CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
nothing says murder like family
——— CONNOR!
( CAMP HALF BLOOD, LATE JUNE )
"SO, ARE YOU TWO like dating now?"
Travis and Katie Gardner sat across from him, their hands clasped together so tightly Connor was sure that his brother's hand may turn to dust from the sheer strength of both their grips. They had kissed twice in the last ten minutes, both times of which Connor wanted to throw up in his mouth. He stood by whatever he had said earlier in the year: love, or whatever it is this was, was mildly...no, majorly sickening, and he didn't want any part in it. Love was like the first leaf of poison ivy...no, it was not like the first lead, but it was exactly that. First, it spread to one part of your body, usually your arm, or in this case apparently, Travis and Katie's hearts, and then it infected the rest of you until you'd be blind to it. As Aphrodite had once mentioned to him or Verona or Percy or somebody (he was not sure who at this point as the goddess of love had advised so many half bloods after eons of simply meddling from behind her throne in the safety of Mount Olympus), love was a fickle thing that could cut like glass and harm like the oceans drowning to the depths of your lungs all at once. At some point, it went from your heart and infected your mind, and that's usually where things went wrong — when love led you blind, love led you shy of the line between selfish and selflessness. So, yes, love had to be a fickle thing.
Yet, Connor disagreed.
Love was not fickle or ill or every changing. If, and only if it were to exist (which Connor, admittedly, had not thought much of until recently), love would last an eternity and then beyond that eternity, he thinks, because who could keep falling in love over and over and over again and still have the strength to go on beyond heartbreak each time? He decided early on, many years before upon seeing his mother with her worn out smile and bright attitude, but the tears that shined behind her eyes behind closed doors and the upsetting lingering look in her eyes each time Hermes was bought up in their household that he did not believe fateful love existed. How could Hermes have met somebody like his mother and come back to her twice, only to break her heart two consecutive times? Had one not been enough? It had not. No, Connor had decided long ago that no matter what Aphrodite or Hermes or anybody else said, love was not all lasting and forever mending.
"I suppose we are," Katie giggled when Travis kissed her cheek, and Connor could spot their hands tightly interwoven still like the web of a spider from Arachne's clan. Katie had warm brown hair that shined like something between the colour of wheat and the sun, and it seemed almost golden when the light reflected off it. She had invited him on her picnic with Travis, getting along much better with both brothers now that she was dating one. Connor didn't mind Katie much — she seemed nice enough, she grew her own plants, cared about the environment and she made her brother's eyes light up (if they could do such a thing) as though they were watching fireworks from the beach during the Fourth of July (something that had widely become a prime dating event at Camp Half Blood, much to Connor's chagrin and somehow created by the Aphrodite cabin, yet again).
His thoughts float towards Verona once again, as they did more often than not lately. He wondered how deprecated her thoughts on love had to be, because that was the way it had come off. He knew she was supposed to be all for love will conquer all! and true love's kiss! or whatever, but part of him had an inkling (especially after the conversation he heard with Brady near the carnival) that she wasn't as for love and to be in love is one's greatest achievement or whatever it was Aphrodite and her children preached more often than not.
A daughter of the goddess of love who fears love itself. Connor did a minor chuckle inwardly, because who would have ever thought? Verona Blaze had certainly become one of the most blatant mysteries to him than ever before. Most Aphrodite children were simply too out of reach for people unless they chose to be otherwise when they liked someone, but something about Verona was not only elusively out of reach, but simply unattainable. There was a piece of her that just showed anybody that she simply could not be touched, no matter how hard they reached with their arms, no matter the effort. If she wanted to be untouchable, Verona would remain untouchable. It went beyond just the romantic prospect, but there was something deeper at play when it came to the girl, something that made her so much more dangerous than Connor had ever realized.
Connor had a feeling even Aphrodite herself was unable to reach her daughter.
He wondered for a moment what it was like for the goddess of love, to be married to someone she had shared no romantic feelings whatsoever towards, a marriage she had been forced into by Zeus and Hera because of her beauty. He didn't know what that was like. People didn't turn their heads a second time the way Aphrodite kids got when they walked into the room, he wasn't unreachable or elusively attractive, there wasn't just a something about him. He could pick the hardest of locks (even some with mild magic playing on them) and play pranks, he knew morse code and could fly in the air had he put on the shoes Hermes had given him, and yet he had no idea of the burden that beauty bought with it. Yes...a burden. Lately, Connor had begun to realize maybe the elusive beauty and the ethereal look of it all wasn't what it was cut out to be, and beauty was the burden somebody like Verona held.
What happened when people were never able to see beyond the beauty?
When they got a little bit selfish, a little bit too greedy?
Connor decided he was lucky he had ended up as a child of Hermes. At least his father cared in the slightest. Aphrodite had left Verona unconscious in rubble after making her heart beat again simply for a 'tragical romance' only for her to be arrested, Hermes was the one that had fixed everything for the two of them when Connor prayed for his help (and on Connor's insistance, though he'd never admit it to Verona, Hermes had found a way to make sure the United States legal system no longer thought she was a missing child). Even he had to admit that had been beyond what any other god had done for any other demigod, especially somebody who was not their child, and Connor had a sinking feeling it might come back to haunt the two of them in the future — he hoped it would not come to that.
"Right..." Connor trailed off. The sun was blazing towards his eyes in the position he was in, and he tried best to cover his eyes despite the fact that sunglasses were perching upon his nose — obviously, Apollo had decided to be extra generous when driving his chariot across Camp Half Blood this morning. "Congratulations, I guess."
"Thanks," Travis' voice was more enthusiastic than Connor's slightly dejected one. "Verona was right, Silena did have a whole list of places for first dates. She also had a lot of other lists, weirdly enough...." He began speaking of where Silena had sent him on his first date with Katie — a small cavern in the woods that overlooked the canoe lake from a distance, with a picnic blanket and a basket of food they had snagged from the kitchens.
Connor listened as much as he could, he truly did, but he preferred to stay silent and look out at the glowing horizon when Travis continued to go on. Truly, Travis was not speaking much of their date or for very long, but Connor had a very, very short attention span and it was diminishing with the talk of dating and love by the second.
"How's mom doing?" Travis finally questioned, five minutes after eventually stopping his continuous chatter about dating. Connor resisted the urge to sigh in utter relief and dance around out of pure enjoyment, and instead chose to smile half heartedly at Travis.
"She's good. Misses you, so does Benji."
"I miss her too," Travis smiled wistfully and began explaining to Katie who Benji was, and that was the end of their conversation as Connor lapsed into thoughtful silence. He had Iris messaged his mother the day after he had gotten to Camp, which had been almost a week and a half ago, now. It was nearing late, late June and the sun was a new kind of scorching, the wind had practically disappeared unless you travelled close enough to the ocean, and the trees and flowers had bloomed to their fullest wits, especially in the forest and around the Demeter cabin. Connor's mother had been dejected in a way that made Connor wish he could go live with her all year, but he knew that spending his next year at Redwood High is not only something he did not envision for himself, it was also something he would thoroughly hate.
The lapsed silence eventually ended around mid morning when Travis and Katie packed up the blanket and the three made their way back to their respective cabins, each a little more solemn and tired as they went to put their stuff away and made their way towards the Big House, where Chiron had called a war council. Connor was not sure what it was about, but he had a feeling it was in relation to the fact that Percy had been missing for almost two weeks now, and they would have to decide whether he was alive or not.
Inside the rec room, most of the other members of the war council were already seated, either talking amongst one another or lapsing into solemn silence. Annabeth in particular looked worse for ware than she normally did, her head tilted downwards as she looked at a series of diagrams that Connor had a feeling she'd drawn based off of her memory of the Labyrinth. Her eyes were rimmed red despite the concentrated and attentive look on her face, and Connor had a sinking feeling that like many at Camp, she had spent her nights crying over Percy.
Even Clarisse looked solemnly respectful, which made Connor unearthingly nervous.
If Connor didn't know better, he would say that Verona knew something. She was sitting across from him, her legs crossed over each other and leaning back in her chair playing with the ring that held her shield on her finger. It was not in a nervous way like he'd seen her play with it at Redwood High, or even outside the police station in DC. She looked like she knew something, and for not the solemn glances to her features, Connor would almost say that she looked a little bit cocky at the moment, as though she was right about something and she knew it, and everybody else was simply wrong.
Chiron was wearing a shirt with #1 CENTAUR on it when he came in, but despite the urge to laugh Connor didn't because the centaur looked solemn and lost. It was a grieving and unexpected change from his usual all knowing demeanour, but nonetheless he still seemed calm, collected and completely in control under pressure, which was everything Connor had expected of Chiron in the years he'd known him.
"I have called you all here today because...despite what I may otherwise hope to believe, it is time to decide whether Percy is still...alive or not," He was hesitant to prescribe a sentence of life or death to Percy when they had not found his body nor knew where he was, if he was breathing or if he had been blown up into small smithereens at Mount St. Helen's.
Annabeth stifled a sniffle. "It's been two weeks and we've heard nothing from him, Chiron."
"I do believe it is time, then..." Chiron nodded solemnly.
"What if he isn't...dead?" Lee Fletcher was the one to question this, eyes wide with hope and glimmer for the future.
Chiron sighed. "Hope is a dangerous thing to hold onto for too long, Lee. Unfortunately, it is time for us to Percy go."
"So we're just giving up on him?" Verona was the one to speak this time. She was still leaning back in her seat and Connor noticed the way her voice was levelled and calm, not angry or maleficent, or even mildly annoyed at Chiron. It was ticking Connor off how collected she looked in the face of one of her best friends supposedly passing away.
"We are not giving up, dear," Chiron looked down in accusation. "We're simply letting Percy find his way back to us."
"That is gold," Connor resisted the urge to laugh at the look of pure amusement posted on Verona's features. She didn't look one bit like she believed whatever Chiron had told her, in fact, she looked as though he had just thrown a large pile of bullshit her way (what he had said was plain bullshit however, so Connor guessed in some ways he had).
"So, what? We're wrong now?" Annabeth's voice was snappy and scratchy, and though she did not outwardly glare at Verona, there was a flare of something in her grey eyes.
"Not wrong, but misguided."
She pursed her lips. "I said it before and I'll say it again. The Fates have thrown a lot of things our way, but the Great Prophecy is one thing even they not dare mess with."
Chiron seemed to digest her words the same way everybody else around the table did. With heed. Nonetheless, she looked bitter as they went forward planning a memorial later in the afternoon for Percy.
"We can grow some flowers," Katie offered, explaining how they could be spread in small bouquets around the amphitheater. Silena Beauregard offered the Aphrodite cabin for set up (to which Verona huffed) and let Katie know that apparently carnations were really "in" for funeral bouquets right now (Connor had no idea there was even an "in" crowd for flowers to present at a funeral, but he'd probably learn something new from the Aphrodite cabin everyday until he died). The Apollo cabin and Lee Fletcher offered a nice eulogy in Percy's name, and Pollux and Castor from the Dionysius cabin offered to supply refreshments (Annabeth had sniffled again as she told Chiron the Athena cabin had a shroud made for Percy).
So a plan had been put in motion (much to the huffing and puffing that resembled a small dragon on Verona's end — she even complained that Tyson and Grover were not back yet for Percy's memorial) and by midday, everybody gathered inside the amphitheater, all dressed in reasonable shades of black, and each one looking solemn or upset. Percy was a happy go—lucky type of person despite his sassy demeanour towards his prophesied death, and Connor would miss him. Verona on the other hand, in a small black dress and glaring heatedly at Silena as she forced her to fix some of the placements of the carnations, looked nowhere near ready to believe Percy was dead, much less miss him. She had insisted the entire day that there was no use to this and they were making a mistake, and they should be looking for Percy right now instead of "giving up hope and wiping their fucking slate clean", as she had so kindly put it.
"I'm sorry for your loss, man," Brady was the first to approach Connor as they waited for Chiron to begin the burning of Percy's shroud in the amphitheater, the campfire burning brightly though it was mid afternoon. He had begun to fit in well at Camp, though his godly parent had still not yet claimed him. Therefore, he remained in the Hermes cabin with the other undetermined campers, growing closer to Connor. He had spoke of his boyfriend, Johnathan, and explained to Connor that he was definitely going back to the city in the year, and would only remain in Camp to train in the summers. Connor though he was lucky for that, that he somehow could not attract a single monster in his time in the city.
Perhaps some were just luckier than others.
"Thanks," Connor had muttered half heartedly, glancing at Verona again.
"She doesn't seem to be doing so well," Brady muttered, catching where Connor's gaze kept turning. Verona was bickering with Silena, who looked like she was scolding the girl — it looked quite funny if you looked closely enough, to see a seventeen year scolding her sixteen year old sister over a hissy fit, both who had seen more horrors in life than deemed necessary.
"She's never coped very well," Connor said, but left the conversation at that.
Chiron stood on his hooves at that moment, fallen face grieving and tired. This was not the first hero he had seen fallen, and Connor wondered how many had come before. How had Chiron coped, watching heroes die one after the next all for the same purpose of the gods, all in the name of Olympus. It seemed petulant and hurtful to send literal children out there to die in the name of their parents who had lived millenium before them, but the gods seemed to care less than a soggy bag of potatoes.
"Percy Jackson was quite possibly one of the most extraordinary people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Unfortunately, today I have the displeasure of announcing that we must assume he is dead," Chiron heaved a sigh as mutters shook the Campers. "After so long a silence, it is unlikely our prayers will be answered. I have asked his best sieving friends to do the final honours."
Annabeth pulled Verona up on stage, though the daughter of Aphrodite looked ready to object loudly to Chiron's declaration of Percy's death. She had a calm and collected look on her features again, and it took a moment for Connor to realize that was the look she got when she was angry — not the type of angry she got with Connor, burning hot white fury, but another type of anger. One he had seen her feel when around Ares, and one that shook him to the core and made him fear the daughter of Aphrodite just a bit more than he had ever before. She seemed so much more untouchable than ever before like that, it begged Connor the question of if anybody would ever be able to reach her. Would he?
Annabeth looked about ready to burst into tears again as she clutched onto Verona's hand, who had sunk uneasily into the background. "He was probably the bravest friend I've ever had. He..." She paused, and Connor swore her face had turned the colour of a tomato for a moment. Her eyes flashed with something dangerous. "He's right there!"
Connor's head snapped back to where Annabeth was pointing, to find Percy in his line of vision, very much breathing and alive. His clothes were soaked lightly in water, but not very much considering water had been his domain all along. He looked pitifully confused at best. What had Connor known?
Verona had been right all along.
(Like she was most of the time).
"Percy!" Beckendorf was the first to call out to him, grinning widely from beside Silena. Silena made eyes of anguish as she met Verona's, who raised her eyebrows as if to say And you scolded me for this? but said nothing other than a slight aura or limerence of I told you so. A few of the kids from the Ares cabin cursed Percy out, including Clarisse, though Connor could have sworn she let out a sigh of relief. Connor and Travis both smiled at each other, considerably more happy and less solemn now.
"Well—" Chiron cantered over past Connor. "I don't think I've ever been happier to see a camper return. But you must tell me—"
It seemed Verona, who had some nerve to hold Annabeth back, had finally decided to was time to let go, because the daughter of Athena stormed forward, looking somewhere between drawing the line of hate and complete relief of worry. It sent yet another sinking feeling through Connor as it reminded him oddly enough of when Aphrodite had saved her daughter the previous winter — it reminded him of himself.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" The campers remained silent, nobody wanting to piss Annabeth off further after seeing firsthand what she could do. Connor had seen it years prior when he and Travis had put a spider in her bed jokingly, only for Annabeth to almost maim them to death during next day's capture the flag game. He still had a scar on his knee from where Annabeth had swung her knife around. She had been tinier at the time, but no less lethal. "I—we thought you were dead, Seaweed Brain!"
"Don't rope me into this, Annabeth," Verona's voice was sharp. She didn't look very happy with Annabeth at the moment, but rather as though she knew something that Connor and the rest of the campers did not.
"I'm sorry," Percy said simply. "I got lost."
"LOST?" Annabeth was all but screaming, and there was something else in her eyes as she came to some sort of realization Connor saw. Verona looked as though she knew something entirely else about Percy as she glanced at him again after hugging him, looking at what he was wearing and the tab to his face. "Two weeks, Percy. Where in the world—"
Chiron decided then was the time to interrupt as he ordered Percy and Annabeth back to the Big House to tell him what had happened, and told Silena to get help in cleaning the shroud and memorial up.
Connor approached Verona slowly as she cleaned up a bouquet of carnations near the corner of the amphitheatre, his curiosity getting the better of him. Aurora had always said he was like a cat in that way, never stopping until he got to the truth. It was a dangerous thing to hold, curiously. "Where was Percy, really?"
"How am I supposed to—"
"You know," He gave her a look, shushing her.
"I don't know anything," She still seemed insistent to lie her way through.
Connor raised his eyebrows, taking a bouquet of carnations from her and placing them into the box where the rest of them would go, before being taken to the Demeter cabin and kept there until the day they wilted. "You wouldn't be so sure of yourself if you didn't know. And you wouldn't have insisted we were giving up on Percy."
She looked like she was having a debate within her head, with herself, before she let out a sigh and finally gave in. Her heels dug into the floor of the amphitheater as she sat down on one of the steps and gestured Connor to take a seat next to her. He did, leaning his arms against his knees in front of him and glancing towards her curiously. "Have you ever heard the story of Calypso?"
Connor shook his head, furrowing his eyebrows. "Did they teach this to—"
"No, no..." She objected. "Most people don't know a thing about her, unfortunately."
She sighed, hands fiddling with her ring again. "My mother is the goddess of love, meaning I know much more than I let on about certain matters. Love stretches beyond simply the larger stories you've heard of heroes, of Perseus and Andromeda, for instance."
"No offence, but what does this have to do with Percy, Verona?" Connor stared at her.
"I'm getting there." She frowned, the lines making her look much more wise than she should have even at this age. "Calypso was—is—a titaness. She's the daughter of Atlas, the titan who—"
"Holds the sky."
"Yes," Verona nodded. Connor thought of Percy and Annabeth, both with grey streaks in their hair from holding up that very same sky. "She was close to her father, and during the first Titan war many ages ago, she was on the side of Atlas against the gods. Unlike the rest of those who went against the gods, Atlas received a different punishment when Kronos was dethroned — Zeus took his anger out on him and tasked him to hold the sky for all eternity, as he was Kronos second in command."
Verona ran a hand through her hair, the mix of blonde and brunette strands falling in waves on her shoulders, landing just beneath her collarbones. Connor recalled how soft her hair actually was when he had ran his hands through it. "In retaliation for her support with her father and Kronos, the Fates imprisoned Calypso on an island called Ogygia. It's a phantom island, she cannot leave it but others can find it, though it is very hard and once you leave, you may never come back."
"So Percy found her island?"
"Of the sort, yes," She nodded half heartedly, looking saddened. "Every few decades, the gods decide to play a game with Calypso and send a hero in need of help to her island. With the work of my mother—" Connor had a feeling it was to her distaste. "—Calypso will fall in love with each, and want them to stay. So many heroes have been led to Ogygia — Odysseus, Francis Drake, and so many others."
"But Odysseus didn't stay, then?" Connor questioned, watching as Verona carefully told him the story. It was enticing coming from her, it seemed she knew a lot more about this affair than many others did — likely due to her mother, Aphrodite, is involvement with who washed ashore on Calpyso's island. "He ended up back in Ithaca, with Penelope."
"He did. He didn't stay, none of them ever do," Verona explained. "That's the curse. The heroes that wash up on Ogygia's shore, the ones Calypso cares for, they're all tied to something bigger, to something outside of the island. They have something to lose, and though they all end up falling in love with Calypso, it is not the way that she falls for them, and it's not enough to make them stay. She can't leave, and they all promise they'll come back for her, but once they leave they'll never be able to find her again. Odysseus stayed for seven years before he returned to Penelope, and Percy's flaw is his loved ones — he wouldn't have left his friends, Annabeth and his mother here, but like Odysseus, I fear he promised Calypso he would return, something he cannot hold true to."
"So at the end of the day, she's doomed either way?" Connor furrowed his eyebrow confusedly. "I don't get it. If you know that they'll leave eventually, why fall in love with them?"
"We don't control who we fall in love with, Connor," Verona's voice sounded haunting.
"Don't we?"
"We don't." Her voice was sharp this time, like glass cutting through cardboard, and her lips had turned downwards into the same frown once again. "We think we do, but we don't."
There was nothing left to be said, because Connor knew she was right, so the two demigods continued to get up and put away the carnations, neither speaking in fear of breaching the topic of love once again.
It was the most dangerous thing, after all.
NOTE ———————— i kind of wish i could have wrote this from verona's pov as well, because she has a lot of thoughts on people like ariadne and calypso, and she knows a lot more of them because of her mother. but alas, it was connor's turn for a chapter in his pov, so it turned out this way. and yes, because i'm completely indecisive, i did change connor's faceclaim, i had trouble picking it in the first place so it's been kind of iffy ever since but sam as finnick in the hunger games kind of fit like the type of mischievous connor is, (and we're just gonna ignore how ive described connor as having dark hair like a million times and when i edit i'll fix it :))) tyvm, until next time