The Ocean of Time
After Ladon's soul entered Percy, while that melody seemed to rise from the deepest part of his very being, he felt as though he had actually fallen asleep...
Or perhaps he had simply blinked.
But when he opened his eyes again, he was no longer beside Hera's tree, nor with his friends in the Garden of the Hesperides.
Percy looked around with a confused expression.
All he could see was an endless blue sky, so clear and bright it seemed to have no end. There were no mountains, no trees, not even a horizon; only an infinite firmament covered in white clouds drifting lazily by.
He lowered his gaze.
The ground was gone.
In its place stretched a perfectly still surface of water, so transparent and flawless that it reflected the sky like one enormous mirror. Every step he took sent gentle ripples across it that took several seconds to fade away, yet for some reason, the reflection itself never became distorted.
The strangest part...
There was no sun.
There wasn't any source of light above him, and yet everything was illuminated with the brightness of midday.
Then Percy began to hear something.
Very faint at first.
Like a distant whisper.
But little by little it grew louder, until it became a deafening roar that seemed to rise from beneath his feet.
Frowning, he looked back down at the water.
His bare feet barely sank a few inches into its surface, despite the fact that beneath them it looked as though it stretched into infinite depths.
Then...
The reflection changed.
Where only his own image had been a moment ago, ripples began spreading across the water as though someone had dropped a stone into the bottom of a lake.
The sounds grew louder.
Steel clashing.
People screaming.
The neighing of horses.
His reflection vanished completely.
In its place...
A war appeared.
Thousands of warriors clad in metal armour crashed into one another while storms of arrows darkened the sky. Unknown banners fluttered above blood-soaked fields, and the thunder of battle felt so real Percy could almost smell the iron in the air.
But only a few seconds later...
The image changed again.
The noise disappeared completely.
Now he saw an enormous city filled with people walking in every direction. Towering buildings rose toward the sky while massive neon signs illuminated the streets, and unfamiliar vehicles travelled along broad streets.
It was an entirely different world.
And before he could study it more closely...
It changed once again.
This time, Percy held his breath.
He was looking at himself.
He was only a child.
The images began racing forward, as though someone were flipping through the memories of his life at an impossible speed.
His mother.
School.
Grover.
His endless expulsions.
Until...
Alecto appeared.
Mrs Dodds smiling before revealing her true form.
And then...
Everything stopped.
The reflection became completely still.
Showing the exact moment Percy and Miraak met for the very first time.
Percy continued staring at the image of the moment his destiny had changed forever upon the water when a voice spoke behind him.
"Beautiful... isn't it?"
Percy spun around immediately.
He hadn't heard any footsteps.
Nor a single breath.
Simply...
He was there now.
With blue eyes that radiated wisdom and danger. His pale golden hair and the short beard beginning to grow along his jaw gave him the appearance of an eternal warrior.
"Master?" Percy said when he saw Miraak standing there, looking at him with a gentle smile Percy had never once seen on his face since the day they'd met. But now he wasn't wearing the black jacket he always had on. Instead, he wore brilliant golden armour that looked as though it had been forged entirely from gold, its surface patterned like dragon scales.
"Wrong, little dragon," the man who had appeared there replied softly. "The appearance you see is merely the form of the person you respect the most. The fact that you see your master says a great deal about you."
Percy frowned in confusion.
"Then... who are you?" he asked.
But the false Miraak didn't answer.
He simply smiled and turned his gaze toward the water beneath their feet, where small ripples drifted across the surface.
This time it began showing the days since this quest had begun, including the moment they thought they'd lost Bianca, only for her to emerge from Talos alive and unharmed, the giant burned black by the lightning.
Once again, the image froze there.
"This ocean doesn't contain water."
"Every drop is a moment. Every wave... an era. Every current... a different story. Everything that was. Everything that is. Everything that could one day be."
The false Miraak finished speaking as he looked at Percy gently.
Percy lowered his gaze to the water again, focusing once more on Bianca.
"Like destiny?"
"Time is the river through which all events flow. Destiny is the course that river has already carved for itself," the false Miraak said calmly before smiling.
Percy fell silent for a moment, thinking about those words before looking back at him.
"Then... why did you bring me here? I don't think it was just to talk about philosophy or something."
"I simply wanted to meet you, Perseus Jackson. I never imagined he would one day become someone's master. In a way... you're part of my family now. Even if I had to cross worlds just to see you, it was something I simply had to do," the false Miraak said calmly.
At the word family, Percy couldn't help raising an eyebrow. He already had more than enough problems with his current family, so that word didn't exactly fill him with excitement.
Even so, the false Miraak seemed to read his thoughts and smiled in amusement.
"Don't worry. The paths between our worlds rarely cross again. This conversation was only possible because something happened today that I had never witnessed before."
Percy looked back at him.
"What happened?"
"A Dragonborn was born outside my time. After so many millennia... it's nice to discover I can still be surprised."
"Wait... I'm a Dragonborn?" Percy asked in surprise, as though he'd only just realized it.
The false Miraak couldn't help smiling for a moment at the boy's expression of disbelief. But his gaze quickly softened again.
"It's time for me to leave, little dragon. It was interesting meeting you," the false Miraak said gently. "I'm glad you used my gift wisely, and I hope that one day I'll see what became of your time," he said again as his body began turning transparent before Percy's eyes.
"Wait," Percy said. "You still haven't told me who you are."
But the false Miraak didn't answer.
He simply gave him a kind smile, like a grandfather saying goodbye.
At the same time, his half-transparent body began changing rapidly, as though it had suddenly burst into golden and crimson flames.
And in an instant, wrapped in that golden fire, his body began growing larger and larger.
To the point that Percy had to shield his eyes with his arms, much like when the Greek gods revealed their true forms.
But unlike the blinding heat of the Greek gods...
This warmth was gentler.
So Percy dared to try looking at the being's true form.
His eyes widened in astonishment.
Before him stood an enormous golden dragon, as vast as a mountain, still looking at him with a smile behind its massive fangs.
Just before it vanished.