The thing about armor—and Percy had spent enough time wearing it to have developed several complex psychological relationships with the concept—was that removing it felt like peeling away a layer of your actual skin. Not metaphorical skin. Actual, literal, "this-is-part-of-me-now" skin.
Percy stood in his assigned quarters—which were less "quarters" and more "someone's very aggressive interpretation of what a guest room should be if you had unlimited budget and debatable taste"—and stared at his reflection in a mirror that was probably worth more than several small countries.
The armor stared back.
"Right," he said to his reflection. To the armor. To himself. All three audiences seemed equally skeptical. "Time to come off now. We've had a good run. Century-long run. Very successful partnership. But I need to look less like a walking nightmare and more like someone who can attend dinner without causing mass panic."
The armor didn't respond. Armor generally didn't. But Percy could *feel* its reluctance—a psychic weight, a sensation like trying to remove a bandage that had fused with the wound it was protecting.
He touched the crystal in his chest.
It pulsed once—warm, responsive, almost questioning. *Are you sure? Safe here? Really safe?*
"I'm sure. Mostly sure. Sure-adjacent." Percy closed his eyes, reaching inward to that place where will became reality and intent became power. "Come on. I know you're trying to protect me. I appreciate it. But right now I need to be Percy Jackson, guest of Atlantis, not Percy Jackson, harbinger of apocalyptic violence."
Slowly—reluctantly, like a parent letting go of a child's hand—the armor began to recede.
It didn't disappear. That would've been too simple. Instead it *flowed*, liquefying into streams of darkness and metal that spiraled inward, drawn toward the crystal like water circling a drain. The shadows writhed and coiled, reluctant to leave their post. The scales clinked and shifted, each one carrying memories of the monster it came from, the death it represented, the survival it enabled.
The helmet was last to go, dissolving into mist that tasted like old blood and older regrets.
And then it was done.
The crystal shrank—compressed itself down from fist-sized centerpiece to something small and manageable, a pendant about the size of a quarter that hung from a leather cord around his neck. It settled next to his camp necklace, the beads clicking together with a sound that made Percy's chest hurt.
Five beads. Five years at Camp Half-Blood before everything went sideways into hell.
The clay bead from his first summer, painted with a trident.
The second year, with a fleece.
The third—Thalia's tree, restored.
The fourth—the labyrinth, because that summer had been *fun*.
And the fifth—a jar, representing Pandora's pithos, that last quest, the one where he'd lost—
Percy stopped that thought with the practiced ease of someone who'd had a century to get very, very good at stopping thoughts.
He looked at himself in the mirror.
And nearly didn't recognize what he saw.
"Oh," he said quietly. "Oh, *hell*."
Because the body staring back at him was a stranger's body wearing his face.
When Percy had fallen into Tartarus, he'd been lean. Swimmer's build, his mom used to say fondly. Wiry strength from constant training, yes, but still fundamentally *young*. Seventeen and still growing into himself, all angles and potential and the kind of physique that came from genetics, activity, and a diet consisting largely of whatever Camp's dining pavilion was serving.
This was not that body.
This body looked like it had been carved from marble by a sculptor with a very specific brief: "Make him look like War had a one-night stand with Survival and their offspring was raised by Trauma."
Muscles had muscles. His shoulders were broader than he remembered, his arms corded with strength that spoke of years—*decades*—of swinging swords, throwing spears, wrestling things with too many limbs and insufficient respect for personal space. His chest was broader, his abs were so defined they could probably be used as a cheese grater, and his thighs looked like they could crush boulders. Or possibly small buildings.
"When did I—" Percy turned slightly, examining himself from different angles with the sort of horrified fascination usually reserved for watching natural disasters. "When did I become this?"
But he knew the answer. It had happened gradually, imperceptibly, the way all changes in Tartarus happened—too slowly to notice until suddenly you looked in a mirror and realized you'd become something else entirely.
A century of fighting will do that. Will reshape you. Will turn lean swimmer into dense warrior, will add mass and power and strength born from necessity rather than choice.
"I look like I eat rocks for breakfast," Percy muttered. "And then lift the rocks for exercise. And then fight the rocks for fun."
But the muscles weren't the worst part.
The worst part was the *scars*.
They covered him. Not everywhere—his father's blood protected him from most damage, and the armor had prevented worse—but enough. More than enough. A roadmap of violence written across his skin in silver-white lines that told stories he didn't want to remember but couldn't forget.
Long slash across his ribs from that empousa who'd gotten too close.
Puncture wounds on his shoulder from the drakon's teeth.
Burn marks on his forearm from wading through the Phlegethon when there was no other choice.
Claw marks across his back from something with too many arms and very poor understanding of personal boundaries.
And dozens more. Hundreds, maybe. Small ones, large ones, ones that had nearly killed him, ones that were just unfortunate reminders that even in hell, paper cuts were still annoying.
Percy touched one—a particularly nasty scar that ran from his hip to his navel, a gift from a particularly aggressive hellhound who'd objected to being decapitated.
The skin was raised. Rough. It felt like someone else's body. Like he was wearing a stranger's trauma.
"This is—" he started, then stopped, because there weren't really words for what this was.
*This is what survival looks like*, he thought. *This is the price of not dying. This is what happens when you spend a century refusing to break.*
He turned away from the mirror. Couldn't look anymore. Couldn't face the evidence of what he'd become, what he'd endured, what had been done to him and what he'd done to himself in the name of just *keeping going*.
But then something changed.
Percy felt it before he saw it—a tingling sensation across his skin, warm and gentle, like being wrapped in the world's softest blanket. Like a parent's hand checking for fever. Like coming home after being away too long.
He looked down and watched, mesmerized, as the water in the room—the moisture in the air, the humidity of living in a city that was literally *in* the ocean—began to glow.
Not bright. Just... present. Visible. Like someone had highlighted all the water molecules in neon blue.
And they were moving toward him.
"What—"
But he knew. Of course he knew.
His father's domain.
The ocean.
The water recognized him—*really* recognized him, not just in that abstract "son of Poseidon" way but in the intimate way of *my child, my blood, my family, welcome home*—and it was responding.
Healing him.
The water touched his skin and Percy gasped at the sensation—not pain, never pain from the ocean, but *intensity*. Like every drop was a tiny piece of home, of belonging, of safety he hadn't felt in so long he'd forgotten it existed.
The scars began to fade.
Slowly at first—edges softening, colors lightening, the raised tissue smoothing back into regular skin. Then faster, as if the ocean was making up for lost time, as if it was angry on his behalf that he'd been hurt at all, as if it wanted to erase every mark that Tartarus had left.
Percy watched in the mirror, transfixed, as a century of violence slowly, methodically disappeared.
The slash from the empousa—gone.
The puncture wounds—smoothed away.
The burn marks—healed as if they'd never existed.
The claw marks—erased like chalk in rain.
One by one, the scars faded, until his skin was mostly clear. Mostly whole. Mostly like it had been before, when he was just a demigod trying to survive summer camp rather than a demigod trying to survive literal hell.
"Thank you," Percy whispered to the water, to the ocean, to his father's domain that loved him even when he couldn't love himself. "Thank you."
But not all the scars faded.
One remained—stark and dark against his now-clear skin.
The tattoo.
SPQR.
The mark of Camp Jupiter, burned into his forearm during that summer when the Greeks and Romans had finally met, finally united, finally figured out they were stronger together than apart.
Twelve lines beneath it. Twelve years of service, though only five had actually happened. The magic of the mark had counted his time in Tartarus, had continued marking years even when Percy wasn't there to count them.
A trident and an eagle, crossed. His dual nature. His dual loyalty.
And beneath it all, a single word: *INVICTUS*.
Unconquered.
Percy traced the tattoo with one finger, feeling the raised skin, the permanence of it. This scar the ocean couldn't heal, because it wasn't really a scar. It was a *mark*. A choice. A claim.
A reminder of who he'd been before, and who he was trying to be again.
"Unconquered," he said softly, testing the word. Tasting it. "Okay. I can work with unconquered."
He looked back at the mirror.
The body was still unfamiliar—still too muscular, still too hard, still too much evidence of what he'd survived. But without the scars, it looked less like a map of trauma and more like just... a body. Strong, yes. Powerful, definitely. But not *destroyed*. Not ruined.
Just changed.
And maybe—*maybe*—change wasn't the same as damage.
Maybe.
A knock at the door interrupted his existential assessment of his own physicality.
"Percy Jackson?" A voice, formal and slightly anxious. "Her Majesty requests that I deliver your evening attire. For dinner. Which is happening. Soon. Very soon. Quite imminently, in fact."
Percy grabbed a towel—had wrapped it around his waist without really thinking about it—and opened the door.
An attendant stood there: young, nervous, holding what appeared to be several items of clothing that looked far too nice for someone like Percy to wear. The attendant's eyes went very wide, then very carefully *didn't* look at Percy's physique in the way that people do when they're desperately trying not to look at something.
"Your clothing, sir," the attendant managed, shoving the bundle forward like it might explode. "For dinner. With the Queen. And probably other people. Important people. People who expect you to wear clothing. These specific items of clothing."
"Thanks," Percy said, taking the bundle. "Are they fireproof?"
"I—what?"
"The clothes. Are they fireproof. Or monster-resistant. Or enchanted against sudden violence."
"They're... clothes? Just. Regular clothes? Atlantean formal wear, but not magically enhanced in any way I'm aware of?"
"Huh. Okay. Thanks anyway."
Percy closed the door on the attendant's baffled expression and examined his dinner attire.
It was nice. Too nice. The kind of nice that made him anxious because it looked expensive and Percy had a track record of destroying expensive things, usually accidentally, occasionally on purpose when the expensive things turned out to be monsters in disguise.
Pants that looked like they'd been tailored by someone who understood fabric and fit and probably had strong opinions about thread count. A shirt that was less shirt and more "wearable art made from materials Percy couldn't identify." A jacket—no, a *coat*—that fell to his knees and looked like it cost more than his mother's apartment, back when he'd had a mother and an apartment and a world that made sense.
All in shades of blue and silver that matched his eyes, which was either a coincidence or someone had been paying very close attention to his color palette.
Probably the latter. Atlanteans seemed like people who paid attention to color palettes.
Percy dressed slowly, carefully, like he was disarming a bomb rather than putting on clothes. The fabric felt strange against his scarless skin—too soft, too fine, too civilized. He was used to armor. To protection. To layers of defense between himself and the world.
This was just *cloth*.
He half-expected it to dissolve. Or catch fire. Or transform into a monster. Because that's what happened to nice things in Percy's life—they turned into problems.
But the clothes stayed clothes.
They fit perfectly, which was suspicious but also convenient.
He looked at himself in the mirror again—this time fully dressed, the crystal pendant visible against his chest, the camp necklace hanging beside it, both small reminders of who he'd been, who he was, who he was trying to become.
He looked... normal.
Well. Normal-ish.
Normal if normal meant "young man who's clearly been through some things but is trying very hard to be civilized about it."
Normal if you didn't look too closely at his eyes, which still glowed faintly.
Normal if you ignored the way shadows gathered around his feet even when he didn't want them to.
Normal if you squinted and had very generous definitions of normalcy.
"This is fine," Percy told his reflection. "This is totally fine. I can do this. I can attend a formal dinner with royalty and not cause an international incident or accidentally declare war on anyone. I've survived Tartarus for a century. I can survive dinner."
His reflection looked deeply skeptical.
"Okay, surviving dinner might actually be harder than surviving Tartarus," Percy amended. "Tartarus had clear rules: kill things before they kill you. Dinner has complicated social protocols and multiple forks. Multiple forks are terrifying."
A voice in his head—which sounded suspiciously like Annabeth, because of course it did—pointed out that he was catastrophizing.
Another voice—which sounded like his mother—told him to stand up straight, be polite, and remember that he was a good person who deserved good things.
A third voice—which was just his own anxiety—screamed wordlessly.
"Right," Percy said firmly. "Dinner. I'm doing this. No backing out. No excuses. Just... walking to dinner. Like a functional person. Who functions."
He left his quarters before he could talk himself out of it.
---
The walk to the dining hall was both too short and too long—a spatial paradox that Percy's already-fragile sense of reality didn't appreciate.
Guards flanked him at a discrete distance. Watching. Not threatening, exactly, but definitely *present*. Orm's doing, probably. Orm seemed like someone who'd assign guards with instructions like "observe constantly, report everything, prepare for sudden violence."
Percy couldn't fault him for it.
If their positions were reversed, Percy would've done worse. Would've locked the dangerous demigod in a cell and thrown away the key and possibly the entire cell. For safety. For everyone's safety.
But Atlanna had offered sanctuary instead of imprisonment.
Which either made her dangerously naive or dangerously perceptive.
Percy was betting on the latter.
The dining hall materialized at the end of a corridor that seemed to stretch on forever and then suddenly didn't—more spatial weirdness, more evidence that Atlantean architecture had been designed by people who thought Euclidean geometry was "limiting" and "boring."
Mera waited outside the doors, looking resplendent in formal attire that managed to be both elegant and practical, which seemed to be her aesthetic in general.
"You cleaned up nice," she said, grinning. "Less 'harbinger of apocalyptic doom' and more 'young man who might only destroy things accidentally.'"
"That's the goal. Accidental destruction only. Intentional destruction is off the table unless someone really, really asks for it."
"That's very mature of you."
"I'm trying this new thing where I don't immediately resort to violence. It's going terribly so far, but I'm committed to the experiment."
Mera laughed—bright and genuine—and offered her arm. "Shall we? Before you talk yourself into fleeing back to your quarters?"
"I wasn't going to—okay, I was considering it. You caught me." Percy took her arm, grateful for the anchor. "Any advice? Dinner etiquette? Social protocols? Things I absolutely shouldn't say or do?"
"Don't insult anyone's lineage. Don't claim the throne. Don't start food fights. Don't mention anything about surface dwellers being superior—they're very sensitive about that."
"Those all seem reasonable."
"Also, there will be multiple forks."
"I *knew* it."
"Just work from the outside in. It's not that complicated."
"You underestimate my capacity for turning simple things into disasters."
"I've noticed. It's part of your charm." Mera squeezed his arm. "Percy, you'll be fine. Queen Atlanna likes you. I like you. Most of the court will be too curious to be immediately hostile. And anyone who *is* hostile will have to go through me first."
"You'd fight a noble?"
"I'd fight a *lot* of nobles. I'm a hydrokinetic from Xebel. Fighting is kind of our thing. That and excessive amounts of sarcasm."
"My two favorite things."
"I know. That's why we're friends."
The doors opened.
And Percy stepped into what could only be described as organized chaos pretending to be a formal dinner.
The hall was massive—because everything in Atlantis was massive, architectural restraint apparently being a concept that died sometime before the city was built—with a table that looked long enough to seat a small army. Which, given the number of people present, might have been the point.
Atlantean nobles filled the seats—dozens of them, maybe more, all dressed in formal attire that made Percy's nice clothes look like casual Friday. They talked in clusters, voices rising and falling in that particular rhythm of people who took themselves very, very seriously.
At the head of the table sat Queen Atlanna, regal and composed and looking like someone had asked an artist to paint "dignified authority" and the artist had decided to use a living person instead.
Beside her, Orm sat with the expression of someone who'd been told he had to be polite and was interpreting "polite" as "not actively stabbing anyone."
Other faces Percy didn't recognize—advisors, probably, or nobles, or people who held important positions with important titles that required them to attend important dinners.
And everyone was staring at him.
Not subtly. Very overtly. With the kind of intense examination usually reserved for particularly unusual museum exhibits or zoo animals who'd learned to do tricks.
"That's a lot of staring," Percy muttered.
"You're an unknown son of Poseidon who survived Tartarus for a century and looks like you could bench-press a building," Mera whispered back. "Staring is inevitable. Just smile. Look harmless. You can do harmless, right?"
"I literally have no idea."
"Then fake it. Fake harmless. Fake non-threatening. Fake 'I'm just a nice boy who definitely won't accidentally destroy your civilization.'"
"That's a lot of faking."
"You're a demigod. Your entire existence is faking it until you make it."
Percy couldn't really argue with that.
Atlanna stood—a fluid motion that somehow commanded attention without demanding it—and the conversations died like someone had hit a mute button.
"Lords and ladies of Atlantis," she said, her voice carrying easily through the hall. "Tonight we have the honor of hosting a most unusual guest. Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, who has come to us seeking sanctuary after—" She paused, choosing words carefully. "—after a very long and difficult journey. I trust you will all extend him the courtesy and respect befitting both his divine heritage and his current situation."
Translation: *Be nice to him or I will be disappointed in you, and my disappointment is worse than my anger*.
It was very mom-like. Percy appreciated it.
"Please," Atlanna continued, gesturing to an empty seat near—but not beside—her position. "Join us, Percy Jackson. We have much to discuss, and dinner should not wait for ceremony."
Percy walked to his assigned seat with as much dignity as he could manage, which was probably not much but hopefully enough. He could feel every eye tracking his movement, every gaze assessing, judging, forming opinions about this strange outsider who'd appeared in their city.
He sat.
Immediately, a server materialized with the kind of silent efficiency that suggested either excellent training or minor teleportation abilities—and poured something into a crystal glass that sparkled like liquid starlight.
"Thank you," Percy said automatically.
The server looked startled, as if guests thanking them was unusual.
Maybe it was.
Another black mark against nobility everywhere.
Mera sat beside him—not at his assigned seat, but close enough to be supportive. Close enough to intervene if things went sideways. Close enough to provide sarcastic commentary if needed.
"So," said a voice from across the table—older noble, distinguished in that way that suggested either genuine wisdom or effective moisturizing. "Son of Poseidon. How curious. We thought the gods had departed our realm millennia ago."
"They did," Percy said carefully. "I'm from... elsewhere. Different dimension. Different reality. It's complicated."
"Complicated," another noble repeated—younger this time, with the sort of tone that suggested they'd never encountered a complication they couldn't dismiss with sufficient arrogance. "How convenient. An explanation that explains nothing."
"I'm not trying to be mysterious," Percy said. "I'm trying not to give a three-hour lecture on dimensional mechanics and divine genealogy over dinner."
"Perhaps a brief summary?" This from Atlanna, her tone gentle but firm. An invitation, not a demand.
Percy set down his glass—he hadn't drunk from it yet, old habits from a century of survival making him instinctively wary of consuming anything he hadn't personally verified as non-poisonous.
"Brief summary," he said. "I'm from a version of Earth where the gods—Greek gods, specifically—never left. Where they're still active, still having demigod children, still causing mythological chaos on a regular basis. I was one of those children. Son of Poseidon and a mortal woman. I did the hero thing for a while. Saved the world a few times. Made enemies. Then, during what was supposed to be a routine quest—" He paused, the words sticking. "—things went wrong. Very wrong. And I ended up in Tartarus. The Greek version, not whatever version you might have here."
"And you survived," Orm said flatly. Not a question. An accusation disguised as observation.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"A century, give or take."
Silence fell like a stone.
"That's impossible," someone said.
"Improbable," Percy corrected. "But not impossible. I have the trauma and questionable coping mechanisms to prove it."
"And how did you escape?"
"Killed things. Found the Doors of Death. Walked through them. Ended up here." Percy shrugged. "It wasn't a great plan. But it worked, which is really all you can ask for."
More silence. The kind that suggested everyone was simultaneously trying to decide if he was lying, insane, or genuinely the most interesting/dangerous thing to happen to Atlantis in living memory.
"The Doors of Death," an older advisor said slowly—this one with the kind of measured tone that suggested they'd spent a lot of time reading ancient texts and having opinions about proper historical interpretation. "Those are mythological. Theoretical at best. No one has ever proven their existence."
"I did," Percy said. "By using them. That seems like pretty definitive proof."
"Or you're delusional."
"Possibly. But if I'm delusional, I'm delusionally sitting here having dinner, so we might as well proceed as if I'm not."
A few people smiled at that—small smiles, quickly hidden, but present.
Progress.
"You wear a pendant," another noble observed—sharp-eyed woman with the sort of assessing gaze that suggested she missed nothing and forgot less. "It pulses. Glows, even. What is it?"
Percy touched the crystal instinctively, protective. "It's... complicated. It contains water from the five rivers of the Greek Underworld. Styx, Lethe, Acheron, Phlegethon, Cocytus. All of them, combined into something that shouldn't exist but does."
"That would kill you," the sharp-eyed woman said.
"Yes."
"But it doesn't."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Honestly? I have no idea. Best guess is that I've been exposed to so much divine weirdness that my body just gave up trying to follow normal rules and decided to improvise." Percy met her gaze. "Or I'm tougher than I look. Or lucky. Or cursed. Take your pick."
"You're remarkably casual about carrying something that should be fatal."
"I've spent a century being remarkably casual about lots of things that should be fatal. You develop a certain philosophical detachment."
Atlanna was watching him with that expression again—the one that reminded him painfully of his mother. Assessment mixed with concern mixed with something that might've been sympathy.
"Percy," she said gently. "You've been through something terrible. Multiple terrible things, if I'm understanding correctly. And you're here now, in a strange world, surrounded by strangers who don't know your story or understand your struggles." She leaned forward slightly. "So let me be clear: You are safe here. In Atlantis. In my court. Whatever you need—time, space, resources, help—you have only to ask."
"Why?" Percy's voice came out rougher than intended. "Why are you helping me? You don't know me. I'm a security risk. A walking disaster. Your son is *right there*—" He gestured at Orm, who was indeed sitting right there, radiating disapproval. "—being completely reasonable about not trusting me. Why are you?"
Atlanna smiled—sad and knowing and impossibly kind.
"Because a long time ago," she said quietly, "I was also in a position where I needed help. Where I was far from home, surrounded by strangers, trying to navigate a world that didn't make sense. And someone helped me. Showed me kindness when they could have shown suspicion." Her eyes went distant for a moment. "I lost that person. Lost that kindness. But I remember it. And I remember thinking—if I ever have the chance to be that person for someone else, I will be."
"Mother—" Orm started.
"I will be," Atlanna repeated, firm. Then, softer, to Percy: "So yes, Percy Jackson. I'm helping you because someone once helped me. And because the ocean itself seems to recognize you as family. And because—" She paused. "—because you remind me of someone I loved very much. Someone who was also far from home. Also trying to be brave despite being terrified."
Percy felt his throat go tight.
"Thank you," he managed. "That's—that means more than I can say."
"Then don't say it. Just accept it. Let yourself be helped." Atlanna straightened, addressing the table at large. "Percy Jackson is our guest. He will be treated with respect and courtesy. Anyone who has objections can direct them to me. Privately. Where I will listen patiently and then likely ignore them. Are we clear?"
Murmurs of assent rippled around the table.
Orm looked like he wanted to object but was calculating whether it was worth the inevitable lecture.
"Good," Atlanna said. "Now. Let us eat. We can discuss politics and dimensional mechanics and divine genealogy after we've had proper food. I find these conversations go better on a full stomach."
Servers appeared with the kind of synchronized efficiency that suggested either extensive training or minor hive-mind capabilities, bearing plates of food that looked simultaneously familiar and completely alien.
Percy stared at his plate.
"What is this?" he whispered to Mera.
"Fish."
"I know it's fish. But *what kind*?"
"Does it matter?"
"I'm the son of Poseidon. Eating fish feels morally complicated."
"It's already dead. Eating it doesn't make it more dead."
"That's not as comforting as you think it is."
But he ate anyway, because not eating would be rude, and he was trying very hard not to cause diplomatic incidents.
The fish was delicious, which made it worse somehow.
Around him, conversation slowly resumed—nobles discussing politics, trade agreements, border disputes, all the normal things nobles probably discussed at dinner. Percy half-listened, mostly focused on not using the wrong fork or accidentally destroying anything.
"—and the surface dwellers are becoming more aggressive with their naval exercises," someone was saying. "They come closer to our borders each year. Eventually we'll have to respond."
"Respond how?" another voice asked.
"Diplomatically, one hopes. But we should be prepared for alternatives."
"The Justice League—"
"—is surface-dwelling propaganda—"
"—consists of individuals with extraordinary abilities who've saved countless lives—"
"—none of whom have ever acknowledged Atlantis's sovereignty—"
Percy's attention sharpened. "Justice League?"
The conversation died.
Everyone looked at him.
"You don't know about the Justice League?" the sharp-eyed woman asked, her tone suggesting this was equivalent to not knowing about gravity or basic arithmetic.
"I've been in Tartarus for a century," Percy reminded her. "My current events knowledge is somewhat limited."
"They're heroes," Mera supplied quietly. "Surface world heroes. They protect humanity from various threats—aliens, supervillains, interdimensional invasions, the usual."
"The usual," Percy repeated. "Right. Because interdimensional invasions are usual."
"In this world? Yes. Fairly usual." Mera's expression was amused. "You've arrived in a reality that's considerably more exciting than wherever you came from."
"My reality had literal gods causing problems on a regular basis."
"This one has gods *and* aliens *and* time travelers *and* people who've decided that wearing colorful costumes and punching things is a viable career path."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is. Very entertaining, though. Never boring."
"I've had enough excitement for several lifetimes," Percy muttered. "I was hoping for boring."
"Then you came to the wrong reality. This one specializes in not-boring."
Dinner continued—courses arriving and disappearing, conversations flowing and ebbing, the general atmosphere gradually shifting from "suspicious and wary" to "curious and moderately less hostile."
Percy answered questions when asked—carefully, honestly, trying to give enough information to seem cooperative without revealing things that felt too personal, too painful, too raw.
Yes, he'd been to Tartarus.
No, he didn't want to describe it in detail.
Yes, he'd survived by fighting.
No, he didn't enjoy it.
Yes, he had other powers besides the obvious water manipulation.
No, he wasn't going to demonstrate them at dinner because that seemed like a terrible idea that would end badly for everyone's dinnerware.
Orm watched him throughout, eyes sharp and calculating, clearly cataloguing every response for later analysis.
Atlanna watched too, but differently. Less like a security assessment and more like someone trying to understand a puzzle. Trying to see the person beneath the power and trauma.
And Mera—Mera just watched with open curiosity and that particular smile that suggested she was filing away information for later teasing.
Eventually, inevitably, dessert arrived—some kind of pastry that sparkled with what Percy hoped was sugar and not bioluminescent magic—and Atlanna stood.
"My friends," she said, her voice carrying that particular quality of someone used to being listened to. "Thank you for joining us this evening. For welcoming our guest with the courtesy he deserves. I know many of you have questions—" Her gaze swept the table. "—and those questions will be answered in time. But for tonight, let us simply acknowledge: We have witnessed something remarkable. The arrival of someone from beyond our world. Someone who brings with them questions about the gods, about other realities, about possibilities we hadn't considered."
She looked directly at Percy.
"Welcome to Atlantis, Percy Jackson. I hope you find what you're looking for here. Whether that's sanctuary, answers, or simply a place to rest after your very long journey."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Percy said, standing—probably he was supposed to stand, everyone else was standing, standing seemed like the safe choice. "For everything. The hospitality. The kindness. The not immediately arresting me or trying to kill me, which I genuinely appreciate."
A few chuckles rippled through the assembled nobles.
"The night is young," Orm muttered, just loud enough to be heard.
"Orm," Atlanna said, with the tone of a mother who'd reached her limit of tolerating her son's attitude.
"I'm simply noting that decisions made in kindness should be tempered with caution."
"Noted. Ignored. Moving on." Atlanna turned back to the table. "You're all dismissed. Enjoy your evening. Try not to start any rumors that will cause me additional paperwork."
The nobles began dispersing—some lingering to chat, others leaving quickly, a few casting final glances at Percy that ranged from curious to suspicious to speculative.
Mera appeared at Percy's elbow. "That went well."
"Define 'well.'"
"No one tried to kill you. No diplomatic incidents occurred. You didn't accidentally declare war. By Atlantean standards, that's a tremendous success."
"My standards are apparently very low."
"Everyone's standards are low after a century in Tartarus. You're doing fine." She squeezed his arm. "Come on. Let's get you back to your quarters before someone decides to challenge you to ritual combat or whatever nobles do for entertainment."
---
Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!
If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord (HHHwRsB6wd) server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!
Can't wait to see you there!