✓ | 𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, luke castellan

ꜰɪᴠᴇ

Trial and Error.
 
⚡

   OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Luke took it upon himself to rotate Percy through nearly every outdoor activity Camp Half-Blood had to offer, hoping—praying—that the kid would find something he was good at. It was harder than it sounded.

    Percy, for all his determination, didn’t show a natural talent for much of anything. He was relentless, though, eyes always narrowed with a stubborn sort of fire, like he had something to prove—not just to Luke, or Rory, or the rest of camp, but to a father he’d never even met. Rory watched him closely and saw it plain as day: every failed attempt tightened something in his chest. He was desperate. Desperate to matter. Desperate to impress. Desperate to belong.

    Rory, to the surprise of pretty much everyone—including herself—actually showed up to her cabin’s scheduled activities for once. Valentine, was not pleased. Left to her own devices and without her friend to ditch with her, she reluctantly joined in on her own cabin's activities.

    First up: archery. Percy had the stance of someone who had seen a bow in a movie once and assumed that was enough. It wasn’t. His arrows veered off in wild directions, one landing disturbingly close to a group of naiads sunning themselves by the creek. His face flushed red with each miss, his jaw tightening.

    Next was foot racing. Percy looked game enough—until the nymphs joined in. He finished dead last, panting and red-faced while the rest of the runners had already doubled back to cheer on the stragglers.

    They kept trying: canoeing, javelin throwing, climbing wall. Luke grew quieter with each failed attempt, and even Rory started looking unsure. Percy was getting more and more frustrated, and no amount of encouragement seemed to patch the bruises to his pride.

    He wasn’t totally hopeless, though. On the wrestling mat, Percy surprised them. His build was small, but wiry, and there was a certain scrappy tenacity to the way he grappled with his opponents. Still, it wasn’t enough. The Ares kids—and especially Clarisse—were relentless. Rory winced as she watched Clarisse slam Percy into the mat for what had to be the third time that round. His limbs flailed like a puppet with its strings cut, and he landed with a thud that echoed across the pavilion.

    "Is that really him?" came a dry, unimpressed voice beside her. Maddie stood with arms crossed, an eyebrow arched in disdain. She was about Percy’s age, maybe a little younger, though you wouldn’t guess it from the way she held herself—tall for her age, lean and well-muscled, with a proud tilt to her chin and a mop of red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail today.

    "Be nice," Rory chided without looking away from the match.

    "Are we sure the Minotaur didn't just fall over laughing?" Maddie scoffed. Rory shot her a look and Maddie wilted slightly at her judgemental silence, shifting from foot to foot.

    "It's not fair, I could take him in a fight," Maddie mumbled, quieter this time. "Why does he get to fight the Minotaur?"

    "You have years of training," Rory shrugged. "He got here a few days ago. You'll get your turn."

    "I'll die of boredom before then," The girl sighed unhappily. She was about to say more, probably to complain some more, but Clarisse was calling her back over to the mat, as Luke helped Percy to his feet, brushing him off and offering him an encouraging pat on the back, leading him away from the mat. Rory went to join the rest of the Hermes cabin as they set off for lunch. 

⋆⁺₊⋆ 𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆

 
    “Is there a Greek god of disappointment?” Percy sighed, sinking further into his seat. His plate sat untouched before him, half-heartedly filled with a few servings he’d barely bothered to eat. The slump in his shoulders, the downcast tilt of his head—it was the very picture of dejection.

    Rory glanced at him from across the table, sympathy flickering in her expression. “Maybe someone should ask that god if he’s missing a kid,” Percy added with a dry, self-deprecating laugh, the joke clearly meant to mask the sting of his own words.

    Before she or Luke could offer one of their usual reassurances—something they’d been doing over and over again for the past few days—Chris piped up. "Oizys... But she's a goddess. And her whole thing isn't really disappointment, it's more like failure."

    Percy groaned and dropped his head onto the table with a soft thunk.

    Luke shot Chris a warning glance that said not helping, then turned his attention back to Percy. He leaned in slightly, elbows resting on the worn marble table, voice gentler now, threaded with the kind of steady, practiced optimism he pulled out when he needed to give pep talks. "We're gonna find the thing that you're good at. I know it."

    Percy didn’t lift his head. His forehead stayed pressed against the cool surface of the table like he was hoping it might swallow him whole. “I find that hard to believe,” he muttered.

    Rory exchanged a glance with Luke, her brows slightly drawn. She knew this kind of despair too well—how quickly it could creep in when you didn’t measure up, when every attempt ended in failure, when your cabinmates started to look at you like maybe you were just taking up space.

    Rory reached for a slice of apple and leaned back, eyes still on Percy. “It’s not just you,” she said, her voice softer now, less trying to fix and more trying to understand. “It’s hard for everyone at first."

    She gave Luke a pointed side glance.

    Luke picked up on it immediately and jumped in. “First week I got here, I nearly broke a bow string trying to impress Chiron. Couldn’t aim for my life. I only hit the target because I tripped and accidentally fired while falling.”

    Percy didn’t laugh, but he had lifted his head up slightly to look at them and his mouth tugged at the corner. Not a smile, exactly—but a flicker. Rory caught it. Counted it.

    “You’re good at canoeing,” she offered lightly.

    Percy exhaled hard. "Real heroic."

    The truth was, the day hadn’t gone well. None of the days had, really. They’d tried everything.

    Percy gave it his all, but nothing clicked. He wasn’t strong like the Ares kids, didn’t show the mechanical aptitude of the Hephaestus cabin, and when he’d stood in the strawberry fields with Castor and Pollux, nothing happened. No vines stirred at his feet. No greenery sprouted beneath his hands.

    By the time the sun had dipped low behind Half-Blood Hill, they’d crossed off almost every possibility.

    Now, as twilight settled around them, Rory rested her arms on the table and tilted her head toward Luke, her voice pitched low enough to keep it just between the two of them. “You thinking minor god?”

    Luke watched Percy across the table, who was currently stabbing halfheartedly at a piece of bread like it had personally offended him. Then his gaze slid back to Rory. They hadn't just been trying to reassure Percy. They were watching him. Studying him. Trying to figure out the bigger picture.

    "Maybe" he said. “He’s definitely not an Ares. Maybe Hermes?”

    Rory turned her head slightly, catching the subtle lift in his brow. He didn’t believe it—and neither did she. Percy lacked the slippery charisma, the trickster spark that marked the children of Hermes. He didn’t move like someone who could vanish and steal your wallet in the same breath.

    She gave it a thought though. “Jack-of-all-trades, master of none?”

    Luke gave the faintest shrug. “Better than feeling like nothing.”

    She hesitated for a moment, but the thought crossed her mind so clearly she had to voice it out loud. “Maybe he’s a Big Three kid,” she said lightly, almost jokingly.

    A moment of silence. They both knew it was more than a joke.

•••

A bit of a shorter chapter so sorry! You'll get a second one today to make up for it! The Lightning Thief has a total of 17 chapters so we're getting there...
Next few ones will be longer but I needed to get this part out of the way...

29/04/25 : Maddie my beloved and her one-sided hatred for Percy

•••