Home Is Where The Heart(h) Is

Chapter 5: Closer

Chapter 5: Closer

"Can you tell some of the old stories about me?"

Percy thought about it for a while. He didn't exactly pay attention to his Mythology classes, especially, and he hated to admit it, the classes on Hestia. In his defence, his younger self found the stories uninteresting, given her conflict-avoidant personality. 

He was fourteen then, and thought only the war-related subjects were of use to him. On hindsight, he probably should have learned. He only remembered some stories that Annabeth drilled into his head. He cleared his throat. "Um..."

Hestia knew that look. The way his upper lip covered his lower lip and formed a straight line and his eyes flickered everywhere yet refused to make eye contact. The slight tremble in his hands.

Percy suspected she knew about his displays of nervousness. A week of meeting under the cover of night did that to a person.

And in that one week, things had seemed awfully calm, on Camp Half-Blood of course. No other campers had disappeared, and Dionysus told the campers not to send any search parties; the gods would handle this. Strangely, afterwards, he was recalled back to Olympus after delivering that message, and he had not returned since.

The morale of the demigods did not increase from the news. Despite many disliking Dionsyus, having a god in their presence in the event of a war would be comforting. First the Ares campers, now Dionsyus, and this new demigod arriving said to be Aphrodite's mortal form. Even for him, this sequence of events was most peculiar.

Aelia's, or Aphrodite's popularity spread, as did her spite. It seemed with the arrival of the new demigod brought chaos among the campers. Already five arguments had broken out among them, all of them boys. The girls obviously loathed Aelia, but since she was a goddess, they couldn't express their feelings, in fear of being smited if her powers were to return.

Percy thought it was rather strange that the children of Aphrodite were spiting their own mother. Could Aphrodite's power be so strong it could turn her own kin against her? Or was it something more foreign?

When Percy had told Hestia about this, she felt as though a void had opened and vacuumed her insides. Guilt washed over her, even if, as Percy told her, it wasn't her fault.

"You don't know a lot about me?" She asked, a tinge of amusement to her voice, knocking Percy out of his reverie.

Percy exhaled. "Well, I only know a few, and you probably don't want to hear them. You're better off not knowing."

"I'd rather know the painful truth than live with a comforting lie."

He shuffled uneasily. "Alright then. I guess the most well known thing about you was that you were chaste. You never married or fell in love, and hence rejected the marriage offers by Apollo and my dad." A pinch of anger bit at him for having to tell Hestia that she was to remain an eternal maiden.

Little did he know, the person next to him felt the same way, and that person in question chided herself afterwards heavily.

"Well, one night there was a party on Olympus, and you fell asleep in the woods, and this minor god, Priapus...he tried to...um...do it with you."

Hestia's face flushed from the story, but felt a bit thankful Percy tried to convey it in a better way.

"Anyway, there was a donkey nearby, and he brayed loudly just as he got close to you, and the other gods heard it, and then they rescued you. Afterwards, Priapus wasn't invited to anymore Olympian parties." He finished quickly.

They sat in a silence for a moment before he said, "You still think the painful truth is better?"

Hestia didn't have an answer.