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Chapter Text

Poseidon stepped into the bedroom quietly, making sure to not alert his hypocritical younger brother that he was there.

He walked over to the crib that was in the middle of the room and reached into it, picking up his youngest daughter with extreme care and gently cradling her in his arms. She looked so tiny compared to him.

His eyes raked over her small form, taking in the glittering blue and green scales on her skin, her gills and fins, her little shark tail and the small head of black hair, she was beautiful. The sea god felt guilty that he had brought her into this world, that she would have to be subjected to all the torment and suffering that came with being a forbidden child of one of the strongest olympians.

"Be strong my little pearl, do not forget that I am here for you always" he said in a quiet whisper, kissing his daughter on the forehead softly before placing her back in her crib. He spared one last look at her before teleporting back to Atlantis.

Chapter Text

Nellie was walking up the stairs to her apartment door, her tail swinging nervously behind her. She had just escaped from Grover at the bus station, not wanting him to see the state of the apartment or how her mom and Gabe, especially him, treat her. She doesn't want to burden her only friend with that.

"I'm home" she called, anxiety making it's way into her tone. When she got no answer she was hopeful that she was the only one home, until her mom came out the kitchen.

"Your school called me Penelope, telling me that you're expelled. This is the sixth school in six years, how useless are you?" Sally scolded, an angry expression on her face. Nellie looked down at the ground, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She's heard it all before. Every single time she gets expelled from a school her mom berates her and calls her useless. She should be used to it by now but it still hurts.

"I'm sorry mom, I really tried this year" Nellie tried to explain, her voice wobbling slightly but Sally just rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"Just go to your room, you're not having dinner tonight and you can forget about going down to the river tomorrow" her mother told her and Nellie had to suppress a sob at that. She hadn't eaten since yesterday's breakfast and she was terribly hungry, and she really wanted to go down to the river tomorrow, it felt like home. But she couldn't argue with her mom so she just nodded in understanding and started heading to her room.

As Nellie passed by the living room she noticed that Gabe's friends were there playing poker, a few of them saw her and catcalled, it was times like these that made Nellie really glad that no-one but her mom, Grover and Mr. Brunner could see her non-human features, she shivered at the thought of how they would treat her if they knew what she really looked like. She made eye contact with Gabe and he had that look in his eyes that meant he was going to pay her a 'friendly visit' in her room that night. The young pre-teen had to suppress a shudder as she practically bolted to her room, making sure not to slam her door as she knew that would make everything worse.

Nellie sat on her uncomfortable bed and buried her head in her hands, finally letting out a small sob. What did she do to deserve this? Why did she have to be stuck with a neglectful mom and a physically and sexually abusive step-dad?

Her knees came up to her chest as her tail wrapped itself around her ankles. She looked down at the scales that littered her arms and legs with disgust, she hated how monstrous they made her look. She dropped a hand down to her tail, feeling along it's smooth surface. She glared at it before digging her claws in, not caring that she was drawing blood, the pain helped to distract her from everything going wrong in her life.

Nellie was cut off from her self-deprecating thoughts by a crash sound. She took her claws out of her tail with a quiet hiss before going to investigate what the sound was.

She passed by the living room where Gabe's friends were still playing poker undisturbed and reached the hallway where the sound came from and was greeted with a weird sight. Her mom and step-dad were passed out on the floor, Grover was hovering over them with one of his crutches raised but he dropped it to the floor once he saw her.

"Nellie I am so sorry, I didn't mean to knock them out but I was trying to see you and I'm sort of in a rush but they wouldn't let me go past and I panicked and hit them with my crutch" he rushed to explain but Nellie wasn't listening, she found it hard to pay attention to what he was saying when he was more like her then she first thought.

Grover had goat legs, he wasn't fully human like her. She finally wasn't alone.

Chapter Text

"I don't have time to properly explain everything, we have to go now" Grover told Nellie before grabbing her arm to pull her out of the apartment. Nellie had to stop herself from flinching, reminding herself that this was Grover and he would never do anything to hurt her.

Together they made their way out of the apartment block on to the street. Once they were out of the street, Grover took out some keys that were in his pocket and Nellie paled once she saw who those keys belonged to.

"Are you kidding me Grover? Why did you steal Gabe's keys?" Nellie asked in horror but Grover just shrugged, oblivious to what he just did.

"We need to make it all the way to long island and the only way to do that wuickly is by car and neither of us have the money to afford a taxi so it's easier just to steal keys" he explained which did nothing to help her anxiety.

"When Gabe finds out he's going to kill me" She whispered, fear etched into her tone. Grover placed a hand on her shoulder which caused her to flinch.

"It'll be OK, as soon as we've driven there I'll have someone drive it back good as new" Grover said, trying to reassure her. But he didn't understand what she was feeling. He just thought that Gabe would scold her and ground her, he has no idea that Gabe would do so much worse to her. But Nellie couldn't voice those thoughts, she couldn't let Grover really know what was going on. So she just stayed quiet and got in the passenger seat of the car.

Once they both got into the car, Nellie looked at herself in the mirror while Grover was figuring out how to turn on the engine. She frowned at the fins replacing what should be human ears and the small scales on the bridge of her nose that resembled freckles. Why did she have to look so weird? Why couldn't she just look normal?

"Stop looking at yourself like that. So what if you don't look normal? Normal is overrated. And the place I'm taking you to has lots of other kids who have features like yours" Grover told her once he finally got the car started.

"Where are you taking me anyway?" Nellie asked, Grover still hadn't told her anything about what was happening or why he was in such a rush to get her.

"Well it's hard to explain but it's a long drive to long island so I'll explain as best as I can. The greek tales and all the gods and monsters from within it. Ms. Dodds was a fury as I'm sure you saw when she went after you. I'm a satyr which is the reason why I have goat legs. The gods have children with mortals which are called demigods, you're also a demigod which is why you have those features. I'm taking you to camp half-blood to keep you safe from monsters who can smell the divinity in your blood and want to harm you" Grover explained to her, but Nellie was still so confused. Gods and monsters exist? She was the daughter of a god? It didn’t make much sense to her, but it did explain why she looked the way she did. Why else would she have eldritch features if she wasn't half-god? If she didn't have divine blood running through her veins?

For the remainder of the drive they sat in comfortable silence, until about a mile left when all of a sudden it began to rain heavily. Nellie heard Grover curse quietly beside her and she turned her head to look at him, she saw how hard he gripped the wheel and how his eyes had a look of fear. There was a flash of lightning and Nellie couldn't help but flinch, she's always hated thunderstorms. But in the rear view mirror she saw a huge, dark shape behind the car that let out a monstrous bellow that had her wishing she could just curl up into a ball and hide.

"Grover what's going on? What is that thing?" She asked, her heart beating wildly in her chest. Grover reached over to hold her hand tightly.

"It's OK, we're going to make it. We have to" he said, trying to reassure her but it didn't do well to sooth the anxiety in her heart.

They had only made it another half a mile before Nellie felt off, like something bad was about to happen. Before she could warn Grover though, lightning hit the car, flipping it over in the mud.

Nellie groaned in pain, she reached a hand up to her forehead to feel for damage and when she drew it back it was wet with blood.

"Nellie are you OK?" Grover asked in worry, she looked over and saw that he was mostly unscathed except for a small trickle of blood coming from his mouth, most likely from biting his tongue when the car got flipped. She nodded to him, hissing when the movement made her head spin.

Grover reached over to unbuckle her seat belt before kicking the drivers door open with his hoof and helping her to get out of the damaged vehicle.

They'd made it halfway up the hill when the creature that appeared before made itself known. It was the minotaur. It sniffed around the car, clearly looking for the two of them.

"Listen to me closely Nellie, do you see that pine tree on top of the hill? That's the camp border, once you make it past there the minotaur won't be able to get to you and you'll be safe" Grover told her but Nellie shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes. The satyr was her only friend not to mention one of the only two men she felt safe around.

"I can't leave you Grover, what if the minotaur kills you?" She said, keeping back the sob that was trying to come out. Grover made a sad sound and pulled her into a hug. Nellie buried her face in his shoulder, no doubt getting blood on his jacket.

"I'll be OK, the minotaur is after you and as your friend and protector it's my job to keep you safe. Now please go, I don't want you to get more hurt then you already are" he told her and she pulled back seeing the determined look in his eyes. She nodded in response and started to make her way up the rest of the hill, she'd almost made it when she heard a pained shout. She looked behind her and saw the minotaur fling her friend into a tree.

"Grover!" Nellie yelled in panic, accidentally alerting the monster to her presence. It turned toward her with a murderous look in its eyes and she knew that she was in trouble.

The beast charged at her and she jumped up to avoid its horns, landing on its back. The minotaur freaked out trying to dislodge her and she had to hold on to the horns in order to not go flying. A mistimed pull had one of the horns snapping clean off, causing the minotaur to bellow in pain and she rolled off its back with a pained grunt.

When Nellie looked up she saw the minotaur approaching her again, looking even more angry with her then before. She stood up on unsteady legs, the horn in her hands gave her an idea. When she minotaur charged at her again, she ducked and thrust the horn up into the monsters ribcage, penetrating the skin. It let out another bellow before dissolving into golden dust.

Nellie barely walked a few steps before her legs gave up on her and she collapsed onto the wet, muddy ground.

She saw a blurry figure come toward her from her peripheral when everything went black.