Confidence & Pride// [Percy Jackson OC]// Book 5

{Chapter Twenty-Four}

______

Let me take your hand, I'll make it right/I swear to love you all my life
Hold on, I still need you
- Hold On (Chord Overstreet)
______

SOME ANSWERS ARE BETTER OFF NOT KNOWING

THE GODS APPEARED only about two minutes after Arya's scream. They entered the torn up throne room, thinking that they were battered and beaten. When they saw the state the four demigods and satyr were in, they felt they had no room to complain.

Across the room, Annabeth was in a similar shape, if not worse. She looked barely conscious, her arm bent at an odd angle. Her eyes were puffy from crying, she was covered in grime and sweat, like she was working hard to stay alive.

Grover was also distraught, looking around frantic, like he was scared something else was going to come after them. He was fiddling with his pipes like he was waiting for the signal to pull it to his lips and start playing a tune. He was shaking.

Percy had his arms around his friends shoulders. He looked the best out of the bunch both physically and emotionally, but his eyes wouldn't leave his sister across the room, worried she might do something stupid like she was prone to do.

Arya was sitting, with a hollow look in her eyes with the dead, broken body of Luke across her lap. She was rocking ever so slightly, like she was trying to calm him down, or maybe herself, they couldn't tell. She was cut up and bleeding, bruised all over her body. It was the toll she took for not taking the curse of Achilles and then fighting two Titans. Her body had to have been running on pure adrenaline.

"Percy." Poseidon asked, coming up to his son while the others took everything in. "What... What's going on with Arya."

In hindsight it was a stupid question. He could feel his daughters pain as she was holding the body of that boy.

"She loved him." Percy's voice spoke out tightly. "Even through the hurt and betrayal, the separation and fighting, she loved him, and never gave up on him."

Percy turned to face the rest of the olympians.

"We need a shroud!" His voice cracked. "A shroud for the son of Hermes."

Percy started to recount the story. Apollo kept one ear open as he made his way over to the Daughter of Poseidon, his friend. He tried to talk to her, but she wasn't responding, her non-broken had just running through the hair on Luke's head.

He was struggling being around her, all of her emotional pain was radiating off of her.

Not long after that did the fates arrive. They came to claim Lukes body.

"Arya you have to move." Apollo told her softly as all the gods watched in tired anticipation of how this was going to go down. 

"No" She shook her head. "Please."