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It begins with the violent tearing of a string.
Or, well, the tearing of fourteen strings.
Fourteen strings of various colours, from blue to grey to purple and pink. So many vibrant little souls, torn from the loom of Fate under the watchful darkness of a new moon and unknown forces beyond the comprehension of man.
Were they killed, as punishment for their parents’ various crimes?
Or were they taken for some other, unknown purpose?
Who really knows?
~🎃💀🎃~✨~🎃💀🎃~
It begins right as Apollo’s sun chariot takes off to begin its trip across the sky.
A blood-curdling scream rips through the camp.
No one is really sure who it was, too lost in the following chaos to figure it out, and no one remembers later.
What everyone does know, however, is that somehow, under the dark moon on that cold October night, horror had descended upon Camp Half-Blood.
~🎃💀🎃~
The Stoll brothers, Travis and Connor, are the first to be found.
Dionysus forces his way through the growing crowd of campers, some bleary with sleep and some who he suspected would never sleep without nightmares again, before stopping in his tracks as he comes to the front and sees what his brats have found now.
The two sons of Hermes are laid out on the ground, reaching for one another, their hands only centimeters apart. One brother’s body is broken, as if dropped from a great height. The other shows signs of a snake bite. Paralysis, bleeding, neurotoxin rushing through the younger boy’s veins. Dionysus, god of intoxication, can practically feel the poison where it sits in his veins, causing coagulation and hemorrhages, head and stomach aches, and nausea.
Dionysus crouches down beside the boys, taking in the horror before him as he reaches out with shaky hands to press fingers to their pulse points, hoping and wishing - for what? - that they might be alive. That there was the slightest possible chance that Fate had not actually done this to children.
The hope is extinguished as quickly as it is lit, like a candle being snuffed out.
The stuttering voice of one of the other brats reaches his ears as they catch sight of something else, and the God of Madness almost doesn’t dare to lift his head and check it out. But he knows he must, and so he does.
A message, written out in large, harsh, panicked strokes, with a trail of blood leading back to Travis. Dionysus feels his ichor go cold as his eyes trace the letters, forming words that repeat over and over and over in his mind like a taunting echo.
We called you, Father. Why didn’t you answer?
Dionysus pushes his campers back from the bodies, though no one else has dared to step a foot closer, before vines erupt from the Earth. They surround and swaddle the Stoll brothers, bringing them together in a crude vision of a hug, along with hiding them from view.
No one should be seeing them.
“You brats, go get Chiron and then go to the Big House. Gather your siblings and stay inside.” Dionysus barks, not turning to his kids as he hears them all muttering their agreement and scrambling away to do as he says.
Normally, he’d be overjoyed that his dumbass brats actually listened to him for once, but given the situation, it only brought him a grim sense of unease.
As he stands on subtly trembling legs, something off to the side catches his eye, and his head whips to look at it.
A single, glistening bone draws the god closer. Dionysus is not one for anatomy, but he believes that it is an upper arm bone. He does not lift it, though he cannot say why. Upon closer inspection, he notices that there, one of the ends of the bone has a small carving of an arrow…
Pointing towards a patch of wheat that sits nearby.
There, in the patch of wheat, sits a hand that seems to taunt him. The fingers are curled, as if beckoning him, and Dionysus slowly stalks forward, pulling back the wheat, wondering what he’ll find. Perhaps the killer? Oh, wouldn’t that be nice, to be able to catch the killer and bring down the wrath of the divine so quickly after the crime occurred?
But it is not a killer or beast that he finds when the wheat finally parts.
It is another of his demigod charges.
And his heart drops as he realises who it is.
Face hollow, skin pulled tightly over her bones, lies Katie Gardner. Looking like a starving, dehydrated corpse. The grass surrounding her is so green that it begins to hurt to look at. It looks like either her life force had drained into the ground or that the Earth had attempted to heal her and failed. She just looks so utterly colourless, lying there. Katie isn’t supposed to be colourless. She is a daughter of Demeter, and nature is supposed to be her domain and her shield. Now, it cradles her like a mother does with her sleeping babe.
Bile crawls up Dionysus’ throat, leaving behind a burning trail of acid. His eyes burn, and he rips his eyes off the corpse, but it is too late. The image is already seared into his mind’s eye.
Three dead. Three senior demigods, three veterans of war against titans and giants, and each other- But above all, three children are dead.
Dionysus isn’t quite sure how he is going to report this to the other gods, but he knows he will have to, and quickly. He doesn’t want to report this, these horrid, unnecessarily cruel deaths. Not to mention that the crimes had occurred within the borders of the camp? Inside the grounds of what was supposed to be a haven for demigods?
He breathes in through his nose, trying to rid himself of the scent of blood and poison and death.
He fails.
The Stolls, while definitely not the favourites, are some of their father’s most beloved children, though the Messenger was shit at showing it. Dionysus does not want to imagine how far his brother’s rage was bound to spread. Two of his children had been murdered, so he is bound to be at apoplectic levels of rage.
And aside from that, Dionysus had already seen what Demeter had done to the mortal world when Persephone was taken. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen when she learns about the fate of her daughter. Katie, one of her oldest children, who has lived through so fucking much.
Dionysus is snapped from his spiralling thoughts by the small voice of one of the younger campers, a daughter of Athena with brown hair and grey eyes shining with tears.
“M-Mr. D,” she whispers, shaking when he straightens his back and turns to look at her, his lips pressed tightly in a thin line. “Mr. D, there’s- there’s more.”
The girl is pointing, and when Dionysus follows her eyes, he finds that she is correct.
More bones. Gleaming, pristine white. Taunting. There is another arrow carved into this one, too, pointing towards…
The training arena.
Fuck.
“Get to the Big House as quickly as you can. And don’t leave.” He snaps at the girl, who squeaks as she nods before taking off in a sprint towards the house. Dionysus takes in a deep breath, summoning more vines to cover Katie’s body like a shroud, making an attempt to steady himself before making his way to see what new kind of horror has been dropped at his feet.
~🎃💀🎃~
Clarisse. Clarisse La Rue.
She is in the middle of the training arena, her precious spear impaling her body, sticking into the ground, and keeping her sort of standing. Ribbons, which once flew freely near the pointed tip, are now so covered in blood that they cling to the bronze. Their once bright red colour is now tainted with dark blood and ichor.
The sound of Chiron’s hooves approaching causes Dionysus’ head to snap around, and for the first time in many years, the god’s voice wavers in fear and disgust.
“Keep the campers in the Big House. I already told them that, but I don’t fully trust the kids to follow orders right now.” He doesn’t refer to them as brats in the moment, because how could he, with four - and who only knows how many more - of their friends and siblings dead. Dead in a place that is supposed to mean safety and protection for them from a world that wanted them dead.
Chiron nods, his voice grim as he turns around, making his way towards the house. There are virtually no campers out by this point, news having spread like wildfire. The few that are are quickly being gathered up by their fellow campers or Chiron and dragged into the Big House. Dionysus doesn’t dare to look at any of their faces, too afraid to notice who’s potentially missing from the crowd of faces.
The god turns back around as his companion clomps off, one foot dragging behind the other as he forces himself to approach the body of the War God’s daughter. As he steps closer, he takes notice of details he hadn’t before.
Wounds fester across her body. Deep, gouged-out marks that Dionysus quickly recognises, because they are the same wounds inflicted by his brother’s sacred beast.
Her chest, leaving her ribs shining in the sunlight, like the glory she was so desperate for in life. Blood is splattered all around her, and her body is tilted back in a crude imitation of standing, throat facing the sky, slashed open while her spear pierces her stomach. Her eyes are wide open, and her mouth is slightly agape, as though she had been caught unawares by her attacker.
It reminds Dionysus of a grotesque statue.
Her death is shaped to look like a statue, something people worshipped and paid tribute to.
Dionysus does not even begin to imagine what Ares’ reaction might be. Ares, for all his many faults in the modern day, adored his daughters. Stories of him protecting them dated back centuries.
Her body is soon covered in vines that slowly crawl up the mast of the spear, looking akin to serpents. Dionysus nearly flinches at the thought of snakes, his mind echoing back to Connor’s body and the snake bite that had ended his life.
He turns away from the scene once the body is completely concealed, only to find himself frozen by the sight of yet another bone, this one looking to be from the leg, if he had to guess. It is lying at the feet of War’s daughter, and the arrow carved into it seems to mock him now.
It points towards the cabins.
~🎃💀🎃~
Dionysus finds himself staring at Drew Tanaka. Or, at least what remains of the daughter of Aphrodite. Her body hangs from the Aphrodite cabin, held aloft by vines that were not his own. These ones had thorns and small rose buds blooming on them. Blood drips from her chest, and when Dionysus dares to look down at the steps of the cabin, he finds that the drops are falling onto a human heart lying there, sitting pretty under a set of ribs.
The organ is dark red, slick with blood, and obviously, disgustingly fresh.
There is an arrow pinning the organ to the steps, with feathers the colour of a mourning dove, sticking between the third and fourth ribs.
He knows the ribs are not Drew’s because he can see them still in her body, cracked and broken in a way that highlights the missing organ.
This makes five dead demigods. Six, counting whoever the bones had come from. The god’s mind races.
Who else is dead?
Whose ribs are these?
Whose bones are being scattered around camp like a trail of treats, leading Dionysus on a scavenger hunt where all he got was grief and horror?
Who would ever dare to do such a thing?
As his vines work to bring down the girl from where she had been displayed, setting her on the ground before her cabin and covering her like he had done with all the others, Dionysus took notice of something about her face that had a fresh wave of bile rushing up his throat.
Her eyes. Where her eyes should have been sat only empty sockets, surrounded by deep, red scratches and marks that looked like beak marks.
Dove beaks.
Pure, soft white feathers not yet tainted by the blood were placed delicately within her dark hair. It was as if whoever had done this had been trying to replicate the image of Aphrodite, emerging from the sea following her birth from the blood of a titan.
Despicable.
Fucking despicable.
And of course, because someone is fucking taunting them, there is a small arrow carved into the sternum.
It points towards another of the cabins.
Cabin Twelve.
His cabin.
Pollux.
The god takes off in a mad dash towards his cabin, flinging the door open so violently it nearly comes off the hinges. But he doesn’t care. He just needs to get to Pollux. To prove that nothing has happened to his son and that he is alive and well and okay-
Madness nearly tears itself out of Dionysus’ chest as he finds himself face to face with his son. His baby. His only living child.
Pollux lies on the ground of the cabin, his home, his eyes shut, and a puddle of vomit close by. Dionysus does not even need to tap into his divinity to feel, to see the alcohol within Pollux’s veins, poisoning him from within.
The edges of his vision burn with a deep red colour, and he chokes, Dionysus chokes, falling to the ground and gathering his son’s body, hugging him to his chest. Pollux is so cold, so pale, and so blue.
And gone.
Gone.
Silent.
Grapes.
All he can smell are grapes.
It quickly grows sickeningly sweet, filling his nose, his mouth, every fibre of his being. It quickly becomes intoxicating in a way that makes him want to rip his way out of his skin. He has never wished so desperately to be mortal, to be fully stripped of his divinity, to have no domain, no power, to have never been associated with that god damned fruit.
Dionysus had not felt such pain like this, this agony, since he believed Ariadne would die. Since Castor had died.
A soft clinking sound catches his attention, and when Dionysus looks, he sees a small framed picture lying on the floor. His vision has gone blurry with tears, so he wipes it away with the back of one hand before reaching down to pick up the photo.
Two young boys, both blonde with large, purple eyes shining, are looking at the camera. Castor and Pollux.
He clutches both his son and the photo to his chest, looking down at his baby. The tears return full force when he notices the two beloved stuffed horses held in his arms. They were worn from years of loving, and when he lifted them to his nose, he was overwhelmed by the scent of his sons.
His tears intensify at the small mercy. His children’s souls were still intact, and they would be reunited in Elysium soon. Plus, that sickening sweet smell had not touched the toys, despite being with the body so long.
The God of Madness feels his heart crushing itself within his chest.
~🎃💀🎃~
Dionysus feels as though his body is merely drifting through camp, his spirit left in the cabin with his son, but something deep within his mind is telling him there are still more horrors to endure. His feet have barely touched the ground when they brush against something on the ground. He really, truly, does not want to look down, but he knows he must, and so he does.
Another bone.
Naturally.
He thinks it may be another leg bone, but he doesn’t know and frankly, doesn’t give a fuck at this point. The god crouches down, looking for that fucking arrow. When he finds it, it is pointing towards the infirmary, and Dionysus has a sickening suspicion that he knows exactly who he will find next.
When he arrives, he is shocked to find that there is a ring of crunchy, dead yellow grass around the building, almost 20 feet out in any given direction. Dionysus pauses as he steps to the edge of the dead ground. The mixing scents of healing and death encompass the building like a second set of walls.
How in the name of fucking Tartarus had he not been awoken by such an intense burst of divine power within his borders? He could account for every single fucking blade of grass within camp borders, yet he had slept through this?!
The door creaks in ways Dionysus has never heard before when he finally makes his way up to it and pushes it open with hesitant hands. The room is dark, much darker than it should be possible in a building with a fuck ton of windows and only sheer curtains.
It feels unsafe, even for a god just standing in the doorway. He feels like setting foot into the room would bring him harm, like he were nothing but a small mortal child, on the verge of tears and calling for his mother and father.
But he is a god, so he does not call for his father or his aunts or uncles or siblings. Not yet, at least.
But finally, after a great number of minutes staring, gathering his wits and his courage, and strengthening his stomach, Dionysus steps into the infirmary, knowing that horror awaits him, but unsure of what kind.
Thankfully, or unthankfully, he doesn’t have to go far.
He sees him on the floor, curled up and leaning back against one of the cots. Curly blonde hair, tanned skin covered in freckles, blue eyes that shine with an unnatural light, even though they were completely and utterly devoid of life.
He’s curled around his knees with something in his lap, his head tilted back against the cot, turned slightly to the side so that his dead eyes lock with Dionysus’. They lack any emotion, yet they still seem to stare him down, full of judgment and disdain.
He hates the idea, but Dionysus knows he has to check for a pulse, lest he incur the wrath of his older brother. He has to be completely sure that the boy is dead. That there is nothing he could do to help him.
The healer son of Apollo burns, hotter than the surface of his father’s ‘sweet ass sun’, even to a god like Dionysus. His hand is pulled back almost immediately once he’d touched the boy, and even those few nanoseconds of contact leave behind a glowing burn on his palm, accompanied by a sizzling sound that fills the silent room.
The movement caused by Dionysus jerking his hand back caused the blond boy to teeter, and Dionysus is quick to summon vines to catch the boy before he hits the ground, thankful that they could not feel the burn. The vines catch Will, cradling him as they lower him to the floor while they curl around him.
It’s then that Dionysus gets an actual look at the thing Will had been holding.
And the sight makes a new wave of bile rush up his throat.
Clutched, held so preciously, between the demigod’s arms is the rotting, half-decayed head of Nico Di Angelo. It’s not being burnt by Will’s touch, but it looks nasty all on its own. The boy’s head was clearly ripped from its place atop his neck and spine, and what looks like the marks left by hound fangs can be seen on his throat, cheek, and ear.
‘Well, I guess we figured out where the bones all came from.’ Dionysus thinks hysterically, now unable to stop himself from sending out panicked signals to basically every member of his family, begging for them to come to camp as quickly as possible because something had gone very, very, very fucking wrong, and he did not want to deal with this on his own.
And of course, because whatever or whoever did this is a truly, truly sick fuck, there is another bone resting in the cot Will had been leaning against.
It was Nico’s spine, and all of the vertebrae had a perfect little carving on them, reading ‘13’. 13 demigods? 13 what? Dionysus doesn’t want to think about who else he’s going to find.
Before he leaves, the god makes sure vines cover both Will and Nico, moving the spine to sit with him. Dionysus ensures that Will still holds Nico within his arms, not daring or wanting to separate the two lovers if he could avoid it.
~🎃💀🎃~
Cabin 13 has always been dark, but as Dionysus approaches on this day, the overwhelming scent of blood makes the god’s head spin with a mix of nausea and fear.
He quickly steps up to the door, stopping only for a moment when it opens on its own, as if it had been awaiting his arrival. The light inside also flickers on as he steps up to the threshold, and oh, how he really wishes it had remained dark.
A singular hand is set in the middle of the cabin, still wearing its skin and muscle but with bone poking out from where it would attach to the arm. The fingers are tipped with black nail polish, so there is no question as to who they once belonged to. As he steps into the cabin, Dionysus can feel the temperature dropping rapidly, a stark contrast to the way the air in the infirmary had been near boiling.
It takes a few moments of looking around for Dionysus to truly take in exactly what the fuck he was seeing.
Carnage filled every corner of the room, soaking into the walls and floor and even the very foundation of the building. The scent of blood and darkness and fear filled the room like a heady perfume that threatened to choke anyone who set foot inside.
And it is in that moment that Dionysus got the answer to a question he knew but had not wanted to ask.
‘If Nico’s bones were scattered all around camp in some sick scavenger hunt, leading him from body to body… and his head had been with Will with tear marks all around his throat… Where was the rest of him?’
Here.
Nico’s body is here. Scattered all over his cabin and looking as though he’d been…
Torn apart by hounds.
The blood looks like pomegranate seeds, so reminiscent of Persephone’s precious garden collection that Dionysus begins to spiral. The God of Madness would have thrown up, but all his muscles seemed to lock up and freeze, leaving him standing there.
The only thing that manages to snap him out of his rapidly mounting disgust is the way his attention is seemingly dragged to the next bone in his sick treasure hunt. Unlike the rest of the room, this bone is pristine and rests on top of Nico’s pillow. Had he not seen the rest of the camp or just the inside of this cabin, the god might have thought it innocent.
Instead, he shakily steps over, careful to avoid stepping on any of the chunks of his cousin scattered across the floor. He leans over, doing his best not to touch anything as he does so, to read what is carved into the bone. There wasn’t an arrow on this one, but rather an exact location that had Dionysus taking in a sharp inhale. Something he quickly regrets, as his senses were quickly flooded with the scent of blood and death and misery.
‘Bunker 9’
The words are so perfectly written that they look almost printed. Someone truly had sat down and written every letter with care.
At least he had a good idea of who he would find next.
…
Not that it made any of this any better.
~🎃💀🎃~
Dionysus is mildly surprised when he arrives at the bunker that Valdez stayed in. There is no obvious blood or carnage, no signs of where the next body was.
Somehow, that feeling is worse than just stumbling right across it. That feeling of anticipation and fear.
There is only Festus, sitting outside the entrance to the bunker. Dionysus takes slow, cautious steps forward, getting the dragon’s attention in as non-threatening a manner as possible. The dragon is curled up on the ground, wings folded on its back, its tail lying limp on the ground, somehow looking tired and wary and scared, despite the utter lack of emotions displayed on its face.
The metal dragon trills, a broken, empty sound of metal pieces clinking against each other as oil dribbles through the openings at its joints and mouth. Fire trails off of it in bits, and Dionysus doesn’t dare to think about the most likely source of the utterly putrid smell coming off of Festus.
Festus is curled up in front of Bunker 9, the next bone sitting on the ground not even five feet away. But Dionysus doesn’t look at it yet. He needs to do his duty here first. The moment the dragon catches sight of Dionysus, Festus lets out a pained, heartbreaking cry as it attempts to stumble up onto its feet.
It’s only when Festus shifts fully, its feet clanking clumsily into the ground and each other as the dragon attempts to gain footing. The movements finally expose the dragon’s chest to the Wine God.
The bronze is completely coated in tacky, drying blood.
Dionysus finally gives in to the urge he’s been holding back all morning, and vomits right where he stands.
Pinned to the dragon’s chest is Leo Valdez, his head lolled forward, eyes closed, and wisps of fire can be seen licking at the son of Hephaestus’ skin. Nails, no, metal screws, dig into Leo’s shoulders, and Festus is flinching - or at least the closest thing he can to a flinch, given that he is made of metal - as his front two paws keep trying to get Leo off.
The dragon’s wings slam into the surrounding trees, and his whine, a high-pitched squealing noise, rings throughout the air. The sound leaves behind an echo that Dionysus can’t seem to get out of his head.
Dionysus raises a shaky hand, and his eyes are locked on the screws as they rapidly rust, before turning to ash. Leo’s body crumples to the ground, thankfully not dropping very far. The moment Leo’s skin is no longer in contact with Festus’ metal, the dragon collapses beside the boy, smoke curling up towards the sky from its joints and mouth as the light within the dragon dims, and then disappears completely.
Leo’s body lies there, in a lifeless pile on the ground, with his skin peeling and flaking. Dionysus quickly recognises what kind of wounds those are. He’d know what they were anywhere. He had seen them far too often not to know.
Burn wounds.
The first demigod to have inherited his father’s gift of being fireproof in decades.
Dead because of burns.
Burns.
The irony is so bitter and fitting that a strangled cry wrangles itself out of his throat. Someone is clearly having so much fucking fun, thinking that this is just so utterly hilarious, watching their shitshow unfold.
But Dionysus isn’t laughing. He takes several deep breaths, trying to keep himself from vomiting again, before he once again summons his vines to cover both the boy and his dragon. Once he’s sure both are covered and out of view, should anyone make their way through here, he steps over to the bone he had seen before.
Two arrows are carved into this one, both pointing in the same direction, with a small lightning bolt and a wolf etched underneath them. They’re faint but so significant in a way – as symbols, as they were – that Dionysus just wishes he hadn’t connected the dots so quickly.
‘Oh. Oh no. No, no, no, no-’
Dionysus’ mind begins racing. There are only two demigods those symbols could be connected to, and while he really hopes he is wrong, he knows he isn’t. And that just makes it so much fucking worse.
~🎃💀🎃~
He finds Jason first.
The son of Zeus is lying at the bottom of a pine tree – the irony, the irony, oh the godsdamn fucking irony –
Or, well, saying that he is lying at the bottom of the tree would be a lie.
Because, upon closer inspection, it looks more like he is being held under the tree.
As he steps closer, Dionysus can see where the roots seem to have come alive, wrapping and pinning him to the dirt. The roots dig into Jason’s clothes, and Dionysus sees the places where Jason’s circulation is cut off, the surrounding skin having gone several shades of purple.
Dionysus takes another careful step closer, leaning down because the top of the canopy blocked much of the morning sun, not letting the soft light reach its hands to this patch of the forest floor. The rest of the camp had been covered in normal amounts of sunlight, so this patch of unnatural coverage is definitely deliberate.
His eyes quickly adjust to the darkness, and a sense of terror seizes him from deep within like a cold, clawed hand, as the injuries marring Jason’s skin become more and more visible to him.
Fang and claw marks. Wolf fang and claw marks. All over his chest, neck, arms, and legs. His face is left completely alone, but Dionysus feels it was not an act done out of respect for the dead.
There is a pair of silver and gold claws stuck into his chest, plunging directly to where his heart lies.
Death to wolves, Dionysus thinks hysterically.
Jason has been placed on his back in such a way that his eyes stare upwards, his electric blue eyes now large, open, and glazed over. The sick feeling inside him grows because just yesterday, just yesterday, he had seen straight into those eyes, filled with life.
There is also a soft smile on the boy’s face, as if he were comforting someone.
Dionysus has a feeling that there’s something else to this horrific scene, and so he carefully raises his own head, following Jason’s now unseeing gaze. His entire body feels as though it has been dumped with ice water as he finds himself staring into the eyes of another young, dead demigod.
Electricity crackles lightly through Dionysus’ body as he locks eyes with those of Thalia Grace.
She’s further up the tree, a pine tree, Dionysus reminds himself, and he just wishes that he could just collapse and cry. The daughter of Zeus is placed near the top, her body lying limp yet not showing any sign of possibly falling to the ground, and it’s only when Dionysus uses his vines, wrapped around his feet and ankles, to get up that high, that he realizes why.
Through her chest is the top of the tree.
Branches rip through her chest, and pine leaves are placed all over her body. The thin, prickly, needle-like leaves make it hard for Dionysus to reach through and grab his sister, as though the tree itself were trying to keep her exactly where she had been placed.
A dull silver circlet is wreathed in her hair, her eyes open as they stare back at her brother. Her arm is stretched out, just slightly, her mouth agape.
And the blood.
There is so much fucking blood.
It looks like someone, somehow, had brought the daughter of Zeus into the air and dropped her onto the tree top. Similar to how Travis Stoll had been dropped to the ground earlier.
Wretched.
Utterly fucking deplorable.
The god quickly lowers himself back to solid ground, needing the stability as he heaved, trying not to vomit again.
And then, of course, he finds the next bone.
The next arrow carved into this one points off in some random direction from the pine tree, not towards any known landmark that Dionysus can think of. But at this point, he’s too tired, both emotionally and physically, to really put any thought into fucking any of this right now.
~🎃💀🎃~
Grover is cradled by moss, with flowers sprouting from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, filling his lungs.
Flowers burst from every orifice the satyr has available. Grover’s ears, nose, mouth, and eyes are all full of various flowers, all in full bloom and beautiful like they were blessed by some divine being. Moss cradles him like a nest made of blankets and pillows, and nature itself seems to be protecting his body, with flowers and vines and other plantlife springing from the ground and gently, almost reverently, while a beam of sunlight shone down on him through a gap in the canopy that is so perfectly placed it has to be some divinely done bullshit.
It looked almost like a scene out of a classic animated film, if Dionysus is honest with himself.
He seems to be at peace, with no signs of violence done to his body, no tearing of his flesh by the jaws of a beast, no crushed bones, no missing limbs. Dionysus can even see that the young satyr’s eyes, despite having been taken over by bright flowers, are still intact.
But Dionysus knows differently.
Sure, Grover looks relaxed and at peace, but Dionysus has a sneaking suspicion that Grover has suffered, too, and greatly. It just isn’t possible, with the way that the plants carved a path into his organs, that Grover’s death could be called ‘peaceful’. He could practically see the way nature had taken root in his lungs, wrapping around his bones, snuffing out his life with dangerous efficiency.
If Dionysus were able to make jokes at the moment, he might have quipped about Pan returning from the great beyond to take his successor back with him. Grover could almost be considered a son to the Great Lord of the Wild, after all.
And beside him, resting innocently on a rock under a beam of sun, sits another bone. There is no carved arrow or number, only the word ‘SWIM’, and it stares at him tauntingly.
Dionysus knows what it means.
The feeling of it seems to dig itself into his own bones.
He just really wishes he fucking didn’t.
~🎃💀🎃~
Walking on shaking, trembling legs, Dionysus quickly reaches the lake, and the sun shines so brilliantly off the surface of the lake that it appears to glitter, as if nothing has happened.
Dionysus begins to let out a sigh of relief when he can’t see anything immediately out of place with the lake, but a flash of something grey and unmoving catches his attention from the very edge of his peripheral view, and he whips his head around to get a better look. And before he can even put any conscious thought into the action, his feet begin to carry him to the shore.
And why does he allow it?
Why, just why, why, why?
Why couldn’t he stop himself?
He already knows what he’s going to find.
More demigods who are dead and cold and gone.
So why bother even going over to see?
Is it because he feels a deep need to give each demigod the respect of finding their bodies and give them proper funeral rites, along with telling their parents and siblings, and allowing everyone to mourn them properly?
Maybe it is. He doesn’t want to think of what else it might be at this point. He just wants this to be over, so that he can begin preparations for those funerals and begin thinking of how to tell everyone what has happened and the fact that they have absolutely no answers.
Telling the kids would be hell on its own, because the kids had always been closer to each other than any adult, and the dead campers had all been seen as pillars of their little community.
But telling their parents? He’d rather face his grandfather on the battlefield again, in all honesty.
As he steps to the shore and into the shallows of the lake, he allows his vines to slip into the watery depths and find the next body. Or bodies. Because if the nagging feeling in his gut was correct, Dionysus would be finding two small bodies under these peaceful-looking waves.
But before his vines can find anything, his eyes spot it first.
There, under the water, is a dark shadow. When Dionysus narrows his eyes and sharpens his sight with a push of divine power, he sees the faint outline of two humanoid forms. Dread creeps up from his feet, feeling like it was coming out of the cold waves to crawl up his legs, his back, down his arms, up his neck to stick into the bottom of his skull to stab into his brain.
He feels as though the water is trying to swallow him whole, but he pushes through, pushing his vines deeper, making sure that they wrap around the two figures, who were thankfully already holding each other tightly.
And when they do, Dionysus pulls.
But whatever, or whoever it is, is stuck in the waterlogged soil. It’s like the soil and the water just doesn’t want to let them go.
He pulls and pulls and pulls, and right as he’s about to give up and leave it for his uncle Poseidon to check out - and oh how he hates the relief that thought brings - it breaks free and is brought to the surface.
Dionysus has been expecting it, yes, but truly, nothing could have prepared him for what came out of the water.
His vines rise to the surface, wrapping around and over each other, forming a cradle that lifts a sphere of water into the air. It hovers there, suspended above the lake, and Dionysus quickly recognises the two humans that the water holds captive.
There is seaweed floating within the sphere, and Dionysus finds himself once again growing sick at the sight of it. And then he noticed just where it was within the water.
The dark, slimy plants were wrapped around the arms, legs, and throat of one Perseus Jackson.
If the son of Poseidon had been more like any of his father’s waterborne creatures, the plants would have been blocking off his source of breathing. But Jackson is a demigod; his non-divine half is mortal, so what the seaweed had really done was tighten enough to cut off the oxygen to his lungs. And then he had drowned.
The son of Poseidon, the God of the Seas and King of Atlantis, had drowned.
Whatever higher power was behind all of this horror truly was a malicious fucking bastard.
The world seems to truly begin spinning around him, and only the icy coldness of the water sloshing around his legs keeps him rooted to reality. Sand and stones dig into the soles of his feet, and the god has only the distant memory of taking off his sandals before his trek into the water.
Dionysus reaches out a hand, trying to touch the sphere of water, but it shifts out of reach from his touch, as if the water was trying to protect its prince in a final act of respect and reverence. The singular movement exposes more of the second shadow floating just next to Percy, holding hands with the demigod, fingers intertwined tightly with each other.
A statue.
Grey. Solid. Stone.
In the form of one daughter of Athena.
Annabeth Chase, her eyes closed, almost peacefully, as both arms are held in her lap, palms up, clutching Percy’s hands in the same way he grasps hers.
But how?
As far as the God of Madness is aware, Medusa is still regenerating within Tartarus, and there are no other possible ways for someone to turn into stone like that. He knows what victims of Medusa looked like, and Annabeth looks almost exactly like the others who had fallen to the beastly woman.
Another glimmer of light catches his eye, and Dionysus turns the sphere of water around to get a better look.
Then he sees it. A metal shield floats aimlessly within the oddly murky waters. But only the waters around the shield. The rest of the water in the sphere has become clear and sparkling. But the water around the shield is murky, like it is purposefully being obscured from view.
He frowns because it looks so god damn familiar, and a vine wraps around the metal, bringing it out of the water.
Only once it is in his hands does he recognise what he has found.
It’s his sister’s Aegis.
Her precious, beloved weapon with the raging, snarling face of Medusa carved intricately on the surface.
The face of Medusa stares straight at Dionysus, and he finds himself flinching out of pure fear and instinct, before realising that he has not yet been turned into stone. No, he is still very much alive and warm and breathing.
Then how did… how had Annabeth been turned to stone? That’s just simply not fucking possible.
As he begins to try and figure out what the hell could have happened, a vision flashes before his eyes, playing in his mind’s eye like an old film reel that’s been over-exposed and damaged, and Dionysus sees the faint writhing of a snake before suddenly he’s back, staring at the Aegis within his hold. He finds himself wanting to drop it, but he can’t bring himself to go through with it. It’s as if some primal part of him doesn’t dare to.
Vines wrap around the ball of water, and Dionysus stares numbly at the mass of vines, his sister’s Aegis held tightly within a clenched fist. It takes all his will to tear his gaze away.
And when he is finally able to tear his eyes away, he drops the Aegis as if it burned his hands to keep hold of any longer.
When the sound of metal hitting rocks and sand and water reaches his ears, it’s muffled. His mind is much too busy racing, sending out summons to his family like the signal flares of a sinking ship, begging them to hurry and come to camp as quickly as they are physically able.
He barely even registers the way his vines move the sphere to gently rest it on the lakeshore. The sphere remains intact, merely allowing the point of contact with the sand morph so that it is perfectly stable, still holding both teens within itself, though Percy has shifted, so he is leaning into Annabeth’s hold, hands still clasped tightly in a young lover’s embrace. His head is placed on her shoulder, his face turned into her neck, with his cheek on her shoulder.
Had they not been drowned and turned to stone, even Dionysus, grumpy old fuck that he is, would have had a hard time ignoring how cute the scene is.
Had they not died, the words repeat. Had none of them died, died, died. Why did any of them have to die?!
Once he is sure that they aren’t going anywhere, he shifts his vines to cover the entire sphere in their basket-like design. His eyes filled with turmoil, Dionysus makes his way back to camp. His family should be here soon, and he wants to at least be able to answer any questions in full, coherent sentences.
As coherent as one could ever be after witnessing all this fucking bullshit.
~🎃💀🎃~
The gods of Olympus are all quick to arrive once they begin feeling and truly registering wave after wave after wave of emotion from their youngest.
Confusion. Anger. Disgust. Sadness. Fear.
And then, just around midday, he begins truly calling, begging for them to come to camp as quickly as possible because something has gone very wrong, and I don’t know what to do.
And so they arrive, one after another, in rapid succession.
Hermes, Apollo, and Artemis are the first to appear.
They find Dionysus sitting with his legs under him beside the massive fire pit, his eyes looking lost in the distance. It is almost as if they do not even register in his sight for a moment, but when his eyes do finally move to look at them properly, all three gods freeze.
His eyes are glazed over with wariness and pain and despair. Apollo and Hermes are both quick to move, quickly making their way over to their youngest brother, sitting on either side of him, and trying to figure out what’s wrong. Artemis moves to sit with them, taking the empty space in front of the God of Wine, taking his hands in hers to help ground him.
Dionysus’ mouth opens as if he wishes to say something, but only a raspy choke comes out and Dionysus shakes his head, his lips tightening against each other. Something is truly off.
The rest of the siblings are the next to arrive. Athena, Ares, and Hephaestus all appear as a group, all ready to attack the threat that had made its way into camp. The threat that had made their sibling so terrified, his voice hoarse.
However, when they see the four younger siblings sitting on the ground in a little huddle, they all lower their weapons and quickly make their way over to join them. The four all remain standing, choosing to act as guards for their younger half-siblings.
But to guard against what?
Aphrodite appears very soon after, visibly fixing her hair as she sets foot on camp soil. She quickly stops as she catches sight of the siblings. She swiftly makes her way over, standing beside Ares and letting her presence settle over the group like a blanket of calm, even if it doesn’t fully help at the moment, since she is also deeply distressed.
Emotions of others, after all, have always heavily affected her.
The next to arrive are their four aunts and uncles, all looking a little worried even before they catch sight of the group by the fire pit.
But once they do set their sights on their brother’s children and the Lady of Love, they all quickly shift into a more battle-ready demeanor. Demeter and Hestia make their way over, quickly being absorbed into the group. Their presence as older, wiser women brings some sense of ease to the others, while Hades and Poseidon also take up protective positions around the others, weapons poised to attack as their eyes scan all around camp.
It is…oddly empty today. Almost akin to a ghost town, with only the sounds of nature where there should be the bustling sounds of nature and a good number of demigods outside training or doing other various activities.
Hestia can sense the presence of Chiron and the children all kept within the Big House, and she is quick to set a blessing of protection over the building and its inhabitants. It is clear that something had happened, and there is a feeling of mounting dread within the Goddess of the Hearth that she could not ignore.
The final arrivals are those of their father and mother.
Dionysus would not often refer to Hera as his mother, no more than she would refer to him as her son. But the situation is on so many levels of fucked up that he can be forgiven for his choice of words. Both King and Queen of the gods look as regal as ever, but once they take notice of the state of their fellow deities, a concerned look overtakes both their faces.
Once everyone has appeared and settled into a sort of semi-circle around Dionysus, Zeus is the first to speak, voice strong but clearly a cover for the fear rapidly building within the God King.
“Dionysus, my son. What has happened? Why have you been calling for us all morning?”
Dionysus does not respond with words, merely flicking his wrist towards the empty space just to the left of their group.
Nothing happens for a moment, but right as they all start looking at one another in confusion, ten dome-shaped bundles of vines burst from the ground and begin slowly unfurling. And the more they open, the more the mounting horror within the gods grows.
It’s children.
Their children.
Their clearly dead children.
Dead in ways so morbid that the gods would’ve never thought they would see in this era.
Travis and Connor are holding one another, foreheads touching, while their hands lie within one another, held together by vines and flowers. One looks so utterly broken, and the other, bitten by some kind of snake.
Katie, who looks less like a teenage girl and more like a skeleton with papier-mache drawn tightly over the top of it.
Clarisse, lying on her back with her chest torn open and her beloved spear held in her cold grasp. It is laid out longways atop her body, with her hands gripping it tightly even in death.
Drew, with her heart placed gently back within her body, the arrow still in place and the empty sockets where her eyes used to be somehow having been cleaned..
Pollux, still holding his stuffed horses and framed picture, with his blue tint and the overwhelming scent of grapes.
Will, still burning from the inside out, placed slightly away from the others to keep from accidentally affecting their bodies, and Nico, who is little more than a head, a hand, and a series of bones, all laid out in an approximation of where they might have gone in the body.
Leo, with the holes in his shoulders from where the nails had been and burns across his body. Festus lies curled around the body like a protector, but he does not move, his gears do not turn, and there is no visible light burning inside him.
Thalia and Jason lay side by side, a hand clasped between them and gentle smiles on their faces. Thalia’s chest is ripped open, and there are splinters stuck into the visible muscles, her silver circlet still woven into her dark hair. Jason has several puncture wounds across his body, along with evidence of circulation being cut off and the unmistakable fang bite marks of wolves.
Grover, cradled by vines and flowers, but not those of Dionysus. Flowers, bright and cheerful, still bloom as they emerge from his various orifices.
Percy and Annabeth, finally released from their sphere of water, both lay on the ground side by side. Percy is lying on his side, facing Annabeth, but the seaweed wrapped around his neck, arms, and legs is still very visible, even from a distance. Annabeth does not lie on the ground, instead sits with her legs tucked under her and her hands reaching out,
Apollo vomits almost instantly, making everyone jump back to get out of the blast radius, while Dionysus chuckles with absolutely no humour in his words. “Fuck, even I lasted longer than that. Took me finding like nine of the kids before I blew chunks.”
The God of the Sun turns to look at his brother, his expression of horror and promises of a long, long interrogation session later.
“We… are going to have a very in-depth discussion about that, later. But right now, I am going to go check on my son and not think about the fact that his boyfriend is currently the world’s worst 3D jigsaw puzzle.” Apollo says, sounding more and more stressed and hysterical as he goes on. Once he is done, he bolts upright, turning with military precision and making his way over to Will’s body before anyone can say anything else.
The others quickly follow his lead, making their way over to their children, sitting on the ground next to them to take in the true extent of their injuries.
Hades sits next to his nephew, but all of his attention remains locked on his son. Or at least, what remains of his son. At the present moment, his beloved baby is reduced to nothing more than a pile of bones with various odd carvings, his left hand, and his head, which had already begun to decay, though it shows obvious signs of having been healed, likely by Apollo’s boy.
Speaking of the Southern son of Apollo, the air around his body seems to be wavering because of the sheer amount of heat being emitted from his body. Only Apollo seems undeterred by the heat, not wasting a second wrapping his arms around the boy and pulling him into his lap, pressing kisses all over his face, mumbling something that might be apologies, but Hades could not make out the words, just the way the other’s voice shook and the way the tears that falls from the god’s eyes quite literally sizzles when they land on his son’s cheek.
Dionysus is quick to make his way over to where Pollux is lying, sitting down with exactly negative grace, caring only that he got his boy back in his arms and that he could hold him close. Even in this horrible situation, the god still took small comfort in being able to hold his son close before the funeral rites were performed.
Hermes let out what is most certainly an inhuman sound as he drops to his knees next to his sons, pulling them close to him, putting one small head on each of his collarbones as his wings emerge with a flurry of feathers to wrap around them, as if it would help to lock the father and sons away from the world at large. Even if he knew it wouldn’t, Hermes’ grief-addled mind is willing to do anything if it could bring him some form of peace from this nightmare.
Hephaestus is silent as he makes his way over to Leo and Festus, slowly making his way into a criss-cross seated position on the ground. He runs a calloused, forge-worn hand through the boy’s hair and over the dragon’s snout, praying quietly that both are somehow together in paradise.
Ares is uncharacteristically quiet as he walks over to Clarisse’s body. The War God drops to his knees beside her body, before shifting her spear to sit beside her on the ground and lifting her body into his arms. He brings his head to the opening in her chest, and the mighty warrior can be heard sobbing quietly, all his usual fight seeping away, leaving him as nothing more than a father mourning his child. No one comments on it.
Aphrodite, on the other hand, is very expressive in her grief. The goddess openly cries and sobs, and hiccups as she runs her fingers over the arrow in her daughter’s heart and the empty sockets where her beautiful eyes should have been. Her cries sound like a broken, wailing bird, the noise causing a shiver to those who hear it. Even in moments like this, the goddess manages to be beautiful beyond belief, but for once, she could not give a single flying fuck about her appearance to others. All that she cares about in this moment is the fact that she has lost yet another daughter, a daughter whose body had been defiled in such a terrible way.
Poseidon’s sorrow is palpable to everyone in a nearby radius as he screams out his grief, putting his head over Percy’s now unbeating heart, trying to untangle the seaweed from his boy’s body. He manages to get it off of his arms and legs, but the strands around his neck are so tightly bound that they have almost cemented themselves to the boy’s now clammy skin. The God of the Sea sees the intended irony of the plant’s presence, and it only works to make the whole situation worse.
Athena doesn’t cry loudly. Instead, her tears flow silently down her cheeks as she lowers herself to her own knees in front of her daughters. Her hands find their way to the girl’s once soft cheeks, now cold and solid stone. She drops her hands to hold her daughter’s, hoping to bring either of them some form of comfort. A little way to the side, she catches sight of Aegis, lying innocently in the grass. It had gone missing a few days ago, but she had assumed it was merely within her armoury. To see it here only makes her tears fall faster.
Hestia, though she has no demigod children, sits with the young satyr Grover. She did not know the boy well, but she knew enough about him to know that he was a kind boy who deserved someone to sit with him at this moment. And even though she knows his death must have been a painful one, given the placement of many of the admittedly pretty flowers, the goddess admits to herself that his body looks the most peaceful of the bunch.
Zeus and Hera sit together with the Grace siblings. They do not separate the duo, instead pulling them up together so that each child has a head in one of their laps. Zeus runs his hand through his daughter’s hair, careful of her silver circlet as he does. He does his best not to focus too much on her injuries, lest his churning stomach decide to upend his breakfast. Hera takes Jason, running her hands over his features, tracing the small scar from when he’d had a mishap involving a stapler, trying not to look at all the bite and claw marks across his body, indicating an attack and death from wolves.
Demeter sits quietly next to her daughter’s corpse, beginning to play with her hair and trying to ignore the state of her body. It is something she had once done to mortals who had greatly offended her. But to see it affecting her own child made her stomach roll. She has lost so many children in her long life, but to have it occur in such a manner is new, and she greatly wishes this were just a nightmare that she would awaken from to find Katie alive and well.
“What… happened, Dionysus?” Hera asks, her voice shaking as she runs her hand through her champion’s blond hair, and does her best not to look at his injuries or notice the fact that his glasses are missing. Her attention is all focused on her youngest stepson, begging for an explanation of any kind for this massacre.
“I… don’t know, Hera. I really, really do not know. All I know is that I was woken up by a camper screaming after they found the Stolls, and then I was sent on the world’s most fucked up scavenger hunt involving Nico’s bones.”
When Dionysus sees the horrified look that Hades is giving him, the nephew takes in a deep sigh before recounting his utterly terrible morning and early afternoon.
He speaks of bodies and discoveries and bones with carvings that had pointed him in the direction of the next body. He speaks of using his vines to cover each of the bodies in some modicum of respect for them all until the other gods could arrive.
Once his retelling is complete, no one speaks for a long time, stewing in their own horror and sick churning as they let the details and sick fucking irony of it all sink in.
“So… what do we do now?” Artemis asks, finally breaking the silence, though her voice is shaky and smaller than anyone had ever heard from the goddess of the Hunt.
The gods only sit there, their arms wrapped around their beloved, dead children.
What could they do now?
~🎃💀🎃~
While the gods discussed this great, tragic offense to them and their power, several beings, not of this world, watched them from the shadows.
The Lord of the Skies, with his bride decked in gold and peacock feathers, each holding one of their two young children. A girl with dark hair and bright eyes was held securely in her father’s arms, and a boy with blonde hair slept soundly in his mother’s arms. Both the King and Queen looked at one another with joy in their eyes. They had already successfully had and raised more children than they ever thought possible, but now they had two more, and they were even more perfect than they thought possible.
They both ran soft touches over the scars their children now bore. The starburst, which mirrored itself on the girl’s chest and back, the teeth and claw marks all across the boy’s body, except for his face.
The Lord of the Seas, with his cold eyes and ever-changing hair that resembled the seas under his control. He held his new son securely in his strong arms. He already had a strong, living son, but when he had mentioned the possibility of another to his wife and eldest child, both had demanded he do whatever was necessary to retrieve the boy. And the King of the Seas was not one to disappoint.
He ran gentle fingers over the scars that had appeared on his son’s neck, looking like sealed away gills.
The Lord of the Dead and the Afterlife, with his tall stature and dark eyes. Even with all his dark, withdrawn mannerisms, he held the small boy in his arms with remarkable tenderness. Sure, the god has always been rather good with small children, but there was something in his overall demeanor in this moment that felt like it had shifted ever so slightly.
He ignored the way the small boy had horrid, wretched scars marring his skin, prominent around every joint, being the harshest around his neck.
The Lady of Harvest, with her young daughter of nature, stood beside her. A young girl with brown hair and even softer freckles was cradled in her arms, and she leaned down to let her daughter get a look at her new sister. The young goddess’s eyes seemed to shine with wonder and intrigue as she reached to pet a hand through the younger girl’s hair.
The Lady disregarded the scars of stretch marks that had enmeshed themselves throughout the little girl’s skin.
The Lord of War, with eyes full of the blazing fires of victory and a sword strapped to his back. Despite his overall physique and demeanor, he held the small girl in his arms with remarkable gentleness. The look he gave her spoke of protection, of training to be the greatest warrior the world has ever known, of love enough to make up for all the pain she endured here.
He gently traced the scars of animal wounds that were etched into her skin, a singular star-shaped scar through the center of her tiny neck.
The Lady of Love, standing beside her lover, with soft curls and waves falling gently around her shoulders and eyes that seemed to glow with the soft yearnings of maternal love. She cradled her own daughter close to her bosom, with the child’s head resting on her collarbone, while the goddess ran a hand up and down her back in soothing motions. Nothing could wake the children at the moment, but the action was more for her own comfort anyway.
Her eyes turned down as they glistened with tears at the sight of a spray of white marks around her daughter’s eyes, her fingers brushing against her daughter’s skin.
The Lord of the Forge stood beside his brother and sister-in-law, but all of his attention was on the small, fiery boy asleep in his arms. He was amazed that the other him managed to have any children at all, but this young boy had something special about him that drew the god to him that little bit more.
His eyes burned with the warmth of the forge. A hand was placed on the shoulder of the boy, gently soothing the small, rounded scars that dug themselves deep into the boy’s shoulders.
The Lady of Wisdom, with her statuesque form and seemingly all-knowing grey eyes. She held her sleeping daughter in her arms as if she were all the wisdom in the world, wrapped in scarred skin and golden hair and identical grey eyes. Her eyes were on the group of bickering deities, but her mind had already begun branching off in many different directions. There was much for them to do once they returned home with the children. From getting the children settled in, to getting the children ascended and accustomed to their new domains, to-
She tried to look away from the way the little girl’s skin looked, just ever so slightly dry and cracked.
The Lord of the Sun, with his twin sister, Lady of the Moon, and both, frankly, did not care for their counterparts one bit after everything they had seen. All of their attention was on the small blond boy in the sun god’s arms. He was almost a perfect miniature of the brother, and while the sister was upset that they did not take any of her huntresses, she would have to be happy with the fact that her sister was once a huntress.
His fingers curled within themselves as he wished to rid the little boy of the internal burns that would likely leave him sore for quite some time. But he also took some small pride in the fact that his son would now run just as warm as he did.
The Lord of Travellers, with his young son of the Wild by his side. The father, with his curly hair and many bird wings, held in both his arms the most precious cargo. He had retrieved not one, but two new little brothers for his existing son, and both were so cute he thought he might melt if he stared too long. But of course, he was also now the first grandparent of his generation, with his own son having found his own child, a young satyr boy who looked remarkably like himself.
A hand skimmed over the ankle of one of his sons, two faint dark dots piercing their way through the faintness of his son’s skin.
His existing son clutched the little satyr, tracing the imprints of plants decorating the little boy, darkest around the boy’s mouth.
The Lord of Madness, with his wild hair and animal pelts, and bright purple eyes. He had been aiming to get both of his counterpart’s sons, as they were unable to get into this universe’s Underworld, but he was all too happy to have gotten the son that he did. His soft blond curls and purple eyes were the most beautiful thing the god had seen in hundreds of years, and he could already picture the two of them bonding as father and son, locking themselves away in their temple on Olympus, only leaving for family gatherings and festivals.
He ignored the way the small boy still smelt strongly of over-ripe grapes, and the way his lips remained a soft shade of blue.
And finally, the custodian of Fate, who clutched in her hands fourteen strings of various vibrant colours, from blue to grey to pink and purple. So many precious, vibrant young souls, torn from their original loom under the watchful gaze of a new moon and forces unknown to mortal men.
As the gods stepped through the rift back to their world, each clutching their new, oh so precious children in their arms, Fate looked back to the group of grieving gods.
And smirked.
They grieved now, but none of them answered the calls of their dying children.
Sure, the children had felt no pain in the moment, but their souls had cried out. Calling, begging for mothers and fathers who did not answer. Who had ignored their pleas. Who did not deserve to keep their so-called ‘beloved children’.
They would be much happier and well taken care of in their new world.
Besides, how tightly could they have truly been holding on to these precious strings if they could be removed this easily without anyone being alerted?
It had been as simple as tearing a few strings from a grand tapestry, really.
.
.
.
But is it truly happiness if they were ripped from the threads of one for another?
The dark, writhing holes that were left in the wake of these missing threads, were they truly for the good of the children?
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