sena Strand tricked a god for them. 

He’s never known anyone who would do something for him, except maybe his mom and Grover. 

“We usually line up on the way to meals in order of how long we've been in Camp. That means I'm usually at the front with Luke,” Sena's face does the thing. Every time she talks about, or to Luke, her face goes really stiff. Like she's trying really hard not to make an ugly face, or maybe she can’t because he can’t picture her making an ugly face, “But, we sit anywhere we want on at our cabin table. Oh look, they finally gave us two tables now!”

She's beaming. 

But there's a wrinkle between her eyebrows. 

He sees why. Yes, there are two Hermes tables… But now there's a double for every cabin table. 

Respect she said. 

He sees she doesn't like it. Even with two tables, it's comical how empty the other cabins are. How depressingly crowded the Hermes tables still were. Even the Apollo cabin looked empty in comparison to the Hermes tables, and they had the second largest cabin. And they had just added the second table. If it had only been one table, his mom would barely have enough room to sit, and he would have to sit on the floor.

He swallows.  

Its-

How many kids of minor gods are there? How many ‘undetermined’ ? 

Sena has been at camp all this time and her Godly parent haven’t shown themselves. She seems… Happy? Percy doesn’t feel anger or resentment from her. He’s just found out that his dad isn’t dead, and one, a god, and he’s angry. 

No support.

No communication as far as he knows. 

And his dad is a god.

Powerful.

Where was he when they needed him?

“Every meal we sacrifice to the gods,” Sena starts, leading them both towards their tables, and he felt everyone’s eyes on them, “We burn it in the center bonfire, an extension of the Olympian flame in Olympus before we eat. Sacrifice, prayer. It’s more respect.”

Like earlier, Sena bowed to the girl tending the fire. It was a slightly older girl from before. He wondered if they were sisters because she looked like a sixteen-year-old version of the kid they had seen before. 

“Like, every meal?”

Sena hums. 

“Yes. The cups are enchanted by the way. Ask them what you want and it will give you what you want. Except alcohol. It’s banned from camp boarders because of Mr. D.”

“What’d he do?”

“Ah… He went after a forbidden nymph. No alcohol, and he’s been tasked to be camp director for one hundred years. He’s in year fourteen,” She smiled softly. She leaned against him, and whispered into his ear, “His twins are thirteen this year. I think he did it for them.”

Percy blinks. He doesn’t know what to do with that information. 

“Oh.”

She looks at him seriously.

“Gods aren’t human, Percy. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t like us in their own way. They love. They hate. They feel . Differently, but they do feel something like us. Think about that when you sacrifice to your father today.”

He blinks.

“Sena!” one of the Stoll brothers. Percy can’t tell them apart. He thinks they’re twins? He’s grinning, waving over to a space where one of his gangly long legs is holding a space for them.

“Hey Travis, good morning!”

His brown eyes twinkle.

“Morning.”

Percy feels nearly a hundred eyes. Every table is looking their way as they sit. But mostly at his mom. He feels his ears burn. His Mom and Sena don't flinch. Sena only slips into a serious conversation about the Aphrodite Cabin asking Hermes Cabin to help them feed the giant swans again. Apparently, it was always better with their cabin. The Stoll brothers(not twins!) were arguing that they had gotten pecked by one angry beak too many, and they should have asked for more than the offered shower tokens. 

“It's not the swans's fault you both cartwheeled into the nest-”

The nymphs come from the trees, some from the lake-

Naiads, he remembered, were the names of the water nymphs. 

They serve them food. Sena thanks every nymph that passes them. Each one kisses her on her brow, or her cheek or squeezes her shoulder. They serve piles of scrambled, sunny side, little omelets, the best-smelling grilled hams, a mountain of various levels of toasted bread, so much fruit, but especially strawberries. Pots and pots of every Jam or butter you could think of. 

“Apple juice, please,” Sena asks.

Her glass fills. 

Percy blinks. 

“Uh, orange juice, please,” he watches for a beat, blinks, “Blue orange juice.”

He laughs when the juice changes to a bright cobalt blue. 

“A blue caramel Frappuccino. Extra whip, please,” his mom asks, grinning ear to ear and looking ten years younger. 

They gather what they want. Sena has a mountain of food. Ashly, the nymph, had placed a large tray instead of a plate in front of her. He wonders how much she works out for her to eat so much. She's like, ninety pounds max. And just like Sena said, the kids grab their full plates and head to the bonfire. Several lines form, and Sena goes to the end of the longest line, talking quietly to his mom. When Percy goes to follow her- a tan arm stops him.  A girl his age with blonde hair in a riot of curls, and the sharpest gray eye stares at him. Hard. She's frowning. 

“Sena takes the longest. Just throw in your food and leave her to it. You don't need to follow her everywhere even if she's the one assigned to give you the tour,” her voice is sharp. Harsh.

Percy frowns. 

“I'm not just following-”

“Yeah, right,” hisses the girl, and she turns away from Percy, she mutters, “I bet Sena actually killed the monster of Crete.”

He blinks.

“Whoa, what’s your proble-”

The girl rolls her eyes.

“No. You won’t be the one,” she mutters. 

Percy swallows, and heads to the end of the shortest line. He copies the person in front of him, careful to get the best off of his plate. He throws it into the fire. He expects it to stink. Charred food- but the smell that hits him is pleasant, like the air coming in from the sea, flowers and trees and stuff. He doesn’t know who to pray to. He still doesn’t have a name, and from the way everyone’s been acting, even if his mom told him, people wouldn’t count it. The god has to be the one to do it. No one has even asked her.  

I don’t know what to feel. You left my mom, he thinks, she married Smelly Gabe, she nearly died yesterday.

Percy swallows. He thinks of Sena, arrows ready. He thinks of Sena, reaching for his mom’s arm to drag her forward. Bowing her head to a god as she stood in front of them.  

But we’ll be okay. Just us, Dad. Just like we’ve always been. 

He steps away. Returns to the table. Luke takes one of the seats near him. His face is serious, looking towards the fire. Percy follows his eyeline. He finds that Luke is staring at Sena, who finally reaches the fire. People move quickly around her, giving her space. Carefully balancing her larger try, Sena carefully kneels in front of the fire. Luke, Percy realizes, is clenching his jaw. Making the large scar stand out harshly in the morning sunlight. 

Sena bows her head.

A nymph comes and gently lays an enormous pile of flowers across Sena's lap, and slips her an old-fashioned-looking Greek vase of something that sloshed sluggishly, bright and red. Sena smiles at the nymph, and thanks her. She returns and bows her head. Slowly she takes pieces of her meal off her large tray, pours the red liquid across the fire, and then chooses a flower to follow it. She does this, once, twice, again, and again and again. 

“Sena always takes the longest. She’s does this every meal,” Luke’s voice is soft. 

“Is that so? Does anyone know why?” His mom says as she sits next to him.

Percy panics. His mother is crying. Rubbing gently away at tears from her face. Luke jerks his head away from Sena to stare at his mom. He scrambles for his pocket. A packet of tissues. His mother takes it gently. Smiles with wobbling lips.

“Mom-”

His mom runs a hand through his hair. 

“I’m fine, sweetie. I just had to say a couple of things to your father and I got weepy. Don’t worry, Percy. Why does Sena takes long?”

“Some people say she goes through serval gods or goddesses a day and asks them to finally claim her,” says a boy named Ethan, Percy thinks. He’s looking down at his plate.

He looks sad.

Percy blinks quickly.

“That’s terrible.”

Luke looks back at Sena.

“That’s just how it is, Percy.”

“That’s not fair.”

Luke looks at him. His brown eyes are sharp.

“That’s life at Camp Half-Blood. Welcome, Percy Jackson.”

Percy doesn’t feel particularly welcomed. He swallows and looks down at his own plate. He doesn’t feel the same amount of hunger anymore. He looks back at Sena. She keeps praying ignoring everything but the food, the vase, the flowers, and the fire in front of her. Her face, he thinks, doesn’t look desperate or sad or angry. That’s what he would feel if he was going down a list of possible parents and desperate to feel claimed, asking them to do it. And he’s isn’t. He’s angry at his father, whoever he is and Percy thinks he can take his sweet time with it. It won’t change if he knows his father’s name tomorrow or never. Sena doesn’t look like that, angry or sad or desperate. Her pretty face is soft and relaxed. But focused. Her movements are careful and even pretty as she prays. She goes on until the vase is empty, until the flowers are gone, and the last of her giant pile of food is ash.

After she’s done, Sena stands on swaying feet. Luke, Percy realizes, looks upset. His jaw is clenched still, and his hands are fisted on the table in front of him. Another nymph brings a regular plate and puts it down where Sena had sat. Another nymph comes for the vase and slips a bunch of white flowers behind Sena’s ear as she passes.

Sena looks like she’s gliding on air, he thinks.

“I am so hungry!” she grins, brightly, reaching for her apple juice, “Hey, is there any yogurt and blueberries left?”

She looks happy, he thinks,  It’s not just about respect for her.

He bites his toast. Sips his blue orange juice.

It means something to her.

What that is, Percy isn’t sure.

But he wants to find out.  

Chapter Text

She wakes in the spaces that the gods of love had built within her.  The Temple of Aphrodite and her Erotes had seared into her. Woven into the fibers of her soul. She is mortal. Partly immortal by birth. But in the ways that truly mattered, the blood of a goddess within her or not, she is human and the gods that love her are not.

They are gods.

But even they, the gods, had rules.

Rules mean something, not just limitations. And while the gods of Olympus are very powerful, they are not all powerful, nor omniscient.  There is a pointed difference in being godly, without being all-powerful and omniscient. Plato's tale of Atlantis, in the text ‘Timaeus’, tells of near gods’s hubris, and the danger of favor of their own beloved offspring. Of the immortal aspects of gods appearing within their children.

 The monsters that made them. 

The destruction that they can leave in their wake.

Sena long suspected that the gods had bound their children in a way, that limited them from their attention for that very reason. The incident of World War II-

Her mother won't speak of it. 

'…But when the divine element in them became weakened…and their human traits became predominant, they ceased to be able to carry their prosperity with moderation…'

She only knew, vaguely, that a conflict of powerful demi-gods was at the center of it. She knew that it was the children of the 'B ig Three’, the pantheon of brothers of the Titan of Time’s seed that could not help but demonstrate the favor of their godly parents. Which she assumes by their parents. Growing greedy as the generations of Atlantis before them.

It was why they were forbidden. 

It was why Demi-gods were isolated from their godly parents.

And yet, she is here. Chaos chases at Sena’s being. Chaos and death. The gods she knows have unlimited their access to her as no other demigod children in recent memory. 

She is a Demi-god who is loved by her Mother and her godly siblings alike.

Favored.

Blessed.

Eros himself has claimed her as a blessed child, he is her Patron. 

But there is a price.  A simple price she always is willing to pay.

For she is still human.

This one is going to hurt , she thinks.

Having the gods speak through her always came with a level of pain. Of discomfort. For she is mortal in all the ways that matter. They aren’t. They are concepts , as much as they are sentient beings that love her. She sighs, and bows her head, all the way to the ground. Her forehead causes so many ripples against the floor it makes her dizzy, so Sena closes her eyes.

Then. 

She realizes it isn't her siblings calling her. 

It is a power beyond any of them, save perhaps Eros , who was born both of their mother and even before her. 

She knows without a doubt that this will really hurt. 

“This has to be a record,” she mumbles, “You last spoke to me when the Bolt first went missing.”

It was only a few months ago.

She feels more than sees Aphrodite at first, as her Mother does as Eros did, and scopes her the palm of her hand as if she is a baby bird. Gentle, cooing as she goes. The sound is sweetness, comfort, and love all in a sweet chorus. 

Sena weeps.

She always does. 

“Forgive me, little lioness, lift your head,” whispers her Mother, forlorn and furious all at once. Her voice is a multitude. All perfect. All beautiful.

But one voice is clearer.

  She lifts her head and looks at her mother. It is a thousand faces. Shifting. Fractures. It is all the colors she could ever imagine, and more. It is perfection in infinite ways.

It is everything , wonderful and inhuman. 

Beauty itself. 

In all the ways it can form. 

In this inner Temple, Her Mother was raw. A terribly chaotic and wild beauty. Everything. Perfect. 

All at once and ever-changing. 

Yet one face repeated the most.

“I freaked you out, Mother Venus, this is fair,” she returns, as she sees the power in her brow as she looks at the perfection, the stern hold of her Mother’s chin. This is the goddess whose blood moved the Western flame to Rome. That made the Hellenistic gods live even now to this age, powerful and bright. Even as she shifts and forms at a dizzying speed, her mother is a beautiful perfection in all ways anyone could be. 

Tears slip down Mother Venus's face, perfect and gentle in her emotions. They are the sweet scent of golden apples, immortal as the Discord once thrown at Prince Paris’s feet. 

“It will hurt more than ever when you wake. But I needed time with you, little lioness. ”

Her mother's grief is palpable. Touched with rage and sorrow at her hurting. 

“I'll take that pain, gladly,” she tells her Mother, honestly, “It is so good to see you, Lady Mother. I missed you.”

A smile. Sweet and perfect and so full of love that Sena feels more tears almost immediately fall from her eyes. Her Mother’s face continues to shift. No less perfect than the last. She is Ishtar. She is Ianna. She is Astarte. She is Aphrodite. She is Venus again. She is goddesses that time itself has forgotten. Goddesses that Sena struggled to name. 

She is all of Beauty, Love, all the aspects held and forgotten of such beings. 

She is a Queen.  A Sorcerous. A Warrior. A Lover. A Huntress. A Healer. 

Mother. 

“Sweet girl,” her Mother murmured, her eyes, the cosmos themselves, glowing like Greek Fire, “Madness will suffer .”

“It was a threat . Nothing happened. Sister Psyche scared him off,” she speaks in defense, but she knows her mother's mind was made.

Offense was taken.  Affronted and protectiveness had been invoked.  She is Aphrodite's daughter, and the goddess would make the God of Madness suffer for the threat.  Her lips curled. Even in cruelty, in the state of fury, it was perfection itself.  Sena sighed in awe of it. 

“I will show him a threat. Nothing more my sweet.”

Sena trembled. Awe. Horror. Fear and Love, all in her.

“If that is your judgment, Lady Aphrodite.”

Aphrodite smiled her smile a maw of glittering danger , War in her grace. She was the most dangerous thing, Sena believed, truly, she would ever know. 

“Don’t worry, baby, I will get him for the disrespect,” her Mother cooed.

And she was Ishtar again, the Queen of her Pantheon.

As always, Sena could only do as her Mother told her. Accept what she wanted. Because she was a goddess, and that was what it meant to love her. Obedience . And to be loved in turn. It was a sacrifice , it was understanding that some things done for her, to her, or in her name, would be completely done without her consent. 

Sena accepted this. 

She had known it the moment she had first caught her mother, cooing, sweet, and distant with no greater affection than her other mortal siblings, that she would give everything to her goddess. To her Mother. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, softly, “For your love, Lady Mother.”

Her Mother brought her closer yet. Laid her to her heart.

Sena laid gently against her breast. It shifted sizes, just as the hand did. Yet, her mother stayed Colossal. Soothed another enormous palm atop Sena. The weight was soft, warm, and firm pressure. 

“Oh sweet little Lioness,” her Mother whispered, love itself. 

“Lady Mother,” Sena returned. 

“War is coming,” her Mother whispered, she warned. But there was a touch of longing, of anticipation in her mother’s voice, she is a war goddess after all, and it was in her nature to want it to come to pass, “There is something wrong on Olympus. Threats for the theft.”

Sena shivered. Gods were choosing sides, she heard unspoken.

The gods always did. 

“Stay safe, my little lioness.” 

Stay out of it, Sena heard.

Her Mother sighed.

“I cannot linger with you much longer. It would kill you.”

“I miss you, Mama. I love you.”

Aphrodite sighed.

“I love you. Goodbye, sweet little Lioness.”

It is the soft gurgle that wakes Sally Jackson on the second day of her stay at Camp Half-Blood. 

Sena is jerking in her sleeping bag. Writhing. Sally jerks herself, desperately reaching for Sena, even as she lunges across Percy with a small scream. 

“Wait,” and that’s the older boy, Luke, “I got this, Ms. Jackson.”

Carefully, the boy is holding Sena’s face, even as the rest of the Cabin moves. A  pale, tall boy, weedly and scowling, is bolting from the Cabin at Luke’s bark of ‘ Lee. ’ The Head Cabin counselor is interjecting a thin strap of leather into Sena’s mouth.  The girl gurgles. 

“Percy, you can look away if it’s too much,” Luke’s voice is calm. 

His jaw is tight, making his scar sharp in relief. But his brown eyes are focused on Sena. Sally feels like her heart is going to beat out of her chest. 

“What’s going on?” Percy’s voice- Sally hates that it sounds so small.

She places a hand on his arm. Percy is tense as a bowstring, eyes wide in his deathly pale face. 

“Sena is epileptic. She gets seizures sometimes, we know what to do when it happens,” Luke explains.

His eyes are narrowed and careful at the face of the girl. He soothes a hand through black curls. 

“They’ve been getting worse, Luke,” whispered one of the Stoll Twins, voice small, “She's never had one so soon after another… And yesterday she was spacier than normal.”

Luke frowns.

“Yeah. They have. The last time she had a seizure was-”

“After our trip to Mount Olympus during the Winter Solstice,” said the other Stoll boy. Sally thinks his name is Connor. Or was it Travis? 

Sally freezes.

She knows. She knows with certainty- that Sena was connected to whatever was causing such strange weather. 

“Should we call a Doctor- '' starts Percy.

“MAKE WAY,” its Chiron, voice below. At the heels of his hooves is Darius, the son of Apollo. 

The entirety of Cabin Eleven starts to rush out. 

Luke delicately takes her and Percy by the hand. The Cabin door slams shut behind them. Luke swears, hands bruising for a moment. 

He lets go. 

He swears. Loudly, running a hand through his blond hair. 

A younger child bursts into tears. Sally is moving before she can even think. She carefully kneels. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” she whispers softly, “Was that scary to see?” 

The little girl looks to be a sibling of Luke, the same mischievous look, maybe 10 or 11. 

“Is… Is Sena gonna be okay?” She whispers, “It- I hate when this happens.”

Sally reaches a hand out. Carefully place it on the girl's shoulder. The girl jumps and stares with her wide brown eyes. 

“Isn't Charion one of the best healers in the world?”

The girl sniffs and nods. 

“Darius is with her too,” Percy says, firm, swallowing thickly. 

The girl nods again. Carefully, the girl grips at Sally's wrists. Her hands are trembling.  Carefully she runs a hand through her hair. 

They wait.

Chapter Text

Clarisse La Rue wakes with a pounding on the Cabin door. 

She is a daughter of Ares. That is her sign for her to slip out of bed, hand already holding her spear, reaching for her shield. When the door bursts open, half of her siblings are similarly armed. The younger ones are already at the back, ready to help from the rear. They may be Ares, and may not be known for strategy, but they know War. Her siblings know better than to try to step ahead of the heavy hitters. 

It's Lee, from Hermes. A grimace on his super pale face. She's slowly lowering her spear, muscles still tense, blood singing in her veins. She knows something fucked is coming. 

“Camper down. Meeting at the Big House, now. ”

He sprints. 

Lee is one of the fastest in Camp History. Clarisse debates armor, but settles for a pair of jeans over her pajamas and some sneakers. It doesn't seem like the camp is under attack. Camper Down , she feels her heart twinge. She might not like everyone at Camp, but everyone is family. Anyone down is something fucked. 

It's chaos outside. 

It's early, barely past dawn. Campers run back and forth. Streaming in a hoard toward the Big House. The only Cabin missing is 11. Cabin 11 Camper then . Something curls in Clarisse's stomach. New meat is in Cabin 11. The… Mother of the new meat is there. She knows in her bones that it's the little wimp’s fault somehow. At the Big House. Well. Whispers. Camp is awfully good at information distribution. Camper down.  Not through camp activities. No, the whispers call it something worse. Something far more sinister. The implications of it. 

Sena Strand has had another seizure .

The Athena kids mummer in the contention of seizures and the Orcale. The Apollo kids- they keep fucking looking at the Attic, and they all wonder . Clarisse feels her fists clench at that. She knows Sena wouldn't fucking want that. To be the Oracle of Delphi- Sena doesn't want it. Clarisse knows it. If there was something that Sena wanted it was- love. Romantic love.  Something forbidden to the maiden of Delphi for the majority, if not all of her life. 

Her eyes are brilliant pink. She's looking at Clarisse through the mirror. 

“So. Chris Rodriguez,” her voice isn't teasing.

But Clarisse tenses nonetheless. Scowls at her in the mirror. Sena runs a hand carefully through Clarisse's usually coarse hair. Somehow the olive oil has made it soft, made it flexible enough for Sena to braid back. 

“So what, you fucking laugh at me?” she snaps, and she stands, twists around ready to shove the girl away. 

Sena brows furrow. 

“I would never do that in the case of love.”

Clarisse stares. She believes her. 

“Why the fuck are you bringing it up?” 

Clarisse is happy they have the Cabin to themselves. If they hadn't been, she thinks she would have started swinging to keep the secret. Sena blushes pink. Pretty and soft. Clarisse sometimes- sometimes wishes she could be like that. Soft. 

“I- I just wanted to know what it's like. I,” her gaze goes a touch glassy. Clarisse watches as Sena drifts off, she fucking hates it, even when she snaps back as quickly as she does,“ I haven't fallen in love yet. I'm... I haven't met the right person.”

Clarisse sighs, and feels her shoulders hunch. 

“You keep saying love- I like the guy. Okay? But I'm not in love.”

“It's the start of it,” Sena replies. Serious as the plague.

Clarisse snorts. 

“Right. This girl talk? Do you really want to have it with me?” 

Sena blinks quickly. 

“Why wouldn't I? You’re my friend, aren't you?” 

Clarisse cracks her knuckles. She tries to ignore the heat she feels in her cheeks. 

“Fucking I guess. You try to paint my nails I will punch you.”

“Not even blood red? Made to look like blood drips?”

Clarisse blinks. 

“Okay. Maybe that. Can you do a skull?”

Sena laughs. Clarisse laughs with her. 

Her seizures aren't godly. They can't be. 

She had that big one after the Winter field trip, something in her whispers, and she felt her jaw clench. She had healing. Maybe Lord Apollo had a crush, maybe he had chosen a true Oracle after the mess of the last one. 

The thought if it being Sena made her so furious she needed to wail on someone. She wanted to fall in love damn it. She deserved it. She shouldn't be forced to be an eternal virgin. She's one of the few of the kids outside of Cabin Five that Clarisse likes. The thought of Lord Apollo being all over her friend and not letting her have the one thing she had only ever express want for made her angry . She was not meant to sit peacefully and watch shit happen around visions. Clarisse knows despite the sugar-sweet face, Sena is one of the most vicious among them. Something dark lingered in her pretty changing eyes when she actually was pushed. 

“…Come on, Pearly Girl,” cooed Luke, sword taunting, “You too much of a girl for this?” 

Clarisse saw the exact moment Sena snapped. Saw it in her face. How her discomfort slipped straight off of her face. Fury replaced it. And it was-

Clarisse thought it was a thing of beauty. 

Sena hurled her bronze sword at Luke, letting it go completely. Sena wasn’t a strong sword woman. Too slight, too short of a reach. If Clarisse were to arm her, it’d be a bow or a spear, even if she wasn’t naturally talented with it. It was better for her slight figure. Lingering on the preferred aspect of combat in her Cabin was a mistake. Luke countered, because of course the prick did, but Sena was still moving. Slipped underneath Luke's blade with a lightning-fast movement, hand snapping up and gripping his elbow to launch him forward and herself behind him. She twirled on a dime. Like a fucking dancer, swift and elegant. Then, she muled kicked him in the back of the knees with a satisfying crunch . Luke buckled. Dropped. Hands on the ground, she had kicked him that hard. Clarisse watched as she wrenched her bow out in a single, clean movement, and pointed it at the pulse point on Luke's neck. 

Blood slipped down his neck. 

Sena bared her teeth. 

Her eyes were burning red. Like fire, like-

“Don't be a sexist pig, ” she snarled. 

Like War .

And Clarisse made a vow to befriend her unclaimed Cousin, as soon as possible. Especially when she realized that the kick had broken Luke’s knee. If she snuck her desert for the feat, that was no one's business but her and Sena. 

When Sena had a fucking spear, her movements were poetry. She was stubbornly okay at it but with a spear? Clarisse would think Sena her sister, if not for the fact that Clarisse knew her Lord Father would never let any of his kids stay with Lord Hermes for so long. Especially if they had been sent to camp by him in the first place. No, Clarisse’s money was on her godly brothers Lord Phobos or Deimos. It was the only thing that made sense to her. Clarisse knows she’s her Aunt. Feels it in her bones. Sena is the legacy of War, and Clarisse would let her stay in Cabin Five in a heartbeat if it was truly up to her. She had been heckling pretty boy Luke into more spearman lessons, because being a fucking archer was a waste on Sena. Luke had been cagey about it. Pushing back lesson after lesson. Clarisse had seen less and less of Sena in the last few months. She had watched from afar as Sena had grown quieter and quieter. Interacted less and less with everyone, her eyes glazed over. 

Clarisse missed her. 

 She looks over, hands tight and fisted. She feels her blood pressure fucking spite at the sight of Sena's latest fucking tag-a-alongs. Sally Jackson, the first mortal adult in Camp History. And Perseus Jackson, or ‘Percy’ as Clarisse has heard him call. Everyone wondered if he was the one. If he was the solution to what the fuck was up with the Gods. A quest whispered Annabeth Chase with stars in her eyes. Immediately, Clarisse hopes he isn't. He’s a scrawny little nobody who was stirring trouble. Not doing anything important, even with the minator as his first kill, and hanging around Sena like a fucking lost puppy for the last day and a half. Clarisse knows that Sena doesn’t want glory, and doesn’t want to get in any of the mess that brewing around the kid.  

“ It's… I don’t have anything to contribute on a quest, ” her voice is small, gentle, flat on her back, Clarisse wonders how Sena, Sena Unclaimed, Sena who prays so hard every day, every meal, can say that. They're looking at the sunset, and Clarisse immediately punches her in the arm. Because she hears it. She means it. 

“What do you fucking-”

“I love the gods in my own way, Clarisse.”

Sometimes Sena talked and Clarisse wanted to flinch. Because- She knows she’s right, in her own mind. Clarisse wasn’t fucking dumb. She knew what Sena did at meal times was a sacrifice, beyond giving the gods their meals, Sena does more . She also knew the nymphs quietly, and easily, and gave her animal blood for it. Clarisse had clocked it the first day she arrived at camp, and was amazed hardly anyone else noticed it. Clarisse had read up on it. It was common for most of the Greeks to give wine, in the old days, to add blood to it. Sena only gave blood mixed with fruit juice- which, Clarisse had never wanted to ask. 

She strongly suspects that Sena knows exactly who her parent is. And she bets her father's gift spear that the fruit juice is her parent's sacred fruit. 

=

Clarisse knows better than to ask. That's not her business. She wasn't full of wisdom or some shit, but she wasn't stupid. Sena had been sent to camp by her godly parent. If she was unclaimed, it was for a fucking reason she was better off not knowing. Wisdom and knowledge was not the same thing, in this case. It was wiser not to fucking poke her nose were she shouldn't. 

“So you won’t do a quest?” Clarisse feels her stomach drop. 

But then she sees it. Sena does what she always does. Her pretty eyes, lavender this time, flicker, and glaze over. 

Sena goes away. Just for a moment. 

When she’s back, light comes back to her eyes. 

“Not unless a friend needed me to do it.”

The scrawny kid makes her hackles rise. Clarisse felt her teeth grind. 

Shit has gotten worse because of him. 

She tries not to think of his mother. Clarisse- she tries to remember her own mother's face. Was she this soft in face? Did she hold out her hand that way, when little Alice quietly walked up to her and muttered into her ear? Clarisse didn’t know. Didn’t want to remember it when all she wanted to do was wail at Percy for stirring shit up and dragging her friend into this.  

So when he slips off to the bathroom, Clarisse follows.

She does it alone. Waits for the kid for half a beat to do his business, and then the second he comes out, patting his wet hands on his shorts, Clarisse hauls him by his neon orange camp shirt, and lifts him off his feet. She slams him on the bathroom’s walls. 

“What's your problem?!” he cries, clawing pathetically at her fists. 

Clarisse sneers. 

“ You ,” she snarls, “Whatever the fuck mess you're in. You. Keep. Sena. Out. Of. It. ”

“I'm not in any mess,” he scowls, and if he wasn't a foot shorter than her, and dangling from her hands, she would admire the fact that he was still trying to talk back. 

“Yes the fuck you are,” she replies, gripping tight ingredients on his camp shirt, and she lifts him higher, so she can look him in his green eyes. 

“You're crazy.”

She sneers. 

Drops him. He crumples. Clarisse keeps her hands up. Pretty Boy Luke rounds the corner. He's frowning.

“Clarisse,” he snaps, tense. 

She sneers at the older boy. Hands still up. 

“Luke,” she replies. She keeps her head up.

“... You need to lay off,” Luke says. 

“Like you need to lay off Sena?” She responds and she tilts her head to the side. 

Luke stiffens. 

“Is this really the time to talk about-”

“What you've been doing is bullshit.”

“That's not your call. Sena is my responsibility.”

“She would do so much better if she-”

“She's Cabin 11, last I checked, Clarisse,” he snaps. 

Clarisse hands clench into fists. She's swinging, and Luke is stepping back, shifting easily away from it. The assehole is quick on his fucking feet. He always is. 

“I haven't talked to her in months, Luke,” she roars. 

He sneers. Twists the horrible scar on his face. 

“Maybe Sena doesn’t think it's worth her time.”

That hits. Clarisse fucking hates that it does. Because she's thought about it. So she makes sure the next punch hits his pretty boy's face. She just misses the nose, and gets a solid hit to the cheek. 

Clarisse feels War sing in her. 

“You're a fucking asshole, Casstelion.”

She hopes she broke something. She doesn't think she did, but she hopes she did. 

“Jesus Christ!” That's the wimp. 

She snorts. 

“We try to avoid name-dropping other deities, Puecey.” 

“It's Percy. What's your damage?”

She huffs.

“My damage is Luke. And you. I want you to leave her alone,” she hates how thick her voice gets, “She doesn't need any of this.”

Luke's grey eyes glittered. A deep-seated sort of rage. She was a daughter of Ares, she saw it.  She could almost taste it. 

“You just need to back off . ”

“Fucking mak-”

“STOP!” That's the wimp. He can fucking project. 

She freezes. 

“Sena just had a seizure and you're making it about yourselves!” He roared. 

Faintly, she hears something rattle. Clarisse ignores it. Because she hates to admit it. But that iota of respect she had felt at the back talk? It increases in the fact that he's thinking about Sena first. She cracks her knuckles and scowls. 

“Look,” Luke rubs his cheek, “This isn't the time, Clarisse.”

“What if it comes down to a quest? What if Sena goes?” She snaps back, “She won't be as ready as she could be. She needs more than the bow, Luke.”

“She's- She won't go, Clarisse.”

She shakes her head. Looks over at Percy. She remembers the way Sena had looked at Dinner last night, dragging the Jacksons. The bright smile. 

She knows it in her bones. 

“She would, Luke.”

Sena wakes. 

Darius is grinning at her. Her mother lingers with her. A power that has her sighing in love and awe.

“Hey Pearly girl,” he mummers, a hand on her head, on her wrist checking her pulse. 

She’s sleepy. 

She wants to slip back into a soft dream of her inner Temple. Her mother's presence was the heaviest of all of the gods within her.  She knows she should stay awake.  She needs to let go the urge to cling to her mother. She would burn completely away if she lingered too long with the divine.  She breathed. 

“You had a seizure.”

She blinked. Languidly. Nods. 

“Ah.” 

Darius frowned.

“This was a bad episode.”

She gives another sleepy nod. Yawns in agreement. 

“How are you feeling?”

She yawns again in response. 

“That's normal. Drink this, kiddo.”

He slips her liquid ambrosia. It tastes like the most perfect apple tart, crisp, just the perfect blend of sweet and tart, and buttery and delicious. Ice-cream. Vanilla, sweet and creamy. A perfect contrast. The last bit was the aftertaste of a lovely white wine that she vaguely remembers from her first life. She missed wine. Her father sometimes would slip her wine when she visited. He was Swedish.  He didn't think much of a little sip or two. With the ambrosia, her mind sharpens. Her sleepiness fades, enough that she feels her mind clear. 

A Quest is coming, she realized. 

And if it was Posiden-

Percy, she thinks. 

Her heart twists. 

“I'm going to sit you up. Alright?” 

She yawns again and nods. 

“Thanks, Darius.”

He helps her up. Hands gentle.

“How much did I freak everyone out?”

He sighed. 

“... There’s talk about the Oracle.”

A wave of fury and possession sweeps through her. All of her godly siblings, her mother. Sena nearly hurls. 

“Ah,” she responds dully. 

She thinks Eros would gut the Sun God first.

I would, said her eldest brother, darkly. 

The chorus of her godly siblings rings strong through her. She may have passed out for a second. She isn't sure. Darius, at least, has his back turn when she comes back, and is still talking. 

“Mr. D is talking to Camp.”

“I won't go to her,” she tells him, simply. 

He whips around. Eyes wide. 

“Sena-”

“I won't. It's not what I want or what my condition is about.”

Darius looks at her sharply. She looks at him steadily. He sighed. Ran a hand through his curls. 

“You do have to choose it.”

Sena smiles.

“I never will. That isn’t my path.”

Inside her, her siblings and Mother wordlessly sing. War. Chaos. Beauty and Love. She is theirs. She belongs to no other gods, they could not claim what was already claimed. If they tried, she knew with certainty that she would be like other mortals before her. She would die. Simple as that.  And Sena was not afraid. Be she turned into a beautiful flower like Hyacinth, the Spartan Prince who the god of music had called lover, and that the West Wind had obsessed over.

But she would be for the goddesses and gods of love and beauty in this life, until the end, as she had been in her last life.     

Chapter Text

Sena Strand stands, carefully on bare feet. Her hands are weaving through her curls. Methodical and gentle. Darius watches her like a hawk. He has too. Sena's never had a complete Tonic-clonic seizure before last Winter. The first seizure had happened on the bus back to Camp after their field trip to Mount Olympus, and he had never seen Argus serve like he had when Sena had seized up, screamed, and fallen into a fit between a shrieking Annabeth and howling Luke who had grip at Sena with a desperation that had made Darius want to vomit. All of her previous seizures, as far as Darius is aware, had been Absence seizures—small moments when she had drifted off, spaced out for a few moments. Her fingertips would twitch, and her eyes would flutter. Mild. Nothing alarming, if a little frustrating that even his Father given gifts were limited. 

It…It fucking freaking him out. He can admit. Her epilepsy had been… Manageable. Usually, a dose of ambrosia every two weeks was enough to tide her over most of her symptoms. It was rare a camper got that much. Chiron had, after the last complete seizure, prescribed it weekly.  And it… It didn't do anything this time. Darius feels frustrated. He should be better off this. He's been treating Sena, with Chiron's approval, since he was twelve. 

He had recommended a CAT scan and wanted to refer Sena to a mortal doctor for this. Because clearly, Hellenistic Healing had its limits for the condition. Mr. D, Chiron, and Sena had refused. Even him citing the 2 out of 3 metrics for the prevention of seizures had been shot down. 

He can admit it. 

He had been so angry at Sena for it. It had been ultimately her call. He felt like- she had dismissed him. He had taught her healing. Even though her obviously godly gift didn't seem as precise as his own, more raw, more wild a way he couldn’t quite describe, he thought being her teacher had taught her to respect his choices. Maybe she resented him for his dismissal of her gift. His own suspicions of her Mother being Aceso, the minor goddess of well-being and the process of healing had colored his opinion. Had colored his perception of the strength of her gift. Sena probably sensed that. She did that. Be insightful. And maybe she was hurt because of it. Maybe his dismissal had made her hesitant to trust his choices. 

He sighed. He can admit it.  He had started dropping their training sessions because of her choice. Luke hadn't said Sena was upset about the change and that could only mean that she really didn't want him as her teacher.  It hurt.  Because he thought Sena- he had hoped she respected and trusted him more. 

Father, he prayed, silently, help me do what I can for her. Please. Please . If she is to be your Oracle… Be gentle upon her yet. If not, guide me well to help her, please . 

“Darius,” Sena's voice was soft. It surprised him. Because Sena was suddenly in front of him, eyes careful. 

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” she whispers. Sena wasn't generally timid. She was timid now. 

He swallows. 

It's a stark contrast to the smile she had worn with Grover and the Jacksons present. It had made his own slip out easily, more naturally. But her serious, small face made him feel awkward and off-footed. And now he felt that invisible wall that had been built up between them slam right back up. He realized that Percy had made the old Sena come back out, easily. 

He frowned. Felt her brows smash together. 

“Of course, Sena.”

“I know it's your responsibility, but thank you nonetheless,” she looked at her feet. Her hand unfurled from around his wrist.

She took a very delicate step back. It was only a little more space. Yet, it felt like a chasm between them. 

“Wait-”

“Sena Strand,” Chiron's voice was serious. 

Darius felt a hand automatically reach for Sena and curl around her shoulder. The girl flinched, just slightly, but then leaned into it. She didn't press completely into him. But it was enough for Darius to know the touch was welcome and appreciated. Sena shivered. 

“Chiron?” Her voice was steady. 

“... Child. We must go to the Big House.”

She sighed. 

“I am not for the Oracle,” she said, firmly. 

She shook. 

Darius felt his own pulse spike. He turned to her. Checked her pulse. Higher than it should be. Carefully pulled her chin in his hand. Dark skin against pale, curling around the delicate chin. He directed her head up. With a penlight, he checked her pupils. Her eyes were a startling pink. But her pupils were voids. Overly large. Her jaw twitched in his palm. 

“Chiron she needs-” 

“Mr. D has demanded it of her.”

Sena twitched. Her breath came in a sharp gasp. And- Pink light. Darius was flung back. Slammed into Chiron. Sena hit the wall. Chiron let out a braying scream of distress. The pink light, the light Darius saw only ever come from Sena's palms when she healed, died. Sena slumped. Black curls over her face. She didn't move. 

“No, no !” Darius hissed, jolting forward. 

First thing, he checked her pulse. Checked for injuries. Her eyes blinked, once, twice. She was- dazed. 

“Sena-”

“I'm okay,” her voice was shaky. She tried to sit up. 

He scowled. He pushed her back. Pink eyes snapped up. They bore into him. It started to shift in front of him, with just a little red at the center. He shuddered. Sena tensed. Underneath his hands, she went ridge and her face went carefully blank. She slipped out of Darius's hold very deliberately. 

“You haven't had an incident like this since you were a five-” started Chiron. 

“I'm fine, ” she snapped. 

Darius flinched. He watched the great Centaur's brow tense, his lips press together in shock. Sena was not quick to anger. But she was angry . He could see it. The hold of her jaw, the color of her eyes, brilliant and a stark red. Her entire body was tense. 

Sweat dripped down Darius's spine. 

“Pearly Girl,” he begged.

“Just let me go to Mr. D,” She replied, terse. 

Darius swallowed. 

“Can I please help you there?” he whispered. 

She looks down. Breathes. Looks back. Her jaw is clenched. 

“...I can walk on my own.”

She forces herself up. A languid movement that looked off in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Her gaze is anywhere but him and Chiron. He feels his heart drop. He lets his hands go up in peace as he can make a gesture.

Sena slides around him. Around Chiron's offered hand. 

She's still barefoot when she steps out of the infirmary.

Her Lord Eros lingers like a weight on her neck. 

Patron. 

Eldest Brother.  

Voice the strongest within her. He has given himself as the largest voice, gladly, when Lady Apphoridite had presented her, and it is not a task he takes likely. Like nearly everything else set by her Lady Mother, Lord Eros takes this seriously as the plague.  

Love. Chaos . 

{Make sure this ends here, Sena Strand } he had declared, {We cannot bear it. He shall not have you.}

He will not, she prayers, seriously. 

They had heard the possible claim of the possession from the Lord of the Sun. The mere thought of it had made all of the gods within her scream . Howl and shriek in protest. Sena hadn’t lost it since she was very small, and her godly gifts were new and raw within her. That night the gods of love had woven divinity within her, Her mother had made a very pointed claim, even if no one else could see it within her.

To go against that claim pissed them off, she knows. And she would be feeling that for days. 

When she walks around the porch of the Big House, the entire camp is waiting for her. She swallows. 

“Uh, can’t a girl have a medical emergency without people freaking out?” she starts, tentatively.

Clarisse snorts in the crowd. She blinked at her friend, who had pulled away from her since the field trip. Sena didn’t know why. Maybe it was because of her seizure. Clarisse never did well with vulnerability, and her medical condition was the epitome of vulnerability to a girl so intent on her prowess as a Daughter of Lord Adámastos. Still, Sena tentatively sent her a smile for laughing. Clarisse didn’t return it. Only looked at the ground. Jaw working furiously. Upset. Maybe furious. Sena couldn’t quite see it from this distance. Sena felt her stomach drop.

“Medical emergency or not,” drawled Mr. D, and Sena froze, “There are implications to your condition, Sena Strand.”

“I am not for the Oracle, Mr. D,” she said, voice polite.    

Mr. D’s watery purple eyes narrowed. 

“That isn’t for you to decide.”

She twitched.

“It literally is. No Oracle of Delphi may become without the host’s permission. I do not give permission, Mr. D,” she replied.

His head tilted. He raised a single brow. She bowed her head, slightly. 

{ He really likes to bully children, } drawled out Hedylogus, the god of sweet talk and flattery in her head. His voice was distinctly displeased.

She shivered. 

He is here as a punishment, Lord Hedylogus. 

A snort in her head. 

{All I know is that Eros did not sway his heart towards a certain nymph. So it isn’t really a punishment. Self-imposed exile for his children a punishment does not make. Madness oversteps, Little Bless,} replied Lady Psyche, sharply. 

Even so. Being among mortals and away from part of yourself must be torture. Removing his access to wine was cruel. 

{The gods all miss our mortal children,} Pothos, the god of yearning and desire sighed softly, { But it is not as deep as you expect, Little Bless. We are not mortals, and we have seen lifetimes beyond most of our demi-human children. }

“Is that your final answer?”

“Yes,” she said simply. 

Mr. D hummed.

“Maybe you’ll do better as a pretty little calf, instead.”

{ Oh, Lady Mother is going to gut him at this point, } Anteros, the god of mutual love and love returned hummed, savagely gleeful. 

Sena winced.

“If that is what the Lord Pythius so desires, Mr. D,” she returned. 

“Whatever, Seneca Sanders. Alright, you heard the brat, no magic trick with the mystical snake mummy today, everyone to breakfast!”

Campers hesitated, but then slowly turned and started making their way to breakfast. Luke lingered for a moment until little Julia Feingold tugged wordlessly at his shirt and he turned his bright brown eyes away. Sena swallowed. She smiled, slightly, as she watched Sally and Percy elbow their way to the crowd. Their faces were intent on her. Something unwound in Sena, even she struggled not to cry.

It is done, she told her beloved Erotes, and her Lady Mother in a prayer. 

{ Sena, } Eros’s voice was hesitant. 

Yes, my Lord Patron?

{You already love them, don’t you?}

Sena didn’t know how to answer that. Her heart was- She knew it was delicate in her love. More selective than she ever remembered being as Dove Little. She was more fragile and less easily swayed in this life. She had known the Jacksons for two days, at best. Did she love them as a concept of humanity? Yes. Did she love them as family, as members of this strange, wonderful demigods she called her kin? Of course. But as individuals? Percy smiled at her. Soft and hesitant. Sally simply folded her carefully into her arms. 

She was warm.

Soft. 

She smelled sweet, like candy. 

“You scared us, honey,” whispered Sally against her hair. 

“I’m okay. My condition is perfectly manageable.”

Percy hovered, hands flexing at his side. Wordlessly, Sena touched carefully at his wrist. He jumped.

“Did I scare you?”

Percy nods, wordlessly, jaw working slightly. 

“But you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“... Want to go eat some blue milkshake?”

She smiled. 

“Why blue?”

“Because it's an impossible thing. And it makes the world a little better.” 

She blinked quickly. Swallowed thickly past the lump in her throat. For the first time in months, Sena didn’t-

Didn’t feel alone in the mortal sense. She was never alone. But her Erotes and her Lady Mother could not hold her. Could not soothe a hand through her curls like Sally was doing. Or carefully, delicately, hold her hand as Percy suddenly was doing. 

“Let’s go!”

Lord Brother? She prayed. 

{Sena?} Eros's voice was very gentle.

I do love them. Truly.

{ So you do, Little Bless. }  

Chapter Text

Chaos gave birth to Eros. 

He knows as much as Lady Aphrodite is his Mother, as much as Ares was his father, there is some part of him that is beyond her son. In the marrow of him, he has existed Before. Chaos gave birth to all of them, in a way, yes, but something that he had once been had been there nearly at the beginning of the unmasking of chaos. He had stoked Gaia herself to want. He had fueled the passion of Titans. And When he became himself, shifted, that part of himself was like the Other Forms the Olympians had made when the Flame had moved to Rome. He is a son of Aphrodite. She had given him purpose, more self, more direction in the pantheon of the Hellens, his siblings, a role more concrete in love, and had also given his beloved wife Psyche. His other half, his perfect lady, once mortal herself. And now, Eros knows his Mother has given him yet another gift, wrapped once again in the fragile flesh of a mortal, but at least now a demigod, sweet soul on her second life, his sister, Sena Strand. The second he saw her for the first time as Sena, he knew. Knew her like an echo in his chest, the girl too, was of Chaos. Maybe not to the same extent of him, not as old as the oldest form of himself, but enough that Eros had loved, coveted, even without knowing her connection to the woman she had once been, poet and scholar, sweet Dove who spoke of the deities of love with a reverence of old. 

And She was theirs. 

Fragile and interwoven with strands of divinity, worshipper in the heady ways Man had forgotten. Sacrifice,  blood, and fruit. Prayers and devotion. She was a priestess to them, to Love, to desire, and all of the facets of them. 

He loved his baby sister, deeply for it. 

He could do nothing less. Adore and be adored in turn. Obeyed and gifted sacrifice. Felt her little mortal soul against his own, claiming her as her Patron to sustain her in any path she took. 

But because of Psyche, he knew how fragile she truly was. Knew that the path unwinding before her was… Fraught with conflict.

War . 

 “I think you made a mistake,” Eros says, calmly, to his Mother. 

Lady Aphrodite felt affront, immediately. Eros saw it, felt it the part of himself that was her eldest son. A tug at his heart. In his marrow. Her ever-changing eyes narrowed, her face shifting, ever different before him. 

For desire knows beauty has many faces, endless, in every way that a face can form. For someone would always desire it, will always love and think it beautiful.  

Most of her face does linger on features of his wife, sometimes it shifts to look like his siblings. His love is endless, and his measure of beauty is as well. 

“Explain yourself,” she hissed to her son. 

He sighed. 

“Sena's mortal flaw,” his lips pulled ruefully, “I understand it.”

Her mother turned her head, face turning dismissive. Aphrodite was capricious in the sense that Sena’s mortality hardly registered to her. 

But Eros was so aware of it. 

“... Her mortality will not be forever, Eros.”

He shook his head. 

“It matters now. Her fate flaw. It-”

“It will be corrected once she is no longer mortal.”

“ Mother .”

“We will not lose her, my son. She is ours .”

The declaration was heady. And Eros, who had already turned one mortal into a goddess, wanted it. He did not want Sena gone, did not want her to return to the deitiesof the Underworld. If Chaos had gifted her to the deities of love, they would not return her.  

“She loves the Jacksons.”

His mother looked at him, and he saw the might of a Queen. Istar. He winced away. He was Eros. Ever since Sena had come into their lives, but a blink, this Aspect of her had clawed its way more to the surface. The Command of another Pantheon touched every movement of her, granted against him like thorns against mortal flesh. 

The Helen in him winced, just a little. 

The Chaos in him clawed at him stirred a little closer to the surface. 

 His mother smiled. 

“If that is her path, then she will earn her godhood sooner,” She replied. 

Eros blinked. 

“Is this why you haven’t claimed her? To put her in the path of this?”

Aphrodite leaned back, body a smooth, gorgeous line of flesh and perfection. She shrugged. 

“Sena will not fail us.”

“You endanger her.”

“No,” Aphrodite’s eyes glowed like Greek Fire, terrible and great and beatificin its awesome force, “I give her the tools to keep her, Eros. My son, have faith.”

“I am afraid for her. With Psyche-”

“Your wife was not my daughter. I fought against her. I will not fight against Sena’s path. I will lead.”

“And if others do?”

“Your wife managed it, didn’t she? Against I, the goddess of Love and Beauty and War and the might of other aspects of me, and yet she is still with us. She, mortal, barely holding onto hope of you. With child . Yet, she accomplished godhood, does not give you faith, my son?”

“I do not want her to go. I do not want her to disappear, Mother, to slip back into something that is no longer of Love.”

His mother cupped her hands around his face. Cooed as sweet as her scared animal, as deadly as a promise of the lioness she was inside of her Istar aspect.

“Hold that fear within you. Hold it, and remember of the feats your wife made as a mortal. And image what my blood will do for my little lioness. Have faith.”

He swallowed. 

“I-”

“Faith, my Eros, faith as she has given us. ” 

And with that, Eros could only do as he so often does- follows his mother’s lead. 

Things settle into something like peace, after her latest most serious seizure. 

Part of Sena Strand is on pins and needles, she can admit. A quest is to be made with the absence of the Master Bolt, and that means, of course, that three campers would leave the safety of Camp Half-Blood.

One would need to be Percy, she is nearly certain. 

And-

She bites her lip. 

She already knows where her heart would lead her.  She already knows that part of her will not want to leave a friend, so new to the world as it truly was, out there without- without something. Whether or not that would lead to her stepping outside of camp again, she does not quite know. But she would do the most she could before anything came up. 

“Draw,” she tells Percy sternly, “We’re doing another four rounds of quiver shooting. That’s ninety-six shots, come on, we have racing at two o’clock, Percy.”

Percy winces. Even as Chiron carefully removes the snagged arrows from his tail.

“I suck-” he looks to Darius, who of course, was preforming a trick shot against some of the moving targets further down the shooting range.

She sighed. Knocked her hip into his to get his attention. He looks at her with wide, frustrated eyes like a storming sea. 

“He is a son of one of the best archers in the known Pantheon. It's his natural weapon.”

She lifted her bow. Aimed, and shot. Bullseye. But at the edge . Not perfect. She looked back into his storming eyes. 

“I am not the daughter of an Archer,” not in this Pantheon, at least, “I practiced. Until my hands blistered and I could make the shot. Even if it isn't your preference,  you need to know how to use it if you need a makeshift weapon. Bow up, Perseus Jackson.” 

“She's right, sweetheart.” 

Sally Jackson was covered in sweat, holding her own bow. Quietly, she turned to her own target and drew. Shot. She was a little more patient than Percy, and she was already showing improvement. Percy squinted his brilliant sea-green eyes at Sena and she nearly laughed at his pout. 

“You trick everyone with the big doe eyes, but you're, like, brutal. Task-master.” 

She grinned. Batted her lashes. Lifted a faux-shy hand across her mouth. 

“Percy, you say the nicest things.” 

“You should see Sena at Capture the Flag,” Luke says, and he walks up to her, grips stray curls around his fingers. 

She resists the urge to flinch. 

“Don't go scaring Percy,” she tells him, simply. 

“I mean, you literally sky tackled Charlie Backendorf. He's like four times your weight, Sena,” Luke said, with something like cruel amusement in his gaze. 

He was still holding onto her hair. She flipped it over her shoulder to make him let go. His hand lingered a fraction too long in the air. 

“I totally had him,” she protested. And she jerked to turn to Percy, “I really did!” 

“It looked like a bird hitting a window,” Travis said, snorting. 

“I totally knocked him over!”

“Because he was laughing so hard, Sena,” that was an amused Ethan Nakamura. 

She scowled. Slipped her bow back to its bracelet form and tackled into Ethan, going for his knees. His shriek as he went down was satisfying as hell, especially when she twisted and held his arm behind his back. With force. 

“Say I took Charlie down!” 

“UNCLE!”

“That's not what I told you to say, Ethan!” she hissed. And she went for the kill. 

Ethan was ticklish as hell. 

“Fu- Damn it Sena I'm going to pee!” 

“Say I took Charlie down!” 

“F-fine! Sena Strand took Charlie Beckford down!” 

She slipped off of him. Grinning, even as she offered a hand. 

He was a son of Nemesis. What was done unto him, he would do unto others. In other words, he hooked an ankle around her own and sent her sprawling before his hands went for her ribs. She landed giggling. And nearly shrieked as he tickled her. 

“I'll kick you in the face!” She warned. 

Ethan lifted his hands up, grinning. 

“Remember, I get even.”

She smiled. 

“I'll do it softly,” she replies. 

He laughed. And extended a hand to help her up. She can't remember the last time- she took Ethan's hand. 

He was one of Luke's. 

She felt it shudder around her. 

Mania. 

She felt her smile dim. It was a shock to her. Ethan was- he was quiet. Always even-tempered. Fair. Whatever Luke was up to, he agreed. She dropped his hand as quickly as she could. And turned back to Percy. Forced a smile to hitch up, even on her face. 

“I don’t see arrows flying, Percy!”