Interlude
Title: Three
Author: Icy Roses
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
Summary: One life is not enough for love. Percy and Annabeth try for the Isles of the Blest, but it seems that fate is not always kind to them. Post-series.
(Interlude)
Complication (n.) - a difficult factor or issue often appearing unexpectedly and changing existing plans, methods, or attitudes
...
It is December 21st, four days away from Christmas. Everyone is too busy looking ahead, threading through the holiday crowds, and seeking the shelter of merrily decorated, frosty-windowed stores. It is a sharply cold winter. Nobody lingers outside in the below-zero weather for too long. High above the city of New York, wound loosely around a mountain in the clouds, the palaces of Mount Olympus have quieted. White braziers burn like twinkling stars in the sky - which is no doubt what they look like to the mortals down below, if the city turned off all of its lights and sat in silence. But of course, New York is always never sleeps and the lights never dim. So the inhabitants of Olympus need not worry about that.
Winter solstice has passed and slowly, the minor gods begin to filter out of the main palace, some filing back into the city in the sky, and others disappearing to their places down below. The only ones left are the twelve - plus Hades, since he has officially been invited to Olympus since the Titan Rebellion so many years ago.
Zeus grumbles as the palace empties. “There is no way to reach any kind of consensus with - at last count - almost eighty immortals in this room. I can barely hear myself think.” His blue eyes are sharp as ever as he surveys the room.
Hades looks bored and picks his fingernails in the center where Hestia has shrunk back into her child form. “Don’t complain. You were the one who agreed to that stupid pact Poseidon’s kid over there threw at us. Now the minor gods are getting all politically correct, and we can’t even call them ‘minor’ anymore. What a load of crap. Some of them could barely make grass grow if they tried - like that qualifies them to be gods. Little pipsqueak fairies, maybe.”
“I swore on the River Styx,” Zeus growls. “Not my fault. But he’s dead now, so we can go back on it, right? He’ll never know.”
“Hah.” Hades props up his feet on a stool he poofs out of mid-air. “You obviously haven’t been paying attention. Kid went for Isles of the Blest with that blonde girlfriend of his, whatever her name. He’s almost up for round three. And shit, if he isn’t causing all kinds of trouble in the Underworld and on earth.” Nobody asks, but Hades is apparently eager to share his complaints with the rest of the Olympian family. Since being invited to annual winter solstice meetings, the Olympians have gotten to know him much better. And the first thing they learned? Hades is an incredible gossip, and he has almost a millennium of backlogged he said she said’s to unload on the rest of them. “Yeah,” he plows on, “I guess it’s become some kind of betting game to see if he’ll make it next time around. I get that it’s been a while since anyone got into the Isles, but damn. I swear if I hear about that boy one more time, I’ll pop him off myself. Persephone, for one, creeps on him and the girl all the time. She thinks it’s the best thing since Desperate Housewives, and I got to tell you - she really loved that show.”
Zeus looks like he’s about to say something derogatory like - get a life, Hades, seriously - but he snaps his mouth shut in time before the next World War Three breaks out over Manhattan. “Well, how was I supposed to know that? I don’t hang out around dead people all of the time. I thought he just died and got it over with. Could’ve picked immortality, but he always had to be all non-conventional and self-sacrificing.”
“Speaking of Percy Jackson and…that girl-” Hades begins.
“-Annabeth,” Athena interjects. “Her name is Annabeth.” She sounds irritated. “You don’t have to keep referring to her as ‘that girl,’ Uncle.”
“Doesn’t matter what her name is,” the lord of the Underworld continues heatedly, “the point is, they’re messing up the way things are supposed to be. We have rules we go by, and they’re just bypassing them all. And I know someone’s got something to do with it, so whoever it is needs to stop screwing with the way things work. Reincarnations are not supposed to meet each other. They are definitely not supposed to remember each other. Think about if every single reincarnation on earth right now met people from their past lives and got all their memories back? It would be chaos! It would be horrible! The spirits are supposed to go drink from Lethe before they get reborn so we don’t have this problem. So I went personally to go check the database of people passing through the Rebirth Processing Center, and did you know what I found?” His nostrils are flaring and he’s grown to twice his already-enormous height.
Poseidon rolls his eyes. “And I thought Zeus was the dramatic one in the family,” he says off-handedly under his breath. “All right, don’t keep us all hanging. Tell us what’s the matter.”
“There is absolutely no record of the two of them getting Lethe-water. It’s obscene. It’s ridiculous. Someone has been meddling in my system!”
From her seat, Aphrodite presses her freshly French-manicured fingers to her lips, but fails to suppress her giggles.
Swiftly, Hades turns to her and points. “It was you! I knew it!” he fumed. “This is not acceptable. This is not-”
She gives a pretty little flippant wave. “Oh, calm down; it was no big deal. I just bribed the service worker with a little - uh - love magic, and he came right around and did as I asked. Really, there was no apocalypse and the world is still turning. I don’t know why you’re having such a heart attack about it.”
“You - don’t know why,” Hades sputters, “-I - you are interfering in my kingdom. My kingdom! Mine!” he squeals childishly.
“Ah,” Aphrodite says sagely, “but matters of love are always in my jurisdiction.” She leans in, fluttering her eyelashes. “Mine.” She pulls a nail file out of the front of her dress and starts working at her already-perfect fingernails. “Besides, this was just too good to let slide. Oooo,” she coos, “this is going to be so amazing. I knew when I met little Percy Jackson for the first time that he was going to make a wonderful love story, but I never dreamed he would make my next masterpiece. He’s just the gift that keeps on giving! Marvelous.” She goes all dreamy-eyed and gives a great sigh. “I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”
“I know exactly how it’s going to turn out,” Hades snaps. “And it’s going to be Percy and Annabeth being born with absolutely no recollection of each other, having every last memory bleached from their brains. This kind of thing cannot happen again.”
Aphrodite makes a little moue with her lips. “Oh, but I’ve never seen Persephone so happy in years. She’s fallen in love with the story, dear. And you know how dull and down she can be in the winters normally. She’s practically glowing. It makes living with her a good deal more bearable, doesn’t it?” Her dimples deepen by the curve of her smile.
Hades colors up, making his sallow skin positively blotchy. “Persephone has nothing to do with what amounts to matters of business. She’s had her fun. Do not presume to think you will be altering the process again. They will drink from Lethe.”
Aphrodite crosses her arms and pouts. “You are such a Scrooge. But I have faith in my little lovebirds. They will find a way. Always do, you know. Confounds you, doesn’t it? I suspect you don’t understand how deeply memories are buried in the soul - there is always a good enough trigger. It just takes a little bit of time to find it. This will be a story for the ages. My greatest project since Cleopatra and Marc Antony.”
“You are sick,” Artemis declares from her throne. “You are making two people into ‘your project’ - don’t you find something wrong with that? Well, I always knew. Romantic love is such a manipulation.” She sniffs, as if her point has trumped all others.
But Aphrodite just smiles her mysterious smile and says, “No, my naïve little goddess. Love is fate.” She peers down, down below the clouds, down to Washington D.C. where she knows in a two years, a boy and a girl will be born to two families - two very different families indeed, but that all makes for a better story. “Third time’s a charm, my darlings,” she murmurs. She sets her elbows on the mother-of-pearl armrests and her chin in her palms, sighing. “Don’t let me down.”
Author: Icy Roses
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
Summary: One life is not enough for love. Percy and Annabeth try for the Isles of the Blest, but it seems that fate is not always kind to them. Post-series.
(Interlude)
Complication (n.) - a difficult factor or issue often appearing unexpectedly and changing existing plans, methods, or attitudes
...
It is December 21st, four days away from Christmas. Everyone is too busy looking ahead, threading through the holiday crowds, and seeking the shelter of merrily decorated, frosty-windowed stores. It is a sharply cold winter. Nobody lingers outside in the below-zero weather for too long. High above the city of New York, wound loosely around a mountain in the clouds, the palaces of Mount Olympus have quieted. White braziers burn like twinkling stars in the sky - which is no doubt what they look like to the mortals down below, if the city turned off all of its lights and sat in silence. But of course, New York is always never sleeps and the lights never dim. So the inhabitants of Olympus need not worry about that.
Winter solstice has passed and slowly, the minor gods begin to filter out of the main palace, some filing back into the city in the sky, and others disappearing to their places down below. The only ones left are the twelve - plus Hades, since he has officially been invited to Olympus since the Titan Rebellion so many years ago.
Zeus grumbles as the palace empties. “There is no way to reach any kind of consensus with - at last count - almost eighty immortals in this room. I can barely hear myself think.” His blue eyes are sharp as ever as he surveys the room.
Hades looks bored and picks his fingernails in the center where Hestia has shrunk back into her child form. “Don’t complain. You were the one who agreed to that stupid pact Poseidon’s kid over there threw at us. Now the minor gods are getting all politically correct, and we can’t even call them ‘minor’ anymore. What a load of crap. Some of them could barely make grass grow if they tried - like that qualifies them to be gods. Little pipsqueak fairies, maybe.”
“I swore on the River Styx,” Zeus growls. “Not my fault. But he’s dead now, so we can go back on it, right? He’ll never know.”
“Hah.” Hades props up his feet on a stool he poofs out of mid-air. “You obviously haven’t been paying attention. Kid went for Isles of the Blest with that blonde girlfriend of his, whatever her name. He’s almost up for round three. And shit, if he isn’t causing all kinds of trouble in the Underworld and on earth.” Nobody asks, but Hades is apparently eager to share his complaints with the rest of the Olympian family. Since being invited to annual winter solstice meetings, the Olympians have gotten to know him much better. And the first thing they learned? Hades is an incredible gossip, and he has almost a millennium of backlogged he said she said’s to unload on the rest of them. “Yeah,” he plows on, “I guess it’s become some kind of betting game to see if he’ll make it next time around. I get that it’s been a while since anyone got into the Isles, but damn. I swear if I hear about that boy one more time, I’ll pop him off myself. Persephone, for one, creeps on him and the girl all the time. She thinks it’s the best thing since Desperate Housewives, and I got to tell you - she really loved that show.”
Zeus looks like he’s about to say something derogatory like - get a life, Hades, seriously - but he snaps his mouth shut in time before the next World War Three breaks out over Manhattan. “Well, how was I supposed to know that? I don’t hang out around dead people all of the time. I thought he just died and got it over with. Could’ve picked immortality, but he always had to be all non-conventional and self-sacrificing.”
“Speaking of Percy Jackson and…that girl-” Hades begins.
“-Annabeth,” Athena interjects. “Her name is Annabeth.” She sounds irritated. “You don’t have to keep referring to her as ‘that girl,’ Uncle.”
“Doesn’t matter what her name is,” the lord of the Underworld continues heatedly, “the point is, they’re messing up the way things are supposed to be. We have rules we go by, and they’re just bypassing them all. And I know someone’s got something to do with it, so whoever it is needs to stop screwing with the way things work. Reincarnations are not supposed to meet each other. They are definitely not supposed to remember each other. Think about if every single reincarnation on earth right now met people from their past lives and got all their memories back? It would be chaos! It would be horrible! The spirits are supposed to go drink from Lethe before they get reborn so we don’t have this problem. So I went personally to go check the database of people passing through the Rebirth Processing Center, and did you know what I found?” His nostrils are flaring and he’s grown to twice his already-enormous height.
Poseidon rolls his eyes. “And I thought Zeus was the dramatic one in the family,” he says off-handedly under his breath. “All right, don’t keep us all hanging. Tell us what’s the matter.”
“There is absolutely no record of the two of them getting Lethe-water. It’s obscene. It’s ridiculous. Someone has been meddling in my system!”
From her seat, Aphrodite presses her freshly French-manicured fingers to her lips, but fails to suppress her giggles.
Swiftly, Hades turns to her and points. “It was you! I knew it!” he fumed. “This is not acceptable. This is not-”
She gives a pretty little flippant wave. “Oh, calm down; it was no big deal. I just bribed the service worker with a little - uh - love magic, and he came right around and did as I asked. Really, there was no apocalypse and the world is still turning. I don’t know why you’re having such a heart attack about it.”
“You - don’t know why,” Hades sputters, “-I - you are interfering in my kingdom. My kingdom! Mine!” he squeals childishly.
“Ah,” Aphrodite says sagely, “but matters of love are always in my jurisdiction.” She leans in, fluttering her eyelashes. “Mine.” She pulls a nail file out of the front of her dress and starts working at her already-perfect fingernails. “Besides, this was just too good to let slide. Oooo,” she coos, “this is going to be so amazing. I knew when I met little Percy Jackson for the first time that he was going to make a wonderful love story, but I never dreamed he would make my next masterpiece. He’s just the gift that keeps on giving! Marvelous.” She goes all dreamy-eyed and gives a great sigh. “I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”
“I know exactly how it’s going to turn out,” Hades snaps. “And it’s going to be Percy and Annabeth being born with absolutely no recollection of each other, having every last memory bleached from their brains. This kind of thing cannot happen again.”
Aphrodite makes a little moue with her lips. “Oh, but I’ve never seen Persephone so happy in years. She’s fallen in love with the story, dear. And you know how dull and down she can be in the winters normally. She’s practically glowing. It makes living with her a good deal more bearable, doesn’t it?” Her dimples deepen by the curve of her smile.
Hades colors up, making his sallow skin positively blotchy. “Persephone has nothing to do with what amounts to matters of business. She’s had her fun. Do not presume to think you will be altering the process again. They will drink from Lethe.”
Aphrodite crosses her arms and pouts. “You are such a Scrooge. But I have faith in my little lovebirds. They will find a way. Always do, you know. Confounds you, doesn’t it? I suspect you don’t understand how deeply memories are buried in the soul - there is always a good enough trigger. It just takes a little bit of time to find it. This will be a story for the ages. My greatest project since Cleopatra and Marc Antony.”
“You are sick,” Artemis declares from her throne. “You are making two people into ‘your project’ - don’t you find something wrong with that? Well, I always knew. Romantic love is such a manipulation.” She sniffs, as if her point has trumped all others.
But Aphrodite just smiles her mysterious smile and says, “No, my naïve little goddess. Love is fate.” She peers down, down below the clouds, down to Washington D.C. where she knows in a two years, a boy and a girl will be born to two families - two very different families indeed, but that all makes for a better story. “Third time’s a charm, my darlings,” she murmurs. She sets her elbows on the mother-of-pearl armrests and her chin in her palms, sighing. “Don’t let me down.”