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We drown traitors in shallow water [post t5]
[There are a lot of things Luke could have said about the trial and the way things played out. There's a lot of things Luke could have said about someone like Kazuma fooling all of them and the anger people felt...but he won't. He won't say anything about it to just anyone.
He won't talk about how he gets it. How he knows first-hand what that's like. How he's hardly affected by this at all. It's a pretty fucked up situation, but...over the course of the last week he's come to find there are people on this ship that are a little more delicate and need to be watched over. It's sort of like watching kids back at Camp again before everything went to hell.
Adam Parrish is one of those people. He hadn't stuck around for most of the after trial, but later in the evening he continues to think about the fact that Adam was genuinely upset about the betrayal.
...gods, why did coming back mean having to feel things again? Uggggggh. So maybe he feels bad. And maybe he's a little worried but Adam has other people to look after him, doesn't he? But what if they're busy? What if they also have problems and he's left alone and it turns into bitterness and angst and anger and--
--yeah he doesn't get much time to think on all of that before he finds himself in front of Adam's door. So he pauses, scrubbing a hand over his face before curling his hand into a fist and knocking.]
Parrish, you in there?
He won't talk about how he gets it. How he knows first-hand what that's like. How he's hardly affected by this at all. It's a pretty fucked up situation, but...over the course of the last week he's come to find there are people on this ship that are a little more delicate and need to be watched over. It's sort of like watching kids back at Camp again before everything went to hell.
Adam Parrish is one of those people. He hadn't stuck around for most of the after trial, but later in the evening he continues to think about the fact that Adam was genuinely upset about the betrayal.
...gods, why did coming back mean having to feel things again? Uggggggh. So maybe he feels bad. And maybe he's a little worried but Adam has other people to look after him, doesn't he? But what if they're busy? What if they also have problems and he's left alone and it turns into bitterness and angst and anger and--
--yeah he doesn't get much time to think on all of that before he finds himself in front of Adam's door. So he pauses, scrubbing a hand over his face before curling his hand into a fist and knocking.]
Parrish, you in there?
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Something about you having more at stake than most people here. [ In fact, he remembers it clearly due to how awful it sounded. ]
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...you'd fit in with Athena's kids too, you know that? [But okay. How to explain...] Let's just say there are some things about me that if people knew, they might think I'm an easy target. I'm not, by the way. I don't go down easy. And like I said...I'll do whatever it takes to get answers. That was pretty true back home, too.
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How would you be an easy target? [ Oh, maybe he doesn't want to spill his weaknesses. ] Considering we just partnered up and you've taught me everything I know about defense, you probably don't have to worry about me.
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[Bear with him, Adam, it's progress.]
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You ask just about anybody on this ship what their motivations are to get back home and out of here alive, I guarantee you that most of them are similar. People. Goals to meet. Answers to find. Everybody's got those. [...except him. And he can't quite bring himself to say that out loud despite it weighing on his mind for weeks now.]
Play the game right, we'll get you back there.
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And you're different? [ He doesn't know why Luke says we because he's pretty sure no one cares about his own reasons to get home. ]
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Yeah. Can't say I have much left waiting for me back there. Figure if people knew that, it'd make me an easy kill. Make people think I wouldn't fight back much since I've got less to work for. Never said it made sense, but you can't tell me it wouldn't be somebody's motivation.
[He's treading the conversation carefully, still waffling on which direction to take it.] You know how easy it is to plant a seed of doubt in somebody? Even the gods can be tricked into tearing themselves apart.
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What about Annabeth? [ Even if she's grown now, they must still be close. What he says next is... confusing. He doesn't see how that relates about being an easy target or having nothing to go home too. But it's obviously important. ]
Did that happen? That's how she saved Olympus? [ A pause. ] But you doubt?
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...what do you know about the gods and the titans? Anything?
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Well, I know the titans were in charge... Everyone knows the part about the titan eating Zeus, which didn't work, and then the gods won the battle. They, uh, imprisoned? Killed the titans? [ It's been so long since he's had to think about Greek mythology. It distracts him enough from trying to figure Luke out, but he begins to think he's assuming too much about him. ]
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Why the hell is he telling Adam? What's he hoping to accomplish? Why's he showing his entire hand? And yet he is.]
You're mostly right. A long time ago like when creation came into existence, the titans were the third generation born to Gaea and Ouranos. Gaea and one of her sons, Kronos, plotted to kill Ouranos as punishment for locking the other kids in Tartarus. So Kronos took his scythe and cut his father into thousands of pieces and became the new leader. Mankind was created in the titans' reign. People call it the "Golden Age." Kronos kinda went overboard and turned into a tyrant. The thing about our world and people like us is that we're tied to fate. Kronos's fate was that he was going to be overthrown by his kids, too. So that's the part you know about. Kronos eating all of his kids except for Zeus. Rhea, Kronos's...sister...wife...whatever, actually fed Kronos a rock so that Zeus could be raised to fight back. That's when Zeus freed his siblings, and since the gods are immortal when Kronos ate them they actually were growing inside of him. Which...is pretty gross. So anyway, the gods went on and fought and beat the titans and overthrew them, cutting Kronos into thousands of pieces as well and sending the guy to Tartarus, along with killing or imprisoning everybody else on that side. After that, the gods ruled for ages.
...if somebody did that to you, you'd probably want revenge, right? Kronos wanted the same thing. Wanted to find someone to help him return to power and reforming to bring the second golden age. He waited around for years trying to find somebody to help him...and eventually he found the perfect host. Some stupid kid who was already questioning the gods and their power, wondering why they were the ones in charge if they never even gave a damn about their kids or changing how things were. Kronos was able to contact people through dreams, and that's how the beginning of the end started. [And he pauses mostly to give Adam time to absorb all of that.]
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And then it gets more recent, more personal maybe. The reason Luke has just kind of flopped onto the floor. He pieces it together with things he knows: Luke questioned the gods, was unhappy with his lot, Annabeth saved the gods, Luke doesn't think there's anything left for him. ] What happened to the kid? What did he do?
[ He might as well let Luke tell the story instead of guessing, maybe offending. ]
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There's a very slight bitter smirk.]
Welllll like I said, Kronos was waiting around for years to find somebody to help him. What was another couple of years to wait? [A pause.] The thing about being a demigod or having ties to the gods at all is that, like I said, everything relies on some kind of fate or destiny. We have prophecies...and sometimes those prophecies really don't make sense. You start to find that people know about your future more than you do but they refuse to tell you because it'd upset the balance, because they "can't." It's enough to drive anybody nuts. So anyway...this kid I guess has been hearing about his fate for his entire life. Never got to know what the full thing was because nobody would tell him. Spent his entire life haunted by it with a mother who kept screaming he was a monster and about his fate and a father who never bothered to show up except for once to tell him he couldn't explain it either.
Even a complete stranger once saw his fate and from what I heard he told him a little more about it. Saw a betrayal and some other things in his life, but he couldn't explain everything. Instead, those were just the seeds of doubt that the Olympians actually knew what they were talking about. It was just what Kronos needed to contact this kid when he was seventeen and start drawing up an alliance.
Things went on normally for a while. Couple of years, actually, because I guess unsettling the gods takes time. Kronos was feeding him instructions the entire time, gave him a weapon to assist and also helping plant seeds of doubt among the gods. Stealing Zeus's master lightning bolt and Hades' helm of darkness to pit the brothers against each other. But you know...there's always flaws in plans. But titans don't take well to flaws. Titans and gods have their own way of punishing people. Kronos is the lord of time...so nightmares were a favorite of his.
A couple of years pass and the kid learns about another boy who's supposed to come to the Camp who'll be just naive enough to help start the war. Name's Percy Jackson. He's pretty important to the whole story. [A wry grin.] So this jackass befriends Percy and takes him under his wing to make sure he'll follow orders. Keeps him safe, helps him get settled, stuff like that. Percy gets sent on a quest to find the missing lightning bolt and the helm. Plans come undone, kid beats Ares in a duel, blah blah blah. Hurray for Percy Jackson. Percy comes back to camp alive and...well. Not everybody's happy about that. Percy gets lured into the woods and a pit scorpion's summoned to poison him and try to kill him just as Percy learns that this guy he trusted all along has sworn an allegiance with the titans and plans on tearing Olympus down brick by brick.
[...gods. This isn't even the full version of events.] You want the entire story, or just jump straight to the end?
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He's quiet even though he has some questions. Most specifically about fate. He hates that, he always has. And it sounds like the kid never really stood a chance. It's unsettling and he stares at the floor while listening. He almost doesn't register the question.
Is it even a question? Come on, Luke. ] I want to hear the story. [ Obviously he doesn't mind all of this. ]
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All right then. [He laces his hands behind the back of his neck, rubbing it nervously even as he sorts through the last four years of his life.]
...so naturally everybody at Camp had freaked out by the kid's betrayal. He'd spent so long there and he was well liked among the campers and never seemed like he'd be the one to do something like this. And when he left Camp, he wound up on a cruise liner called the Princess Andromeda. Captained the boat and everything. Now the thing is even though this guy lied to everyone he knew, he still had people on his side. A spy in the Camp. People who were also against the gods. Followers, more or less. The whole thing was one giant circus and he was the ringleader. [He closes his eyes for a second.] You remember what I told you about the tree and the daughter of Zeus? Thalia. [Even saying her name causes him to pause.] Thalia's tree served as the boundary for Camp Half-Blood, and the spy inside camp was ordered to poison the tree with venom from a python. Because the tree was dying, the activities director, Chiron, ends up being framed and fired from Camp. Percy and Annabeth get sent on another quest away from Camp to track down this thing called the Golden Fleece. [Which isn't entirely true. But it's a shortcut.] Their quest ends up leading them right onto that boat and coming face to face with their old friend who wanted to recruit them to his side. The fleece, of course, was meant to help resurrect Kronos and after it was over, it was to go and heal Thalia's tree. ...naturally they refused because they're sane and the guy tried to feed them to a drakon. That didn't work, they got away, and they met up again only Percy...Percy's the son of Poseidon. Kid knows how to control water, and back home since we don't use tech we communicate via Iris Messages. You gotta create a rainbow from the mist of water, throw in a drachma and it'll connect you to whoever. Percy connected to Camp just in time for the guy to admit he'd framed Chiron for the poisoning and really show everybody what he was doing. In the end, Percy and Annabeth brought the Fleece back to Camp and used it to heal Thalia's tree...but I don't know if anybody thought it'd work well enough that it revived her completely. After being a tree for six years, she finally came back.
A lot of things happened after that during the course of the next two or three years. There’s a Prophecy that was predicted years and years and years ago. [A pause.] “A half-blood of the eldest gods shall reach sixteen against all odds. And see the world in endless sleep, the hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap. A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze.” This is important because eventually the prophecy became pretty well known among all of us. Kronos knew. And it was basically accepted that the half-blood of the eldest gods was either a child of Zeus, a child of Poseidon, or a child of Hades. Reviving Thalia had been Kronos’s plan as the only daughter of Zeus. And Hades had two kids, but by the time the war happened he was down to one.
Kronos…is kind of an asshole too. You might not know this part of the story, but he has a right-hand man named Atlas. As in the guy who holds up the sky. So those two decide to come up with a plan to capture a monster called the Ophiotaurus which would basically grant power to destroy Olympus to anybody who killed it. So you know, taking the easy way out. Kronos wanted Thalia to kill it. Later, Kronos assigned the demigod he’s been using this whole time to help Atlas with the mission…and you’d think it’d be easy enough to say no, but Kronos is clever. There are some fates that are worse than death…like becoming a new host.
The story was told later but from what I remember the demigod takes Atlas’s place to carry the sky for a while in order to trick Annabeth into taking it while she’s captured. All of this is happening because the demigod knows Percy will come to rescue her, and Percy’s the one who keeps getting in the way. There’s also this group called the Hunters of Artemis. Artemis was tricked into holding the sky in Annabeth’s place and that brought the hunters to the other side of the country, too. While all of this is going on, the demigod’s doing his own work to hunt down Percy and lure him to Mount Othrys, the Titan’s operational base. Like Olympus, it moved, too. It was in San Francisco. Anyway, the demigod thought that maybe Thalia could be swayed to join the side of the titans. It’s not a secret what her father did to her…but Thalia’s strong. She refused to go down like that and the two of them fought until she won and sent him flying off a cliff. Sometime after that, Thalia pledges herself to become a Hunter which means she became immortal at the age of 15 and passing the prophecy onto somebody else. Smart girl.
Kronos…was pretty mad. Mad enough that he decided to make good on the promise to turn the demigod into his new vessel to prepare him for his second coming. With no friends left and stuck in a position he had no way of getting out of, the demigod went back to Kronos and prepared himself. Bathed in the River Styx and everything to make himself invulnerable save for the Achilles heel and also preparing himself to be able to take on the titan’s power and withstand future battles. They created a plan together to attack Camp Half-Blood. And in the end…well, nobody was surprised when the demigod was fully possessed by the titan and Kronos started a new clock. Once he achieved full power inside the demigod’s body, the vessel would be useless and burned up and Kronos would be in his true form. This was the start of the Battle of Manhattan. Titans versus demigods. It was kind of a mess. The entire city of mortals was put to sleep so that the battle would wage on. Percy and Annabeth and the others did all they could to fight back and even with Percy being stronger than ever since he followed and bathed in the Styx, too, to become invulnerable, it wasn’t enough. Kronos was too strong.
[He stops fully, biting his lip for a moment.] …it was Annabeth. Annabeth was the one who managed to break through and reach the vessel and bring him back in control of his body. Even after Kronos had tried to kill her, it was Annabeth who was able to help him fight back enough…and it was Annabeth’s knife that was given to the vessel in his last minutes of clarity to locate his Achilles heel and stab himself with the blade to end the titan for good.
That was how Annabeth helped save Olympus. That was why her knife was important. That was why…she needs that weapon. And I lost it. [There’s one more crucial part to the story. What happened to the vessel. But again…that was a lot. So he’s waiting to see what Adam has to say.]
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His next thought is that this all apparently takes place in America. It's only jarring because he'd imagined Olympus at least being in Greece. It's easier to focus on the smaller details, the girl who came back from being a tree, who sent him off a cliff—that explains that—and then the possession. He shifts uncomfortably when Luke describes it, describes the vessel that was used. He knows what being possessed is like, but then he thinks it's stupid to compare himself to all of this. It's completely different. ]
But wouldn't aiming for the Achilles heel also... kill him? [ He thinks. But that doesn't make sense. Being saved from a stab wound wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen in that story. He looks over at Luke now instead of staring at the wall, almost concerned like he might start bleeding out right there. It sure has changed his perspective. ]
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And yet while he's looking over at him, even though he's very aware Adam's next to him and still hasn't exactly freaked out yet, Luke's staring at the wall. He picks up the movements out of the corner of his eye, the shifting, the way he's looking at him. But he doesn't call him on it just yet.]
Sure would. [And now Adam Parrish knows everything. The only person on the entire ship to know most of Luke's secrets.] But it's like the prophecy said. "And see the world in endless sleep, the hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap. A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze."
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But Luke is right next to him and fine. He thinks about Hancock and how he specified that he wasn't a zombie, that he never died. And here Luke is, the real zombie. What do you say to that? Rest in peace? Sorry about that? ]
So... you're the hero. [ Of something he caused, but it didn't sound like he had much of a choice. Sure, Luke is biased, but that doesn't really matter. Adam isn't looking for facts. ] I guess you don't know what'll happen if you make it out. [ Will he go back to being dead? He doesn't really want to think about that. He could get a new chance at life. ] Have you tried asking?
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Yup. I'm the hero of the prophecy and for years people like my parents and Hal knew that, I think. Or at least knew that I'd be on the path to that. And Annabeth's knife was the cursed blade because I'm the one who accidentally cursed it. I don't know how she did it, but...she got to me. [Because he cared about her. He already knows that. It's the next question that leaves him sort of floundering again.] There's no way I'm asking Alice something like that. Besides...I already know what'll happen to me if I make it out. [He huffs.] Heroes go to Elysium. They get the chance to try for rebirth. Pretty sure I was on my way to Tartarus to be sorted before I was pulled here instead. So...you can see why some people might thing I'm a better target if they knew all of that. I don't have anything to go back to because as soon as I go back, I'm starting over as somebody else. Or going back to being dead. Nobody needs to know I can try for rebirth.
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The idea of rebirth gives him a little hope but then Luke says starting over. Which, for Luke, might be nice, but... ] You wouldn't have any memories if you were reborn? You wouldn't remember Annabeth? [ Because that seems like an injustice. Obviously she's important to him. He runs a hand through his hair, still trying to understand everything. ]
That's... I can't say I expected that. [ He kind of wants to tell him that all sucked but he probably knows. ] But I understand your point now. You have more at stake because you're trying for a new life.
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Exactly. If I get out of here, I get back so I can try again. But people get desperate enough here... "hey, why not go after the guy who's already dead?" [But...] I won't remember anything from my former life once I go through rebirth. I won't remember my name, I won't remember everything I did in my life as Luke Castellan, and I won't remember Annabeth, Thalia, Percy or Grover. [Let's just throw new names into the mix.] The thing about people like us is that if a hero dies and successfully gets into Elysium three times, they can go to a place called the Isle of Blest. It's the ultimate paradise. But that means continuing to live and be a hero those three times. Annabeth, Percy and Grover were all in the throne room during the final battle. They all know I'm going for rebirth. [But not Thalia. And it sucks...but he can't exactly dwell on that.]
[There's a pause.] You know this means you can't hide anything from me after I just told you all of that, don't you.
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So they can find you. [ Alright. He'll let that point go. It isn't his life. He'll just scoff at Luke. ]
I don't have a story like that, promise. I'm not hiding anything. [ After a second, he pauses, then rolls his eyes. ] Alright, fine. [ He gets up and goes over to his bed. He lifts up the mattress of the bottom bunk and if Luke is looking closely, he'll see a slice in it. Adam sticks his hand into the mattress and then pulls out the weeding scythe. He turns and shows it to him. ]
Since you're my partner, you should know, I guess. No one else knows, so I hope you can keep it as much a secret as all that. Unless you want to see my magical hand lotion, that's it.
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Okay what...[Just like that, tragic backstory is on the backburner because Adam has apparently been hiding the weeding scythe? Please don't mind him if he sort of recoils because scythes are kind of not okay in any shape or form.
Wait. Wait a sec.] I'll get back to making fun of your magic hand lotion in a second. Didn't this thing go missing weeks ago? It was you? [...gods, what now.] Okay. Explain.
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Explain what? People weren't going to give up their weapons and if you haven't noticed, I don't have anything. So I took it from the garden and hid it. It's just in case, basically. [ He looks back to his destroyed bed. ] It's usually under the mattress for accessibility, but before trials I put it inside of it in case I'm a suspect.
I don't know if your lessons help much with this thing, but it can't hurt.
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