A Crown of Golden Leaves: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Caput XLVII: Moving Forward

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no reason why." – Kurt Vonnegut

Caput XLVII: Moving Forward

"YOU are a failure to me."

There was no blame or fury in his mother's eyes, only disappointment and judgement. His heart was pounding with an irrational amount of fear, even though he kept his gaze fixed on the ground; he could see the grass through her feet, and he looked away from that, too. Percy's mother took a step closer to him, and Percy took a step away—forever trying to put more distance between them.

"I died on that ship. You dreamt it, though. You dreamt that the ship would sink, but you said nothing."

Percy tried to say something, anything, but he couldn't get the words out. It felt like his tongue had shriveled away and his mouth was full of ashes.

Another step forward.

Her face, which had always been so pretty because she had always smiled, twisted into something ugly. Where her eyes should have been were dark, empty chasms. The slightly crooked tooth had decayed, leaving a gaping, empty mouth as she peeled her lips back in a twisted parody of a grin.

A wooden beam had lodged between her ribs and her stomach. Blood welled from the wound, but before his eyes, it clotted, dried, and turned dark with age. Her skin turned gray and rotted away. She pointed at him, skin sagging off her bones, revealing tendons and muscles.

"You let me become this."

Percy opened his mouth—to throw up or to scream, he didn't know—

Rachel shook her head at him. The dagger was buried to the hilt in her chest, just as it had been the day he had found her. Crimson blood dripped out of her eyes and her fingertips, hitting the ground. Splat, splat, splat—it went.

"I tried to warn you, Percy. You had a vision just before I left, but you didn't ask me to stay. Why didn't you ask me to stay?"

I didn't know what would happen to you, he wanted to tell her. He wanted to plea, beg for forgiveness—tell her that he didn't mean for it to happen, that he hadn't realized she was dying until it was too late, the vision had been confusing for him and he hadn't even realized what it meant, but he couldn't get the words out. He didn't know what he wanted to say.

So, he turned around so that he wouldn't have to look at her, only to come face-to-face with Jason. For a moment, all Percy could do was stand still and stare at him, struck completely mute. His toga hung off his shoulders, revealing how thin he had gotten in the last few days of his life as he battled the sickness. His eyes were sunken, a direct contrast against his ashen face, and his skin was sallow.

"Jason?" He could hardly dare to breathe. This isn't real. He reached out to touch him, half expecting to feel solid skin and bones and muscles against his hand—but Jason's body flickered and didn't stop until his hand fell back down to his side. He swallowed back the lump in his throat. Jason wasn't watching him with judgement or pity in his eyes—his face was crumpled and there were tears clinging to his eyelashes instead.

"I'm sorry I failed," he said.

The guilt in Jason's eyes — the way his shoulders were slumped, which was wrong and Jason shouldn't look like that, the way he looked so close to tears, the tone of his voice — almost made Percy sob, but it hitched in the back of his throat and stayed there. He moved forward and tried to hold his shoulder, but Jason was intangible.

"You didn't," he said, shaking his head. "You could never. It was I who failed you. It's not your fault."

Jason's expression didn't change a bit, despite his words. Which he had meant—it was Percy's fault that all of this had happened. No, that was wrong—much of this was the work of cruel beings that wanted to destroy everything he held dear and loved, so that wasn't right. But it still was his fault that Jason was dead, that the Roman people were likely dead. He couldn't completely absolve himself of the blame.