WHO SHE WAS

"and thus"

ARIADNE KNEW WHO SHE WAS. Since she was five, she had been the only daughter of Dionysus. At eight, the best sword fighter in three hundred years. Sixteen, a savior of Olympus. Seventeen, a survivor of Tartarus.

But now, sitting on a bunk in her boyfriend's room on the Argo II, Ariadne didn't know who she was anymore.

After almost killing an eternal being, feeling that rush of power and privilege, she didn't know what to do. She couldn't sleep without waking up every hour hoping that the feeling around her neck wasn't stone or an arai clasping it's clawed hands on her skin. She couldn't stare at the pitch black without hearing Tartarus's laugh. And most of all, seeing the stars made her vomit because of Bob laying down his life for her and Annabeth to escape.

Annabeth bounced back quicker than she could. It had always been the opposite, but the blonde went back in crisis mode and talked to her girlfriend through IM every chance she could. Grover was her buddy, and yes, Ariadne loved him, but she couldn't confide like they hoped.

So now, Ariadne sits in the room her boyfriend sleeps in with a dozen lights on to project the shadows from them. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason all are getting information and the others are working. Percy offered to stay for comfort but Ariadne shot it down.

She would stare at herself in the mirror every so often, to make sure she wasn't intangible with Death Mist again. Her hair was unruly even more, now a deep shade of purple that seemed more colorful than her father's. The gray streak was bright against her skin as it stuck out, and her eyes were dead, hidden by bags heavy enough to carry all her burdens.

Ariadne was afraid to close her eyes and wake up with fire-water in her throat. Glancing down at her hands, her skin was much darker crawling up her arms before melting into its' normal color. Medusa's curse had permanently altered her body in a constant reminder. A scar from Antaeus' curse was along her sternum.

Percy would trace them with his finger when she struggled to breath, mumbling encouragements and happy thoughts to urge her to calm down. He could only do so much, but she loved him, and he loved her despite it all.

She heard footsteps above, signaling that the trio had arrived back from whatever they had been doing. Piper was yelling for Leo, Annabeth telling Percy what happened, and Jason must've been passed out again cause he wasn't speaking. Everyone was also calling for her in the meeting room for breakfast and to debrief.

Ariadne stood up, shoes knocking against the wood before stumbling down the hallway. She was in a daze, the light burning her eyes.

The other seven demigods were eating breakfast.

She hesitantly took a seat at the head of the table on one side, Percy's hand immediately finding its way to her thigh and ankle wrapping around her own. The girl gulped and felt terrible being in the lead when she almost died in Tartarus, no help to anyone.

After Coach Hedge left on his shadow-travel expedition, Leo had decided that his three-legged table could do just as good a job in keeping everyone in line with Grover. He had laminated Buford's tabletop with a magic scroll that projected a pint sized holographic simulation of Coach Hedge. Mini-Hedge would stop around on Buford's top, randomly saying things like 'CUT THAT OUT!' 'I'M GONNA KILL YOU!' and the ever popular 'PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!'

Percy was eating a huge stack of blue pancakes while Annabeth chided him for pouring too much syrup.

"You're drowning them!" she complained.

"Hey, I'm a Poseidon kid," he said. "I can't drown. And neither can my pancakes."

His smile directed itself to Ariadne, who typically would laugh at his joke, but her smile weakened when he stared at her dark circles and shaking hands stuffed in her lap. Percy gripped her thigh tighter and tapped a few beats upon it as a means to calm her, but it did nothing.

To their left, Frank and Hazel used their cereal bowls to flatten out a map of Greece. They looked over it, their heads close together. Every once in a while Frank's hand would cover Hazel's, just sweet and natural like they were an old married couple, and Hazel didn't even look flustered, which was real progress for a girl from the 1940s. Until recently, if somebody cursed (mostly Ariadne), she would nearly faint. And don't get her started on when she had caught Percy and Ariadne making out in the infirmary after he got cut badly in a fight. She couldn't look at them for days.

At the other head of the table, Jason sat uncomfortably with his T-shirt rolled up to his rib cage as Nurse Piper changed his bandages.

"Hold still," she said. "I know it hurts."

"It's just cold," he said.

Ariadne could hear the pain in his voice. She flashed back to when she was basically dying after the arai attack and tried warding Annabeth off from suffocating her even more, voice in shambles.

Her hands tensed on the edge of the table, tightening until her knuckles were white. Annabeth seemed to notice and judged Percy who glanced over and sighed. He pushed his plate away, scooting his chair right nest to her before taking her hands in his own and holding them.

Percy was warm against her skin that seemed to constantly be cold ever since she returned from Tartarus. Even thinking of how warm it was down there made her blood run cold and the sweat bead down her forehead. How Annabeth was taking this so well she didn't know.

"What's up, guys?" Leo said. "Aw, yes to brownies!"

He grabbed the last one—from a special sea-salt recipe they'd picked up from Aphrodite the fish centaur at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Typically Ariadne would fight him for it, but she hasn't eaten anything in a day and wasn't hungry, even though Percy was physically trying to shove pancakes down her throat as he muttered Greek curses at her.

Everyone jumped when Buford yelled through the intercom.

Hazel ended up five feet away from Frank. Percy spilled syrup in his orange juice as Ariadne swatted at him for finally having her chew a large chunk of the stack of pancakes. Jason awkwardly wriggled back into his t-shirt, and Frank turned into a bulldog.

Piper glared at Leo. "I thought you were getting rid of that hologram."

"Hey, Buford's just saying good morning. He loves his hologram! Besides, we all miss the coach. And Frank makes a cute bulldog."

Grover can strolling in as he grumbled. "That stupid table kept screaming at me to put some pants on."

He sat next to Annabeth, immediately chewing on a tin can that magically appeared on his plate.

Frank morphed back into a burly, grumpy Chinese Canadian dude. "Just sit down, Leo. We've got stuff to talk about."

Leo squeezed in between Jason and Hazel. He took a bite of his browning and grabbed a pack of Italian junk food—Fonzies—to round out his balanced breakfast.

"So..." Jason winced as he leaned forward. "We're going to stay airborne and drop anchor as close as we can to Olympus. It's further inland than I'd like—about five miles—but we don't have much choice. According to Juno, we have to find the goddess of victory and, um...subdue her."

Uncomfortable silence around the table.

Grover's chewing became frantic and he let out small bleats.

With the new drapes covering the holographic walls, the mess hall was darker and gloomier than it should've been, but that couldn't be helped. Ever since the Kerkopes dear twins had short-circuited the walls, the real-time video feed from Camp Half-Blood often fuzzed out, changing into a playback of extreme dwarf close ups—red whiskers, nostrils and bad dental work. It wasn't helpful when you were trying to eat or have a serious conversation about the fate of the world.

Percy sipped his syrup-flavored orange juice. He seemed to find it okay. "I'm cool with fighting the occasional goddess, but isn't Nike one of the good ones? I mean, personally, I like victory. I can't get enough of it."

Annabeth drummed her fingers on the table. "It does seem strange. I understand why Nike would be in Olympia—home of the Olympics and all that. The contestants sacrificed to her. Greeks and Romans worshipped her there for, like, twelve hundred years, right?"

"Almost to the end of the Roman Empire," Frank agreed. "Romans called her Victoria, but same difference. Everybody loved her. Who doesn't like to win? Not sure why we would have to subdue her."

Jason frowned. A wisp of steam curled from the would under his shirt. "All I know...the ghoul Antinous said, Victory runs rampant in Olympia. Juno warned us that we could never heal the rift between the Greeks and Romans unless we defeated victory."

"How do we defeat victory?" Piper wondered. "Sounds like one of those impossible riddles."

"Like making stones fly," Leo said, "or eating only one Fonzie."

He popped a handful into his mouth.

Hazel wrinkled her nose. "That stuff is going to kill you."

"You kidding? So many preservatives in these things, I'll live forever. But, hey, about this victory goddess being popular and great—Don't you guys remember what her kids are like at Camp Half-Blood?"

Hazel and Frank had never been to Camp Half-Blood, but the others nodded gravely.

"He's got a point," Percy said. "Those kids in Cabin Seventeen—they're super competitive. When it comes to capture the flag, they're almost worse than the Ares kids. Uh, no offense, Frank."

Frank struggled. "You're saying Nike had a dark side?"

"Her kids sure do," Grover said. "They never turn down a challenge. They have to be number one at everything. They once chased me around camp after Clarisse told them she could hunt me better. If their mom is that intense..."

"Whoa." Piper put her hands on the table like the ship was rocking. "Guys, all the gifs are split between their Greek and Toman aspects, right? If Nike's that way and she's the goddess of victory—"

"She'd be really conflicted," Grover said. "She'd want one side or the other to win so she could declare a victory. She'd literally be fighting with herself."

Hazel nudged her cereal bowl across the map of Greece. "But we don't want one side or the other to win. We've got to get the Greeks and Romans on the same team."

"Maybe that's the problem," Jason said. "If the goddess of victory is running rampant, torn between Greek and Roman, she might make it impossible bring the two camps together."

"How?" Leo asked. "Start a glam war on Twitter?"

Percy stabbed his pancakes. "Maybe she's like Ares. That guy can spark a fight just by walking into a crowded room. If Nike radiated competitive vibes or something, she could aggravate the whole Greek-Roman rivalry big-time."

Frank pointed at Percy. "You remember that old sea god in Atlanta—Phorcys? He said that Gaia's plans always have lots of layers. This could be part of the giants' strategy—keep the two camps divided; keep the gods divided. If that's the case, we can't let Nike play us against each other. We should send a landing party of four—two Greeks, two Romans. The balance might help keep her balanced."

"He's right," Ariadne spoke for the first time. Her voice was no longer hard and sharply lined with barbed wire, but vulnerable and crackling with something they all knew was too risky to ask about. "A party of four. We'll have to be careful who goes. We don't want to do anything that might make the goddess, um, more unstable."

Percy's eyes dimmed while she seemed to shake in her seat. Something was twisting her insides into this scared girl she hadn't been since she was five.

"I'll go," Piper said. "I can try charm speaking."

Worry lines deepened around Annabeth's eyes. "Not this time, Piper. Nike is all about competition. Aphrodite...we'll, she is too, in her own way. I think Nike might see you as a threat."

Annabeth's words didn't seem to upset her. Piper nodded and scanned the group. "Who should go, then?"

"Jason and Percy shouldn't go together," Annabeth said. "Jupiter and Poseidon—bad combination. Nike could start you two fighting easily."

Percy gave her a sideways smile and wrapped an arm around Ariadne. "Yeah, we can't have another incident like in Kansas. I might kill my bro Jason."

"Or I might kill my bro Percy," Jason said amiably.

"Which proves my point," Annabeth said. "We also shouldn't send Frank and me together. Mara and Athena—that would be bad."

Annabeth and Frank exchanged war-godly looks.

"Okay," Leo broke in. "If you think about it, everyone here is on good terms with Ariadne, right?"

Nods were given around the room. They looked to the girl who seemed dazed and zoned out, staring at the open doorway and into the dark hallway.

"Why not base it around that? Me and Percy for the Greeks. Frank and Hazel for the Romans. Firebird can be our powerful backup and stay farther back than the rest of us. Is that the ultimate non-competitive dream team or what?"

"It could work," Frank decided. "I mean, no combination is going to be perfect, but Poseidon, Hephaestus, Pluto, Mars, Dionysus...I don't see any huge antagonism there."

Hazel traced her finger along the map of Greece. "I still wish we could've gone through the Gulf of Corinth. I was hoping we could visit Delphi, maybe get some advice. Plus it's such a long way around the Peloponnese."

"Yeah." Leo's heart sank when he looked at how much coastline they still had to navigate. "It's July twenty-second already. Counting today, only ten days until—"

"I know," Jason said. "But Juno was clear. The shorter way would have been suicide."

"And as for Delphi..." Piper leaned towards the map. The blue strands of her hair swung like a pendulum. "What's going on there? If Apollo doesn't have his Oracle any more..."

Percy grunted. "Probably something to do with that creep Octavian. Maybe he was so bad at telling the future he broke Apollo's powers."

Jason managed a smile, though his eyes were cloudy from pain. "Hopefully we can find Apollo and Artemis. Then you can ask him yourself. Juno said the twins might be willing to help us."

"A lot of unanswered questions," Grover muttered. "A lot of miles to cover before we get to Athens."

"First things first," Annabeth said. "You guys have to find Nike and figure out how to subdue her...whatever Junk meant by that. I still don't understand how you defeat a goddess who controls victory. Seems impossible.

Leo started to grin.

"We'll see about that once she meets Ariadne." He rose to his feet. "Let me get my collection of grenades and I'll meet you guys on deck!"

Ariadne joined the conversation again when his hand clasped onto her shoulder in goodbye. Her eyes were still cloudy but released Percy's hands, standing up shakily.

"I need to grab something from my room," she said softly. "Perc, can you come with."

Percy nodded immediately.

His hand guided her on the small of her back, right where his Achilles heel had once been. Percy followed her out into the hall before she found her door, hands missing the handles and him opening the door to her room. Ariadne shoved herself through a crack in hurried fashion as Percy shut it behind them.

Ariadne shook her hands out to get rid of the nerves but they kept coming back. She knew she was useless. She barely survived Tartarus, how was she going to be useful to save her friends and boyfriend from another eternal being? The old her from a month ago would've grinned at the challenge of the impossible and joked, but standing in her room that seemed to get colder each day, she could feel her chest tighten at even picking up her sword and swinging it.

Percy watched her quietly. Tartarus had been the worst thing to ever happen, for him and her. While she went through the physical and mental anguish of being there for weeks, he was stuck to emotionally pick up the pieces and wondered if he had gone after her if anything would've changed. For weeks he stood holding the hand of a ghost as they attempted to find the mortal side of the doors, to get back to her, and when he had, he ran away the second he caught sight of her until there was no choice.

The son of Poseidon believed himself the coward he always knew he was. Ariadne was more courageous than he could ever aspire to be, and yet she was running after him, trying to gain the distance out between them. He never meant for that, but what was he supposed to do now that she was back but a shell of herself.

There was such barriers and strain on their relationship.

Ariadne and Percy never believed they would fall out of love. But trauma was the pressure that might've cracked her and him, and now they couldn't really speak well enough without one of them crying and ignoring the situation. They needed to talk, and he would wait a thousand years to defeat Gaia and Nike if it meant she would talk to Percy, for her voice to breathe into his heart and set it alight.

Percy placed his hands on her face, brushing the tears swelling in her eyes away. Her breath was shaky at his actions, as if expecting it to be a trick and she was back to jagged glass shores and fire-water. He cradled her head in his hands so carefully she would break if he let go.

"I can't," Ariadne whispered. It was so low it seemed to be a release of breath. "I don't think I can be useful. I'm not the same anymore, and I don't know how Annie is doing it."

He did respond. His sea-green eyes tore her down into the scared girl she had always been, putting her back together over and over in his mind to where she once was and her present self. Ariadne wanted him to scream and cry for something but he wouldn't give that to her. He was so annoying—pushing when she pulled, never meeting her halfway but going over the whole spectrum.

Percy leaned his forehead against hers'. "You don't have to. You can stay here, with Annabeth and Grover, to sleep and to eat because you haven't in days."

Ariadne shook her head. "But Gaia expects me to cower, to run, but i can't do anything but that. How do I make myself who I was before?"

"You can't," Percy told her. "Tartarus took her from you, but you can get her back, still yourself but older, wiser, and braver than the Ariadne Aidan Phoenix who would give herself up for anything—now, you can take some for yourself and do what you want without worry of anyone else."

She let the tears fall in sobs and they racked her body. He held her into his chest and she twisted his shirt into her hands. Percy was her reason to live, to fight, to fix everything in the godly world so he could smile again.

But he was right—she couldn't be who she was, but she could get her back.

Ariadne pressed her lips to his as she breathed in his souls and body, her own warming itself back to a natural temperature. Everything he said, or meant to say escaped into her heart as it blazed bigger than it once had, and the little girl she was scared of becoming grew into where she was standing, from where she survived.

Ariadne Aidan Phoenix loved Perseus Jackson, but she loved the little daughter of Dionysus at the edge of camp who cried for her mom.

And Gaia could take all she wanted, but not those two, and she would kill anyone to get what she wanted. Even if it meant doing things she had refused to before.

Thus, the Slayer of Gaia was born.

authors note:

It's been so long! My graduation date is so soon in May, I'm going to college and Italy for spring break! Im sorry It's been so long!

Im finally finding time for myself, and thank you if you read this.

Let me know your favorite part and what you're looking forward to!

Love you guys!