Chapter Text
Percy Jackson had turned down Godhood and fought to maintain every shred of mortality he had. He had no interest in being immortal. He had enough power as it was. Frankly, he couldn’t think of anything worse than having to interact with the Olympians for the rest of time.
But of course, when his ascension eventually happened, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. It started with saving Estelle Blofis’ life.
-
Estelle had the best big brother.
Percy was always there for her, even from the beginning. It started with him making shapes and creatures out of water that danced above her crib and kept her entertained and filled with a sense of safety that meant she never struggled to fall asleep. He would tell her the names of the creatures, how deep in the ocean they lived and whether or not they were terrible gossips.
As she got slightly older, she started to explore. The water became a game, a shield, that would keep her contained to her crib but was soft and yielding. Percy would keep an eye on her through her open door from the living room. He always had a smile on his face when he could hear her giggles from behind the small wall of water.
Estelle was unsteady on her small, untested feet. Yet she was adventurous, which led to scrapes, bumps and bruises. Having an older brother who loved and protected her always came with its own sense of invincibility, but having Percy Jackson as an older brother lent more credence to that feeling.
Every time, as she was mid-fall and crying out, there he was running towards her and scooping her up (if the water didn’t make it to her first). Bouncing her in his arms, Percy would reassure her. How strong she was, how brave, how proud of her he was.
Then he would summon the water to his hand, a bottle flying out of the fridge in the apartment, from the fountain in the park, from the suspended droplets of rain in the air that had been laying in wait ever since he first heard her crying. He would ask, soft and gentle, “Now, my brave girl, where does it hurt?”
Sniffling and coming to the end of her tears, she would point to the wound. It was rarely anything that would’ve required more than a band-aid in normal circumstances, but Percy would nod solemnly before his eyes would start to shine as he guided water to the injury. Holding her hand in his (the one that wasn’t guiding the age old force), they would both watch the water heal her in silence. Once the water fell away to reveal unblemished, healthy skin, Percy would place a gentle kiss on the spot and say, “There, all better.”
-
On days they stayed in the apartment, Estelle came to love hide and seek.
Of course, Percy could have found her instantly. He only had to let his senses relax, expand, and the world would open up to become layers upon layers of liquid. He could feel the moisture in the air, the water in the pipes of the apartment and the blood that circulated around his sister’s body.
It still made him sad. It was still associated with memories he would rather never think about. But now it also always let him know where Estelle was, where his Mom was, if they were safe.
So he would call out, “Estelle, where are you?” He would wander around the room, purposely avoiding the corner of the room he knew she was in. Though it was difficult sometimes, not to look over and give the game away. Estelle was always a bright spot in the periphery of his awareness.
Eventually, somewhere between Tartarus and the day Percy Jackson finally burned through the last of his mortality, blood had become just another liquid and sensing it had become as commonplace as his ability to see or hear.
Even without his abilities, Estelle’s soft giggles would fill the room and let him know where she was as soon as he spoke. Still, he meandered over, slowly. He would pause, in this place and that, in impossible hiding spaces. Before finally, he would pounce, “There you are, my sweet girl! I found you.”
She would shriek, “No, no! Percy, no fair!” But she would be happy. It would never truly be said with tears so Percy would simply smile back and say, “Your turn to seek!”
In the future, Percy would admit that it was a little unfair to purposefully manipulate the mist to beat his kid sister in a game of hide and seek, but all is fair in love and war. Also, when his Mom asked, he defended himself that he was training Estelle to be clear sighted.
-
Their favourite thing to do together was go to the aquarium or the beach, but the aquarium was more accessible in New York City.
Estelle would be on Percy’s shoulders, her young mind being filled with wonder at all the facts Percy knew about marine life. Estelle was impressed by it all. Being with her big brother made everything better, but especially the aquarium. All the fish would swim right up to the glass as soon as they got there, like they were so excited to greet Estelle and be her new friends.
Of course, only Percy heard the excited chatter of ‘My lord, my lord, you’ve come to see us!’ Percy would translate for her, telling her stories about the fish and their lives, what they had been up to since the siblings had last been to the aquarium.
Sometimes Estelle thought the lives of fish sounded peaceful, other days sounded boring. On rare occasions Estelle felt like she didn’t need Percy to translate, that the fish with their emotions and their expressions were obvious enough that she could read their moods and would carry on her own almost one-sided conversations with the fish.
Of course, it was toddler babble and it didn’t make much sense to anyone but Estelle. Fish or human, so Percy just let her continue as she was happy enough from what he could tell.
-
As much as they didn’t get to go to the beach very often, Estelle had a very impressive collection of shells from Percy. When Percy’s Mom finally brought Estelle and Paul with them on one of their trips to Montauk, Percy couldn’t help but show off. With a movement of his hand, the waves would grow and crash gently against the shore, placing the prettiest and shiniest shells at Estelles feet.
So Sally told Estelle about how you could hear the sea when you held some shells up to your ears and Estelle was so excited at the possibility. Though when Estelle tried, she only heard Percy. It wasn’t exactly his voice, but it was definitely his laugh and even though there weren’t actual words, she could still hear him telling her he loved her somehow.
So Estelle secretly thought her Mom was a little bit silly for not recognising Percy and thinking shells let you hear the sea, but she never said anything and happily kept all the prettiest shells on a shelf in her room.
-
Then there were the times when Percy wasn’t home. It could be for months at a time. It was scary and horrible even though her mom explained in simple terms why he wasn’t there. Percy was helping other people, protecting more children.
Frequently Estelle cried for her big brother to come home, holding the shell to her lips and trying to talk back to Percy through it. She believed that when she held the shell up to her ear again, it sounded slightly different, like Percy had heard what she had said and was responding. The shells let Estelle know that Percy was coming back. He was still with her and he still loved her.
Even as a toddler, even as her parents tried to hide it, Estelle noticed Sally’s fear that her little boy, the one she fought to protect, would never come home.
Estelle often spent these nights curled up in bed with a shell on her pillow next to her sleeping head. Sally would come in and lay on the other side of the shell. She had her arms around her daughter and the sound of her son and that would have to be enough.
They prayed. There was a little altar in the corner of the hallway of their apartment. A candle burning, offerings made, prayers whispered. Sometimes Sally prayed to Poseidon, to keep their son safe, in the limited way he could.
It was more so this way in the beginning, when Sally could only see Percy as her baby, so new to the world of myths.
But more often than not in recent years, even to his mom it was obvious that Percy was growing into more than what he had been, so Sally’s eyes would stray to the polaroid picture on the altar during her prayers.
She could see Percy smiling with Grover and Annabeth, with other camp kids visible in the background. She prayed that they would keep each other safe. She prayed that Percy succeeded in whatever he did, protected whoever he needed to, before he would allow himself to come home to them.
Somehow, somewhere along the line, praying for Percy turned into praying to Percy. By the time Estelle was old enough to join in, it was all she knew. Sure, sometimes she prayed to Poseidon, but he seemed more a quasi-uncle or even grandpa figure (he was just so old! Estelle didn’t know anyone else who was that old who wasn’t a grandpa).
Estelle’s small hands would be cupped in Sally’s own as they burned tiny chunks of Percy’s favourite cookies over the thin candle, “To keep Percy safe. To bring Percy home… Stay safe Percy. Come home Percy.”
A toddler’s will is a special thing, innocent and unspecific, but strong. In these moments, in between life and death, under the stars of camp or in the midst of screams on the battlefield, Percy would be filled with a sense of peace. He thought of home and he knew that he would return to them, that he would keep fighting.
And for a fraction of a second, when he was holding up the sky, it seemed slightly lighter. It was as if all the clouds had disappeared. It was barely for a moment, but that blink of an eye allowed Percy to redistribute the weight more evenly across his shoulders, before once again the full weight of the sky crashed down upon him. But he would endure (and blood burned to ichor).
Whilst they prayed at the altar, Sally grappled with how to explain divinity to her toddler. More specifically, how should she explain to Estelle, who had seen her older brother, her world, do miraculous things, that Percy was only half God?
Divinity as a concept was difficult enough to grasp in the abstract, but when it was obvious and part of daily life, it became easy to see as reality. Sally thought that this made it even harder to understand everyone else’s definition of divinity and it all came to head when Estelle’s class read a story from the Bible.
Estelle couldn’t understand that the figure of Jesus who walked on water seemed so unbelievable to everyone but her. Jesus was praised, loved by her teacher and classmates, yet Estelle got in trouble for lying and Sally was called to the school when Estelle tried to tell her new friends about her -way cooler than Jesus- brother.
-
Whilst sometimes having Percy Jackson as a big brother got Estelle in trouble, it also got her out of it. The Jackson-Blofis household discovered this fact whilst Estelle was still young and waiting to be picked up from preschool.
She was toddling by the fence at the edge of the playground area, just waiting for the day to be over because her mom told her that her big brother was picking her up today! Her odd choice of location meant that she was away from mortal company when the creature, ugly and the size of a car, approached her.
“Mhmm, what’s this? A young demi-god? All alone… Your scent is weak. Salty. You should prove to be an easy snack.” The creature’s voice was croaky and hurt to listen to. Its tongue was black, vile and slick as it licked its lips once it was done speaking.
Estelle was scared. A monster was in front of her! She backed up slightly from the fence, but she tried to be brave because she knew what happened to monsters. So she didn’t cry, but her little voice did break as she held up a hand and spoke, “Please, go away.”
She made a shoo-ing motion.
The monster seemed taken aback.
Estelle wondered if people often forget their manners when talking to it.
The monster made a growling motion in the back of its throat, “Young demi-god, you dare -”
Estelle again, politely mind you, cut him off, “I’m not a demi-god, but my big brother is! And he will beat you up if you don’t leave me alone!”
The monster scoffed. The human expression made its face and neck twist oddly. “Oh yeah? Who’s this brother? I don’t see a brother around here, kid.”
Even as the monster looked at Estelle, she made no move to respond, but she did smile.
When an answer came, it came from behind the monster, accompanied by the sound of a sword carving through air, “My name’s Percy. Percy Jackson. Now step away from my sister.”
-
In some ways, Paul Blofis was distant from it all, from the legend that Perseus Jackson was becoming. They were connected through Sally and Estelle, so he would stand behind his two girls at the altar in steady support. Paul was tangential to the world of Gods and Monsters and death coming to pre-teens more frequently than acne, but he cared for Percy.
Maybe he didn’t know him as a war general, or a terrifying force of nature that even the Gods bowed to on certain matters, but he knew him as the kid in his english class that struggled to read his letters yet still understood the themes of loss and sorrow in the Classics better than any other child that he had taught.
He knew Percy as someone who fought and struggled with all the will in the world over the most mundane matters, so he knew (on the same level he knew that he needed oxygen to breathe, even if Percy didn’t) that Percy would transfer those skills to the battlefield, to camp, to Olympus.
Paul had never prayed to Poseidon, or any of the other Olympians, at the altar. From day one, he had directed his words, his thoughts, to Percy - perhaps because he didn’t understand how Greek prayers were meant to work.
(When the history books would look back at the ascension of Percy Jackson, they would wonder if Paul Blofis had known exactly how it worked and just put two and two together long before anyone else did.)
-
There was another altar that burned, one with larger flames and larger sacrifices. One that was frequently commandeered to pray for Percy Jackson. It carried the sounds and hopes of voices in tandem.
In the days that Percy was missing from Camp Half-Blood and nobody could contact him (far away as he was with his memory wiped), Annabeth, Nico and all of those who called him friend would burn food in his name.
Like his mother, like his sister, they too would pray for him to come home and be safe.
One too many wars and seemingly pointless quests had hardened their hearts, the saviour of Olympus was missing, the Gods had failed to protect them once again.
So for that time, they prayed to Percy, and to Percy alone, “Come home. Stay safe.”
-
So perhaps Percy Jackson had started to ascend long before the day he saved his little sister’s life. Maybe the fates had always weaved his string with ascension in their intent, but the last drop of his blood turned to ichor the day Estelle Blofis’ school had a day trip to the beach.