Percy's POV
I close my eyes.
Any other form will do, just change me. I can't go back now like.. like me.
I felt my body shrink and compact into a wolf's form. My muscle felt contorted and I felt my teeth become sharper into canines. I wait a few moments to make sure she was done, and then I open my eyes.
There was Artemis still kneeling there, in all her glory. She was one of the only goddesses I looked up to. She hates men, but calls me the 'last decent one' which makes me laugh.
"Thank you" My voice doesn't come out of my throat but instead just exists around the air. It freaks me out before settling.
She smiles down at me, "No prob, but we have to get going." And she opens a portal.
Dread fills my stomach as I peer into it. I could catch small glimpses of Olympus if I looked closely enough.
"I'm not looking forward to this." I state before stepping through with Artemis stepping through behind me.
. . .
Once walking through the plaza I feel a weird presence, like someone had their eyes on me.
"Hey Artemis," I said. She looks over to me nonchalant.
"Yeah? Are you okay?" She asks.
"We need to walk faster now. I feel like someone spotted me and I don't have a good feeling about it."
"Who-" she looks behind her, "oh, her. Okay." We 'nonchalantly' walked faster.
"Artemis! Wait!" The goddess calls.
Artemis turns on her heels with the fakest smile you can imagine. I hid behind her legs with my tail between my legs the best I could. Although that didn't go to plan because I am much larger than I expected.
The goddess catches up to us and wheezes while trying to catch her breath.
"Artemis- wait" she says once more.
"I'm currently waiting for you already. What do you need Oizys?" Artemis places her hand on her hip.
Oizys, the goddess of Misery and Anxiety. The two things that have plagued me since before I left Camp Half Blood.
She stands up to look Artemis in the eyes and she smiled. "Sorry!! I just heard that you and the council got a hold of Percy's whereabouts and went to find him! And I wondered if you found him! Because I sensed a lot of dread and other mixed emotions and got worried.." She put her pointer fingers together and pushes them together.
Artemis shifts uncomfortably and rubs her shoulder to ease herself.
"We did find him, yes. But his condition wasn't the best. So we are trying to be careful with him so he doesn't have a panic attack or jumps off a roof again."
Her hands fly to her mouth when her eyes open wide, "HE JUMPED OFF A ROOF!!?? Oh my! Is he okay??!"
Artemis lunges for her and covers her mouth with her hand.
"Shh!!! And yeah he did! Scared me shitless before I caught him! Slightly panicked, but I think he'll be alright."
Oizys sighs in relief. Artemis releases her from her grasp and steps back towards me. I wrap my body around her legs.
Oizys bends down and extents the back of her hand towards me to sniff. For the time being I don't want anyone to figure out its me so I act like I sniffed her hand and allow her to pet me.
"Oh aren't you a sweetheart!" She pets the thick fur around my neck.
I see why dogs like this now, it's fantastic omg. I growled in content as she giggled. She stands up and I shake my body. I curled around Artemis and laid down. The longer I can stand to be away from whatever 'big meeting' Arty is taking me to, the better.
"How long have you had him?" Oizys asks sweetly. It's strange that a goddess of her powers has such an opposite personality.
"Oh, just for a few hours. I ran into him in distress while on my mission so I just brought him with me." Artemis smiled.
"Ahh, so that why I felt the weird influx! Well I got to go take care of my errands before I head back to the human realm!" Oizys starts to turn around before Artemis grabs her wrist, almost tripping over me.
"What do you mean 'Weird influx'?"
Oizys just awkwardly laughs.
"I can sense levels of misery or anxiety of a given area, and I guess when you showed up it spiked up really really high. So I'm just assuming it's your wolf since I only feel normal levels coming off of you. I think its the same thing with Aphrodite and love? She'd probably have more information on how it works."
Artemis nodded and waved to Oizys as she left. I stand up and stretch before following Artemis to the main palace. We walk in silence til we reach the main doors.
She looks at me and we take a deep breath.
"Welp. Here we go!" And she pushes open the doors.
. . .
"Artemis! Did you find him?!" My dad calls to her when we arrive to the throne room. She points at me to sit in the middle of the room. I plop down and wag my tail as I watch the rest of the god's confused reactions. Just hilarious! She walks over to her throne and sits down. Her leg crosses over the other when she leaned back in her seat.
"Yup!"
Poseidon gives her the most dumbfounded look before she waves her hand at me. My dad just looks back and forth between Artemis and me, still in wolf form.
"There is no way my son is the wolf."
"Mm but there is, cause thats him. I did my duty." Arty chuckled. I swear she is having too much fun at my situation.
My dad tries to argue back before I stand up, shake, and trot over to him to sit at his feet. I missed him so much but man this is funny. He looks at me giving him my cutest face and I see his face crumble into a smile.
He laughs, "If this is really you Percy, you're milking your cuteness factor. And its. Not. Fair." He whispers as he pets me behind my ear.
"Thanks, I know." I have never spooked Poseidon in my life as hard as I did today. He jumped so far behind himself and stumbled I would have been crying laughing if I was still in my normal body. Instead, all I could do was sneeze and trot back to my place in the middle.
I look around and every god and goddess, except Artemis, had a shocked look on their face and or even a shocked body posture.
"Percy!! You SUCK! DOnT DO thAt tO yoUr OLd maN!" Poseidon yelled while laughing.
"Sorry 'bout that.. not really." I chuckled. "But hey Artemis, you can change me back. With clothes.. preferably."
She sat up straighter and gave me an uncertain look. "You sure? Especially when you said..?"
I just shake my head, "It should be okay for the short time being, I don't think they can look at me seriously."
She just shrugs and snaps her fingers. I felt my body grow taller and my back straighter. I look down and see that luckily I still have my clothes on. I notice the closed cut on my side before my head went dizzy for a second as the sight of myself hits me.
"Oh darling! You look rough!! Lemme help!" Aphrodite snaps her fingers and I'm in clean clothes again. It was just a normal white t-shirt with black skinny jeans and black high top converse. She knows me well..
"Thank you m'lady." I bow slightly towards her as her smile beams with light. Zeus coughs to get our attention.
"Perseus Jackson!" Zeus bellowed
"It's just Percy, sir."
"Uh, right. Percy Jackson! We have noted that you were either kicked out of camp or didn't feel welcome anymore. So we have decided to ask you one more time, will you become apart of our family?" Zeus asked.
".. Aren't I already?" That seemed like a dumb, but necessary question from me.
"Hmm, maybe I didn't phrase that right. We want to offer you godlyhood. Again. We would like you as close to us as possible and keep you as family!"
"What if I refuse?"
"We might have to kill you...." after his comment, I started busting out laughing. My side cut screamed in pain, but I couldn't stop laughing.
Artemis looked at me strangely, "What's so funny Percy?"
When I finally calmed down, but still wheezing, "Because sir, that is impossible."
"Did you forget we are gods? Why couldn't we kill you? A mere Demi-god?" Aries asked.
"Well one, you want to keep me around if any future wars pop up, or just simply the fact that I'd probably beat you to it." Hahaha... still depressed.
I got many more shocked looks, which was expected.
"I've already thrown myself off a roof when running from Artemis on the last hour. But I mean if I reallyyyy wanted a death wish, I'd just go piss of Hestia."
"Why is pissing of Hestia you're go to? She's like the most peaceful goddess here." Aphrodite asked.
"Have you seen Hestia angry??? Leo got her insanely mad one day and I don't think I ever recovered from it." I shuttered. Her outburst still haunts my nightmares with flames and random family food being thrown all over the room at Leo.
"Ha, yeah that true. He got lucky he was immune to fire!" Hestia yelled from the other side of the room.
"Well, let's get back on topic, do you want to become a God and live with us or not?" Zeus was getting impatient now. Same old Zeus.
I pause. If I turned into a god, then I could hang out with Artemis, and my dad more often. But I also would have to deal with my depression forever. I could always talk to Artemis about it. She might give me enough moral support if I am falling off an emotional rollercoaster of doom.
"Sure. I got nothing else to live for." Reality crashed extremely hard when I spoke those words. To think of all things you once lived for, now are either dead, or want you dead. All I ever wanted was a family and a home that made feel safe. I feel like I started moving backwards in the past months.
All the gods looked at each other. They nodded, stood up and started chanting. I pray that this is my final destination for the rest of eternity. I'm so tired of moving place to place, just wondering.
I never thought that prayer would be cut short so soon. They were wrapping up the ends of the chance as I felt my side burst. I crumpled to my knees. My lungs heaved as I coughed; the only thing that came out was blood. Only me, would die right before they were able to become a god.
"Artemis!" I gasped, "Help.." I fell over, still barely conscience. My world was spinning and fading out. Artemis broke out of the chant and ran to me.
"Percy!" She yelled.
The rest of the gods heard her cry and looked at me lying in my puddle of blood.
"C'mon, stay with me! You're gonna be ok! Don't die on me now!" Artemis panicked.
I started falling out of consciousness, and all I could make sense of was,
"Apollo!....Save Him!..........hurry!......can't.....lose............him........"
And I was out.
Did I die? I don't really know, I'm kind of used to by now.
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A/N.
Hey guys! Thank you so much for tuning in for chapter 4. Hope the size was much better than the previous ones (1958 words! Yay!)! I am currently working on the 5th chapter, so it will be out in either a day or two or a week or so. It honestly depends on how much homework I have xD. Hope to see you soon!
-Queen_Gibby678
June 18, 2020 EDIT: Wowie I had to completely cut out a whole chunk of interaction between Oizys and Percy because it felt unnatural and out of charater. Plus I changed Oizys name because I realized I used the wrong goddess' name for her so whoops!