Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Horseback riding isn’t as easy as it looks, or at least as easy as Jason makes it look right now. Especially not when you have a horse that’s a stubborn asshole that never listens and wanders off the road at every little patch of delicious-looking grass it spots. And seeing as they’re currently travelling through a forest and fields, there’s lots of grass or other delicious-looking plants for horses to get distracted by. And Percy is supposed to be good with horses! He can freaking talk to them! But horses here don’t know him as the Son of Poseidon, they just see someone they vaguely recognise as powerful.

“No, stay on the road, you stubborn little—” he curses as he pulls heavily on the reigns of his horse, trying to get him back on track. “Thank you,” he says exasperatedly to his horse as it returns towards the road and continues their journey.

“But the grass, Sir, it’s so delicious,” the horse whines as it turns back to ride beside Jason and his horse again. Jason is trying and failing at hiding his mirth, snorting into his hand.

“Having trouble again?” their guide laughs merrily, riding right in front of them.

“Yes,” Percy grumpily replies. “How long still?” he then asks, eager to get this journey over with already.

“Not that long, we should see our last stop appear in a bit,” the guide replies. Percy sighs, finally.

As it turns out, Percy’s luck didn’t get any better after the last war ended. Neither did Jason’s.

Jason had asked Percy for help with setting up the shrines for the nine muses which included building a small library of poetry and prose around it. Unfortunately for them, getting the books to the place where they were supposed to go was harder than they thought. Laistrygonian giants sniffed them out and in the ensuing fight, all of the books, scrolls and the single harp they managed to gather up until then went up in flames.

Yeah, the muses weren’t happy. At all. There were some one-of-a-kind things in there and some old scrolls and papyrus rolls that could not be recovered. They were all worth a lot of money too. So when the nine muses showed themselves, Jason and Percy knew they were fucked. Luckily, the muses were not that pissed off and didn’t smite them where they stood. No, instead they just decided to punish them when truly, it was the giant who threw a burning cannonball onto their bags who should have been punished.

So here they are… inside a book. Their objective is to make it to the end of the story and make it a ‘good’ ending. Not a happy ending or a sad ending—nope, just a good ending. Yeah, they’re still trying to figure out what exactly the nine muses meant with that too. But if they manage to do this quest, the muses will forgive them and even help restore some of the tombs, books and scrolls that have no other physical copies anymore. And if they fail—well, they die. Which is nothing new really, they’ve both been threatened by gods before.

“There it is, Therinsford,” the guide informs them when a village appears between the trees, soft smoke trails rising from some houses.

“It’s—quaint,” Percy comments, not quite sure what else he can call the early medieval village. Because, as it turns out, the book the nine muses send them into is part of a whole series, a series called the Inheritance Cycle written by a descendent of one of the muses called Christopher Paolini. That much information they were given. Why they chose this book though? They don't have a clue. Because the Muses didn't like the ending? Because they think it could be 'better'? Who knows, they're Gods, Percy will never understand them.

The muses also gifted them some basic knowledge to not fall out of tone too much in this new world.

Jason and Percy now know the language, the basic history of the lands and they’re aware of where the first book is supposed to start or is starting already so they’re trying to get there. They also have this handy-dandy magic that is supposed to tell them when they meet a character that will have a significant role in the story. They haven’t experienced it yet but it should be obvious according to the muses. Percy just hopes it won’t be anything too loud or disorienting. But with gods—you never know.

The muses also had enough pity on them to change their clothes into ones that are more appropriate for this time and world. If Percy were to be brutally honest, he doesn’t really like the clothes. His new underwear is scratchy as hell. But they’re not the worst, they could have just given them some simple farmer’s outfit. Luckily, they were given a cloak and a somewhat normal outfit underneath some selective armour. It’s not full armour, but, hey, armour is probably pretty expensive in this day and age so it’s better than nothing.

They were given chain mail that reaches down to just above their knees and elbows accompanied by pauldrons, couters and vambraces that cover some more vital places. They also have thick leather gloves with iron plating only from the top of their wrists to their knuckles and over the thumb.

Their legs are protected by greaves with attached poleynes, plating on the outside of their thighs – but not the inside sadly, but luckily the chain mail can cover the arteries there – and thick boots with iron plating on the front but not the back.

All in all, it’s quite comfortable – if a bit heavy – and it allows them to keep their full range of movement while still protecting them more than their Roman and Greek armour ever did. Except for their heads—they weren’t given helmets… which is kind of stupid, but whatever. Percy supposes it’s because they weren’t wearing helmets when they got transported here either, but they were wearing their full Greek and Roman armour.

The imperial gold sword Jason was carrying with him was glamoured to look like a normal steel weapon to blend in better. It now hangs casually at his hip – for the first time they don’t need to worry about people seeing it since it’s more accepted here.

Percy’s Riptide stays as it is because it’s easy to hide anyway – and because the muses couldn’t just glamour it – but he was given an iron replica to hang around his waist anyway to have a normal weapon and not have to show everyone they fight with magical weapons which appear out of nowhere. The muses told them magic weapons aren’t a thing here if you’re not an elf or dwarf so Riptide is now only for emergencies.

“What business do you boys have in Carvahall anyways? The only travellers that ever go there are merchants,” the guide asks them as they approach the peaceful village. Percy can already spot a tavern and desperately hopes it has rooms they can stay in too and isn’t just a tavern. They don’t have anything like a tent or even sleeping bags. The muses only gave them food for a week, enough money to get by for what Percy guesses is a year or two and their horses equipped with saddle bags and riding gear.

“Just travelling around, sir,” Jason replies politely. The guide throws a slightly suspicious and sceptic glance over his shoulder to the two of them.

“In those clothes? Boys you look ready to join the army,” the old man remarks with a small laugh. “But I won’t pry, as long as you boys don’t cause any trouble, you should be fine. You’re not wearing any visible insignias or crests after all.” Percy gives Jason a look and sees the same expression on the other’s face as he probably has. They’re going to need a better excuse. How else will they find the main characters without looking like mercenaries out for their heads or something?

“Anyway, we’re here, boys. Welcome to Therinsford where I will be dropping you boys off, the rest of the way to Carvahall is simple and you should be just fine getting there on your own,” the old guide tells them as they enter the village proper now.

People are bustling about on the streets but are looking rather—grim. There is this nervous energy that’s permeating the air. Could it have anything to do with the soldiers they passed on the road? Those soldiers did look rather menacing. They even stopped the three of them to question why they were going into the Palancar Valley. Percy already thought it was weird… did the story already start? Is this not the beginning? Oh well, nothing they can do about that.

“Thank you again, sir,” Jason thanks the man, handing him the promised amount of coins for guiding them into the Palancar Valley.

“It was my pleasure, boys. Next time you come to Narda, stop by again,” he says before leaving to do whatever he needs to do here in Therinsford. Percy and Jason both just watch the man leave silently until he’s far enough away.

“Well, I for one am glad to be rid of the old man, he reeked,” Percy comments lowly as Jason and he ride further into the village. Jason laughs and shakes his head.

“Come on, Percy, be kind.” Jason slaps him on the arm – not that he feels it through the chain mail and thick tunic – and Percy glares at him. “That man did guide us all the way here, you know.”

“Yeah, but he could have just sold a map to us,” Percy reasons, annoyed by the fact that he had to camp out with that man several times now. And that the old man is taking the camping gear with him since it was never really theirs anyway.

“He did lend us a tent to sleep in, a map wouldn’t have done that,” Jason argues back. Percy purses his lips and grips his reigns a bit tighter, keeping his horse from going after another delicious-looking patch of grass.  

“Yeah, but a map doesn’t snore,” he throws back lamely. Jason laughs again and Percy can’t help but laugh too.

“So, where to first?” Jason gets back on topic, looking around the village before settling his gaze on the tavern Percy already spotted earlier. “How about we try there?”

“Sounds good,” Percy replies with a shrug. So they steer their horses towards the inn, leaving them tied to a pole beside a drinking trough and some hay with one other horse. Percy takes his bags inside with him though, he doesn’t really trust them just staying on his horse outside. He grew up in New York, he knows all too well what happens to shit that isn’t tied down well enough.

“Kick anyone who tries to steal you or our stuff,” Percy whispers to his horse before following Jason inside.

“Gladly, sir!” the horse replies happily, maybe a little bit too happy at the prospect of getting to kick people. He really should name his horse, but it has refused every name Percy had tried to give it.

Entering the tavern, Percy immediately notes how the atmosphere is tense and how Jason is awkwardly standing just inside, looking around nervously.

“Travelers, we don’t see much of those these days,” a gruff voice says from behind what appears to be the bar. “What can I get ya?” Percy looks to see a short man with a protruding belly and a short beard.

“What do you have?” Jason politely asks, stepping closer to the bar instead of just standing in the middle of the room like an idiot. Percy quietly follows, looking around the tavern to see some people scattered about. Well, ‘quietly’ isn’t really a word he can use to describe himself right now, the armour might be very protective, but it’s also a bit noisy.

Most of the people are eyeing Jason and him with a sceptic or openly unhappy look. One woman is eyeing them up with an interested gleam in her eyes though, but she’s the only one in the room who doesn’t show negative emotions towards them.

“Lager, wine from the south and stew,” the man replies simply, listing his short list of options.

“We’ll both just take some stew,” Jason decides after sharing a look with Percy. To be honest, Percy doesn’t really care what they get, as long as it’s not poisoned or unfiltered water from the river he spotted earlier. Not that these people have water filters, but they could always boil it.

“That’ll be one crown,” the man says while grabbing two wooden bowls from a stack. Percy quickly fishes out a coin from the bags he’s carrying, carefully checking that he doesn’t accidentally take out one of the five drachmas they still have with them for some reason. Once the food is paid for, the two of them pick a table close to the exit but still close to a wall to sit down.

“Man, my butt hurts from riding on a horse for days,” Jason complains as he sits down on the crude wooden bench. Percy chuckles and sits down across from him.

“I mean, riding Blackjack somehow seemed so much easier than this. I think it’s because these are—you know—regular horses,” Percy theorizes, giving Jason a knowing look and the blonde understands what Percy is trying to say.

“Probably,” he agrees with a smile that’s bordering closer to a grimace than an actual smile.

“You two rich or something?” the woman from earlier asks as she suddenly sits down right beside Jason, sitting awfully close. Jason flinches away from her sudden appearance, but quickly recovers and plasters a smile on his face.

“Oh, no, nothing of the sort. We’re just regular travelers, on our way to see more of the world,” Jason lies smoothly. The woman looks rather sceptical and raises an eyebrow at the reply.

“Dressed like that?” Jason chuckles nervously and Percy takes pity on the guy.

“Well, these are dangerous times, can’t be too prepared, really,” Percy elaborates, drawing from the knowledge the muses gave them about this world.

“Cheers to that,” someone grumbles from another table and the woman rolls her eyes at the drunk old woman.

“So you know how to fight then?” the young woman continues the questioning, leaning a bit closer over the table to lower her voice a bit. Percy frowns at that, where is she going with this?

“Well, yes, but we’re no professionals,” Jason dismisses, clearly also having picked up on the woman’s weird interest in them.

“But can you fight? Can you protect someone?” she continues, lowering her voice even further and looking both Jason and Percy right in the eyes. Jason now looks at Percy, not sure how to continue and Percy just gives him a shrug in reply.

“Maybe,” Percy replies.

“Depends,” Jason answers at the same time. The woman hums in understanding and nods solemnly before leaning a bit closer still.

“Meet me behind the farm on the northern edge of town tonight, I would like to offer you, gentlemen, a job,” she whispers to them. The two demigods share another look, this time of interest. This could be good, this could be a start towards the story. The woman doesn’t wait for a reply or anything, she just stands up and leaves, giving them both another serious look before walking through the door.

“Didn’t bother you too much, did she?” the tavern keeper says as he approaches with two steaming bowls of stew, spoons sticking out of them. “That was the miller’s daughter, she’s been going around town and offering men jobs out of nowhere since two days ago. Weird woman that is. You’d almost think she wants someone to warm her bed, but she would have found someone long ago if that’s what she was asking for.” Percy doesn’t know if he should feel offended in the girl’s place or just look at the man in disgust for that comment, but decides not to be antagonistic.

The bowls are placed in front of the two demigods and Percy can already smell the lack of any exotic spices. Damn, he’s going to miss that, isn’t he? A good Indian curry or Thai takeout. But he can still smell some salt and—is that nutmeg?

“Thank you for the stew, sir,” Jason thanks the man who just grunts and walks off again. Percy waits until the man is out of earshot before turning to Jason.

“Offering men jobs out of nowhere? She must be desperate if she’s kept it up for days,” he points out, spooning up his first bit of stew. “And no, I did not mean that in any sort of sexual way,” he adds before Jason can say anything. Jason doesn’t look like he was interpreting it that way thought.

“I think we should check it out,” he simply states as if Percy wasn’t thinking the same thing already.

“Definitely, I can recognize an adventure when I spot one,” Percy jokes in between bites of a surprisingly good stew.

“Ever the expert,” Jason jabs back.

So that evening, Jason and Percy take their horses and ride towards the northern edge of town towards the only water mill on that side of town.

“You know, I could probably make the water go hard enough to spin that water wheel right off,” Percy absentmindedly comments as they sit in the grass in sight of the farm but far enough away to not be suspicious. Jason gives Percy a disturbed look.

“Why would you ever want to do that?” Jason questions, plucking at the grass at his feet.

“Hey, if you’re wasting grass, at least give it to me,” Percy’s horse nickers in protest at the grass being pulled out and just discarded to the side by the Son of Jupiter. He’s promptly ignored though.

“I never said I want to do it, I was just thinking that I could,” Percy defends himself. “Like standing on a bridge and thinking you could just jump down, but not actually doing it, you know,” Percy compares. “Impulsive or intrusive thoughts or whatever.” Jason looks both disturbed and understanding at the same time and Percy didn’t know you could even do that. It’s funny though so Percy laughs.

“Having jumped off the Grand Canyon, I can tell you it’s not actually that much fun when you think you’re going to die,” Jason laughs.

“Dude, I was blown up by a volcano, falling to my death is nothing new to me,” Percy reminds his friend playfully, trying not to think of the other time he fell to his death because that’s one memory he’s trying to forget. Jason abruptly laughs at the ridiculousness and they both laugh loudly.

“How could I ever forget?” Jason mocks and they both laugh. There’s a short silence after that in which Jason starts twining grass together into a longer string while Percy just idly watches the water wheel turn slowly.

“Oh, look at that sweet mare right there, now that’s a mare I would love to dream of.” Oh, yes, and he listens to the horses bickering and talking absolute nonsense.

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t that make it a nightmare?”

Percy actually snorts at that.

“Because you dream at night, so you’d see the mare at night—"

“Yes, I am aware of your jokes!”

Thinking of talking, Percy noticed some of the people here speaking a bit more—colloquially. Percy shouldn’t start spouting any 21st-century slang here.

“Do you think we should adapt our speech to that of the people here?” Percy then pipes up. Jason looks up and pauses his twining.

“Maybe? I mean we can’t just go around saying things like ‘okay’ and ‘aight’ or ‘dawg’ obviously. But they aren’t talking like Shakespeare either,” the blonde thinks out loud. “It shouldn’t be too difficult.” Percy agrees with that, nodding silently.

“You came!” a jovial voice interrupts their conversation. The two demigods look to the side to find the woman from earlier jogging towards them while dragging a brown-haired and tall man behind her. The man looks younger than the woman by a couple of years, more their own age.

“Irene, don’t yell so loudly, somebody will hear,” the man chastises the woman as they approach. Jason and Percy stand up to greet the two properly. Now that they’re standing up, Percy notices just how broad and tall the man is. Like, damn, he could easily rival with Beckendorf or Clarisse.

“No, Roran, this is your chance to get back to Carvahall,” the woman, Irene, tells the man with a serious undertone. Oh, so she wants—hold on. She wanted them to protect someone, right? Somehow, Percy doesn’t think this man, Roran, really needs protection. And then it happens—once Roran is close enough and Percy can properly see him, something clicks inside his head and he knows—Roran is a main character, not the main character, but important enough.

Percy and Jason share another look, clearly both having gotten the message. Their guts were right, coming here tonight was a good move. Jason quickly shakes himself out of the stupor again once the two people have stopped right by them.

“Carvahall?” Jason repeats, prompting more explanation.

“Yes, the empire’s soldiers have been crawling around inside Palancar Valley like roaches lately and I have a really bad feeling about it. Roran is from Carvahall, the village at the end of the valley and he needs to get back there as soon as possible, but going alone makes you an easy target to the soldiers,” Irene starts explaining, clasping her hands in front of her and a grim expression on her face.

Now Percy understands why everyone she offered the job to refused. From what he knows, the king and his army aren’t exactly—friendly. People don’t want to risk antagonizing them out of fear.

“Irene has been looking for people to travel with me and she thinks you two are perfect for the job,” Roran adds to the story with a weary sigh that tells Percy he’s been through this before.

“Well, we happen to be planning on going to Carvahall anyway, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem to have one extra,” Jason says after sharing another short glance with Percy. Doing this will probably bring them towards the main story.

Percy’s horse chooses that moment to speak his mind too.

“Hey! These bags and one human are already heavy enough, no way is there going to be one extra person on my back!” It snorts, nudging Percy’s shoulder and sweeping his tail harshly.

“What, can’t handle a bit of extra weight?” Jason’s horse comments with a smirk clear in her voice. Percy leaves them to their bickering.

“You take that back!”

“Really? Why are you two going towards Carvahall? Are you with the empire?” Roran suddenly sounds defensive when Percy tunes back into the human conversation.

“No, no, we’re not working for the king, we dislike him as much as the next guy,” Jason truthfully defends them. “He’s the reason we had to carry weapons and armour in the first place.” Again, not a lie. The muses gave them enough information to know that King Galbatorix is the big bad of the story.

“Come on, Roran. Just go with them to Carvahall, they’re your best bet, truthfully,” Irene reasons, giving Roran a stern look. Roran sighs and crosses his arms in front of his chest, making his impressive arm muscles bulge even more. Percy is not jealous, no not at all. But seriously, what kind of work does this guy do for a living? Percy is asking for a friend.

“I can offer the two of you four crowns for the trip, no more,” the big guy turns to them with a warning look. Percy shrugs in response.

“Fine by me, it’s not a far journey anyway,” he agrees, making Roran nod at him in appreciation.

“When are we leaving?” Jason asks, also agreeing with the price.

“In a bit, let me just pack everything I need and I’ll come back here so we can depart,” Roran informs them sternly, ignoring Irene’s smug look.

“I told you these guys were the ones,” she comments lowly at Roran, making the man roll his eyes at the woman. “Anyway, thank you so much for agreeing to do this. I hope to see you safely another time,” she says before walking off again.

“I think we’re finally going to make it to the storyline now,” Jason says when they’re out of sight. Percy turns to his cousin and gives him a small smile.

“I hope you’re ready for this then,” he taunts half-heartedly. Jason chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest, making the chainmail rustle and jingle.

“When are we ever ready, Percy?”

Chapter Text

The two demigods load all of the bags on Jason’s horse over on Percy's horse so he’ll stop complaining about having to carry two people. Now he’s complaining about carrying all the bags – including Roran’s now – and Percy. Jason’s horse, Nebula, named after literal clouds in Latin because of her flea-bitten coat colour, doesn’t complain at all about having to carry Roran and Jason.

“Where are you from?” Roran asks conversationally as they ride towards Carvahall at a trotting pace to maybe outpace any soldiers.

“From a village not far from Narda, by the sea,” Jason replies the lie they thought of on the road to Therinsford. There are plenty of villages in the country that aren’t on the maps because they’re small or insignificant to travellers. And after they arrived in Narda, they bumped into two of those villages on their way here.

“Why travel to the Palancar Valley of all places?” Roran continues, really confused by their choice of travel destination.

“Well, we wanted to see more of the world and thought we should probably start in the North and travel South from here,” Percy answers smoothly. Jason and Percy brainstormed about a better lie earlier, but the travelling excuse is the best they could come up with.

“You guys are rich, aren’t you? Who else could afford to just travel around and not worry about work or money,” Roran thinks out loud. “Besides, armour isn’t exactly cheap and this is clearly professionally made so it must have cost a lot.”

“You know a lot about armour?” Percy deflects the question by asking another. Roran gives Percy a knowing look.

“Not much, the blacksmith from Carvahall is a good family friend. But you haven’t answered my question.” Yeah, Percy knew it wouldn’t be that easy to change the subject. Roran is awfully smart.

“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re necessarily rich, but we’re not exactly worried about money either,” Jason replies carefully in the end. Percy sees Roran eyeing their bags and reminds himself once again that he will never leave their bags unattended. If it’s this obvious that they got a lot of money from the muses, then he’d rather keep an eye on it just in case. Especially if their clothes give them away so quickly. Not that he’d think Roran would rob them, but he doesn’t know how this world works and being careful is better than being sorry.

“So, why do you need to get back to Carvahall so urgently anyway?” Percy decides to ask, hoping he can change the subject successfully now.

“My father died,” Roran replies roughly. “My cousin has disappeared too apparently and now that winter is approaching, I don’t have work in Therinsford anymore anyway.” Percy grimaces at hearing that. Those sound like things that would happen to a main character. And they happened in the place the story is supposed to start so maybe this cousin is the main character?

“My condolences, Roran,” Jason sympathizes, shortly glancing over his shoulder to where Roran’s fingers are visibly tightening their grip on Jason’s waist.

“Nothing we can do about it now.” There is a short silence in which only the horses’ heavy breathing is audible.

“Irene mentioned soldiers crawling around the valley, do you know why they’re here?” Percy continues, wanting to know more about what’s happening. Roran sighs and grimaces.

“I’m not sure, but I think they’re looking for someone,” the man speculates. Percy purses his lips at that reply. Who could the evil government possibly be looking for other than the protagonist of the story?

“Well, I hope that whoever it is, they don’t find them,” Jason grumbles. Another silence follows that statement and Percy takes the time to look ahead. Since they’re travelling at night, the sky is lit up beautifully with constellations and whatever they call their Milky Way here. But not far ahead of them, there are the lights of a fire and a thin trail of smoke curling up into the air. It’s too close to be the village yet.

“I think there is a camp up ahead,” Percy points out, gesturing towards the smoke and light ahead of them. He also signals for his horse to stop, Jason picks up on the action and pulls his horse to a stop. “Do you think it could be the soldiers?” He looks back towards his two travel companions to find Roran looking worried.

“It could be, no people ever camp out on the roads here, or close to them,” Roran thinks out loud. “I don’t see why anyone would at least. Perhaps we can ride through the brush and avoid their camp?” Percy looks down at his horse at the question.

“Do you think we can travel through the brush here?” he mentally asks his horse. The yellow dun-coated horse lifts his head to look around and snorts.

“Seriously? We could probably gallop through there without trouble. In fact, I have galloped through denser forests,” the horse brags and Percy rolls his eyes before turning back to Jason and Roran.

“It shouldn’t be too much trouble, but it’s best to keep our cantering pace to keep a bit more silent and not run into trees,” Percy tells the other two.

“Right,” Jason agrees, steering Nebula towards the brush.

“Run into trees? Me? Bah!” Percy’s horse neighs before promptly turning and jumping over a thorn bush to disappear into the brush.

“Percy! Not so fast!” Jason calls out and quickly ushers Nebula to follow them.

“Sorry, my horse is getting eager to find more food again, I think,” Percy calls out behind him as they start cantering between the trees, mostly keeping their northward direction. When they approach the camp, they can hear loud singing which masks the sound of their horses’ hoofbeats, which is good. What is less good is that the camp is big from what they can see. There are about thirty-something soldiers.

“Those are not just ‘some’ soldiers,” Jason comments once they’re far enough away again.

“Not at all,” Percy agrees, gripping the reins nervously.

“What could they possibly want with Carvahall?” Roran thinks, a pained expression on his face. “We never did anything to anger the king.”

“You said that they seemed to be searching for someone or something, no?” Percy inquires carefully. “That’s hopefully why they’re here. Then they can peacefully fuck off when they’ve found whatever they need.” Jason gives Percy a grimace.

“But what if what they are searching for shouldn’t be in their hands?” Jason states it like a question, but it does not require an answer. Roran curses the soldiers and it’s the last thing they say for a while. The rest of the ride is quite uneventful.

Once they finally spot the village, their new friend visibly relaxes. The streets are notably empty but the inn is still being occupied and loudly so. Percy and Jason silently steer their horses towards the hub of activity. Once they arrive, Roran is quick to jump off and approach the inn, Percy and Jason on the other hand take their time with tying their horses securely to a fence and taking all of their luggage. Percy even remembers to take Roran’s.

Once they’re ready, the two young demigods pause outside the inn for a second, listening to the happy reunion between Roran and some villagers.

“This is it, huh?” Jason comments with a resigned sigh.

“Yup, this is where we enter the story, I believe,” Percy confirms. “Let’s hope the muses didn’t make it too difficult,” he then laughs and Jason stomps Percy on the arm.

“Don’t taunt them, idiot,” the blonde laughs and Percy snickers, not at all apologetic. “Let’s just go.”

“No point in delaying,” Percy adds in agreement and then the two demigods walk inside the inn.

“Oh, there they are,” Roran says just as they walk through the door. Almost all of the people in the inn turn to look at them. “These are the two men who helped me get here.” The brown-haired man walks over and places his hand on Jason’s shoulder. Percy offers him his bag and Roran gratefully takes it from him.

“Well, why don’t your two helpers introduce themselves, then?” Another tall and bulky man speaks up. Percy blanches as he sees the size of this man’s arms and body overall. Damn, and he thought Roran was muscular. This man looks like he benches trees in his free time.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all, my name is Jason and this is my cousin, Perseus,” Jason greets the people inside the inn politely but when he hears Jason introduce him Percy glares at his cousin. Jason just sends him a smirk in return.

“But please, just call me Percy,” Percy quickly adds to the introduction, at least trying to do some damage control.

“Peculiar names for peculiar visitors,” a gruff woman from the back comments with a scoff.

“Well met, Jason and Percy, I am Horst, the village blacksmith and these are my sons Albreich and Baldor. We are good family friends of Roran’s,” the big man introduces him and the two young men behind him, they’re both also around Roran and their age, one blonde and the other a brunette much like most of the people around here.

“Well met,” Jason and Percy say almost at the same time, nodding in respect at the two men. They are then introduced to most of the people in the tavern at the moment. Most people are polite, but there are a few who openly show they are at the very least sceptic and at worst suspicious. But Percy doesn’t mind too much, he can understand not trusting strangers immediately. He learned that lesson a long time ago.

As the introductions go, some people ping Percy’s radar telling him that these people will play at the very least a small role in the story. Horst and his sons were a bigger ping than most of the others.

“Has anyone any clue about what the king’s soldiers are doing in the valley?” Roran changes the subject once the introductions are done.

“You don’t know?” Horst asks with a frown, looking at the three of them in disbelief. “They’re asking around for you, Roran.” Those words are both a surprise and really shouldn’t be at the same time.

“Me? What would they ever want with me?” Roran asks in disbelief, laughing nervously. Horst sighs and gives the young man a look that tells Percy he’d rather not be telling Roran this bad news.

“They won’t really tell us much, but they did let it slip it has something to do with your cousin, Eragon.” Percy looks at Roran who has a pensive look on his face now.

“Does this have anything to do with my father’s death and Brom and Eragon’s disappearance?” The young man guesses, but his tone tells Percy he already knows the answer.

“We fear so, yes,” Quimby, the brewer of the village replies. “Makes one wonder what the kid has done to have the army after him.” Percy and Jason glance at each other, now almost a hundred per cent sure that this Eragon must be the main character.

“You two travelled here from inland, didn’t ye?” Parr, a dour man grumbles, gesturing with his head towards Percy and Jason. “Heard anything about all this?” Percy looks towards Jason who is already shrugging weakly.

“Not really, we come from a village near Narda, it isn’t exactly in the centre of the kingdom either,” Jason explains. “When we passed through the Central Plains though, we heard some rumours about a big part of the army moving Southwards, something about the Varden?” Jason recalls, looking at Percy who just nods in response, remembering the same rumours.

“The Varden?” A villager whose name Percy forgot says, cocking her head to the side and a confused look on her face. “They’re still active? I thought they were all hunted down and killed.” There’s a silence that follows, most people in the tavern look like they’re thinking this whole situation over deeply.

“Well, it’s getting late, I’m going home,” one of the villagers announces as he stands up. A lot of people agree and follow the older man’s example, slowly trickling out of the building. Percy looks towards Roran who seems to be a bit lost.

“What will you do, Roran?” Horst asks before Percy can though.

“I don’t know. I came back here knowing the soldiers were searching for something—or rather someone—” The young brunette sighs—“but I never thought they’d be searching for me.”

“We can always escort you back out of the valley,” Percy proposes. “If we move tonight, we can slip by the camp unnoticed.” Roran seems to entertain the idea, but Horst shakes his head.

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. The soldiers have been camping out here for a week already and have been causing trouble all around. They’re not going to go away until Roran has been found. If Roran leaves now, the soldiers might get violent in their impatience,” Horst informs them grimly. Jason breathes out harshly through his mouth, cocking his head slightly and lifting his eyebrows.

“And that would mean the eventual killing of villagers,” Jason concludes from that. Horst nods morosely, giving Roran a rather disappointed look.

“If I plan on leaving, it would be better if the soldiers knew so they can leave Carvahall alone,” Roran decides. “No one else has to be dragged into my family’s problems.” Percy frowns at the way Roran metaphorically pulls all of the weight of the situation on his own shoulders.

“Melkolf was right, it’s getting late, you lot can make a decision tomorrow after a good night’s rest,” Quimby pipes up from where he’s still sitting in the tavern. “And Morn probably wants to go to bed too.” At that, Morn, the owner of the tavern, laughs from behind the counter.

“O’course I do, so you all better get going to yer beds too,” the old man whose marred and misshaped face reminds Percy a bit of Hephaestus says, waving his hands dismissively towards the door. Everyone who is still in the tavern at this point gets the message and starts getting up to leave. Percy looks at Jason when he realizes they don’t really have a place to sleep yet.

“You two,” Roran pipes up from where he’d been conversing with Horst and his sons. “You don’t have a place to sleep, do you?”

“No, we don’t,” Jason admits embarrassedly.

“Well, I have a spare bedroom available for you if you want, as payment for helping Roran get back to us safely,” Horst tells them with an appreciative nod. Percy smiles at the idea of a bed and looks towards Jason who seems about as glad at the prospect but hides it better.

“We would be honoured to be allowed bedding in your house,” Percy happily accepts.

The next day is quite uneventful. Roran decides to take a hike up the mountain with one of the only horses available in the village to hide himself and stall for time. He hasn’t decided yet on what he wants to do and no one really has other ideas besides giving him to the soldiers and being done with it or having him flee.

Jason and Percy decide to stay and see what happens, defend Roran if needed and help the villagers against the soldiers. Of course, they just tell the villagers that they’re resting and might leave in a couple of days again to continue their journey. They can’t just tell them ‘we were sent by gods to your world to change the storyline you’re all living in so it has a ‘good’ ending and we have a feeling we need to keep an eye on Roran specifically for that’. They would sound insane.

But in their explorations of the village, Jason did find out that magic exists here and so do dwarves and elves allegedly. But the villagers aren’t so sure about that last part. Percy on the other hand found out that the village’s butcher is a very suspicious character and has a very open dislike for Roran, so the two demigods have decided to keep an eye on him.

The soldiers also show up in the village during the day, clearly keeping their eyes open for Roran. When they spot Percy and Jason, two very well-armed and previously unknown people, they get suspicious. But Jason manages to convince them that no, they didn’t sneak inside the village at night, they arrived in the evening but they must have forgotten. And because the soldiers on watch duty last night were so drunk, the lie is accepted as truth. Yay, alcohol.

But for the rest, it was quite an uneventful day. That is until the soldiers decide that afternoon is late enough to start drinking. About fifteen soldiers entered the village earlier in the day and set up a small camp for them to settle in at the edge of town. They even set up tents so Percy knew they were there to stay. And then they decided to get drunk.

Percy, luckily, decided to stay nearby so he was there to stop a tragedy from happening.

“—So that’s when you let them ferment?” Percy asks Quimby, and the man happily replies.

“The longer you let it, the heavier it will be and the drunker you will get. I usually let it lager about three weeks, but sometimes four weeks if I want something a bit stronger,” the brewer explains eagerly, showing Percy where he lagers the beer brews. Look, Percy was bored and he was kind of curious about the brewery since he’s never seen one before so he may or may not have asked Quimby to explain the lager-making process to him. Dionysus would be proud of Percy—or no, wait, wine is more his thing—never mind.

“And you keep the beer in these vats for transp—” Percy starts asking another question when they are rudely interrupted by three soldiers pounding their fists on the door. Percy and Quimby both turn around in surprise, only for Percy to recoil at the stank of alcohol that permeates the air when the soldiers come up close to them.

“Hey, brewer, we ran out of liquor, care to give us a vat or two?” the one on the right demands more than he asks. Percy scrunches his nose and gives them a rather displeased look, but they are way too deep in their liquor to notice.

“Well, if you have the money to pay for it, I do,” Quimby replies calmly. “But if you don’t, then I can’t give you any more. You’ve already taken three barrels without proper payment, I can’t give you anymore before seeing the money you owe me.” Percy is impressed by the assertiveness of the older man. The villagers seemed rather scared of the soldiers throughout the day, but Quimby isn’t showing any. It clearly displeases the soldiers though.

“What? But we already paid you! By protecting your sorry arses, you bums!” The middle soldier cries out in indignation. “We are soldiers serving your king, we should not pay for any liquor.” Percy has the urge to punch the man but decides to stay out of the conflict and let Quimby handle it on his own.

“No, I have already spoken about this with your commander, no more liquor for you until I get paid properly,” Quimby stands his ground, already corralling the soldiers out of his barn and away from the vats and barrels. Percy politely follows behind the man.

“But we demand it!” One of them tries to sound intimidating, but Percy thinks he’s doing a poor job at it.

“And I’m saying no,” Quimby says with a finality that signalizes the end of the argument, amplifying it by closing the doors to his barn behind him and Percy.

And that’s when it goes wrong. One of the drunk soldiers grabs for the sword hanging at his hip, an angry expression on his face. Percy acts before he can even think his actions through.

Metal clashes and the soldier’s sword goes flying out of the unsteady hand. Percy’s new steel sword is now the only one drawn and ready.

There is a short silence as the soldiers, Quimby and some nearby bystanders all stare at Percy as he stands in front of Quimby now, his sword pointed at the soldiers and his whole body coiled and ready to fight. He forces himself to take a deep breath and relax again.

“He said no, now leave,” Percy says sternly, sheathing his sword again because he doesn’t want to get into a real fight right now. After all, he doesn’t want to turn the soldiers’ ire onto the village. The soldier who drew his sword stares dumbfoundedly at the metal object now lying on the ground a few paces away uselessly—the other two gawk at Percy and his quick reaction time.

“Leave,” Quimby breaks the silence, stepping up beside Percy again. The soldiers take the hint and scramble away, taking the sword with them. And once the three stooges are gone, Percy and Quimby both relax.

“Thank you,” Quimby earnestly says, turning towards the demigod. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here, but nothing pleasant, that’s for sure.”

“It’s no problem,” Percy replies softly. “I have never liked violent drunkards.”

“Percy!” Jason calls out, running over. Percy looks toward his cousin to see his confused expression.

“We’re fine, Jason. The soldiers were harassing Quimby here for more liquor and didn’t want to take no for an answer,” Percy quickly explains to settle the other’s worries.

“Good, I feared you were picking a fight again,” Jason jokes, attempting to lift the mood. Percy just gives Jason a tired look.

“Not at all, Perseus here just saved my life,” Quimby denies, patting Percy on the arm softly, offering the young demigod a grateful smile. That’s when they hear a commotion not far away from them and they all quickly turn towards the noise to see the three drunk soldiers returning, including what looks like a person in charge judging by the decorated armour. Jason and Percy immediately step in front of Quimby and the few gathered villagers protectively, hands on their weapons.

“I believe my soldiers asked for more liquor, brewer,” the person in charge says as he stops just a few paces in front of where Percy and Jason are standing protectively in front of Quimby and some of the villagers. The commander seems like he’s been looking too deep into the tankards too, just like his soldiers, judging by the way he sways slightly on his feet and how his face is red and blotchy in the way Smelly Gabe’s face would redden if he started drinking.

“And I believe Quimby very clearly told you that he would not give you another drop until he sees the payment he’s due from you,” Percy states firmly when no one speaks up. A calming hand lands on Percy’s arm and he looks to the side to see Quimby stepping forward carefully but confidently.

“Pay you? You’re but peasants who dig in the dirt to make a living. We serve the great King Galbatorix!” One of the soldiers spits angrily, standing tall beside his commander.

“You’re but barbarians who think that just because you wear fancy armour you can order anyone around,” Brigit, Quimby’s wife – if Percy remembers correctly – throws back as she steps up to stand beside her husband and in between Percy and Jason.

“If you do not give us the vats of beer we asked for, we will take them by force,” the commander sternly states. “We will not be denied what we want.”

“And I will not give you anything more until I get proper payment,” Quimby says once again, crossing his hands in front of his chest. This triggers two of the soldiers standing by the commander to move forward and draw their weapons. Jason and Percy simultaneously react by mirroring the action. The soldiers hesitate for a moment and look back at their commander.

“If you resist, we won’t hold back either,” the commander says, locking eyes with Percy and Jason each. Percy doesn’t back down and glares back while Jason defiantly takes a step forward to show he won’t back down. Good thing they both decided to wear their full armour for the day. “Men, take everything inside the barn and burn it afterwards.” Percy’s anger rises at the command. Fucking asshole commander.

The two soldiers eagerly charge at Percy and Jason. Jason braces himself by taking on a defensive stance while Percy charges right back. The son of Poseidon swiftly analyses his opponent, a medium-height soldier wearing only half his armour – leaving the head and arms unprotected – wielding a double-edged, twohanded longsword, no shield and drunk. Should be fairly easy.

The soldier makes a big vertical swing, cutting down and aiming for Percy’s neck from the left. Knowing from experience, Percy doesn’t try to block the blade as he knows the soldier has more strength behind his swing with two hands. Instead, Percy lifts his steel Riptide and deflects the blade with a simple movement that makes it slide over his own blade while sidestepping to the left. Retracting his sword once the blade is out of the way, Percy stomps the back of the soldier’s head with the pommel of his sword, successfully knocking him out.

The man crumbles to the ground, dropping his sword in the process. Percy quickly kicks it away towards the villagers, knowing you shouldn’t leave a knocked-down soldier close to an available blade on the ground, they’ll stand back up to stab you in the back. While kicking the sword, Percy sees Jason also has downed his own opponent fairly easily. They then both look towards the remaining drunk soldier and their commander.

They both look rather uncomfortable but Percy takes that chance to lift his sword in the direction of the commander and sneer at him.

“Drop your weapons and leave,” Percy orders. The soldier complies, quickly drops his sword to the ground and turns to get out of there. The commander looks rather betrayed at being left behind but quickly unsheathes his sword too to lay it down at his feet. For good measure, the commander spits towards the village and scowls as he goes, refusing to run as his soldier did but instead walking briskly.

“And you better stay away!” A villager yells angrily, prompting several more to yell out their discontent too. Percy lets them and instead jogs up to the two swords and picks them up. He also carefully watches the soldier and commander until they disappear into the forest, far from the village. Once he’s sure they’re gone, he turns back towards the village to see Jason helping Quimby and two other villagers tie up the unconscious soldiers. Percy quickly jogs up to them.

“Take off their armour,” Percy tells Jason once he’s close enough.

“Their armour?” Jason asks confusedly, looking up at Percy who has the two swords in his hand and is busy picking up the other two. “Oh, you want to steal their equipment,” Jason deduces. Percy nods as he walks toward his cousin.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think we’re done here,” the black-haired demigod says as he struggles to hold all four swords properly and not cut himself in the leg in the process. Luckily, his armour helps a lot in that regard.

“They were searching for a reason to pick a fight, have been since two days ago,” Horst speaks up, appearing beside Jason. The blacksmith kneels and starts helping to rid the now-captured soldiers of their armour. “We were lucky you two arrived and decided to stay around. I don’t know what we could have done against four armed soldiers without properly preparing for a fight.” Percy sighs, knowing what the man is hinting at. If Percy and Jason hadn’t been here, things could have gone wrong fairly quickly.

“Then we should prepare,” Jason proposes, busying himself with the armour of the other soldier.

“What do you expect us to do, we aren’t trained in the art of fighting as you two clearly are,” Brigit speaks up, putting her arms in her sides and lifting one eyebrow in question.

“Then what do you want to do, Brigit? Let those who call themselves soldiers harass and kill us just because we live in the same village as Roran?” One of the villagers who was in the tavern last night speaks up angrily. “Nay, I say. No more.”

“I say we just hand Roran over to them,” the butcher speaks up as he shoves his way to the front of the conversation, glaring at Horst. “That boy is trouble and we’re better off without him. If we give Roran to them they’ll leave and then we can all go back to living our peaceful lives.” Percy scowls at the man.

“Hand the boy over? Who’s to say the soldiers won’t kill us all anyway once they have Roran?” Quimby joins in, looking tired but angry.

“I believe this conversation is best left to closed quarters with the topic of your discussion actually present,” Horst speaks up loudly, interrupting the budding argument. “Let us first tie these two soldiers somewhere safe. And Albreich, you take one of the horses and go fetch Roran as quickly as possible,” Horst orders, easily taking charge of the situation. Percy is just glad that he doesn’t have to, he was actually contemplating stepping in on the argument to stop it from escalating but he’s glad he didn’t have to. This isn’t his village, after all, some villagers won’t like him stepping in.

“I’ll carry this one,” Jason says as he bends and picks up the soldier he was stealing the armour from just a moment ago fireman style. Horst huffs in appreciation while slinging the other soldier over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Percy really needs to figure out what this man eats to get so big.

That evening, a lot of people are gathered in Horst’s house to talk about what’s going to happen now. Percy and Jason aren’t allowed to join so they’re sitting outside with Roran and Horst’s youngest son, Baldor.

“It’s truly ridiculous, I know they’re talking about me so why can’t I join?” Roran rants as he paces nervously in front of them. Baldor is just munching on an apple, silently watching the agitated young man pace about.

“Because then they can say whatever they want about you without worrying about insulting you,” Percy tells him honestly, knowing it’s perhaps a bit harsh, but it’s true. Roran stops for a moment to look towards the house and then continues pacing.

“We shouldn’t be sitting about, we should be fortifying the village,” he continues, completely ignoring what Percy said. Jason sighs and leans his head back against the wall from where he’s sitting beside Percy.

“Say, you two know how to fight, right? D’you think you could teach some villagers some things?” Baldor speaks up softly, letting Roran to his ranting and pacing.

“We can always try,” Jason replies with a shrug.

“I don’t know how much we can teach, we fight with one-handed swords and we only have double-handed swords to spare,” Percy reasons, thinking about the four swords they got from the soldiers.

“We should barricade the roads! Cut down trees!” Roran continues to think out loud a bit further away.

“Well something is always better than nothing, no?” Baldor argues with a shrug.

“That’s true,” Jason agrees, nodding softly.

“I should probably talk to the village, and convince them to fight back.” Roran has now chosen to just stand still with his hand on his chin and a thoughtful expression on his face. The door then opens and Elain, Baldor’s mother, sticks her head out of the door.

“Roran, they are asking for you inside,” she softly calls out to the young man. Roran eagerly jogs to the door and enters the house.

“Well, that was quicker than I thought it, I was expecting them to argue for at least another while longer,” Baldor comments, finishing his apple. Suddenly, two unearthly shrieks sound through the night air, making all three of the young men jump up in alarm. Jason abruptly looks up and Percy follows his action, knowing his cousin must have sensed or seen something.

“There is something dark flying above the village,” Jason points out, gesturing towards where two dark blurs circle the village. But just as Percy spots them, they turn away and fly towards where the soldier camp is located. The three of them watch the two blurs land and a bad feeling settles in Percy’s stomach.

“Something tells me we won’t like what just arrived there,” the son of Poseidon says worriedly.

“And something tells me that this situation just got worse,” Baldor adds ominously.

The next day, a dreary and rainy day, the village is woken early and set to work fortifying the roads and every entrance to the village. Percy and Jason are set to work with Horst on supplying people with weapons and armour that Horst makes or has lying around in storage. Sadly Horst only has minimal amounts of armour and mostly farming tools. But luckily, farming tools include scythes, pitchforks and other sharp equipment. Roran claims a pair of heavy hammers for himself that Percy was planning on giving to Horst since the man is a literal blacksmith, but Roran might as well.

The day is interrupted again when Parr, one of the farmers, comes sprinting towards where Jason is teaching someone how to properly hold their weapon. Percy is busy teaching Baldor and Albreich how to at least properly hold the swords and defend themselves.

“The soldiers are back!” Parr calls out in alarm and everyone drops what they are doing and rushes towards the main entrance of the village. Percy and Jason push themselves to the front of the crowd behind Horst to see Roran is already there, standing where they can see him. And with the soldiers are two cloaked figures who make Percy his character alert go off, also letting him know they’re antagonists and not small ones either. Plus, the energy they exude is absolutely foul.

“—hand over Roran we will not kill everyone who lives in this village but merely enslave you,” one of the creatures hisses and spits angrily. “Consider this your final warning,” they finish just as Horst, Jason and Percy arrive at the front and go to stand with Roran. And at the exact moment, Jason and Percy go to stand at the front, the two cloaked figures snap their heads in their direction.

“You!” One of the figures snarls, lifting a gnarled and ugly hand to point at Percy and Jason, making them tense up. “You two reek of magic.” Those words surprise almost everyone who can hear the figure. Jason grasps at Percy’s arm in alarm. “Children of a powerful bloodline,” they then ominously state. “What are you doing here? Your bloodlines are supposed to have been hunted down and killed months ago!”

Wait, hold on. Did the muses give them—did they make them a backstory or something? Or does this world have gods too? And demigods? Percy is very confused.

“Well, you did a poor job apparently,” Percy flaps out, unsure of what else to say. He can also feel all of the eyes of the villagers and soldiers alike turn to look at them.

“No matter, even your diluted elemental magic won’t be able to save you,” the other figure says, lifting their head enough to show their beaked face. Percy freezes at the sight and especially at those lifeless eyes the size of fists. “You have five days to make your decision,” it then calls out to the general direction of the villagers again before promptly turning and strutting away. The soldiers and the other cloaked figure all follow suit. Silence follows their exit and the curious eyes of the villagers stay on Percy and Jason. But once the threat is gone, the silence becomes oppressive and Percy can hear people move away from them cautiously.

“Magic bloodline?” Roran is the one to voice the question. Percy looks towards Jason and he looks about as lost as Percy does. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well, we’re not supposed to exist and if people know we do—” Percy quickly improvises, as he’s wont to do when unsure about how to proceed in a situation.

“They hunt you down,” Horst finishes for Percy. There is another short and awkward silence before Roran steps forward and lays a hand on the closest demigod's shoulder, Jason’s left one.

“Magic blood or no, you two have proven yourselves to be trustworthy by protecting our village from an attack,” he announces loudly, looking Jason and Percy in the eyes, showing his sincerity before looking around at the gathered villagers. “This incident just showed us that you are an enemy of the King as much as we are,” he then says, looking back at the two demigods in front of him. Percy smiles gratefully, knowing that Roran is announcing all this so loudly to help the village accept them instead of rejecting them.

“So we’re letting magic folk into the village now, huh?” Sloan grumbles from not far away. Percy can see Horst’s face scrunch into a scowl behind his beard and stifles a chuckle.

“So, can you actually do magic?” Nolfravell asks curiously as Percy helps the kid learn how to fight with the knife the kid picked up as his weapon. The soldiers won’t spare because of his age so he shouldn’t be excluded from weapon lessons because of his age.

“Oh, Percy? He can make your chamber pot explode,” Jason jokes from where he’s helping Horst and Loring – the shoemaker – make some makeshift armour for some of the villagers. Percy gives his cousin a nasty look, knowing all too well Jason is referring to the toilet exploding incident Percy had in his first summer at camp.

“That’s just foul,” Nolfravell scrunches his nose in disgust.

“I would like to remind you that that only happened once and it was because someone wanted to push my head into it,” Percy bitterly says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Ew, why would someone do that?” Nolfravell laughed and cringed at the same time. Percy laughs too and ominously reaches toward the thirteen-year-old.

“I can always show you if you want,” Percy says with a wicked grin on his face and Nolfravell quickly squeaks and runs away. It makes most of the adults present laugh when Percy then starts chasing the kid.

“No! Keep your chamber pot powers away from me!” Nolfravell calls out as Percy almost catches him. “Father! Percy wants to do magic with the camber pots!” the kid yells as he runs toward where his father is conversing with Roran, Delwin and Parr.

“It’ll only stink for a little while,” Percy taunts as he continues ‘chasing’ Nolfravell. If he was truly trying to catch the kid, the chase would have ended around the same time it started.

“Percy stop taunting the children,” Roran chastises him and Percy pouts but stops chasing. Nolvrafell takes that chance to go hide behind his dad and stick his tongue out at Percy.

“Will you actually answer my question now?” Nolfravell then asks as he sees Percy has given up. Percy looks over his shoulder to see Jason pausing what he’s doing, paying attention to the conversation again.

“If I had to give you an honest answer, I can do a lot of magic with water while Jason can do a lot of magic involving wind and storms,” Percy replies honestly, seeing no point in lying, but he won’t tell them everything either, who knows who is listening in. Besides, Sloan is awfully close and he doesn’t trust the man.

“Didn’t those cloaked figures say your magic was ‘diluted’?” Delwin inquires curiously. “Controlling storms doesn’t sound weak to me.”

“Well, they probably meant it in the way that we can’t do magic like most magicians, we can only do specific things like control water or the wind but not much else,” Jason explains simply. “We also don’t use the Ancient Language, our magic is something we were born with and don’t have to learn how to use. So in other words, our repertoire of magic spells is limited, but that doesn’t mean they’re not powerful.”

“Can I see some magic?” Elmund pipes up from where he’s standing by Delwin and Lenna, his parents.

“Well, what would you like to see?” Percy asks the kid with a soft smile.

“Magic,” the ten-year-old simply replies. Jason chuckles at the obvious reply. Percy sighs and looks up, seeing if there’s any water close by. He spots the vat of water Horst uses to cool his hot irons when he’s smithing. Stretching out his hand, he feels the water obey his command fairly easily. He can also feel something thrum in the air and aid him. That’s weird, it’s never happened before, but it’s also the first time Percy is using his powers here in this world. Is this the magic that this world is saturated with he feels?

The slightly murky water rises from the open vat and starts swirling and twisting towards Percy. The son of Poseidon quickly moves his hands and the water shapes itself according to his will. He makes the water resemble the shape of a fish and then moves it around so it looks like it’s swimming through the air. He smiles and makes it pass by Nolfravell and Elmund who both reach out to touch the fish, disturbing the shape only slightly with their hands.

Then, he lets the fish swim away from the two kids when they’re giggling in awe at the magic. Percy moves his hands and lets it swim back towards the forge but when it passes by Jason, he promptly drops a big part of the water on his cousin’s head.

“Percy!” Jason splutters angrily while most of the other people are laughing.

“That’s for telling people about the chamber pot incident,” the black-haired demigod states with a grin. Jason glares back and looks a bit like a wet dog. It makes Percy laugh harder and quickly lets the water all gather above Jason’s head again, drying his cousin off and carefully putting the water back into the cooling vat.

“Freaks,” Sloan comments harshly from where he’s already stomping away. Percy ignores him, knowing only Jason and he hear the man anyway because everyone is laughing too loudly. He’s distracted anyway when a big gust of wind suddenly blows him over.

“Jason!” Percy yelps, already scrambling back upright again and charging his cousin.

Percy grunts as he helps Gedric get the chopped but unstripped tree in place, dodging branches as they sway in his face. Percy’s horse – whom he’s just started calling ‘όνος’ or ‘onos’ which is modern Greek for donkey, but his horse doesn’t need to know that, it actually thinks it’s quite a nice and sophisticated-sounding name – is helping by pulling from the front.

“Gods, why can’t we just strip the trees?” Gedric curses out what everyone has been thinking.

“Because the branches provide cover from arrows,” Nolfravell says where he’s guiding Onos gently by the reins in the right direction.

“It was a rhetorical question, lad,” Gedric laughs.

“I know, I just wanted to annoy you,” the kid calls back with a vicious smirk. “But to cheer you up, we’re almost there. Our barricade is almost completely done!” the kid then cheerfully announces. Percy huffs happily before nodding at Gedric and they start helping push the tree trunk in the right direction again.

After some more pushing, dragging and grunting the last big piece of the barricade is finally in place and Percy goes for the first vat of collected rainwater to plunge his head into it. It isn’t the cleanest but whatever.

“Good work, lads,” Gedric says, patting Nolfravell on the shoulder and smiling at a dripping-wet Percy. Normally, Percy would dry himself, but he has decided to keep as much of his powers secret as possible just in case. He never lies about them, but also doesn’t talk about them when no one asks. “You two go take a rest now, I’m going to go see if Albem over there needs any help.” And then the man walks off towards one of the villagers who is busy making arrows.

“Sometimes I hate being so small and other times I really find myself to be lucky,” the kid comments when he sees Percy stretching his back and groaning at his sore muscles.

“Just wait, the day will come when you won’t be considered a kid anymore,” Percy warns the teen, offering him a wry smirk.

“I can’t wait,” Nolfravell chuckles and Percy isn’t sure if the kid’s joking or serious. The conversation makes Percy think though. People are considered to be adults around 16 here, not 18 like their own world. Percy is 19 now and Jason is 18, they’ve both been adults for a while in this world while barely being considered out of the teenage phase in their world. It didn’t stop the gods from relying on them to save the world – twice. Perhaps they also think 16 is an appropriate age to be dragged into adulthood.

Percy looks around at all the villagers getting themselves ready to fight back or fortify their houses. It’s—not sad per se, it isn’t the first battle preparation Percy has seen—but it’s different to what he’s used to. First of all, these people – or at least most people – don’t know how to fight. They’re farmers, shoemakers, brewers and blacksmiths, not warriors or demigods. Some of the people here are even opting to hide away and not participate in the fight because they’re so afraid.

Horst and the other village leaders are currently very busy discussing what to do with the weak, old, sick and young or those who don’t want to fight. They can’t stay in the village, not when everyone knows the battle that is surely coming will be bloody and destructive.

Two of the villagers are constantly watching the captured soldiers. Roran and Albreich have been trying and failing to interrogate them so Jason thought he’d take a crack at it today. Percy didn’t want to be there, he’d rather help the villagers prepare so that’s what he’s doing. But he still can’t help but wonder if Jason is getting any information out of the soldiers.

Somewhere deep inside, Percy knows Jason was probably taught how to at least intimidate prisoners in Camp Jupiter since tradition demands it. But he still tries not to think about how children are being taught how to interrogate others so he shakes the thought off.

Looking towards where the kid was just a moment ago, Percy sees he’s long gone so he sighs and sits himself down in the shade of the home whose rainwater he chose to dump his head in. The weather has been cooling down drastically the last few days, truly letting everyone know that winter is right around the corner. It makes Percy glad to be wearing his thick early medieval European armour, Greek armour wouldn’t do much against the chilly wind and occasional rain. He does miss his helmet though.

“Hey, is this water safe to drink?” Onos asks, trotting over to Percy and the vat he’s sitting next to. Percy looks up at his horse and then at the vat of rainwater.

“Yeah, it should be, I’m not sensing that much filth inside,” Percy tells his horse absentmindedly, waving dismissively in the direction of the vat.

“You are convenient to have as an owner. I will never have stomach aches from bad drinking water ever again!” Onos says cheerily, happily dunking his snout in the water and drinking. Percy chuckles and looks up at the sky, taking in the peacefulness of the moment. He knows it won’t last long. He knows, but still, he hopes. He’s kind of sick of wars and fighting and—well, war. But yet here he is.

This isn’t even his fight, he’s in a godsdamned book! He is inside a story and the people aren’t even real, but—they seem so real to him right now. They have personalities and lives and a family and—if he doesn’t help them, who knows what those hooded figures – the Ra’zac as they’re apparently called – might do to these people!

Percy takes a deep breath and lets himself relax. Onos is finished drinking and lowers his head to sniff at Percy and chew lightly on the collar of his tunic that’s sticking out from his chain mail.

“When I feel sad, I usually try to find something fun to do, it always helps,” Onos says softly, nudging his head against Percy’s cheek. “Like finding delicious patches of grass! That always helps – food always cheers anyone up.” Percy looks up at the yellow dun-coated horse and softly pats his snout.

“What do you want me to do, Onos? Search for some good grass for you to eat too? Sorry to disappoint but I’m not a grass expert like I am a water expert,” he jokes weakly. Onos snorts and shakes out his mane, doing the horse equivalent of a bark of laughter.

“I’m not the sad one, I don’t need grass. You do!” And Percy feels those words deep inside his chest. Yeah, he is pretty sad right now, isn’t he? Maybe taking a horse’s advice isn’t that bad right now.

“How about helping me find a good apple to munch on, then?” Percy asks his horse with a soft smile.

“Well, I don’t want to brag, but I do consider myself an apple expert, so let’s go,” Onos happily agrees. Percy is shortly reminded of Blackjack and his obsession with doughnuts. That thought just makes him miss home. But following Onos towards the centre of the village to find food and make sure the horse doesn’t steal said food quickly takes his mind off things.

Chapter Text

The attack from the soldiers happens unexpectedly on the fourth day, right after nightfall. Percy and Jason are by the smithy, busying themselves with helping some villagers learn how to take care of their weapons of choice. A loud explosion rocks the village and Percy knows the time to fight has come.

He’s struggling with the idea of having to kill normal people, but—he might have to. They’re aiming to kill him after all. This is a kill-or-be-killed situation just like any other monster-fight he’s been in. Only, these aren’t monsters who kill demigod children and anyone they deem a good snack, they’re people who will think twice about harming unarmed civilians. Yes, they’re stuck-up assholes, but they’re people.

“Grab your weapons!” Horst starts commanding the villagers, Roran right beside him. Percy and Jason are already sprinting towards the action, hearing people scream for help, their armour clinking loudly as they run. Thanks to Horst’s efforts, Jason and Percy were allowed to get the helmets they could grab off the soldiers they captured so they’re now completely covered and ready to fight.

When rounding a corner, the two demigods are faced with a massacre. Civilians are running away, the few people who have weapons are trying their best to fight back, and a couple of bodies are already scattered on the ground.

Between those fighting, Percy immediately spots Nolfravell – a literal child – stabbing a soldier’s corpse over and over again. Angry tears streaming down his face. And when he sees the lifeless little body next to the duo, Percy understands why.

Elmund. The little ten-year-old boy who was so curious and bright lies on the ground with a gaping wound in his chest still bleeding sluggishly.

The kid is staring lifelessly up at the sky, a frightened look etched onto his face forever.

For a moment, the Battle of New York flashes before Percy’s eyes. All those children—all those deaths. For what?

Percy grips his sword tighter and turns his gaze to a soldier attacking a defenceless couple trying to flee the carnage. Only Roran and his hammers stand in between them.

He was wrong.

These aren’t people. These are monsters too.

They don’t discriminate between unarmed civilians and armed foes.

Percy gnashes his teeth harshly against each other and joins the fray. His sight settles on a Ra’zac who is tearing into the body of Albem, the kind man who helped Percy find apples yesterday.

Steel glints dangerously as Percy draws his weapon. The Ra’zac hears him approach and turns toward him at the last moment. It dodges the sword that was aimed right at their jugular.

It’s fast, Percy notes as he relentlessly attacks the monster. The Ra’zac clicks and cracks angrily in its language but Percy ignores that, noting that Jason is keeping the other Ra’zac very occupied.

The fight blurs into a sort of dance with Jason and Percy flawlessly working together to push the Ra’zac back. Percy swings and hacks while Jason pushes the other Ra’zac back. When the monsters move or dodge, the two demigods flawlessly switch positions to keep their momentum and just attack the other. It’s a battle of monsters against demigods once again. Their expertise.

The fight finally gets a turnaround when Jason stabs and hits one of the Ra’zac right in the shoulder. The monster shrieks in pain as Jason’s glamoured imperial gold sword cuts right through their tough exoskeleton like butter where Percy’s steel weapon always bounced off. So demigod weapons are still better against monsters here too, huh?

“Your magic—” the wounded Ra’zac rumbles angrily while the second one rushes to shield them from the two demigods—“it isn’t diluted at all. I see we were mistaken. The king will hear of this.” Percy and Jason don’t let the words affect them, they’ve been threatened before and this is nothing new. Plus, after all of this, they were already expecting the king to hear of them.

“Retreat!” The other monster bellows and the flow of the battle reverses quite quickly when the soldiers see their leaders have been wounded and driven back by the two demigods.

“Don’t let them run! Kill them!” Roran calls out loudly when the soldiers start retreating.

The Ra’zac have already taken the chance to disappear into the dark and run far away. Percy and Jason let them, they’re not worth the chase. The two demigods look at each other when the soldiers start retreating in their direction since their fight has taken them outside the village.

“Kill as many as we can?” Jason grimly asks his cousin, a murderous look on his face.

Percy doesn’t reply but lifts his weapon in response, glaring at the soldiers who are approaching in an attempt to flee. People are screaming and yelling all around, some in pain, some in anger.

Torchlight makes the whole area light up ominously. Silhouettes and shadows dance all around, making the night seem so alive even though there is so much death.

The first three soldiers stand no chance against two angry and motivated demigods. Jason goes for the first one, hacking their head off with almost no trouble. Percy goes for the second, swinging his sword fluidly and severing the upper body from the legs with only minimal resistance from the weak armour they’re wearing. The third is stabbed through the face by both Jason and Percy simultaneously.

The other retreating soldiers witness the massacre and freeze in their retreat. Jason and Percy just raise their weapons in challenge, daring them to try and get past them.

“Just run!” someone yells and it prompts the remaining soldiers to just start running all at once. Percy knows they won’t be able to stop all of them, but he doesn’t care. These soldiers would kill children to get what they want. They don’t deserve Percy’s pity.

Percy cuts down two more and Jason manages to get three by the time all of the soldiers have fled and the battle comes to an end.

Screams still ring through the night but now they’ve all turned into screams of pain or sadness.

“Elmund!” Percy hears the kid’s mother wail in despair. The scream tears right through his heart, reminding him once again of home. How many people has he heard scream like that? Too many.

“Bastards!” Parr yells after the retreating backs of the soldiers, cradling a wounded arm to his chest but seemingly alright otherwise.

Keeping his gaze on the forest to make sure no threat returns, Percy takes some deep breaths and calms his racing heart.

“Those monsters—” Jason speaks up softly, moving to stand right beside his cousin. Percy carefully leans against Jason in search of support and feels the need to be reassured that he isn’t alone, Jason happily leans back.

“Your sword worked better against them,” Percy points out, looking at the blood-coated sword his cousin is still clutching very tightly.

“And they seemed to hate the fire, they flinched back from it when we got too close to torches,” the son of Jupiter adds, looking toward the torches that were placed outside of the barricades to light up the path so the watchmen could see threats coming more easily.

“Now I regret not letting Leo join us on our trip,” Percy sighs with a small smile. Jason chuckles softly and swings his sword a bit to get some blood off.

“Leo probably would have burned down the forest already,” the blonde reminisces and it’s Percy’s turn to chuckle.

“And the village in addition.” The two demigods stand a bit longer in their bubble of quiet before a scream of pain cuts through it and makes them turn back to the village to help take care of the wounded.

Percy stands outside of Horst’s house, staring into the darkness and towards the entrance of the village. He can’t sleep after yesterday.

As he stands here, he can kind of understand the appeal of standing outside in the cold and smoking something warm. Is this why smokers enjoy this part of smoking so much? Percy is kind of curious to try now but knows he really shouldn’t. Not like he can get his hands on a cigarette here anyway.

But he still wonders.

After the battle, people spend the rest of the evening and night gathering dead bodies and taking care of the wounded. Percy and Jason collapsed into bed far into the night. Today the dead were given proper burials, it took most of the day. Percy and Jason didn’t attend them, they instead focussed on repairing the barricade that was blown apart by the Ra’zac and the soldiers.

The dead soldiers were undressed and thrown on a pile to burn, not granted a proper funeral by the villagers, Percy doesn’t point out how burning a body is a proper funeral for Jason and him.

Breathing out, Percy watches his breath cloud in front of his face. The wisps rise in the air much like the smoke from a candle when you blow it out. Gods, it’s cold. But the cold helps him think clearer.

The armour and weapons the villagers could scavenge have been taken to the smithy and Horst and his two sons and wife have spent the whole afternoon cleaning and repairing what they can. The more villagers and fighters they can properly arm and protect with armour, the better.

Roran has been restless the whole day, murmuring about leaving the village and about reinforcements surely coming now. Percy knows the young man is right, reinforcements are properly being requested right now and if—no, when they arrive it will be a bloodbath. Percy and Jason can help fight off thirty soldiers and two monsters, but more is difficult even for them.

Roran even gave a speech this evening to a lot of villagers, calling to them and trying to convince them to leave the village with them. There were many protests, but Percy knows that most will probably leave with Roran in the end. This valley is a trap.

Percy’s eyes find the silhouettes of the mountains surrounding the village, blocking out the stars. Those mountains are exactly what makes this place a death trap. Especially the fear this whole village seems to have of it. Percy wonders why everyone fears those mountains.

A cold wind blows and ruffles Percy’s hair and clothes. He really isn’t dressed for the cold night, but he didn’t want to wake everyone up by pulling on his thick clothes and armour. Jason was tired and needed his sleep. Not like Percy doesn’t need it, but it isn’t coming to him anyway, so at least one of them should sleep properly.

Onos is staring at Percy from his stable, clearly not happy with his clean water finder not sleeping.

The guard at the entrance of the village – Byrd Percy thinks he’s called – is almost falling asleep where he’s standing. Percy sighs and starts walking over there to help the man stay awake. He might as well, since he won’t be sleeping again anytime soon.

But as Percy walks through the village, movement from in between the dark houses catches his attention. Percy quickly pushes himself against the wall of the house he’s walking past at the moment.

The figure continues walking through the dark and Percy recognizes the silhouette as Sloan’s. Percy’s eyes narrow as he spots the man. What is that awful man doing now?

He’s been the most antagonistic of all the villagers toward Percy and Jason. And his attitude is much the same as any of the other villagers, especially Roran. Percy can’t say he understands the man. But he knows little about him so perhaps the man has reason to be so antagonistic.

Able to walk silently now that he isn’t wearing armour, Percy sneaks after the man to see what he’s up to. Man, Percy should have taken his sword with him, but the belt’s noise would have woken Jason up. Luckily, Riptide is still resting in his pocket so he has a weapon in case of an emergency.

The butcher approaches the barricade silently and alarm bells start going off in his head. And then he sees the knife sticking out of the man’s belt as he approaches Byrd in ‘friendly conversation’. Percy reacts quickly and runs up to the two men right when Sloan goes for the hidden knife.

“No!” Percy yells out, sprinting as fast as he can.

Unfortunately, Percy is too late and Sloan stabs Byrd in the abdomen.

“Bastard,” Percy curses quickly runs up and punches Sloan as hard as he can. The man grunts in pain and falls to the ground. Percy quickly bends down over Byrd and starts putting pressure on the man’s wound.

Blood flows from the wound and slips in between the demigod's fingers. But the wound is in the lower abdomen, so maybe it didn’t hit any vital organs—gods, what does Percy do? He should have paid more attention to Will and his ‘first-aid in battles’ speeches.

“You’re fine, you’re going to be fine,” Percy murmurs to the man as he works to keep pressure on the wound with one hand and rummages around for a piece of clean cloth in his pockets with the other. Percy faintly registers that Sloan is standing back up behind him but he ignores the man. If he’s smart, he will run away now.

“You’re going to be fine,” Percy instead mutters to Byrd as he finally finds the handkerchief he was searching for. Percy never uses the handkerchief anyway, Byrd can have it.

“P-percy,” Byrd stutters out, looking not at Percy but at something behind him. Percy feels panic clench around his heart. When a heavily wounded person does their best to warn someone, it’s serious.

But before Percy can turn around, a blade comes to rest against his unprotected throat.

“Be silent and we won’t kill,” the creaky voice of one of the Ra’zac says right behind him. Percy slowly turns his head to see Sloan pushed aside the cart that served as a barrier and the two Ra’zac have now entered the village. “Go get the Dragon Rider’s family,” the Ra’zac holding Percy at sword point orders their companion.

The other Ra’zac runs off silently and swiftly and Percy watches them run straight for Horst’s house where Roran is sleeping soundly.

Gods, no. So many people are sleeping in that house. That Ra’zac could kill them all in their sleep, while they’re defenceless. Who’s to say the beast won’t stop at just Roran?

Percy doesn’t really think about his choice, he knows what the Ra’zac entering the house will mean and he doesn’t want to let that happen. So Percy takes a deep breath and braces himself for the pain that will surely follow his decision.

“RA’ZAC ATTACK!!” Percy yells as loud as he can and for a moment everything is silent before the blade at Percy’s neck moves. Percy tenses, expecting a blade to stab at any moment.

No pain comes – but he hears a sword stab into flesh anyway.

When did Percy close his eyes?

He opens them only to see the sword that was at his throat now stuck inside Byrd’s face.

Bile rises up at the sight and Percy fights the urge to empty his stomach’s contents. He’s seen a lot of nasty things—but brains? That’s—that’s somehow the worst thing he’s ever seen and he’s been to literal hell.

Gods. Fuck.

“You were warned,” the Ra’zac hisses out angrily, yanking his sword out of Byrd’s face, making Percy close his eyes to not have to see it. Blood still seeps from the wound Percy’s hands are still on and it—Percy wants to cry. He wants to jump to his feet and fight—he wants—Gods, he wants to be away from here.

Next thing Percy knows, something hits him over the head quite harshly and Percy slumps down to the ground.

Percy comes back to the world hanging upside down. He can feel someone hanging right beside him and groans softly. His head is pounding heavily in rhythm with his heartbeat and he can feel a cold breeze cool the side of his head which is wet. Probably with blood.

“Awake?” Someone hisses into his ears and Percy’s body shoots upright when he remembers what happened.

Unfortunately, he was hanging over the back of some animal and he promptly falls off. What also doesn’t help is that his hands have been bound tightly behind his back with rope so he can’t even break his fall properly.

The Ra’zac that spoke just laughs at his misfortune before turning away.

“This isn’t what you promised.” Percy hears Sloan protest and hearing the man’s voice makes Percy’s anger bubble up to the surface, pulling his attention from the throbbing in his head enough to focus on the conversation. “You promised to let us go.” The demigod tries to struggle to his feet but the animal he was laying on a moment ago puts their clawed foot on his chest and keeps him pinned to the ground.

“There has been a change of plans,” one of the cloaked monsters hisses coldly. Percy looks to the side to see Sloan struggling against the two Ra’zac as they tie him up similarly to Percy. When he cranks his head to see if they got Roran, he can only see a woman. Katrina.

Fuck.

“Traitors!” Sloan bellows at the two monsters and Percy groggily glares at the man.

“Says the one who stabbed his fellow villager to let them inside the barricades!” Percy growls out, trying to use his feet to get the foul beast pinning him down to let him go, but the beast just shrieks and uses its claws to pierce into his arms from the side.

Sloan looks in Percy’s direction both angry and slightly guilty. The Ra’zac then knock the man out so they can throw him over the back of the other monster. Now that Percy properly looks at them, he recognizes them as the flying things Jason spotted days earlier that signalled the arrival of the Ra’zac.

They look a bit like a pterodactyl but at the same time not. They have two feet and two wings, beaks the size of a grown man and beady soulless eyes about as big as Percy’s fists. Their skin is hairless and resembles the skin of those naked mole rats, but darker and much more unhealthy looking.

“I thought you came here for Roran, then why are you taking those two?” Percy asks the cloaked monsters as they approach him now.

“Silence,” the one at his side first hisses. Percy just scowls at them.

“Oh, you want silence? How about I start singing then?” Percy opens his mouth to do just that but a hand slams down on his throat, cutting off his air.

“Pest,” the Ra’zac now squeezing his windpipe says hatefully, leaning in close. “The king will be pleased when we bring you to him,” they then hiss, leaning in closer to Percy and staring right into his eyes. The hand on his windpipe loosens slightly and it suddenly blows softly at Percy’s face.

For a moment, Percy coughs and breaths harshly, trying to get some air back into his lungs. But after a few breaths, he suddenly feels his body going lax and his muscles stop working.

Shit. Poisonous breath? Fuck.

It completely paralyzes him, just barely letting him breathe and function enough to stay alive, but rendering him unable to do much else.

As Percy slumps bonelessly against the ground, the Ra’zac finally lets go of his throat. It allows Percy’s head to droop to the side.

“You can take the humans, I will ride to the king and present him our gift,” the Ra’zac leaning over him says to their companion. The other Ra’zac takes Katrina and lays her over their steed, beside her father. But then Percy loses sight of them as the clawed foot finally lifts off him so the Ra’zac can lift him and sling him over the back of their own steed.

“And if you value your cousin’s life, Blonde One. You will not attack,” the Ra’zac says as it climbs into their saddle right behind Percy, trapping him in between the neck of the beast and the body of the Ra’zac. The cloaked monster’s words surprise Percy though. Is it talking to—Jason? Is Jason here? “You too, Dragon Rider Family. Behave or your lover will get it. I know you hide in the brush, I can smell you. We Ra’zac never forget a smell,” it says before nudging its steed and taking off.

The abrupt upward movement and the tiredness settling in Percy’s bones eventually make him pass out.

The whole trip, Percy stays under the influence of the wretched monster’s poisonous breath. About halfway through their flight, the two Ra’zac take different paths, the one with Percy in tow goes toward Urû’baen and the other to a place called the Helgrind with Katrina and Sloan in tow, also under the influence of its breath.

As they fly, Percy can see the world underneath them – even if it’s shrouded in darkness since the Ra’zac can’t handle sunlight – and more than once thinks about how much he hates it. He also wonders about what happened to Jason. The Ra’zac are gone now, are they going to flee the valley? Are they going towards Surda? Roran wanted to go there to join the Varden.

Ugh, it’s killing Percy to not know anything and just uselessly hang off a flying beast’s back, unable to move or do anything.

It's been two days!

Gods, Percy just wants to move. He wants to fight, to insult this Ra’zac until it withers from humiliation. He wants to go toward the ocean and take a swim. He wants to talk to Onos some more. Or perhaps just be where Jason is so he knows he’s not alone in this.

Fuck.

But no, instead he’s been paralyzed for two days. The Ra’zac had to pour his water down his throat so he’d get to drink and soup so he’d get to eat. He couldn’t even properly swallow it or taste it. It all just went straight down thanks to his reflexes.

Percy should have just stayed in his bed.

But then Sloan could have—or the Ra’zac—

No, Percy may regret being captured and being stuck here, but he wouldn’t change a thing. He was able to call out to the village about the attack and he likes to think it at least saved some people. He wasn’t able to save Byrd, but maybe he was able to save someone else.

When they finally start descending toward the city on the third night, Percy doesn’t know if he should feel relieved or if he should feel dread. Relief because the flying is finally over. Dread because he’s going to meet the main antagonist, or at least who Jason and he think is the main antagonist.

The city has massive walls surrounding it and a big overhang carved from the hill the city is located inside. If Percy didn’t know magic existed, he would fear the hill could collapse. There are also a lot of towers scattered around the city, but more Percy can’t see since they fly over the hill and to the ominous castle on top of it.

The castle makes chills go up his spine. Or at least what he can see of it without being able to turn his head properly. He can only move his eyes which frustrates him because it also makes him a bit nauseous as they start circling down.

And then they land.

There is an ominous moment of silence in which Percy’s skin crawls with nerves and the urge to run or hide. But he can’t.

“I see you’ve come bearing gifts,” a low voice speaks up, startling Percy.

“The old magic bloodline runs strong within this one,” the Ra’zac replies.

“Magic bloodline, you say?” the voice sounds closer now, but Percy barely hears any footsteps. He does hear the swish of a cape and the soft clinking of chains or iron. A hand suddenly grabs his chin and lifts his head at a painful angle.

Percy grunts at the painful angle but still forces himself to look at the man now standing in front of him. He looks around 40 years old and has black shoulder-length hair. A black cloak hangs around his shoulders, reaching down far beyond what Percy can see hiding most of the man’s body.

“There is another, fair-haired man too, but he escaped our clutches,” the cloaked monster tells the man who Percy now knows is King Galbatorix.

Thank you, Muses, for that helpful superpower. But it also lets him know that Jason and he were right, this man is the main villain of the story.

“I can feel the magic inside you, boy,” the king suddenly tells Percy, turning his head this and that way, making the poor demigod’s neck protest loudly. “I thought the last ones of the Magic Bloodline were all so diluted, mingled with normal humans the magic was nigh traceable, but yet here you are,” the king lowers his face to look Percy straight in the eyes, “alive and more powerful than even I ever encountered in my youth. And I was so certain I hunted down every last one of you too.” The man’s vicious grin makes about every alarm bell in Percy’s head go off.

“He might be a good servant,” the Ra’zac that has by now slid off the back of his foul beast says gleefully. “Or a good snack.”

“Take him down to a cell and make sure he’s restrained well. Give him some of the magic-suppressing drugs too while you’re at it, we don’t want him escaping,” the king orders as he finally lets go of Percy’s chin, letting it slam against the side of the beast. Percy bites his tongue in the process and curses the man silently in his head while blood drips down his lips. “And while you’re down there, would you mind paying Murtagh a little visit? He’s been getting awfully rebellious.”

And with that, the king takes his leave and Percy can finally breathe again.

“I have other good news as well,” the Ra’zac calls out after the king.

“Then report back to me after you’re done.” And that’s that. Percy’s fate is sealed. He’s now officially a prisoner of the antagonist and will probably be tortured.

Hurray.

Chapter Text

Percy stares at the ceiling silently as he hears Galbatorix talk to and threaten the person in the cell next to his. He discovered that it’s the ‘Murtagh’ person the king thought was getting rebellious upon his arrival. He’s also found the poor man has been in this castle his whole life, something about being the king’s old friend’s son? Poor guy.

It's been two days since Percy was dropped inside this small cell and he’s already sick of it. First, it doesn’t have a toilet or chamber pot or whatever. It only has a bucket that gets emptied once a day in the evening which luckily won’t stink during the night but—gods it’s disgusting. It also only has this tiny window that’s been barred off at the top of the cell, but it’s barely big enough for a mouse to crawl through.

But the worst thing about this is the way they decided he should be chained. Since Galbatorix sees him as nothing more than a future servant – a slave in other words – he’s been given a – drum roll – a collar! Yes, you heard that right. They gave Percy a collar. A metal collar that is uncomfortable and attached to a ring in the wall by a very small chain. So small he can barely reach his bucket that’s in the back corner opposite from where his collar has been attached.

The shortness of the chain also means he can only go to his shit bucket, to the bed that’s right under the ring he’s been chained to and the empty space between the bed and the bucket. He can’t even dream of reaching the bars of the cell let alone just lay his head on the other side of the dingy wooden bed. And they also chained his right ankle to another ring closer to the ground. Just in case the collar isn’t enough. Fuckers.

Another thing Percy hates is the bed. It creaks and croaks all the time. It’s hard and the hay that covers it barely helps soften the surface. And don’t even get him started on the blanket. It’s way too short and he has to curl up under it for it to be a blanket. And since they stole his clothes and gave him what he can only describe as rags in the place, Percy is always cold. Because yes, they’re ignoring that it’s almost winter, that his cell has a window and that cellars aren’t exactly known to be warm places either.

So all in all, it’s a terrible experience that Percy wouldn’t recommend to anyone. 2/10. Why still give it a 2 then? He has a friend. And food. And Tartarus was still worse. But the friend especially helps. Murtagh has turned out to be a pessimistic but funny cell neighbour to have. The constant drugged and sluggish state he’s in definitely helps bring the number down though.

“Now, time to start with you,” the king says as he suddenly opens Percy’s cell door. He didn’t even notice the sudden silence in the cell next to his, too absorbed in his thoughts. “I will keep this simple and short for you,” he haughtily says, looking down his nose at Percy, “I do not tolerate lying and I do not tolerate disobedience. Seeing as you have to possibility to be of value to me, no serious bodily harm will come to you, but be warned that your body is not the only place I can hurt.” Percy slowly sits up as the king does his monologue, his body is heavy and slow from the drugs.

“Now, tell me your name,” the king then asks seriously, looking straight at Percy. Percy just lifts an eyebrow and gives the king a confused look. He’s pretty sure the man knows his name.

“Percy?” he answers hesitatingly, not sure what else to say. Well, he doesn’t think last names are a thing in this universe so—should he say it? It can come across as a normal last name here, right? I mean, some of the villagers introduced themselves as ‘sons of’ or ‘daughters of’. The king doesn’t seem to like the answer though.

“Not your name, boy. Your name,” the king chides, almost rolling his eyes without actually rolling them. It’s uncanny how this man can make expressions without making them. But Percy doesn’t understand the demand. Percy is his name, what else does the man want from him? His middle name? He doesn’t have one.

“Percy Jackson,” Percy replies after a bit of pondering, it can’t hurt to use his actual last name, it’s ‘medieval’ enough. The king stares at Percy in silence for a moment and he can almost see the bulging veins at his temple like you always see in animations.

“Why do I even try, I’ll just find out myself,” the king then states and promptly steps forward. The next moment, Percy feels as if something else is inside his mind and then it starts digging. Percy screams. Images flash inside his head, images of his arrival to Carvahall, of his interactions with Jason and Onos. And then they go farther back into his life. But not his life, the life he supposedly lived here, that his character had before the story started.

Percy sees burning houses, people screaming and getting hacked down by soldiers. He sees him and Jason, slightly younger, hiding away from the slaughterfest. He sees glimpses of Thalia, Annabeth, Nico and Hazel as they go farther back in his memories. He sees other demigods, Roman and Greek flash by before the destruction. He sees a whole village of the demigods mingling with normal people. He sees his mother and father. It’s a mockery of his real life, aspects of the real thing taken and warped to fit the land he has now found himself in.

And then it stops.

The king hums softly as he stares at a slumped-over Percy who is now clutching at his head in pain. So this is the backstory the muses have given them, huh? Couldn’t they just give them the knowledge? Did he really have to go through—whatever that was to get to know his own backstory?

“I see, there are no others alive anymore. You and your cousin are the last ones, my soldiers killed everyone else,” the king summarizes what the both of them just learned. “Shame, more servants would always be better. But you and eventually your cousin will have to do.” The king then grabs a fistful of Percy’s hair and lifts his head up. Percy only realizes there are tears softly trailing down his face when he opens his eyes and two more escape.

“What do you want from us?” Percy rasps as he looks up at the man that looms over him. The king scrutinises the young demigod’s face, his cold eyes not showing a hint of emotion.

“I want soldiers. I want to rule over this country and its people to stop war, to stop violence and to stop magic. The only magic that will ever be used again will be magic I use or permit. Which will eventually include you and your cousin,” the king says calmly, moving his hand so it slides down over Percy’s throat. The king pushes and the young demigod is pushed against the wall of his cell. Percy lifts his hands to fight back but the king mutters words he can’t understand and his body freezes.

And then the presence in his mind is back. Percy wants to move, to fight, to get away. But his whole body is frozen in place, clutching at the king’s arm that’s holding him in place. Memories start flashing by and playing out again. This time more concentrated on Percy’s youth. He sees himself playing with other demigods. He sees himself learning sword fighting from Luke again. He sees Beckendorf as the village smithy’s apprentice. He sees Clarisse beating down on him by a creek. He sees Rachel drawing the landscape with charcoal. So many memories. So many twisted memories.

It goes on for so much longer now. The memories are jumbled and not at all in any particular order. But they all reflect some major happening in Percy’s life. They all, in their own twisted way, represent his worst and best moments. A human Grover in a wedding dress to protect his little sister from being married off young. He and Annabeth holding up big boulders from a collapsed cave ceiling with an unconscious Artemis at their side. Hazel, Frank and he walking over a glacier to go retrieve something lost. And so much more.

It stops again and Percy still can’t move. Having his mind invaded like this though, it’s not only extremely painful but also invasive and uncomfortable to know that the king knows so much about his life.

“Your name is a difficult one to find,” the king speaks up and Percy lifts tired and blurry eyes to look at him again. “I will be back.” And then the king lets go and Percy can move again.

“Fuck.”

Percy curls up into a ball, trying to make his brain stop hurting. Memories are attacking his mind, jumbling everything together. Memories from here are replacing old ones. No, no, Percy doesn’t want that. He wants to remember! No! Don’t take his memories from him, please.

Don’t let him forget who he really is.

“Does it ever get easier?” Percy carefully asks his prison mate.

“Not really,” Murtagh replies after a beat of silence. The other’s voice is hoarse from all the screaming he’s been doing. Percy doesn’t want to know what they regularly do to him. He doesn’t want to know. He knows it’s worse than just the mental torture he daily is subjected to.

“How long have you been here?” Percy instead asks the question he hasn’t dared ask yet. There is another silence, but Percy can hear chains rattle on the other side of the wall he’s leaning against.

“My whole life. It’s easier to name the times I haven’t been here,” Murtagh laughs bitterly. Percy feels bad for asking now. “You know, the drugs are in the food, not the water. They put it in there because you don’t taste it in there,” the rough voice of his fellow prisoner points out a bit later. Percy frowns at that.

“Why are you—” and then it hits him. Murtagh is telling him how to get out. Murtagh himself doesn’t have magic, but Percy does. If he just manages to not eat for long enough, he could break them out. In theory. He doesn’t have armour, only riptide. But when has that ever stopped him before? But can riptide hurt normal people here? Technically, Jason’s sword did hurt normal people, he just hurt the Ra’zac easier. So are Imperial gold and—bronze… some kind of bronze. What is Riptide made of again? Ah, shit, Percy forgot the name, damned memory-altering.

“Just, please, Percy,” Murtagh breaks through Percy’s silence, “take me with you.” The other’s voice cracks as he says the last part.

“I promise.” And he means it with all his heart.

That evening, when Percy is given his dinner, he looks closer at the broth they give him. It’s seasoned well and there are a lot of flavoury things in there. It’s food worthy of rich people, so then for what other reason would they make a mere prisoner’s food this tasteful than to hide the taste of the drugs? If Annabeth were here, she would have figured it out on the first day. But unfortunately, Percy’s magic bloodline didn’t give him the brains, only the brawn.

Wait—magic blood—no! He’s a demigod, his father’s powers. Gods, it’s getting more difficult by the day to separate the two lives from each other.

Percy chugs down his half-litre of mostly clean water but he doesn’t touch the food.

“Hey, Murtagh, can you reach the edge of the cells?” Percy asks as he plays with the spoon. Percy knows Murtagh isn’t given much food generally so maybe the other could benefit from the broth they gave Percy, even if it’s drugged. Murtagh doesn’t have magic so it shouldn’t matter.

“I can,” he replies.

“If I slide my food towards the front of my cell, can you reach it?” Percy then asks.

There’s a small chuckle from the other cell before the other replies with, “I should. Percy, why are you giving me your food?”

“Because even drugged, it has to be better than what they give you and you need the strength,” Percy replies. “It’s just dinner. And I don’t plan on leaving right away anyhow. I need to plan this at least a little bit. Plus, if you eat it, they won’t know I didn’t eat my drugs.” There’s a short silence in which Murtagh hums in thought.

“You’re not wrong, but if they do find out, we’re both screwed,” the man says reluctantly. Percy chuckles but bends down and goes as far as he can towards the front of his cell. They’re lucky the cells are just bars in the front. And that the broth bowl is small enough to fit through without too many problems. Percy shoves it as far as he can and wheezes at the strain he puts on his windpipe, stretching the chain of the collar as far as it can go.

A moment later, a pale but broad hand stretches out through the bars and carefully feels around for the wooden bowl. Percy uses his foot to carefully push the bowl a little bit closer when he sees Murtagh can’t quite reach it yet. And then he finds it. The pale hand curls around the edge and starts dragging the bowl carefully closer to himself. Percy watches it disappear from his cell and smiles.

“Now I know why you hadn’t noticed the drugs yet, they made the taste hide its presence,” Murtagh comments after a while. “I just thought you were too dense to notice.” At that Percy laughs.

“Have a bit of faith,” Percy teases and Murtagh chuckles again.

“My faith ran away from me ages ago.” And there it is, the pessimism. “I tried chasing it, but that didn’t work out either.”

“Maybe try again?” Percy asks carefully and Murtagh huffs.

“Maybe one day.”

The next day, Percy feels not necessarily better because the headaches he gets from the invasions of his mind have started to be persistent and don’t recede after a while anymore. But the drugs are beginning to wear off and Percy can feel his powers returning slowly. He can already start feeling around for nearby water sources, but can’t quite control them yet.

Breakfast was brought and Percy just pretended to go on a hunger strike, not daring to give his drugged food to Murtagh again, they’ll notice if Murtagh is suddenly drugged and he isn’t. Percy did drink his water though, he isn’t that dumb. As a son of Poseidon, he’s a bit more sensitive to dehydration than most and he can now feel that the drinking water they give him is clean of drugs so he drinks.

Their daily visit by Galbatorix is as usual. The twat first goes to Murtagh to torture him and try to teach him a lesson while also trying to get Murtagh to make some kind of promise. And then he comes to Percy’s cell to invade his mind and try to find his real name. The more that Galbatorix messes with his mind, the more Percy forgets his previous life and only remembers his life here in Alagaesia that the muses made for him.

The fake life is eerily similar to his real life, but there are always details that are different or things that just don’t make sense in the context of this world and were changed completely. The sad thing is that Percy knows which moments they are, but he can’t remember what they were supposed to be anymore. It’s truly frustrating. Luckily, the memories don’t change who he is and he’s still good old Percy.

Percy is afraid that the king will see their escape plan in his mind, but the tyrant is so focused on Percy’s past, that he doesn’t look at his recent memories anymore. So all in all, nothing too extraordinary happens. After the king is done with the two of them and leaves angered at yet again not getting what he wants, Percy feels that the drugs are almost gone from his system. So he starts investigating.

“I think the bastard dislocated my shoulder,” Murtagh mutters a while after the king has left. Percy can hear the lack of emotion in the statement and knows Murtagh is likely coping with this whole situation in a bad way.

“Just a little longer,” Percy tells the other encouragingly, smiling softly even though he knows the other can’t see it.

Percy has located a river that runs by the edge of the city that they’re in. The best part is that this castle is awfully close to it. Percy has also noticed that the magic in the air here enhances his powers. It’s as if he can ‘see’ now, if he concentrates he can not only search for nearby water sources, but he is also trying to use the magic to kind of see the magic that resides in people. This means that he can sense where there are people through the fluids and magic in their bodies, but anything non-organic is not detectable. Except for water obviously.  

If they can get to the river, Percy is sure he can safely escape anyone—even the king who allegedly has a dragon. Percy has fought big monsters like the Urgal—like a dragon—he’s fought big monsters before and he’s sure they weren’t really dragons and Urgals. He’s certain he’ll manage.

Now to wait for the perfect time to escape. From searching for where living people their – sometimes almost non-existent – magic signatures are, Percy has concluded that Murtagh and he are in the castle's lower levels. Most people move up before they leave where Percy can’t sense them anymore, so maybe a cellar? Or an underground level in any case. He’s also noticed that there are two spots in the castle where magic has been gathered thus where he can’t really make out individuals.

The first gathering is close to where Murtagh and Percy are and the king visits the spot exactly once every day. The other gathering moves around sometimes and is frequently visited by the king which makes Percy think it’s a group of people or the dragon. The spot is massive though, so the dragon must be really powerful. But the other spot is—curious. Percy thinks he might stop by there when they escape, just because he really wants to know what’s there.

“Hey, Murty, it’s almost night,” Percy speaks up when the sunlight keeps dimming more and more. Tonight is the night. It’s been about three weeks and Percy is sick of this, he wants to get out already.

“Yeah,” Murtagh replies and Percy can hear a bit of eagerness in the other’s voice. “What’s your plan?” he then asks. Percy smiles even though he knows Murtagh can’t see it. What Percy can see if he stretches his leash to the max though, are the keys. And the guards tend to drink. And pass out afterwards. It’s like they want Percy to escape.

“I get us out of our prison cells and then we make a run for it?” Percy summarizes the small plan he has in his head which is to use the guards’ drinks to get the keys, get them out of the cells, see what the weird magic spot is and get out of the castle with as little trouble as possible. Percy isn’t the best at planning, he’s much better at improvising and plans always fail anyway so there’s no point in planning everything out too meticulously.

“Sounds great,” Murtagh agrees with a low chuckle. And so they wait. The guards drink and gamble. One gets a bucket of water to clean up some vomit. The bucket is kept by their table just in case and Percy grins widely. And then, the drunkest guards finally conk out. One stays awake but leaves after a while for a sanitary break. And from observing throughout the day, Percy knows that the closest place to relieve yourself is far away from the prison.

Percy takes this chance and crawls out of his rickety bed, going as far as the leash allows him to. The chains rattle and he winces at the noise, but the two passed-out guards aren’t stirring so Percy continues. Once he can see the keys where they are hanging on a little hook, Percy stretches his hand out and concentrates. In the cell beside his own, Percy can hear Murtagh also moving around now, getting ready to run.

The water rises from the bucket at Percy’s command and Murtagh gasps in surprise. The son of Poseidon ignores it and makes the water encase the whole keyring and hook to muffle any noise. Then he starts churning the bubble he’s made. A current starts forming inside the water and the keys move around with it. After a little bit of churning, the keys come off the hook and Percy grins widely. Keeping the keys inside his water bubble by keeping up the current, he carefully brings them toward him. If Percy stops churning the water, the keys will just fall through the water.

Carefully and slowly, the keyring moves toward Percy. They pass through the bars of the cell and Percy grabs them the moment he can. He doesn’t drop the water though, who knows what he will need it for. The anklet Percy can get off fairly easily but the leash is a bit more of a struggle since Percy can’t see the dam lock. The dam lock? Where does that come from? Oh, right from that time on the dam with Grover, Thalia and some huntresses.

In the end, Percy just decides to get rid of the leash and let Murtagh get the collar off later because they don’t have time. The guard who was gone for a sanitary break is already coming back. Quickly getting the door of his cell open, Percy rushes for Murtagh’s. The guard is already descending the stairs and will be here any second now.

Percy looks up and takes a look at Murtagh for the first time and is hit by how young the other is. Actually, he’s Percy’s own age, but Murtagh sounded so much older. Percy quickly shakes off the surprise and rushes to get to the anklet that’s keeping Murtagh inside his cell. No collar for the guy luckily. And right when Murtagh is freed, the guard arrives downstairs.

For a moment, there is silence as the very drunk guard looks at Murtagh and Percy standing outside their cells.

“What—” the man slurs confusedly, looking toward where the keys are supposed to hang and then back to the two escapees. Percy takes the confusion as his chance to finally pull out Riptide. If Jason can use his sword, Percy can use Riptide. And with the flick of Percy’s thumb and a swing, the guard’s head slides off the shoulders and the body collapses to the ground loudly. Percy immediately turns to see if the other two wake up, but they’re well and truly unconscious, fortunately.

“And why do you only pull out your magic sword now?” Murtagh teases with a raised eyebrow. Percy huffs out a laugh and looks at Riptide in all her full glory. Gods, he missed her.

“Let’s just go, we need to make a quick pit stop before we leave the castle. There’s this place I want to check out,” Percy then says as he looks back down at the guard. “But we should probably put on some better clothes before we leave.” Murtagh follows Percy's gaze and grins.

“It’s not like these guards will miss their clothes or anything,” his fellow escapee jokes. The two then proceed to rob the guards of all they can without waking the two unconscious ones. They both grab some proper boots, as much armour as they can and weapons. Percy takes this chance to hide Riptide away again to keep its existence hidden. As they get into the warmer and better clothes and armour, Percy also realizes that staying hidden will be easier now.

“So,” Murtagh smiles as he finishes dressing and looks down at his new garderobe. “I’ve never felt more like an idiot.” Percy laughs at the comments, putting a hand in front of his mouth to stifle it. “But it’ll have to do.” The other is also smiling faintly at his comment. And once they’re done laughing, they put on the helmets.

“Do we have to kill the passed-out guards?” Percy asks as he looks at the guards who are still passed from an alcohol coma. Murtagh grimaces and shrugs.

“If one awakes, they will alert everyone,” he just points out and Percy sighs but nods.

“I didn’t want to kill people we didn’t need to kill but it’s better if we do, isn’t it?” the demigod rhetorically asks. Murtagh just sighs and draws the sword he just acquired.

“I’ll do it, I have no qualms about killing.” And that’s that. Murtagh stabs both guards through the neck, making their deaths fairly quick and painless. Percy just watches and tries not to feel guilty when the two guards gurgle and stop moving. It’s cruel—but it’s the better option he convinces himself.

“Now we can leave,” Murtagh states as he wipes his blade clean on the rags he called his clothes until mere minutes ago. The two quickly leave the prison behind them and Percy leads the way towards where he can still feel the magic hot spot. But the closer they get, the more he can feel the magic shift. And when they come to stand in front of a door, Percy frowns at it. The magic has split in two now and he knows there’s probably two things in there.

“What are we doing here?” Murtagh asks softly, looking all around to make sure they’re not spotted.

“Something tells me, we want to see what is behind this door,” Percy tells the other. “And judging by the locks on the door and how sturdy it is, I believe something precious is stored behind here.” Murtagh’s eyes suddenly widen in realization.

“The dragon eggs,” he breathes out, turning his gaze towards the door. “The only two remaining dragon eggs must be in this room.” Percy bites his lip nervously. Do they have the time and resources to steal two dragon eggs? Not really. But he can’t leave the eggs here after everything. Especially because it will be a loss for Galbatorix and Percy hates the man enough to want to inconvenience himself just to spite him.

“We’re going to take them with us,” Percy tells Murtagh, pulling Riptide back out of his pocket and uncapping it. With a shing, the beautiful blade shows itself again. Percy has been wondering if Riptide could cut through magic for a while now and there’s no better time to test it out. Chiron always told the bloodline children that their weapons were special after all. That they could hurt more than just normal humans and animals.

Percy reaches out his senses and can feel some magic spells cling to the door so he carefully lifts Riptide and makes a big swing upwards. The sword meets resistance but eventually, it cuts through the magic. Percy smiles and gives Murtagh a pleased look.

“Who knew having a magic sword would make one a better thief,” he jokes before moving Riptide to cut through more spells. Percy has no idea what spells they are though, he can only sense where they are and how powerful they are.

“You are swinging your sword through thin air, Percy,” Murtagh comments after a while though. “Are you sure the king didn’t hurt your head too much?” Percy laughs but continues carefully cutting through spells.

“No, not at all, Murtagh. I’m actually a child of a magic bloodline so I’m sensitive to the magic in the air. If I concentrate, I can even sense where there are certain spells in place. So I am now cutting through those spells so we won’t have the door explode on us or anything,” Percy explains.

“You still look ridiculous,” Murtagh says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Percy chuckles but cuts through the last spell he can sense so he quickly uses Riptide to jam into the door next. After some cutting and hacking, the door no longer has hinges and is lying on the floor. And in front of the two escapees are three pedestals of which two are occupied.

The eggs are beautiful, one a brilliant green and the other a striking red. They look like they’re made of gems. Once he sees the eggs, Percy knows that he can’t leave them and that they have to run away as quickly as they can. Murtagh steps through the door first and reaches for the red egg. Percy quickly follows and grabs the green one. He would have preferred a blue one, but oh well.

Once they have the eggs in hand, they run. Murtagh leads the way this time skillfully and Percy has to remind himself that the other lived in the castle his whole life.

“We have to get to the river as quickly as we can, from there I can get us away,” Percy tells Murtagh as they run. Murtagh wordlessly nods and they keep running. Through winding hallways, avoiding any patrols or guards and grabbing two bags to hide the eggs in as they run by a supply room. Once the eggs are more hidden, they both slow down though, to avoid suspicion. Percy also grabbed two cloaks for them to wear and some blankets to wrap around the eggs in the bag to keep them more concealed and warm. Winter is just starting after all and it’s noticeable. And Murtagh remembers to take some coins and food.

They make it to the stables without too much trouble as Percy is the one greeting the soldiers while Murtagh hides his face away, most of the people here don’t know Percy after all, but they do know Murtagh. Once in the stable, Percy smiles. He stretches out his magic and reaches for the horses.

“I need two swift horses to help us run away from here,” he projects to the animals. And at his request, two horses step forward. Two beautiful mares, one dapple grey and one sabino. “We’re taking those two mares,” Percy says as he quickly approaches the horses.

“We are the swiftest in the stable,” one boasts.

“We would gladly carry you anywhere,” the other soothes, nosing at Percy when he comes close enough. Murtagh and Percy quickly get to work saddling them and getting ready to run. But while he works to get the saddle on tight, a patrol of soldiers comes into the stables.

“Hey, what are you two doing? I don’t remember anyone having to leave tonight,” one of them speaks up. Percy jerks upright and sees Murtagh freeze with his back to the other soldiers.

“Oh, we had direct orders from the king to get a message to—what was it called again?” Percy improvises, but blanking on a city name.

“Gil’ead,” Murtagh fills in.

“Right, and the faster we are, the better,” Percy finishes. The two patrolling soldiers look sceptical though.

“The king seldom sends messages, he uses his magic,” the right soldier pipes up, cocking her eyebrow incriminatingly. Percy curses in his mind and turns toward Murtagh who is looking at Percy with a lost expression. He didn’t know either. The guard’s eyes narrow more and she steps forward. Percy reaches out to stop her but Murtagh is standing closer to them. And in a swift movement, she turns his fellow escapee around and gasps when she sees his face.

“You’re supposed to be in the prison!” she exclaims loudly. This alerts her fellow guard who immediately bolts away before Percy can even attempt to stop them. Murtagh makes short work of the guard who identified him.

“We need to leave now!” Murtagh calls out urgently, prompting Percy to mount his horse. And within the minute, they’re both spurring their horses towards the gates. The guard who ran is approaching the gates and yelling loudly to close them. Alarm bells start going off and adrenaline makes Percy’s whole body go rigid.

The gates start closing but they’re too slow, the two of them are still able to ride underneath them and escape from the castle. Before them, the hill slopes down towards the river and Percy allows himself to smile and laugh at their succeeding escape. His laugh quickly gets silenced when a very loud and deep roar shakes the ground.

“That was Shruikan,” Murtagh cries out, suddenly terrified.

“Just get to the river,” Percy calls back, encouraging the horses mentally to keep going as fast as they can. And so they ride as fast as the horses can possibly go. The castle gets smaller and smaller, but a gigantic shadow parts from the castle, climbing out of it, with gleaming eyes looking in their direction.

“Oh no,” Murtagh mutters, but Percy just focuses on the river that’s getting closer and closer. He senses which direction the water flows and makes it speed up already. The ground suddenly tremors slightly and Percy knows it’s from the dragon.

Just get to the river. Just get to the river.

Percy can sense the massive gathering of magic, the second gathering that moves every now and then. It was all this massive dragon. Percy thought that perhaps he could fight the thing, but seeing it now, he knows for certain he’s never seen anything that comes close to its size.

Just get to the river.

“When I say jump, jump from your horse,” Percy yells, “don’t worry about falling, I’ll catch you. And after that, just remember to keep breathing,” Percy orders.

The river is almost within reach. Percy tells the horses what they should do when he calls out.

The dragon ominously comes closer, going much faster than them with its massive body.

“And the two of you should run as far as you can once we’re gone,” he then tells the two horses mentally. They shouldn’t suffer because Murtagh and Percy decided to escape.

They’re close enough to the river.

“Jump!” Percy calls out as he jumps off his horse which skids to a stop, the momentum slings Percy further. Murtagh is in a similar situation, looking terrified, his grey eyes looking desperately at Percy, but they also show a trust Percy can appreciate.

And then the river catches them. The water takes them away with its rapids which Percy is making go as fast as he can. Focusing, Percy also makes sure Murtagh has a bubble of air to breathe while they shoot off down the river. Percy lets the water do all the work and just closes his eyes, grasping Murtagh closer so they become easier for the river to carry. The bags with the dragon eggs are between the two of them, sheltered away safely.

The earth shakes as the dark dragon chases after them. Percy begs the water to keep going as fast as it can.

They get rocked from side to side in the bends of the river but they never touch any rocks or earth.

Percy can feel Murtagh clutching desperately unto him and Percy clings back, afraid of losing the other in the rapids or to the dragon that is still near enough to shake the earth.

But slowly, the earth stops shaking as much.

The river takes them farther and farther.

Percy doesn’t allow it to stop but he can feel all the strength being sapped from his body. But still, he makes them go further.

It’s only when Percy is on the verge of collapsing that he allows the river to calm down. And slowly, they come to a stop.

Percy uses the last of his strength to pull the two of them to the river bank and make sure they’re dry.

“That was awful,” Murtagh comments, spluttering and shaking from the cold. Percy manages to laugh weakly.

“Just make sure we get to safety, yeah?” He slurs before completely collapsing from exhaustion.

Chapter Text

Percy wakes the next morning by a little fire. A blanket has been tucked over him, and the egg bag is still tucked tightly against his chest.

“You slept through the whole night and half the day,” Murtagh speaks up, pulling Percy’s attention towards the other boy. “I managed to drag us towards the trees and make a fire before collapsing myself.” He’s sitting with his back to a tree, holding the red egg and staring at it thoughtfully.

“Thanks,” Percy mutters, still feeling like he was sapped of all his energy, even after that long nap he just took. But he’s feeling better and that’s good.

“Here,” Murtagh grabs some jerky from his bag and offers it to Percy as he drags himself into a sitting position. Percy gratefully takes the jerky with a smile and devours it. He’s been starving since two days ago so Percy deserves some food now. But as he eats, Percy notices something hard, iron and round still around his throat.

“I totally forgot about the collar,” Percy says, putting down the jerky he hasn’t eaten yet so he can grab at the damned thing.

“I tried getting it off, but it won’t budge. I’m afraid Galbatorix or the Ra’zac did something to it so you couldn’t get it off yourself,” Murtagh informs the son of Poseidon with a grimace. Percy sighs and picks up his jerky again to continue eating. He’ll try cutting it with Riptide later.

“So, what now? Where do we go?” Percy asks in between bites.

“I only know one place that could possibly welcome us after defying the king like we have and stealing his dragon eggs. We need to go to the Varden,” Murtagh says with a sigh. Percy frowns at the sigh and the dejected look Murtagh gives at the name.

“Then why do you sound so apprehensive?” he carefully asks. Murtagh looks up and grimaces.

“Because I was with them for a while and they didn’t exactly—” Murtagh pauses for a second—“welcome me with open arms. I’m the son of one of the Foresworn after all, I must be as evil as my dear old father.” Percy frowns and pauses his chewing.

“Hey, no. That’s not true. No one is their parent,” Percy denies easily. “Some people follow in their parents’ footsteps, sure. But I’ve learned to never judge anyone before I’ve come to know them properly.” Murtagh looks surprised at that and Percy smiles. “And you seem like a good person to me.” Murtagh looks away from Percy again but Percy can see the words did what he wanted. They touched him.

“I don’t know where the Varden is now, though,” Murtagh informs Percy, deciding not to react to Percy’s nice words. Percy lets him and continues eating.

“Where were they last you were with them?” Percy asks curiously.

“They were in the mountains, with the dwarves in an inactive volcano called Farthen Dûr.” Murtagh softly rubs over the dragon egg as he talks. “But right before I was taken away by the king’s soldiers again, there was a big battle so I’m not sure if they stayed. It’s more likely that they left, really,” he explains, not taking his eyes from the egg. And as Murtagh softly strokes the egg, Percy feels soft and responsive ripples of magic emanating from the egg, as if it’s reacting to the soft touches.

“Are there other places where they could go? Surda isn’t far from the Beor mountains,” Percy thinks out loud, trying to conjure up the map he’s seen of the continent that used to hang in Chiron’s hut. “It would be a logical next place to go, an army that big can’t just traverse the country to other hiding places that easily.” Murtagh contemplates Percy’s words and eventually nods.

“It does sound plausible, yes,” he agrees verbally, stilling his soft caressing to tuck the blanket closer around the egg again. “It would also be a good place to go hide away in, with or without the Varden, the king’s influence doesn’t reach there.” And Percy hadn’t thought of that, but it’s also a good reason to go to Surda.

“I think we have a plan then,” the green-eyed man says with a smile. Murtagh huffs in amusement as he puts the egg back in the bag. Percy can feel the waves of magic slowly peter into the low humming the eggs seem to do again.

“We’ll need new horses, though,” Murtagh points out as they start cleaning up their little camp. “Surda is a long way and doing it by foot will take too long. Plus, winter has arrived and I’d like to get to Surda as quickly as possible.” Percy can’t help but agree, it’s been getting awfully cold at night. Not as cold as in Carvahall, but still cold.

“I suggest we follow the river toward civilization and get us some horses there,” Percy suggests, pointing towards the river with a gloved hand. And off they go.

Percy has never been more glad for heavy and thick armour such as chain mail than when they travel through the Broddring empire in the winter.

They manage to steal two horses from a military camp near a village about three days into their journey. They don’t really talk much, which is weird, but they’re healthy and they don’t try to eat every tuft of grass they see so Percy doesn’t complain. One black bay mare and one blood bay stallion. The stallion doesn’t like Murtagh for some reason, so Percy rides that one.

One thing Percy doesn’t like though, is that they haven’t managed to get the collar off yet. He can’t put enough force behind Riptide to cut the spells that have been tightly woven into the iron without risking cutting open his own throat. And Percy likes himself with his head attached, so the two of them have decided to leave the un-collar-ing to possible experts. And with a cloak and armour, Percy can easily hide the collar from view. But it all does make Percy feel less bad about stealing the eggs though.

And it’s five days into their journey that their peaceful riding is interrupted by a surprise. Not necessarily an unwelcome surprise but a surprise nonetheless.

Percy is eyeing the red egg as Murtagh is stroking it again, it’s become a bit of a habit. Percy has tried stroking and cooing at his own green egg, but it’s stayed unresponsive. Percy still keeps it warm and treats it like a baby, despite the cold shoulder it’s been giving him. But the red egg, it’s been getting more active and almost seems—happy when Murtagh touches it.

“Say, Murtagh, when are these eggs due to hatch?” Percy decides to ask after observing how the egg’s been pulsing and putting off more magic than usual.

“Dragon eggs only hatch when their destined rider is with them,” Murtagh replies simply, not even looking up from where he’s both eating and letting his other hand glide over the smooth outside of the egg.

“And how does it know?” Murtagh does look up at that question, with a small frown.

“I don’t know.” And Percy frowns back at that reply.

“I asked because the red egg’s been very active today, more active than normal,” the son of Poseidon decides to say. Murtagh freezes and gives Percy a weird look before looking down at the egg. And as if summoned, the egg suddenly shakes. Both young men suddenly stare as a crack comes from the egg.

“Well, it looks like that this egg is due right now,” Percy comments dumbly as it shakes and cracks more. Murtagh is absolutely dumbfounded and just stares at the egg with wide eyes. Percy decides that this is probably a special moment if the eggs are only supposed to hatch for their destined riders so he shuts up and lets Murtagh and the dragon have their moment.

It takes a while for the dragon to finally breach the egg with its little snout and Percy smiles at its cuteness. Murtagh is still frozen though and only stares as the little blood-red dragon struggles its way out of the shell. But when the dragon starts struggling to get out of the last of the shell, Murtagh finally unfreezes. He quickly takes off his gloves and starts helping the little one. He starts carefully pulling away pieces of shell and some of the membrane that’s still clinging to the soft scales.

And then Murtagh touches the little one and a blast of magic happens. Percy startles and jumps up, ready to defend the duo, but then he realizes that it’s all right when Murtagh slumps where he’s leaning against a tree and the little dragon rumbles happily. Oh, it seems the dragon just did something. Hopefully, it isn’t anything harmful.

A shiver runs up Percy’s spine and he suddenly gets the feeling he’s being watched. Percy looks around and braces himself again but he can’t see anyone.

So when Murtagh groans and slowly wakes again, Percy turns his attention back to him.

“Congrats man, you’re a dragon dad,” Percy jokes as he offers the other some clean water. They daily cook a lot of water over their dinner fire to replenish their drinking water stock. Their latest batch has already cooled so Percy deems it safe for the new Dragon Dad.

“I never want to experience whatever that was again,” Murtagh slurs unhappily, accepting the water. After chugging the whole (stolen) cup, he looks down at the now-snoozing red dragon in his lap. “Gods this situation just became so much more complicated.” Percy grimaces.

“I suppose, we’ll need to figure out what little baby dragons eat and provide it. And we’ll have to keep it warm while we travel. And we’ll have to teach it not to pee on us, but in the brushes,” Percy starts counting on his fingers, “and I suppose we’ll also have to entertain it? Any baby has to get some entertainment right?” Percy wonders and Murtagh laugsh softly.

“That’s not what I meant, but we do have to worry about all that, yes,” Murtagh says with a soft smile on his face. Percy just smiles back, not sure whet Murtagh meant then.

Travelling with a baby dragon is surprisingly fun. He’s a hungry little thing, that’s the only downside. But he’s also very mischievous. Murtagh smiles a lot more now and Percy thinks that’s good progress. The dragon also seems to like Percy and loves to snuggle the green egg Percy’s carrying with him.

Murtagh can’t take his gloves off in the presence of other people though, the gigantic mark on his palm would give him away immediately. Hiding the little guy is easy enough with bags, cloaks and blankets, but hiding a glowing mark without gloves? No, that’s about impossible.

They stop following the river on their way to Surda when they realise it’ll take them right by the Ra’zac their hideout and they definitely do not want to encounter them with a baby dragon in tow. So they ride through the plains of the empire, avoiding as many people as they can, stealing food where they can and just being thieves in every sense of the word.

They never steal from normal people though, only from the army. And it’s laughably easy.

By the time they make it past Eastcroft without much trouble or delay. Thorn has been named and is about as large as a big dog now. He mostly walks alongside the horses and now and then disappears to hunt some rabbits or other game.

Percy deduced from the weather that it must be around January or February now, which means Jason and he left their village after its destruction around a year ago. And it’s been around four months since they arrived in Carvahall. They only ended up staying there for like… two weeks, if it’s even that. And then Percy was kidnapped and remained in the castle for about three weeks. And now they’ve been on the road for two months and a half. The math isn’t exact, Percy knows.

“Say, when do you think he’ll be able to fly?” Percy ponders as he watches Murtagh play with Thorn, a small smile on the pessimist's face. Murtagh lets Thorn catch the branch he was play-fighting the dragon with and looks toward his friend.

“I do not have a clue, Percy. I do not know about dragons or their growing cycle or anything really,” Murtagh replies, letting go of the branch when Thorn starts biting and shaking it around.

“All right, so we just wait and see,” Percy concludes, watching as Thorn bites the branch in two.

“I have destroyed your weapon! Now you cannot defend!” Thorn crows victoriously before pounding onto Murtagh and smothering his rider with playful biting and licking. This makes the other laugh and Percy joins in.

“Thorn the Weapon Destroyer,” Percy says with a flair and Thorn looks pleased at the name.

“Now you, Perseus. Fight me so I may prepare you for battle,” Thorn declares as he gets off his rider. Percy smirks and picks up a random branch that’s lying by his side.

“And I you, noble Thorn,” Percy replies easily, a smirk on his face. Thorn charges and Percy steps aside so he can swat at the red dragon’s side with the branch. Thorn manages to evade the blow and retaliates by tackling Percy to the ground. Percy needs to be completely honest here, he didn’t expect that. He’s so used to people wanting to kill him, that he forgot tackling was an option.

“And I triumph yet again!” Thorn celebrates, laying himself on top of Percy and looking smug while doing so.

“Undefeated,” Murtagh jokes as he sits down by the fire and gets his sleeping bag ready. Thorn gets off Percy so he can go curl up by Murtagh’s side to sleep. Percy sighs and gets his own sleeping place ready. He throws another big log or two on the fire so it’ll burn for a bit longer before settling down. They’re lucky they could get a bit of shelter within the trees because it’s really cold. But soon, they’ll be with the Varden and then they’ll hopefully be able to sleep in beds again.

Percy is tasked with getting supplies to the nearest village the next day. Since Percy’s face isn’t that well known, he can hide more easily, plus Thorn is too big to hide in bags anymore and he doesn’t like parting from Murtagh so they always stay outside the village together.

And so, Percy ventures into the village on his own.

He first goes to the tanner to buy some leather so that Murtagh and he can start making a saddle for Thorn. And then he goes to the local market to buy some basic needs items while listening to the gossip of the locals. Apparently, a man cheated on his wife so his wife beat the shit out of him in the next town over. And there was also an incident with an escaped horse, two dogs and a pig last week apparently. All things that don’t really matter to Percy and Murtagh.

But as he is on his way away from the market, Percy spots something that makes his stomach sink—wanted posters. There is one big one in the centre of the notice board of the village. On it is a young teen with vaguely sharp features and a menacing look in his eyes. ‘Eragon. Wanted for treason, murder, conspiring with enemies of the empire and various other crimes. Wanted alive. Reward, 40 000 Crowns.’ Damn, the poor kid is barely seventeen from what Roran told him and already such a big price on his head.

But then he sees the posters right next to the one from Eragon. ‘Murtagh Morzansson. Wanted for treason and stealing from the king. Wanted alive. Reward, 20 000 Crowns.’ And right next to that is Percy’s own poster. ‘Perseus. Wanted for treason, murder, escaping prison and stealing from the king. Wanted alive. Reward 20 000 Crowns.’ Percy quickly rips both the posters from the board and stuffs them in his pocket.

He then quickly mounts his horse and swiftly rides out of town with a bag filled with goods, two posters, a dragon egg and leather hides hanging off his shoulder.

When he arrives back at the camp where Murtagh and Thorn are practising some more swordplay, Percy dismounts his horse and immediately takes the posters out of his bag to thrust them at Murtagh.

“Our posters are up now, we need to get to Surda as quick as we can,” Percy informs the other.

“20 000 Crowns? We’re expensive,” Murtagh comments as he reads the posters. Percy gives the other an unimpressed look. “But this is indeed bad. We need to be extra cautious.”

“Yeah, but they also don’t seem to think you ‘escaped prison’,” Percy points out. “Do they think I stole you too? Like a damsel stolen by bandits from her beloved?” Percy jokes and it’s Murtagh’s turn to give the unimpressed look.

“No, it’s more likely that the king just sees me as property too.” Is the depressing answer and Percy grimaces. “Minging bastard,” Murtagh then curses and Percy smiles.

“You could say that again.”

In the next week, the two of them put a bit more haste behind their travels. They only stop for the night and to eat. The horses don’t like it very much, but they obey. It bugs Percy how obedient these horses are, but he’s decided to not think about it too much.

Thorn grows and grows and soon he’s already getting ready to take flight. Murtagh supports his new soulmate every step of the way and Percy happily helps the two wherever he can. Thorn rapidly gets to be about the size of a horse and then even bigger.

When they reach Melian and the surrounding forest, the two of them decide to start riding towards the Jiet River and follow that. There have been more and more soldiers popping up everywhere and having a big source of water nearby for Percy to use soothes their worries. So following the Jiet River, they make their way to Surda. It took them a month and almost reaching the Surdian border to finally realize why there were so many soldiers. They’re all gathering to fight.

Avoiding the soldiers gets much harder when they finally spot the big army marching towards Surda. Percy gets them to the other side of the river so they’re able to avoid being seen by the armies gathering. They also have to slow their pace significantly. So in the end, reaching the border takes them another two weeks while it should have only taken a week.

By the time the Surdian border comes in sight, Thorn can fly and carry Murtagh on his back for short periods. Percy and Murtagh finish the saddle so the grey-eyed young man can safely do so. But since it’s only been around three months and a bit since Thorn hatched, he can’t spew fire or anything so Murtagh is very worried about the army. Especially when they’re close enough to the border to see the other army.

The Varden, Murtagh confirms.

“We should reach them by tomorrow noon if we cross the river in the morning,” Percy thinks out loud, looking at the camp he can see in the distance.

“We should cross now and reach them in the night. That way the Broddring army won’t spot us as easily. If they see us, they might just attack since we have Thorn with us,” Murtagh explains and Percy mulls the words over in his head.

“You’re right, we should,” Percy agrees. “Should we take the horses?” Murtagh and Percy both turn to look at the horses grazing lazily. Thorn steps up next to his rider and nudges him softly.

“We won’t need a horse anymore, Murtagh. From now on, I will be your steed,” the dragon proudly says and Percy and Murtagh both smile.

“Well, then we can let your horse free,” Percy says while looking at the stallion he’s been riding for the last months. “But I think I’ll keep mine, I don’t have a convenient dragon,” he then jokes, winking at Murtagh.

“Right, we should cross then, the sooner the better. It’s already dark after all,” the other concludes. And so they get to work. Percy helps his stallion cross, using his magic to allow the stallion to walk on top of the water with him. Murtagh and Thorn simply fly across but stay low to avoid being spotted.

“Is it normal that the ground burns here?” Percy asks Murtagh as they ride towards what looks like a burning plain. The ground is cracked and a smouldering heat and light emerges from in between the cracks.

“These are the Burning Plains, a dragon once set fire to peat here and the fire burned itself underground. I heard it’s not a problem normally, only when the fires occasionally shoot from in between the cracks and scorch anyone near,” Murtagh explains as they ride along the edge of it.

“This really isn’t my environment,” Percy grumbles as he watches a big wall of fire shoot up in the distance.

“It looks like the two armies are preparing to fight here,” Murtagh says with a grimace, looking back towards where the Broddring army is setting up their tents and then forward towards the Varden and what look like Surdan army soldiers.

“We came just in time, then,” the Son of Poseidon sighs, looking up at the stars in the night sky which are slightly hidden behind the smoke that billows up from the burning plains and the light pollution.

“Or just a bit too early,” Murtagh says with a shrug and sigh. Percy can’t help but agree, he’s already had enough of big fights in his life. The rest of the ride is silent. Or well… as silent as you can be while riding on a heavy dragon with sharp talons and a horse with horseshoes. But as they start approaching the Varden camp, a big shadow rises up from the Varden camp and for a moment, Percy thinks it might be Shruikan, but the shadow is way too small for that.

“That’s Saphira, Eragon must be here,” Murtagh informs him as the dragon lands a good bit in front of the camp, but far enough away from the Burning Plains to be comfortable. Percy, Murtagh and Thorn go just a little bit faster to reach Eragon and Saphira once they’re past all the smoke and heat from the Bruning Plains.

And as they near the dragon, Percy is awed at the magnificence of her. She’s blue after all! Like the sea and the waves. Percy decides he likes Saphira.

When Percy spots her rider, fully armed and decked out, he instinctively knows this is a very important person and powerful too. Something in his head confirms it, telling him something about a ‘main character’? That’s—right, the quest! What quest? He’s here on a quest with Jason? No, Jason and he fled from the destruction of their family—but he’s the main character—what does it mean? Gods, this is confusing. Percy quickly shakes his head from the jumbled thoughts and just focuses on riding forward.

“Eragon, it’s me, Murtagh! I’ve returned with gifts I think you won’t be able to refuse,” the grey-eyed man calls out once within earshot. The other dragon Rider slides off his own dragon and takes off his helmet, showing a face painted with disbelief and relief.

“Murtagh! You’re alive! And—” the younger rider takes a good long look at the red dragon Murtagh is now dismounting—“you’re not alone.” Percy smiles as the two embrace each other in a hug before smiling and looking at their dragons meeting each other. “How did this happen?” the younger rider then turns to Murtagh again. Murtagh offers him a small smile and looks to where Percy is dismounting his own horse.

“I had a little bit of help. Percy here helped me escape and steal the remaining dragon eggs,” Murtagh says, gesturing at Percy who pulls his bag from under his cape to reveal the green egg wrapped snugly in blankets and glowing contently.

“By the gods, Murtagh. The Varden will be overjoyed! This is—” The kid is speechless and Percy chuckles, tucking the green egg back under his cape again.

“Revenge,” Percy says with a smirk. “The King pissed off the wrong people and we reminded him of that while escaping.” Murtagh’s smirk mirrors Percy’s at the words.

“We have to show the Varden this good news,” Eragon shakes himself from his stupor when his dragon nudges him softly with her head. “Saphira is wondering if you’d like a lift back to the camp, Percy. She senses the horse you’re riding has foul magic hanging around its mind. It’s better if we free it.” Percy looks at the horse he’s been riding for months and purses his lips. It hurts a bit to let it go, but it’s for the better. They don’t want to take anything risky inside the camp after all. The horse could be a spy for the Broddring army after all. Who knows. Percy doesn’t.

“Right, I’d gladly accept that offer,” Percy agrees, looking at the blue dragon and bowing his head in thanks at her. “Thank you kindly. But, I do have a fear of heights, so I would appreciate it if you were to fly steadily.” Murtagh laughs at Percy and Percy glares at him in return.

“You’re serious? You? Afraid of heights? Never would have guessed it,” the older Dragon Rider laughs, hiding it behind his hand a bit. Percy stomps him on the arm.

“Right, let’s get back to the camp,” Eragon says, interrupting them with a small smile on his face.

Entering the command tent in the middle of the encampment, Percy doesn’t feel nervous. He doesn’t know why, but he feels more at home there than on the back of Saphira.

“Eragon, how did it go? Did you intercept the messengers?” a dark-skinned woman says from a seat at the head of the table. She reminds Percy of Reyna from the authority she seems to demand with her presence, but Hazel by the kind look in her eyes. When the young woman’s eyes land on Murtagh and Percy, they widen in surprise and recognition. It’s also the moment Percy remembers that they’re both still wearing the clothes and armour of the guards they stole that first night.

“Nasuada,” Murtagh greets her with a little bow and Percy quickly copies the movement.

“Murtagh, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, we assumed you were dead when we found my father but not you.” The woman’s tone suggests that finding her father wasn’t pleasant either. Either he was wounded or he died. “And yet you return and not alone,” she finishes, turning her gaze towards where Thorn is peeping inside the tent along with Saphira.

“Where are they?” a woman’s voice asks as a beautiful woman enters the tent. If Percy had to describe her in one word it would be elegance. She must be an elf. “So it is true, a second dragon rider has come,” the she-elf smiles softly as she looks at Thorn and then at Murtagh. Percy’s magic sense goes haywire though, because all of a sudden, the quiet and docile egg in his bag sends off waves of magic that seem to radiate towards the she-elf and cling to her.

Percy looks down at the bag he’s holding an arm over protectively almost out of instinct now. He carefully lifts his cloak a bit as the conversation continues around him and looks at the magic the egg is emanating. It looks similar to the signals Thorn was giving out when Murtagh was stroking his eggshell.

“Show them, Percy.” Murtagh’s voice breaks through Percy’s thoughts and he looks up to see Murtagh giving him an expecting look while all the other occupants of the tent look at him expectantly. Percy immediately knows what he needs to do. He moves his cloak to the side and grabs the bundled-up green egg from his bag. Nasuada and the she-elf gasp as he shows it to them. Percy then looks at the elf and brings the egg closer to her. The egg immediately reacts happily.

“Why are you giving the egg to me?” the elf asks and Percy smiles.

“Because it wants me to,” he tells her, bringing the egg a little bit closer still to urge her to take it already. “I think it’s choosing you.” And the moment the egg touches the elf’s hands, it starts shaking and cracking. As the magic starts, Percy happily leaves the tent to go wait outside, he doesn’t need to interrupt this beautiful moment. Thorn bounds up to Percy and happily nuzzles his nose into Percy’s chest. Percy smiles and happily hugs the dragon back while also patting his head.

“Many thanks, Percy. You helped the last two eggs unite with their riders, I will forever be thankful for what you’ve done,” Thorn says as he takes a step back. “My rider and I especially, if it weren’t for you, who knows what could have happened to us?” Percy smiles and bows his head to the red dragon.

“It was my pleasure, Thorn. Murtagh is my friend, as are you and I don’t leave any friends behind,” Percy says sincerely. Murtagh chooses that moment to also walk out of the tent with Nasuada right behind him.

“Friends, huh?” Murtagh says softly, looking at Percy with a vulnerable look in his eyes. Percy smirks and claps his hand on the other’s back jovially.

“Naturally, what else would you call someone you escaped prison with? We quite literally saved each other in there,” Percy assures the grey-eyed dragon rider. Murtagh just smiles and punches Percy back.

“Now, I believe we haven’t been properly introduced yet, my name is Nasuada, and I’m the new leader of the Varden,” the dark-skinned woman steps forward to greet Percy. Percy smiles and bows his head to her again.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Nasuada. I’m Percy, one of the last descendants of the magic bloodlines Galbatorix worked very hard to get rid of,” Percy introduces himself in turn. The woman’s eyes widen in surprise.

“You’re a child of the magic bloodlines?” she asks, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “We could certainly use someone like you to help fight that tyrant king.” Percy chuckles nervously and rubs the back of his neck.

“I don’t believe I have any other choice anymore after breaking out of his prison and stealing his dragon eggs,” Percy states, shrugging. Murtagh chuckles and nods his head. “But before that, I have to find my cousin, we were separated when I got taken prisoner and—” Percy pauses, not sure what to say.

That Jason and him are all the other has left? That their families and friends were all slaughtered in cold blood and that they promised to stay together to protect each other? That Jason is the only thing Percy still has left in this world? And Percy can’t lose Jason when not even Annabeth who even after—who still occupies his heart and will never leave it is here anymore.

“You must miss him,” Nasuada fills in for him and Percy just nods, grateful for the simple words instead of everything else he wants to say.

“Do you know where he could be?” Murtagh asks, expression gone soft. Percy thinks for a moment, remembering the plans that were made in Carvahall right before Percy was taken. Gods, that seems so long ago now. But they were talking about leaving Carvahall and going through the Spine towards more Southern lands. Percy thinks that Horst mentioned Surda, but he can’t recall the events very clearly anymore. After all the meddling the damned king did with Percy’s memories, some of them have become hazy.

“I’m not sure, but I remember something about coming to Surda, so he might not be that far away,” Percy recalls, rubbing his forehead with his right hand, fighting off the headache that usually accompanies trying to remember big things now. Percy wants to strangle the king one day for messing with his head.

“How about this,” Nasuada starts carefully, a thoughtful expression on her face and one hand tapping on her cheek. “If you stand with us in the oncoming battle, I shall promise to help you reunite with your cousin.” Percy looks at the woman, looking for any dishonesty in her eyes or lies hidden behind her posture, but he can’t find any.

“You would do that for me?” Percy asks sceptically. “You do not know me.” Nasuada returns the scrutinising once-over Percy just gave her but with a little smirk playing on her lips.

“My intuition tells me that you, Percy, are a person worth keeping close,” she says then, slowly walking a little closer to Percy. “And my intuition has never led me astray before.” She’s now smirking, something Percy can’t really identify glinting in her eyes. But somehow, he doesn’t feel any malicious intent or hostility from her. And that look she’s giving Percy reminds him of Annabeth. Of how when he was twelve, she used him to win her game of capturing the flag. Percy can see that same scheming expression in Nasuada now and it makes him nostalgic.

“All right, if you say so,” Percy agrees with a small smile.

“Then how about I show you to the armoury to change into some more—fitting armour,” the woman says, already turning around, not looking to see if Percy is following. “You can come too, Murtagh,” she adds when Murtagh doesn’t follow. Percy laughs, yeah, she really reminds him of Annabeth. But also of Reyna.

Chapter Text

Percy weighs the new sword he was given, frowning at how it isn’t balanced as well as his own weapons. God he hopes Jason still has his original armour and sword, he’s really starting to miss them. Not that this armour isn’t comfortable, it is. He’s still wearing the chainmail from the castle and most other parts that weren’t coloured in the empire’s colours. The only things that have changed are his undergarments and the helmet.

“Maybe we can repurpose some armour into a temporary armour for you, Thorn,” Murtagh mutters as he holds some chain mail up beside his dragon. “This chain mail is for one of the bigger horses but is still a bit small for you.” Percy sheathes his sword, deciding to mourn to loss of his original sword later. He insisted he could just use Riptide but Nasuada told him that she doesn’t trust bronze so told him he should carry both. So Percy took the longsword out of courtesy.

“Maybe you can ask one of the dwarven blacksmiths here to adjust the chain mail a bit?” Percy proposes, walking up to where Thorn and Murtagh are. “I think if you make two holes here for his wings you can repurpose the iron to make it a bit longer on this side and make it more fitting.” Murtagh hums in agreement, holding the chain mail to inspect, his arms trembling with effort.

“I think that’s not a bad idea, no,” the dragon riders then verbally agree before turning toward Percy. “Maybe we can also ask them to take a look at the collar?” Percy grimaces at the reminder of the iron ring that’s still stuck to his throat.

“Might as well,” he says, touching the collar.

“Hey, you two,” Eragon pipes up, waving at them as he approaches. “I wanted to thank you again, without the two of you, Arya and her dragon might never have met.” Percy waves off the thanks with a smile and shrugs.

“I did it more out of spite against the king, no need to thank me,” he says with a chuckle. Murtagh rolls his eyes and bows his head toward Eragon.

“You’re welcome, Eragon. But Percy is right, we didn’t know that both eggs would hatch already, we just wanted to thwart the king,” the grey-eyed man adds. Eragon laughs and crosses his arms with a shake of his head.

“Just take the gratitude, you did a very good thing,” Eragon tells them with a smile. Percy looks at Murtagh and they just shrug at each other.

“You’re welcome,” Murtagh repeats but stops there this time.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Percy laughs.

“How did you two even manage to steal the eggs?” Eragon decides to change the topic.

“Well, you see—” Percy starts and tells his tale. Murtagh pipes up now and then to add a detail or tell his side of things. By the end of things, Eragon looks rather thoughtful.

“So Carvahall may not be there anymore if I go back?” the teen asks sadly, hugging himself a bit tighter. Percy frowns and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, if Roran and Jason did what we were discussing before I was taken, most of the people should have escaped,” Percy assures him. “I’m going to go search for them after the oncoming battle is over, you’re free to join me.” Eragon looks up at that with a hesitant look.

“I’d appreciate that, thank—” but his last words are drowned out by someone shouting and running towards Nasuada’s tent.

“SHIP! There’s an approaching ship!” the dwarf yells, taking Eragon by the arm and dragging him with him toward the tent. Murtagh looks at Percy and Percy quickly gestures that they should follow.

“—it comes from the sea, it looks like a big ship, we don’t know who’s on it.” The dwarf finishes by the time they enter the tent again, Thorn sticks his head through the flaps right by where Saphira still lies.

“Should I go greet it?” Eragon immediately proposes.

“Yes, put on your proper armour, Eragon. And take Percy with you, he’s a child of the magic bloodlines and told me he can control water. If it comes to a fight, Percy might prove to be very useful,” Nasuada decides, looking at Percy to see if he’s willing to listen to her order. Percy nods in reply, he promised to stand on their side until the end of the battle after all.

“Then go!” the leader orders, urging Eragon to quickly grab the pieces of his armour he took off and left on the table in the middle of the tent. The elf and her new green dragon are sitting on a chair, looking rather conflicted.

“Be safe, Eragon,” she says when Eragon finishes putting on everything. The young dragon rider nods before looking toward Percy.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Percy nods.

Percy holds on tightly to Eragon, trying not to look down but toward the horizon instead. The ship is already pretty close to the border of their camp by the time they make it there. The people on the boat have spotted them too by now and are all gathering on the deck.

“I don’t see many armed people, most look like civilians judging by their clothing,” Eragon notes.

“Eragon, they’re people from Carvahall,” Saphira suddenly says in their minds. Percy shivers at the feeling of someone in his mind but reminds himself that Saphira isn’t there to hurt him. Percy feels Eragon tense but the boy doesn’t say anything, only spurs Saphira to land by where the ship is currently slowly bobbing on the river by the bed, clearly having stopped to talk.

By the time Saphira is landing, Eragon has already gotten himself loose from the saddle and is taking off his helmet in his hurry to get to his cousin. Percy waits for the younger boy to get off before carefully sliding off too. He can hear people getting off the boat behind him but doesn’t look yet, he wants to get off Saphira safely.

“Eragon!” Percy hears Roran exclaim and then the sound of a fist meeting a face. Percy winces and turns to look once he’s safely on the ground. Eragon and Roran are standing in front of each other, Eragon holding his face with a flabbergasted expression and Roran looks angry. Still, the tears in his eyes tell Percy otherwise.

“Oh, Eragon,” Roran says, taking his cousin into a tight embrace. Percy smiles at that. And then he sees Jason jumping from the ship and taking off his helmet.

“Jason,” Percy sing-songs, bounding towards where Jason is already barrelling toward him. They both laugh as they collide not far from where Roran and Eragon are still hugging.

“Percy!” Jason laughs giddily. The blonde is also the first to retract from the hug to look over Percy, his eyes landing on the collar that’s only half hidden by the armour Percy is wearing. “What the hell happened to you?” he asks, looking back up at Percy’s face.

“Nothing much, I just got tortured by the king for a little while and then stole the last two dragon eggs while escaping just to piss him off,” Percy crudely summarizes what happened.

“I wouldn’t expect any less from you.” Jason laughs and shakes his head. Roran lets go of Eragon so he can turn towards Percy.

“Does that mean that Catrina is—” he hesitantly asks, looking hopeful but Percy has to shake his head sadly.

“I’m sorry, she was taken somewhere else by the Ra’zac while I was taken to the king. I don’t know what happened to her and Sloan,” Percy explains softly. “But wherever it is, I’m sure it was better than where I was,” he then tries to reassure the man. Roran sighs and completely deflates.

“Did the king do this to you?” Jason asks, grabbing the collar around Percy’s neck to inspect it. Percy chokes only slightly at his cousin's harsh movement, dragging him a bit closer to himself to take a look.

“I’m not sure, I just woke up with this attached. I lost the keys in the escape and haven’t been able to take it off,” Percy explains while being turned this way and that by Jason. “I’m sure you can feel the magic treaded around it too?”

“Aye, whoever did this was very thorough. Why haven’t you cut through the magic yet?” Percy laughs at the blonde’s question.

“Because I didn’t want to slit my own throat, the magic is quite dense and a sword is a bit unwieldy and big for magic this delicate,” Percy says, stating the obvious. Jason grimaces, finally letting go of the collar and stepping back again.

“We’ll take care of it later.” And with that, their conversation is over. The two of them turn back towards the villagers to find some of the others also reuniting with Eragon, Roran hovering around like some type of bodyguard, clearly reluctant to part with his cousin again for now.

“Right, let’s first get everyone to the camp,” Percy agrees. “But first, you still have my old armour and my stuff, right?” he looks back towards Jason who smiles and nods.

“Of course, who do you think I am?” Percy returns the smile. Finally, he can put on his own clothes again.

Settling the villagers from Carvahall who made the trip to the camp doesn’t take much work. Nasuada is even glad for the extra manpower and for having another person from the magic bloodlines who will aid in the battle.

Percy is just glad Jason and him are back together.

“What do you think we should do after the battle?” Percy asks his cousin as he changes back into his old armour. Nasuada asked them to wear something from the Varden though to identify themselves. So Percy and Jason will be tying clothes in the Varden their colours to their arms and legs accompanied by helmets from the Varden.

“I don’t know, it feels wrong to just—leave,” Jason replies. “But we weren’t planning on getting involved in any more fighting.” Percy hums in agreement while strapping on his boots.

“I’m afraid I might have ruined our chances of just hiding away from the war though, the king put a bounty on my head after escaping from his prison and stealing his two most prized possessions in the process,” Percy informs his cousin, gesturing towards his bag where the posters are still tucked inside. Jason unfolds the three wanted posters and laughs when he sees Percy’s.

“Flattering,” he comments. Percy just rolls his eyes as he reaches for his chain mail, Jason stops him. “We should get that collar off you first,” he says and Percy grimaces. He might have forgotten it was there again, so used to its presence. Holding off from putting on his armour, Percy sits down on a stool as Jason approaches him.

“I’ve tried cutting the magic with Riptide, but it was too thick and I was afraid of chopping off my head using too much force,” Percy explains as Jason examines the collar and the magic around it.

“I think that was a wise decision,” Jason grimaces. Grabbing his long sword, Jason carefully puts it at Percy’s neck. “Sit still.” This is all the warning Percy gets before Jason abruptly pulls his sword back, cutting at the magic, but away from Percy’s neck. Some of the strands snap, but not all. So Jason does it again. Percy can feel the collar loosen a bit this time, seemingly relaxing. After the third time, only a small bit of magic remains and Percy suddenly realises how heavy the collar was now that its weight is disappearing. And then—

*SNAP*

The last bits of magic violently snap out of existence, throwing Jason and his sword back violently. Percy himself screams in pain at the wave of magic buzzing and ripping through his body. But it’s over after a moment, leaving Jason groaning on the ground and Percy groaning doubled over on his little stool.

“Is everything alright? I felt a massive burst of hostile magic come from here,” Eragon is at their tent in the blink of an eye, bursting inside and full of worry. Percy looks up from his curled-up position and smiles at the kid.

“Couldn’t be better,” he grits out, his body still shaking from the aftershocks of the magic.

“What happened?” the young dragon rider asks, walking over to help Jason upright again. Jason groans but obliges, rubbing his head once sitting more comfortably instead of lying sprawled over two chests and a cotton sack filled with food.

“We removed the magic from the collar that was forced onto Percy during his captivity,” Jason replies. Meanwhile, Percy forces himself to uncurl and paw at the collar with weak fingers. The moment his twitching and numb fingers touch the metal, it promptly falls at his feet, having split into two parts.

“At least it worked,” Percy grunts out, his throat feeling like he just swallowed liquid fire. And somehow, he knows how that feels.

“Fools, the both of you,” Eragon exasperatedly says. “You could have at least waited until an elf could take a look, they might have been able to help you.” Percy and Jason look at each other for a moment.

“They could?” Jason asks, one eyebrow raised. Eragon just sighs in response.

Looking at the army marching closer in the distance, right over the Burning Plains, Percy scowls. This heat is going to be a literal hell to fight in. Right beside him is Jason, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him. To his other side, Murtagh sitting on Thorn, ready to aide Eragon. They’re at the front of the lines, taking the head.

The fact of the matter is that the army is big – too big if Percy has to be honest – and the chances of this battle turning out well are slim, with only one trained dragon rider. Murtagh has barely learned the easiest of magic in the days they’ve been here. So the army has to be thinned out a bit for the fight to turn in their favour. And the ground being on fire and spewing shoots of lava now and then aren’t helping either.

That’s where Percy and Jason come in. Combined, Jason and he are capable of quite impressive feats of magic, especially at making storms.

So the plan is that once the army has crossed onto the burning planes, Jason and Percy start a storm and make it rain. The torrential rain will make steam rise and either suffocate the incoming soldiers with heat or disorient them enough to be easy pickings. Rain and heat also don’t mix well with armour. On top of that, Jason will try and get as much wind and movement in the clouds to get lightning to come down and since the soldiers are all wearing metal armour—well, Percy doesn’t need to draw the picture that’ll make.

All soldiers of the Varden are strictly forbidden from going into battle before either Percy or Jason has given the signal that it’s safe.

“D’you reckon they’ll give up if the weather gets bad enough?” Murtagh wonders out loud, making Saphira snort.

“Doubtable, most of the soldiers from the imperial army are under oaths that don’t allow them to flee unless ordered nor can they disobey orders,” she tells them with a mental scowl. Percy remembers the soldiers at the castle and slightly pities them. But not much, they were mostly arseholes who liked to taunt him for being leashed to a wall like a dog.

“Galbatorix gets worse and worse the more I learn about him,” Jason mutters discontentedly.

“Trust me, it can get even worse,” Murtagh replies, a matching scowl on his face.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Jason replies, glancing briefly at Percy who just purses his lips and shrugs in response. He knows how Murtagh grew up in the castle so he must have seen some things, but even he doesn’t know much about that childhood, Murtagh is quite tight-lipped about it.

“The first ones are nearing the edge of the plains,” Eragon informs them all, the only one with a high enough position to properly see if the army is on the plains yet. They’re might lucky Saphira is so big or their whole plan could have not worked. Well, unless she took flight, but then they would risk getting her caught in the storm or her being shot out of the sky.

Percy looks to his right to find Jason already looking at him.

“Ready?” He asks, a small smile on his lips.

“As we’ll ever be,” Percy replies with a sigh, taking the hand Jason offers him. They took off their gloves to make sure that their magic could correspond without hindrance. Percy can feel the calluses on Jason’s rubbing against his own and Percy’s sure Jason can feel the scars on his as he can.

“Ready to evacuate us off this battlefield once we’re done with the storm?” Jason then asks Arya who is waiting on his other side with two horses. She won’t be participating in the fight since she can’t part from Firnen and he’s still too little but she’ll be active in the infirmary.  

“You can trust me,” she replies with a small smile and Jason nods.

“Just tell us when we can start, Eragon,” Percy calls up to the dragon rider who nods in response. Percy can feel Jason nervously squeeze his hand and looks back at his cousin.

“Don’t die, alright?” Percy laughs at the words and Jason smiles.

“Just dump me in the water, I’ll be fine,” Percy assures him. “Just make sure you don’t die yourself.” And they grin at each other.

“Just a bit longer, I’m waiting for more soldiers to tread onto the plains,” Eragon tells them, glaring into the distance.

“For our friends,” Jason whispers. The friends that they lost.

“For our family,” Percy adds softly. The family they lost.

“If we pass out, just drag us to a bed and wait a bit longer for the storm to settle down again before engaging in battle,” Jason tells the others.

“Noted,” Arya replies.

“Now!” Eargon shouts.

Percy looks at Jason once again and they nod at each other. Closing their eyes for a second, they pull at their magic, call forth their strength and concentrate on making the storm localized enough to only cover the plains.

The air starts smelling of petrichor and clouds start gathering overhead, luckily it was already very cloudy. Percy opens his eyes again when he feels it start raining, Jason opens his when the first thunder rumbles. The wind picks up speed and rustles their clothes. Percy and Jason squeeze each other’s hands at the same time when they feel the storm really take shape, doubling their efforts to keep it strong and make it even stronger.

The ground starts steaming and the army in the distance blurs. The wind blows towards the storm, away from the Varden army to make sure no smoke or rain comes in their direction.

“Let’s make it swirl,” Jason grounds out and Percy chuckles.

“I like the way you think.” So they start making the wind obey their whims and make it start going around.

The army blurs more and more through the rain as the storm picks up. The clouds start rumbling more and more and swirling around themselves. Percy grins.

The tornado itself is just the start, the lightning, the rain and the devastation, now that’s the best part. But it’s also asking a lot of them. But in good news, Percy can feel the storm is doing its work, picking off as many soldiers as it can or at least injuring them.

“Remember me never to piss the two of them off,” Murtagh comments with his mouth agape. He’s probably never seen a storm like this, with the wind reaching down to the ground and destroying everything it passes. Percy grunts in effort as they make the tornado go straight towards the rest of the imperial army, away from the burning plains and the Varden.

He can already feel his strength waning, Jason is looking awfully pale too.

“Just a bit longer,” Eragon encourages them, peering into the distance. Percy wills his legs to keep standing just a bit longer.

“Going out with a bang?” Percy grits through his teeth. Jason pants and takes a deep breath before answering.

“Of course.”

Gathering the last of their strength, they make the storm as strong as they can before letting go of it and letting it do as it pleases until it eventually loses power and calms down to just rain and maybe a thunderstorm.

Percy collapses onto his knees while Jason just full-on lays down with a grunt.

“Wait for the storm to calm down before going in,” Jason warns them before promptly passing out. Percy looks for a moment longer at the storm before deciding he would like to sleep too.

Percy peels his eyes back open with a groan. His everything feels heavy and his throat is parched.

“Here, dear, drink this.” Water is brought to his mouth and he gratefully drinks what’s offered to him. And he can already feel the cool water slowly healing him. It’s not nearly enough, but it helps. He gives the kind older woman a grateful smile.

“No, young man, I told you to stay down, you are not fit to fight.” Percy can hear another – healer? Nurse? Doctor? They must be in the infirmary so it could be any of those terms really – berate someone else.

“Fine,” Jason grumpily complies and Percy chuckles and looks to the side to find Jason in the bed beside him. “How’s the battle going?” Jason’s voice sounds rough, but he sounds awake, he must have regained consciousness a bit before him. Percy beckons the kind older woman for a bit more water.

“Not as good as we hoped, that awful king used magic to prevent his soldiers from feeling pain, even mortally wounded, they fight on,” the healer attending to Jason tells them, offering some soup to the blonde. Percy grimaces at the news, suddenly feeling the urge to stand up and get back in the fight. Percy hates fighting, but people are dying out there while he’s in here, lying in a cosy bed.

“But whatever you two idiots did, it helped immensely. At least a third of the imperial forces were already unable to fight and even more were weakened by the storm,” a wounded man from Percy’s other side says. Percy looks to see someone he didn’t expect, Albrecht, one of Horst’s sons. Percy smiles at the man, happy to see he’s alive – wounded is better than dead.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Percy says.

“Here, dear, eat this, to get your strength back,” the kind woman pushes a bowl of soup toward Percy for him to eat too. Percy gladly takes it and thanks her.

“How was everyone faring?” Jason asks, being much closer to Albrecht from all the time he spent on the boat with the people from Carvahall.

“Roran is going feral with his hammers, he already killed the twin magicians that were responsible for abducting Murtagh and killing Ajihad, the old Varden leader. Eragon and his dragon are very useful too and Murtagh, that new guy does his best, but his dragon is not as big as Eragon’s. And overall, most of the people from Carvahall stick together and have each other’s back. Got wounded a while ago, protecting my da from an incoming arrow.” Albrecht rubs over his wrapped and splinted thigh softly.

“The arrow hit the bone and the healers said it might be fractured so it’s better to keep it in a splint until it stops hurting,” he then explains. Percy grimaces, knowing how much broken bones hurt.

“I hope it heals well and quickly,” Jason tells him after slurping from his soup. Albrecht hums in thanks. The soup is not as bland as Percy expected, some spices were used which surprises him since they’re so expensive. In the distance, he can still hear the battle going on and much closer he hears people screaming in pain from injuries. It’s not a pleasant noise, Percy’s heart clenches when he hears people cry out in pain or cry for their mums desperately. He knows it’s best not to listen.

After finishing his soup, the three of them talk for a bit longer, mostly about the battles but also a bit about other things.

They’re interrupted a while later by the pained noise of a dragon, making both Jason and Percy sit up in alarm.

“That was Thorn, right?” Percy asks his cousin, already grabbing for more water by his bedside to chug it down.

“And he does not sound happy,” Jason adds, struggling out of his bed and grabbing for his armour by the bedside.

“Hey, you two, you shouldn’t be out of bed,” Albrecht protests but they ignore him.

“Duty calls,” Percy tells him with an apologetic smile after drinking all of the water that was still by his bed. Grabbing his armour and stumbling into it, Percy races off after his cousin who’s a tad bit faster than him due to not drinking a whole can of water.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be out of bed!”

They ignore the kind woman too, making their way out of the tent and towards the battlefield as another pained cry from Thorn urges them on. Percy’s muscles are stiff and he doesn’t have as much energy as he’d hoped, but it could be worse. Jason also has a bit of a limp from stiff muscles, but he pushes on.

“Do you see where they are?” Percy asks, scanning the battlefield as they jog toward it.

“I can only see Saphira, but she’s flying toward somewhere with haste so I suppose we should just follow her,” Jason points toward the sky and Percy can’t help but agree. The blue dragon has a destination and wants to get there quickly.

“Let’s go,” Percy says.

Luckily that destination is on the edge of the battle field so they don’t have to fight too much to get there. They have to jog around the battlefield a bit, but it’s fine. Percy tries to ignore the dying throes of people as they run and instead tries to focus on their goal.

Once their goal becomes visible, Percy knows they made the right decision returning to the fight.

Murtagh is on the ground with Thorn standing over him, desperately fighting off assailants. Eragon and Saphira are protecting him, but imperial soldiers surround them.

Because they’re not stupid, Jason and Percy jump into the fray without a battle cry. Fighting side by side, they fall into a familiar routine. Fighting with Jason is comfortable and his style compliments Percy’s. But fighting with Annabeth was always like fighting as one. Percy knows no one will ever fall in so seamlessly with his fighting style again.

Making their way straight to Thorn to stand at his back and help protect Murtagh for now, Percy remembers the words from the healer. The soldiers can’t feel pain. So Percy only aims for the deadly spots like necks, faces, hearts and important arteries.

Stab, duck, slash, parry, switch places with Jason, stab, duck, parry, slash—

It’s like falling into an old routine.

Some of the soldiers get some hits in when they swarm him. Most of it is caught by the armour, but cuts and bruises still form all over Percy’s body.

One hit from a mace to his back even dislodges some of the chains on his chain mail. So Percy makes sure to protect that spot a bit more from then onwards by trying not to let his back face the mass of enemy soldiers but only his allies.

“Percy! Jason! You’re awake!” Eragon says once he notices their arrival.

“Thank you,” Thorn says softly in their minds.

“Is it just me or are they taking ‘divide and conquer’ very seriously?” Jason calls out to the others when he has a second to breathe.

“It’s not just you,” Percy replies loudly as he kicks a dead body off his sword. The soldiers seem to be focusing on them and it’s almost eery how well they can do it. The other Varden soldiers get pushed back and away from them while they’re stuck protecting the unconscious Murtagh. They can’t get isolated because it will cut them off from both retreat and reinforcements. But it doesn’t seem like the soldiers are going to let up.

“I’m going to try and get Murtagh on Thorn’s back so we can retreat to the other Varden,” Percy tells the others, getting a nod in reply from Jason.

Percy brings down one more soldier before he safely retreats to Thorn. The dragon recognises his presence easily and lets him pick up Murtagh to sling over the dragon’s back. Percy quickly uses the straps of the saddle to make sure Murtagh can’t fall off. But he doesn’t bother with much more, they have to be quick and get out of here.

“Go!” He then yells spurring everyone into action. Jason turns to him to smile and Percy smiles back.

Eragon and Saphira both use their magic to try and create an opening toward the side of the battlefield where the enemy lines are thinnest so they can get away from there.

Thorn stays close and uses everything he has to protect his rider who’s still unconscious on his back.

Jason moves closer to Percy so they can stay close together. Percy turns so he can run toward the opening Saphira just made by breathing fire at the enemies and—

“Percy!”

Sudden pain sprouts from Percy’s back.

He yells and collapses from both the pain and the suddenness.

What—what happened?

Once on his knees, Percy can see what caused said pain.

An arrow sticks out of his abdomen. It’s pushing the chain mail at his front away. It had enough power to fly straight through his whole body. This wasn’t a lucky shot—this was an archer waiting for an opportunity and taking it.

It broke right through the small gap in Percy’s chain mail that was made only minutes before by that mace. Such a small hole and the archer still managed to find it. Such a small hole and the arrow still went through.

Percy looks up at Jason, knowing the arrow just hit his liver. There’s no way Percy is surviving this with how isolated they are from the rest of the Varden.

“We need to get back. Now!” Jason alerts Eragon who is busy fighting off the soldiers on the other side of Thorn and can’t see Percy. “Percy’s been hit, he needs medical attention, now!” The blonde then uses the winds to propel himself toward Percy, sheathing his sword.

“Shit,” Eragon curses, using his magic to push the soldiers on his side far enough back to look at them for a moment.

Jason kicks at a soldier and uses the wind to stun some others by blowing dust in their eyes. The blonde then turns to try and help Percy to his feet—but there’s no point—Percy’s dying.

“No, you need to get out of here, leave me,” Percy pants, barely getting the words out as he holds his hands tightly over his abdomen, fingers curling around the arrow and the chain mail. Blood seeps through his fingers and drips down to the ground. Percy’s sword lays long forgotten in front of him.

“No, I’m not leaving you,” Jason stubbornly grits out, picking up Percy’s steel sword to sheathe it again.

“You need to go, Jason. You know I won’t make it—” Percy is looking right at his cousin when it happens. The arrow lands straight through the blonde’s neck. Jason gurgles and splutters, groaning in pain.

“No!” Eragon exclaims, his magic lashing out and pushing all of the soldiers away this time.

Jason hits the floor before Eragon can even reach them. And all Percy can do is stare with wide, terrified eyes at his cousin’s limp body.

Percy can see Saphira’s fire light up the area but doesn’t bother looking. His gaze is focused on Jason as he splutters and struggles to take his last breath. Blood streams out of the corner of his mouth and the blood at his neck bubbles with air flowing around it as he struggles to breathe.

“No, no, no,” Percy mutters, removing his hands from his abdomen to press them to Jason’s neck, knowing it’s useless, but needing to do something. Jason stares up at him, using his last strength to grab Percy’s hands and give him a soft smile.

And then he stops breathing. Percy cries, his tears blurring the sight in front of him. But he still can’t turn his eyes away. He takes in every detail, every little thing.

“Come on, Percy. At least you have to stay alive,” Eragon says, moving to pick Percy up. But Percy shakes his head.

“No—” he grits out before coughing. “You have to go, Eragon. We both know I won’t make it. Let me at least stay with him—I—” Percy is interrupted again when Saphira roars before spewing more fire. Thorn is behind her, doing his best to protect his rider.

“No, I can’t leave you,” Eragon says softly and Percy realises he’s crying too. Percy shakes his head, feeling himself become light-headed and tired already. Without his hands to stop the blood flow, he’s dying at a faster rate. But he can’t let go of Jason, he just can’t. “I’ll take you both,” he then resolutely decides before looking at Saphira.

Percy closes his eyes and lets his tears fall onto Jason before using his last strength to gather the still-warm but unmoving body closer to him.

“I’m sorry—Jason. At least—we’ll—be with our family—again,” Percy manages to get out, but only barely, through the pain. Seconds later, he feels Saphira’s giant paws wrap around the two of them and then they’re off.

Percy cries in pain as the arrow in his abdomen is jostled, but manages to keep his grip on Jason’s body.

Next thing Percy knows, they’re softly being laid down in front of the infirmary. He must have passed out because he doesn’t remember the flight here.

“Percy?” A disoriented and barely awake Murtagh mutters as he comes stumbling over, Percy’s eyes are closed, but he can hear it. “Percy, no, no, no.”

Hands close around the wound in his abdomen and Percy uses the last of his strength to open his eyes. He finds Murtagh leaning over him, blood covering half his face and one eye caked closed with it.

Head wounds always bleed the worst.

“Stay with us, Percy,” Murtagh almost begs.

Percy can feel himself slipping, though. He knows he won’t last long anymore.

“Jason! Percy!” Albreich comes hobbling into sight, looking devastated. Eragon is with him, still crying.

Percy looks to the side and sees Jason lying beside him, his hand still in Percy’s. And Percy smiles.

At least they will be with their families again now.

He can’t wait.

“No!” Murtagh exclaims.

Percy slowly opens his eyes to find a dreary overcast sky looming over him, rain slowly dribbling down and making soft pattering noises on his armour.

“Took you long enough,” Jason weakly says, sitting beside him, a hand rubbing thoughtfully over his neck.

“We died,” Percy says, not really sure why, but he says it.

“Yeah,” Jason replies, sighing and laying himself back down beside Percy who is just listlessly staring up at the sky, blinking some raindrops out of his eyes now and then.

“But we’re not,” Percy then points out, lifting his hands carefully to look at them. The blood is gone—both Jason’s and his own. His gloves still bear the marks of wear and tear that they gained during the battles he fought.

“We're back with our families,” Jason says softly, taking a deep breath after. “They’re not all dead.” And Percy laughs humourlessly at that.

“Remember when you said this wouldn’t take that long? Making the muses their shrines?” He asks, now having closed his eyes and just enjoying the peace and quiet here in this little glade in a forest with the rain softly dribbling down on them.

“I remember saying it would only be a short trip, yeah,” Jason replies. Percy turns his head and opens his eyes again. Jason turns his head too at the noise.

“I’m never doing you any favours again,” Percy then says, letting his gloved hands fist into the chain mail right where he was skewered by an arrow.

“I don’t blame you,” Jason replies before promptly laughing which makes Percy start laughing too.

They both look up at the deary and dark grey sky again.

“We should probably get going, we don’t want to attract any other monsters.”

“Yeah.”

As Percy sits up and finds their bags in front of him, he frowns. All of the burned scrolls, tombs and texts are in the condition they found them in again and their bags look brand new. But when he sees three books he doesn’t recognise peeking out of them, he grimaces.

“Maybe we can just lay here a moment longer?” Jason asks, still just thoughtlessly looking up at the sky.

“We’ve already died once today, I’m not planning on doing it again,” Percy replies with a grimace. Jason sighs but gets up.

As it turns out, the same amount of time passed inside the book as outside of it and both camps freaked out when they returned. Especially when they saw them wearing medieval European armour instead of Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman armour. Annabeth even thought they’d been dragged into another pantheon’s problems again for a moment.

“Are you telling me you were in this book?” Annabeth asks, holding up a red-covered book for them to see. The title is ‘Brisingr’ and Thorn’s head is on the front cover.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Jason replies, looking at his neck in the mirror which shows the scars of the wound he was killed by. Percy hasn’t looked at his abdomen yet, but he knows he’ll see a similar scar there.

“I’m never letting the two of you go on a quest alone ever again,” Annabeth then declares, glaring at them. Percy chuckles and drags his wise girl a bit closer so he can kiss her.

“We were already thinking the same thing, don’t worry,” he assures her.

“Oh, yes, definitely,” Jason agrees, laughing loudly.

In the end, all the damaged scrolls and artefacts were restored, as promised by the muses and their quest was a success. The book had a ‘good’ ending and the series did too so they succeeded. The books that were in their bags when they woke up are altered copies of the original story, adding their presence into it and telling how their interference changed the ending of the series. Jason and Percy even let someone read the book series to them – since they’re both heavily dyslexic and can’t read it as quickly – to find out how the books would eventually end and to see what happens to their friends.

Their death was a tragedy according to what was written, but in the end, the war was won. Murtagh got together with Nasuada, Roran was reunited with Katrina and started a family with her, the villagers of Carvahall all found a new home, Albreich and Albert founded families too and Eragon set off to find new lands to restart the Dragon Riders' order.

Jason and Percy feel glad that everyone has their happy ending, except for Eragon, but they know he will find his own happiness eventually.

The Inheritance Cycle books are now a central part of the muses their shrine and Percy often visits just to remember those months spent in that book. He’s still a bit angry with the muses for making him integrate so much with the book that he forgot his real memories, but in the end, he understands why it had to happen.

And Percy would never admit it—but he still enjoyed that adventure. A bead now hangs on his camp necklace with the names of all the friends he made in the books on it. And the Varden armour and the steel sword he fought with are on proud display in his cabin.