chapter 7

Apparently, the Big Three were very unhappy with Athena.

They seldom had children compared to most of the others, even before the Oath, so officially they were insulted that Athena was flaunting her ability to create children in their faces, then losing interest until they were of use to her.

Unofficially, Hades was a devoted, loving father, Poseidon was the father who loved his children but was never there and overcompensated with lavish gifts, while Zeus was the workaholic father who loved in a distant fashion because he didn't know how to interact well with children. But they still loved and could each remember the names, appearances and many personal details of their deceased children even after thousands of years.

Then it came out that, if Athena ever had her powers sealed or cut off from the outside world for even a fraction of an instant, every one of her children would die because they were 'incomplete' people kept in existence by her power, and if that power was taken away, only their father's half would remain and wouldn't be enough to keep them alive. The children's children would also have around a 98 percent mortality rate, with their children's children having less than a 20 percent chance of survival and so on down the line, with all the 'survivors' being mentally and internally crippled in various horrendous ways. And when they meant 'all the way down the line', they meant 'all the way down the line' as the Godly 'gene' never fully faded out even after twenty to thirty generations.

Harry supposed that's what came from making children from 'thoughts' and turning up one's nose at the Natural Order As Ordained By Chaos.

What it came down to, as told to Harry by a distressed Hestia, was that Athena and Minerva were forbidden from having any more children for another thousand years, and even then, she was only allowed to have three a year produced the natural way, which would remove her title of Virgin Goddess.

Apparently, even Hera was disgusted with Athena's excesses, and she threw her child off Olympus hoping he would die. Not even Hephaestus, the said child, was talking to her anymore.

Athena nearly lost her Throne in the upheaval and had run off to her Temple to sulk.

When all was said and done, the final number of children the so-called Goddess of Wisdom had had in the last one hundred years was a staggering one thousand, eight hundred and eighty-two children as Athena, and one thousand, two hundred and three as Minerva.

In the same time period, there were only records for one hundred and eighty-six having made it to Camp Half-Blood, and sixty-two having made it to Camp Jupiter.

The news made Harry so sick to his stomach that he sacrificed a black snakeskin and Stygian Iron spiked whip to Nemesis with the request that she make Athena suffer as the children she abandoned suffer/ed.

He then curled up in his Home workshop and immersed himself in his work, pausing only when he heard the Goddess chuckled breathily in his ear and murmur, "If you keep this up, I may have to start making sacrifices to you to keep up with the balance of dept."

When he was sure she was gone, he continued with the statue he was working on.

(S pac e)

The Guardian of the Sun Gate was named Daphne.

Made from a single, faultless piece of solid white marble traded from Persephone for a metal songbird to follow her around and sing to her, Daphne was a young girl-woman with a curvy form, elegant hands and a smiling, heart-shaped face with tumbling Imperial Gold ringlets tobelow her hips.Her skin was dusted with powdered diamond and mother-of-pearl to give her a luminescent shine, with wire-thin lines of Imperial Gold curling across her skin in a mix of vaguely Arabesque, Abstract and Alchemic stylizations of suns and laurel leaves. On her face, her lips were dusted with gold in the same shades as her long hair, thin eyebrows and thick eyelashes, as hair-thin lines gave her the appearance of a drawn-on mask of laurel leaves and meaningless tendrils or vines.

Her eyes were vivid black onyx without sclera, and quite large and almond-shaped.

Once finished, he covered her form in a tunic-length pure white toga with golden broaches and a girdle, all studded with pearls and sunstones. A white-gold laurel headband and knee-length sandals were set aside for her birth. He weapon was a long thin staff with a stylized sun/mace head on the end and etched with, again, laurels.

The Sun Gate was a golden laurel tree on a white marble backdrop with a sparkling crystal sun caught in the branches. Like the original Daphne, his daughter would live in the tree, sleeping until awakened, and only she could open the Door. It could not be forced.

Unlike her beast-shaped siblings, she was as sex-less as a Barbie doll. Harry didn't want her either being distracted from her duty or raped by an admirer, but he left her with the promise that if she ever truly fell in love, he would change her so she had the appropriate sexual organs.

And since her face and shape was identical in all but colour and patterns to the original Daphne, it was possible Apollo might try for her attentions.

On the other side of things, the Guardian of the Moon Gate was named Hippolytus, after Artemis' favoured disciple and the son of Theseus.

Whom she allowed Aphrodite to dishonour and kill.

While initially Harry was considering using obsidian, it was deemed too fragile and likely to shatter, while it would take too long to find a piece of black onyx large enough to shape, so he had to settle on black marble.

The marble was rubbed in ground black pearl of varying types and black diamond dust for a softer, slightly greyish sheen with pin-pricks of light. Stygian iron, polished to a silvery sheen, was, like his sister, used to draw shapes into his form, only of stylised moons, both crescent and full, across his skin, entwined by lengths of moonflowers and prancing deer.

The contrast of his long, straight, bright silver hair and full silvery lips on such dark skin was both striking and beautiful, his mask a pair of outward-facing crescents at the corners of his eyes, silvery feather-patterned eyeshadow and a large, stylized crescent above his eyes like a cradle, stylized vines swirling around and forming a moonflower in the cradle of the crescent.

He was tall and leggy, again made in the form of the original Hippolytus, with smooth muscles and elegant hands. Overall, he was of similar appearance to Harry had he been taller, only in black and silver, and slightly effeminate.

Like Daphne, his eyes were large and almond-shaped, only his eyes were smooth white pearls as bright as her own were black, each the size of bantam eggs.

He was just sexless as his sister was, for similar reasons, and he would similarly receive his male-parts if he ever fell in love.His form, Harry dressed in a tunic-length inky-black toga with silver broaches and a silvery silk tasselled rope, all studded with black pearls and white diamonds. A silver and onyx hair clasp was made to hold his hair back and knee-length sandals were set aside for his birth.

He was also gifted with an oversized composite bow with arms that sharpened to bladed edges on the front for if he wanted to whack someone with it. Scrolling down the sides of the bow were moonflower vines, and the arrows were all alder wood fletched with harpy feathers (donated by the harpy sisters who had moved into Home with their male chick), and tipped with Divine Metal-studded diamond heads. The arrows were charmed to return to their quiver a minute after they stop moving.

The Moon Gate was black marble with the door arch overgrown with greened copper vines and bright silver moonflowers. The black doors were studded with diamond 'stars' and a crystal 'moon' over a hillside of elegant silver lines representing 'grass' ending in a cliff over a silver 'sea', 'waves' crashing upon 'rocks' at the bottom. Like Daphne, only Hippolytus could open the doors, and he slept in an entanglement of moonflower vines against one of the gate pillars.

Finally, once Harry was finished with his two new children, but before he 'awakened' them, he considered that they might get lonely, so he gave Daphne a golden songbird and a golden cat, while Hippolytus was given a silver fawn and a silver Lurcher hound. None of the four pets were truly 'alive' like Harry's children would be, but they were given a kind of 'intelligence', and his children would be able to see and hear through them.

Deciding to take a break before he began exsanguinating himself, Harry wandered into town, specifically the burgeoning marketplace around Hestia's Hearth.

(space)

Several hours later, Harry was still luxuriating in the heat of the massive fire, sometimes discussing things with the people who came over to him and often just listening to the hubbub around him, when Thalia Grace spotted him and came over, Danny, the little boy with the missing eye and hand resting on her hip. The grapevine said the daughter of Zeus had pretty much adopted him and he lived in her small cottage with Thalia, Annabeth and Luke by the Aleta Dorms.

Harry smiled as the now cheerful and healthily glowing girl dropped down on the bench across from him, bouncing cheerfully and grinning, obviously having just come from the vegetable gardens they'd set up from the look of her.

"Hey there, boss-man! How ya doin'?"

"I'm well, Thalia. Are you settling in alright?" Harry inquired as Danny wiggled free and crawled onto the gorgon's lap.

The girl nodded happily. "It's been great! We have our own permanent place and there are no monsters around. We even get to eat three times a day, which is awesome." Harry nodded along, letting the toddler play with his hands, as the girl happily rambled on about what she had been doing, occasionally breaking in with a query or comment.

It was after she petered out and happily stared over the demi-gods and legacies moving around Home that Harry carefully broached the subject that most demi-gods avoided."I know this is a sensitive subject, but do you have any family you would like to contact or bring to Home?"

Thalia's lips pressed together and she avoided looking at him. "My mum's a drunk. All she ever cared about was my father when I was growing up. She's probably happier without me."

Harry hummed. "I noticed you're good with small children and know how to care for them. Did you have any siblings?"

The girl flinched, lip trembling as she turned her gaze to her lap. "My little brother, Jason." She bit out bitterly. "We had both the same parents. Hera stole him and I never found out what she did to him."

"Alright." Harry pulled her into a side hug. "Do you want me to find out what she did?"

Thalia hesitated then nodded, taking a deep breath. The gorgon changed the subject.

"So, is there anything you want to do when you grow up? Some of the human parents are teachers and are setting up a school here. Officially you'll be home-schooled, but you can still do online courses for university or college when you get older."

Thalia gave him a shaky smile and rubbed her eyes. "Yeah. I wanted to be a police officer when I was little, but there's not much call for it here. Maybe a combat instructor?"

Harry smiled. "You can be a police officer if you want. We will eventually need to expand our network outside Home to find new demi-gods. A police officer who can see through the Mist would be able to help any demi-gods, or even normal humans, in the event of monster attacks, homicides, kidnappings or even just runaways."

The teenager looked at him askance. "Really?"

"Really really."

The smile she gave was bright. "Thanks."

After she bounced off with the now napping Danny, Harry tilted his head to look at Hestia, who had been tending the flames a few metres to the side.

"Could you…?"

The girl-woman nodded, a frown marring her face. "I will see what I can do."

(space)

About two weeks after everyone had settled into Home, Harry took a number of parents and older demi-gods born on farms or ranches to the stockyards for cattle (both dairy and meat), sheep, duck and chickens, and some milking goats.

Twelve overall, they were split into pairs and sent off with a Goblin who would pay for the purchases and transport the livestock to Home.Harry, himself, split off with an older legacy whose father had been a son of Poseidon back in the 20s to look at horses to be used for mustering the cattle from the hills around Home during the monthly health and stock checks, as well as some leisure or cavalry types. At the last minute, there was also some requests for cold-bloods to pull the ploughs and turn the mill from the Agriculture Committee since they were trying to limit machinery, and thus air pollution, within the Marble Reality.

He ended up buying several young former-mustang mares, two young Nokota fillies from excess stock, an older Australian Quarter Horse stallion for breeding, a few mixed-breed geldings of good conformation and what Xion, the demi-god, reported to having identified herself as a Flordia Cracker Horse who had been inherited by a grandchild of her now deceased former owner and who didn't understand that the grullo mare's breed was rare and endangered, so was selling her as merely a stock horse. She was about middle aged, but still young enough to foal without issue, and she loved herding and didn't mind children. These ten would be the foundation stock for the working horses for the stockhands, and would be bred by both the stallion and outside breeders while the geldings worked.

A further ten mares, both horses and larger ponies, were chosen for the leisure riding, while ten Standarbred mares and two stallions, four Thoroughbred mares and a stallion, and a Frisian-cross-Thoroughbred colt (apparently a whoops foal and barely weaned) were picked out as cavalry stock. Four big draught horses, two geldings and two mares, and a set of four Fell Ponies (three sisters and a gelding brother) were picked for the Agriculture Committee.

At the end of the three days, about five hundred animals had been bought and then were ghosted into Home through the new Moon and Sun Gates under the curious and amused gazes of their new Guardians.

Hestia was delighted when Harry presented her with the two last minute, surprise pets he'd saved from the knackery.

Two grey donkeys named Big Hoss and Chumly were thereafter permanent fixtures around town.