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percy pov
mt st. helens
it wasn't long before the tunnel started to get hot.
the stone walls glowed. the air felt as if i were walking through an oven. a really large, never-ending oven. the tunnel sloped down and i could hear a loud roar, like a river of metal. the spider skittered along, with annabeth and riley right behind it.
"hey, wait up," i called to them. they were like grover with his hooves, jumping from one foothold to the next.
annabeth continued (as expected), but riley spared a glance back at me. "yeah?"
"something hephaestus said back there... about athena."
annabeth and riley shared one of their famous glances. (i thoroughly believed they inherited the godly ability to speak to each other in their minds)
"she swore never to marry," annabeth finally said. "like artemis and hestia. she's one of the maiden goddesses."
i blinked. "but then—"
"how come she has demigod children?"
i nodded slowly, feeling the red creep up my neck. riley looked like she was a second away from bursting out in laughter.
"percy, you know how athena was born?"
"she sprung from the head of zeus in full battle armor or something."
"exactly. she wasn't born in the normal way. she was literally born from thoughts. her children are born the same way. when athena falls in love with a mortal man, it's purely intellectual, the way she loved odysseus in the old stories. it's a meeting of minds. she would tell you that's the purest kind of love."
i hesitated, "so your dad and athena... so you weren't..."
"she was a brain child," riley stated.
annabeth continued, "literally. children of athena are sprung from the divine thoughts of our mother and the mortal ingenuity of our father. we are supposed to be a gift, a blessing from athena on the men she favors."
