CATHARSIS, jason grace¹

𝟬𝟯𝟭. your greatest love

"BY THE ORDER of the Olympians," a loud voice resonated across Mount Olympus, "the pardoned Aera Kim shall be escorted back to Camp Half-Blood by Percy Jackson, upon which she shall be placed under careful surveillance for an indefinite measure of time..."

Aera blinked and Aphrodite had vanished from where she stood before. House arrest? How glamorous. She should've known she wouldn't have been let off eye-bag-free. Aera rubbed the tear stains off her face, where her mother had placed her sickly soft fingers. Her nauseating talk with Aphrodite about love and her sisters and all that godly mushy crap had made her skin crawl. She was being pressured into take the fall for her sister. Now it was decreed that she was going to be shepherded out by a fish. Perfect. Just perfect.

Nature spirits, immortals, and minor gods and goddesses all crowded the streets of the now rubbled divine city, shooting scornful glances, muttering, and whispering. None in Mount Olympus spared Aera a friendly gaze. Their hearts all beat at erratic paces, generating discord everywhere Aera went. It made everything else inaudible. But it wasn't hard to tell what their opinion of her was. There were so many people closing in around her, hurling questions and insults and demands. Some immortal even came over and spat on the ground in front of her.

Those who lived on Olympus were supposed to be at the highest order of the world. And yet Aera felt like a washed up child-star who had been arrested for going off the rails and the inhabitants of Mount Olympus were her bloodthirsty paparazzi.

Aera had never felt more isolated. Luke was dead and so was Silena, the two people she loved the most. Kronos had disappeared. His army was dissolved and most had been forced into hiding to avoid the wrath of the Olympians. Aera no longer had a purpose.

Percy kept his disgusting sea urchin claw steadily on her shoulder as he ushered Aera forward. He knocked over deities when they got too close and ordered everyone to stay back. Aera was too drained to protest, hanging her head low as they traversed the seemingly endless path out.

Their awkward ride in the elevator was the single most embarrassing minute of Aera's entire life. The music was awful—Neil Diamond or something. Neither of them exchanged a word. Percy kept pretending to have a poker face, but he also kept shooting glances at Aera through the corner of his eye and clearing his throat.

Kill me. Aera wished she had died, not Luke, just so she didn't have to be stuck there in that elevator with that anglerfish.

When they finally arrived at the lobby of the Empire State Building, it felt like a millennia had passed. There, a middle-aged white man and a woman were arguing with a bald security guard.

"I'm telling you," the woman yelled, "we have to go up! My son—" Then she saw Percy and her eyes widened. "Percy!" She hugged him so tight Aera heard the jump in his pulse. Now she really wanted to die.

Aera had never seen Percy's mother before. She had always imagined his mom as something of an algae-ridden shark, a mortal as crusty and salty as the sea god she courted. Instead, since the universe just despised her that much, Sally Jackson was a strikingly beautiful woman.

Her blue eyes sparkled and changed tints in the light. Her hair was long and brown with a few streaks of grey but her bright smile made her look a lot younger than she probably was. And her skin was, like, perfect and dewy and moisturized, not dull and saggy like an old person's at all. It was just not fair.

"We saw the building light up blue," Ms. Jackson gushed, out of breath. "But then you didn't come down. You went up hours ago!"

"She was getting a bit anxious," the man beside her explained. He had salt and pepper hair and the air of a snooty college professor. Who was this? Her sugar daddy?