The Fate of Olympus | Reynabeth [✓]

35. The World as We Know It

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10. We want the freedom and power to choose our own destinies.

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A new status quo asserted itself. Demigods found sanctuary at Camp Half-Blood, but quests were made at their own volition. Months went by with no sign of the gods, but the seasons kept changing and life moved on.

Although Apollo was gone, the sun traversed the sky as normal. Although Artemis was gone, the moon still shone, waxed, and waned. Although Poseidon was gone, the ocean tides came and went as always.

And the last time that Annabeth had seen her mother, she had gotten into a fight. Athena warned her to turn back; Annabeth had told her mother that she knew better. Only in retrospect could Annabeth identify her own hubris.

A joint Greek and Roman council, composed of leaders of both camps, convened every month to update each other on their response to the gods' disappearance.

At the first joint Greek and Roman council, Annabeth analyzed the prophecy in front of a group of forty unimpressed teenagers and young adults.

Annabeth felt her voice break while she recited the first lines of the prophecy. "'You shall seek truth and uncover abuse/ For which you shall find there is no excuse.'"

They had met inside Camp Half-Blood's Big House. There was not enough room for everyone around the ping-pong table. It was cramped.

"On my quest, I sought the truth behind the Mist. The gods' crimes revealed that they were and are abusive. There was no need to live under abusive gods."

While Camp Half-Blood was hardly a convenient location for the Romans, next time they met would be in New Rome. An oscillating fan blew cold air toward Annabeth. She tried not to shiver visibly.

"'Time and paradigms, like sands, they shift/ A mind in the present is your gift.' Mindfulness was necessary for us to succeed. Without it, we would have been swept away by the time spell."

As for the "paradigms" part, it must have meant the fundamental assumption about the gods' place in the universe. They were not the only ones who controlled nature: the Norse gods existed; Egyptian gods existed. The Greco-Roman gods were not destined to rule forever. The Fates were cruel. The gods were cruel. Demigods made better rulers than the gods. Calling hubris the belief that one was better than the gods was an invention, part of the Noble Lie, to get demigods to submit to the gods' reign. Humans decided to stop believing in gods, not out of stupidity or ignorance, but out of the desire to take power away from cruel, mercurial gods and place it in their own hands. Humans wanted to control their own destinies. Gods tried to take away their power by siring demigod children with the mortals, which forced demigods to not only believe in the gods, but fear them, to do whatever the gods desired.

And Camp Half-Blood was part of the gods' bid to hold on to power. Camp Jupiter was part of the gods' desire to cling to existence. The camps perpetuated the existence of Mount Olympus, without which the gods just might crumble.

Another paradigm shift involved the monsters' place in the world. Monsters were not universally evil.

Another paradigm was Annabeth's self-conception. Losing her memory of everything she learned forced her to study it all again. She wasn't valuable for knowing things. She was valuable as an individual. That was enough. She was enough. Her love and the people who loved her were enough.

She didn't feel like she needed to explain those parts.

"'Beware your strengthened fatal flaw' could have been read as intended for either me or Percy. My hubris was heightened because I believed that I could do anything better than everyone else, even the gods, and I had sought to overthrow them to prove that I could. My overconfidence was so strong that I believed that hubris itself didn't exist. Percy's fatal flaw, where he values friends more than the world, combined with my arrogance, brought the downfall of Olympus."

A murmur from the back of the room stirred. Annabeth ignored it.

"'Beware the splintered, spiteful Ra.' The heat wave, which was Reyna's motivation for joining me on the quest, was the result of Apollo's banishment to the mortal realm. It was not only literally about Ra being split, but the physical manifestations of many gods' quarrels that would need to be overcome. Demigods, who can traverse between realms, are more effective mediators than the gods themselves.

"'If you are rescued by a friend/ Then life as we know it shall end.' The status quo of the Greco-Roman gods' reign over mortals had ended. The Fates, however, still remain."

"What about those Norse gods you mentioned?" one of the Roman senators asked. "Are gods from other mythologies still around?"

"Yes, I think so," said Annabeth.

Malcolm asked, "If the missing Greco-Roman gods are manifestations of civilization and they're gone, what did it mean for civilization itself?"

"The price of freedom is responsibility," Annabeth said. "It's a price I was willing to pay."

"What about the rest of us, Annabeth?" asked Connor Stoll. "Were we?"

~~~

The demigods divided the tasks for maintaining the natural world. Apollo kids took turns driving the sun chariot. Percy was in charge of the oceans near the East Coast. Tyson patrolled the West Coast. Nico kept the Underworld running. Thalia held weekly meetings with wind spirits and cloud nymphs.

Since Rachel's power came from Apollo, she could no longer see the future or deliver prophecies, but she developed a connection with Ella. Annabeth was in charge of running all of the demigod operations.

"The Underworld is in shambles," said Nico. "I've been busy trying to keep it running, but even with help, I'm exhausted. The whole place is a bureaucratic nightmare. No one can do anything because there's so much political red tape, but the souls just keep arriving. I understand why Hades is so grumpy all the time. I swear, if I see another TNG form this week with an invalid IDN, I'm going to lose it."

"I can't tell if it's chaos or quiet under the sea," said Percy, bleary-eyed. "Ever since the sea gods vanished, their monster counterparts are unaccounted for, too."

Annabeth thought she should have been satisfied, considering all of the horrific things that Poseidon had done in the ancient days: to Medusa, to Caeneus, to Tyro. Plus, with the gods' equivalent counterparts gone, it meant that the balance of power would be maintained. It was justice, right? It was justice thousands of years later. Annabeth didn't feel satisfied. She felt hollow.

Campers slept in whatever cabins they wanted. It didn't matter. There were no gods left to offend. Girls even filled the Artemis cabin. No one except Nico slept in the Hades cabin, though.

Mr. D still had not made an appearance at camp, which Chiron found disturbing. "Among all of the Olympians, I always believed Mr. D was the most in touch with demigod struggles, not only because he was once mortal himself, but also because he has lived among you all for long enough to internalize your daily struggles. I had hoped the Fates would be forgiving to him, at least."

As the weeks went by, an increasing number of demigods from both camps were called upon to make the world work.

"I always imagined a world without the gods would be chaos," said Annabeth. "You know, an end to art, culture, everything. But the world hasn't ended. It's just...quiet."

"Maybe it would be more chaotic if the Titans took over. But we're filling their niches instead," said Percy. "I mean, it's a challenge. But less of a challenge than I'd thought."

Annabeth thought back to their time in the Bermuda Triangle when Annabeth had told Percy about her fatal flaw. Percy had told Annabeth that he believed that putting him in charge of the world would be a nightmare. She wondered how he felt about bringing his nightmare to life.

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A/N: Thank you for your support!