Chapter Text
Percy was tired.
And so very angry.
She kept seeing Luke's face, the promise she had made that she just knew would barely last her lifetime.
What was the point.
She sighed, tilting her head back, letting her dark hair loose from the bun she had it in.
It was short now, cut to just below her chin. Normally it was tied up, out of her face. For a few years, she had used it to hide her face. But she had given that up after Zoe.
She wanted them to look upon her face, the face that the "Great Goddess of Loyalty" who abandoned them all, had worn.
And suffer.
But she did do everything possible to appear as different from "Perseleia" as possible. Short hair, dark clothes. Favouring navy, maroons, reds, black, grey, white.
No sea colours.
No yellows.
The marble was cold against her back, as she sat on the steps of Olympus, overlooking New York.
She had turned down immortality, just a mere ten minutes ago.
It felt like a fever dream.
"Thought we'd find you out here," a voice came.
Percy looked back to see Annabeth and Grover walking-limping- toward her.
She stood up, brushing the lint of her pants, adjusting the armour.
Still red with Luke's blood. With so much blood.
"Hey," she offered lamely.
"You doing okay?" Grover asked, his brown eyes a bit too good at seeing for their own good.
No.
"I don't know," she said, knitting her fingers together.
"But I do want to leave. You guys up for some food?"
Annabeth and Grover grinned at her.
She felt a smile cross her face, enjoying the moment with her friends.
Her family, really.
"I'm so hungry, I could eat a goat," Annabeth complained as they headed for the elevator.
"Hey!" Grover said, nudging her with his elbow.
"I'm proud of you," Annebeth whispered to Percy, their shoulders brushing in the elevator.
Percy shrugged.
"It was the least I could do. Maybe they'll sit up and do something."
"Maybe." was echoed back to her.
Percy couldn't find it in herself to care at this point.
She wrapped a lock of grey hair around her fingers.
Yet another thing that compared her to the Athenide.
Hooray.
She didn't want to despise this person she had never met. She didn't want to feel these things.
But she did.
Because the Athenide, the Athenide showed the love and compassion that the gods were capable of. And she showed the abandonment, and the isolation they commit as well.
They all grieved her, even though she had been dead for centuries.
Ignoring their other children whose deaths they could prevent.
Letting them die, simply for the reason it was too painful for them.
Percy clenched her hands into fists, trying to push back the anger.
She just needed to sleep it off.
She grabbed Annabeth's hands, as they stepped out of the elevator though.
She wanted that.
Poseidon was struck by how much his demigod daughter looked like Per-her.
It was the Styx's curse, making her appear like her.
She wasn't her.
She was too brash, loud, disrespectful. She seemed to hate what the gods stood for, but yet she still saved them.
She was still his daughter.
And for that, he would still love her.
As much as he could love anything with a broken heart.
Athena loathed the daughter of Poseidon.
She walked around, wearing her daughter's face, and her daughter's mannerisms and her laugh.
It hurt, and it cracked the cold facade that had been Athena ever since her daughter had turned to water in her hands.
Since her sobs had become the only music Athena could hear.
She scoffed and turned away from the girl, close with her friends, her daughter's smile .
It had been time enough to mourn. Mourn her other failures.
Her daughter would be avenged. And Annbeth Chase would be Athena's weapon of reckoning.