The Time Before 『A PJO/HOO Fanfic』❕ON HOLD FOR REWRITE❕

Percy - 14

"Preparations for your return have gone according to plan," Chaos told me as we walked through the many hallways in the castle. "But that is of no importance at the moment, what matters is that you are here, my son." He smiled at me, stopping in front of tall double doors. A silver-like metal with intricate details of the night sky decorated the entrance. "Your mother has long awaited your arrival." 

The doors swung open to reveal a large room almost the size of the throne room we came from. An open wall let in natural light from behind the bed, two pillars held up the arching decorations that floated above the bed and to the chandelier in the center of the room. The double Alaskan-king-sized bed stood in the middle of the back empty wall. A thin milky-white sheet draped its way around the bed, hiding the queen inside. 

"My mother?" I asked my face in disbelief. He nodded his head and urged me forward with a gesture of his left hand. 

With quiet and hesitant quick steps, I made my way to the left side of the bed. Even though I tried to be quiet, my footsteps echoed in the large mostly empty room. But as I got closer to the bed the easier I could see the figure under the sheets. There my mother lay still and unmoving, only her chest rose and fell and a raspy gasp of air every few seconds were the only indication of her being alive. 

I grabbed the edge of the curtain and stood there staring at my hand afraid. Afraid of what she would think of me. Of the sadness and grief I had caused her and everyone I once knew. 

"Dymitro?" 

My breath hitched. 

The voice of my mother rang clear in the silent room, she spoke as if she had never been ill. Never been griefing. But yet there she was. And here I was, on the other side of a flimsy and slightly see-through curtain yearning for my mother like a child. And with one swift motion, I moved the sheet and looked at my mother for the first time in centuries. 

Her brilliant white, ageless hair lay sprawled out around her, curving and twisting against the folds of the blanket around her. The silver circlet of her position in the kingdom hung from a hook on the bedpost high above her head, the dust had been collecting there for eons, never touched or moved. She looked at me with her dark grey eyes, the same color as the craters scattered among the surface of the moon. But when she looked to me, it seemed as if she had regained her purpose again. She smiled brightly and her eyes glossed over. "Mother."

I dropped to my knees next to the bed and held her hand, my eyes filling with tears. It had been so long since she held my hand. Her touch, even if it was just her hand, filled me with such happiness, I couldn't hold back my tears. 

"My son, my little snow rabbit, you came back," She smiled and caressed my cheek with her other hand. 

I couldn't speak. I physically couldn't, but I managed to squeak out, "I did, I'm back."

~ 

I looked out from the balcony in my room. It seemed strange that yesterday I was in the Poseidon cabin scared sh*tless about the memories flooding in and making me think I wasn't who I was, and here I am, prince of the universe and the son of chaos. But it still felt wrong. I didn't feel like I was home, just a guest. But the evidence of my residence says otherwise. I had portraits of me in the halls dressed like the prince I am, I had crowns and suits in closets the size of the big house. yet, it didn't feel like it's mine.

"Dymitro?" Luke called from the entrance of my room. He looked the same as he did all those centuries ago as well as he did when I meet him again at camp half-blood. "You good?"

"I dunno luke," I confessed. "I don't feel like Dymitro, but I look like him. But I don't think I'm Percy anymore, and I don't look like him much anymore." I ran my hands through my hair. "Everyone calls me 'your highness' or 'my prince' or 'sire' and I know I'm supposed to be a prince and all that crap, but it doesn't--I don't think it's me, ya know?"

My head hung against my arms as I leaned against the rail. "My head hurts from trying to be Dymitro, trying to live up to who he was and how he acted, but it feels like I'm chasing a ghost. Yes, I know who everyone is. I know my mom and dad, my sister Ilex, Amtrenai and Alkenai and Luseke and everyone else I knew as Dymitro. But I can't be Percy anymore because he was just something to fill the void till Dymitro came back, I just don't know who to be anymore."

A small bird came and landed on the rail next to me. It chirped and pressed its small head against my hand, begging to be pet. 

"I understand," Luke--or Entlukei I should say. "When Lord Chaos brought me back to life from the underworld, I still didn't have all of Entlukei's memories, just bits and pieces, enough to scrape by as him. But I still felt like Luke. I still had memories of fighting you in the war, commanding the monsters and gathering other demigods for Kronos, and as his memories began to take over I felt lost.

"I didn't know who I was." He picked the bird up after it hopped onto his finger. "I had memories of Entlukei with hopes and dreams of Luke, I felt conflicted."

"How did you fix it?" I asked.

"Eventually, I learned that Luke was just Entlukei if he lived a mortal on earth, what Entlukei wanted, what I craved." The bird flew away from us, joining its friend not too far from us. "I wanted the simplicity of living on earth with my family and friends, living the perfect life as a regular mortal. But I knew I couldn't have that dream, my life as Entlukei, as someone with power far greater than what I had as a demigod, gave me the sad life of Luke, who too wanted the simple life. He wanted the perfect family with his father and mother, but he didn't achieve it."

Entlukei turned to me, "The point is, you became Percy for a reason. Percy is the person Dymitro wanted to be, the perfect life he wished for, it'll just take time to adjust from one life to the other."

"Thanks, man, that helps," I said.

"No problem, you always came to me when you went into a super existential-crisis," He joked and ruffled my hair. "I have to go, general duties suck."

"Not my fault you wanted to be one."

"Shut up, prince else."

"You take that back!" I yelled and threw a snowball at him as he left through the door.

"That just further proves my point!" He closed the door after him and left me alone once more with my thoughts.

words: 1205

I hope this chapter makes up for my large absence, I hope that during the quarantine I can update more!

~kitty