Storm or Fire

by FoxyAtlas

Summary:

Sequel to Preserve or Raze.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Notes:

Here's just a sweet little moment to hold you over until this story officially gets started :)

There was a moment, just after the Prophecy of the Seven started feeling really real, when Percy admitted weakness. “I want to survive,” he whispered, as if saying it quietly would reduce the impact. “I want all of us to survive.”

“We will,” Annabeth said firmly, like she could control it. Like she could manifest it with just her voice; with just her words, she could control the fates’ decisions. “This won’t be a repeat of our first quest. We’re all going to make it out, all seven of us. And none of us will get hurt like you got hurt.” Like we’ve both been hurt, she amended. Percy, bleeding on the Andromeda. Annabeth, kneeling on the Olympian Palace floor, Luke dead before her; broken in ways she never thought she’d be able to survive. 

Percy entangled his fingers with hers easily; they were still relearning ease with each other. “I hope you’re right.”

Hope. Annabeth wondered when she’d started to hope again; when she’d decided it was something that someone like her was allowed. She imagined it had something to do with the boy sitting beside her, Annabeth, it’s me. But it wasn’t just from him; the hope had also come with Reyna, the way she looked at Annabeth hungrily, the way it made Annabeth’s stomach churn with desire. The hope had come with Jason, watching the way he swung his sword like it was light, the way he expressed his love completely unashamed. The hope had come with Caleb, Annabeth, it’s time to take a step back, and from Chiron, what do you really want from this life? The hope had come from multiple full-night’s rests, and showers where dirt from the training grounds sluiced off of her into a contained puddle of mud. It had come from good meals; had come from taking the time to actually stretch after a workout; had come from staring at an empty journal page, thinking what do I actually want? And writing college. Had come from taking the SATs, from looking into the future, from risking making actual plans. 

Hope had come. It had found her; and for as long as she had it, she would choose to grasp onto it, and cling tight for as long as she could bear. She couldn’t let it go, not now that she had finally captured it after so long. 

She squeezed Percy’s hand and hoped. 

Notes:

Hello everyone! First thing’s first, please subscribe to this fic! I post sporadically, so it is absolutely essential for you to subscribe to this fic so you can get notified about when a new chapter is up.

Secondly, I have officially made an email list! Please join it if you would like to be notified when I traditionally publish original fiction. Joining this list would be incredibly helpful to me, because I will be able to show this list to future potential publishers to prove to them that my stories are marketable and have a potential audience. You can join that here: https://forms.gle/sVZZHXN3cJ1MwHZm7

Now, with that out of the way, I want to talk a bit about my journey with this series, and what is left in store.

When I started writing Preserve or Raze, I identified as a cis, monogamous girl in my first year of college. I thought that it would just be a short little angsty story that I’d write about a traumatized Percy at Camp Jupiter. I didn’t have any plans past that; not about Frank’s exploration of his powers, not about Percy and Jason’s relationship, not about Percy’s reunion with Annabeth, not about polyamory—none of it. It did not end up as a small project, or a short story. Over the course of five years of writing, the story took on a life of its own, becoming this big, beautiful, angsty polyamorous clusterfuck, and I am so pleased with it too. During my time writing, I have also grown and changed quite a bit; I am now fully out as a transmasc guy, very happily living my own poly dreams, and I have graduated from college with a degree in Writing. It has been a really incredible journey.

That brings us to the present: Storm or Fire (SoF). The title Preserve or Raze obviously comes from the line Olympus to preserve or raze from the great prophecy the first book was based around; similarly, Storm or Fire comes from the great prophecy this book will be based on: the Prophecy of the Seven. This fic will follow that prophecy, hopefully, from start to finish, but will obviously be very different from the original series, with parts skipped, parts changed, and parts added. I have a lot of this story already planned out, so I’m hoping the pacing will be solid, and it will feel entirely different from the original series, while still holding a ring of nostalgia. This fic will also be a bit different from Preserve or Raze, including Percy POVs and some scenes that are more sexually explicit than in PoR. I am also hoping to post on a regular schedule, ideally every two weeks, starting after the first real chapter is posted. I'm going to take a little time to try to prep a backlog of chapters first, so I don't know when exactly the first chapter will be out, but I'm going to try not to make you guys wait too long ;).

As always, I love hearing your thoughts, and look forward to starting this new adventure alongside you.

Thanks!
FoxyAtlas

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Preserve Or Raze 'Verse