Time's First Gift
Mortals did not know his name, not at first. They only knew that strange things happened when he passed.
A child once fell from a cliff on a forgotten island. Percy was walking below, the sea foaming white with rage at jagged rocks. He raised a hand, and the fall slowed. The boy hung suspended in the air as though the world itself had taken a long breath. Percy set him gently upon the sand, brushed the dust from his brow, and walked away before the villagers arrived.
They called it a miracle.
The child grew into a king.
The Mountain That Moved
Another tale whispered of him in the north. A tribe of shepherds prayed as an avalanche thundered down to bury their flocks. Percy raised his palm, and the mountain itself stilled, snow hanging like frozen silk mid-fall.
Then he spoke.
"Not today."
The mountain obeyed.
The avalanche melted into harmless rivers that fed the valleys for a hundred years.
Bards sang of a stranger with stars in his eyes and stone in his step, who commanded the land itself.
The Stars Rewritten
Astronomers, long before Alexandria, wept at their charts. Night after night, the constellations slipped from their fixed courses. Orion bowed to greet the moon. Cassiopeia shifted her chair closer to the northern lights. Entire calendars fell into chaos.
What none understood was that Percy had gazed upward that week, and the stars had bent to return his gaze.
The Challenge of the Gods
The Olympians did not sit idle.
Ares came first, seeking to test his strength. He swung his spear, faster than any mortal eye could follow, but Percy simply stepped aside—before the blow had even been struck. Ares snarled and swung again, and again, until rage itself wore thin. Percy only watched. "You fight bravely," he said, "but always too late." Ares never challenged him again.
Hermes tried next, thinking trickery could bind him. He wove illusions, spun lies like golden thread, hid treasures behind false doors. Percy walked through each one calmly, stepping where Hermes thought he would falter. "How do you know the path?" Hermes gasped. Percy only smiled. "Because I have walked it already."
Zeus himself hurled lightning at the shore where Percy stood. The bolt froze midair, a spear of pure white fire locked in stillness. Percy plucked it from the sky, examined it as one might study an arrowhead, and placed it gently at Zeus' feet. "Your gift is beautiful," he said simply, before walking away.
The King of Olympus never forgave that humiliation.
The Burden of Freedom
Yet power had its price.
Mortals built temples to him—temples without names, for he gave them none. They lit fires, poured wine, offered blood. Percy never asked for it. He passed through like a traveler through a marketplace, neither accepting nor rejecting their worship.
He did not crave worship. He craved something else.
For to live outside Fate was also to live outside belonging. The gods bound themselves to laws, the Fates bound all to destiny, and even mortals bound themselves to love, toil, and death. But Percy stood apart. Eternal, untethered, never to be claimed.
It was freedom. And it was exile.
The Moirai's Warning
Years after their first attempt, the Moirai sent word to him in the dead of night.
He came to their cave, where the loom still lay cracked and broken. The Fates stood pale and trembling.
"You walk alone," Clotho whispered.
"You will always walk alone," said Lachesis.
"Until the end of all hours," hissed Atropos.
Percy looked at the broken loom, at the threads writhing like serpents, and shook his head. "Even Time finds companions," he said softly. "You weave endings. I do not."
The Moirai turned their faces away. They could not answer him.
The Shadow of Kaal
Above all, there was Kaal.
The phoenix shadowed him like a living eclipse, vast wings stretching over valleys, black flames searing the air. To mortals, Kaal was terror. To gods, he was reminder. For Kaal was not only fire—he was memory. His cry carried the weight of all ages, the sound of clocks shattering, of empires falling, of galaxies collapsing into dust.
When Percy slept, Kaal perched at his side, flames guttering low like embers of forgotten stars. When Percy woke, Kaal cried out, and the day began anew.
The Waiting Silence
For centuries—though centuries to him were no more than sighs—Percy walked thus. Shaping quietly, refusing thrones, evading councils, refusing the worship that others would kill for.
He was unchallenged. He was undefeated. He was unbound.
And he was waiting, though he did not yet know for what.
It would not be a throne that claimed him, nor a battle.
It would be two goddesses.
A hunter beneath silver moonlight, and a strategist beneath starlit scrolls.
And they would shatter the silence of eternity.