You'd think choosing to die would be a hard choice. Percy found it pretty easy.
He never said it to anyone, not even Annabeth, but he made his mind up before the Argo II sailed across the ocean, before he crossed hell with his lover and fought their way out the other side, long before the Earth grew a face and threatened the world with genocide.
The prophecy said that one of them would die for everyone else to be saved. Prophecies might wind around and play with the truth, but they never lied. For life to be saved, death had to be dealt. Percy knew the moment the words hit his ears— he wouldn't let anyone else take the fall.
The look on Gaia's face when her very body turned against her, shattered by Percy's long-dormant earthshaker powers and bathed in the fury of the seas, almost made his impending death worth it.
When he'd looked down and seen his friend's faces, that did make it worth it.
Perseus Jackson died for everything he loved. He did it with a smile on his face.
He did not expect to wake up.
Immediately, he could tell things were wrong. He was underwater. He recognized the coarse current stroking his body and fluttering his minced clothes. This was the ocean. It was his home — always had been — thanks to the very nature of his blood.
So why couldn't he breathe?
Percy's lungs burned for the first time ever. He swept his arms out and kicked his legs, striking toward the surface faster than an Olympian athlete. His head broke the water in seconds, allowing him to gasp for breath.
He didn't recognize his surroundings. It was very clearly not Camp Half-Blood. If anything, it looked like the views they'd gotten of Morocco's northern coast as they sailed past. He could see mountains made of lots of jagged edges, their peaks stabbing impressively high. Much closer, a large river mouth spilled freshwater into the sea. Percy swam toward that.
It was odd. He had most of his strength. When he powered through a breaststroke, his body shot forward as naturally as a fish's. He could feel his position and urge himself forward on the current, just in a more muted way than usual. He couldn't breathe underwater. Willing the waves to catapult up and throw him to shore should have been effortless. But the waves wouldn't respond.
Exhaustion, maybe? He'd never experienced anything like that before. He'd also never fought a Primordial to the death before. He hadn't left a single drop of power unspent by the time he and Gaia ended their clash.
He focused on the easy stroke and the kick of his limbs seeking the shore. He'd figure out the rest later, one step at a time. That had always been his way.
Percy reached a rocky beach, fighting his way through the river's outpouring current. Dragging himself free of the water, he looked down at his body, taking stock of himself.
No serious wounds. His body was in perfect health, all things considered. Another thing that was strange, because he distinctly remembered getting crushed by Gaia's last attack. The Primordial had fought until the moment her power dissipated.
His outfit was in the state he expected his body to be— the shirt he'd worn was just a collar with strips of fabric hanging off, his pants were gone entirely, and there was a hole in his boxers that was dangerously close to his balls. One sock had survived the trip, while the other was nowhere to be seen. His shoes were long gone.
"Wah!"
Percy looked up at the exclamation. He found a bearded man higher up the embankment holding primitive fishing equipment. The man dropped his tools, brandishing something that was either a homemade weapon or part of his tools.
Percy held his hands up, hoping the universal gesture for I come in peace extended to wherever this was. The guy in front of him was dressed like he came from a different century.
The man spoke, the inflection alone leading Percy to think it was a question. But he had to guess, because he didn't understand a word.
That wasn't English. It didn't sound like French, Spanish, or Russian either. The man clearly wasn't Asian. Percy had grown up in New York hearing languages from every corner of the globe bandied around bodegas. He'd never heard anything remotely like what this guy was giving him.
"I don't speak your language," Percy said.
The man hissed something back. Percy squinted, trying to tell if he was hostile. Confused, was Percy's verdict. The man didn't know what to do. Percy could relate, because he didn't know what to do either.
He had seen smoke rising as he swam. There was some kind of town close to the river, and he'd gone toward it on purpose, hoping to find people. That sounded preferable to wandering in the wilderness three-quarters naked with nothing to eat and nowhere to go. He'd held out hope they would speak English and tell him he'd washed up somewhere in the Bayeux, the coast of the Carolinas, or Southern Texas. He would even take Florida.
No luck, given the situation he found himself in now. Percy sank down to his knees, trying to show he wasn't a threat. The local relaxed, but neither of them knew what to do. He said something else and Percy could only shrug. Percy mimed bringing a fork to his lips as his stomach growled, but the man just squinted.
Finally, the fisherman (Percy was pretty sure that's what he was) gestured with his head, calling Percy closer. As Percy approached, the man turned around, walking with the expectation that Percy would follow. They climbed a slight bank, then turned over the crest, allowing Percy to lay eyes on the settlement he'd spotted the smoke of.
Percy stopped walking.
The fisherman looked back at him, muttering something in an aggrieved tone. He was still holding the clumsy spear that he'd chosen as a weapon, though he didn't look like he was about to use it. Percy didn't react to the man's growing annoyance, frozen and staring.
His powers weren't the only thing that was wrong. The man's strange language and his roughspun tunic started making a lot more sense. Percy just didn't like what his discovery was telling him.
The settlement was a small-ish village. There were farms close to the edges and roughly thirty stone buildings clustered together. A harsh smell reached Percy's nose even fifty meters away. Chickens and at least one pig wandered inside the boundaries of a wooden fence that had been constructed by hand. There were people in the streets. When Percy squinted, he could see that they were dressed the same as the man who found him, or worse.
This wasn't a modern town. It wasn't even a town from the century that Percy knew. The fisherman said something in his rough foreign tongue and gestured impatiently with his spear. Percy could only laugh, leaden feet carrying forward while his head spun faster than a teacup ride.
Maybe, he began to consider for the first time since waking up, Percy Jackson had died. At least in the world that he knew. And now he lived again— wherever this was.
The fisherman said something guttural and short.
"You can say that again," Percy said.
The man only gave him a look, still as baffled by Percy's words as Percy was by his. This was not going to be a smooth adjustment.
Well, that could be the story of his life.
O-O-O
Percy looked up when the door opened. Whoever it was, their arrival was well-timed. He'd just finished pulling his new shirt over his head.
He was pretty sure he wasn't a prisoner. The building he'd been brought to wait in was a storehouse of some kind, based on the sacks of grains and the salted fish hung from racks. It just happened to lack windows and had crappy ventilation, reminding Percy of the damp Alcatraz cell he once found Briares confined in. At least they gave him a change of clothes, even if the wool felt scratchy and heavy on his skin.
The room didn't seem so dim with the door open. To go with the literal breath of fresh air, a metaphorical one came in the form of a woman as beautiful as a nymph. Percy wasn't the type to get tongue-tied in front of a pretty lady but he could imagine plenty of people had met that fate standing where he stood now.
She said something. Whatever language they spoke here — or maybe the way they used it — came thick and fast, blending individual sounds together. It seemed hard to understand even if you knew the basics, which Percy categorically did not.
She took in his uncomprehending face and sighed. In contrast to her goddess-like looks, she wore a cloak even flimsier than the free clothes Percy had been gifted. She grabbed her hood and flipped it back, letting the light strike her features.
Her purple eyes almost glowed. They were as bright as lilacs caught by the sun. Her skin was very white and deeply pale, maybe because of that hood she walked around wearing. Rivulets of thick black hair hung around the edges of her face, which was tall and narrow and beautiful. There was something haunting about her, helped by her unique eyes and the long curling lashes that ringed them.
She laid a hand down on her chest, drawing Percy's eyes to her significant bust. He was pretty confident that part was incidental, though.
"Dyanna," she said.
"Your name?" Percy asked.
That was too complicated. She couldn't understand. With the patient air of a teacher, the woman patted her bust again. "Dyanna."
This time, Percy kept it simple.
"Dyanna," he said, pointing at her.
She smiled. Her beauty was so striking that the gesture felt like it came with its own light, brightening the area around her.
She pointed at one of the wheat sacks and said another word, waiting for him to repeat it.
That's how the world's longest game of I Spy began.
O-O-O
The town was called Wylmouth. It was easy to understand where they got the name. The river Percy first crawled out of was the Wyl, and Wylmouth had sprung up at the mouth of it. That was the kind of straightforward naming sense he could get behind.
Wylmouth was a hub for trade. Merchants bringing goods down the coast would stop there to restock, including Dyanna. His teacher had come to the town by boat and planned to leave on the same one, until some strange nonsense-talking kid caught her attention and turned into her latest project.
"Tree," Dyanna said. She and Percy were sitting together, reclining on one of the banks of the Wyl. A bowl of oval-shaped nuts lay between them, showing signs of depletion.
Following her finger took Percy's eyes to a tall tree with rough bark and only a few limbs. If the trees here had dryads like the ones back home did, Percy imagined this dryad would have a gap in her teeth and a receding hairline. The red mountains where Wylmouth sat were no oasis.
"Tree," Percy said. His hand swept down. "Branches." He moved his wrist again, pointing out the thin bristles on the end of the wood. "Leaves."
"Needles," Dyanna said, smiling.
Percy cursed, slipping into Ancient Greek, not even English. Dyanna laughed softly. As ever, her purple eyes flared with interest when she caught one of his native tongues.
"Your language is beautiful. I've never heard one like it," Dyanna said. "Certainly not within Westeros. Perhaps in the East I've heard similar. Only from travelers hailing from the most distant of lands."
"My home. Far," Percy said. He'd been here a year now. He could understand most things that were said, but putting the words together himself often made him sloppy. Especially going fast enough to keep up a conversation. "Much far."
Dyanna smiled. "Very far." She always corrected him gently, in the softest of voices. "I imagine it must be so. The things I have had to teach you!" She laughed quietly.
"I'm good at it. Not knowing things," Percy said.
"Ignorance can be fixed. Knowledge can be taught. It's wits and talent where a man's true measure lies," Dyanna said. "You have nothing to be ashamed of in those regards. Ask any of those in Wylmouth and they'll speak to your worth. Particularly the maidens."
There was no language barrier for Percy's embarrassed groan.
"What's the matter? Are you not fond of the thought of marriage?" Dyanna asked.
"I don't like the way it done here," Percy said. "Fast. Still strangers."
Dyanna laughed. "The best lover is one you met that day." She seemed nostalgic, her purple eyes glittering. "Good times come fast. We wave them goodbye before we know it. It's best to live freely, even if that should mean making mistakes. I hope you do not spend all of your days fishing."
"Not all." Percy shook his head. "I learn."
"Time spent in the company of a strange old woman is a meager improvement."
Percy gave her a disbelieving look. Dyanna was a lot of things, but old? If he understood her right when she gave her age then she wouldn't reach thirty for another three years. It would be decades before her flawless skin picked up its first wrinkle.
"I like lessons," Percy said firmly. "Dyanna nice."
His teacher made a small noise that hailed from the back of her throat. Her purple eyes were wide, then narrowed, her attention focused squarely on Percy's face.
"I suppose I'll have to teach you all the more fiercely, with praise like that," Dyanna said. She lifted her finger abruptly, taking aim at one of the wispy shapes drifting on the passing breeze.
"Cloud," Percy said. "Wind. Bird. Beak…"
O-O-O
Percy Jackson, Hero of Olympus and slayer of Gaia, was armed with a tree branch.
Luckily the only enemies he had to carve up were grains of sand. Percy felt the bite of bark against his palm as he guided the branch's tip, carefully scratching out shapes. Behind his back, Dyanna stood with her arms crossed, her head leaning to the side. She was dressed in a white woolen dress with a tall collar and thick straps.
Percy finished the last letter, lifting the stick and looking back.
"Low tide," Percy announced.
"Almost." Dyanna moved forward. Stepping against his back, she held his elbow, guiding the branch down once more. With her leading, they put a straight line in place of a curved one, and added a checkmark-shaped tail to another letter. "There. It's written properly now."
"Thanks," Percy said. "I'll get it soon."
"Your progress is good. Most who know how to write are taught by Maesters over the course of years, starting from a very young age," Dyanna said. "You've come far in a year and five moons. Particularly given how you started. Your speech has become completely understandable."
"I still have an accent. Varn likes to remind me of that."
"An accent is as much a part of language as words are," Dyanna said. "He'd be like to say the same about any merchant from Sunspear, let alone those beyond the Narrow Sea. A group of northmen would laugh themselves silly about the way he spoke. Tell him all of that, the next time he runs at the mouth!"
"Okay, okay," Percy agreed, calming her down. He wouldn't be following that instruction, but he appreciated Dyanna's passion on his behalf. Varn was a fellow fisherman Percy had been working with, and he knew the man didn't mean anything beyond friendly ribbing. Any fisherman in Wylmouth would've had Percy's back against even an invading army after how much easier he'd made their work.
Besides, he was pretty sure any mention of Varn would've gotten a similar reaction from his teacher. As far as Wylmouth went, the fisherman was young, handsome, had an established income, and was so well-respected that people expected him to end up as the village headsman in a few decades.
At first, Dyanna had been a merchant who happened to stay a bit longer. But as her stay lasted past the first year, many in Wylmouth started expecting her to stay permanently. Percy wasn't the only one who'd noticed her looks. Not only was Varn the most eligible candidate for a woman like her, many of the older ladies in the village thought Dyanna owed it to the town to stay. At her age, being unmarried was something that caused whispers, and recently those whispers had been rising in volume.
"You need to leave soon," Percy said.
"Are you trying to run me off?" Dyanna smiled. "I knew you disliked letters, but I didn't know your hate for them ran this deep."
"You've got your own life," Percy said. "I don't know why you decided to help me so much. I can't pay it back. I can speak now, I can read, I can even kind of write. That's more than most of Wylmouth can say. This isn't your place. And they're going to try and make it your place, unless you move on soon."
Dyanna was silent at first. She hadn't moved from behind him, still holding Percy's arm after helping him with his letters.
"Soon I will leave," she said. "You have the right and the wrong of it. I had a purpose before a strange sea-lost boy replaced it. You could call it a mission, bid to me by my master. Worry not about that, though. My master has a deep love for distractions and detours. She will not hold my lateness against me."
"When will you go?"
"Soon," Dyanna said, using that word again. "In a moon, perhaps. I need wait for the right vessel to arrive. And I've more to teach you yet."
Percy became aware of their position. Dyanna was still pressed against him. She always wore the simple wools of the smallfolk — the commoners in this world. She could also read, write, and talked with a different lilt than the others in town. Percy's only glimpses of nobility here had been a few brief run-ins with House Wyl, the local lords, but he couldn't deny that Dyanna reminded him a lot more of them than the rest of Wylmouth. The better he got to know her, the more it felt like she should be garbed in silk and sequestered in a castle somewhere.
She had beauty fit for a queen. Percy didn't think she'd been that high up. He was pretty sure she was a noble, though. And sometimes, he could sense something faint in her. Something that reminded him of the demigods back home.
Right now, though, the only thing he was feeling was her breasts pressing into his shoulder, warm and soft. Hard to ignore. A shape started to form inside his wool trousers, so Percy stepped away first, leaning over the sand with his stick. "What should I write next?"
Dyanna looked at him, her purple eyes full of something. "Write your name," she said. "With whatever else comes to mind."
Percy scratched letters into the sand. Perseus, it started as, or as close as you could get phonetically in the native letters. Son of the Sea.
If Dyanna found that title strange, she said nothing except that the letter on the end was wrong. They spoke no more of the future. Not then, on the beach. That topic wouldn't reappear until a week later, on a night when the sun had already settled below the waves.
O-O-O
Percy had seen the house where Dyanna stayed once before. It was only one room, large and cluttered with life's many needs. The table where she ate was in front of the fire where she cooked, which was next to the bed where she rested, which lay beneath the only window she could look out of. The house was on the edge of town. It had belonged to a widow who died less than a moon before Dyanna's arrival in Wylmouth. The son agreed to let her stay there for a monthly payment of ten Copper Pennies each moon till the end of time in Wylmouth.
Even though he'd caught glimpses of the interior, Percy had never stayed there long. They both favored lessons outside in the open air even when the weather turned biting. So it had been a surprise to him when after one of their lessons on the beach, Dyanna told him to visit her home in an hour.
Percy walked the streets of Wylmouth, exchanging nods and greetings with passing locals. When he first saw it he had called Wylmouth a small town, which it was, compared to his modern standards. He'd slowly learned that by Westerosi standards this was a sizable settlement. It was one of the biggest in Dorne, the continent's whole southern region. Dyanna's language lessons had grown to include a fair bit of geography and general knowledge, which Percy was deeply grateful for, even if he forgot as much of it as he retained.
As the clay roof of Dyanna's home came into sight, Percy let himself through the small wooden gate and followed the path, giving the door a knock.
"It's me, Dyanna."
"Come in," was the reply.
Percy found the interior mostly as he remembered it. The table had been cleared of everything except for a candle and two glasses. Dyanna sat on one side, wine in her hand, but it was her clothes that stole his attention.
From the day they met, Percy had only ever seen her in rough wool. Those kinds of clothes were warm enough. They kept you covered and could shield the cold away, at the cost of obscuring whatever was underneath. Percy looked almost the same below the neck as the scrawniest of the fisherman he worked with. Likewise, Dyanna's body was hard to tell apart from some of the wives of the town. Until tonight.
She was in a true dress, made of silk and dyed a lovely shade of lavender slightly lighter than her eyes. Dyanna's bust drew out the expensive material over the chest, with a collar much lower than what Percy was used to. His view of her cleavage stopped halfway down her heavy breasts. His efforts not to stare might've come too late, given the glint in Dyanna's eyes. She gestured using a hand holding a bottle of wine.
"Come and sit with me," the woman said. "Drink with me, Percy. We will talk and grow drunk, and by the end of the night I might have even taught you something new."