Percy Jackson AU: Hell Born

Chapter 9

Percy sits bolt up right causing Nemo to hiss in annoyance as he is thrown off of Percy in his haste to stand. He makes eye contact with the giant.

"Thank you," Percy says surprised how his voice is no longer hoarse.

Damasen stares at him mournfully. "Oh, don't thank me. You're still doomed. And I require payment for my services."

Percy's mouth goes dry. "Uh...what sort of payment?"

"A story." The giant's eyes glitter. "It gets boring in Tartarus. You can tell me your story while we eat, eh?"

Percy feels uneasy telling a giant about his plans. And life for that matter.

Still, Damasen is a good host. He'd saved Percy. His drakon-meat stew is excellent (especially compared to firewater and expired snacks). His hut is warm and comfortable, and for the first time since plunging into Tartarus, Percy feels like he can relax. Which is ironic, since he is having dinner with a giant.

He tells Damasen about his life and his adventures. He explains his quest in the Argo II with the rest of the seven. When he gets to the part about stopping Gaea from waking, he falters.

"She's, um... she's your mom, right?"

Damasen scrapes his bowl. His face is covered with old poison burns, gouges, and scar tissue, so it looks like the surface of an asteroid.

"Yes," he says. "And Tartarus is my father." He gestures around the hut. "As you can see, I was a disappointment to my parents. They expected... more from me."

Percy can't quite wrap his mind around the fact that he is sharing soup with a twenty-foot-tall lizard-legged man whose parents are Earth and the Pit of Darkness.

Olympian gods are hard enough to imagine as parents, but at least they resemble humans. The old primordial gods like Gaea and Tartarus... How can you leave home and ever be independent of your parents, when they literally encompass the entire world?

"So..." he says. "You don't mind us fighting your mom?"

Damasen snorts like a bull. "Best of luck. At present, it's my father you should worry about. With him opposing you, you have no chance to survive."

Suddenly Percy doesn't feel so hungry. He put his bowl on the floor. Nemo comes over to check it out, and starts drinking it.

"Opposing me how?" He asks.

"All of this." Damasen cracks a drakon bone and uses a splinter as a toothpick. "All that you see is the body of Tartarus, or at least one manifestation of it. He knows you are here. He tries to thwart your progress at every step. My brethren and the defeated ones hunt you. They will be close behind now."

Damasen spits out his toothpick. "I can obscure your path for a while, long enough for you to rest. I have power in this swamp. But eventually, they will catch you."

"I aim to reach the doors of death. It is why I am down here and my only way out." Percy explains.

"Impossible," Damasen mutters. "The Doors are too well guarded." Percy sits forward. "But you know where they are?"

"Of course. All of Tartarus flows down to one place: his heart. The Doors of Death are there." Percy figured that out early on.

"But you cannot make it there alive alone."

"I mean I won't be alone," Percy glances at Nemo scarfing down the stew. "But come with me," Percy says. "Help me."

"HA! Child of Poseidon," the giant says, "I am not your friend. I helped mortals once, and you see where it got me."

"You helped mortals? I don't understand."

"Bad story." The giant begins, "Like all my brethren, I was born to answer a certain god. My foe was Ares. But Ares was the god of war. And so, when I was born—"

"You were his opposite, peaceful" Percy concludes.

"Peaceful for a giant, at least." Damasen sighs. "I wandered the fields of Maeonia, in the land you now call Turkey. I tended my sheep and collected my herbs. It was a good life. But I would not fight the gods. My mother and father cursed me for that. The final insult: One day the Maeonian drakon killed a human shepherd, a friend of mine, so I hunted the creature down and slew it, thrusting a tree straight through its mouth. I used the power of the earth to regrow the tree's roots, planting the drakon firmly in the ground. I made sure it would terrorize mortals no more. That was a deed Gaea could not forgive."

"Because you helped someone?"

"Yes." Damasen looks ashamed. "Gaea opened the earth, and I was consumed, exiled here in the belly of my father Tartarus, where all the useless flotsam collects—all the bits of creation he does not care for." The giant plucks a flower out of his hair and regards it absently.

"They let me live, tending my sheep, collecting my herbs, so I might know the uselessness of the life I chose. Every day —or what passes for day in this lightless place—the Maeonian drakon reforms and attacks me. Killing it is my endless task."

Percy gazes around the hut, trying to imagine how many eons Damasen has been exiled here—slaying the drakon, collecting its bones and hide and meat, knowing it will attack again the next day. He can barely imagine surviving a week in Tartarus. Exiling your own son here for centuries —that was beyond cruel.

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