I get it, and I'm sorry if it brought up some sad memories.
[ He doesn't know the nature of her relationship with her own kids, but he assumes they aren't here in Abraxas with her.
He can't help but think of his own mom now, back home. Time being weird and wonky as it is, he can only hope that she doesn't even know he's missing. He hates worrying her. ]
So I guess I gotta turn your question around. Do you ... want me to back off?
( what chance has she got, in getting to see her children ever again? the wanda who gets to be a mom, to hold tommy and billy, protect them from nightmares and prepare cakes for their birthdays—that's not her.
that's nothing something that, as she's learned, she's allowed to have. not when she created them 'wrong' the first time around.
so, at the thought of losing someone she considered a son for centuries? the thought alone burns cruelly through her. )
No.
But it's not fair that you get to be stuck with me based on a reality that we lived in being a hazy couple of hundred years at best.
I'd say after everything we've been through in that fake world, we're kinda stuck with each other.
[ Is it fair? Maybe not. Neither of them ever had a choice in it; there was no choosing who should be his mom, or who should be her son. They just ... kinda came together like that.
But isn't that true of his own mom back home? It's not like he chose her, and she didn't choose him either, not really. But the thought of existing in a world where his mom back home didn't exist carves out something hollow and hurtful inside him, laced with guilt for forgetting her for eight hundred years.
He doesn't want to do that again, even if their origins came from a false reality. ]
( maybe it's not meant to be simple or uncomplicated, but their lives here, now, in abraxas, spells for them inevitabilities that they can't just ignore. inevitabilities that they must accept—that wanda must accept, for the sake of her own sanity.
to make sense of the life she wishes to have here, while she is blessed with that time.
his response makes her choke a little with emotion, forcing her to gasp out in order to remember to breathe. we're kinda stuck with each other. she doesn't have to be stubborn if someone else will be, for her. )
[ Oh, he's got plenty of stubbornness to go around, and he'll gladly be stubborn for the both of them. It's literally a part of his fatal flaw, an intrinsic part of him that could be considered a strength but also a weakness that if left uncontrolled could be ... well, fatal. ]
Well, there's always Nocwich, right? I think it should be opening again if it hasn't already?
But if not, I'm sure there will be a chance down the road. We can always make our own chances too.
[ Is he low-key threatening his faction to dare holding him back from reaching out to the people important to him? Maybe.
( this kid (because that's what he is, compared to her), does have the kind of spunk that would make a quiet threat like that have its own amount of gravity. wanda would prefer it that no harm came to him because of it, though. )
We can try Nocwich. And yes, I am in Solvunn. I think I remained in it pretty much the whole time we played as gods. ...
( so, it's not a difficult guess to make. )
Do you have friends in Thorne? Annabeth — she is there, right?
Oh, yeah. I remember now. It seems nice there, if it looks like it did then.
[ That had been where he'd gone to visit her during their family gatherings. Those feel like they happened just yesterday, even if it'd been eight hundred years into a future that doesn't even actually exist.
Oh, boy. That's going to mess with his head for a little while. ]
Yeah, Annabeth is here with me in Thorne.
If she wasn't, I'm pretty sure I'd be wherever she was.
[ They're kind of a package deal, especially these days. ]
( that's — pretty sweet, isn't it? to know love from such a young age, even if he isn't entirely so young. beyond that, a friendship that holds fast and true despite turmoil and challenges. )
I don't remember meeting her. Eight-hundred years is a long time...
( that is to say, perhaps they had, but memories get muddled the farther they pull away from those memories of their possible futures. )
I know there are plenty of adults you can trust in Thorne, but if there anything I can help you both out with, let me know. I'm pretty good with magic.
( and maybe wanda would like to meet annabeth, too. properly, now. )
You're right, 800 years really is a long time. I can't even really comprehend how much time that is, to like ... live through it, you know?
Even now, trying to remember things ... it feels like too much.
[ It just feels like no one should live that long, and no one should have the kind of power they had. To think that he'd wound up living the way he's sure his dad had for at least a part of his life ... it's terrifying. Haunting. Kind of makes him feel a little disgusted, even. ]
Thanks. I can't say I have the best track record with adults, historically speaking, but we're cool so far, right?
( if she notices the disgust in his voice, through her abilities as an empath, wanda keeps it quiet. it just really means that percy has no obstruction to being this open with her.
the way he talks to relate to her, it does make her feel her age, though. )
Yeah, we're cool. I do have magic from before coming here. I had a title and everything. The Scarlet Witch.
( maybe — he'll think that's "cool", even if she carries what that title means as a bit of a burden. )
[ He could probably learn a thing or two about shielding his emotions because it has generally gotten him into trouble in the past.
But ...
That's a future Percy problem. ]
Wow, how did you get a title like that?
[ He has glimpses from their godly hallucinations of seeing Wanda's magic as a god, but he doesn't want to assume that whatever she did then is the same kind of thing she does now. After all, it's not like he can transform into a gigantic tentacled monster and summon the entire ocean. (Thank the gods.)
For the record, he absolutely thinks that her title is cool too. ]
I guess maybe my sense of what's scary is a little messed up.
I've got uncles and aunts and cousins who could turn me into dust or ash with barely a thought. My dad nearly turned me into a grease spot once just for sitting in his chair.
( well, the thing is, percy— wanda can do exactly all those things, too. maybe not so much in abraxas due to the singularity's interference, but if that's something he considers to be scary...
[ He's got a whole slew of daddy issues, but he's working through them. Slowly. Kinda. ]
Zagreus? Yeah, he's kind of like ... I guess a multiversal cousin of mine or something, I think. Like, his pantheon's not exactly the same as mine but the names and the themes are similar enough.
( oh. that does make sense, but it surprises her how seemingly easy and nonchalantly percy is able to just state that information. when billy had been here, a multiversal version of her son, grown up, she hadn't reacted the best, truth be told. )
Yeah, he's pretty alright. And you're just — fine with it? Knowing you have family like that, that isn't quite yours to begin with?
My family is so weird and so unconventional, like I'm the son of a Greek god and my granddad once tried to rise from the depths of Tartarus in order to end the world as we knew it. And just before I got here we were battling Gaia, who is the primordial goddess of the earth and also technically my great-grandmom. My dad created horses so technically they're my siblings. I have a brother who's a Cyclops, and one of my best friends is a satyr.
After a while, you kind of tend to roll with the punches or you could easily lose your marbles. Alternate universe families start to feel like no big deal after that.
Yeah, and think of how I feel, I'm stuck right in the middle of it!
[ He's laughing though. She might feel the edges of humour with his message, even. ]
But my mom ... well, she's mortal. That's why I'm only half-god.
[ How does he even begin to describe Sally Jackson? ]
Her name is Sally, and she did the actual hard work of raising me, especially knowing what I was and how dangerous it could be just existing. I didn't always make it easy for her either, I know that. But she's the best person I know, and everything good about me came from her.
( all this makes her wonder what tommy and billy would say about her, if they ever had the chance to be raised by her and if they could have been a family properly. if they'd think that everything good about them came from her, if they would speak about her to other people with all this love and care. )
Sally sounds really lucky to be your mom. I'm sorry you can't actually be with her now.
( ah, he turns this on her, and— well, it feels a little silly, to be elated at the fact that someone asks for her sons in such an earnest and easy manner. everyone's always walking on eggshells around her when it comes to her time as a mother, in one way or another, and as much as she'd like to not remember how painful it is... she does wish she could talk about it more. )
Tommy and Billy. I wanted all-American names for them, though I only picked out Tommy. My husband picked out Billy.
Those are definitely all-American names, so I'd say that was a success.
[ Not that he personally knows a whole lot of demigods with all-American names — his own name doesn't exactly that sentiment — but he'd gone to school with a fair number of Tommys and Billys and Henrys and Bens. ]
Were they very much alike? I knew a few sets of twins at Camp and it seemed to vary.
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seaweedbrain) wrote2024-04-05 11:53 am
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[ He doesn't know the nature of her relationship with her own kids, but he assumes they aren't here in Abraxas with her.
He can't help but think of his own mom now, back home. Time being weird and wonky as it is, he can only hope that she doesn't even know he's missing. He hates worrying her. ]
So I guess I gotta turn your question around. Do you ... want me to back off?
Because I promise I can totally respect that.
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that's nothing something that, as she's learned, she's allowed to have. not when she created them 'wrong' the first time around.
so, at the thought of losing someone she considered a son for centuries? the thought alone burns cruelly through her. )
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[ Is it fair? Maybe not. Neither of them ever had a choice in it; there was no choosing who should be his mom, or who should be her son. They just ... kinda came together like that.
But isn't that true of his own mom back home? It's not like he chose her, and she didn't choose him either, not really. But the thought of existing in a world where his mom back home didn't exist carves out something hollow and hurtful inside him, laced with guilt for forgetting her for eight hundred years.
He doesn't want to do that again, even if their origins came from a false reality. ]
But I'm okay with that.
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to make sense of the life she wishes to have here, while she is blessed with that time.
his response makes her choke a little with emotion, forcing her to gasp out in order to remember to breathe. we're kinda stuck with each other. she doesn't have to be stubborn if someone else will be, for her. )
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Well, there's always Nocwich, right? I think it should be opening again if it hasn't already?
But if not, I'm sure there will be a chance down the road. We can always make our own chances too.
[ Is he low-key threatening his faction to dare holding him back from reaching out to the people important to him? Maybe.
See, again: his fatal flaw. ]
You're in ... Solvunn? The non-army place?
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( so, it's not a difficult guess to make. )
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[ That had been where he'd gone to visit her during their family gatherings. Those feel like they happened just yesterday, even if it'd been eight hundred years into a future that doesn't even actually exist.
Oh, boy. That's going to mess with his head for a little while. ]
Yeah, Annabeth is here with me in Thorne.
If she wasn't, I'm pretty sure I'd be wherever she was.
[ They're kind of a package deal, especially these days. ]
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( that is to say, perhaps they had, but memories get muddled the farther they pull away from those memories of their possible futures. )
( and maybe wanda would like to meet annabeth, too. properly, now. )
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Even now, trying to remember things ... it feels like too much.
[ It just feels like no one should live that long, and no one should have the kind of power they had. To think that he'd wound up living the way he's sure his dad had for at least a part of his life ... it's terrifying. Haunting. Kind of makes him feel a little disgusted, even. ]
Thanks. I can't say I have the best track record with adults, historically speaking, but we're cool so far, right?
And you've got magic? It's not just a god-thing?
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the way he talks to relate to her, it does make her feel her age, though. )
( maybe — he'll think that's "cool", even if she carries what that title means as a bit of a burden. )
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But ...
That's a future Percy problem. ]
Wow, how did you get a title like that?
[ He has glimpses from their godly hallucinations of seeing Wanda's magic as a god, but he doesn't want to assume that whatever she did then is the same kind of thing she does now. After all, it's not like he can transform into a gigantic tentacled monster and summon the entire ocean. (Thank the gods.)
For the record, he absolutely thinks that her title is cool too. ]
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I guess maybe my sense of what's scary is a little messed up.
I've got uncles and aunts and cousins who could turn me into dust or ash with barely a thought. My dad nearly turned me into a grease spot once just for sitting in his chair.
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best keep it to herself. )
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Poseidon, god of the seas.
[ Note the mild family resemblance in godly abilities. ]
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( his god abilities— )
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Yeah, it probably does.
[ He's got a whole slew of daddy issues, but he's working through them. Slowly. Kinda. ]
Zagreus? Yeah, he's kind of like ... I guess a multiversal cousin of mine or something, I think. Like, his pantheon's not exactly the same as mine but the names and the themes are similar enough.
But unlike Hades himself, Zagreus is pretty cool.
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( oh. that does make sense, but it surprises her how seemingly easy and nonchalantly percy is able to just state that information. when billy had been here, a multiversal version of her son, grown up, she hadn't reacted the best, truth be told. )
( she might be projecting a little?? )
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My family is so weird and so unconventional, like I'm the son of a Greek god and my granddad once tried to rise from the depths of Tartarus in order to end the world as we knew it. And just before I got here we were battling Gaia, who is the primordial goddess of the earth and also technically my great-grandmom. My dad created horses so technically they're my siblings. I have a brother who's a Cyclops, and one of my best friends is a satyr.
After a while, you kind of tend to roll with the punches or you could easily lose your marbles. Alternate universe families start to feel like no big deal after that.
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( greek mythos really is messed up and confusing. she was never particularly into it, outside of what little schooling she got about it. )
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[ He's laughing though. She might feel the edges of humour with his message, even. ]
But my mom ... well, she's mortal. That's why I'm only half-god.
[ How does he even begin to describe Sally Jackson? ]
Her name is Sally, and she did the actual hard work of raising me, especially knowing what I was and how dangerous it could be just existing. I didn't always make it easy for her either, I know that. But she's the best person I know, and everything good about me came from her.
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[ He's the one who lucked out in the mom lottery. ]
Yeah, it sucks. Even before I got here I hadn't seen her in so long.
But tell me about your kids. What are their names? I mean, if you want to.
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[ Not that he personally knows a whole lot of demigods with all-American names — his own name doesn't exactly that sentiment — but he'd gone to school with a fair number of Tommys and Billys and Henrys and Bens. ]
Were they very much alike? I knew a few sets of twins at Camp and it seemed to vary.
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wrapped! 🎀
🎀