Because Nothing Lasts Forever

I

The wind whipped at his hair. He looked around at all the people gathered around— some glaring at him in hate, and a few looking at him in sadness, and rage towards the people glaring at him.

The boy was no older than seventeen. He breathed in a slow, long breath, before letting it out. His breath wasn't shaky, like some people's might have been if they were in his situation.

He opened his eyes and his gaze swept over them like an ocean breeze; cool and calm, but hard and unrelenting.

They were all shocked when they realized he had a wistful smile on his face. He was looking right at the corner where Death himself stood.

One man in front of the boy raised his bolt, expecting the boy to lose his sense of calm and wistfulness, but the boy only seemed to get more of both them.

Death stared him right back in the eyes.

The boy spread both of his arms out and looked to the man with the bolt. He looked him right in the eyes.

Zeus was taken aback for a second before throwing the bolt. It hit the boy and the boy fell to the ground.

Everyone stared at his body, some smiling, some in horror, some with sadness. Two people there were the ones who seemed the happiest about the boys death: his own half brother and a certain daughter of Athena.

They stood, hand in hand, as if they were the king and queen. They stood triumphantly over Percy's body. Annabeth and Ted, Percy's half brother, smiled.

But when Death started walking through the crowd, everyone parted for him. Thanatos usually collected souls while invisible so that he wouldn't be tricked.

They all wondered why he wasn't invisible now.

But Percy's body glowed slightly, and something rose out of it. It was Percy, but it wasn't. He glowed and his body was still on the ground. This was, by far, the closest that most of them had ever seen to a ghost.

Percy's sea green eyes scanned the crowd and fixed on Thanatos. Percy smiled. Everybody couldn't help but notice that he looked happier now than he ever had while he had been alive.

Thanatos stopped in front of Percy and held out a hand.

Everyone was shocked about everything. The demigods were just shocked by how Percy was acting, how Thanatos looked, and how Thanatos wasn't invisible. The gods were surprised by how he was acting, how Thanatos wasn't invisible, and how Thanatos was acting.

Thanatos was usually a god that was calm and pretty much just uncaring about what was going on.

(A/N I'm going off the impression that's given in the Son of Neptune. He's calm all the time, just doesn't really care much and does his job, even when he is chained up and stuff.)

He would just take a soul without emotion and go on. But now here he was— almost as if he was asking Percy to go with him.

Percy reached out without hesitation and placed his hand in Thanatos's. Everyone was even more surprised at that.

The pair turned to the crowd.

Percy spoke. "Thank you."

He looks to Thanatos and smiled. Thanatos smiled back, shocking them all even more. They disappeared hand in hand.