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Percy Jackson is not a god. What a silly thought. He dismisses it. He has crimson running through his veins, not molten gold. He is the son of Sally Jackson, and she is as mortal as it gets. So he ignored the whispers. He leads quests, he studies for exams until morning light climbs through the window, sunlight caressing his cheek as if Apollo is telling him to sleep. He kisses Annabeth every chance he gets, he visits Tyson in Atlantis. He spars with Triton, the heir to their father’s kingdom angrier with every drop of ichor Percy draws. Percy is not trying. Triton’s brow furrows in concentration, and it is only when he summons his power, does he get a blow in at his brother. Percy lets him out of pity, perhaps a bit of guilt.
Percy Jackson is not a god. He is a hero, he is a half-god, but when the waves rise around him, obeying the call of their master, the monster in front of him thinks otherwise. He is not a god, right? Riptide has washed away, and all it takes is one glare from the son of Poseidon and the monster disintegrates beneath the currents. Percy Jackson is a hero, of course, but no hero, even one so powerful, can so casually challenge Ares to another fight when he insults Annabeth within Percy’s hearing. Ares limps away, the gash in his forearm refusing to heal. Percy Jackson is not a god, because that power glowing in his eyes is far, far older than the gods themselves.
Percy Jackson is not a god. He is not a god when he falls into Tartarus with Annabeth, and he is not a god when he chokes the goddess of misery with her own poison. How much misery can misery take? Percy is mortal, even if the sea runs in his veins. He is mortal, of course, even when Ahklys regards him in terror, something a goddess should not feel when confronted by a half-blood. He is mortal, of course, even when the atmosphere of Tartarus does not affect him as badly as it does Annabeth. His father’s nature protects him, right? (Even the sea cannot reach him down here.)
Percy Jackson is not a god, but he fights alongside them in the Acropolis. The others are formidable to see, Jason and Zeus, Leo and Hephaestus, but it is only Percy and Poseidon who both look like gods as they battle their giant, the waves crashing against the cliff side. The sea knows her masters, and she reaches for them. The sea lifts her head about the cliff, hundreds of feet above. She watches. Her king and his son. She watches. The god and the not-quite-demigod-anymore. They defeat the giant, and for some reason, only the gods can manage to look at Percy’s glowing form without feeling like they would disintegrate. He has to douse himself with seawater to breathe again, and the glow fades. The Seven stare at him.
Percy Jackson is not a god, but if he were, he would be the god of demigods. He is, after all, the one who cared enough to demand the gods change their ways, so no child was abandoned anymore. He was the one who cared enough to enforce this rule, this new law. It is his first law governing the gods, and it won’t be his last. Zeus wishes he could smite him, but something in the sixteen-year-old’s eyes warned him that would be a bad idea (ignoring how utterly destructive and all-encompassing his brother’s retaliation would be). Poseidon only smiles serenely at them, uncaring that beneath his son’s skin, coiled unimaginable power. He was proud. No, Percy wasn’t a god, but campers whispered otherwise. Did not all gods start mortal, made powerful by devotion? Devotion is powerful. So the campers pray to Percy. God of heroes, god of sacrifice, god of demigods, they whisper. God of the forgotten. Percy dismisses it nothing when the occasional scent of brisket and mac n cheese waft in his nostrils. He takes it a little more seriously when it starts smelling blue (how is that even possible?).
Percy Jackson is not a god when he slowly stands in the middle of the rushing waves, spray fanning out behind him like a halo. (Like Ariel, Annabeth teases him, and Percy blushes.) He is not a demigod, either, when his eyes glow the color of deep seas where sunlight barely touched, an eerie green shimmering with shipwrecks and benevolence. The duality of man, the duality of the sea. He is the sea, wrapped up in a mortal coil, one that threatens any moment to unleash the true power simmering beneath tanned skin and white scars. When he rises from the water, the monster in the camp’s borders that has already stolen one of the younger campers (one of his friends) balks, because it is not just him. Behind him, rises a wave, taller and taller, towering, swirling, threatening. Behind Percy Jackson rises his father, the God of the Seas (the Stormbringer, the Earthshaker, but those are not his only titles. He was once Epoptes, the Watcher. He once wore his brother’s crown of skulls and restless souls) and an unsettling — inhuman — grin spread across his face. His skin shimmers in the sun, like he has scales there, and his teeth are far sharper and more numerous than any other god’s. (The campers who have encountered his other children, Percy’s half-siblings, understand now where they get their features from. They understand why Percy’s skin seems to shimmer sometimes too, like it isn’t skin but scaled, and why sometimes his smile is too sharp to be entirely kind.)
The god’s eyes flicker with something more akin to a predator than a friend: ships wrecking, sirens screeching, riptides biting at unsuspecting ankles, the feeling of being watched as one drowns. (The sea may be kind, but it is also ruthless. It will care about your demise, in the way you care about tormenting a bug that has been bothering you for too long. The duality of man, the duality of god.) His son’s eyes flicker too, with untamed power rivaling any god worth their salt, with the promise of death for the monster, and it is no more than a few seconds before golden dust is scattered into the lake. Percy Jackson has inherited both sides of the sea’s nature, and that is enough cause for alarm now. (Tartarus has changed him, they whisper now. Tartarus has brought forth his darker side. His older side. There is no going back now. The sea does not like to be restrained.)
The campers watch, in awe, in amazed silence, as the shadow behind their new god darkens. Poseidon grins wider, proud, and Percy Jackson tilts his head. He sees better now. His senses are heightened. Percy Jackson’s eyes are that same green, but there is something new. Something gold. Specks of immortality shine through in his irises, and he does not notice. He does not notice his nose dripping crimson and gold, leaving shining red smeared against his mouth. His lips turn red, his eyes turn brighter, and his smile is still not human. Annabeth shivers.
Percy Jackson is, indeed, a god. And perhaps no one should be surprised, because as everyone knows, the sea is older than time itself. Things lurk down there, unknown to even Zeus, to Kronos himself. So if those unknown beings sometimes decide to step forth into the world as a bright-eyed, brave young man, well… Then the campers thank their lucky stars Percy Jackson is on their side.
Percy Jackson, they whisper, is the god of the unknown. He is the god of the unclaimed, the forgotten, the abandoned. Even when he is gone, one only need to step into his cabin and pray. He hears. He answers. He does not ignore, like other gods. Eventually, out of worry Poseidon will take offense to his cabin being used to exalt his son, an altar is built, near the lake. (Poseidon does not tell them he doesn’t mind. In fact, he is gleeful his favorite son, his most powerful son, is being prayed to. Could Zeus ever claim that of his children?) Sometimes, there are throngs around it. Demigods begin to visit his altar to pray for protection on quests, leaving blue food. He accepts. He offers them protection in his waters. New demigods are taken by the altar too, told the legend of the son of Poseidon who grew into godhood. Not given. Taken. He became a god on his own.
Percy Jackson is, after all, a god.
He is the God of Camp Half-Blood.