Origins of Olympus S2 One-Shots

Book Gift

(I don't know where this ship came from but if I have to be the sole passenger, I will go down with it dangit)

The last thing Magnus wanted to see when they woke up from their nap was their brother standing by their open dorm door very confused. Inpu held a brown-covered book carefully in his hands, scrutinizing it closely.

"What's that?"

"Some book that was left outside our door." He flipped open the cover and read something on the inside. "Says it's for you."

Panic started to set in deep in their chest. Why would someone want to give them a book? Was it a trap of some kind? Was it cursed? Magnus slowly took the book from Inpu's outstretched hand. Three interlocked triangles graced the cover, words in a language they didn't understand bordering the lines. Turning it over, they could see creases in the pages from dog-earing the corners.

They opened to the cover and sure enough 'For Magnus' was scribbled in pencil. Sharp, straight forward and intentional marks. No hesitation in addressing it to them.

Magnus flipped through the pages and stopped when they caught sight of a picture. A black and white drawing of an axe took up the full page. They gently touched the paper, fingertip stroking the insignia inked on the axe. Distinct markings that they recognized.

Magnus' stomach wrenched. "I think I know who this is from."

"You do?" Inpu asked, surprised.

They solemnly nodded and brushed past their brother. "Come on, let's go eat."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Magnus followed their brother inside the mess hall, subtly scanning the room. Not many people were there, most campers chose to eat in their own cabins. A low, boisterous laughter echoed off the walls and they snapped their head towards the sound.

At the back corner of the furthest table from the front doors, Nad was sitting across from Cal who was talking animatedly. No food was in front of them and Magnus took that as a hopeful sign that they wouldn't stay much longer. Davis sat next to Cal, leaning back in his chair and very close to tipping all the way back and eating wood.

Inpu handed his siblings a bowl and followed their line of sight. "Well?" he said. "Are you going to go ask him about the book or do you want to leave it be for now?"

Magnus twisted their mouth and scooped some soup into the bowl. It splashed about the ceramic, threatening to leap out. "Can't I just ignore it?"

"You can, but what are you going to do if he asks you about it? You can't stab him and hope he goes away, he seems very... inquisitive at times."

"That's not my problem." They headed towards the table closest to the doors, the nearest exit. Inpu simply sighed and followed.

Sitting down, Magnus could've swore to their father they could feel eyes on them. Watching. They peered at the table out of the corner of their eye. Cal had his head on the table and Davis was still laughing, patting his back. He caught Magnus and Inpu looking and waved happily. Nad looked over as well and smiled, giving them a small wave.

Inpu placed a hand on their shoulder, either to be comforting or fair warning Magnus couldn't tell. "I'm pretty sure they're just being nice. Two of them are in our pantheon, anyway. Besides we should probably thank Cal; he's been practically parenting Solis lately so we don't have to deal with him as much."

Magnus hummed and stirred their spoon, stringing the noodles around in the soup. The book was tucked safely away in their sash, the inscription still taunting even out of sight. They had wanted to leave it behind in their room, but something incessantly poked at them to bring it with. They really didn't want to confront Nad about it, but Inpu was right and Magnus didn't want to risk him bringing it up himself.

The doors opened and Mario strolled inside, nodding politely at the two Anubis children, and walked over to his friends. Cal lifted his head and sighed loudly with relief. He and Nad stood up, supposedly said bye to Davis, and followed Mario out the doors.

"I'm going to tell you what to do," Inpu said, "but I would suggest just getting it over with."

'Fine.' Magnus shoved away from the table, stood up, and tried to walk normally to the doors but probably came across more angry than they actually felt. They didn't think they were angry just... they didn't know what they were feeling. And they hated it.

Outside, the three were already trekking along the path towards the Greek side. Magnus hesitated by the door, pressing their lips together in a fine line. "Hey," they said no louder than they needed to.

Thankfully, Nad stopped and turned back. He smirked and Magnus felt the need to throw something at him. "Oh, hey Magnus." He glanced over his shoulder at where the other two had also stopped, noticing he was no longer with them. "You guys go on, I'll meet you there in a minute."

Cal looked back and forth between him and Magnus, looking like he really wanted to say something. But he simply nodded and he and Mario left. Nad waved them off and walked up to join Magnus. "What's up?"

"Was it you?" they asked bluntly.

"Uh, elaborate?"

Not breaking eye contact, Magnus pulled out the book and held it up. "This."

"Oh yeah, that was me," he answered, tone not even changing.

Magnus' eye twitched. "Why?"

Nad shrugged. "You seem to like reading a lot so I figured I'd give you something interesting to read. Well, interesting to me since it's my own heritage, but your brother did mention wanting to gather more information so..."

Magnus clenched their hand over their knife. He sounded genuine enough, but nothing he said made sense to them. They glanced over their shoulder back at the mess hall and could see Inpu watching them through the window. He gestured to his hip and shook his head. Don't shank.

They took a deep breath. "What... is it?" Their hand was quivering and they pressed it against their side to keep it still. 'I hate conversation.'

"It's part myth- part Norse mythos stuff, part about the vikings from that age. Mostly about their weapons and ships, you know things like that. Supposedly it's written by the child of Vör."

'Why does he stutter like that?' "Who's that?"

"Goddess of wisdom. Well, one of them anyway. Theeeeere's three gods of- associated with wisdom if I'm not mistaken."

"Three gods of one domain?" Magnus asked, sounding more curious than they'd like to be.

"I mean isn't there multiple Egyptian gods in charge of the same thing in some way? That Riccaro guy's dad- Set I think it was? -is apparently the god of a lot. I imagine he's- I imagine that's got to overlap with some other god."

He briefly looked away, scratching the back of his neck and Magnus took the opportunity to jolt their hands around. Keeping them still when they wanted to reach for anything was nerve wracking. "Welp, those two are probably waiting for me. If you want I can explain whatever you don't understand in there later."

Magnus didn't answer but did slightly nod which seemed enough to satisfy him.

Nad raised a hand in farewell. "See you!" And with that, he left in the direction of Mario and Cal, leaving a very confused and mildly disturbed Magnus standing in front of the mess hall.