Ajax’s grave, final labor

{Island of Salamis, May 1st 2005}

"Haah"

A gasp escaped my dry throat and parched lips, threads of black stretched across my body like centipedes crawling, they travelled my torso entering through my pores attaching themselves onto my ribs. Sickening cracks echoed throughout the island and then in an instant it stopped, the island silent as a crypt.

Gasps of pain, tiredness, frustration; I honestly couldn't tell. I then placed my hands on the rough ground slowly standing up once more, dragging myself slowly across the terrain I reached him once more, Heracles or his corpse for that matter.

I looked upon the now dead god, everything about him was perfect, his face, his eyes, his smile except for one minute detail a gaping hole where his heart should be.

"You sure gave me a run for my money," I muttered a stifling laugh escaping my lips. I had survived by sheer luck nothing more nothing less, it infuriated me that after all my training, all my power I needed a new boost to win.

I shook my head I couldn't, no I shouldn't think about it, I had beaten him, I had killed him and that was all that mattered at this moment, yet at that moment the cleared sky was covered by dark clouds, lightning thundered in them and then the rain started fall still I heard something amiss the rain, the roaring winds a laugh feminine yet venomous.

"Hahahaha, at least that bastard is dead."

Then like a whisper the laughter stopped while the rain and thunder kept on falling, shaking my head once more I went on dragging my tired feet across the ground slowly turning to mud when finally I reached the only structure on the entire island that looked it hadn't been even close to my fight against Heracles' the stony doorway as pristine as always.

Reaching the doorway I looked down upon the staircase no torches to light the way only darkness something I kept on getting closer every year, every month, every day.

At the end of the stairs I reached it, what I was searching for on a wooden and rotting stele lay a corpse now only bones and dust two golden drachmas inside its skull only one other thing existed in this place a sword laid ag after not gaining Achilles' armor.

Plunging my hand into my shadow I grasped the sheet of metal that Ajax had killed himself over, I grabbed the breastplate placing it upon the skeleton which looked like it could turn to dust at any moment, then the armguards, the greaves and finally the bronze helmet, I grabbed the sword which lay against the stele and placed it upon his chest the creaking of the wooden stele almost crumbling under the weight.

Then it came, my father's calling.

{Odysseus Dreamscape, Time Unknown}

"Are you okay son?"

A simple nod was all I could give, even in this place I was almost too tired to move.

A sigh reverberated in my ears before my father spoke up again "Then I guess we should keep on doing. You're final labor is to do something no demigod has done before you, you must kill Echidna Mother of Monsters." 

I looked up at the biggest eye just as I usually did and then asked "How?"

"A good mother loves her children."

With those words I sunk into the ground and the dreamscape shattered.

{Camp Half-Blood, 1st of May 2004} 

Luke Castellan POV

Green smoke gathered around me showing me something which I didn't want to remember. My mother with sunken tired eyes, the torn down house filled with burnt cookie trays and filled jars, even rats probably felt like it was too filthy for even them.

The view changed to that of my mother her hands above the burnt cookie filled oven and then she spoke.

"In shadows cast, a repeat of a quest,

Where apples lay hidden, put to the test.

 From youth's naive grasp to fate's cruel jest,

An identity lost, in time dressed.

Fear grips tight in this possessed behest;

 A coming of age, in frustration confessed."

Then a deep voice resounded in my head one which had kept on growing louder since Thalia's death. "I told you already this is just for their entertainment."

"I know." I spat but still I wanted to give them one more chance, I didn't know why but within my depths I knew I had to do this quest.

[Greek Myth Fact: The Oracle of Delphi, believed to deliver prophecies from the Greek god Apollo. She was based in his temple at Delphi. The oracle, who at first was called Pytho) and later Pythia, reached the height of her fame between about the 8th and 4th centuries BCE, when Apollo's advice or sanction was sought by lawmakers, colonists, and founders of cults. The Pythia's counsel was most in demand to forecast the outcome of projected wars or political actions.

According to tradition, the oracle first belonged to Gaia but later was either given to or stolen by Apollo. The Delphic medium was a woman over 50 who lived apart from her husband and dressed in a maiden's clothes. Upon her death, a new priestess would be chosen, though the selection process is uncertain. Because the Pythia was said to communicate directly with Apollo, she was incredibly influential, so much so that several wars were waged over the oracle, with control of Delphi shifting between rival city-states.]

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