#demigod daughter of hermes

[demigoddaughterofhermes]

i actually really like that hades immediately believes percy about kronos- in the books it was treated as this impossible thing and i think hades being so ready to believe that is actually believable considering where he lives. and also considering the personality we see from hades in the books

[demigoddaughterofhermes]

percy is the reason we have camp movie nights- he was tired of people not getting his references. unfortunately they're still not appreciated in the middle of a fight but we know them now

”We’re not in Kansas anymore”

“No duh, we left Kansas 4 days ago”

I love Annabeth so much

[pagenne]

REINCARNATED F!READER x Blood of Zeus

Warnings: Explicit themes, slight sexual themes, 13+, mentions of slavery, English is not my first language.

Tags: Reincarnation, Greek mythology, platonic attachments, only a prequel.

Author's Note: Hi everyone! I know it's not one of my regular Percy Jackson oneshots/fanfictions, but I just got newly attached to this Netflix series called Blood of Zeus, and hoping I would find more Blood of Zeus fans here who are interested with some family denial angst, hurt and comfort sort of vibe fanfictions. Hope you guys enjoy reading it!!! Please leave a heart, share, and comment!!! And tell me if I should make an actual fanfiction out of this????

Before she even came to terms with the new reality set for her, she was once an ordinary university student.

Not locked in a miserable life, but not born under a lucky star either. Hers was a path marked by quiet mediocrity: not the kind that numbs, but the kind that humbles. A subtle resilience brewed in her bones through years of watching, waiting, and choosing silence in the chaos of adolescence. Her story didn’t begin with greatness. But it began with intention.

Her freshman year had unfolded with an almost divine precision—like the Fates themselves had whispered favor into her ears. A full graduate scholarship, generous enough to cover half of her tuition and every other necessity that came with the high cost of education. There was even a monthly stipend, meager in the grand scheme of things, yet more than enough for her humble needs—granted under the single condition that she maintain excellence.

And she did.

She became one of the youngest interns her university had ever produced. Not just another name in the system, but recognized—recruited by a renowned company not just for her credentials, but for the way her mind worked. Sharp, efficient, and visionary. Her life had finally been falling into place. 

It had all taken so long. So many years of coasting through high school with half-hearted effort, letting others take the stage while she lingered behind it. She had said no to student council elections, to club meetings, to after-school leadership roles—not out of apathy, but preservation. Her energy was limited, reserved only for the joys of friendship and the passing satisfaction of hobbies. But college changed everything. It felt like the first time she had chosen herself.

She was going to graduate. She was going to get that job. She was going to buy her parents something nice—finally, finally—and she was going to build the kind of life they had always hoped she would live.

But it only took a second. 

A truck. 

A turn too wide. 

A scream too late.

The traffic light had just turned red. Her feet had just met the first cobblestones of the crosswalk. She wasn’t even on her phone. She wasn’t distracted. She had been present. Aware. And it still didn’t matter.

There was no time to scream. No time to pray.

Just pain.

And then—

Nothing.

When she opened her eyes, the sky was a brutal shade of blue. The first thing she noticed was how small her hands looked. How they trembled when she reached for the bucket of water in front of her. Fingers like matchsticks. Wrists like reeds. Her reflection—caught in the bronze of a polished bowl was not her own. Not anymore.

Her soul had been swept from the modern world and dumped into something ancient. She was a chore girl now. A servant in a brothel nestled somewhere in the slums of Athens. The year? She didn’t know. Time here moved like myth—fluid and distorted. The women around her wore draped peplos and laughed like harpies. Perfumed and powerful, yet pitied behind closed doors. The hetaerae. High-class companions of philosophers, politicians, and warriors. Worshipped by some. Used by most.

And she served them.

She wasn’t one of them. Not yet, which she was thankful for. Maybe not ever. She washed their linens, fetched their food, ran after their bronze mirror-polished sandals when they were flung in tantrums. She learned to keep her eyes down. To walk lightly. To listen for trouble before it arrived.

She learned how the world worked in this life.

The brothel owner was no gluttonous pig of a man with greasy fingers and a penchant for cruelty. No, she—the madam—was a woman of precision and pragmatism. A relic of time, perhaps, but still as sharp as an Athenian dagger. Her name was Eirene, ironically bearing the name of the goddess of peace, though her tongue could flay skin like a Spartan whip.

White hair, long and bound with an old purple ribbon, crowned her head like frost on dying lavender. Her eyes, a deep, contemplative brown, shimmered not with age, but with knowing. The kind of knowing that grew in the backstreets of Athens and festered in its politics and filth—where kings slept with harlots and priests whispered curses in temple corners. She did not pander to illusions. She ran illusions. She crafted them with callused hands, painting the lie of desire for men willing to pay any price for power between the legs of beauty.

She knew the game. Played it well enough to last five decades.

She knew what to do when young girls were dropped off like stray dogs. Some came in chains. Some with silent eyes. Some, screaming. But all of them, in time, became hers. And if they arrived too young to please the eager patrons that frequented the brothel’s rose-scented halls, they were placed below—house slaves. Chore girls. 

Just like her.

The girl with eyes too thoughtful for an 8-year-old. Fingers too nimble. A silence too old for her age.

She washed dishes with hands too small for bronze plates, dried amphorae meant for wine she’d never taste. She carried silk robes she’d never wear and jewels she'd never touch, brushing the hallways in the brothel’s shadowed belly where even the moans above seemed like echoes from another world. She understood early: the brothel was a living thing. A monster with velvet skin, wine-stained lips, and teeth hidden behind incense and music. It demanded from everyone. It demanded obedience most of all.

She gave it.

Not because she was weak, but because she had learned quickly that survival, in this life, was not won by resistance—but by knowing when to resist.

And so she smiled when they told her to. Complimented the elite courtesans when they passed in their golden robes,and she bent her knees to the madam, offered whispered flattery to the harlots with dagger-like tongues, cleaned blood-stained sheets after violent encounters, and bit her lips until they bled when her back ached from scrubbing the marble floors until the white gleamed like moonlight.

Still, sleep eluded her. Night after night, she lay beneath the brothel in a shared pallet among other girls, where the damp earth made her joints ache and the stone ceiling reminded her there was nowhere else to go. The fear of her future clung to her ribs like a parasite. The thought of being chosen, not for merit or mind, but for beauty and obedience. To become a courtesan groomed for rich men's beds, stole her rest.

And yet… she endured.

Then came the conversation. The one she would never forget.

She was polishing a silver vase—an imported treasure from Corinth, etched with dancing satyrs and nymphs. It glimmered under the flickering oil lamp, almost mocking her with its elegance. Her hands moved with practiced care. She hardly noticed Eirene’s presence until the scent of something acrid—burnt herbs had tickled her nose.

“Your mother was never a prostitute, you know,” the madam said, seated on a carved wooden stool beside the doorway.

The girl froze. Just a flicker—just enough that her hand trembled and nearly dropped the vase.

She had heard whispers. Stories murmured from behind curtains when she brought trays to the courtesans’ rooms. Gossip passed between wine-slick lips. 

“She was just a plain girl. Practically a farmer’s daughter,” Eirene said, exhaling smoke from the rolled kánna, a thin reed of dried herbs used in place of modern cigarettes. She held it between two fingers like a general preparing to draw a battle plan. “But wild. Too wild for her own good. Not like you. You’re a little mouse. She was a horse without reins.”

The girl did not know how to feel about that. Her lips parted, but no words came.

“Didn’t care about the consequences. Her old man was a landowner—a rich one. The kind who fed grain to his horses before his servants. She lived wild because she could. Then,” Eirene paused, drawing in another drag of the bitter smoke, “then came the festival. Wine flowed, flutes played, and the gods were said to walk the earth that night. And that’s when she met him.”

The madam's eyes narrowed, and for a moment—just a heartbeat—there was something else in her gaze. 

“She got entangled with some rich fellow. Might’ve been something else. Nobody really knows. Only that your stupid mother fell in love.”

The girl placed the vase down gently on the lacquered table. Turned to face Eirene.

“An elite?” she asked, cautious.

Eirene exhaled again, the kánna crackling softly in the silence.

“Don’t know,” she admitted. “But he must’ve been something. Because she ran away with him. Eloped. Stupid thing, came back months later. Alone and belly swollen with you.”

The air turned heavy.

“Her father, the mighty land owner, disowned her. Kicked her into the gutters like waste. She gave birth to you behind the brothel, right there in the alley where the refuse is tossed.” The madam gave a humorless chuckle. “I found her. Screaming. Half-dead. You came into this world covered in blood and ash.”

The girl didn’t speak.

She couldn’t.

The image painted for her—the story of her mother, not a whore but a reckless girl blinded by love—burned in her chest like embers from a dying fire.

“Be grateful you’re here, little one,” Eirene continued, snuffing out the last of the kánna. “Your mother died two winters later from the fever. But I kept you. Don’t know why, really. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I thought the gods owed me something. Maybe it was the way you looked at me. Like you knew something.”

The girl’s jaw clenched.

Because she did know something. Or rather, felt it.

A year had passed.

Twelve moons of silent endurance, of whispered flattery, of calculated smiles and calloused hands. She had mastered the art of invisibility, of being useful but unthreatening, of earning favor without inciting envy. The courtesans, once aloof and dismissive, now nodded in acknowledgment when she passed. The madam, Eirene, no longer looked through her but at her.

And then, the moment came.

“I knew you were smarter than the other girls,” Eirene said, her voice a blend of grudging respect and pragmatic calculation. “So I’ll make an exception out of you.”

Her eyes widened, the sky-blue irises shimmering with restrained joy.

“But don’t mistake my orders as special treatment,” Eirene continued, her gaze sharp. “This is to uphold my brothel’s reputation. An elite for the elites.”

With that, she was dismissed to the study adjacent to the madam’s office—a sanctum reserved for high courtesans and their protégés. It was a room of quiet opulence: shelves lined with scrolls and codices, the scent of aged parchment mingling with the faint aroma of lavender oil. Here, women learned to converse on politics, philosophy, and art—not for enlightenment, but to ensnare the minds of powerful men.

But for her, this was not about seduction. It was about survival.

She immersed herself in the texts, absorbing knowledge with a voracious appetite. Medicine, to understand the frailties of the human body. Politics, to navigate the treacherous waters of power. Literature, to grasp the nuances of rhetoric and persuasion. Business, to comprehend the mechanisms of wealth and trade.

And then, she reached the tome she had saved for last: the compendium of the Greek gods.

She hesitated.

It wasn’t ignorance that stayed her hand—she was acutely aware of the pantheon that governed this world. She had seen their influence in the rituals and festivals, in the whispered prayers and offerings. But delving into their myths felt perilous, as if acknowledging them too deeply might unravel the fragile threads of her reality.

Still, curiosity prevailed.

She opened the tome, its pages filled with tales of divine exploits and mortal tragedies. As she read, a sense of unease settled over her. The stories were familiar—not from this life, but from another. Memories surfaced of late-night binge-watching sessions, of animated battles and dramatic revelations.

It hit her then.

This wasn’t just ancient Greece.

This was Blood of Zeus.

The realization was both surreal and terrifying. She recalled the characters, the plotlines, the twists. And then, a particular image came to mind: a warrior woman with blonde hair, golden armor, and piercing eyes.

Alexia.

The Grand Archon of the Amazons, a formidable warrior trained by Chiron, who had aided Heron in his quest against the demons.

She had seen her 4 months ago, in person—patrolling the streets with her soldiers. The same Alexia from the series, now a living, breathing presence in her world.

Panic surged.

She rushed to the mirror, her reflection staring back with unsettling clarity. Sky-blue eyes, so vivid they seemed unnatural. Eyes that mirrored the heavens, that sparkled with an otherworldly light.

She bit her lip, a knot forming in her stomach.

“I hope I’m not his,” she whispered.

Well, her so-called hope of not being a god’s daughter had been burned to ashes—quite literally.

She had clung to that fragile illusion like a child to a threadbare blanket, a final denial of something deeper gnawing at her bones. Something ancient. Something divine. The gods, she told herself, were distant. Unreachable. She had read the myths—both here and in her past life—she knew what happened to mortals entangled in the affairs of Olympians.

They died.

Or worse.

But fate, it seemed, had other plans.

It happened on a night like any other—quiet, still, humming with the subdued sighs and shuffles of the brothel settling into slumber. The scent of cheap oil, fading incense, and lavender soap clung to the air. She lay curled on her thin mattress—if one could call a bundle of worn linen and straw a “bed”—with her back to the wall and a scroll balanced in her palm. Her legs ached, her mind buzzed from an afternoon spent rehearsing postures and smiles, and the faint flicker of a dying candle sat beside her, casting trembling shadows on the cracked stone walls.

She tried to focus—something about trade routes between Corinth and Naxos—but her eyes kept drifting to the final page of the scroll, where someone had scrawled a fragment of a hymn to Athena.

"Goddess of Wisdom, who sees beyond the veil..."

The words unnerved her. Too familiar. Too close.

Then the scream came.

Not the usual kind of drunken shriek or a catfight in the courtyard. No—this was primal, panicked, a tearing of the throat kind of scream. The kind that made people wake from sleep with their hearts in their mouths.

She froze.

Then—an uproar.

Another scream. Then a crash. Then the thunderous pounding of boots across the upper floors. The walls trembled. Distant shouting cut through the brothel’s belly like a blade.

She jolted upright, scroll forgotten, and stumbled to her feet. The candle nearly toppled, casting a wild arc of light. With her skirt in hand, she bolted down the hall and up the stairs to the lounge that overlooked the street.

Smoke.

Thick and black, it curled over the rooftops in serpentine coils, choking the stars. Flames danced atop thatched homes and wooden carts, leaping greedily from one building to the next. People ran through the streets, barefoot and screaming, clutching children or sacks or nothing at all.

Then the horn sounded.

A deep, guttural bwoooom, echoing like the call of war through the city. It came from the upper districts—from the direction of the city guards—and with it, the unmistakable sound of metal meeting metal, of chaos breaking free.

“What in Hades…” she whispered, pressing her face to the windowsill.

And then came the madam's voice.

“Everyone evacuate!” Madam Eirene bellowed, pushing girls toward the doors with strength none of them had seen before. “Take the back stairs, go to the Temple! NOW!”

The girls obeyed. There was no time to argue. No time to pack. No time to cry.

She grabbed a small child—one of the youngest slaves, maybe six years old, with tear-streaked cheeks—and carried her through the hallway, past the stifled sobs and the crash of hurried footsteps. The stairwell was chaos, bodies pressing together in desperation, hair tangled, shoulders bumped. Somewhere, someone prayed to Apollo. Somewhere else, someone simply wept.

They reached the outer courtyard and spilled into the darkened streets.

But safety would not come easily.

Because that’s when she heard it.

A sound that didn’t belong to mortal lungs. A deep, inhuman roar that tore through the sky like thunder split in half.

She looked up.

Something was circling above the city.

It had wings—vast, leathery, and blacker than night. It moved with terrifying grace, predatory, each pass lower than the last. People stopped in their tracks, gaping, transfixed in horror.

Then it screamed again.

The beast.

The chimera-like creature—part demon, part something ancient and malformed—hovered above them, wings flapping with a sound like cracking sails in a storm. And on its back… a rider.

Not a man.

Not anymore.

She knew who it was.

The horned figure, armored in jagged metal, with blood-red eyes that burned through the smoke. His silhouette was unmistakable. He towered even while seated, his cape snapping behind him like a funeral banner.

Seraphim.

[bugwolfsstuff]

I want to give Mr D daddy issues but in the 'I was his favorite, what happened?' way

[demigoddaughterofhermes]

percy jackson, who after having his memories stolen, lives in fear of forgetting things.

he never has- he always remembers birthdays and anniversaries. he knows the activity schedule at camp like the back of his hand. he always sees annabeth's favorite color and thinks of her.

but he's always afraid that it could happen. or that someone will take them away again. so he has sticky notes everywhere. he always has little scribbles on his arms and hands. he keeps a little notebook handy.

annabeth never teases him when he asks her to confirm that he remembers.

[demigoddaughterofhermes]

can confirm: percy has said this to people/things that could kill us with a look

“With all due respect, which is none,”

- Percy Jackson, probably

[zphyr-shfts]

Guys I need to stop making new scripts it’s getting out of hand 😭

I have like 4 different pjo drs

Help.

[diveintoserena]

𝐓𝐎𝐀𝐘𝐃 | 𝟎𝟏 my therapist thinks i'm just anxious (she's wrong)

𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐎𝐃

Mikey Madison as Lyra Jean Henderson

Luke Castellan x DaughterofHecate!Oc

I WISH I COULD SPIN some dramatic tale of a destiny foretold, a grand awakening of power. That I ever bought into the whole "you're special" spiel. Truth is, for years, I was just a ghost in hand-me-down clothes, armed with a sharp tongue and an even sharper instinct for survival – which mostly involved getting the hell out of dodge.

So, no epic origin story here.

Instead, you'd usually find me in some brightly lit, sterile room, enduring the pitying gaze of another well-meaning but clueless adult. This particular afternoon involved Dr. Reyes patiently explaining the various ways my brain apparently malfunctioned, while I mentally cataloged the exits and wondered if the faint scent of cheap lavender was supposed to be calming or just irritating.

─━━━━━━⊱۞⊰━━━━━━─

Dr. Reyes' office was a sensory assault I'd come to expect from anyone claiming to help me navigate my "complex inner landscape"—and trust me, my inner landscape looked less like a serene garden and more like a monster truck rally. The air hung thick with the cloying sweetness of artificial lavender, battling a stale undercurrent of institutional coffee and the faint, lingering scent of unspoken judgment. It was the aroma of good intentions gone wrong, a perfume designed to soothe but only making my skin crawl with the urge to escape.

The beige walls were a testament to bland conformity, the framed diplomas screamed "I know better than you," and the motivational posters? Pure, unadulterated torture. ("Hang in there!" featuring a kitten clinging to a branch? Seriously? Had they met my life?)

This worn, slightly sticky chair had been my reluctant throne in countless iterations of this same charade. Different faces across the desk, different diplomas on the wall, but the underlying script – fix the broken thing – remained stubbornly the same. And the smell... always that same suffocating blend of coffee, synthetic calm, and disappointment.

Dr. Miller had whispered like I was made of spun glass, convinced one wrong word would send me shattering into a million inconvenient pieces. Dr. Nguyen had offered stress balls like they could somehow absorb the chaos churning inside me, never actually hearing the whispers that sometimes seemed to bleed from the very walls. 

And Dr. Howard? Bless his oblivious heart, he'd once achieved peak therapeutic stillness by falling asleep mid-sentence. I'd considered drawing a mustache on his face with a stray pen.

Then there was Dr. Reyes. Efficient. Clinical. And just as convinced she held the instruction manual to "Lyra-Jean, Problem Child, Model 7.3."

I knew that look in her eyes. I'd seen it reflected in the weary gazes of social workers who shuffled my file like a losing hand, the forced smiles of foster parents who saw me as another temporary paycheck, the concerned frowns of teachers who just wanted me to be normal.

A project. A case. A broken code to be rewritten.

Maybe they were right. Maybe I was a walking glitch in the system.

But no one ever bothered to ask if the glitch wanted to be fixed. Maybe the errors were the only things that felt real.

They just slapped on labels, offered generic solutions, and moved on to the next malfunctioning unit. And the sheer, bone-deep weariness of being someone else's puzzle was a constant companion.

My fingers worried at a loose thread on the purloined purple jacket – a comforting texture in this sterile environment. The clock's ticking was a relentless drumbeat, each second a reminder of the time I was wasting. The fluorescent lights hummed, a discordant soundtrack to my forced compliance.

Underneath the carefully constructed apathy, the familiar itch started. The primal urge to bolt, to disappear into the anonymity of the streets, where at least the dangers were honest.

But running wasn't the immediate plan. Not today. Survival sometimes meant playing the game, even if the game was rigged.

So, I sat there, my grip tightening on the chair's worn arms, a silent promise to myself that I wouldn't break, wouldn't shatter, at least not in this beige box of forced serenity.

Dr. Reyes flashed her professional empathy smile – the one that translated to 'I get paid for this, but also, my hot yoga class starts in twenty minutes.'

"So, Lyra," she began, leaning back like she was about to deliver a profound revelation instead of just repeating the same questions, "you mentioned 'experiencing things' again this week?"

'Experiencing things.' That was her sanitized way of describing the creeping shadows that danced at the edge of my vision, the whispers that slithered through the air when no one else was around, and the general feeling that reality was a badly rendered video game, glitching every other Tuesday.

I focused on the maze of scratches etched into the faux leather chair across from me, tracing their patterns like they were ancient runes holding the secrets to escaping this beige-walled purgatory, instead of proof that past inmates had also endured this particular brand of psychological torture.

I shrugged, a carefully calibrated display of apathy. "Not exactly seeing. More like...feeling the universe vibrate on a frequency only I can hear."

Dr. Reyes tilted her head, the human equivalent of a confused cat. "Can you elaborate?"

Oh, I could elaborate. I could describe how the air sometimes shimmered like a heatwave in the middle of a polar vortex. I could explain how shadows stretched and twisted into impossible shapes, like they had their own agenda. I could detail how, when I focused too hard, people's words would just...cut out, like their brains had suddenly gone on strike.

But that would earn me a one-way ticket to the psych ward, and I wasn't in the mood for padded walls and mystery meat.

"It's like..." I paused, carefully editing my internal monologue for public consumption. "Like something's just...out of sync. Like it's there, just beyond the edge of my senses, but if I try to grab it, it vanishes."

Dr. Reyes sighed the heavy sigh of someone who'd already pre-diagnosed me with a terminal case of 'being a difficult kid.' "Lyra, we've discussed this. These are classic symptoms of anxiety, often exacerbated by past trauma. There's no evidence of any...underlying condition."

My jaw tightened. Trauma. The word itself was a barbed wire fence, sending a shiver of angry energy through my veins.

I knew what she meant. The night. The thing I'd buried so deep, it was practically fossilized. The flashes of fire and screams that still haunted the edges of my dreams.

But this wasn't just about that.

The whispers, the shadows, the ever-present feeling of being watched – they weren't just figments of a damaged psyche. They were real. I felt them in my bones.

Dr. Reyes studied me, waiting for the inevitable argument, the rebellion she expected. When I didn't rise to the bait, she took it as a personal victory and plowed ahead.

"Have you been practicing the breathing exercises we discussed?" she asked, her tone suggesting I'd probably been using them to hyperventilate into a paper bag.

I gave a curt nod, a blatant lie. Deep breathing had never stopped a shadow from crawling across my bedroom wall.

"What about meditation? Have you found a quiet space to center yourself?"

Another nod. Another lie. My "quiet space" usually involved a crowded bus and a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

"Perhaps we should consider a slight adjustment to your medication?"

Absolutely not. The last time I'd let them tinker with my brain chemistry, I'd spent a week convinced I could communicate with houseplants.

"No more meds," I stated, my voice leaving no room for negotiation. "They make me feel like a zombie who's allergic to sunlight."

Dr. Reyes sighed again, the sound of professional patience wearing thin, and scribbled something onto her notepad. It probably translated to: Patient remains stubbornly delusional, possibly possessed. Recommend exorcism.

"Lyra," she said, her voice slow and deliberate, like she was explaining why one plus one equals two to a particularly dense toddler. "I can't exactly wave a magic wand and make the bad things go away if you keep hiding them under a rock."

My throat felt like it had swallowed a handful of gravel. She wasn't wrong. A small, logical part of my eleven-year-old brain acknowledged that. But the bigger, louder part screamed danger. 

Opening up meant peeling back the layers of carefully constructed indifference, showing the messy, broken bits underneath. And that usually led to labels, endless tests with stupid questions, and the dreaded phone call that meant packing my few belongings into another garbage bag and being shuffled off to another house that didn't really want a silent, twitchy kid with weird stories.

So, instead of the truth, I offered a carefully crafted imitation of cooperation. I forced a tight, insincere smile that didn't reach my eyes and mumbled, "Yeah. Okay. I'll... try." The word felt like a betrayal the moment it left my lips.

Dr. Reyes mirrored my expression with a smile of her own – thin and brittle, like a cheap plastic toy that might snap if you bent it too far. It was the kind of smile adults gave you when they knew you were lying but were too tired or too jaded to call you on it.

"That's all I ask, Lyra," she said, her voice laced with a weary resignation that echoed my own. "Sometimes, just saying the words out loud, even the scary ones, can make them lose a little of their power."

She wrapped up the session with the usual motions: a brief, impersonal handshake that felt like two strangers accidentally brushing fingers, a prescription for pills that would inevitably end up gathering dust in whatever forgotten corner I was currently inhabiting, and the standard fortune cookie wisdom about 'confronting my fears head-on' – which, in my short but eventful life, had only ever resulted in more things to run from.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I wish I could pretend that stepping out of Dr. Reyes' office felt like shedding a heavy skin. That her carefully chosen words had somehow rearranged the tangled mess inside my head. That I actually bought into the whole 'your troubled past is manifesting as spooky hallucinations' lecture.

But the truth was a bitter pill I'd swallowed long ago: she was missing the point entirely.

The shadows weren't just tricks my mind was playing. The air didn't just feel wrong; it was wrong, humming with an energy that prickled my senses. And no amount of well-meaning platitudes, forced breathing, or those aggressively scented candles was going to scrub away the weirdness that clung to the edges of my reality.

Unfortunately, my internal debate about the fundamental flaws of modern psychology was cut short the moment I stepped into the waiting room.

Because perched on one of the uncomfortable, floral-patterned chairs was her.

Mrs. Patel.

And just like that, the faint glimmer of hope I hadn't even realized I was clinging to evaporated, replaced by the familiar, sinking feeling that my already messed-up day had just taken a nosedive into the Mariana Trench.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Mrs. Patel. My assigned shepherd in this bureaucratic wilderness. She was a force of nature contained in a petite frame, an Indian woman whose default expression could curdle milk and whose unimpressed gaze held the weight of a thousand bureaucratic forms. Her dark hair was a severe, gravity-defying bun, her blazer looked starched with pure disapproval, and her clipboard was practically a permanent fixture, a shield against the chaos of kids like me.

She also possessed an uncanny, almost supernatural ability to sniff out my attempts at freedom, like a bloodhound with a nose for truancy. No matter how cleverly I slipped through the cracks of the system, Mrs. Patel always seemed to materialize, her presence a tangible manifestation of my failure to disappear.

And the way she was currently laser-focusing on me over the top of her half-moon glasses promised an imminent Mrs. Patel Lecture™, capital letters and all. Her gaze felt less like observation and more like an X-ray, peering directly into the rebellious core of my being.

"Lyra," she stated, her voice a low, weary drone that suggested she'd had this exact conversation approximately one million times. "Sit." It wasn't a request.

I sat. Not out of any sense of obedience, but because even at eleven, I recognized certain immutable forces in the universe. Mrs. Patel was one of them. Arguing with her was like arguing with gravity – ultimately pointless and likely to result in a headache.

She shuffled the papers on her clipboard, the crisp snap of the pages echoing in the sterile waiting room. She landed on the document detailing my latest act of unscheduled departure.

"This is the third time this year, Lyra." Her tone implied this was a personal affront.

I offered a nonchalant shrug, my gaze fixed on the peeling corner of a "Hang In There" poster featuring a disturbingly cheerful sloth. "Are you sure it's only three? Feels... more comprehensive than that."

Mrs. Patel remained unmoved. Her expression didn't even flicker.

"You cannot continue to abscond from your designated placements." Her vocabulary always sounded like it belonged in a legal textbook.

"Why not?" I countered, a flicker of defiance sparking within me. "I'm getting really efficient at it. Almost... professional."

A sigh escaped her nostrils, a sound that spoke volumes of her dwindling reserves of patience. It was the universal language of 'I am dealing with a level of stubbornness that defies logic.'

"You are eleven years old, Lyra. You are not supposed to be proficient in independent survival."

I didn't respond. What was the point? Laying out the stark reality of my existence – the alleyways, the dumpster diving, the constant fear of being dragged back to places where I was an unwanted burden – wouldn't elicit sympathy. It would just earn me more lectures and thicker files.

Mrs. Patel's sharp gaze pinned me to the uncomfortable chair, making me feel like a particularly uninteresting insect under a microscope. Her slow exhale wasn't the huff of a frustrated bureaucrat; it was the weary sigh of someone carrying a weight I couldn't comprehend, rubbing the bridge of her nose as if trying to erase a persistent ache.

"You know," she said, her voice surprisingly devoid of its usual crispness, "you're not the first kid I've seen walking this particular tightrope."

My sarcasm was my shield, always at the ready. "Wow. Groundbreaking. Turns out, I'm not a unique snowflake. Color me astonished."

But Mrs. Patel's gaze didn't waver. "You think you're operating outside the predictable, Lyra, but you're not. I've seen this script play out countless times."

A knot tightened in my stomach. There was a weariness in her tone that felt... different.

"Kids who run. They all wear that same defiant mask. They believe they're smarter, tougher, that they can outrun the things that scare them. That maybe, if they just put enough distance between themselves and the bad stuff, it'll eventually stop chasing them."

She leaned forward, her gaze intense. "Do you know the ending of most of those stories, Lyra?"

The silence hung heavy in the air. I didn't want to know. My carefully constructed wall of denial bricked itself higher.

Mrs. Patel sighed, a soft, defeated sound. "You remind me of my son."

I blinked, thrown completely off balance.

"He was stubborn, too," she continued, her voice barely a whisper now, the professional facade crumbling. "Thought he didn't need anyone. Thought asking for help was a sign of weakness. And one day... he decided he didn't have to listen anymore."

A frown creased my forehead. "What happened to him?" The question felt too loud in the sudden quiet.

She hesitated, her gaze drifting somewhere beyond the beige walls. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken grief.

Then, her voice flat and distant, she murmured, "I buried him when he was seventeen."

The fluorescent lights buzzed, suddenly amplified. The stale air felt heavy, suffocating.

Something sharp and icy snaked its way down my spine. A cold premonition.

I didn't want to ask. The answer hung in the air, a suffocating weight. But the morbid curiosity, the dark understanding that sometimes bloomed in the shadows of my own life, forced the words out. "How?"

Mrs. Patel's knuckles were white as her fingers tightened on the edge of her clipboard. Her gaze remained unfocused.

"He ran one time too many."

My breath hitched. The lump in my throat felt impossibly large.

"You're eleven, Lyra. You have time. A sliver of it, maybe. But one day, if you keep sprinting away from everything, you'll wake up and realize you've run out of road. And I don't want to be the one standing over your grave, wondering if I could have... if I should have done something different."

For a fleeting, fragile moment, the carefully constructed walls around my heart cracked. I almost spilled it all. The whispers that clawed at my sanity in the dead of night. The way shadows danced with a life of their own. The chilling certainty that something ancient and malevolent had been tracking me since that terrible night when I was eight.

But the moment passed, as quickly as it had come. The ingrained instinct for self-preservation slammed the doors shut.

"I'm fine," I lied, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.

Mrs. Patel's gaze returned to mine, sharp and searching, trying to pierce the carefully constructed mask. She saw nothing but a defiant eleven-year-old staring back.

She sighed again, the sound heavier this time, the sound of a battle already lost. "You are not fine, Lyra." Her voice was softer now, tinged with a weary resignation that mirrored the exhaustion in her eyes. Too many broken kids, too little time.

She looked down at her clipboard, the papers rustling softly. Another sigh, almost to herself. "God help me, kid."

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I knew the unspoken question hanging in the stale office air, thick and heavy between us: Why, Lyra? Why do you keep tearing yourself away?

My gaze locked onto Mrs. Patel's, a silent standoff. My fingers, small and tight, gripped the worn arms of the chair as if they were the only anchors in a storm.

Why did I keep running? The question echoed in the hollow spaces inside me, a constant, nagging hum beneath the surface bravado.

She wanted an explanation, a neat little box of reasons she could tick off on her endless forms.

She wasn't going to get it. Not today. Not ever, probably.

Because how could I articulate the moment the word "home" had become a cruel joke? How could I explain the endless cycle of cold, unfamiliar rooms, the saccharine smiles that never quite reached their eyes, the thinly veiled resentment of people who saw me as nothing more than an inconvenience, a drain on their already stretched resources?

And then there were the others. The ones where the coldness wasn't just in the walls. The ones where the smiles hid something darker, something that made the shadows in my head seem almost welcoming by comparison.

Those places... those were the real reasons I ran. The unspeakable ones that clawed at the edges of my memory, the ones that made the whispers in the dark sound like lullabies. But those were secrets buried too deep, festering wounds I wouldn't expose to anyone, least of all a system that had repeatedly failed to protect me.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Foster Home #6: THE KESSLERS.

A picture-postcard of suburban serenity. Manicured lawns drank greedily from sprinklers, and neighbors exchanged saccharine waves that felt as genuine as the plastic flamingos adorning their flowerbeds.

It screamed "safe."

It lied.

Mrs. Kessler greeted me with a smile stretched so wide it looked painful, her hands fluttering nervously as she smoothed the fabric of her pastel skirt. Mr. Kessler stood a menacing shadow behind her, his hand clamped firmly on her shoulder, a silent declaration of ownership.

She was the sugar-sweet facade.

He was the fist beneath the velvet glove.

"You'll be safe here, sweetheart," Mrs. Kessler chirped, her grip on my hand just a fraction too tight, her eyes darting nervously towards her husband. The word "safe" felt like a hollow promise the moment it left her lips.

For the first two weeks, they were...performative. Overly attentive, their sweetness cloying, their eyes constantly tracking my movements. They bought me clothes that felt alien against my skin (always practical, never anything I would choose). They served me elaborate dinners (that politeness demanded I choke down). They peppered me with questions (that I deflected with practiced silence).

At night, the thin walls carried their hushed whispers.

She's so quiet.

Good. Less trouble.

I learned the rules of this new cage quickly.

Smile on cue. Consume the offered food without complaint. Become invisible.

Predictably, the charade didn't last. It never did. The cracks always appeared.

One evening, the exhaustion clinging to me like a second skin, I left my empty dinner plate in the sink instead of immediately scrubbing it clean.

A momentary lapse in vigilance. A mistake.

Mr. Kessler didn't tolerate mistakes. Especially not from burdens like me.

His voice, low and sharp, sliced through the quiet kitchen as he loomed over me, his bulk eclipsing the cheerful yellow glow of the overhead light.

"Don't you dare be insolent," he growled, the accusation hanging in the air like a threat. "You should be grateful."

I hadn't even spoken. My silence was apparently its own form of rebellion.

It was just one slap.

A swift, brutal strike across my cheek that sent a jolt of pain and shock through my small body, knocking me off balance against the cold, unforgiving metal of the refrigerator.

A warning shot.

He hadn't needed to repeat the lesson. The message, sharp and clear, resonated in the sudden ringing in my ear.

I perfected the art of silent movement, of shrinking into the corners, of becoming a shadow in their perfectly ordered home. I learned to tune out the muffled sobs that sometimes escaped Mrs. Kessler's room late at night, the sound swallowed by her pillow. 

I didn't tell anyone. Why bother?

The other ghosts in the system understood. They always did. We recognized the unspoken language of fear and neglect. 

We just didn't talk about it. What was the point of voicing the obvious?

The system wasn't designed to catch us when we fell. It was a conveyor belt, moving us from one temporary stop to the next, each placement a brief, forgettable chapter in a story that no one truly cared to read.

I stayed at the Kesslers' for what felt like an eternity, each day a carefully navigated minefield of unspoken rules and simmering tension. Months bled into each other, marked only by the changing seasons glimpsed through the sterile windows and the growing knot of fear in my stomach.

Until one day, I simply... wasn't there anymore.

The rain was coming down in sheets that night, a cold, relentless curtain obscuring the manicured lawns and fake smiles of the neighborhood.

I remember the smell of it – wet asphalt and damp earth rising up to meet me as I ran, my threadbare backpack a clumsy weight banging against my spine. The sound of my own ragged breathing was lost in the drumming of the rain.

I remember the back door, usually locked with a precision that bordered on paranoia, standing slightly ajar. A silent invitation. A crack in their carefully constructed facade.

And I remember Mrs. Kessler's voice, a faint whisper carried on the wind as I slipped into the darkness. It wasn't the saccharine sweetness she usually employed. It was low, urgent, laced with a desperation I hadn't heard before. "Run, sweetheart. Please. Don't look back."

And for once, I listened. I didn't hesitate. I didn't question. I just ran, the rain washing away the last vestiges of that too-perfect house, the whispered warning echoing in my ears. I didn't dare glance over my shoulder, didn't want to see the regret or the fear that might have prompted her unexpected act of defiance. I just ran, into the storm, into the unknown, because anything felt safer than staying.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I blinked, the memory of rain and a whispered plea fading like a half-remembered dream. Shaking it off, a reflex honed by years of trying to outrun the past.

It was irrelevant now. Ancient history.

Mrs. Patel, with her well-meaning pronouncements and her endless forms, couldn't rewind the clock. Couldn't erase the echoes of slammed doors and forced smiles. Nothing could.

But every time she offered the same tired reassurance – "This new home will be different, Lyra" – it wasn't her voice I heard. It was Mr. Kessler's low, menacing growl, a constant undercurrent to every promise: "You should be grateful."

The real reasons for my flight were a tangled mess I wasn't ready to untangle, not even for myself. I could have listed them, a litany of disappointment and distrust:

1. Because the sterile, temporary spaces they called "home" felt less like refuge and more like holding cells.

2. Because I was the square peg in their carefully rounded holes, always out of sync, always the outsider.

3. Because the endless cycle of packing and unpacking, of forced smiles and hollow greetings, had worn down any fragile hope I might have once possessed. Because the government checks they received felt more real than any genuine affection.

4. Because the gnawing loneliness of being truly alone felt preferable to the hollow pretense of belonging.

But voicing those truths would make them solid, undeniable. And I wasn't ready to admit that the idea of a real home, a place where I truly belonged, had withered and died a long time ago.

So, I offered the standard deflection, the mantra of the self-sufficient runaway. "I take care of myself just fine." The words felt brittle and unconvincing even to my own ears.

The revolving door of foster families had taught me a harsh lesson: I was an obligation, not an addition. Some ignored my presence, treating me like a piece of unwanted furniture. Some tolerated me with thinly veiled impatience. And some... some just looked at me with a mixture of pity and suspicion, like I was a defective product they'd reluctantly agreed to house.

Like Mrs. Adams, whose initial kindness evaporated the moment she ushered me down the creaking basement stairs, "your own space" translating to a damp, spider-infested dungeon. 

Or the Petersons, whose attempts at salvation involved dragging me to a church where hushed whispers about my "rebellious nature" echoed during the sermons. Or the Jacksons, whose smiles for Mrs. Patel vanished behind closed doors, replaced by muttered resentments and the constant feeling of being watched.

Somewhere between the second and third house, the futility of it all had sunk in. I stopped bothering to unpack my bags. What was the point of settling in when I knew, with a chilling certainty, that I wouldn't be staying?

Mrs. Patel's sigh was heavy this time, the sound of a weary warrior facing another unwinnable battle. She flipped through the pages of my file, the rustling paper a stark counterpoint to the silence between us. "Lyra," she asked, her voice softer now, tinged with a genuine, if belated, concern, "do you even grasp the destination of this path you're so determined to walk?"

My gaze remained fixed on my hands, my small fingers twisting together, tracing invisible patterns.

Of course I understood. The world wasn't some Disney movie where lost kids magically found loving homes. I wasn't naive.

Kids like me – the runners, the ones deemed "unstable" and "unplaceable" – we weren't destined for heartwarming adoption stories. 

Happy endings were for other people's narratives. We aged out. We hit eighteen with a garbage bag of belongings and a system that was finally done with us. And then... we just faded away. Became another statistic, another cautionary tale.

But at least disappearing then would be on my own terms. A final act of control in a life where I'd had none. A choice, even if it was the choice of oblivion.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Mrs. Patel's hand slid a slim, manila folder across the worn table that separated us. The sound was soft, almost hesitant, yet it landed with the weight of a life sentence.

"There's a new placement for you, Lyra."

My muscles instinctively tensed. This was the ritual I dreaded most. The forced optimism in her voice, the flimsy hope that always crumbled to dust, the inevitable introduction to another set of strangers who would eventually look at me with that same weary resignation.

"I don't need another home," I mumbled, the words laced with a bitterness that even I could hear.

"You need something, Lyra," she countered, her gaze steady. "This... this pattern you've established? It can't continue."

My eyes narrowed, fixed on the innocuous-looking folder. It represented a new cage, a new set of expectations I would inevitably fail to meet. New faces, new routines, new ways to be reminded that I was a temporary fixture, a burden they were obligated to bear.

But as my fingers unconsciously dug into the faded denim of my jeans, a flicker of a memory surfaced, unbidden. A fleeting image, buried deep beneath layers of cynicism and distrust. A memory I hadn't allowed myself to revisit in years.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Foster Home #4: THE BENNETS

A small, slightly dilapidated house nestled on the fringes of Philadelphia. The wallpaper was peeling in places, and the "lawn" was a testament to nature's resilience over suburban aspirations, a chaotic tapestry of green. But the air inside had been thick with the comforting aroma of cinnamon and the musty scent of well-loved books.

Stepping across their threshold for the first time had been almost overwhelming. The sheer warmth of the place had felt suffocating after years of sterile, temporary spaces. Not just the heat radiating from the ancient fireplace in the living room, but the very atmosphere – too many voices overlapping in laughter, too much vibrant, messy life spilling out of every corner.

Mrs. Bennett was a whirlwind of flyaway auburn curls and a voice as smooth and comforting as warm honey. She called me 'sweetheart' with a genuine tenderness that made my guarded heart flutter for the first time in what felt like forever. Mr. Bennett was a quieter presence, a large, gentle man who moved with a lumbering grace and always carried the faint, comforting scent of sawdust clinging to his flannel shirts.

And then there was Hannah.

Just ten, a year older than me, with fingers perpetually stained with ink and a precarious tower of dog-eared fantasy novels perpetually teetering in her arms.

For the first time since... well, since before the shadows and the running started, I almost felt... ordinary.

I had a room. Not a damp basement, not a lumpy couch, not a forgotten storage space. An actual room, with a window that looked out onto a wild, overgrown backyard, a bed piled high with blankets that smelled faintly of fabric softener, and a bookshelf that Hannah, with a conspiratorial grin, helped me fill with pilfered treasures from the local library.

She patiently taught me how to braid the tangled mess of my hair, her fingers surprisingly gentle. I, in turn, initiated her into the cutthroat world of five-card draw, teaching her the subtle art of the poker face. We'd huddle under the covers at night, a shared flashlight beam illuminating dog-eared pages and whispered secrets, weaving ridiculous tales until sleep finally claimed us.

For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, a fragile tendril of hope unfurled in my chest. Maybe, I'd dared to think in the quiet darkness, maybe this one might actually stick.

Maybe, just maybe, I had found a place.

Maybe... maybe I had a sister.

Then, four months later, the fragile bubble of normalcy burst. Hannah got adopted.

And I didn't.

I remember standing on the porch that crisp autumn day, my hands jammed deep into the pockets of my oversized hoodie, a silent, awkward sentinel watching as Hannah, her face a mixture of excitement and a hesitant sadness, climbed into the unfamiliar car with her new parents.

Her hug had been fierce, a desperate squeeze that momentarily stole my breath. She'd whispered promises – to write, to call, to somehow bridge the chasm that was opening between us.

She stopped.

Maybe it wasn't her fault. Maybe the whirlwind of a new family swallowed her whole. Maybe her new parents thought it best to sever ties with the past. Or maybe, deep down, she realized that starting over meant leaving everything, and everyone, behind. But the day her carefully drawn letters, filled with childish drawings and misspelled words, stopped arriving, something inside me hardened. The fragile seed of hope that had dared to sprout withered and died. I stopped believing in almost-homes, in almost-families, in almost-sisters.

Two weeks later, when Mrs. Patel's familiar, unimpressed face appeared at the Bennetts' door, I didn't even offer a token resistance. The fight had gone out of me. What was the point of clinging to a place that was never truly mine?

I simply retrieved my meager belongings, shoved them into my worn backpack, and followed Mrs. Patel out the door, leaving the scent of cinnamon and old books behind like a fading dream.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I blinked, the warmth of the Bennett house, the ghost of Hannah's laughter, abruptly vanishing. The memory dissolved, the vibrant colors bleeding out like ink spilled into water, leaving behind the stark reality of the waiting room.

My gaze drifted back to the manila folder on the table, a symbol of yet another temporary stop on a journey I never asked to take.

I could hear Mrs. Patel's voice, a low murmur of words I couldn't quite grasp, the sound blurring into meaningless background noise against the sudden, insistent thrumming behind my eyes.

The phantom ache of loss, the hollow echo of the Bennetts' fleeting warmth, lingered like a cold hand pressed against my ribs. My stomach twisted with a familiar, bitter resentment.

It wasn't fair. The unfairness of it all, the constant cycle of hope and abandonment, clawed at the fragile edges of my composure. Why was I always the leftover? Why did others get their neat, happy conclusions while I was perpetually stuck in this endless loop of running?

A sharp, cold coil tightened in my chest, a heavy weight pressing down, stealing my breath. My hands clenched into fists, the sharp bite of my own fingernails digging into my palms a small, grounding pain.

And then—

The room flickered.

Not the harsh fluorescent lights above.

Not the air, shimmering with unseen currents.

The entire room.

For a fraction of a heartbeat, it was as if two realities had momentarily overlapped, a glitch in the fabric of existence.

There was the office – the sterile beige walls, the precarious stack of manila files on Dr. Reyes' desk, the weary receptionist tapping away at her keyboard in the corner. And superimposed over it, something else.

Something underneath.

The shadows clinging to the corners of the room stretched at impossible angles, elongated and distorted. The fluorescent lights seemed to bend inward, their harsh glow wavering as if being pulled into some unseen vortex. The very air felt like it was shuddering, the solid walls subtly warping and twisting, as if I had inadvertently glimpsed a layer of reality just beneath this mundane one – a world not meant for my eyes.

It was fleeting, less than a breath.

Then it was gone.

As if it had never been. The office settled back into its dull, predictable reality, leaving me with a cold certainty that the world wasn't always what it seemed. And neither was I.

A sharp, involuntary gasp escaped my lips. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the sudden surge of adrenaline. The blood roared in my ears, drowning out the mundane sounds of the office.

Mrs. Patel didn't even blink.

Her head remained bent over her notes, her brow furrowed in concentration as she flipped through the pages, utterly oblivious to the fact that for a fleeting, terrifying instant, the very fabric of reality had seemed to... unravel. Glitch. Shatter and reform.

Had I imagined it? A trick of the light? A desperate fabrication of a mind teetering on the edge?

No.

No, I had felt it. A tangible shift in the air, a prickling sensation on my skin that had nothing to do with anxiety.

Like the charged stillness before a violent thunderstorm, like the crackle of static electricity just before a shock, something fundamental had shifted. The world had stuttered.

And a chilling certainty settled in my gut: I had been the catalyst.

I swallowed hard, forcing a deep, steadying breath. My hands, trembling uncontrollably moments before, slowly relaxed their white-knuckled grip. The pounding in my ears began to recede, replaced by the dull hum of the fluorescent lights.

Mrs. Patel's gaze finally lifted from her notes, her brow arching slightly, a flicker of something that might have been concern crossing her usually impassive features. "You alright, Lyra? You look a little... pale."

I forced a small, unconvincing nod.

"Yeah," I mumbled, the lie feeling thick and clumsy on my tongue. "Fine. Just... tired."

Mrs. Patel's expression softened, the sharp edges momentarily blurring. "This placement," she said, her voice taking on that familiar, hopeful tone, the one she used before delivering yet another disappointment, "this one... it might be different."

They always say that, a cynical voice echoed in my head. Different shades of the same old cage.

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly feeling like sandpaper. The air in the waiting room felt thick and charged, the lingering echo of the room's brief distortion still vibrating beneath my skin.

Because deep down, a cold certainty had taken root. I already knew something she didn't. This wasn't just about another foster home, another temporary placement. Something had shifted within me, a door had creaked open to a reality she couldn't even imagine. And whatever waited on the other side... that was the real reason nothing would ever be the same again.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

The bus stop. Two blocks east. A familiar landmark on the map of my escape routes.

My mind was already charting the course, a well-worn path etched into my memory. The blind spots in the security cameras lining Main Street, the narrow alleyways that offered temporary sanctuary, the faces of store owners trained to ignore the transient figures that drifted through their periphery.

If I timed it right – left this sterile office right now, while Mrs. Patel was still lost in the labyrinth of her paperwork – I could be swallowed by the anonymity of the city before she even finished dictating her next weary report.

My hand instinctively adjusted the strap of my backpack, testing the meager weight of its contents. The bare necessities for survival: a worn hoodie for the coming night, a stash of pilfered granola bars to stave off the hunger pangs, my dad's tarnished pocket knife – a small, tangible link to a life that was gone – and the smooth, intricately carved wooden raven I always kept close. Not much. But enough to vanish.

My body was already responding to the silent command, a subtle shift in weight, knees flexing, muscles coiled and ready to spring. I could slip out of this waiting room, a ghost in the afternoon light, before anyone registered my departure. Mrs. Patel, burdened by her endless caseload, might not even bother with the cops this time. Just another sigh, another file marked "uncooperative," another lost cause fading into the system's vast, uncaring maw. And she would move on, because that's what the system did. It moved on, with or without you.

A jolt of adrenaline surged through me, and I almost pushed myself to my feet. Almost made a break for it.

Then—

The fluorescent lights above didn't just flicker. They convulsed.

Not the familiar, momentary blink of a failing bulb, the kind that made you squint and wonder if your eyes were playing tricks on you. This was different. Ominous.

They shuddered, the harsh overhead glow stuttering in slow, uneven pulses, like a ragged breath caught in a dying throat. The light itself seemed to weaken, the room dimming not gradually, but abruptly, as if some unseen hand had reached down and twisted a celestial dimmer switch. It wasn't just the lights; it was the air itself, the very atmosphere of the room growing heavy, thick with a palpable sense of dread. The hairs on my arms rose, and a metallic tang filled my mouth.

My fingers instinctively curled around the worn strap of my backpack, my knuckles whitening. A primal chill, ancient and bone-deep, slithered down my spine, a sensation that had nothing to do with the office's inadequate heating.

Then, the intrusion.

It wasn't a voice in the traditional sense, carried on sound waves. It was something far more invasive, far more unsettling. It slid into the deepest recesses of my mind, bypassing my ears entirely, a viscous presence that seeped into my thoughts like black oil spreading on water. It wasn't heard; it was known.

"Not yet, little spark."

The intrusion resonated in my skull, a vibration that felt less like an auditory experience and more like a half-formed memory dredged from the darkest depths of my subconscious. It was a knowing that defied logic, a recognition that sparked not from hearing, but from something far more instinctual. Like the phantom weight on my chest when I woke screaming from a nightmare, the lingering unease without a source, the chilling certainty that I was being watched even in an empty room.

No. No, I shouldn't know that... presence. It was impossible.

But I did.

A fractured echo from a time long buried.

Eight years old.

A different room, bathed in the lurid glow of emergency lights. A different, terrifying silence punctuated by the crackle of flames. The acrid scent of something burning, something precious, something irretrievably lost.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my head throbbing, desperately trying to shove the fragmented memory back into its sealed tomb. My pulse hammered against my ribs, a frantic drum against the encroaching darkness. No. That wasn't real. None of that was real. That night... that trauma was locked away, fragmented and scattered in the inaccessible spaces between then and now, in the shadowed corners of my mind where I refused to venture.

I clung to the flimsy shield of denial, desperately trying to convince myself that it had been a hallucination, an stress-induced phantom.

But deep down, something ancient and malevolent stirred, a cold, sharp whisper that resonated with a terrible certainty: You didn't imagine it, little one. He remembers you, and he is coming.

My breath caught in my throat, a strangled gasp. My fingers clenched around the rough canvas straps of my backpack, their familiar texture a desperate anchor to the tangible world, a grounding force against the encroaching unreality. I wasn't eight anymore. I wasn't that helpless, terrified kid.

I whipped my head around, the movement so abrupt and violent that the room swam and tilted around me.

The receptionist's desk, moments before occupied, stood empty, abandoned. The door to Dr. Reyes' office was firmly shut, the frosted glass obscuring any sign of life. The uncomfortable, floral-patterned chairs lining the far wall sat in rigid formation, devoid of occupants, sterile and lifeless as forgotten museum exhibits.

No one else was visibly present.

But the oppressive wrongness remained.

I could feel it, a suffocating weight pressing down on my senses. The air itself had thickened, becoming viscous and resistant, like trying to breathe underwater. The hum of the fluorescent lights, once a mundane drone, had mutated into a strange, discordant buzzing, a grating vibration that resonated deep within my bones, like an ancient radio struggling to pull in a signal from a station that existed outside the normal spectrum.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the rising tide of unease.

Then, at the very periphery of my vision—movement.

The shadows pooled along the floor, normally static and obedient, began to writhe and stretch.

Not dramatically. Not yet. Just subtle elongations, the edges blurring and shifting, as if they were testing the boundaries of their confinement. An inch. Maybe less. But undeniably, irrevocably, they had moved.

They weren't supposed to move. Shadows were passive things, reflections of solidity. They didn't possess agency.

I froze, every muscle in my body coiled tight, my grip on the backpack straps tightening until my knuckles turned white. I forced myself to draw shallow, even breaths, desperately trying to project an air of nonchalant indifference, to pretend I hadn't registered the impossible.

But they had.

The shadows, the oppressive weight in the air, the unseen presence that radiated a chilling awareness.

They knew I had perceived them.

They had been lying in wait.

The lights above convulsed again, their buzzing intensifying into a sharp, piercing whine that drilled into my skull, a sound so high-pitched it vibrated the very fillings in my teeth.

The shadows clinging to the walls didn't merely stretch this time. They pulsed.

An organic, rhythmic undulation, like a grotesque heartbeat.

Like something vast and unseen breathing.

The very air itself underwent a violent transformation, the change not gradual, but instantaneous and suffocating. First, a wave of preternatural cold washed over me, a biting, invasive chill that penetrated skin and bone, sinking into the marrow and extinguishing any vestige of warmth. I gasped, my breath catching in my throat, and shivered violently, my breath condensing into a visible fog as if the office had been plunged into the heart of winter.

Then—an equally abrupt wave of oppressive heat slammed into me with the force of a physical blow, so intense it made my stomach churn and twist. It was a suffocating, heavy heat, thick and viscous, like being trapped in a furnace. It felt like an invisible weight pressing down on me from all sides, crushing the air from my lungs.

I was paralyzed, trapped in a vortex of conflicting sensations.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't breathe.

An invisible weight coiled around my ribs, constricting, crushing, stealing the air from my lungs. My ears began to ring, a high-pitched whine that intensified into a deafening roar, the kind of disorienting silence that follows an explosion, the eerie aftermath of something violent and unseen tearing through the fabric of reality.

"Not yet, little spark."

The intrusion came again, not as a disembodied voice, but as a tangible presence, a psychic violation.

Phantom fingers, icy and insubstantial, brushed against my wrist, sending a jolt of unnatural cold through my veins. They weren't real, not flesh and bone, but they were undeniably there, a chilling mockery of physical contact.

I clenched my fists with all my might, the sharp edges of my nails biting into the soft flesh of my palms, a desperate attempt to anchor myself in physical sensation, to prove I was still in control.

"Soon." The word resonated in my mind, a promise and a threat intertwined, a vibration that seemed to emanate not from the air, but from the very core of my being.

The shadows clinging to the walls didn't just pulse now; they twitched and writhed, as if something sentient was trapped inside them, struggling to break free, crawling just beneath the surface of the mundane world.

The grating buzz in my ears escalated into a painful shriek. My vision began to fracture, the edges of the room blurring and distorting, reality itself stuttering and skipping like a damaged record.

My stomach churned violently. My bones felt alien, too heavy, too dense, as if they were solidifying into something other than bone.

For one terrifying, disorienting second, I was gripped by the impossible, nauseating certainty that I was no longer sitting in that worn, uncomfortable chair.

That I had been displaced, transported to some other place, some other time.

That something ancient and powerful had taken root inside me, its presence warping my perception of the world, twisting my very essence.

I gasped, sucking in a shuddering breath of air that felt thin and insufficient.

The lights flickered again, a final, desperate spasm – once, twice – and then, with an almost audible click, snapped back to their normal, unwavering state.

The oppressive weight lifted, the unnatural cold and suffocating heat vanishing as abruptly as they had arrived. 

The room was still once more, bathed in the mundane glow of the fluorescent tubes.

The air felt lighter, breathable again. The shadows lay obediently still, confined to their assigned places.

The sound of my own ragged, uneven breathing filled the unnatural silence, each inhale and exhale a frantic attempt to reassure myself that I was still anchored in reality. My heart continued its frantic pounding against my ribs, a trapped bird desperate for escape.

I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing hard against the rising tide of panic, forcing the terror down, burying it deep where no one, least of all Mrs. Patel, could detect its presence.

This wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

My logical mind screamed for a rational explanation, a dismissal of the impossible.

But the cold, primal certainty in my gut whispered the undeniable truth: It was real.

And I knew, with a chilling clarity that transcended reason, that even if I ran, even if I disappeared into the furthest corners of the city, it would follow me.

It didn't matter if this new foster home was marginally better or infinitely worse than the ones that came before.

It didn't matter if I stayed and played the game, or if I fled into the familiar embrace of the streets.

Because something ancient and powerful was stirring. 

Something was coming, its presence a growing shadow on the edge of my awareness.

And whatever it was, whatever he was, it was actively seeking me out, its relentless pursuit driven by a purpose I couldn't comprehend, a hunger I could only sense. And it wouldn't stop. It wouldn't rest.

Not until it found what it was searching for.

Until it found me.

(And gods help me—the most terrifying part was the sickening, traitorous pull, the almost imperceptible whisper within my own soul that, for a fleeting, horrifying moment, almost...welcomed it.)

Don’t forget to like and comment if you want to be on the taglist!!!

[demigoddaughterofhermes]

when i started creating my OC, i NEVER imagined this man would be cast as hermes in an official capacity

ig he's my dad now 😂😭

Was crying throughout the entire trailer but I literally burst out laughing when I saw him help

[thetrickstersdaughter]

This is some demigod shit.

@cabin9sblog this y’all?

[harrietpotterandthedemigods]

The prophecy of book 2

There once was a rat named Peter

Who stole a fleece for an evil cheater

He ran away to Albania

And found a haunted area

Frozen arrow got fleece from death eater

[demigoddaughterofhermes]

can confirm that percy was in fact the last to know that he was in love with annabeth

“Percy fell first” “annabeth fell first”

they fell in love at the same time, but annabeth knew right away that she was done for, whereas percy woke up 2 years later like “damn that’s what that is…”

[ninisdollie]

forbidden fruit - yang jungwon 𓈒ིུ ❤︎ ˖ ݁

✧˚⋆ ˖ ࣪ . Demigods series

Synopsis: At the halfblood camp, there exists an unwritten but unbreakable rule: no romance between demigods. You, daughter of Athena, are known for your intelligence and wisdom, always following the rules to the letter. However, your life takes an unexpected turn when you fall in love with Yang Jungwon, son of Poseidon. Though your feelings are deeper than ever, you know this relationship is dangerous. Not only because of the rule that separates you, but because any discovery could put your lives at risk. As you struggle to keep your love a secret, you must use all your cunning to hide what is growing between you two, but how long can you conceal what you truly feel before everything falls apart?

Content: +18MDNIfem! reader x jungwon, pjo au, poseidon's son! jungwon x athena's daughter! reader, kind of emotional, based a little on percabeth, soft vanilla sex, praising, a little bit of dirty talk, oral (f.rec), unprotected sex, creampie.

taglist at the end, likes and reblogs are appreciated !!

You were everything a daughter of Athena was expected to be.

Sharp-minded. Disciplined. Untouchable.

From the moment you stepped into Camp Half-Blood, eyes  followed you, not out of admiration, but respect laced  with fear. You were the kind of girl who could outsmart a son of Hermes in chess, shoot a bullseye blindfolded, and recite the Iliad in Ancient Greek just because someone said you couldn’t. People came to you with problems they couldn’t solve. Cabin Six called you their pride. Children asked for advices, girls from other cabins wanted you as their friend and as their ally in Capture the Flag.

You were born into legacy.

Not just the legacy of Olympus, but the sharp, gleaming, heavy weight of Athena’s name. Wisdom, logic, order. Your very existence was curated by divine intention. You weren’t an accident, or the result of fleeting desire like so many other demigods. No —Athena had chosen to bring you into the  world,  and that meant something.

You loved strategy, planning, puzzles. You loved the satisfaction of a well -constructed battle plan,  the thrill of  solving a prophecy no one else could make sense of. When there was a quest to be assigned, Chiron often consulted you first. Not because of favoritism, but because your insight had saved lives more times than anyone could count.

You were your mother’s pride.

Athena didn’t say it often, not in words.  But when she appeared to you in dreams or left offerings by your bedside,  you knew. You felt it in the way she would look at you , composed, proud, maybe even a little possessive. You weren’t just her daughter. You were her creation, the living embodiment of everything she valued.

So you never gave her a reason to doubt you. You never broke the rules. You never chased chaos, or love, or anything that could make your legacy fragile.

Not until Jungwon.

He wasn’t part of the plan.

You had read about Poseidon’s children, powerful,  unpredictable, ruled by instinct more than reason. And when Jungwon stumbled into camp, dripping wet, dazed, and wide-eyed after slaying a Minotaur with nothing but a broken blade and his bare hands, something in your gut twisted.

He didn’t look like a hero. He was clumsy, unfocused, always a little out of place among the well-trained campers.  But he had a quiet strength to him. He smiled like he didn’t care what anyone thought, and he moved through the world like it was his to claim, even when he  tripped over his  own feet.

You should’ve ignored him. You tried to ignore him.

Jungwon couldn’t strategize to save his life. He fell asleep in Chiron’s history lessons. He called Ares kids “mean jocks”  to their faces. He once asked if drachmas could buy snacks at the mortal mall.

You were the camp’s brightest mind. He was the camp’s biggest walking contradiction.

You were ice. He was waves.

And when he smiled at you, really smiled,  like he wasn’t  supposed to, your world tilted.

You didn’t like him.

You couldn’t like him.

But feelings have a way of creeping in, soft and slow, like tidewater kissing the shore. And before you knew it, his clumsiness wasn’t annoying. It was endearing. His dumb questions made you laugh. And his smile?

It stopped being dangerous.

It started being home.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

Yang Jungwon wasn’t what anyone expected.

When he first stepped into Camp Half-Blood, the whispers followed him like a storm cloud. Son of Poseidon. The boy who killed the Minotaur. The one who could charm any creature, monster or god, with just a flash of that smile. He was supposed to be a legend in the making. But no one had warned you how annoying he’d be.

He wasn’t tall like the sons of Ares. Nor broad-shouldered like those of Hephaestus. But when he walked into the Big House with his hair wet from rain and eyes wide with curiosity, the air around him shifted.

There was something wild, untamed about him. Like the ocean, unpredictable and a little dangerous. He didn’t give the vibe of a camp hero, he didn’t try to. He strolled into camp with the same nonchalance as a guy picking up coffee on a lazy Sunday morning, and within minutes, he was the center of attention.

It wasn’t his looks, although those storm-colored eyes and those dimples on his cheeks were enough to make the unspoken rule about no romance feel like a joke. It was the way he didn’t care about anything. He had no reverence for the gods. No fear of the monsters. Not even an ounce of caution when he crashed headfirst into a pine tree during his first battle training session.

His lack of self-awareness made you want to strangle him and kiss him all at once.

“Do you always fight like that?” You’d asked, irritated beyond belief after watching him swing a sword around with all the grace of a toddler trying to hold a knife.

His sheepish grin had been all charm.

“Not really. But I do like to make things… interesting.”

And in that moment, with your brows furrowed in a mix of disbelief and growing interest, you knew it wasn’t just the Minotaur he had killed. He was dangerous in a way you hadn’t seen coming.

Not because of his powers or his lineage.

But because you couldn’t figure him out. And gods, that was the most infuriating thing of all.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

You started getting closer after an almost-failed mission. It was supposed to be simple, in and out.

You were given the task of retrieving an ancient artifact hidden deep in the woods, a task normally reserved for the more level-headed demigods. Naturally, you had the strategy already mapped out. Every move, every potential threat, every path through the dense forest was accounted for in your mind.

And then he showed up.

“Hey! I’m here to help,” Jungwon called out as he came bounding up to you, his sword gleaming in the sunlight, only to trip over his own feet and nearly crash into a tree.

You sighed before even speaking.

“This isn’t a joke, Jungwon. Stay focused.”

His grin was unrepentant.

“I am focused!” He pulled himself up, dusting off his clothes. “Just… you know, having fun out here. Who said strategy can’t be a little bit of adventure?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, annoyance bubbling up.

“This is a mission, not a game.” You motioned ahead, where the shadows deepened in the trees. “We’re not just collecting souvenirs. We’re in danger.”

“Danger’s my middle name,” he said with a wink, slinging his sword over his shoulder with a nonchalance that made you grit your teeth.

You knew he wasn’t serious, but the way he treated everything like a joke, like nothing mattered, drove you insane. Everything had to matter. Especially here.

As you both ventured deeper into the woods, the atmosphere grew heavier. It wasn’t long before you heard the low growl, something large, lurking in the underbrush. You shot Jungwon a quick glance.

“Stay back. I’ll handle this.”

Before you could take a step forward, Jungwon was already charging at the beast. The wild, uncoordinated way he swung his sword almost sent you into a panic. The monster, a Chimera, its scales glittering black under the dim light, charged, its massive horns aiming right at him.

“Jungwon, no!” You shouted, trying to reach him in time.

But it was too late. Jungwon lunged forward, his sword missing the Chimera’s flank by inches as it swung its tail toward him, knocking him off balance. He fell, hard, straight into a pile of fallen branches, his sword clattering to the ground.

You froze for a second, but instinct took over. The Chimera roared and turned its fury on you, its fangs flashing.

You weren’t sure how you did it, maybe it was your strategic mind, the hours you spent reading Athena’s scrolls, or the training you’d put in, but in one fluid motion, you darted forward, dodging the beast’s attack and slashing at its underbelly. The Chimera screeched and staggered back, leaving it open for another strike.

You didn’t look back at Jungwon, but you knew his eyes were on you. The moment passed in a flash, the beast falling with a thud as you stood over it, breathing hard.

Silence followed.

“Not bad,” Jungwon called from behind you, a bit winded but amused. “I mean, I did most of the work, but—”

You whirled around, cutting him off with a glare.

“You almost got yourself killed, Jungwon! What the hell were you thinking charging in like that?”

He took a step forward, a teasing smile playing at his lips.

“I was thinking I could’ve handled it.” He dusted off his shirt, completely unbothered by the mess he was in.

“You can’t just charge in and hope for the best!” You were practically seething now. “This isn’t some game where you can rely on luck. You could’ve gotten us both killed!”

He stopped, his grin faltering slightly as he met your gaze. For a moment, you thought you might’ve seen something more in his eyes, something other than his usual teasing. But it was gone too fast for you to read.

“You’re right,” he said, tone shifting a little. “I messed up. But it was… kind of fun watching you work.”

Your breath hitched at the unexpected compliment. It was disarming. But you weren’t about to let him off that easily.

“Don’t make a habit of it,” you snapped, crossing your arms over your chest. “I’m not saving your ass again.”

His eyes softened just slightly.

“I wouldn’t want you to.”

And just like that, the air around you both seemed to change. It wasn’t the usual playful tension. This was something new, something you hadn’t expected. Something that made your heart skip a beat, and your mind race with thoughts you had no business entertaining.

“Let’s just finish the mission,” you muttered, turning on your heel to walk ahead.

Behind you, Jungwon chuckled, the sound rich and warm. “Sure. Lead the way, smartypants.”

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

It didn’t happen all at once. Love never does, not the kind that consumes you slowly, like a tide pulling you under before you even realize you’re drowning.

At first, it was just casual interaction. Reluctant partnership. Jungwon had been assigned to your combat team for a short mission, and you’d bristled at the idea. You still thought of him as the clumsy new kid with waterlogged shoes and a crooked grin who stumbled into Camp Half-Blood dragging the corpse of a Minotaur behind him. Powerful, sure, but chaotic. Undisciplined.

You were precise. He was impulsive.

You spoke in plans and formations; he spoke in jokes and instinct.

And yet… it worked.

He followed your lead, even when he didn’t understand it, because he trusted you. Not blindly, but with an openness that unnerved you at first. He never made you feel like you had to prove yourself. And despite how annoying he could be, how distractingly pretty his eyes looked in the sunlight, he listened when it mattered.

Over time, the mission ended, but the partnership didn’t.

Jungwon became a fixture in your life in ways you didn’t expect. You’d find him waiting for you after training, hair tousled, cheeks flushed, grinning like a fool. He’d bring you snacks you liked without you ever telling him. He never let you study in peace, always interrupting with some stupid joke or question, yet somehow, it became your favorite part of the day.

You started meeting him by the lake. At first, just to talk. He’d skim stones across the surface, and you’d tease him about his form, even though you secretly liked watching his arms move when he threw them. The conversations became deeper. The silences more comfortable. You shared things with him you never told anyone, about the pressure of being Athena’s daughter, the loneliness of being seen as perfect, the fear of disappointing someone who wasn’t even really there.

He never judged you.

Instead, he told you about the ocean, not just his powers, but how it made him feel. How it calmed him. How it made him homesick for something he never had. He told you how scared he was of being the son of Poseidon, not because of the power, but because he didn’t know if he could live up to the name.

You touched his hand one night, just for a second, and he didn’t let go.

The first time you kissed him, it was after a sparring match. You had him pinned to the ground, knees on either side of his hips, sweat running down both of your necks, breaths tangled. He looked up at you, his chest rising and falling fast.

And then he said, “You’re not going to let me up, are you?”

You didn’t know why you kissed him. You just did.

And he kissed you back like he’d been waiting for it since the day he met you.

From that point on, things changed.

You were still careful. You had to be. Camp had rules, strict, unspoken rules. No romantic entanglements between demigods. The gods watched. The camp leaders enforced. Love between two children of Olympus wasn’t just frowned upon. It was dangerous. It could tip the balance of power. Destabilize alliances. Invite disaster.

You both understood what was at stake.

So you didn’t walk too close in the daytime. You didn’t meet at the campfire. You never touched hands in public, and you definitely didn’t look at each other too long. You became experts in secrecy. A glance across the archery range. A coded phrase in training. A scribbled note hidden in a book.

But when the sun dipped below the horizon, when the camp fell silent and the stars came out, that was when you belonged to each other. He would sneak into your cabin through the window. You’d lie together, tangled under thin blankets, whispering about dreams and fears, about what it would be like if things were different. If the rule didn’t exist. If love wasn’t forbidden.

Sometimes he kissed you like you were fragile. Other times, like he couldn’t believe you were real. Either way, he always held you like you were the only thing keeping him grounded.

You didn’t realize how much you’d fallen for him until the thought of losing him made your chest ache in a way you’d never known. Not even the fear of disappointing Athena compared to the fear of being forced to let him go.

He felt the same.

You saw it in the way he looked at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention. Like the whole world narrowed to your presence. Like you were the only thing in the universe he’d fight for.

Now, a year later, the love between you was no longer something soft or budding. It was all-consuming. It was fire under your skin and salt in your lungs. It was dangerous.

And no one could know.

Not if you wanted to stay together. Not if you wanted to survive.

But every day, it got harder to pretend. Harder to keep your hands off him. Harder to lie to your friends. Harder to look your cabinmates in the eye and say you were still Athena’s perfect, logical daughter.

Because you weren’t just that anymore.

You were his.

And if the truth ever came out, you didn’t know what you’d do.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

The camp was quiet, blanketed in the kind of silence that only came after curfew, when the cabins were dark, the training fields were still, and the stars felt just a little too close. You stood at the lake’s edge, barefoot in the cool grass, arms wrapped tightly around yourself. The moonlight shimmered across the surface like broken glass, glittering reflections catching in your tired eyes.

It was always the lake.

You didn’t come here just to think, you came to feel. The way the air hung heavy with mist. The way the water moved like it was alive. The way it reminded you of him, even when he wasn’t there.

But tonight, you weren’t just feeling.

You were unraveling.

You weren’t supposed to be like this. Not you, daughter of Athena. The one who had always followed the rules, who had always been told she was her mother’s pride, sharp, unshakable, destined for greatness.

You remembered what it felt like the first time you saw your mother in a dream. How her voice, cold and elegant, filled you with something like reverence and fear all at once. You remembered her saying, “You are my legacy. Don’t let me down.”

You’d lived by those words for years.

And now, every kiss you shared in secret with Jungwon, every whispered “I love you” spoken between cabin walls and stolen glances, chipped away at that legacy like cracks in marble.

“You okay?”

His voice, low and familiar, broke through the quiet like sunlight through storm clouds.

You didn’t turn around. You didn’t have to.

“I had a feeling you’d come,” you said softly, barely louder than the wind.

“I always do,” Jungwon replied, and a moment later, you felt his warmth behind you, his presence grounding. “I saw your bed empty and figured you were here again. Couldn’t sleep?”

You shook your head, still watching the water ripple under moonlight.

He didn’t press you. He never did. Instead, he stepped closer, standing beside you now, close enough that his arm brushed yours. He glanced at you, eyes soft, thoughtful, and then tilted his head slightly.

“You’ve got that look,” he murmured, half a smile on his lips. “The one where you’re about to tell me the world’s ending and it’s probably your fault.”

You let out a broken laugh, the sound small and tired.

“Maybe it is.”

Jungwon’s smile faded. He turned to face you fully.

“Hey. Don’t do that.”

You finally looked at him.

He was in his hoodie and sweats, damp hair curling over his forehead, eyes reflecting the lake like mirrors. There was something in his expression, something aching and wide open .and it undid you completely.

“I keep thinking about her,” you whispered. “About what she’d say if she knew. About what I’ve become.”

Jungwon blinked slowly.

“You mean… someone who feels too much and thinks too hard and loves too deeply?”

You swallowed, throat tight.

“I mean someone who disobeyed everything she was raised to believe. Someone who’s risking everything for something that might not even last.”

His brow furrowed, and then he stepped forward, cupping your face with both hands.

“Don’t say that,” he said, voice quiet but intense. “Don’t you dare say we won’t last.”

You closed your eyes.

“I want to believe that,” you said, your voice cracking. “But there are gods, Jungwon. Real ones. My mother watches everything. And if she finds out, if Chiron finds out — if anyone finds out — I don’t know what they’ll do.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.

“I don’t care what they do,” he said. “They can throw me in Tartarus for all I care. I’d still choose you.”

Your heart stuttered in your chest.

“I don’t regret loving you,” you said, tears finally slipping free. “I just wish it didn’t feel like a crime.”

He pulled you into his arms like he was anchoring you to the earth.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he whispered into your hair. “You’re not a crime. You’re my choice.”

You clung to him, arms tightening around his waist as he rocked you gently, the lake lapping at the shore like it, too, felt the weight of your love.

For a long moment, the world faded. There was no camp. No prophecy. No gods.

Just two broken kids trying to build something out of the pieces they were given.

You pulled back slightly, your noses brushing, eyes wet and locked. He kissed your cheeks first, soft, reverent, like he was trying to erase your tears with his lips. Then your mouth. The kiss was slow, tender, almost shy. But it deepened quickly, desperation curling in every movement, a quiet ache that said, I need you. I need this. I need to feel like we’re still okay.

His hands tangled in your hair as your fingers slipped under the hem of his sweatshirt, touching the bare skin of his back. You kissed him like it might be the last time, even if you prayed it wasn’t.

When you finally broke apart, he rested his forehead against yours.

“I don’t know what the gods have planned,” he whispered. “But I’ll fight them. All of them. I’ll fight Olympus itself if I have to.”

You let out a soft, shaking breath.

“I don’t want a war,” you murmured.

“I don’t either,” he said, brushing his thumb across your cheek. “I just want you.”

And in that moment, with the stars watching, the lake shimmering, and his arms wrapped around you, you wanted to believe that was enough.

Maybe it had to be.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

It began with waves.

Not soft or rhythmic, but slow, creeping things. Sludgy, dark. Pulling back and forth like something was breathing beneath them. You were standing on a desolate beach you didn’t recognize.

The sky was grey, sickly. The sand under your feet was coarse, colorless, almost like ash. Wind ripped through the air in sharp howls, but there was no sun, no moon. Just the shriek of gulls that never landed and the heavy, endless crash of water. You were barefoot, your clothes torn at the edges like you’d come from battle.

You turned, searching for something, anything familiar.

And then you saw him.

Jungwon.

He was standing at the edge of the water, barefoot like you, a few paces ahead. But something was wrong, his shoulders were hunched. His back was turned. And his hands were shackled in thick celestial bronze chains that trailed into the ocean, disappearing into the depths.

“Jungwon?”

Your voice barely carried in the wind. It was swallowed like it didn’t matter. You tried to run to him, but the sand was too deep. Too heavy. Like it didn’t want you to reach him.

Still, you pushed forward, breath stuttering in your chest.

“Jungwon, please—”

You were almost there, so close you could touch his shoulder, when the sky cracked open with a terrible, familiar voice.

“So this is what you’ve become.”

Your blood froze.

She stood at the top of the dunes, her armor glinting silver, her owl perched on her shoulder. Your mother, Athena. Radiant and cold. Her eyes glowing with power and disappointment. She descended the sand like a queen to her execution.

“All that I gave you. All the wisdom, the discipline. All the years I spent shaping your mind, your spirit. And you throw it away for this?”

She gestured to him, to Jungwon, still shackled, still silent, as if he were nothing but a stain on your honor.

“The son of the Sea. You let emotion cloud your wisdom.”

You shook your head, breath ragged.

“He’s not weak—he’s good, he’s kind—”

She was closer now, towering. Godlike. Her voice thundered across the sky.

“You think this is love. But love is foolish. Dangerous. Weak.”

Lightning struck the sand nearby, shattering it to glass. You stumbled back, hands raised, but she kept coming.

“You were supposed to be a warrior of thought. My legacy. My pride.”

“I am!” you cried, voice cracking. “I still am, I—!”

“No.”

She stopped before you, her expression carved in stone.

“You are no daughter of mine.”

The chains around Jungwon yanked suddenly, violently. He gasped, the first sound he’d made, as the ocean pulled him backward. His eyes found yours, wide and scared and betrayed.

“Y/N—!”

You sprinted, reaching for him, screaming his name, but your feet sank deeper, the shore crumbling beneath you. Your hand brushed his just as he disappeared beneath the water, swallowed whole.

“Jungwon!”

You collapsed where he’d stood. Salt stung your eyes. The waves receded.

And Athena?

She was gone.

Only the owl remained, circling overhead, shrieking and shrieking until—

You jolted awake.

Your scream caught in your throat. Your sheets were tangled, soaked with sweat. Moonlight poured through the cracks in your cabin walls, bathing everything in silver, but it didn’t soothe you. You were shaking.

You sat up slowly, pressing a hand to your heart. It was racing, too fast, too loud. Your mouth was dry. Your skin clammy. You felt like you’d drowned.

But the worst part wasn’t the fear.

It was the guilt.

Because even in a dream, even in your own subconscious, you hadn’t protected him. You’d stood still. You’d let her take everything.

You covered your face with both hands, trying to breathe through the rising panic. But the shame settled in your bones like frost.

You were Athena’s pride.

Until you weren’t.

And now… you were nothing but a girl caught between what she was born to be, and the boy she couldn’t stop loving.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

You’d been quiet for days.

Not the kind of quiet that passes unnoticed, like skipping lunch or keeping your nose buried in a strategy scroll. This was the kind of quiet that carried weight. That pressed between you and Jungwon like a wall, invisible but suffocating. You could feel him watching you during practice. In the mess hall, at the stables. Always hovering just close enough to reach you, but never close enough to touch.

And it was killing you.

Because you missed him. Gods, you missed him like air. But every time you looked at him, all you could see was your mother’s face in that nightmare. Her eyes, the disappointment, the thunderous silence that followed.

You’d never known fear like that.

Not from monsters. Only from the thought of losing everything you were supposed to be.

So you started pulling back. Quietly, strategically.

You stopped meeting him behind the cabins after dinner. You skipped his favorite spot by the lake. You turned your back a little too fast when his hand brushed yours during training.

He noticed, of course he did.

You were halfway through sharpening your dagger after sparring when you felt his presence, steady, warm, uncertain , standing behind you.

You didn’t turn around.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

His voice was careful, gentle. Like he was trying not to startle something fragile. He always spoke to you like this, with so much swetness and kindness and love, and it would always drive you crazy, the velvet sound of his voice.

You kept your eyes on the blade.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Y/N.”

Just your name, but something in his tone made you pause. You exhaled, sharp and shallow, and finally turned to face him.

Jungwon stood there in his armor, hair damp from training, cheeks still flushed from effort. He looked beautiful, he always did, his dark hair and his blue eyes staring directly at your soul. But he also looked tired. Not from battle, but from you.

“Did I do something wrong?”

The question landed like a knife.

Because no, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Not once. He’d only ever loved you. Gently. Openly. Like you were something worth choosing even when it hurt. He was perfect, he was the sweetest boy ever, the bravest warrior you'd ever known.

But you couldn’t say that.

So instead you lied.

“I just think we should cool off,” you said, forcing your voice to stay even. “Keep some distance. It’s getting too risky.”

He stared at you, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.

“So… you’re cutting me off.”

“It’s not like that—”

“Then what is it like?” he asked, stepping closer. His brows furrowed, confused. Hurt. “Because from where I’m standing, it feels like you don’t want this anymore.”

Your throat tightened.

“You know I do.”

“Do I?” he whispered.

You looked away, jaw clenched.

How could you explain it? The nightmare. The weight of being Athena’s daughter. The way your whole life had been a blueprint for greatness, and how one look from him, one stupid smile, could unravel every careful thread you’d ever laid down. The way that, even if you did love him, with a strength that was greater that the whole Olympus, your pride was always speaking for you, always taking you over. How you didn't want to lose him, but you also didn't want to lose the glory that being your mother's favorite brought to you.

“This… this thing between us,” you said slowly, “it’s not just reckless. It’s selfish.”

Jungwon just stood there, motionless, as if you'd just stabbed him right into his heart. He blinked, and you saw his beautiful ocean eyes glisten with tears he clearly was starting to hold.

“So love is selfish now?”

You winced, the ache on your chest growing by every second, by every word that came out of your mouth, that you didn't mean, but you had to say.

“I’m not ashamed of you,” you said quickly, before he could twist your words further. “I just… I can’t be weak, Jungwon. I can’t afford it. Not with who I am. Not with who she is.”

He was quiet for a long moment. And when he finally spoke, his voice was lower. Raw.

“Do you think I don’t know what’s at stake?” he asked. “You think I haven’t thought about it? Every day? Wondered when they’ll find out, when we’ll be punished, when you’ll leave me to save yourself?”

Your head snapped up. He knew, of course he knew.

“I’m trying to protect us,” you said, eyes stinging. “From them. From everything.”

“But who’s protecting me from you?”

The words knocked the breath from your lungs.

Because you had nothing. No defense. No brilliant answer.

“I wake up every morning wondering if you’re still mine,” he said, stepping back like it hurt to be near you. “And for days now, it’s felt like you’re not.”

Your lips parted, but no sound came out.

He shook his head, blinking too quickly. A single tear fell down his cheek, drowning in the deep dimple that appeared when he swallowed hard.

“I thought you were brave enough to fight for us. I thought… I thought I was more than a mistake you regret.”

“You’re not,” you said, stepping forward, hand reaching for his. “You’re not a mistake.”

But it was too late.

He had already taken a step back.

“Then why do I feel like one?”

And with that, he turned and walked away, his shoulders rigid, his fists clenched, the ocean in his blood rippling with heartbreak you couldn’t soothe. You didn’t stop him. You couldn’t.

Because the truth was… you didn’t know how to love him and live up to the legacy you were born to uphold.

And for the first time since you fell for him, you didn’t know which one would survive.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

Jungwon sat on the edge of his bunk, arms resting on his knees, fingers twisted together in a way that made his knuckles pale. He hadn’t taken off his training gear. He hadn’t moved much at all. His sword leaned against the bedframe, untouched. The scent of sea salt still clung to him like a second skin, but it brought no comfort now.

He swallowed hard and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“I’m not ashamed of you.”

He replayed those words again and again, like they were supposed to soothe something. But they didn’t. Because if you weren't ashamed, then why did it feel like you were hiding him?

It wasn’t the secrecy that hurt. He could live in the shadows if he had to. For you, he would. But the way you looked at him lately, distant, careful, like you were trying to build walls again, that was what made his chest feel too tight to breathe.

“I can’t be weak, Jungwon.”

As if he was the weakness. As if loving him was a flaw you had to crush before it ruined you. He knew who you were. Athena’s daughter. The pride of Cabin Six. The girl with sharp eyes and a sharper mind, who carried the weight of her legacy on her shoulders like it was carved into her bones. You were beautiful, you could easily pass as an Aphrodite girl, the way your hair rested lazily over your shoulders, the way your smile made his knees week the first time you saw him, the way you whispered his name when he was making love to you, making him addicted to you.

So why did it feel like you were already forgetting what that meant?

Jungwon let out a shuddering breath and tilted his head back against the wall, blinking up at the rafters until the blur of tears broke the lines apart.

He hated this.

Not you — never you — but the helplessness. The way love could feel so big and still not be enough to fix things.

“I thought I was more than a mistake you regret.”

He hadn’t meant to say that. Not out loud. But once it slipped, it tasted true. And that terrified him. A tear rolled down the side of his face, catching on his jaw. He didn’t wipe it away.

He let it fall.

Because for the first time since meeting you, since killing the minotaur, since arriving at this camp and watching you from across the arena with his heart in his throat, he wasn’t sure where you two stood anymore.

He loved you. More than he’d ever said. More than he probably should. And gods, it hurt. It hurt that you were slipping through his fingers and he didn’t know how to stop it.

It hurt that he was starting to wonder if maybe love wasn’t enough.

And it hurt worst of all that even though he knew you were pulling away to protect you both, to survive the wrath of your mother, and the drowning rage of his father, part of him still felt like a boy on the shore, watching the tide steal everything he cared about.

So he curled his hands into fists, pressed them to his chest, and let the waves inside him crash, quietly, endlessly, for the girl who once swore she’d never let go.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

“Nice form today, Y/N.”

You turned at the sound of Nicholas’ voice, heart already racing before you even saw his face.

Nicholas, Hermes cabin. All charm, all mischief. The kind of camper who never took anything seriously except getting under people’s skin. You hated how he always smiled like he knew more than he should. Like everything was a joke to him, and this time, you were the punchline.

He leaned on the railing beside the water barrel, tapping his fingers idly. You could feel his gaze scraping over you, too casual.

“You’ve been a little distracted lately,” he said. “Something on your mind? Or… someone?”

You straightened your spine, jaw tightening.

“Spit it out, Nicholas. Whatever game you’re playing, I’m not interested.”

He tilted his head, smirking.

“I saw you the other night. By the lake, with Poseidon's son, looked… intimate.”

A cold weight dropped into your stomach. Your throat dried instantly.

You said nothing, but your silence said too much.

Nicholas caught it, like a vulture spotting blood.

“I mean, hey,” he continued, mockingly light, “who hasn’t had a little rendezvous in this camp, right? But rules are rules. And Athena’s daughter, of all people—”

“Shut up,” you snapped, harsher than intended.

His grin widened.

“Oh, I’m not judging. I think it’s cute, actually. But others? Well… they might not be as forgiving if the truth comes out. Especially when the guy in question is the boy of the prophecy.” He tapped his temple and stepped back, smug and infuriatingly calm. “Just a friendly tip: secrets don’t stay secret for long around here.”

And with that, he turned and walked away, leaving his words to fester like poison in your mind.

You stood frozen in place, your breath shallow, eyes locked on the dirt beneath your boots as the weight of his insinuation wrapped around your chest like a vice.

And then, without thinking, you ran.

You didn’t stop until you reached your cabin.

Slamming the door behind you, you stood in the middle of the room, eyes wild, fists clenched, lungs desperate for air that didn’t seem to exist.

Everything was crashing down.

Everything you’d buried. Hidden. All the stolen kisses, the nights spent wrapped in his arms under the stars, the softest parts of you that only Jungwon had ever seen, all of it could be ripped away in an instant.

You couldn’t breathe.

You staggered back until you hit your desk, and then you were sliding to the floor, the sob escaping your lips before you could swallow it. It came out of nowhere, violent, raw.

You pressed a trembling hand to your mouth, trying to keep quiet. The daughter of Athena did not cry like this. Did not fall apart over a boy, no matter how good, no matter how kind, no matter how in love she was.

But it wasn’t just about him.

It was your pride. Your legacy. Everything your mother had molded you to be, sharp, brilliant, composed.

You were Athena’s pride.

The one who always knew the answer. The one who played by the rules. Who walked with her head high because she earned it.

And now?

Now you were a hypocrite. A traitor to your own name.

“I don’t know what to do,” you whispered into your knees, your voice cracked and desperate. “Gods, I don’t know what to do.”

You curled in on yourself on the floor, letting the panic crest and break over you like waves you couldn’t swim through.

What if someone told Chiron?

What if the gods already knew?

What if your mother — your mother — had already seen it in some cruel vision and was just waiting, disappointed, silent?

What if this love ruined everything?

And yet… you couldn’t let go of him.

Not when his voice still lingered in your ears. Not when your heart still beat his name with every breath.

“I love him,” you choked out, barely audible. “I love him, and I can’t stop.”

The cabin was silent except for your broken sobs.

You’d never felt so torn, between what you were expected to be, and what you wanted.

͏ ͏ུུ̑̑ 🌊𓇼

You didn’t knock.

Jungwon’s cabin door creaked open under your trembling hand, and the moment you stepped inside, he was already standing. Shirt loose, curls mussed from tossing and turning in bed. He hadn’t been sleeping. You could tell.

His eyes widened the second he saw your face.

“Y/N—?”

“We have a problem,” you blurted, stepping in and shutting the door a little too hard behind you. “A serious problem.”

Jungwon’s heart leapt.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

You started pacing.

“No. No, I’m not okay. I’m freaking out.”

“Talk to me,” he said gently, stepping forward, but your hands went up between you.

“Nicholas knows,” you said, breath shallow. “He saw us. By the lake. I don’t know what he saw exactly, but he knows something. He’s already smirking at me like he’s got dirt to use. And it’s only a matter of time before—before he tells someone or it slips or—gods, Jungwon, this can’t happen.”

He froze.

“You’re sure?”

“I felt it,” you said, eyes wide and panicked. “In the way he looked at me. Like he was holding something over me. And I—” You trailed off, your voice beginning to crack. “I’m scared. I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do, and I’ve worked so hard to be good. To be worthy. And now it all might fall apart because I couldn’t stay away from you.”

He flinched, like the words stung more than you intended.

You didn’t mean it like that. But gods, it felt like that, didn’t it?

You wrapped your arms around yourself, feeling the first wave of tears threaten your vision.

“You don’t understand, Jungwon. I’m Athena’s daughter. I’m supposed to be better. Controlled. Above feelings. I’m not supposed to break like this. Not for a boy. Not even—” You swallowed hard. “Not even for you.”

That landed somewhere deep in him.

Jungwon’s chest rose and fell sharply. His hands curled into fists at his sides, the candlelight flickering across the tense set of his jaw.

“So… what?” he said, voice quiet but edged. “You regret this?”

“No,” you snapped, stepping toward him before you could stop yourself. “No, I don’t regret you. I regret that loving you makes everything feel so dangerous. Like I’m walking on a tightrope every second of the day.”

His eyes flicked over your face, searching for something, maybe the part of you that still wanted to run. Maybe the part that still belonged to the version of you your mother had carved out.

“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you,” you whispered, like it hurt to say aloud. “But I did. And now I feel like I’m suffocating. Like every day I’m waiting for it all to collapse.”

Silence followed, taut and raw.

And then Jungwon stepped forward, slowly, deliberately, until he was standing so close you could feel the warmth of his body.

“You think I don’t know that?” he murmured, voice tight with emotion.

You blinked, breath catching in your throat.

“I know your pride matters,” he continued, softer now. “I know your mother matters. Your legacy. Everything you’ve worked for. But I’d give up everything I am if it meant I didn’t have to watch you look at me like this — like I’m something you have to hide.”

Tears slipped down your cheeks then, warm and silent.

“I’m not ashamed of you,” you said, voice cracking. “I’m ashamed of how much I need you.”

His breath hitched.

The air between you felt electric, your pain mingling with his until it became indistinguishable. A mess of fear and want and love, too much love, pressed tightly between your chests.

You didn’t think, couldn’t.

You just reached for him.

The kiss that followed wasn’t soft.

It was desperate.

Your mouth crashed into his with a kind of aching hunger, your hands sliding into his hair, gripping like you needed to collide yourself to him completely or drown. He gasped into you, a small sound of surprise that melted into something deeper when your lips opened beneath his. Jungwon's arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you flush against him. His kiss was fire, slow and steady and building, like it had been waiting, simmering, and now it couldn’t be stopped. But his addictive taste was the same as always, yours.

You pulled him closer, felt the hard lines of his body through the thin fabric of his shirt, felt the way his breath stuttered when you whispered his name into his mouth.

“Y/N…” he murmured between kisses, voice thick, full of too much.

You pressed your forehead against his, eyes shut tight.

“I can’t lose you,” you whispered.

“You won’t.”

Another kiss. Deeper. Slower. His lips traced yours with reverence now, hands trailing up your back, cupping your face as though you were breakable and holy all at once. You tugged him backward toward the bed, your fingers laced in his.

And he followed, every inch of him trembling with restraint, devotion, and a need that had been buried too long.

“I want to stay,” you whispered.

He looked at you like you were the most precious thing the gods had ever made, his ocean blue orbes glistening, maybe from tears he was holding back, maybe from love, maybe from need and lust.

“Then stay.”

And as you fell into his arms again, heart pounding and lips seeking his, you weren’t Athena’s daughter or the camp’s golden girl or the girl who always followed the rules.

You were just his.

Everything else faded the moment he kissed you again, slower this time. Deep, careful, like he was memorising the shape of you, the way your lips parted for him with such natural ease. Jungwon’s fingers grazed your jaw, tilting your chin up slightly as his mouth trailed to your cheek, then your neck. You gasped when his lips found the spot just beneath your ear - the place he knew made your knees weak - the sensation lighting something warm and dizzying in your stomach.

“I’ve missed this,” he murmured against your skin. “Every night. What it would feel like to have you under me again. Just… you. Mine.”

Your breathing was shaky, legs trembling where they were tangled with his. Tilting your head so you could give him more space, you let your hands trail around his body, above the clothes, shaky fingers in his perfectly built figure.

“Jungwon…”

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes. His expression had changed, darker, softer. Tender and commanding all at once. Not even with the lust taking over his whole body, the sweetness in the way he looked at you went away. And that's what got you even more worked up, what really got you about the way he touched and needed you.

“You’re shaking,” he whispered, brushing your hair from your face. “Tell me if it’s too much. We stop whenever you say.”

“I don’t want you to stop.” The words came out in a breath, trembling but true. “I’ve missed you too”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, his chest heaving, like the need was too much, like the fear of losing you was too much.

“Okay,” he said softly, kissing your forehead. “Then let me take care of you.”

His touch grew more confident now, fingers skimming down your arms, your sides, slipping beneath the hem of your shirt like he’d dreamed of it a hundred times. His palms pressed to the skin of your ribs, and you squirmed under him, the touch sending a shiver through your whole body, every pore jumping like it knew you who you belonged to.

“Off,” he said gently, tugging your top. “Let me see you, my pretty girl.”

You nodded, heart pounding, and lifted your arms. He peeled the fabric away with reverence, like unveiling a secret. When his eyes met your bare skin, he let out a slow breath, even if he already saw you like this thousands of times, he always looked at you with the same glow in his blue eyes. You were left in your bra, and he didn't waste time before cupping your breasts with his hands, squeezing, never tough, just needy, like he couldn't believe you were his. A whimper left your mouth as you arched your back.

“Beautiful.” His voice was hoarse. “You always are, gods, I don’t think I’ll survive you.”

Your face burned, but he kissed the blush across your cheeks, your collarbone, your chest, like worship. Like you were sacred. He took his time undressing you, undoing each layer with soft kisses and careful hands, murmuring praise against your skin.

Once your pants dropped to the floor and you where left in your underwear, he bit his lip and hooked his fingers on the waistband, not pulling yet, just teasing himself and you. You were dripping, pooling wetness against the thin fabric, always so needy for him, for his touch.

Then he lowered his face, pressing soft kisses on your chest and abdomen.

“So pretty,” he whispered against your stomach. “So fucking perfect for me.”

And when he finally hovered above you, his hand cupped your cheek again.

“I want to make love to you,” he said, voice trembling now too. “Not just fuck you. Not tonight.”

Your eyes welled.

“Me too.”

He kissed you again, slower than before, hips pressing gently into yours. Every movement was deliberate, soft friction, just enough to make you ache, enough to make you reach for him. He was already hard beneath his pants, you felt him, familiar, thick, throbbing against you, and you rocked your hips too just to feel him more.

You felt his hand trail between your legs, until he reached under your panties, fingers slipping between your pussy folds with ease because he already knew every part of you. He watched you unravel beneath him, whispering your name as your breath hitched, soaking his digits with your wetness.

“You’re soaking, baby,” he murmured, eyes dark and full of want. “You want me this badly?”

“Please,” you whimpered. “I need you.”

He groaned softly and kissed your lips, your throat, your chest, until you were gasping and arching and begging. In one move he removed your bra, in the next second he slipped your panties out of you, throwing them on the floor. You were naked now, all for him.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “Gonna make you feel so good. Gonna make you fall apart on me.”

You didn't respond, you couldn't, because he grabbed your knees, strong but still gentle, spreading you just for him, blue eyes fixated in your dripping pussy, and then shoved two fingers inside of you. A soft moan left your plumped lips, your back arched again as he curled them inside of you just perfectly, as always, because he knew how much you liked it, and he groaned, thrusting them in and out of you with a slick, wet sound, until his knuckles disappeared between your tight walls.

"So perfect, so mine. Always"

“Gods, Jungwon—” you breathed, voice shaking.

He moved them expertly, fucking you with slow, deliberate thrusts, knuckles sinking deep as the slick sounds of your arousal filled the quiet of the room. His other hand stayed on your thigh, grounding you, while his mouth pressed against your stomach, your hip, your inner thigh, leaving kisses like promises.

“You take me so well, baby,” he murmured. “So tight, so perfect.”

Every word from him sent shivers down your spine. He wasn’t teasing, he wasn’t being cocky. He meant it. Every filthy, reverent word came from the deepest part of him, the part that only you got to see.

“Mine,” he whispered, curling his fingers again, right against that spot that made you cry out. “Always.”

You reached down, tangling your fingers in his hair, tugging gently. He looked up at you, pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed.

And then he leaned in again, pressing a kiss to the inside of your thigh, right where your skin was hottest, trembling, his breath brushing over your soaked folds before he pulled his fingers out with a slow, deliberate drag. You whimpered, your body instinctively following the loss. But before you could beg for more, he slipped his fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean with a soft groan, his eyes locked on yours the entire time.

“Can’t get enough of how you taste,” he said lowly, voice barely more than a rasp. “So sweet… always so fucking sweet.”

Your chest heaved, the air thick and heavy between you. Every touch, every word, every glance, it wasn’t just lust. It was something more dangerous. More consuming. More permanent.

He leaned back down, this time using both hands to spread you open, thumbs gliding over your folds, your clit swollen and throbbing with need. He looked reverent, like you were art, and he was both the sculptor and the worshiper.

“You’re shaking for me,” he whispered, his voice suddenly gentler again, one hand coming up to rest against your lower belly as he lowered his mouth.

Then his tongue flicked over your clit — just once — and your whole body jerked.

“Jungwon,” you gasped, fingers flying to his hair again.

“That’s it,” he murmured against you, tongue moving slowly, teasingly, just enough to make your hips buck. “This is how i love to see you.”

He licked you like he had all the time in the world, slow circles, open-mouthed kisses, soft sucks to your clit that made your thighs tremble around his head. Every now and then, he’d hum, sending vibrations through your whole core, and you could feel the smug curl of his lips when you gasped his name again and again.

You were already close. Too close.

“Please—” your voice cracked. “Please don’t stop.”

He didn’t. In fact, he doubled down, slipping one hand from your thigh and easing two fingers back inside you while his mouth never left your clit. The stretch was perfect. He knew your body too well, knew just how to angle them, curl them, fuck them into you until your body was arching and your moans were turning into broken sobs of pleasure, until you were leaking and dripping against his sheets.

“Feels good?” he whispered, voice soaked in heat and affection, eyes dark and heavy with love. “You gonna give it to me, baby?”

You nodded desperately, unable to form words.

“Do it,” he whispered, curling his fingers deep and sucking on your clit just right. “Be a good girl and come on my mouth.”

Your whole body tensed, then unraveled as you cried out his name, trembling under his touch, his mouth never leaving you as he worked you through every wave of it.

By the time you came down, your limbs were boneless, your heart pounding, tears slipping from your eyes, not from pain or fear, but from everything you felt all at once.

Jungwon crawled up your body slowly, tenderly, kissing your skin on the way. When he reached your lips, he hovered just a moment, brushing a thumb over your cheek.

“You okay?” he whispered.

"Perfect." You smiled softly, and he pressed a wet kiss in your mouth.

His kiss deepened, warm and slow, as if he was trying to memorize every inch of your mouth. You could still taste yourself on his tongue, but it didn’t matter, all that mattered was how close he was, how real he felt against you, how your body ached to be his completely.

When you tugged gently at his shirt, he sat up on his knees above you, pulling it over his head in one swift motion. The soft golden light from the lone lantern flickered against his skin, his toned chest rising and falling quickly, some scars still there from previous fights, lips parted, eyes dark. Beautiful. Yours. So, so yours.

Your fingers found his waistline next, fumbling with the buttons, breath catching as he leaned down and helped you, his forehead brushing yours with a quiet:

“I’ve got you.”

He pulled down his own pants, followed by his boxers, and he was bare in front of you. Your eyes glowed, his thick length against his lower belly, veins popping, needy, red tip, familiar and yours. A shiver went down your spine.

You whispered his name like a prayer, and he stilled for a moment, eyes searching yours.

“This time feels different,” he said softly. “Like… more.”

Your throat tightened.

“Because it is.”

You both knew it wasn’t the first time. There’d been late nights before, stolen hours where desire burned hot and fast, but this wasn’t just need. This was everything you were afraid to feel. Everything you were terrified to lose.

“I don’t want to hide it anymore,” you whispered, your voice trembling.

His hands cupped your face, thumbs brushing your cheeks.

“Then don’t"

You nodded, tears threatening again as he leaned down and kissed them away. Jungwon then grabbed his member, stroking himself a little, soft whimpers leaving his lips, before rubbing his swollen tip against your sensitive and dripping folds.

When he finally entered you, it was slow, so slow it made you cry out, your fingers digging into his shoulders. He stretched you so good, you could feel every vein, every inch of him against your clenched walls. He groaned against your neck, like the feel of you around him still overwhelmed him every single time.

“Gods, baby,” he whispered. “You feel like fucking heaven. Always so tight for me.”

You gasped as he bottomed out, your hips rising to meet him instinctively. He stilled there, his forehead pressed to yours again, letting you adjust. Letting you feel it, feel him, hot breath crashing with your face.

“You okay?” he asked, voice wrecked and low.

“Better than okay,” you whispered, brushing his hair back with shaking hands. “Please move.”

And he did.

He started thrusting gently, every motion slow and precise, like he was trying to make love to every part of your soul. His lips trailed across your jaw, down your neck, whispering praise between kisses.

“So good for me,” he murmured. “Taking me so well… like you were made for me.”

Your back arched, your body meeting his in perfect rhythm. It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t rushed. It was desperate in a different way, two people clinging to something they knew could shatter.

“Jungwon—” you breathed, your eyes locked on his.

He looked at you like you were divine. Like you were the most beautiful thing in every realm. He leaned down, his lips brushing yours.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he said, his voice breaking just a little. “Just for now. Even if we can’t be… just for now.”

“I’m yours,” you whispered back. “I’ve always been yours.”

The pace stuttered, his control slipping as he pressed his hips harder into you, chasing both your pleasure and his heartbreak. One of his hands found yours, fingers lacing together tightly. Anchored. Even fucking you like this, you could feel it, the deep love he felt for you, and that you felt for him. His thrusts were perfect, not too rough, but spot on, always, hitting places inside of you that made you clenche around his length even tighter and cry out his name, nails digging deep in his skin, but he didn't care, he just moaned in response, hips bucking against yours creating an obscene sound that sounded so romantic for you both.

The coil inside you start to wind again, tighter, sharper, deeper this time. Your breaths came quicker, your moans soft and shaky as his other hand reached down between you, rubbing your clit in perfect circles.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his voice strained. “Gonna come with me, baby? Let go for me?”

You cried out, clinging to him like he was the only thing left in the world, and when you fell apart this time, it wasn’t just your body, it was everything. Your heart, your pride, your fears, all unraveling in his arms. Your pussy clenched around him as the orgasm hit you, eyes shut and body trembling, shaking under him with so much force.

He followed with a broken groan, burying himself deep inside you as he came, spilling everything he had into you with a desperate whisper of your name, filling you so good and familiar, so warm.

After that, neither of you moved. The room was silent except for your ragged breathing, your trembling limbs tangled together in the quiet aftermath.

Then Jungwon leaned down, brushing his lips over your forehead.

“I love you,” he whispered. “No matter what the gods say. No matter what we have to face.”

You didn’t answer, you just held him tighter, tears silently slipping down your cheeks.

The candle burned low. Only the faint flicker of flame lit the cabin now, warm shadows on the walls and in the curve of Jungwon’s jaw. He laid on his side, propped up on one elbow, watching you like you were the only thing left in the world worth looking at.

You were still lying beside him, tangled in the same blanket, your fingers absentmindedly tracing the constellation of tiny scars on his shoulder. The silence between you was comfortable… but it wasn’t light. It was heavy with the weight of everything you couldn’t keep ignoring.

You swallowed.

“Jungwon?” you whispered, not looking up.

“Hm?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

He waited, gaze fixed on you.

You inhaled slowly.

“About… everything. My mom. The rules. Camp. This—us.”

You finally lifted your eyes, and he sat up a little straighter at the expression on your face, not sad, not angry… just raw. Exposed. Real.

“All my life,” you started, voice steady despite the ache in your chest, “I’ve been told that pride is the root of wisdom. That it’s what separates us from chaos. From weakness. My mother always said I was her greatest creation — her ‘perfect daughter.’ I grew up thinking that meant I couldn’t make mistakes. That I had to be the best. Always.”

Jungwon didn’t speak. He only listened, his thumb brushing slow circles over your wrist.

“And for a long time, I thought love would ruin me,” you said. “Make me weak. I thought being with you — loving you — would destroy everything I worked for. Everything she was proud of.”

You sat up now too, holding the blanket against your chest, your eyes shining in the dark.

“But that was a lie,” you whispered. “A lie I let myself believe because I was scared. Because I thought if I chose you, I’d stop being who I was. But now I know… loving you hasn’t made me weak. It’s made me stronger.”

He let out a soft, shaky breath, like he’d been holding it the whole time.

“I don’t care if I disappoint her anymore,” you went on. “I don’t care if it makes me less of what she wanted. I want to be with you. Fully. No more secrets. No more shame.”

Jungwon reached for you immediately, pulling you into his lap, your arms wrapping around his neck. His heart was pounding hard against your ribs, and his hands were holding you like he was afraid you’d vanish.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said, voice low and cracked with emotion.

“You have me,” you said firmly. “You always have.”

He pulled back just far enough to look at you, and his expression was nothing short of awe.

“Then let’s run,” he said suddenly, breathless. “Let’s run away.”

You blinked, stunned.

“Run?”

He nodded, eyes wild and full of wonder.

“Not forever. Just… for now. Just us. Away from the rules and the gods and the war they want to throw us into. We’ll find a place by the sea, somewhere no one knows us. And we’ll just be.”

You searched his face, your lips parting with the storm of feelings surging in your chest.

“Can we do that?” you asked softly, like a child asking for a dream.

“We can do anything,” he said. “As long as you’re with me. I’ll fight fate. I’ll fight Olympus. I’ll fight my own prophecy if I have to.”

Tears welled in your eyes again, but they weren’t from fear this time. They were from the sheer, overwhelming gravity of his love.

You leaned in and kissed him, slow, deep, aching, like a vow.

And when you pulled away, your voice was no longer scared

“Then let’s run.”

You knew it then, it didn't matter anymore. You would fight the whole Olympus, your own mother, even yourself, for the clumsy boy that one came to camp without knowing how to swing a sword, for the boy who stole your heart with those dimples and soft voice, for the boy who belonged not only to the salt and sea, but to you.

as always, thank u so much for reading, this one took me a lot of time because i was so blocked, but got through it. i didn’t proofread so sorry for the mistakes <3

taglist: @gulicore @bussolares @vixialuvs @berryloveseunghan @lilifiedeans @m1kkso @usuallyunlikelyfox @jayjw16enxp @starfallia @bellsjakesgf @zuwishii @cutehoons02 @immelissaaa @nyxtwixx @kayjiguki @emisluvr @k1ttyjwon @cherrymaria58 @koizekomi @crysieberry @add-this-to-that @ii-mimii @luumiinaa @firstclassjaylee @elicheel @vintaegegirl @petalsofink @mariegibeau @tunafishyfishylike @kristynaaah @stercul1a @bl43bl00d @yazmike @yeonmuse @kryllea @e-r-i-15 @ashrocker123 @deluluscenarios @ziiao

[god-syndicate-if]

DEMO - Latest release on 11/15/2024 - Current wordcount 90k.

COG forum - Side Stories You've always been angry.

Rage comes naturally to you. With how much life has messed with you it's only fair that you use your anger. That's why you became a boxer. The thrill of breaking an opponent. And hoping they might break you in turn. They never do though. Every fight is a disappointment, almost as much of a disappointment as they pay for each fight.

Enter Jackie Roth, club owner, mob boss, and former god. When she offers you a job you can't say no. Not that you would, not when she and everyone in her gang feel so familiar to you. At least with this job you'll be able to use that rage inside you more.

As you learn the ways of the criminal underground you reconnect with people you never met. Reforge bonds that you've never made. And recall memories you've never had. You were a god once upon a time, can you become one again?

God Syndicate is an interactive novel where you play the newest incarnation of Ares, The God of War. It's 18+ for violence, explicit sexual themes, drug use, morally questionable behavior, and more.

Customize your MC, play male, female, or nonbinary. With transgender options and pronoun selection. Customize your appearance and develop your personality.

Romance or befriend a cast of characters, including gods with more issues than you can count or even a mortal! Asexual and Aromantic options available.

Show the gods why you were feared all those years ago or prove that you're better than your past lives.

Uncover the mystery of disappearing gods as well as the mystery of your past.

Help out Elysium, the club where you'll practically live from now on. It seems to attract gods and that isn't always good.

Take out your anger on people who might even deserve it.

Zeus: Jackie Roth - She/Her. [Not an RO]

Jackie is The King of The Gods and she makes sure everyone knows it. Her word is law in Elysium and beyond. Fail her and you'll have a storm waiting for you. In the years since your disappearance Jackie's love for her family has seem to only grow. But she has a criminal empire to run and you're just the weapon she needs.

Hermes: Riley Liao Zhi - Gender Selectable. [RO]

The Messenger of The Gods. Or in Riley's case, the ever bored personal assistant to Jackie. Riley's an adrenaline junkie with a heart of gold. As the one who found you they feel almost responsible for you. But why do they also seem so afraid of you?

Apollo: Franco Valerio - He/Him. [RO]

As expected of The God of Music, Franco's your classic rich and famous rock star. Well he would be, if only he could get out of Elysium. His love of singing and love of his family are two chains he can't break that tie him here. Will your arrival help break those chains or tighten them?

Aphrodite: Damiana "Dame" Rivette - Gender Selectable. [RO]

Quiet and Serious, Dame is no longer The God of Love they once were. The passion of their life faded and now bitterness grows where love should. The only friend they have in Elysium seems to be their fiance, Johnny. To make their life even worse, you arrive.

The Mortal: Sigourney Hawthorn - She/Her. [RO]

Newly divorced from a god, Sigrouney struggles with juggling her (demigod) child, relentless job, and love life. As her daughter, Claudia, grows she wonders if she can keep up or if she'll be left behind. And now with your arrival Claudia's godly family gets bigger and her presence gets smaller.

Artemis: Rebel Reyes - Gender Selectable [RO]

How can The God of the Hunt thrive in the city? The prey here are either too weak or too annoying to hunt. The only thing Rebel craves is to feel that thrill again. With your arrival they have a perfect chance, who better to hunt than the God of War? They can't wait to meet you.

The Old Flame: Harper Ward - Gender Selectable [RO]

A friend from a better time. Harper and you were once inseparable. They saw you at your darkest and kept you calm. Years after an explosive break up they've reemerged into your life far different than you knew them. Can you find the dying embers of your old friend? Is it even worth the pain?

[demigoddaughterofhermes]

no bc "she will know that her baby is safe" KILLED ME DEAD im sobbing congratulations

Watching Sally Jackson as an adult is insane because as a kid, when Percy said “the best people always have the rottenest luck” I was like Yeah, her family died and that sucks, but now I’m like Actually, this woman got pregnant at like 19 and was then left by the guy, who was not just a guy but a god, knowing that the child she was left with would very likely never grow old, and ever since then she’s been pooring all of her love into this kid trying to protect him, trying to give him a normal life while preparing him for a future he might never see, scared to death and alone and stuck in an abusive marriage while unable to leave because she had to stay For Percy, and she Still Made It!!

One day she is going to see the top of the Empire State Building light up blue and she will know that her baby is safe and she will let go of a breath she’s been holding since before he was even born. She will get to lean back into the arms of a man who loves and respects her, and all the love she has been giving so fiercely for years and years will come back to her and I cant wait for this to happen.

[another-argo]

open starter

who am I?

(sorry this is long asf)

Argo.

He stares into the mirror of his bathroom. That's who's looking back at him. That's Argo. A faded scar on the left side of his face, sharp canines that look like fangs. Argo has deep brown eyes, deep rooted trust issues- and truly thinks he would be better off if everyone left him alone. Argo brings tragedy everywhere he goes. Argo has never talked to Hermes- and he assumes he never will. He's never been claimed, either. All he has is his shape-shifting and his jansport.

Argo has deep brown, short hair. And.. wings. Big wings.

Luna.

Luna is younger than Argo by a few years. She has an innocent smile, the same scar- just.. newer. She hasn't learned not to trust yet. She has plenty of friends! She has all the bracelets to prove it! But, she knows they all just see her as a kid.

Her eyes are a bright blue, her hair is long and blonde. Her fangs are duller, more like a dog than a cat.

She has wings as well, they're just smaller- more proportionate to her body than Argo.

Atticus.

That's a name nobody's heard in a while.

Golden eyes, fangs like a wolf and dirty blonde hair. His scar was healed; unlike Luna's.. but it was cut open- bleeding with.. what seems like golden ichor. Right, this isn't Argo- this isn't really a.. mortal. This is a combination between a demigod and godly beings. A puppet.

And he has no wings, but he does have strings.

The three are having a conversation- which should be impossible.. but it's happening.

Argo has split his bathroom mirror in half, Luna on one side- Atticus the other.

"We need to be democratic about this-" Argo is the only one on the outside of the mirror; his body is the only one physically there. "I. I barely remember anything. I remember vague stuff- I'm just getting.. absolutely horrendous vibes from you." Argo gestures to Atticus.

"WHAT?? What the fuck man! You give bad vibes!"

"I will smash your mirror-"

"BOYS! You're both pretty!" Luna snickers, cutting off the other two. "I say that since I remember the most- I should get control!"

"But you're a baby. I don't know how being mentally 12 and physically almost 15 will work. Plus, you've already pissed off Nero, and none of my friends like you- because they think you're stealing my spot."

"But-"

"No! No puppy dog eyes. Stop that. Stop it. I'm looking away."

Argo crosses his arms, looking away- and sees the door. He could just leave.

Guilt.

He sighs, turning back towards the mirrors.

He takes a deep breath, and takes Luna's portion of the mirror- staring into it.

Suddenly- you watch as Argo turns into Luna, then himself, then Luna.. then finally something strange.

They look Argo's age. 14, almost 15- with one brown and one blue eye. They have the facial and back wings; still an angelic white.

The front of their hair is Luna's brassy blonde- the back is Argo's dark brown. It's as long as Luna's was.. about to mid back- with Argo's bangs in the front.

They look up- propping themself up with their prosthetic arm.

"Hi." They definitely sound like Argo. "Who are.. you- I just need a name. Sorry. And- how long have you been there?"

ANYONE CAN INTERACT

taglist (ask to be added or deleted): @orion-the-hunterpt2 @lilacnightshade @pain-is-forever @reyno-solis-real @faceless-bugger @unlicensed-field-medic @the-great-emperor-commodus @the-eclipsed-sun @sophia-hunter-of-artemis @daughter-of-thanatoss