Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Of Oceans and Wisdom
„If you wish to be the favorites of the gods, let me grant your wish”
Gaea’s voice was probably audible over the whole field and they hadn’t had a chance to do anything before being ripped away from the earth. Annabeth manages to turn her fall into a roll so she doesn’t land square on her face.
The soles of her sandals make a squeaking sound as she comes to a stop on the smooth tiles. Sandals? She hasn’t been wearing sandals five seconds ago. Her hair is put up in what feels like a braid or two and her clothes look, well wrong. It looks a bit like the Togas that some at camp Jupiter wear over their shirts and pants. But it’s pinned differently and she is wearing a sort of dress beneath it. Maybe it’s supposed to look like a peplos.
First she has to find out where she is. Annabeth looks around the hall, pillars hold the roof up. The Tapestries, some finished others barely started hang from the ceiling and walls, forming a sort of labyrinth to walk between. One could craw underneath them or push the fabric to the side but everything about this place screams not made by mortal hand. So she has to be careful. But there are no cobwebs or hints of any spiders, so whatever Gaea did it probably wasn’t supposed to be a death sentence. Probably.
Though whatever it is could not possibly be good. Parts of the ceiling are fashioned into giant looms. With small shadows perched upon them. Definitely not spiders but dozens of eyes seemingly focused on her do not soothe her fears. Every building has at least one exit, she just has to find it.
The place she fell out of, is a ripped tapestry. It’s impossible to make out what it used to show. A vaguely human shape seems to have been torn out. The shudder running down her spine makes her hand reach for a knife that isn’t there anymore.
Annabeth dodges her way through the tapestries, through the portrayals of gods and their myths. The Titanomachy, Aphrodite rising from the seas. Hera and Zeus wedding. The two of them looking almost familial with the queen holding an infant in her arms and a young boy with red eyes standing next to Zeus. Annabeth hesitates, Ares and Hephaestus maybe? But the latter was thrown off Olympus by most often his mother and the gods have never attempted to hide it. Why make this kind of art if they belief there to be nothing to hide in the first place?
Maybe its just a modern art installation. She stops herself from touching the tapestry and the feeling of being watched lessens a little bit. Annabeth has to get out of here right now. Her head whips around and she comes face to face with the woven face of Zeus on another tapestry. This one makes even less sense, it’s Zeus and what has to be a maybe teen Ares with a young girl. Annabeth has never in her life seen any ancient art of any of the gods as children but this seems weirder. Ares, it has to be Ares even if he looks nothing like the god she met, is handing the girl a bronze spear.
A hooting sound echoes through the air the moment she finally spots the exist. Owl, it’s owls hiding in the rafters. Annabeth sprints towards the outside, something is after her. She has no idea what it is but every instinct is telling her to get out of here. Small claws grab the fabric of her clothes, but the animals aren’t strong enough to hold her in place. She rips her sleeve free and jumps out of the exit. Scrapes her knees when she lands on her hands.
The sun burns down on her and some people on the plaza stare at her like she is an apparition. Or someone who just jumped out of a building. They are dressed not unlike she is right now and Annabeth gets back to her feet to not draw more attention to her. An invisibility cap would be very useful at the moment, but it isn’t working anymore and she no longer has it in her possession.
She turns around and freezes. The Athena Parthenos stands high a top the acropolis. The statue is set right in front of her. She’s in Ancient Greece, Ancient Athens to be precise and the statue that caused her and Percy to fall into Tartarus is right there. It hasn’t been taken by the Romans, might not be for centuries. The scrapes on her hands are real, this isn’t an illusion or a trick. But Gaea is the earth, how could she send her here?
If this is her revenge, she has to find the others. The other five, because well she knows some things are not survivable. At best it is just the rest of the surviving seven.
If Annabeth is in Athens, then the others are probably in places that worshipped their parents the most. Probably. If there are any rules to this. The building she jumped out of is a sort of temple, not the Parthenon which is on the other side of the plaza, and she just barely didn’t destroy the offerings people placed along the stairs. Flowers, bowls of food, clothes, little wooden figurines and some clay dolls. Those were probably placed there by children.
Was she even technically allowed to be in the temple? Not that she walked into it or anything but ancient laws really don’t care much about details as far as she knows. Annabeth tries to disappear into the crowd, whatever she did at least isn’t drawing too much attention and the owls haven’t chased her outside. There is only the sky above her, no clouds and the feeling of being watched hasn’t vanished.
She has to get down into the city, there will be even more people and less weird glances. The only way she stands out right now is her height, only a few of the men are as tall as her. Everyone else shorter. That was historically a thing.
She catches parts of sentences as she makes her way towards the stone path leading from the hill. They speak in what has to be a truly ancient form of Greek, yet she understands every word. Some sort of festival is going on, in honor of the gods and people wonder if their sacrifices will be appreciated. Will be enough to ease some pain. It’s nothing she has exactly heard before but many things have been lost to time, so could some cults and types of worship. Even if those tapestries didn’t seem very Athenian.
A mural is being painted on the outer wall of a temple close to the edge of the Acropolis. For a moment she thinks it just the twelve Olympians with Hestia instead of Dionysus. But it isn’t. Hermes is missing, instead replaced by what looks like Hades. She has never seen this constellation before, Hades has never been one of the twelve in any version she knows.
Someone with a paint brush is touching up feathers on Athena’s face. Which too is weird, as are the multiple places where people are working on what should be finished paintings. The gods, at least the Olympians except for maybe Dionysus have always been portrayed as human looking. It looks like the indent of horns growing out from Zeus head. Feathers too with other gods and antlers for Artemis. She doesn’t think the latter is supposed to be a crown.
“You like it?” one of the artists asks.
She has been staring for too long. “It looks very nice,” she says. Better get this over with and leave because it is starting to feel like more than just the wrong time period.
“My best work to this day,” the man grins. Then he scans the crowd as if he looking for something or someone. “Have your parents send you alone to bring your offering?” He sounds almost concerned as if Annabeth is a small child and not less than a year away from adulthood. Especially weird given the time period.
“Yes,” she lies. “They are very busy with work. I brought it here on my own.” Flowers should work as an answer if he asks more question, a lot of people brought flowers.
The Artist nods and dips his pain brush into a darker blue this time. “Do please remind them that children should not walk around alone this week. If they look abandoned something might believe them to be.”
It is warning but more so addressed to her theoretical parents than Annabeth herself. But one she doesn’t like the sound of either way. Something is very wrong but she needs more information to figure out what.
She nearly collides with someone when she finally manages to get through to the edge of the acropolis. Folded pieces of cloth fall to the ground and the poor woman she startled nearly slips in an attempt to catch them. Annabeth helps her pick them up.
She hands over the last folded cloth and meets the stranger’s face and can just bite back her screams. There are no mandibles or extra eyes, or fangs. But it is without a doubt the same person than the one that haunts her nightmares.
“Thank you, I didn’t see you there,” Arachne says.
Percy falls into water, that drags him deeper and deeper down until he finally manages to wrestle back control. Where is he? Gaea cursed them or something, well tried to do. This isn’t anywhere close to camp, the waters are too different.
At least no one else got thrown this deep with him.
He lets the currents push him towards the surface and has to squint his eyes once he is there. The sun stands on its zenith. He is in the ocean, the nearest lands is on the horizon and his clothes are soaked and not the ones he was wearing before Gaea did something. He looks like he went to an Ancient Greek themed Halloween party and fell into the pool. There is some seaweed sticking to his leg that he kicks off. Boats hover between him and land, but they look small enough that he’d be noticed and some things are very difficult to explain. Better get straight to land find out where the spiteful earth threw him.
He moves underwater to avoid anyone on the ships catching sight of him. They are all wooden and look closer to Triremes and small wooden fishing boats then anything modern.
Percy knows his luck, this is going to be another problem all over again. At least this time he doesn’t have amnesia. He climbs up on the wooden docks on what is definitely a very, very ancient port. Ancient Greek, given the language and clothes and the track record of his quests.
Nearly every ship has a different flag. It won’t be hard to pretend to be one of the many visitors. There are so many people here and all of them seem to heading generally in the same direction. He can check it out, as long as the others don’t end up in the water he won’t be able to sense them and if everyone is on their way to this place. The others might see it as the best option to look for each other. Some men are driving chariots along the path at walking speed, trying to keep pedestrian at least a a bit away. Women and men are carrying instruments and art supplies.
It could be a festival, but that doesn’t seem quiet right. Lines form in front of wooden desk. Merchants sell wares and food along the path. More like a sporting event than anything else, which would explain the many finely decorated chariots. A temple stands on a small strip of land. In front of it the grass has been removed in multiple places, to create a racing track and some smaller patches of sand likely used for other contests. He is in the wrong place for it to be ancient Olympics, but there were other sporting events. He just forgot where.
He squints his eyes, it could just be the colors and distance playing tricks on him but is that a temple of Poseidon? It’d be risky to ask for help, he’s in the wrong time, not just the wrong place but his father has always been at least cordial with his mortal children. He might even need divine intervention to get back and he has to find the others. Gaea had said favorites not favorite. But why send them to the past then?
His father had so many children in these times. Percy won’t be anything special. But it is Gaea, she was probably just looking for a way to punish them for beating her. Leo is probably, well they don’t know for sure yet. He has to find the others and it might require asking his father for some aid. A boat would be nice.
Percy walks past the line of tables towards the temple. A relatively small bridge of land connecting two pieces of land. He heard it before, he just can’t recall where. Something close to a city important to his father, games aren’t held in random places and there is a city not far from here. He has seen it on his way.
A Relief of Pegasus adorns a side of the temple and most banners close by have the same symbol woven into them. The city with Pegasus as it’s symbol was Corinth. Which means he’s on the Isthmus of Corinth just before the Isthmian Games, and it’s around April. Maybe. The date he isn’t sure about, he only knows it at all because of some presentation for school he had to do once.
The temple beckons him inside once he is at it’s steps. If the city has a place where it displays its wealth it has to be here. Gold and silver are worked into the stone, adorn the top of the pillars and the edges of the floor. Tiny murals cover the ground, showing acts of his father and nets with pearls strung onto them cover blue tapestries and curtains. Poseidon’s statue watches over all, if it’s any taller it would break through the roof. The statue is painted in blue and dark green robes with scales on the skin and barely any features that make it look humanoid. But it is supposed to be Poseidon, he can feel it.
Maybe, maybe he shouldn’t pray here. Maybe Gaea did something far worse than sent them to the past. There is a shallow pool beneath the statue, with water lilies and fish inside. But it is fresh water, his father is the god of the sea. Percy takes a step back, slowly. No, it is better if he leaves. Even if it is just paranoia acting up.
“Are you here to bring an offering to the Earthshaker before the games?”
He whips around towards the voice and has to look down. The girl cannot be older than 10 and she’s dressed like some sort of priest to his father. Probably just the daughter of a priest of priestess, nothing to worry about.
“I am not participating,” he tells her, “I simple prayed for a safe voyage. I will be leaving Corinth soon.” He has to make himself sound like someone from the region at least, not a teenager who seems weirdly scared of praying to the gods.
The child squints at him. “But you didn’t pray, I would have heard you.” He thinks he can still talk his way out of this.
“Well I don’t believe you have to scream for the gods to hear you,” he says.
The girl walks past him and shoots a look towards the water. “You are supposed to throw an offering in the water,” she sounds far more like someone’s disappointed grandmother than a small child right now. Then her face lights up and she snatches one of the pins from his cloak. “I can do it for you. May you provide this traveler safe passage over your oceans, Lord Poseidon”
Then throws the pin into the water. Without him doing anything, because maybe Poseidon will just treat it like a normal prayer given that he should have no idea who Percy is and he’d rather not attack a child, the pin flies out of the water and right into Percy’s hand. The girl stares at him and then runs outside screaming for her mother. Daughter of a Priestess then.
Percy inches his way towards the doors, he didn’t move the water. His next step is accompanied by a splash, the little pool has overflown with water. He’s standing in it and underwater plants are starting to grow over the wooden doors, which are now closed. This isn’t normal, in no time period.
“Why are you scared, child?” the voice sounds like if him and the person speaking are underwater. Similar to his father, but not the same.
Percy turns around, maybe he is just worrying too much. Maybe some things just got lost in the sands of time and maybe the gods preferred nonhuman forms in some local cults and maybe he just hit his head and is hallucinating.
“And why does the sea call to you?” the god asks. He looks almost exactly like his statue, has to bend down so he can even look at Percy.
Probably just tell him something that is partly true, Poseidon will likely just send him away with a cloak or other gift.
“I came her to ask for your aid father,” he says and nothing terrible happens.
Because Percy has been worrying about no existing threat at all. He breathes out in relief. The god stares at him, just stares. There is a possessive glint in his eyes that Percy really, really doesn’t like. But that might just be the time period. The water recedes back towards the pool and the god shifts his form until he is not much taller than his son and holds out a hand.
“Of course. Why don’t you come with me?”