Chapter Text
The sun shone uncomfortably in Prizmarine’s eyes, Percy snoring softly in the seat beside her. Despite the fact that she knew damn well that he had gotten the least amount of sleep out of all of them, she wanted to strangle him for being able to fall asleep so easily in the cramped bus. The van had, thankfully, not been on fire when they had seen it at the bottom of the hill. Argus picked them up and drove them to the outskirts of the city where they picked up a bus taking them west. Only three hours into their journey and they were all already getting sick of eachother. In the aisle seat Annabeth was starting to look frazzled, shooting a glare in Percy’s direction every time his loud breathing startled her awake as soon as she started to doze off.
In the other row Will was arguably the most comfortable, having the row all to himself after the mother and daughter that had been sitting with him got off on the last stop a few hours ago. He had settled near the window, his legs propped up on the other two seats, eyes closed but not yet asleep. His unease was evident, foot shaking, a rhythmic pattern drumming out when his boot connected with the fabric of the seat.
“Percy” She hissed, poking his legs which took up the majority of the aisle. He groaned in his sleep, swatting her hand away.
“Son of a- Percy!” His eyes flung open, bloodshot and exhausted shooting daggers her way,
“What.” He snapped.
Annoyance ticked at her jaw, “Move. I wanna get up,” He muttered a few choice curses under his breath as he sat up properly, sighing deeply as his head rolled onto Annabeth’s shoulder, who melted in relief as his new position had effectively stopped his faint snoring. Leaving her bag behind on her seat, Prizmarine carefully made her way out of her aisle, pins and needles shooting through her legs as she regained proper blood flow.
“Will?” It was soft, just in case he really was asleep but he responded immediately, “Can’t sleep?” He shook his head, swiveling his legs off of the seat and offering it to her. She took it graciously.
“So I’m assuming that you and Nico…”
He swallowed thickly, “Yeah…” He trailed off a bit awkwardly.
“Look, I don’t really know you, you don’t know me, but if you want a neutral opinion I’m here.”
He thought about it, eyes darting around, almost as if looking for an escape before sighing, voice defeated, “I’m just worried,”
“Why? He’s a big boy, and can handle himself. At least that’s what I’ve been told,”
“I’m not worried about someone or something doing something to him, he’s just so f*cking stubborn and hardheaded. If I’m not there to tie him down to the infirmary beds he’ll shadow travel himself sick,”
Prizmarine couldn’t help but feel bad as he took a few deep breaths to steel himself, “What happens if he takes it too far?”
“I don’t know exactly,” His face darkened, “I have a pretty good guess though. He’d weaken himself to the point that if he used his powers he’d probably collapse in the ‘in-between’ where he goes in and where he’d go out for shadow travel,”
He looked out of the window thoughtfully, she regretted asking, “So you’re worried about his… health?”
She knew very well what it was that Will was worried about, she herself had considered the thought one or twice, her nightmares making her question how far Percy and her could go before they both break. To be worried about their health just seemed like the simplest way she could put it. He considered it for a moment before nodding solemnly,
“That’s fair. I worry about Percy’s health sometimes. Mine too.” His blue eyes snapped to her own, searching them as if to see if she was referring to the same ‘health’ they had just been talking about. She swallowed thickly, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get off of this bus, the admission of her fear making it feel a little too real, “I’m just trying to say that you’re not alone in worrying, I’m not really the expert in family or love or anything but y’know…” She trailed off awkwardly, not sure what to say,
“I’ll just leave you to your thoughts then-” She was about to get up and hide in the bathroom until the bout of shame washed away but he grabbed her wrist,
“You don’t have to go,” He seemed momentarily unable to meet her eye, “some company couldn’t hurt.”
Prizmarine smiled, settling back down into her seat. For the next several hours they sat in comfortable silence, the two of them occasionally turning to look at Percy and Annabeth as they slept. Prizmarine was curious, she couldn’t help that.
“So… what’s the deal? With them, I mean.” Will turned to look at the two, now both asleep, hands limp in each other’s laps.
“The only person on the planet who can understand what Percy’s gone through is Annabeth, and that’s because she was right there with him the entire time. She’s known him since they were twelve and she just understands him in a way that we mere mortals don’t,” he teased lightly, “They’ve killed for each other, and they’ve both been more than willing to die for eachother.”
Prizmarine nodded along softly. It was weird, she’d seen her brother during training, heard about his prowess in battle, and even seen it in her own dreams, but for whatever reason she couldn’t see him killing anything. Or any one. It wasn’t his appearance that threw her off, because when she’d first met him her first thought was that he was intimidating, dangerous, no it was something else. Maybe the gentleness she knew he possessed, not for her necessarily, but then again they hardly knew each other. She saw it in the way he treated Annabeth, how he treated their mother, saw it in the giddiness he felt to open a letter from Tyson, there were parts of him that were just too normal for her to imagine him killing something.
There was one thing for certain though, and that was that Prizmarine couldn’t imagine herself killing anyone either. She’d had a penchant for violence her entire life, it’d gotten her in and out of more trouble than she could remember, she could hold her own in a fist fight against the average person, she had the size and the strength to hold her own against a not so average person. But the problem was that they weren’t going against people, and they weren’t just smacking them around until one of them tapped out, it was kill or be killed.
“Prizmarine?” Will’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she turned to look at the blonde, her voice hoarse as she hummed back softly, showing that she was listening. He gave a small, almost concerned smile, “You okay? You’re playing with your, um… pen.”
She furrowed her brows slightly in confusion, looking down to see that her thumb was playing with the bronze pen that Tyson had sent her. She quickly pocketed it, looking up at him a bit sheepishly. Prizmarine was still relatively new to the whole demi-god thing, so while she knows the mist exists, she’s not too sure how much he trusts the mist. Her cheeks redden as Will chuckles at her, shaking his head lightly. The pen felt heavy in both her pocket and on her soul. It was her ticket to survival, but that survival meant hurting other people. “Sorry…”
Will shook his head, quickly trying to reassure her, “No, no it’s not a bad thing I just… I could tell you weren’t really noticing.” There was a beat of silence. “Have you… have you used it yet.”
No. She thought. And it was terrifying. She cleared her throat a little, forcing a bit of a smile, “Oh, uh, no not really. Haven’t had the chance quite just yet.”
There was something almost pitiful in his eyes as he nodded in understanding, “I wouldn’t worry too much, you’ll get your chance soon enough.” Oh glorious. Another ominous warning, as if she hadn’t had enough of those. Sadie, Sally, Percy, Annabeth, and now Will. She bit her cheek as she mulled over her terrific odds. The bus lurched slightly, which startled Percy and Annabeth awake. Prizmarine watched as the two of them were suddenly on full alert, eyes darting back and forth out the windows.
She felt like she was missing something. It was a bus. It likely just hit a pothole, or at least that’s what she was telling herself, but when she glanced back at Will and saw the nervous look on his face she wondered if maybe she should have been nervous. Her heart started to race in her chest, almost feeling the shadowy hand from her nightmares clawing at her heart.
“Will?” She asked softly, looking over at the blonde, whose brows were furrowed in concern, glancing out the windows nervously.
He let his hand wander to his bow, fingers twitching in the general direction of his quiver somewhere at their feet, and he whispered just one word to her. “Pen.”
In almost an instant the entire bus lurched, the air being knocked out of Prizmarine’s lungs as she crashed into the other wall, feeling the window shatter beneath her as the bus teetered and fell on its side, the loud scraping of metal against concrete making her skin crawl. She could hear someone yelling out her name but she wasn’t sure who it was, her ears ringing as pain blossomed across her side, her vision blurring as she fumbled for her pen, fingers slick with what might have been blood or sweat.
“Perce-Percy…?” She called, groaning as she forced herself to her feet, finally managing to click her pen, her vision clearing as her spear glowed a faint gold. The side of the bus that she and Will had been on was the ceiling, deep gashes in the metal as though made by massive claws. She looked and the bus was empty, one of the emergency escapes on what was meant to have been the ceiling burst open sunlight pouring in.
Prizmarine’s heart had never hammered as fast as it was then as she crept over broken glass and crawled over seats as she made her way towards the blinding daylight.
She had to blink several times before the scene in front of her came into focus, three massive hellhounds snarling wildly as Annabeth defended Will, who was nursing his own broken arm as he sat against the metal of the bus as Percy raged against two of the hellhounds, drawing as much attention as possible from Annabeth and Will.
She was frozen. Prizmarine had gone through all the training, and even gone as far as gotten good at fighting only to find herself in the middle of one and unable to move. She held onto her spear as tightly as possible watching these two separate conflicts, her chest tight as her eyes frantically darted between the two, unable to choose who to help, not knowing if she even could help.
“Priz! Priz you’ve gotta help!” Her head shot up, eyes wide with terror as she looked up at Percy, who looked nearly unrecognizable in his battle rage. But all she could see was the way blood, maybe his, maybe Annabeths, stained his collar.
“Priz you gotta help me-” A whimper died in her throat as she could almost see and hear flashes of her nightmares, of that same stained collar in a much more dire situation.
“I can- I don’t-” She felt like she was going mad, tears building in her eyes as she heard it. That laugh. That laugh that had followed her throughout her nightmares, and she felt as a feeling she couldn’t quite place bubbling up in her chest. It was stronger than her terror, stronger than her rage, and as this strange, buzzing, itching feeling crept up her body a fourth hellhound leapt at her and something inside her snapped.
***
It was a freezing London winter, but Prizmarine had never felt hotter. She could feel blood running from her nose but she couldn’t care less, she was sneering down at a girl a whole three years ahead of her at school, her fist buried in the girl's hair as she had her face slammed against the brick wall on the side of the school.
“Say it again I bloody dare you, you f*cking c*nt!” She yelled, ignoring the girls writhing and sobbing. She was hardly fifteen and this girl was well and properly grown, trying to hit her back but unable to.
“Let me go!” She screamed, but Prizmarine was lost in rage. She’d been going to walk home when she had overheard the older girl gossiping with her friends and had called her and Sadie dykes. She hadn’t seen Sadie in months, and the first time she did this had happened. She hadn’t thought that she’d hit the girl, but when she’d doubled down and called them a pair of fa*ggots to their face it was like she just couldn’t help herself.
She could feel Sadie tugging on her arms, begging her to stop. “Priz that’s enough! Stop it! Just- forget it!”
Prizmarine looked back and saw that for the first time ever, Sadie looked scared of her. Guilt cut through her anger like a knife and she looked at the who sniveled beneath her. She felt a nerve in her jaw jump as she pulled the girl's hair, forcing the older girl to look up at Sadie.
“Apologize. Say you’re sorry.” Her chest heaved with the effort to take breaths deep enough for her to remain calm as the girl just whimpered aimlessly, crying loudly.
“Christ Prizmarine let it go-” Sadie started to beg, before the girl beneath Prizmarine seemed to gain her senses, shouting out apologies, damn near screaming that she was sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again. Prizmarine huffed in annoyance before finally letting her go, the girl scrambling away from her, tears in her eyes as she yelled at Prizmarine.
“You’re sick! You’re-”
***
Priz felt herself being pulled from her reverie as a sickening yelp caught her attention, looking down to see as a hellhound’s blood, dark and thick like ichor pours out from a wound in its neck, her spear imbedded deep into it’s flesh as the massive dog looked severely wounded. She dropped the spear like it burned her flesh, looking around to see the shadows where three other hell hounds had met their end, her face and hands sticky with that same thick obsidian liquid.
When had she stepped into the fight? She blinked rapidly as she tried to put the series of events together, failing to understand how she found herself in this position she forgot that the monster in front of her wasn’t dead yet, and could do nothing but flinch away from it as it snarled and lunged, her entire body curling in on itself as she found herself cowering like a child.
There was one more, final squelch before she felt a strong, firm pair of hands on her shoulders, pulling her over towards the wreckage that used to be the bus.
“What the f*ck was that?!” Percy yells, his face contorted in rage as he shoved her up against the side of the bus.
“I don’t- I couldn’t kill-”
“Yeah you couldn’t!” He shouted, eyes wide and incredulous. His hands too were stained with the black ichor of hounds blood, “Are you stupid? You can’t stop fighting, Prizmarine!”
Under any other circ*mstance she might have shouted back but she was so thrown, so confused. Prizmarine was still reeling from the memory of the girl’s scraped up face and the sick sound of the hellhound screaming out in pain, all of it mingling together with the echoing sound of the woman’s laughter.
Annabeth came to her defense, putting a hand on Percy’s shoulder, her tone firm, almost scolding as she demanded he back off, “Percy, this was her first time give her a break-”
“No!” He yelled back, some of the storm brewing in his eyes dissipating as he realized who he was shouting at, his tone softening, “No. That sh*t will get you f*cking killed, Prizmarine.”
She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t breathe, her mind going back to that memory of the girl wondering why the hell she’d remembered it then, and the more that she tried to grasp onto the memory the harder it was to grab onto. One moment she was remembering the girl crying and screaming beneath her and the next the dogs were snapping at her face, her spear a bronze flash as she rushed to defend herself. Neither of the two memories were clear, and she didn’t know why.
Her mouth went dry as, almost like a vision, she could see the girl’s face in front of her, just past Percy’s shoulder, pushed up against the road and thrashing before her face shifted to that of the hellhound, snarling and frothing at the mouth, her scream and it’s yelp mingling into this horrible sound that invaded her ears like a ringing.
“Prizmarine?” The voice was a million miles away as she couldn’t bear to look away from the spot in the road where the hound had sunk into shadow. She’d killed it. Prizmarine knew that monsters never stayed dead, but she had killed them. The hounds were alive and then they weren’t and it was because of her.
“Prizmarine.” When had the air grown so thin? No matter how hard she tried it was like she could never quite get enough into her lungs, and her mind flashed back to the memory from all those weeks ago, just after she had been claimed when she had dreamed she’d drowned. Percy said they couldn’t drown, but what if he was wrong? What if she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t strong enough? If they were fighting gods, titans, hell, even primordials, wouldn’t these people, these beings, have the power to make her drown? To make her afraid? To make her hurt?
What the hell was she doing here? What did it matter who her father was, she was on this quest with people she didn’t know who all had valid reasons to not just dislike her, but to want her dead. Isn’t that what the gods had agreed upon when the prophecy had been made? To kill one of the twins? When they grew tired of her, of this quest, which she knew they would do, what would stop them from killing her to avoid the prophecy? Maybe her mother had loved her enough to beg for her life but these people, this man who, despite being her biological brother and being kind to her, were tired of risking their lives over and over again may not think her valuable enough.
“Prizmarine!”
She snapped out of her reverie, cheeks wet with tears as she looked up at the voice, wide terrified eyes settling upon Will, who’s brows were furrowed in worry, “Breathe, it’s okay, it’s done, they’re gone-”
“I can’t do this.” She interjected, voice strained and tight, the taste of blood filling her mouth as she vaguely registered she’d bitten down too hard on the inside of her cheek, “Will, this is mad, I’m not-”
Will’s eyes hardened, his voice firm as he grabbed onto both of his shoulders, squeezing, “Stop. Look, this is a sh*t deal, and I’m sorry that this is happening all at once for you and that there’s no time to grieve whatever life you had before, but we have to move.”
Prizmarine swallowed thickly, looking around. It was a wreck, the bus was flung on its side, injured passengers dragging eachother out of the wreckage as cars stopped in the middle of this highway, the faint sound of sirens approaching. This had happened because of them. The bus wouldn’t have been attacked if they hadn’t been on it-
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop.” She glanced behind him to see Percy and Annabeth were already at the edge of the road, hopping over the divider into a deeply wooded area, “We’ve got to keep moving, okay?”
They had to keep moving. So she did. Her mind painfully numb as she scooped up her spear from where it’d fallen on the floor and clicking it back into a pen, tucking it into her pocket as she did the one thing that she apparently could do without fail. Run.
***
She had no idea how long they had run, long enough that the sounds of sirens and the highway were left long behind them and they were in what felt like deep forest, although according to their map they weren’t all that far from the highway, somewhere in the Moshannon State Forest, albeit in the less well trodden bits, according to Annabeth’s map. It was late, and despite the fact that it was a warm early July evening they had started a fire, mostly to keep the bugs away but also because Prizmarine couldn’t stop shivering. There was this terrible chill that followed her ever since she had heard the sound of the woman’s laugh after the incident on the road, that no matter what she did she couldn’t shake.
Her mind wandered aimlessly as she stared into the fire, ignoring the way every single time the fire popped the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end. Ignored the way that she could feel shallow claw marks aching on her arm, the injury having previously gone unnoticed due to the shock of what had happened. Her entire body hurt from the accident on the road and she wanted nothing more than for her first day of questing to be over.
She felt someone take a seat beside her at the fire, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at who it was. Couldn’t bear to look away from the flames.
“Your arm. I can wrap that up for you if you want.” She glanced over to see Annabeth. Admittedly not who she had expected. “Will spent all his energy and prayer healing his broken arm so he’s resting, and Percy…” Prizmarine scoffed at that, turning to look back at the fire. He was still furious with her no doubt. He’d already snapped at her again since the road, his temper boiling over whenever she fell behind the group.
“Don’t bother, he doesn’t need you to put his fires out for him.” She grumbled, hesitating for a moment before giving her arm over to Annabeth for her to look at. “Thanks.”
The silence was long and heavy as the blonde used their limited and precious supplies to clean up her shallow wound and wrap it up with clean gauze, which if they kept their unlucky streak, wouldn’t last long. She didn’t speak again until she was nearly done wrapping up the wound, “He’s not really mad.”
Prizmarine’s head turned to look at her, knees drawn up to her chest as she gave an unconvinced look.
“I mean it. He just… this is a lot for him too, finding out about you has him really confused even if he’s being a good sport about it, okay? He feels… obligated to keep you safe-”
Priz bristled at this, “I don’t need him to do anything for me.”
She would have kept arguing but her voice died in her throat as she saw the unimpressed look on Annabeth’s face. “If he hadn’t stepped in you’d be a hell of a lot worse off than just a scratch. What happened today wasn’t good but it’s not… unusual, I guess. For a first time. Your circ*mstances are very different to the ones that he and I were in when we faced a monster for the first time, not to mention that you’ve had more time on the other side of the mist. This stuff is harder to unlearn the older you get and we are old for demigods.”
That was curious to Prizmarine. Annabeth had turned twenty that morning, and she and Percy were set to turn twenty in about a month. They were, by mortal society’s standards, young. How common was it for demigods to die?
“You don’t have to answer, but… who was the oldest demigod you knew? Are they still alive or…”
She watched as a shadow crossed over Annabeth’s face, a sad smile on her face as she shook her head, “No, no it’s a good question. Well, Luke Castellan was twenty three when he died. He’s the oldest greek demigod I’d ever met. I mean he died five years ago now, so other than him I’d have to say probably Clarisse. She’s a year older than us, give or take.”
“So… what, we have three years? If we succeed and the world doesn’t end, that is.” Annabeth’s silence spoke volumes. “What happens if we make it past those three years? We’re on borrowed time?”
Prizmarine huffed a laugh, a terrible, cruel laugh. “Why don’t you tell Percy that there’s no point in keeping me safe, it won’t make a difference-”
“It will to him.” She implored, eyes serious, “I know you don’t know him, you have no reason to care about him, or any of us, but he promised your mom that he’d watch out for you. This matters to Sally, which means it matters to him.”
