PC: Tama 💀

[resumed]

Comments

[resumed]

We've camped out before while we're on quests but I don't think it's the same as what you're thinking. But no. Camp Half-Blood, it's where we stay most of the year. We're allowed out into the city for things if we ask for permission but it's sort of like a boarding school except we're learning how to survive and beat up monsters instead of other stuff.

[ballies]

A... boarding school for the not-entirely-human, only it's in the woods somewhere with no internet access.

[resumed]

A training camp for demigods just outside of Manhattan with internet access and minimal computers. And whatever technology the Hephaestus cabin feels like making at the time. We're not that removed.

[ballies]

[ give her a moment here ]

… So, you have tech but it’s different tech.

[ … ]

Made by the god of artisans, fire, metalworking, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, metallurgy, sculpture and volcanoes. [ as you do. ]

[resumed]

Made by his kids. [ gentle correction. also he's now kind of grinning like an asshole because tama has successfully distract him and he thinks this line of conversation's a little funny. ]

...whatever it is you're thinking, you can ask.

[ballies]

You already said demi-gods before, so I have something of an idea.

[ and he talked about poseidon’s son, AND he talked about necromancy. me checking our thread days. ]

So, your godly parent would be someone from the Chthonic deities.

[resumed]

[ i truly just realized she's very close to realizing that he was not fully honest about the pact the zeus-poseidon-hades trio made and how he plays into this but that's okay. he does not seem to realize it himself. ]

That would be correct, yes.

[ballies]

[ they all really went “no kids” and then had kids. ]

…

A big named Chthonic deity, or one of the less well known ones? [ how to ask “is your dad hades” without asking if his dad is hades. ]

[resumed]

[ :thonk: ]

...the biggest and probably first you think of, yeah. [ that basically confirms it, huh. ]

[ballies]

I thought the big three had a pact? I mean, I know it got broken, but all three of them?

[ looks at the age lore and looks away. ]

[resumed]

They did. But my father never broke that pact. [ he says, realizing it's probably just easier to let her draw conclusions. also he is too mentally exhausted to play keepaway about the subject right now. ]

[ballies]

[







(jeopardy theme while she thinks about it. ]

[resumed]

[ patiently waits for tama to math things out or for her to just ask how that works. ]

[ballies]

[ hm. ]

When were you born, exactly?

[resumed]

[ it's complicated because rick's math is inconsistent with canon, but. ]

The 1930s. [ he figures saying it this way is the same effect. ]

[ballies]

[ blinks. ]

...

Looking very youthful for a 90 year old.

[resumed]

[ he just...kind of shrugs a little. ]

That would be because I'm still almost sixteen? [ ... ] But I suppose technically yes that would be an age.

[ help. ]

[ballies]

[ math lady meme. ]

You're almost sixteen, but your birth day was in the 1930s.

[ nicomerica, explain. ]

[resumed]

[ hrrrgh. ]

...my sister and I were born before the pact was made. Zeus wanted my father to send us to Camp so that we could start training, but my father knew there were ulterior motives to that. So he refused, and he kept us hidden. Zeus eventually found out and...[ ...anyway he skips part of the story. ]

Eventually, my sister and I were sent to live in a hotel in Las Vegas. The Lotus Hotel and Casino. But the thing is, time didn't really pass while we were in the hotel. We thought we had only been there for about a month, but by the time someone came to collect us to send us to a boarding school about seventy years had passed.

[ballies]

[ squints. fuckin' casinos. ]

Like a ... time anomaly? But surely other people were using the building as well...

[resumed]

[ yeah he loves casinos. truly. no trauma there. ]

The other people in the building were in the same situation. When you're there, you don't think there's anything strange about it. You don't want to leave. Everyone who enters eventually falls under that spell unless someone brings them out, or they figure out something is wrong and break the spell themselves.

[ballies]

Oh.

[ she genuinely just... pulls a face at that. ]

Not sure I like the sound of that.

[resumed]

[ there's a pause because yeah he doesn't either. ]

We didn't remember anything before the hotel. Father had our memories erased so that we'd forget how we ended up there, so we thought it was just the two of us. We were told our parents were dead, and we had a lot of money in a trust for us. A lawyer would come check on us, but we were never allowed to leave until a different lawyer came to collect us. We were taken to Washington DC for school, but we didn't stay for long. Then we left there and started going to school in Maine. And we weren't there for long either before Grover found us, and Percy, Annabeth and Thalia came to get us to bring us to camp.

[ballies]

But… why? You said you were born before the pact was made, so it can’t have been because your dad wanted to hide breaking it.

And if this was some way of trying to protect you, then it was just leaving you wide open — you can’t just shuffle someone around their whole lives and hope for the best.

[resumed]

[ he hadn't really thought he'd be talking about this today of all days, especially since he just came back from a casino heist and he's still trying to sort through that. but it's weirder now to avoid it. ]

Probably because he loved my mother. [ idly. ] Despite everything, Zeus still felt my sister and I were a threat and tried to kill both of us. And when that failed because my father protected us, he sent the two of us away to have our memories erased so we wouldn't remember what really happened. [ he pauses as if trying to remember the correct order of events. ] We lived at a boarding school for a while. Then we were placed in the hotel because he thought one of us might become the child of the great prophecy someday. So after a while he had one of his furies pull us out in the hopes we'd start training and become powerful. I suppose.