The Child of Many Worlds

10: The Things That Bind Us

With swift, decisive cuts, my jeans instantly became shorts. If Sleipnir hadn't been so preoccupied he probably would have questioned my skills with a knife, but at the sight of what lay under my now ruined clothes, no one uttered a word.

Crawling from my left ankle upwards to my left hip, was an intricate tattoo. It looked like a writhing mass of strings, forming constantly changing words and images. It moved like water under my skin, never stopping or looking as it had before. The colors of each strand shifted as well, flitting and melting from sea green, royal purple, ice blue, dark red, muted gold and glowing white with no rhyme or reason. It was incredibly beautiful and unlike anything I'd ever seen, but I could only think of one thing. My Mom's going to kill me.

It looked like Natasha had a similar train of thought, because she looked horrified as well. If I hadn't felt as she did I probably would have laughed at her expression.

Sleipnir just seemed shocked, he looked like he had been the one hit by the magic burning, tattoo giving rope, instead of me. With all of us mentally preoccupied, silence hung in the air.

The cool, moist wind twisted around us, rustling the soaked trees and grass.

Eventually one of us ended of making a noise, I'm not really sure who, but it knocked us out of our stupor. Surprisingly I wasn't the first one to talk or say something stupid.

"Those were the Norns." Sleipnir said, monotone.

"Yeah, I guess so. You did say they'd come down and bless me." I was confused about why he sounded unsure over something he himself said.

"No, you don't understand, those were the Norns." He had stressed the word norn, and again I wasn't sure why. He looked stressed and said, "Percy, normally when a child is blessed, minor norns come, but they just take care of the premade lines of destiny. The Norns, with a capital N, are the ones who actually create and intertwine those lines and the ones who take care of the world tree, Yggdrasil. They're the ones who just came down." He stood up. "They've never all appeared, the most was when two came and blessed Odin! And he's Odin, for gods sake!" He had slowly grown louder and more fervent until he was shouting at the end.

Putting my hands up in a "Hey don't shot me please" gesture, I stood up slowly, wincing from the remaining pain in my leg and limped over to his tense form. Carefully I reached out and grasped his hand, leading him back to the ground when Natasha was still sitting. I made sure he was comfortable and gently let go of his hand, giving him space to process what he needed to. It took him a few minutes but his shoulders finally lost their tension and he seemed ready to talk.

"So Sleipnir, I remember the Norns blessing me, but I don't remember who they announced as my parents or anything after that. I think the pain erased a little bit of my memory."

He tensed up again and looked ready to break down, but as he looked around and saw our worried looks he seemed to regain some control. With a sigh he said, "Your mother is Sally Jackson and your father is Loki of Asgard." He cracked a smile and sarcastically said "Looks like we're more closely related than I thought, Little Brother."

To say I was shocked was an understatement, I was flat out blown away. I mean, first my grandfather is Poseidon/ Neptune, my mother is a demigod and now I'm related to a whole other pantheon of gods. I honestly don't think my week could get any weirder. While I was thinking all of this, my apparent half-brother, called me Brother. In my shocked state I unconsciously corrected him.

"Kind of."

Sounding confused Sleipnir said "What do you mean?"

I knew I messed up and did my best to backtrack, "I didn't say anything, you must be hearing things." I said doing my best to sound confident and failing miserably. I may be able to convince world leaders that purple potatoes from Paris are a good investment but when it comes to lying about anything to do with being polygender, I lose all skill. I looked to Natasha for help but she just motioned for me to tell him. She has been pushing me to tell more people, thinking it will help me.