Percy Jackson: The Forgotten Foe (Percy Jackson fanfiction)

Reyna

Reyna POV

Annica. The Buddhist concept of impermanence, was always something I'd connected with quite strongly. I'd not had a family for long before I ended up being sent with my sister Hylla to Circe's island.

That was nice while it lasted but then that was torn apart and I made Camp Jupiter my home while my sister became the Amazon queen. But now after I'd betrayed them by fighting for End, it seemed I'd lost a home again. Impermanence indeed.

When I went back to Camp Jupiter, I didn't expect immediate forgiveness but I hoped my minor lapse of judgment would be atoned for by all the good I'd done through my life. This was not the case, it seemed the few bad actions far outweighed the many good actions. Campers would speak to me but they would never meet my gaze. At the mess hall they'd sit far away from me, only Frank and Hazel sat on my table to keep me company. During activities they would follow my lead out of respect for my position as the demigod queen; but I only had their grudging respect and my battle for their hearts and minds seemed to be a losing front.

I spent my time fulfilling my duty of rescuing and protecting demigods, I explained to them what happened in my past and most forgave me, others however asked to complete our journey to the camp they needed to go in silence. So while I had a few demigods who were now sympathetic towards me, they wouldn't openly show it out of fear of being ostracised by the other campers. Ironically they had the greatest respect for my husband, while they found his act of forgiving my treason "Un Roman" (they'd been sensitive about forgiving betrayal since Caesar and Brutus) they recognised the strength that took and his prowess as a warrior. People were much kinder to me when he was around, but you could see it was clearly a facade for my sake that no one was willing to call another out on.

Speaking of my husband, Hassan and I weren't as close as a newlywed couple might have been expected to be. He had made it clear that while he forgave me for what I did and that he did love me, he would need to learn to trust me again and that would take time. I respected his wishes and we largely spent our time apart until he announced he had a clandestine mission to undertake alone and that he needed me to fulfil our duties and obligations in his absence. I begged him not to go, fearing what had happened last time but he told me like then, this is what he had to do. He embraced me before he left and told me he loved me, but as I returned his words I felt a heart-wrenching feeling that he was again saying goodbye.

Annabeth and I had grown close during this time. No one else understood what we had gone through, either criticising us for being so weak to love or accepting what we had done but not being willing to forgive until the rest of the demigods felt it was time to. Annabeth and I had become as close as sisters, visiting each other every other day and coaxing each other's worries away as well as training alongside each other. After the war, Annabeth decided to celebrate her newfound divinity as the goddess of architecture by building a house for herself and Percy at Camp Half-Blood, on the outskirts of the Camp so as to grant a relative sense of peace while allowing her the necessary distance from the other campers who weren't exactly #TeamAnnabeth right now.

Annabeth had done the same for me and Hassan, while Camp Jupiter already had a vibrant housing district, Annabeth had managed to expand the camp's magical boundaries to build a large pavilion for us in the style of Venetian architecture which I was still in awe of. In the house she'd built a portal that would flash me to the edge of Camp Half-Blood so I could visit her while she would flash over to me whenever we had a girls night over here.

I don't think I would have been strong enough to bear this burden alone, so having Annabeth there to persuade me we would eventually win forgiveness greatly helped ease my conscience. I'd always had a weakness for needing to fit in what those around me and have an actual home environment, so this current circumstance was especially had to bear. Hopefully together we would win back our various camps to our side.

I was mulling these thoughts over as I walked through Camp Half-Blood, on my way to visit Annabeth. As I rounded what was once Thalia's tree on the hill and headed downwards, I saw a purple portal open a few metres away. It seemed Percy had returned...