Percy Jackson: CHB Again?

Chapter 34: Choices

Written by: Awesomeelsa

I didn't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.

I woke up in a pew at the back of an old church. I vaguely remembered the room - I was sure it was the same one Narilla had shown me not so long ago.

My back was sore, like I'd been lying on the wood for centuries. If I had been, nobody would've noticed.

The place looked like it had been abandoned for years. There was no light except for a soft green shimmer at the far end of the room.

I figured my best bet was heading towards that, so I started making my way through the aisles to the front.

"Hello?" I said.

For a moment there was no answer. Then, finally, a woman spoke from the front of the room. Her tone was stoic and without humor, and something about it sent a shiver up my spine.

The green light folded away and twisted, until it was set like the outline of a woman. She knelt at the end of the aisle, her face raised as if in prayer to a dirty stained glass window above the altar. She was dressed in white robes covered with ornate silver designs, like runes or alchemy symbols. Her dark hair barely came down to her shoulders.

Despite the grime and dust she was kneeling in, the woman looked spotless. The green shimmer surrounded her like an aura.

I didn't know who she was but I felt like I should have. She wasn't one of the Olympians, I knew that much.

I said something really impressive like 'Um...'

"Otrera Hanji. You are finally here. You have made it to the crossroads." She spoke without looking at me.

And then it clicked.

She is where you will cross roads, Narilla had said. You're going to have to choose when it's over. She's so very perceptive, so difficult.

"You're Hecate." I told her. "Titan of Crossroads."

"Titan, Goddess." She waved it aside. "Crossroads, unfortunate and difficult choices. Yes, I am Hecate."

"Choices." I repeated. It felt like forever ago when I was promise these choices.

"Why?"

The goddess was taken aback, she shuffled her gaze so that she was actually looking at me now. I wished she would stare back into space again. Her eyes seemed to be reading me like a book. Her face was regal, her expression dangerous.

"Why what, demigod?"

"Why did all of this happen, and why am I getting choices? Poseidon told me it was sort of a test thing. But what was the test's purpose? Certainly not to determine my real godly parent, if that's even the issue anymore." I expanded. "Why?"

She seemed to consider this, and it took her mere seconds to find her answer.

"The test was to determine whether or not you could make it here, to the crossroads. Lord Dionysus thought you'd be driven insane. Lord Ares, Lady Demeter and Lady Hera were quick to agree. Lord Zeus, Lady Artemis, Lord Hephaestus, Lady Aphrodite, and Lord Hermes were the neutral party; they cared not about your fate. Leaving Lord Poseidon, Lady Athena, and Lord Apollo whom defended you; thus becoming your three parents."

I thought about that, then furrowed my brows. "That doesn't make sense. How could you be betting on if I'd make it or not if you hadn't decided who my three parents were going to be yet - because without my three parents this whole dilemma wouldn't exist and I wouldn't need to get to the crossroads in the first place."