Of Beginnings and Ends

Chapter 16: Of Beginnings and Ends

Of Beginnings and Ends

24 June 2002

I stared down at the bound Titan after his words and indication revealed to me what I knew was to be the next step of my journey, and even as I contemplated freeing him, the short chat I just had with Abigail came to the forefront of my mind, giving me pause. A place where demigods could live peacefully... There was potential there, especially given its location in the Sea of Monsters. If we left, we wouldn't be able to return, given the metaphysical bullshit that defined the whole area, but if there was a way to harness the evershifting properties of the Sea...

While the isolation from the mortals is somewhat forced because of the everpresent monsters hiding among them, it will be absolute unless I figure out a way for the people of... dare I say it? My city... sure as Hades I'm not calling the city New Athens... and Prometheus is a crafter, is he not? I thought as I looked over his bound form, knowing that the choice was mine, otherwise, it seemed unlikely that I would have met him once more.

"You're not actually thinking about freeing him, are you?" Abigail's voice stole me away from my musings, forcing me to think about the undoubtedly heated opinions my crew was going to share with me once the daughter of Apollo told them about Prometheus.

"He had nothing to offer me before Annabeth freed him," I commented off-handedly as I turned my back on the knowing glint in the Titan's eyes: "But things have changed a bit now, can you send over Jillian, David and Hailey? We need to decide what to do with him, it's the second time he appears in front of me, it looks like the Moirai want me to interact with the poor sod." I wonder if he can figure out some sort of compass that will always lead to this island...

"I don't appreciate being referred to as a 'poor sod'." I expertly ignored the mockingly wounded voice of the Titan in order to stare at Abigail, who hesitated for a second before she went looking for those I had asked for.

Prometheus waited until the daughter of Apollo was out of hearing before he started his sales pitch: "So we meet again, and under the same circumstances."

I gave him an unimpressed look: "Spare me."

"You've already decided to free me." he floored me with his insight, making me sigh in annoyance. And the worst was that he wasn't that wrong. I hadn't freed him at our first meeting for two reasons. Reason number one: Zeus was one of the few Olympians that I was sure wasn't openly against our free-roaming, and opposing a punishment dished out by him didn't sound particularly wise. Reason number two: he simply didn't have anything interesting to offer me. At the time I was more concerned with keeping up with our travel, we had just sailed and two of ours were already taken by the sea... the moral of the crew risked to be broken before we actually got started.

"I'm thinking about it, but I really don't need you to start moving the pieces to overthrow Olympus' King." I eyed him knowingly, grinning at how his eyes widened at my direct admission of knowing what was yet to happen.

"I could swear on the Styx that I'm not going to..." I stopped him by shaking my head and walking towards the incoming group.

"So," David was the first to address the elephant in the room once I reached them: "What are we going to do with the Titan?" he eyed Annabeth speculatively, "Now that we don't have to guard him against the overzealous brat at least."

Annabeth huffed in irritation and took a threatening step towards the son of Hephaestus only to be stopped by her sister's hand landing on her shoulder in order to pull her back. Jillian then spoke loudly enough to be heard by the whole group: "This time perhaps you could avoid butting in, don't you agree?" the saccharine smile that accompanied her words sent a shiver down my spine.

"Abigail pointed out that we basically conquered the island, I'm not that eager to abandon it," I started, "But I know that we're not done yet travelling, so stopping here is not an option, splitting up is an idea..."

"You want to send people in the Labirynth?" Jillian hissed turning towards me, and I cringed a bit.

"Abigail talks too much I see," I groaned as I turned towards Hailey, who had yet to say anything.

The daughter of Hypno shrugged, deciding to not share her opinion, and I was left with an annoyed Jillian glaring at me.

I sighed: "The Labirynth seems to be a good way to both look for Pan and find a way in and out of the island without getting lost at sea."

"Oh, so you not only want to enter the biggest deadly trap ever conceived, but you want to figure out a way to... what? Use it as your hidden highway across the world?" Jillian's hand reached for the dagger she had on her waist, as if she was going to kill me in order to not waste time with my admittedly foolish idea.

"If he succeeds, however, we'd have this island as a safe base, and well, roaming and randomly testing ourselves was kind of the point of the whole trip on board of the Adamas, was it not?" Hailey decided to butt in, only to amend an instant later: "And yes, finding the Golden Fleece in order to Save Thalia is a good enough side-project, as well as looking for Pan, Charles wouldn't be here otherwise."

David simply hummed in thought before rolling his shoulders: "I kind of want to set up a proper forge, there is much yet to be used from the haul on Circe's island."

Jillian whirled on him and made to talk only for me to cut in: "I was thinking to ask him to teach David how to build something to navigate Dedalus' creation, and something to always found this island, we could place the... magical compass? machine? bullshit-GPS? both on the Adamas and with the group braving the Labyrinth, and have a stable, safe place only for us."

"An island for less than 20 demigods?" Annabeth quirked an eyebrow in a sarcastic manner only to be shushed by her elder sister.

"There aren't many demigods that manage to become older than seventeen unless they never leave Camp, and eventually they leave out of boredom, only to die meaninglessly when they let their guard down," Hailey shrugged, "It was one of the reasons why Icarus had it so easy in recruiting us."

"I don't want everyone to come here." I cut her off, "but this could be a place for those like us that want... more. The Adamas is our thing, but there will eventually be others like us, and if we manage to survive we'll want a place to... relax, I guess?" I was mostly winging it, but there was something incredibly appealing about founding an entire city. Who knew, maybe I could forge an entire myth out of it?

"You're the one in charge, Icarus," David pointed out without a hint of doubt: "It's been a wild ride up until now, it will likely keep being so, and it would be nice having an easily defendable safe heaven where we're not forced to follow the Camp's rulebook."

"So you agree?" I asked, only to receive a collective snort as an answer.

"You weren't looking for our support," Hailey half-laughed, only to be joined by an exasperated Jillian: "Only to confirm that even if you're batshit crazy, we'd still follow you. We will, by the way."

I found myself feeling gratitude towards the demigods surrounding me. It was one thing to have them obey orders when in battle, even if more or less everybody already knew what to do, it was a wholly different matter to see them not freaking out for a single instant when I proposed something that, as far as I knew, had never been attempted before.

Then my thoughts returned towards the foolish-mad-awe-inspiring idea that Abigail made me consider: founding a city on the island. We'll need to name the island at some point, names are powerful and all of that jazz... and we'll need a patron eventually, of that I have little doubt. But who?

While Dionysus was undoubtedly an option, I was unsure about the repercussions that said patron would have on the nature of the city, nevermind upon the people of the Adamas. Rome had chosen Mars as their patron, and they spammed the most terrifying empire ever seen, but I couldn't do the same with Ares, he was the embodiment of battle, and while he was certainly among those rooting for the Adamas' success, he was also the same idiot that would try to engineer a war in the heart of Olympus itself because he was bored.

In general, I couldn't genuinely trust anyone among the Olympians, but asking for a patron among minor deities would likely offend the twelve Olympians. It was an annoying conundrum: I would need someone separated from the divine politics, someone that wouldn't be hassle to deal with, someone that wouldn't oppose my decisions, no matter how bat-shit insane they would end up looking like.

"Icarus?" David's hand landed heavily on my shoulder: "Are you still with us?" he asked, making me abandon my rapidly spiralling thoughts. I'll think about it later.

"Have you ever worked with Stone?" I asked in return, making him blink in surprise.

"I mean... a little..." he answered tentatively: "But I can figure it out, at least we won't be lacking stone as a material, but we'll need a shitload of blessed bronze in order to set up defences as I like them."

My eyes found Jillian's while I returned to a point we needed to address: "If we're actually keeping the island, besides having Prometheus teach us how to always find it, we'll need to fortify not only the eventual city, but the whole island."

Jillian nodded thoughtfully: "Basically the island is one giant cliff with an opening that leads directly into the Bay, so building a proper Harbour would be the place where to start, we can go by terracing multiple levels until we reach the summit of the island, from there we would have the advantage upon any invading force, ballistas and greek fire could rain death upon the vast majority of monsters..."

"We are too few to actually build a city, you'll realize that." Hailey pointed out, making everyone roll their eyes even as the daughter of Hypno snorted. Once more, everyone was acutely aware of the fact that we were going to claim the island and build a city on it because we could, and that was reason enough. What was the point in dreaming conservatively? We might as well go for broke.

"Charles and Hannah can coerce vegetables and what not to grow." Piped up Annabeth, remembering everyone that she was still here.

I sighed, eyeing her briefly before nodding in assent, it was a good idea.

"We're still banking everything upon having Prometheus tell us of a way to find again this place." the young daughter of Athena went ahead: "But with Transmutation, it shouldn't be impossible, I mean... Sophie was looking into harmonically liking two materials, so..."

I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise at that revelation, and I looked questioningly at David, who was supposed to be the Head Engineer and thusly should have known about the possibility. He shrugged dismissively: "Magic is not my thing, but I know enough that I can safely say that it's unlikely that we'll find a way to actually navigate either the Sea of Monsters or the Labyrynth."

After everyone got a task or another, we decided to call upon everyone and return to the Adamas, where we were going to make Annabeth fall into a deep slumber so that we could go ritualistically insane in order to properly celebrating our victory in a war against an army of giant man-eaters.

26 June 2002

"I'm the Titan of forethought. I know what's going to happen." Prometheus taunted me once I walked back to his bound form, two days after our final defeat of the Laestrygonians.

Once more, I was forced to recognize that his bearing and quiet confidence were used masterfully, because even as he was bound naked to a lump of rock, he looked like a king holding court.

"I often thought that my foreknowledge was an advantage, and that it would allow me to actually change something." I found myself answering him: "I've likey felt the same as you did when you tricked Annabeth into freeing you the last time, and yer, here we are, the moirai have decided that it wasn't your time to be free yet."

Prometheus allowed a grimace to shine upon his face, making me relax marginally the muscles of my shoulders as my hands slid over the smooth shaft of wood that I brought with me from the Adamas. The staff I was wielding had been obtained from the branch of the Tree of the Golden Apples, and had been waiting in the captain's quarters until now, until I found a use for it.

"I remember fondly my meeting with Atlas," I spoke quietly, "he ripped a whole branch from the Queen's tree, and I managed to salvage not only the wood, but even an apple from that ill-fated quest."

"And now you're asking me what would happen if you were to eat an apple?" Prometheus asked me with a raised eyebrow, "No, that's something you could have figured out on your own, and you're not so blatant... Ah..." he sighed, a sly smile comparing on his face while his eyes trailed upon the wood of the tree: "You want to blossom another Tree of Golden Apples here on your brand new island, don't you?"

I frowned minutely at the Titan's knowing gaze, I had thought about it the day before: "We'd need to be many more in order to be able to defend the island if that was the case."

"Then you're wiser than most demigods, Skyholder, because you're not ready for the kind of attention that a Queen's Tree would bring." Prometheus nodded as if to genuinely compliment me: "But I don't have the knowledge you seek, even if I can direct you towards someone who does... you know my price."

I frowned in displeasure at his answer, and for an instant, I felt tempted. A tree of golden apples that everyone on the Adamas could enjoy, I only had to free the bound Titan, and he would send me on my way. Then I forced myself to recognize my priorities, and slammed closed the doors that led my thoughts in that direction.

"How can I safely navigate the Labyrinth without a clear-sighted mortal or Ariadne's Thread?" I tilted my head, hoping that Prometheus would pull out of his ass the solution to our most pressing problem. Didn't he run in the Labyrinth at the first opportunity in order to avoid Zeus' punishment? He should have a solution.

The grim smile that I received made my shoulders slump in defeat: "The Labyrinth is more than a Living Maze of Stone Corridors, to choose right from left is easy enough, but meaningless, because it's not the distance you walk with your feet, but the one you cross with your mind and soul that matters."

"Why telling me this?" it wasn't in Prometheus' nature to answer truthfully if it didn't serve his purpose, and I wasn't going to take anything he said as face value in any case.

"You asked for a safe way to navigate the Labyrinth, such a way does not exist to my knowledge, and so I answered truthfully, the Moirai have made their opinion about my trickery clear since our first meeting, you'll need to ask for something that I can give, either a single truth or an artefact, and in exchange for my freedom, I'll uphold my part of the agreement."

I crossed my arms in displeasure as I tried to discern the meaning behind each word of the bound Titan. He was being somewhat truthful, even if he wasn't saying anything more than strictly necessary, and I could somewhat understand him, in his position, I would have done the same.

After a few minutes spent eyeing mistrustfully the Titan, I blinked as his words somewhat clicked with my knowledge of Dedalus' masterpiece: "Is that why Dedalus managed to hide even from Tanathos in his Labyrinth? Because immortals do not change, and thusly are unable to navigate it?"

I spotted Prometheus' eyes gleam appreciatively at my words, and I received another approving nod: "You're far less dull than I had previously thought."

This still doesn't solve my problem. I thought bitterly as I watched the Bound Titan. How did I manage to trick Atlas? By freaking him out, and I managed to understand him enough to be sure about my decision to hold the sky back then... can I do the same with Prometheus? Somewhat, I doubted it. Where Atlas was all wisdom and impossible determination, I couldn't read Prometheus.

I knew that he wanted to be free, I knew that he had tricked the gods into eating bones at the time of the first sacrifices, I knew that he gifted fire to Mankind, I knew, in the end, only small facts about him, but that didn't allow me to understand the why. He was self-serving enough, but he didn't shy away from doing what he wanted, even when it carried heavy consequences. The calm quiet in his eyes was proof enough that he didn't regret a single one of his choices.

It was a discordant behaviour. Atlas had been quite linear in comparison, the personality of Prometheus was hidden behind his masterful control both over his reactions and the words he used. And for the life of mine, I couldn't tie together what I knew of the Titan.

In common belief, Prometheus developed into a master craftsman, and he was associated with fire and the creation of mortals. So I was pretty sure that if anyone besides Hapaestus could build us some sort of bullshit-compass that always pointed towards this island, it would be the Bound Titan.

My hands clamped down on the staff that I brought to the meeting with Prometheus while my mind fruitlessly sought to find a deal that would be more to my advantage than his.

After a while, I knew that I had to decide. Asking Prometheus what he could build would give away even more than what the Titan had likely been able to discern already.

It didn't help that Prometheus was staring at me with his annoyingly knowing gaze, his grey eyes speaking of ever turning gears and the industrial revolution. "You're recognized as the 'craftsman'. The best after Hapaestus himself," I started, my eyes landing briefly on the Titan's smirk before returning to stare him in the eyes: "could you take as apprentice one of my crewmates? He's a son of Hephaestus..."

But even as I spoke the Titan was shaking his head: "And change these chains for the rules of this apprenticeship? No. But I can teach how to build what you're looking for: a compass capable of leading you back here... or something else... something capable of making mankind complete the same jump they made when I gave them Fire."

Prometheus smiled widely at my visible hesitation: "But you don't care about mankind do you? They're not among your people, and so you genuinely aren't concerned."

I forced myself to ignore the grinning visage of the Titan, and with a sigh, and feeling an oncoming headache, I made my choice.

2 July 2002

The opening into the stack of boulders led into a narrow, rocky corridor that was barely lit by the afternoon's sun. Both the floor and the walls that met at an angle over their heads were made of grey slates of stone, each looking like it had been roughly broken and forced into place, and that, accompanied by the slightly damp air that had nothing to do with the sea outside, made for a less than welcoming environment.

Which, given that the Labyrinth is almost singularly responsible for half the disappearances in the U.S.A. and the 80% of people freaking out about being kidnapped by aliens, is somewhat welcome. People don't normally explore random places if they don't look like Wonderland. I thought as I walked inside Dedalus' ruinous trap.

"Thank you." Charles spoke for the first time since he had pleaded his case with the others of the Adamas, making me smile.

"There is nothing to thank me for, you're on board to look for Pan, your ability to sense the Vellum is simply another rather useful trait of yours." that gained me a nod from the satyr.

"Besides, your bullshit music helped us speed along the setting up of the fortified camp," said the third and last member of our expedition with a wide smile: "by the time we're back, I wonder what upgrades David will have placed on the Adamas and the island."

I smiled at Abigail's sunny disposition even as I kept walking forward, feeling some measure of pride in our past accomplishments: David had worked under Prometheus for a total of three days. Three days without sleep, three days with breaks only to drink and eat in order to learn how to build the pyxída that I held in my left hand.

It was more or less aking to a pocket watch as large as the palm of my hand, and in it a single hand pointed towards the island that we were slowly but surely leaving behind. My eyes roamed over the perfectly circular celestial bronze, knowing that it wasn't a guarantee of safe return. Having a direction isn't enough when in a Labyrinth, that much was obvious, if you need to right and your only choices are up and left, then you're left up to Tyche's mercy, and it wasn't something we could rely on.

With a sigh, I clapped closed the magical compass in my hand, my thumb sliding quietly over the greek inscription over its cover: πυξίδα. Not very original, but it will do.

While David was busy with learning the craft of the exceptional instrument from the Titan, I had Jillian organize a plan, with the input from everyone, that would turn the city of barracks and defenceless island into a stronghold that a handful of demigods would be able to defend without too many issues. While our satyr, helped along by the daughter of Demetra took care of the vegetation.

Before our intervention, the Laestrygonian's 'city' was separated from the Bay by a steep stretch of jungle, while only after a few days, there was already a path that led from the slowly growing harbour to the vast plateau that stood in place of the wooden, giant-sized barracks that we burned down in order to make space for a tentative Acropolis of sorts.

We were too few in order to actually name both the island and a city, but we had to start somewhere, did we not?

I tilted my head to look at my two companions: Charles was wearing a set of light leather armour, while he had a Pan's flute hanging from a thread around his neck, a wooden club secured on his back, and a celestial bronze dagger at his left hip.

Abigail was wearing her usual mesh of leather and celestial bronze armour: she had a thick breastplate and both shinguards and vambraces made of the gleaming metal, while her shoulders were left with more freedom of movement thanks to the leather pauldrons. Her celestial bronze bow was secured around her torso, while she had two quivers, one over her shoulder and one secured on the small of her back, both ready to offer their arrows to the daughter of Apollo. Still, she had a celestial bronze dagger secured at her left calf and a short sword at her left hip. She had declined the leather helm that she had used for the entire duration of the Laestrygonian's War, claiming that she needed her ears free to catch what her perfect vision missed.

I was the more heavily armoured, wearing a full set of celestial bronze protections, coupled with the ever-useful celestial bronze dagger on my side and a steel bowie knife strapped to my tight. I had a leather harness over my torso, where we had secured some provisions for a voyage of which we admittedly did not know the length of. Chainmail had been shaped in a safe pocket in the side of my breastplate, where I held the magic compass that was our only tentative guide in case we ever managed to turn back towards our island.

But above all, it was the spear in my right hand that most reassured me with its comfortable weight. In all honesty, it was less a traditional European spear and more a Japanese naginata, with a half meter long straight blade at the end. The two meters tall shaft had been carved from the branch of Hera's tree, that I had obtained years before, and it was capped at the bottom by a ferrule in celestial bronze, while the curved blade had been forged in a mismatched amalgamation of celestial bronze and Damascus steel that rippled ominously in the dim light of the Labyrinth.

One would think that a shafted weapon would put me at a disadvantage in a restricted area such as the Labyrinth never-ending corridors, but they would be wrong. Yes, there were points in which the path narrowed and forced us to walk in a single file, but more often than not, two trucks could have run side by side in the vast corridors without touching each other.

"So..." Abigail's musical voice cut the quiet after an undetermined amount of time: "what's up with the scary spear?"

I smiled inwardly as the question enlisted a reaction out of Charles as well, who had undoubtedly held his tongue up to this point out of a mixture of wariness and distaste for all things metal.

"It's more a naginata than an actual spear, I think." I replied without answering: "Eventually I hope to name this just as I named the Adamas, but I cannot tell yet."

"I was talking about the steel part of the weapon, dumbass."

I snorted quietly as we walked on a suddenly cobbled path, my eyes tearing through most of the illusions that tried to ensnare us and keeping my companions from falling into the minor traps that we encountered on our path: "Celestial Bronze doesn't cut mortals, who are deemed 'not-important-enough', but mortals can very much kill me, so I deemed prudent to have something to strike back with."

"Oh..." Abigail replied: "Now that I think about it, why don't we go around with rifles and celestial bronze bullets?"

I nodded appreciatively at the question, choosing the less dangerous way at the first crossroads we met. I felt like I had a sixth sense indicating the way, if it was because my senses had grown beyond the physical realm or because Hekate ruled over crossroads, and thusly I had inherited a bit of power over that aspect of her domain, I wasn't sure, but I wasn't going to look a gifted horse in the mouth in this case.

"Does music come from my flute or from me?" Charles choose to tackle that question, "Monsters die both because of the one wielding the weapon and the weapon itself, Herakles used a giant club, but when he started it was simply an admittedly big-ass Oak branch."

I nodded thoughtfully as we took another turn left, abandoning the cobbled path for one covered by thick slates of stone, while the walls around us seemed to be made by silken veils that shuddered randomly in an absent breeze.

The silence was part of the Labyrinth, I realized after a while, it was creeping and constant, heavy as a woollen cloak that slowed our progress.

I am free. The thought and mantra rose on its own from the depth of my mind, and for a split second, I remembered the Weight of the Sky. The fake silence, that carried with it an enchantment that I couldn't divine, rippled and fell apart like mist under the sun as I smartly struck the ground with the bottom of my hafted weapon.

I felt the oppressive silence recede as if it was a living being, watching us just beyond the reach of the noise I made.

We walked for what felt like days, pushing through the tiredness while walking while on foot, until suddenly, instead of an empty crossroads, we met a small plaza with a broken fountain in the middle.

The walls surrounding us were made of a grey stone, while the roof above us was covered in a large mosaic-covered by moss that shouldn't have been able to grow in the dryness of the environment. On the opposite side of the fountain, however, in front of two doors that stood a few meters apart, was the element that immediately captivated most of my attention.

It was a short man, or something reminiscent of one, who stood hidden by a light brown cloak, his twin visages each facing in the opposite direction while he eyed us with the corner of his eye.

"Hello, younglings," spoke one face, covering with a smile the annoyed rumbling of his counterpart: "I am Janus, and I have a choice to offer."

AN

A bit of logistics at the start, mostly to clarify that Icarus has no idea whatsoever about the whole 'patron' thing, but he recognizes that it would be wise to have one. The whole reason d'etre of the MC is to be free and doing what the fuck he wants, while keeping up with defying whatever standard or limit he finds on his path. (Among the reviews, well done to those that spotted the MC's increasingly manic and behaviour and growing ambition, I hope you'll like what I've planned to justify it).

As a hint, I'll tell you that I've put a lot of foreshadowing here and there.

The island is easily defensible in the Sea of Monsters, and given how the island is actually structured (basically a tall mountain that with steep cliffs all around if not for the opening in the Bay (I've taken the description straight out of the Odyssey)), founding a city in it is not that bad, and since I'm reading Tolkien right now, I couldn't not-think of Nùmenor.

I know that someone expected a rehash of the MC understanding the Titan's name. I have chosen differently for several reasons: 1) I didn't want to reduce this fic to the MC going around and 'understanding' mythological characters, 2) sometimes metaknowledge and intelligence aren't enough to trick your way out of a problem, like Icarus did in chapters 7-8, 3) I don't want to build his name out of every meeting he has with an immortal.

I hope you enjoyed the chat between Icarus and the immortal, did it work? Do any of my people act out of character?

We're less than 2 years away from canon, we're starting to approach a more familiar background, but I assure you, that unless Fate drags its feet, I'm turning everything on its ear.