On the Fringe // Chapter Seven (+ NOTICE)
NOTICE: Okay, before I get into an apology for the two and a half months of waiting, you might notice that we're still at seven chapters. Don't panic! I merged the first two chapters together to fit with the 5,000 word minimum I set for each chapter. Everything is still there, I didn't change anything.
Alright? Alright. So I'm really sorry about the wait; life decided it could break the laws of physics and suck and blow at the same time. This story sat on Hermes' hard drive for a couple of weeks untouched after my grandfather died, then was very nearly lost when my baby got hit by a virus. Luckily, I had copies. :) There's no foreseeable reason why the next chapter shouldn't be up sooner, but let's keep our finger's crossed, okay?
On to fic, then!
Title: On the Fringe
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eventual!Luke/Percy, past!Percy/Annabeth. Also some OC pairings, but those are very minor.
Warnings: AU, slash (m/m and f/f). Also, there's a handful of OCs, but most of them are camp counselors with minor roles.
Author's Note: This fic completely changes Luke's fate in The Last Olympian and will otherwise have spoilers. And if you bothered to look at the pairings and warnings, there will be slash, both with boys and girls, so if you don't like it, use your handy little back button right now. If you're still reading this, enjoy the fic.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are copyright to Rick Riordan and if he had any idea what I'm doing with his characters, I'm sure he'd be out for my foolish mortal blood. I do, however, own the OCs.
Chapter Seven
Nico, having taken third watch over the night, woke Percy and Tayen up in the morning. Tayen rummaged through a belt bag that she had brought with her and drew forth three tiny vials, which she explained, were more or less a magical equivalent of an energy drink with supplements to keep them going. She also passed out Nature Valley bars that she had in her bag. Since they couldn't eat any food they found in the Underworld without being trapped there for eternity, the whole grain bars, while not exactly filling, would at least keep them from starving.
They ate as they moved, munching on the mortal snacks as Nico led them through the Underworld. They didn't have much time left. They had to find Mnemosyne's Pool before midnight, when it would shift its location again. Even if they found it in time, they had to hope Luke didn't reach it before they did, otherwise the whole point was completely moot - they were trying to keep the son of Hermes from finding the pool to restore his memories. And, in order to find the Pool of Memories, they had to figure out what the rhyme Makaria had given Percy meant.
Percy also felt that they needed to discuss what Eros had told him in his dream. He knew he could trust Nico and he was pretty sure he could trust Tayen - he wouldn't be traversing the Underworld with the older teen if he didn't - so he brought up the dream as they walked. Tayen was very interested in what Eros said, especially when Percy mentioned that Luke had been in love with him for a long time.
"He never admitted it, but Silena and I could tell," she said as she carefully stepped down a steep slope. It was already known that the daughter of Hecate had been pretty close to Luke during his years on the side of the Titans, but Percy wanted to know exactly how she knew the son of Hermes, so he urged her to continue. "Luke was confused about it for a long time, too. He was supposed to hate you, since you were on the Olympian side, his enemy. And he did hate you for a while."
"I could tell," Percy muttered, remembering, with vivid details, that first time Luke had tried to kill him directly. He let his fingers come absent-mindedly to the scar on his palm. "Eros said he realized it long ago, though."
Tayen shrugged. "I don't know when exactly he realized it. I didn't come aboard the Princess Andromeda until it came down to Barbados and it was another six months before I even knew what was going on." She kicked a stone out of her path, watching it skid and tumble along the path. "I wasn't all that important in the ranks, if you can call the demigods and monsters that were in the Titan army 'ranks' at all, but I was someone willing to talk to Luke like a person, rather than just the guy kind of in charge."
"And that made a difference?"
Tayen gave Percy an unimpressed look, her dark eyes narrowing just slightly. "Look, Percy, I know you're new to this whole 'being in love with Luke' thing, but at the very least, you could try to understand him or at least our side. In the Titan army, we didn't have friends. We didn't have connections like everyone at Camp Half-Blood did. Luke had no one to trust except for Silena and I."
Percy gave a flinch and muttered an apology. When Tayen seemed to take it and move on, still following Nico as they walked through the Underworld, the son of Poseidon decided maybe it was time to drop the subject, in case he upset the older teen again. For a while, the three of them were silent as they moved along, occasionally just avoiding a conflict with some Underworld being - since they were on such a tight schedule, it was best to keep away from any fights. They had to keep moving.
Eventually, it seemed like Tayen had dropped the subject as well, keeping to herself again. Nico hadn't been very talkative since he'd discovered he was the son of Hades, so he was keeping to himself as well. In the silence, Percy found himself going over the things he knew for sure about Luke, the feelings he had for the older demigod and what he knew about Luke.
It didn't seem to make any sense to him at all that Luke had been in love with him for a long time. He was asking himself the same questions as before - if Luke loved him, why had he tried to kill him on so many occasions? Why had Luke remained on the Titans' side? Had Luke realized that loving Percy was too dangerous or something? And why has Luke asked Annabeth if she loved him when he came so close to dying on Olympus and not even look at Percy? Percy had no answers to these questions. He couldn't ask Luke, Tayen wasn't answering questions right now and she'd admitted that she didn't even know when Luke had realized his feelings.
He was going in circles. The same questions, the same lack of answers. Eros hadn't been a lot of help, just giving Percy more questions and answering none of the important ones. So now he knew that he was always meant to fall in love with Luke. Why? Aphrodite had decided to mess with his love life, keep him from realizing who his true love was, according to Eros. Again, why? Percy needed answers and the only one who could even begin to tell him what he needed to know, he was on a mission to stop from regaining the memories needed to give Percy answers.
Stopping in his tracks, the son of Poseidon stood in the middle of a rocky field, thinking. Tayen and Nico realized a minute later that Percy had stopped and both of them had turned around to look at him. Nico was silent, though he had his eyebrow arched towards Percy, as though that was enough to ask what Percy was doing. Tayen was a little more vocal.
"Percy, what are you doing?" she asked, giving an exasperated sigh. She moved to approach the younger demigod and try to get him moving again. "We don't have time for this. We have to keep moving. Luke could have already reached the Pool by now."
Percy looked at her. "What's the problem if he has?" he asked the daughter of Hecate. "He wants to know what he's missing. He knows that the cover story is a bunch of lies. Luke's looking for answers, so why not let him have them? So he remembers what happened. What's the problem there?"
Tayen looked taken aback by Percy's words, just completely stunned that the son of Poseidon would suddenly change his mind about stopping Luke. It had been Percy's idea to start with! "Percy - "
"Percy," Nico interrupted the daughter of Hecate, stepping forward until he was standing in front of Percy. Since Percy was taller than he was, he still had to look up to the son of Poseidon, lifting his head a couple inches until his dark eyes met with Percy's. "Drinking from the Pool of Memories can be incredibly dangerous for a living person. If Luke drinks its water, the memories that come back to him can easily drive him insane."
"Luke's biggest regret in life, since I've known him," Tayen spoke up from where she stood behind the son of Hades, "has been hurting you, Percy. It doesn't matter when he realized he loved you, what matters is that when he did realize it, he regretted ever hurting you." She looked the son of Poseidon hard in the eye. "Didn't you ever wonder why your side won more battles than you lost? Luke's been training for years longer than you have, he's had some of the strongest monsters at his disposal. And yet you still won. Luke took control of the Titan army to make sure you won."
Percy arched a brow at the dark girl. "You mean to say he handed me those victories? That I never won on my own strength?"
Tayen gave an exasperated sigh. "If Luke was handing you victories, the Titans would have figured him out. No, he was sending you challenges he knew would make you stronger, so you would be ready to do what was needed when the time came."
That made sense. Percy could see the logic behind it, a strategy that would have made Annabeth proud. It was sneaky, under-handed, but at the same time, direct and strong. Making Percy stronger with each challenge, each of the quests that the son of Poseidon had found himself on had been, from what Tayen said, to make sure that Percy won the war. Something, however, nagged at the demigod. If Luke had been somehow manipulating the war to make Percy stronger, then -
"Why did he let himself become Kronos' host?"
Tayen flinched as soon as Percy asked. It was clear that whatever the answer was, it was nothing good. For a moment, Percy thought that he'd pushed too far, gone into something that wasn't meant for him to know. He was half-afraid that the daughter of Hecate wasn't going to answer, though it was obvious that she knew the answer to the question.
"We should keep going," Nico said, quietly when neither of the older demigods spoke. They were still on a quest to reach Luke and if they stayed at a stop here, the son of Hermes would surely reach Mnemosyne's Pool far before they did.
"Wait," Tayen shook her head. Her eyes slipped shut and she gave a soft sigh of resignation before running a hand through her two-tone hair. She then looked to Percy with apprehension in her eyes. "He did it for you, Percy."
Percy's eyes widened at Tayen's answer. That...didn't make sense! "H-how could something like that be for me?" he gaped at the Barbadian. "How does...giving his body to Kronos..."
"How does that give you an edge?" Tayen asked, disheartened. She gave the son of Poseidon an uneasy smile. "Because he knew that, if anyone else became Kronos' host, you wouldn't stand a chance. It had to be him. Luke knew that he could fight Kronos' hold long enough to use the cursed blade on himself. Anyone else wouldn't have even wanted to fight Kronos and the 'cursed blade' wouldn't have worked on them."
Silence fell between the three demigods. Tayen had to have been close to Luke to know this information, more than just someone he could trust. She had to have been his friend. Percy realized this now, as he stood with the daughter of Hecate. She'd been Luke's friend, when friends were as dangerous to those in the Titan army as anything else. She'd stood by Luke's side, let him confide in her and held his secrets for him. And now he didn't even remember her.
It had to hurt her. Even more so, her intent to stop Luke from regaining his memories had to hurt her. Tayen was giving up what she'd been to the son of Hermes in order to protect him from memories she knew would hurt him. Her friendship with Luke was her sacrifice for his happiness.
"Do you understand now, Percy?" she asked the son of Poseidon. There was a distinct sadness in her voice as she spoke, like she knew that Percy did understand. "If Luke drinks from Mnemosyne's Pool and remembers what he's responsible for, everything that he's done to hurt you - even if it was with the intent on making you stronger - he won't be able to forgive himself. Those memories were erased for a reason, a very good reason. They have to stay erased."
Percy gave a nod. He still had a lot of questions, but those questions could always be answered later. Right now, he needed to throw his shoulders back, take a stand and move forward. Tayen and Nico were both right; they had to get to Luke. If Luke could really be hurt by his memories, maybe it was just better if he didn't have them.
* * * * *
Of course, traveling through the Underworld was never an easy task. Percy had done it a few times now; during his first quest, again when Persephone had summoned him, Nico and Thalia to retrieve the Sword of Hades, and then when Nico had led him through the Underworld to take a swim in the Styx. Each time, there had been some difficulties. With this latest quest, things were no different, even with two children of Underworld gods - Hecate, as a goddess of ghosts and friend to Persephone, had her own influences in the Underworld, thus Tayen had her own connection. The trio still ran into wayward spirits and dangerous Keres. These they had some trouble with. It didn't matter to the Keres who the three demigods were; they were living demigods and, therefore, had no business in the Underworld.
Between Nico's dark powers, Tayen's crossbow and Percy's sword, they eventually drove off the Keres, but now they had even less time to catch up with Luke and Percy still couldn't make sense of Makaria's rhyme. He heard no song, no voice to lead the way. They were running out of time. According to Nico's sense of time, it was already well past noon. They needed to figure out what the rhyme meant, how Percy could hear the song that Makaria had said would guide them to the Pool.
"Hey, Percy," Nico said, turning to the son of Poseidon. "What, exactly, did Eros say in the dream you mentioned?"
Percy took a moment to think, recalling the dream and the conversation he'd had with the god of love. He wasn't sure how much of the dream could be of use to them when it came to finding Luke or the Pool. "He said that my love for Luke would guide me to him," he told the other demigod. His hand came up to brush over the spot on his forehead where Eros had kissed him, promising him protection and a way to open his mind. "It sounds like a really bad cliché, but Eros said that love will open my mind."
Nico and Tayen both paused to mull over that. There were so many meanings to that, as many meanings as the rhyme that Makaria had given Percy. With time working against them and Luke still far ahead of them, they had to figure this out and figure it out now. Nico couldn't be much help with the words of the god of love, considering his status as the son of Hades - children of Hades had a particularly hard time with love, considering how much their father had upset Aphrodite by taking love into his own hands in kidnapping Persephone; never mind that the springtime goddess had fallen in love with Hades in time. Not to mention he only just turned thirteen and, thus, was too young to really understand love.
Tayen, though, had an inkling of an idea. "The rhyme said to 'open thy heart', right?" she asked. She took hold of the key-pendant around her neck, tugging it back and forth along its chain. "What if, theoretically, there's something holding your heart closed?"
Percy arched a brow at the Barbadian girl. "What do you mean?"
The daughter of Hecate furrowed her brow and ran her tongue over her lower lip, still hashing out her thoughts. "Percy, for the past year, you've been kind of, sort of, dating Annabeth," she told the younger demigod. Though Percy had only just come back to camp in June, a lot of the campers, especially the Aphrodite kids, had gossiped about the relationship between the son of Poseidon and the daughter of Athena; Percy and Annabeth were the new Brad and Angelina to the demigods of Camp Half-Blood. "Considering your recently surfaced feelings for Luke, your heart is going to be confused. You have feelings for Annabeth still, right?"
"Duh. She's one of my best friends," Percy replied. He'd had this same problem, figuring out what to do about his lingering feelings for Annabeth while realizing his love for Luke. "And, as you pointed out, we were 'kind of, sort of' dating. Of course I have feelings for her. It's just...not what she wants from me."
Tayen stepped closer to Percy, reaching out and putting a hand on the younger teen's shoulder. "I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure what I'm talking about," she said, keeping her voice gentle as she spoke to the son of Poseidon. "But...maybe, you're meant to open your heart by letting go of what's holding you back."
"That's kind of a harsh way of putting it," Percy told the daughter of Hecate, giving a frown. "Annabeth's done so much for me. She's always been there for me, why would she be holding me back now?"
"Think about it, Percy," Nico told the older demigod. Young he may be and, yeah, he didn't understand love very well, but he'd at least picked up on what Tayen was thinking and Percy was failing to see. "It's not so much she's holding you back, but your heart's holding back. You need to let your heart open and, to do that, you need to clear things with Annabeth."
Percy blinked, momentarily confused. Then he realized that both Tayen and Nico were right. He, himself, had realized it a couple of days ago, when he'd tried to figure out how to tell the daughter of Athena. He'd missed his chance to explain himself, had been so caught up in telling Luke that he was in love with him that he'd completely blown off the girl he'd thought he loved. Well, in all honesty, he did love Annabeth, just - as he'd said moments ago - not the way she deserved to be loved. Percy had ditched Annabeth at the fireworks in favor of Luke, without even giving her an explanation and, in doing so, he'd hurt her. Knowing that, his heart clenched.
"You're right," he said finally. He gave a nod, reaffirming the fact that the other two were right. "I have to tell her. But she's on Olympus. We're in the Underworld. How am I supposed to tell her anything? Iris-message her? That's the worst way of telling her."
Nico shook his head. "Iris-messaging doesn't work in the Underworld, anyways," he told Percy. "Iris doesn't have any power here, so she can't pass messages. The best bet would be to use the Hermes Express system."
"So what? He's going to write a letter to Annabeth?" Tayen asked, arching a brow. "How's that any better than breaking the news to her through an Iris-message?"
"I'm not going to," Percy said. "No. I need to tell her the truth face-to-face. Tayen, do you have any paper and a pen?"
"I thought you said you were telling her face-to-face?" Regardless of the question, the daughter of Hecate reached into her belt bag and pulled out a small flip pad and a small pen.
"I am. Just not until after we get back to the mortal plane. This is just to let her know we need to talk. I know I need to tell her the truth and I think that's enough."
Now Tayen and Nico both blinked at Percy while he scribbled a message onto a sheet of paper. The son of Hades was the first to speak up. "Is it enough?"
Percy nodded, giving a soft hum of acknowledgment. "I can hear it. Memory's voice."
Indeed, it was faint, but he could hear a song. It was in an ancient language, older than Greek, but familiar enough. It was a woman's voice singing, clear and very beautiful. He couldn't understand the words, but the way she was singing, he could understand the feeling of the song. It was a song of time past, of the present and a guide to the future. The song echoed, reaching through the caverns of the Underworld and to Percy's heart, tugging at him to guide him.
"You can hear the song?" Tayen asked softly. When Percy nodded again, the older demigod smiled. "Great! Which way do we need to go?"
Percy finished the note to Annabeth, then folded it up, wrote Olympus' address on the outside and pulled out a few drachma, praying that it would be enough for Hermes to receive and deliver the note. Thankfully, it seemed so; the note and drachma disappeared out of his hands with a small pop, leaving him empty-handed. Standing upright, the son of Poseidon closed his eyes and simply listened for a moment to pin down the direction the song was coming from.
"That way," he announced after a short while. He pointed the way and started forward. "Come on. We need to move."
* * * * *
With Percy now able to hear the song meant to guide them to Mnemosyne's Pool, the journey took much less time, but they still had to hurry. It was only Nico's sense of time that they knew the day was beginning to fade as they cut through the Asphodel Fields and crossed, carefully, the waters of Acheron, the River of Sorrow. The song grew louder, Memory's voice becoming stronger and clearer as Percy directed Nico and Tayen along. They had to change directions more than once and, as they got closer, there were more and more Underworld denizens that took notice of them.
Percy had known following Luke would be hard. He hadn't realized, though, that it would be this hard. Granted, the son of Poseidon had only been in the Underworld three times before - once to find his mother, a second time on a quest for Persephone and the third time to gain invincibility at Nico's urging. The first and third times had been relatively easy, the second being his introduction to the flying nasties known as the Keres. This time, though, things were more difficult than ever, probably because Mnemosyne's Pool was supposed to be heavily guarded.
No shit, Sherlock.
Percy swore that someone had to be messing with him, making things harder than necessary. It seemed every time he thought the path was clear, one more obstacle appeared in the way. The moment that he got Tayen and Nico across the Acheron, they were attacked again, this time by surprise. Percy had been tying off the small raft they'd found to get across the river and, no sooner than he pulled Riptide out of his pocket, he found himself wrapped up, tightly, in the long, diamond-patterned coils of a lamia. He tried to call out to warn Tayen and Nico, but the lamia covered his mouth with her hand. A yelp of surprise told him that Nico had been caught, too.
"What do we have here?" the lamia holding Percy asked. Her voice was cold, whispered and just this side of hissing. "Demigods. It's not often we have demigods in our part of the Underworld, is it, Evadne?"
The lamia who held Nico gave a soft hiss. "Unless you count that cursed son of Hermes that killed our poor Jacinda."
Luke. Percy's heart skipped a beat when the lamie, Evadne, spoke of a son of Hermes. It could have only been Luke that they were speaking of. If the lamiae had seen Luke, then he knew they were going in the right direction. He struggled to get free from his captor's grip, but the lamia who held him had him very tightly caught in her coils.
"Release them!"
Tayen stood, free, a few feet away, Kleidion in crossbow form and celestial-bronze tipped arrow at the ready, aimed directly at the lamia holding Percy. The older demigod had a serious expression on her face; she definitely meant business when she told the lamiae to release Nico and Percy. Percy wasn't sure how Tayen was going to handle two lamiae on her own, but before he could begin to speculate, Evadne gave a hiss.
"Stacia, she's one of Hecate's girls."
Stacia gave a hiss of her own, the sound right by Percy's ear. "What would a daughter of our mistress be doing here?"
Tayen kept her crossbow steady, dark eyes taking on a slight violet glow with her magic. "That is my business," she told the lamia, cooly. "Release them. You will not feed on these two."
"Oh, but it is so rare that we feast on demigods so powerful," Evadne told Tayen. She kept Nico tight in her own coils, the same diamond-pattern as Stacia's. Her fingernails, painted a shiny black, ran over the younger demigod's neck. "Surely we could have just a bite?"
Tayen glared at Evadne. "You would not risk incurring both my wrath and that of my mother. You will release both of them, unharmed, or, indeed, my mother will hear of it."
The two lamiae hissed in unison, then reluctantly gave up their prey. Neither of them were pleased that the two sons of the Big Three were accompanied by one of Hecate's daughters; had they been alone, the boys would have been a welcome feast for the lamiae. With their noses haughtily in the air, Evadne and Stacia started to slither away.
"Wait!" Percy called after them. "What about the son of Hermes?"
"What of him?" Evadne asked.
"Where is he? What have you done with him?"
Stacia gave a snort and flipped her dark brown braids over her shoulder. Now that Percy could see her, he was surprised by how lovely the lamia was - until he reached her waist, where her body shifted to end in a long snake tail. She had dark skin, nearly the same dirty brown as her hair, with scattered black, gold and brown scales over her skin. Her yellow eyes, really yellow, were slit-pupiled like a serpent's. She wore only a dull red shirt that proudly exclaimed 'With a shirt like this, who needs pants?' Had the situation been a little less urgent, Percy would have been cracking up at that, but he needed an answer from the monster.
"The jerk killed our sister and ran off," she told Percy. Her dark hand came up to point towards a rocky passage nearby. "He headed that way about an hour ago."
"There's nothing that way, though," Evadne shrugged. She looked almost exactly like Stacia, though her hair was cut super short, with long bangs that crossed diagonally across her forehead. She just had a plain black tanktop. "I don't know what he's after, but he's not going to find much that way. Now, if you don't mind, since little Miss Daughter-of-Hecate won't let us have a taste of you, we're going to go hunting."
"By your leave, then," Tayen told them, though she kept her crossbow up, in case the lamiae changed their minds. She only lowered it when both Stacia and Evadne were out of sight, having slithered down the shore.
"I guess we should thank you," Percy told her, coming over to the daughter of Hecate.
"I did just save you from being eaten by creepy snake girls," Tayen replied, letting Kleidion return to pendant form. She slipped the necklace over her head and let it drop to her chest. Actually, she'd been pretty lucky about them running into lamiae; any other servants of her mother might not have been so accommodating. "But we're in a hurry, remember? Save the thanks for after we catch up with Luke. You heard that lamia; Luke's only an hour ahead of us. We can still reach him."
Percy nodded. After making sure that Nico was alright - the son of Hades was a little grossed out by Evadne's coils, but otherwise fine - he led his friends towards the passage that Stacia had pointed out. The song he'd heard was louder than ever and he knew, despite what Evadne had said about nothing being this way, that Mnemosyne's Pool wasn't that far off. And if Luke had only just run into these lamiae an hour ago, then there was definitely still a chance of Percy, Nico and Tayen catching up with him.
They just had to reach him before he got to the Pool.
* * * * *
The song was at its loudest, the voice of the woman singing as strong and crystal clear as if Percy was sitting in front of her, listening to her perform just for him. Her voice echoed through the caverns of the Underworld, a beautiful, soprano voice, singing those ancient words in a slow, but heart-wrenching crescendo. As they'd gotten closer and closer, both Tayen and Nico began to hear the song as well, as it became more and more corporeal. As they hiked down from the path they were on, they saw, about fifty feet ahead of them, a wall of stone, with an hole cut through its surface.
Light shone through the hole, a soft, warm golden glow in an otherwise cold and dark area of the Underworld. Percy knew, right away, that hole was the entrance to Mnemosyne's Pool. It couldn't be anything else. The song drifted out from that entry. In front, a group of young women stood guard. These women were lampades, the torch-bearing nymphs of the Underworld. Percy was reminded of the pseudo-goth girls he saw at his high school during the school year - they all had long hair, either bleach blonde or silky black, their skin was pale and they wore dark clothes; actually, it looked like their entire wardrobe had come straight out of Hot Topic. They all wore black eyeliner and varying shades of red lipstick.
Percy led Tayen and Nico closer, hand wrapped around Riptide, ready to uncap and extend it to sword form if the need came. As he approached the hole in the wall, he tried to look past the guards and into the grotto behind them. He could see strange plants growing around it, like Persephone had been helping Mnemosyne grow a truly unique garden around her pool. He could just see the edges of the pool, a glassy basin filled with silver liquid, as if it weren't water at all that laid within the pool.
Bringing his attention back to the guards, Percy's eyes widened as he realized that one of the group was not a guard at all. It was Luke. The son of Hermes stood in front of the guards, sword sheathed, back to Percy. With heart beating wildly in his chest, Percy broke out into a run to catch up with the older demigod.
"Luke!"
Author's Note: So, yeah. I promised a couple people that I was going to end in a horrible cliffhanger and I'm pretty good at keeping my word on things like that. Again, I want to apologize for the long wait on the update. As a small bonus, though, have a bit of trivia: the song I describe in this chapter is actually influenced by 'Tides of Time' by the Dutch symphonic metal band, Epica. It's a very good song and I thought it fit perfectly for Mnemosyne's Pool.
If you want to listen to it, you can download it here
Alright? Alright. So I'm really sorry about the wait; life decided it could break the laws of physics and suck and blow at the same time. This story sat on Hermes' hard drive for a couple of weeks untouched after my grandfather died, then was very nearly lost when my baby got hit by a virus. Luckily, I had copies. :) There's no foreseeable reason why the next chapter shouldn't be up sooner, but let's keep our finger's crossed, okay?
On to fic, then!
Title: On the Fringe
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eventual!Luke/Percy, past!Percy/Annabeth. Also some OC pairings, but those are very minor.
Warnings: AU, slash (m/m and f/f). Also, there's a handful of OCs, but most of them are camp counselors with minor roles.
Author's Note: This fic completely changes Luke's fate in The Last Olympian and will otherwise have spoilers. And if you bothered to look at the pairings and warnings, there will be slash, both with boys and girls, so if you don't like it, use your handy little back button right now. If you're still reading this, enjoy the fic.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are copyright to Rick Riordan and if he had any idea what I'm doing with his characters, I'm sure he'd be out for my foolish mortal blood. I do, however, own the OCs.
Chapter Seven
Nico, having taken third watch over the night, woke Percy and Tayen up in the morning. Tayen rummaged through a belt bag that she had brought with her and drew forth three tiny vials, which she explained, were more or less a magical equivalent of an energy drink with supplements to keep them going. She also passed out Nature Valley bars that she had in her bag. Since they couldn't eat any food they found in the Underworld without being trapped there for eternity, the whole grain bars, while not exactly filling, would at least keep them from starving.
They ate as they moved, munching on the mortal snacks as Nico led them through the Underworld. They didn't have much time left. They had to find Mnemosyne's Pool before midnight, when it would shift its location again. Even if they found it in time, they had to hope Luke didn't reach it before they did, otherwise the whole point was completely moot - they were trying to keep the son of Hermes from finding the pool to restore his memories. And, in order to find the Pool of Memories, they had to figure out what the rhyme Makaria had given Percy meant.
Percy also felt that they needed to discuss what Eros had told him in his dream. He knew he could trust Nico and he was pretty sure he could trust Tayen - he wouldn't be traversing the Underworld with the older teen if he didn't - so he brought up the dream as they walked. Tayen was very interested in what Eros said, especially when Percy mentioned that Luke had been in love with him for a long time.
"He never admitted it, but Silena and I could tell," she said as she carefully stepped down a steep slope. It was already known that the daughter of Hecate had been pretty close to Luke during his years on the side of the Titans, but Percy wanted to know exactly how she knew the son of Hermes, so he urged her to continue. "Luke was confused about it for a long time, too. He was supposed to hate you, since you were on the Olympian side, his enemy. And he did hate you for a while."
"I could tell," Percy muttered, remembering, with vivid details, that first time Luke had tried to kill him directly. He let his fingers come absent-mindedly to the scar on his palm. "Eros said he realized it long ago, though."
Tayen shrugged. "I don't know when exactly he realized it. I didn't come aboard the Princess Andromeda until it came down to Barbados and it was another six months before I even knew what was going on." She kicked a stone out of her path, watching it skid and tumble along the path. "I wasn't all that important in the ranks, if you can call the demigods and monsters that were in the Titan army 'ranks' at all, but I was someone willing to talk to Luke like a person, rather than just the guy kind of in charge."
"And that made a difference?"
Tayen gave Percy an unimpressed look, her dark eyes narrowing just slightly. "Look, Percy, I know you're new to this whole 'being in love with Luke' thing, but at the very least, you could try to understand him or at least our side. In the Titan army, we didn't have friends. We didn't have connections like everyone at Camp Half-Blood did. Luke had no one to trust except for Silena and I."
Percy gave a flinch and muttered an apology. When Tayen seemed to take it and move on, still following Nico as they walked through the Underworld, the son of Poseidon decided maybe it was time to drop the subject, in case he upset the older teen again. For a while, the three of them were silent as they moved along, occasionally just avoiding a conflict with some Underworld being - since they were on such a tight schedule, it was best to keep away from any fights. They had to keep moving.
Eventually, it seemed like Tayen had dropped the subject as well, keeping to herself again. Nico hadn't been very talkative since he'd discovered he was the son of Hades, so he was keeping to himself as well. In the silence, Percy found himself going over the things he knew for sure about Luke, the feelings he had for the older demigod and what he knew about Luke.
It didn't seem to make any sense to him at all that Luke had been in love with him for a long time. He was asking himself the same questions as before - if Luke loved him, why had he tried to kill him on so many occasions? Why had Luke remained on the Titans' side? Had Luke realized that loving Percy was too dangerous or something? And why has Luke asked Annabeth if she loved him when he came so close to dying on Olympus and not even look at Percy? Percy had no answers to these questions. He couldn't ask Luke, Tayen wasn't answering questions right now and she'd admitted that she didn't even know when Luke had realized his feelings.
He was going in circles. The same questions, the same lack of answers. Eros hadn't been a lot of help, just giving Percy more questions and answering none of the important ones. So now he knew that he was always meant to fall in love with Luke. Why? Aphrodite had decided to mess with his love life, keep him from realizing who his true love was, according to Eros. Again, why? Percy needed answers and the only one who could even begin to tell him what he needed to know, he was on a mission to stop from regaining the memories needed to give Percy answers.
Stopping in his tracks, the son of Poseidon stood in the middle of a rocky field, thinking. Tayen and Nico realized a minute later that Percy had stopped and both of them had turned around to look at him. Nico was silent, though he had his eyebrow arched towards Percy, as though that was enough to ask what Percy was doing. Tayen was a little more vocal.
"Percy, what are you doing?" she asked, giving an exasperated sigh. She moved to approach the younger demigod and try to get him moving again. "We don't have time for this. We have to keep moving. Luke could have already reached the Pool by now."
Percy looked at her. "What's the problem if he has?" he asked the daughter of Hecate. "He wants to know what he's missing. He knows that the cover story is a bunch of lies. Luke's looking for answers, so why not let him have them? So he remembers what happened. What's the problem there?"
Tayen looked taken aback by Percy's words, just completely stunned that the son of Poseidon would suddenly change his mind about stopping Luke. It had been Percy's idea to start with! "Percy - "
"Percy," Nico interrupted the daughter of Hecate, stepping forward until he was standing in front of Percy. Since Percy was taller than he was, he still had to look up to the son of Poseidon, lifting his head a couple inches until his dark eyes met with Percy's. "Drinking from the Pool of Memories can be incredibly dangerous for a living person. If Luke drinks its water, the memories that come back to him can easily drive him insane."
"Luke's biggest regret in life, since I've known him," Tayen spoke up from where she stood behind the son of Hades, "has been hurting you, Percy. It doesn't matter when he realized he loved you, what matters is that when he did realize it, he regretted ever hurting you." She looked the son of Poseidon hard in the eye. "Didn't you ever wonder why your side won more battles than you lost? Luke's been training for years longer than you have, he's had some of the strongest monsters at his disposal. And yet you still won. Luke took control of the Titan army to make sure you won."
Percy arched a brow at the dark girl. "You mean to say he handed me those victories? That I never won on my own strength?"
Tayen gave an exasperated sigh. "If Luke was handing you victories, the Titans would have figured him out. No, he was sending you challenges he knew would make you stronger, so you would be ready to do what was needed when the time came."
That made sense. Percy could see the logic behind it, a strategy that would have made Annabeth proud. It was sneaky, under-handed, but at the same time, direct and strong. Making Percy stronger with each challenge, each of the quests that the son of Poseidon had found himself on had been, from what Tayen said, to make sure that Percy won the war. Something, however, nagged at the demigod. If Luke had been somehow manipulating the war to make Percy stronger, then -
"Why did he let himself become Kronos' host?"
Tayen flinched as soon as Percy asked. It was clear that whatever the answer was, it was nothing good. For a moment, Percy thought that he'd pushed too far, gone into something that wasn't meant for him to know. He was half-afraid that the daughter of Hecate wasn't going to answer, though it was obvious that she knew the answer to the question.
"We should keep going," Nico said, quietly when neither of the older demigods spoke. They were still on a quest to reach Luke and if they stayed at a stop here, the son of Hermes would surely reach Mnemosyne's Pool far before they did.
"Wait," Tayen shook her head. Her eyes slipped shut and she gave a soft sigh of resignation before running a hand through her two-tone hair. She then looked to Percy with apprehension in her eyes. "He did it for you, Percy."
Percy's eyes widened at Tayen's answer. That...didn't make sense! "H-how could something like that be for me?" he gaped at the Barbadian. "How does...giving his body to Kronos..."
"How does that give you an edge?" Tayen asked, disheartened. She gave the son of Poseidon an uneasy smile. "Because he knew that, if anyone else became Kronos' host, you wouldn't stand a chance. It had to be him. Luke knew that he could fight Kronos' hold long enough to use the cursed blade on himself. Anyone else wouldn't have even wanted to fight Kronos and the 'cursed blade' wouldn't have worked on them."
Silence fell between the three demigods. Tayen had to have been close to Luke to know this information, more than just someone he could trust. She had to have been his friend. Percy realized this now, as he stood with the daughter of Hecate. She'd been Luke's friend, when friends were as dangerous to those in the Titan army as anything else. She'd stood by Luke's side, let him confide in her and held his secrets for him. And now he didn't even remember her.
It had to hurt her. Even more so, her intent to stop Luke from regaining his memories had to hurt her. Tayen was giving up what she'd been to the son of Hermes in order to protect him from memories she knew would hurt him. Her friendship with Luke was her sacrifice for his happiness.
"Do you understand now, Percy?" she asked the son of Poseidon. There was a distinct sadness in her voice as she spoke, like she knew that Percy did understand. "If Luke drinks from Mnemosyne's Pool and remembers what he's responsible for, everything that he's done to hurt you - even if it was with the intent on making you stronger - he won't be able to forgive himself. Those memories were erased for a reason, a very good reason. They have to stay erased."
Percy gave a nod. He still had a lot of questions, but those questions could always be answered later. Right now, he needed to throw his shoulders back, take a stand and move forward. Tayen and Nico were both right; they had to get to Luke. If Luke could really be hurt by his memories, maybe it was just better if he didn't have them.
* * * * *
Of course, traveling through the Underworld was never an easy task. Percy had done it a few times now; during his first quest, again when Persephone had summoned him, Nico and Thalia to retrieve the Sword of Hades, and then when Nico had led him through the Underworld to take a swim in the Styx. Each time, there had been some difficulties. With this latest quest, things were no different, even with two children of Underworld gods - Hecate, as a goddess of ghosts and friend to Persephone, had her own influences in the Underworld, thus Tayen had her own connection. The trio still ran into wayward spirits and dangerous Keres. These they had some trouble with. It didn't matter to the Keres who the three demigods were; they were living demigods and, therefore, had no business in the Underworld.
Between Nico's dark powers, Tayen's crossbow and Percy's sword, they eventually drove off the Keres, but now they had even less time to catch up with Luke and Percy still couldn't make sense of Makaria's rhyme. He heard no song, no voice to lead the way. They were running out of time. According to Nico's sense of time, it was already well past noon. They needed to figure out what the rhyme meant, how Percy could hear the song that Makaria had said would guide them to the Pool.
"Hey, Percy," Nico said, turning to the son of Poseidon. "What, exactly, did Eros say in the dream you mentioned?"
Percy took a moment to think, recalling the dream and the conversation he'd had with the god of love. He wasn't sure how much of the dream could be of use to them when it came to finding Luke or the Pool. "He said that my love for Luke would guide me to him," he told the other demigod. His hand came up to brush over the spot on his forehead where Eros had kissed him, promising him protection and a way to open his mind. "It sounds like a really bad cliché, but Eros said that love will open my mind."
Nico and Tayen both paused to mull over that. There were so many meanings to that, as many meanings as the rhyme that Makaria had given Percy. With time working against them and Luke still far ahead of them, they had to figure this out and figure it out now. Nico couldn't be much help with the words of the god of love, considering his status as the son of Hades - children of Hades had a particularly hard time with love, considering how much their father had upset Aphrodite by taking love into his own hands in kidnapping Persephone; never mind that the springtime goddess had fallen in love with Hades in time. Not to mention he only just turned thirteen and, thus, was too young to really understand love.
Tayen, though, had an inkling of an idea. "The rhyme said to 'open thy heart', right?" she asked. She took hold of the key-pendant around her neck, tugging it back and forth along its chain. "What if, theoretically, there's something holding your heart closed?"
Percy arched a brow at the Barbadian girl. "What do you mean?"
The daughter of Hecate furrowed her brow and ran her tongue over her lower lip, still hashing out her thoughts. "Percy, for the past year, you've been kind of, sort of, dating Annabeth," she told the younger demigod. Though Percy had only just come back to camp in June, a lot of the campers, especially the Aphrodite kids, had gossiped about the relationship between the son of Poseidon and the daughter of Athena; Percy and Annabeth were the new Brad and Angelina to the demigods of Camp Half-Blood. "Considering your recently surfaced feelings for Luke, your heart is going to be confused. You have feelings for Annabeth still, right?"
"Duh. She's one of my best friends," Percy replied. He'd had this same problem, figuring out what to do about his lingering feelings for Annabeth while realizing his love for Luke. "And, as you pointed out, we were 'kind of, sort of' dating. Of course I have feelings for her. It's just...not what she wants from me."
Tayen stepped closer to Percy, reaching out and putting a hand on the younger teen's shoulder. "I'll admit, I'm not entirely sure what I'm talking about," she said, keeping her voice gentle as she spoke to the son of Poseidon. "But...maybe, you're meant to open your heart by letting go of what's holding you back."
"That's kind of a harsh way of putting it," Percy told the daughter of Hecate, giving a frown. "Annabeth's done so much for me. She's always been there for me, why would she be holding me back now?"
"Think about it, Percy," Nico told the older demigod. Young he may be and, yeah, he didn't understand love very well, but he'd at least picked up on what Tayen was thinking and Percy was failing to see. "It's not so much she's holding you back, but your heart's holding back. You need to let your heart open and, to do that, you need to clear things with Annabeth."
Percy blinked, momentarily confused. Then he realized that both Tayen and Nico were right. He, himself, had realized it a couple of days ago, when he'd tried to figure out how to tell the daughter of Athena. He'd missed his chance to explain himself, had been so caught up in telling Luke that he was in love with him that he'd completely blown off the girl he'd thought he loved. Well, in all honesty, he did love Annabeth, just - as he'd said moments ago - not the way she deserved to be loved. Percy had ditched Annabeth at the fireworks in favor of Luke, without even giving her an explanation and, in doing so, he'd hurt her. Knowing that, his heart clenched.
"You're right," he said finally. He gave a nod, reaffirming the fact that the other two were right. "I have to tell her. But she's on Olympus. We're in the Underworld. How am I supposed to tell her anything? Iris-message her? That's the worst way of telling her."
Nico shook his head. "Iris-messaging doesn't work in the Underworld, anyways," he told Percy. "Iris doesn't have any power here, so she can't pass messages. The best bet would be to use the Hermes Express system."
"So what? He's going to write a letter to Annabeth?" Tayen asked, arching a brow. "How's that any better than breaking the news to her through an Iris-message?"
"I'm not going to," Percy said. "No. I need to tell her the truth face-to-face. Tayen, do you have any paper and a pen?"
"I thought you said you were telling her face-to-face?" Regardless of the question, the daughter of Hecate reached into her belt bag and pulled out a small flip pad and a small pen.
"I am. Just not until after we get back to the mortal plane. This is just to let her know we need to talk. I know I need to tell her the truth and I think that's enough."
Now Tayen and Nico both blinked at Percy while he scribbled a message onto a sheet of paper. The son of Hades was the first to speak up. "Is it enough?"
Percy nodded, giving a soft hum of acknowledgment. "I can hear it. Memory's voice."
Indeed, it was faint, but he could hear a song. It was in an ancient language, older than Greek, but familiar enough. It was a woman's voice singing, clear and very beautiful. He couldn't understand the words, but the way she was singing, he could understand the feeling of the song. It was a song of time past, of the present and a guide to the future. The song echoed, reaching through the caverns of the Underworld and to Percy's heart, tugging at him to guide him.
"You can hear the song?" Tayen asked softly. When Percy nodded again, the older demigod smiled. "Great! Which way do we need to go?"
Percy finished the note to Annabeth, then folded it up, wrote Olympus' address on the outside and pulled out a few drachma, praying that it would be enough for Hermes to receive and deliver the note. Thankfully, it seemed so; the note and drachma disappeared out of his hands with a small pop, leaving him empty-handed. Standing upright, the son of Poseidon closed his eyes and simply listened for a moment to pin down the direction the song was coming from.
"That way," he announced after a short while. He pointed the way and started forward. "Come on. We need to move."
* * * * *
With Percy now able to hear the song meant to guide them to Mnemosyne's Pool, the journey took much less time, but they still had to hurry. It was only Nico's sense of time that they knew the day was beginning to fade as they cut through the Asphodel Fields and crossed, carefully, the waters of Acheron, the River of Sorrow. The song grew louder, Memory's voice becoming stronger and clearer as Percy directed Nico and Tayen along. They had to change directions more than once and, as they got closer, there were more and more Underworld denizens that took notice of them.
Percy had known following Luke would be hard. He hadn't realized, though, that it would be this hard. Granted, the son of Poseidon had only been in the Underworld three times before - once to find his mother, a second time on a quest for Persephone and the third time to gain invincibility at Nico's urging. The first and third times had been relatively easy, the second being his introduction to the flying nasties known as the Keres. This time, though, things were more difficult than ever, probably because Mnemosyne's Pool was supposed to be heavily guarded.
No shit, Sherlock.
Percy swore that someone had to be messing with him, making things harder than necessary. It seemed every time he thought the path was clear, one more obstacle appeared in the way. The moment that he got Tayen and Nico across the Acheron, they were attacked again, this time by surprise. Percy had been tying off the small raft they'd found to get across the river and, no sooner than he pulled Riptide out of his pocket, he found himself wrapped up, tightly, in the long, diamond-patterned coils of a lamia. He tried to call out to warn Tayen and Nico, but the lamia covered his mouth with her hand. A yelp of surprise told him that Nico had been caught, too.
"What do we have here?" the lamia holding Percy asked. Her voice was cold, whispered and just this side of hissing. "Demigods. It's not often we have demigods in our part of the Underworld, is it, Evadne?"
The lamia who held Nico gave a soft hiss. "Unless you count that cursed son of Hermes that killed our poor Jacinda."
Luke. Percy's heart skipped a beat when the lamie, Evadne, spoke of a son of Hermes. It could have only been Luke that they were speaking of. If the lamiae had seen Luke, then he knew they were going in the right direction. He struggled to get free from his captor's grip, but the lamia who held him had him very tightly caught in her coils.
"Release them!"
Tayen stood, free, a few feet away, Kleidion in crossbow form and celestial-bronze tipped arrow at the ready, aimed directly at the lamia holding Percy. The older demigod had a serious expression on her face; she definitely meant business when she told the lamiae to release Nico and Percy. Percy wasn't sure how Tayen was going to handle two lamiae on her own, but before he could begin to speculate, Evadne gave a hiss.
"Stacia, she's one of Hecate's girls."
Stacia gave a hiss of her own, the sound right by Percy's ear. "What would a daughter of our mistress be doing here?"
Tayen kept her crossbow steady, dark eyes taking on a slight violet glow with her magic. "That is my business," she told the lamia, cooly. "Release them. You will not feed on these two."
"Oh, but it is so rare that we feast on demigods so powerful," Evadne told Tayen. She kept Nico tight in her own coils, the same diamond-pattern as Stacia's. Her fingernails, painted a shiny black, ran over the younger demigod's neck. "Surely we could have just a bite?"
Tayen glared at Evadne. "You would not risk incurring both my wrath and that of my mother. You will release both of them, unharmed, or, indeed, my mother will hear of it."
The two lamiae hissed in unison, then reluctantly gave up their prey. Neither of them were pleased that the two sons of the Big Three were accompanied by one of Hecate's daughters; had they been alone, the boys would have been a welcome feast for the lamiae. With their noses haughtily in the air, Evadne and Stacia started to slither away.
"Wait!" Percy called after them. "What about the son of Hermes?"
"What of him?" Evadne asked.
"Where is he? What have you done with him?"
Stacia gave a snort and flipped her dark brown braids over her shoulder. Now that Percy could see her, he was surprised by how lovely the lamia was - until he reached her waist, where her body shifted to end in a long snake tail. She had dark skin, nearly the same dirty brown as her hair, with scattered black, gold and brown scales over her skin. Her yellow eyes, really yellow, were slit-pupiled like a serpent's. She wore only a dull red shirt that proudly exclaimed 'With a shirt like this, who needs pants?' Had the situation been a little less urgent, Percy would have been cracking up at that, but he needed an answer from the monster.
"The jerk killed our sister and ran off," she told Percy. Her dark hand came up to point towards a rocky passage nearby. "He headed that way about an hour ago."
"There's nothing that way, though," Evadne shrugged. She looked almost exactly like Stacia, though her hair was cut super short, with long bangs that crossed diagonally across her forehead. She just had a plain black tanktop. "I don't know what he's after, but he's not going to find much that way. Now, if you don't mind, since little Miss Daughter-of-Hecate won't let us have a taste of you, we're going to go hunting."
"By your leave, then," Tayen told them, though she kept her crossbow up, in case the lamiae changed their minds. She only lowered it when both Stacia and Evadne were out of sight, having slithered down the shore.
"I guess we should thank you," Percy told her, coming over to the daughter of Hecate.
"I did just save you from being eaten by creepy snake girls," Tayen replied, letting Kleidion return to pendant form. She slipped the necklace over her head and let it drop to her chest. Actually, she'd been pretty lucky about them running into lamiae; any other servants of her mother might not have been so accommodating. "But we're in a hurry, remember? Save the thanks for after we catch up with Luke. You heard that lamia; Luke's only an hour ahead of us. We can still reach him."
Percy nodded. After making sure that Nico was alright - the son of Hades was a little grossed out by Evadne's coils, but otherwise fine - he led his friends towards the passage that Stacia had pointed out. The song he'd heard was louder than ever and he knew, despite what Evadne had said about nothing being this way, that Mnemosyne's Pool wasn't that far off. And if Luke had only just run into these lamiae an hour ago, then there was definitely still a chance of Percy, Nico and Tayen catching up with him.
They just had to reach him before he got to the Pool.
* * * * *
The song was at its loudest, the voice of the woman singing as strong and crystal clear as if Percy was sitting in front of her, listening to her perform just for him. Her voice echoed through the caverns of the Underworld, a beautiful, soprano voice, singing those ancient words in a slow, but heart-wrenching crescendo. As they'd gotten closer and closer, both Tayen and Nico began to hear the song as well, as it became more and more corporeal. As they hiked down from the path they were on, they saw, about fifty feet ahead of them, a wall of stone, with an hole cut through its surface.
Light shone through the hole, a soft, warm golden glow in an otherwise cold and dark area of the Underworld. Percy knew, right away, that hole was the entrance to Mnemosyne's Pool. It couldn't be anything else. The song drifted out from that entry. In front, a group of young women stood guard. These women were lampades, the torch-bearing nymphs of the Underworld. Percy was reminded of the pseudo-goth girls he saw at his high school during the school year - they all had long hair, either bleach blonde or silky black, their skin was pale and they wore dark clothes; actually, it looked like their entire wardrobe had come straight out of Hot Topic. They all wore black eyeliner and varying shades of red lipstick.
Percy led Tayen and Nico closer, hand wrapped around Riptide, ready to uncap and extend it to sword form if the need came. As he approached the hole in the wall, he tried to look past the guards and into the grotto behind them. He could see strange plants growing around it, like Persephone had been helping Mnemosyne grow a truly unique garden around her pool. He could just see the edges of the pool, a glassy basin filled with silver liquid, as if it weren't water at all that laid within the pool.
Bringing his attention back to the guards, Percy's eyes widened as he realized that one of the group was not a guard at all. It was Luke. The son of Hermes stood in front of the guards, sword sheathed, back to Percy. With heart beating wildly in his chest, Percy broke out into a run to catch up with the older demigod.
"Luke!"
Author's Note: So, yeah. I promised a couple people that I was going to end in a horrible cliffhanger and I'm pretty good at keeping my word on things like that. Again, I want to apologize for the long wait on the update. As a small bonus, though, have a bit of trivia: the song I describe in this chapter is actually influenced by 'Tides of Time' by the Dutch symphonic metal band, Epica. It's a very good song and I thought it fit perfectly for Mnemosyne's Pool.
If you want to listen to it, you can download it here