"Send me! Send an army! Send a thousand ships! I don't care, just bring her home. I hate being without her."
[ PERCY JACKSON x FEMALE OC ]
[ PERCY JACKSON SERIES ]
cover by @humaneity !
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0003. | THE CAUTIONED SUN WILL ALWAYS RISE AND SET
The Daughter of the Sun God feared the oncoming summer.
She had once fought tooth and nail to free her father from his binds, to wrench open the prison and take up the bars herself so that the sun might be freed and shine highly in the sky once more, but now, the thought frightened her more than anything. Every day that passed when the sky was not as grey and when the clouds did not threaten so much rain, when the grass dried out and leaves crisped as flowers bloomed, when water was sought after and clothes were shed made dread climb up her throat. She didn't want it. She would never fight for it again if it meant that she could stay in the shadows and keep her love a secret from prying eyes.
Darkness was so much easier to hide in. Whatever foolishness that had made her afraid of the dark as a child was swinging like a pendulum in the other direction. What she had appreciated about sunlight and its clarity was growing to hatred. She did not want clarity nor clear sight, she wanted smudges and shadows that might help her hide Percy for longer. She did not want his birthday near. She did not want summer, she did not want the sun, she did not want brightness.
The Great God Pan had told her before his death that times when she was afraid were times she could be brave. Fighting was infectious to bravery, but as every mission passed, she was growing to see what little fighting did to stop the sun from rising and setting. Could she fight her father to save Percy? To slow down time enough that they could live a lifetime before it all ended? Could she do that all without becoming the monster from her nightmares? If she fought her father for love, to save a life, was she not following in the same path as Luke had before? There was comfort, she supposed, in walking a trodden path, but she had seen the journey that took and she did not want to spear others as she herself had been attacked. So what did it come down to—her own personhood, or Percy?
As every day ticked by and summer neared, her lack of answer tortured her.
She was angry. She was so angry all the time. Angry at herself for choosing Percy, angry for hosting Helen's soul, for being named in the Great Prophecy, for choosing between her friends, for hiding the secret, for doing nothing to stop it, for fighting for nothing because nothing was what would be left for her at the end of this war. She was angry at herself so much that she was imploding, but she was the daughter of the Sun God, she knew how stars worked and at the end of her implosion, the aftermath would ricochet and already her anger was flicking sparks into the dry, tearless faces of those around her, setting a blaze. She was a monster to be around. She was floating outside of her body, a star watching herself spark, knowing that there was nothing to be done to stop her rottenness from spreading. She was a sour fruit, wrinkling and rotting, spreading her decay until everyone else was as miserable as she was. She hated herself for that too. If she was so angry for her lack of time until summer, then she at least wanted to spend it in happiness, to make it all worthwhile, but she just couldn't. She was still a child and emotions were hard to focus when she was as desperate a puppet as she was. Her only hoped lied in having her puppet strings severed, the threads of her life carried by the Fates cut so that she might be freed from this internal torment.
