A Crown of Golden Leaves: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Caput LI: A Slow Descent

"The happiest life is a life without thought." - from inscriptions on Michel de Montaigne's ceiling

Caput LI: A Slow Descent

"I think your father married his daughter."

Percy's gut reaction was to deny it, to get angry, to say that that wasn't possible, that his father wouldn't do that. How could you say such a terrible thing, he wanted to demand of Demetria. He wanted to argue and he wanted to storm away in a temper, to lash out, to hack at another tree with his blunting blade, scream, cry, but--

But.

That infernal, tiny conjunction was a powerful word.

And this was why: He was better than that. He was born to be a king, and he wouldn't yell at children who feared unseeable things and unknown futures -- and that was what Demetria was to him, a child in a nearly grown woman's body, who had been sheltered her entire life by a father who had tried to shield her from oppression and prejudice and blind hatred of something that inferior men could not understand. He wasn't a baby who screamed at his parents because they wouldn't give him what he wanted.

At the very least, Annabeth would be disappointed in him, and for some reason he couldn't bare that look on her face. That slight frown on her lips and furrowed eyebrows always made him feel guilty, yet the too kind understanding was almost as unbearable as sorrow. (Love, the treacherous voice in the back in his head cackled at him, your reason is love. You love her, so you don't want to let her down.)

Still though, it couldn't be true. It simply could not be true. Percy didn't have a reason why it couldn't be true... or maybe he simply didn't want it to be true. Did it matter, the reason? Either way, the repulsive, gut wrenching disgust was equally valid; surely it had to be valid.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't allow his emotions to control him. There was still an underhanded war to be fought with beings that were stronger and better and more powerful than him and his handful of allies, if that was what they were at this point. If he stopped and fell and slept now, he might never wake and stand up again, as bone achingly tired he felt all the time.

As sad as he felt, he half feared he might not be able to smile again at the end of the line, whenever he might reach it. There was the fury that he bottled in a tightly lidded flask, in the back of his mind and in the deep recesses of his heart, that he feared, that might threaten to shred his soul and identity apart if he acknowledged it now.

No.

His emotions weren't valid - not now, at least. Later, or in a different setting when he wasn't fighting for his life, or if he wasn't the heir of Rome, if that title even meant anything anymore (except it must, it must; if not for Rome then what did he have? Rome was his calling; the people were his to protect, and he had promises to keep), maybe then they might be valid. Maybe then it would be a different story.

But this was his reality right now, and Nox would sink her claw-like fingers metaphorically into every weak link he held, and she would systematically use them to tear him down. Gods know she had already ripped away two pillars of support from him already, when she had first stole Rachel and his innocence, and then Jason, who had been a mixture of his conscience and his confident. He didn't even know if Reyna — his childhood friend, his sword and shield— was still alive, but if she were then she would be in Rome, and he didn't want to imagine what Nox could possibly be doing to her to extract information, about him and the legions and the defense systems in place.