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Chiron has seen more death than he can bear during his life. Despite his immortal status, a small part of him dies with every hero of his that travels to Elysium. His dreams are haunted my images of maggots and dead things. They are filled with burning flesh smoking poisonous fumes. With crushed bones and wood splintered in a cold body. With a form falling off the earth and colliding with Poseidon. Of all the horrid atrocities and expiring cadavers that stain his mind, no doubt, the most grotesque slaughter was that of the lovers. Oh how those lovers raze him. A walking skeleton rattling around towards a battle he won’t return from. The sound of agonizing wails of a broken heart and hair being torn from a scalp. A godly man stumbling in a haze of rage and retribution. The smell of a bloody shade avoiding food like the plague, hoping to bring upon his own end fruitlessly due to the ichor running through his veins. Sea foam eyes darting towards an oncoming arrow that could easily be avoided but isn’t.Oh those young lovers torture him so. On exceptionally hellish nights, in an attempt to soothe the ache in his chest he closes his eyes and pictures two young boys chasing each other along the beach with salty hair and wide smiles. However, his pain isn’t sated but strangely increases to a harrowing hole in his heart. One of these nights with Zeus pelting down upon camp half blood for whatever reason he had at the moment, Chiron’s imagination is interrupted by voices echoing throughout the camp. Of course, he’d do anything for his dear campers except keep them alive Chiron and immediately raises from his bed in the Big House to trot down the porch. He squints his eyes in thought and stops a darting Lee Fletcher holding an umbrella and a med kit under his arm to question him.“A girl just entered the camp! All alone, no protector in sight!” He shouts over the loud sound of rain and thunder cracking across the sky before continuing to dash towards camp half-bloods border. Chiron immediately follows, paying no mind to the water drenching his figure. Once Chiron has a crowd of teenagers in raincoats and under umbrellas in his sights, he immediately slows down as he approaches. Bodies part to make way and the vision that he sets his eyes on make him pause. There’s a child, not much older than the dear Annabeth, under Lee Fletchers arm, one hand clenching his shirt and the other with a vice grip around a rusted kitchen knife, tight enough for her nails to dig into her palms and draw blood. She’s drenched from head to toe with mud smeared across her face and caked in her hair. But even with her grimy appearance, she is undoubtedly the most beautiful child that Chiron has ever seen. Her lips are pouty and red (though he isn’t sure it’s originated from their natural hue or stained with blood) with full cheeks, and despite being tangled and soiled, her hair reaches to her mid back in a waterfall of caramel. He absorbs her appearance before his face goes white as a sheet when he sets his sights on her eyes.Goosebumps stutter up his skin and blood clouds his vision. Those eyes. Oh gods those eyes. The remarkable sea foam tint filled with cutting wrath lacerate his skin. He feels a unusual mix of familiarity and horror when he stares into her eyes. None of this child’s other features bared much of a resemblance. Her hair was too dark, her jawline too feminine, and her frame too delicate. But that was him. Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles. Shining Achilles. Godlike Achilles. Oh how the epithets piled up, but no one ever called him any of those things, they called him “the butcher”. He stares at this girl with wide eyes and his vision flickers; the mud speared across her face turns red and she is suddenly donned in imperial gold armor.Chiron can’t help but think that this cannot be good. It’s a sign that the worst is to come. This must’ve been why Zeus was in such a bad mood. Fates help him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Percy always thought his name was weird. He didn’t
hate
it, but he knew that his name was unconventional. And if he had ever forgotten it, the kids at Yancy Academy were sure to let him know. On his 6th birthday he asked his mom why she named him Perseus and she looked down at him where he was sitting on her lap with blue frosting on his face, then she smiled with her gentle, but oddly sad smile and spoke in her usual gentle tone “He was the only hero, who was happy.” Percy’s eyebrows scrunched up in confusion.
The only hero? But they’re hero’s! They must be happy! What is she talking about, Superman is happy!
His mom gave him a hearty chuckle at his perplexed expression and brushed a bit of dark hair off of his forehead. She looked back up at the TV where they were watching Monsters Inc before speaking again. “Of all the greek hero’s, Perseus was the only one with a happy ending.” As a newly 6 year old he didn’t give it much thought, but looking back as a 13 year old who now knows too much, he’s painfully aware why his mother chose his name. He can’t think of a single greek hero that got their happy ending. Heracles killed his wife and kids before being poisoned by his second wife. Jason was killed by a beam of his own ship falling him after breaking his wife’s heart and the deaths of his children. Theseus was chased out by his own people and pushed off a cliff by Lycomedes. And Achillies lost his other half due to his own fatal flaw, and then killed by an arrow he should’ve been able to avoid. The only hero that ever got his happy ending was Perseus. He
now
knows that his mother named him with the hope that his life would turn out better than the others. That he wouldn’t be just another greek tragedy.
Of course, this didn’t cross his 7 year old self’s mind once and he went back to watching Monsters Inc with his mom while getting blue frosted chocolate cake all over him. Once the movie was over (much to him mom’s relief, though she would never tell him that) his mom scooped him up into her arms and carried him to his bedroom. As he sank into his plushy comforter and cuddled up with his worn stuffed bear, his mom combed through his hair with gentle hands, making his eyes droop and body sink into his mattress. The last thought that crossed his mind before let’s Hypnos overtake him was how much he loved his mom.
-
Wyatt Lovelace hates his daughter. Technically, she isn’t even his. Heather couldn’t keep her legs closed when he was out of town on a business trip and fell into a threesome with a handsome unnamed military man and his model girlfriend. 9 months later Sloane Marie Lovelace appeared. Now, Wyatt and his wife have worked through their problems, but he can’t seem to get over this resentment for the little parasite that entered his life.
What made it worse was that Heather loves Sloane more than anything else in the world. Heather spends every hour of every day caring for the
hopeless 6
year old. She braids its hair, kisses its wounds, reads it stories, and pacifies its tantrums. Oh and how Sloane raises hell when she has a tantrum. Her tantrums were legendary. Sloane was the most stubborn little girl that Wyatt has ever met. Her normally endearing rosy cheeks turn tomato red and her aquamarine eyes become bloodshot and fill with stubborn tears. She pulls at her hair with Heather desperately trying to redirect her hands away from her fawn tresses and doesn’t let go until everything goes her way. Wyatt would be mildly impressed in her sheer will if he didn’t want to leave her at the nearest homeless shelter at any given moment.
Other than the episodes of uncontrollable wrath, Sloane was the perfect child. She’s undoubtedly comely with her long silky caramel-toned blonde locks, striking eyes, full pouty lips and even fuller rosy cheeks. Alongside being objectively charming, Sloane is friendly and frustratingly talented in everything she does. Athletic, musically blessed, ingenious, she seems to have it all. Of course, this makes him more and more murderous over this ignorant child.
Wyatt hid his abhorrence well. He spoils her with gifts of many varieties and protects her from any harm that would come her way. He tightly smiles at her and pats her head gently (even though he would rather not touch her), but despite how hard he tried to conceal it, Wyatt would always hate Sloane Lovelace.