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This is how it begins: two young gods tousling in the shade of a giant olive tree, laughing like they are children again. Warm-tempered Jason, the golden gift of Hera and bright-spirited Perseus (call me Percy, please, he says often to anyone who’ll listen), the beloved, salt-kissed son of the sea god.
The two of them are many things—youths nearing the peak of their primes, godlings cast in gold and bronze, a son of Zeus and a son of Poseidon. But here, in this corner of the human world, the only thing they need to be is friends.
“Let—go,” Jason says. The words are muffled since half his face is trapped in the curve of Percy’s elbow, but he manages to kick Percy when the other attempts to drag him closer to the lake. “You—ass—”
“Come on, just a little closer!” Percy gasps, heaving between each word. “What are you afraid of—a little—”
Before he can say water, Jason goes slack and Percy’s next pull meets no resistance. The young god’s sacrifice is rewarded with Percy’s yelp when instead of one, the two of them both tumble in, creating a noise that startles the birds on nearby trees into flight.
Percy recovers quickly, using his powers to shake and splash Jason like a ragdoll as the latter struggles to untangle his arms from his chiton. Air starts whipping around Percy’s head in retaliation, tangling his hair into a bird’s nest, and he ducks underneath the surface to tickle his friend. As the two struggle beneath the water, their laughter streams up as foam to the lake’s surface.
This is so unfair! Jason’s eyes seem to say, as he tires as quickly as Percy is energized. Percy merely smirks in response, crowing a short term victory, long-term loss, your Highness back at him in bubbles.
Eventually they pull themselves onto land, or rather Percy pulls them both, laughing all the while. He waves a hand and the water leeches from their clothes, slinking back to the lake as though it’d never left. Jason flops onto the ground as soon as he’s able. Gasping for breath, he turns over and props himself up on one elbow, a smile shining on his face.
“My ribs,” He wheezes, using his other hand to clutch exaggeratedly at his abdomen. Percy laughs some more, higher pitched than normal, and Jason fake-scowls. He flicks a little electric shock that his friend dodges easily and starts to run his hand through his hair. Stops. “Ah.”
Percy makes a questioning noise through his laughter.
Frowning, Jason pushes himself up into a sitting position and runs his hand over his hair again. He turns to glance behind him, eyebrows furrowed, and sighs. Percy unsuccessfully tries to stop laughing and has to shoot him a questioning look instead of speaking.
“It’s my wreath, it must have fallen off when we were wrestling,” Jason says, heaving another sigh, a long suffering why does this happen to me, why do my actions have consequences? sound. He points vaguely in the lake’s direction, too tired to locate exactly where the wreath fell. “Percy, get it for me.”
“Sure thing. Here,” Percy says, managing to speak at last. He flicks his hand. The water splits and the wreath sails back towards them in a golden arc, droplets of water raining down onto them. Percy tilts his face to feel it; Jason gives no indication of noticing it at all, having sunken into the earth in exhaustion. He barely glances up when he snatches the wreath mid-flight, a one-handed gesture that manages to be both lightning-quick and lazy.
It is summer in the mortal realm, Persephone is back with her mother, and the heat hangs low and hazy over them both like a heavy blanket. The buzz of insects echoes in their ears as they lean back to rest against cool grass. Overhead, slivers of sunlight slip through green leaves and pool over the water.
This is a boy’s game of theirs—the escape, the pretend fighting with nowhere near the damage they both know they could deal. As time pulls them towards their identities as men, as gods on Olympus, it gets harder and harder to pull themselves away. Once this was easy, sneaking past their parents to slip under the clouds and spend countless days amongst greenery and mortals. It will only get harder. Youth blossoms around them, ripe in melancholy, ready to age to the point of spoil.
“I wish we had figs,” Percy says. Jason groans, musings disturbed. He turns his face back into the earth, delighting in the feeling of the cool grass on his cheek.
“Don’t fall asleep on me! Why didn’t we bring any figs? Should we go find figs?”
“I’m tired,” Jason complains. “You just spent time in the lake, so if you want figs so badly you can go get them yourself.”
Percy whines. “But it’s no fun to go alone.”
“Too bad,” Jason tells him. Because he’s currently face-down into the earth, it sounds like “shoo nap.”
Poseidon’s son tugs on his robes, relentless. “Come ooon.”
“Npf.” (No.)
“Why not?”
“Befuff shim buyered.” (Because I’m tired.)
Percy raises a hand, flicks his fingers and splatters droplets of water across the two of them, creating clouds of welcome mist in the acrid heat. Jason groans again with relief and spreads out like a starfish, drawing another laugh out of Percy. He finds it so easy to laugh with Jason around. Gods do not have the same blood ties of mortals, and yet there is something about having fathers like theirs that feels like kinship.
Elsewhere, beyond their sights and other senses, the ground shudders and heaves and cracks open like a dropped egg. Nearby insects fall to grass; the grass crumples and blackens. A chill rises in the air, biting against the summer heat and causing every still-living animal to flee.
Unseen by anyone but its rider, the skeleton of a horse’s hoof emerges from the fissure and steps onto earth. First one frog and sole and coffin bone appears, then the other set, as a ghostly steed attempts to find its way up the slope.
“Easy, easy,” mumbles its rider. The horse heaves, and with considerable careful effort, draws itself up. It shakes its head, swatting away nonexistent fleas. Its rider stills. For the first time in his life the warmth of the air hovers around him, the world spread around in lush greens, hallowed in the yellow of the sun. He blinks slowly, in quiet shadowed awe, but time is of the essence and his father is sensitive about children straying out of his realm. He urges the horse, and together they set off.
With every step the horse takes, flowers wilt and grass turns to ash underneath ghost-white bones. The forest is eerily silent, but that doesn’t seem to bother the two travellers. The rider is a study in movements. He fiddles with his hands, leans back to glance at things, ducks his head under branches, and gazes around him with wide-eyed wonder. The steed is familiar enough with him that it merely trudges on, allowing the boy to sightsee.
Back at the lakeside, Percy has given up on finding figs and is lying on the ground with his feet in the water. For the fifth time in ten minutes, he hears a muffled, bitten-off curse and sees a golden coin fall to the ground. A snap rings across the clearing and a gust of breeze later, the coin is back in Jason’s hands.
“What are you doing?” Percy asks, pushing himself up, when it becomes clear Jason isn’t going to elaborate.
Jason makes a clucking noise with his tongue, leaning back slightly as he carefully turns the gold coin between his fingers.
“There’s this one Herme’s kid who can roll coins across his knuckles and slip them into his palm,” Jason says. “It’s a party trick—a pickpocket’s trick, really, but it does look cool.”
“Sounds cool,” Percy says, because it is. “I wish I could see it.”
“You might,” Jason says. “He’s always been able to do it, I think, but he’s doing it an awful lot more lately.”
“Is he trying to impress someone?” Percy asks.
“I think so,” Jason says, flipping the coin again. “It does look impressive.”
The coin slips between his fingers and falls. Percy laughs. “And who do you want to impress by learning it?”
“No one,” Jason says calmly. “I just wanted to try it.” The coin falls again. Jason summons it back and deliberately ignores Percy’s tilted-head gaze, the one he’s come to realize means the other boy is calculating the weight of his words and how to get what he wants. He starts to draw himself out of the water. “This isn’t a good place for it, I’m going to move beside the tree there.”
“You don’t want to stay? I could pick up the coin if it falls into the water.”
“No, I’m cold enough as it is,” Jason says, then stills, because once the thought runs its way through his head and he processes it, it is true and it is strange. The buzz in the air has dampened and it feels like every hair on his body is raised. “Wait, why am I cold?”
“Hey, can I join you guys?”
Jason jolts, creating a splash with the one foot he still has in the water. On instinct, he flips his coin, which morphs into a sword in his hand. Percy’s arms leap up in shock, his mouth parting into a perfect O.
At the edge of the forest, approaching them steadily, is a horse—or rather, the skeleton of what used to be one. Its eyes glow red, accentuated by the matching ribbons wrapped around its head and neck. They rein the horse to its rider, who winces at catching them off guard with his words. He’s a wisp of a boy, with the kind of frame that would make mothers balk and hurry to feed. The dark curls framing his face seem darker against the white of his skin, which is so pale that it looks unhealthy. His chiton is black and pinned by a skull to a red and gold cloak that matches the wreath of olive leaves on his head. The air is buzzing with power, almost a painful sting against Percy’s skin, but he’s unlike any other godling—if he even is a godling—that Percy has ever seen.
For a moment the surprise hangs between them all like a tangible thing: grapes on the end of a vine that have managed to swing directly into your face. But the boy seems to come to a decision, and he raises one hand in greeting.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you. I’m, um, Nico,” Nico says. He demounts from his horse in one smooth motion, makes another shy, half-shrugging sort of gesture. Jason’s eyes flicker downward, noting that while his feet are black as tar, they lighten in a gradient on his calves. There’s a polished black sword at his hip. Jason, despite himself, perks up with interest—what kind of weapon is that? It’s not the imperial gold he wields or Percy’s celestial bronze. The weapons nerd in him clasps his hands together as a possibility shifts and forms in his mind, rumours shaping into something real.
But ah, that’s not so important. Not now and not yet.
“I’m Jason, and the fish-mouthed one over there is Percy,” Jason says. Percy shuts his mouth so quickly you can hear the tink of his teeth knocking together and his subsequent hiss of pain. He puts on what he hopes is his best, sunny golden-boy smile at Nico and is delighted to receive a tentative one in return. “Of course you’re free to join us.”
And here’s how it happens: as the breeze hangs still over the earth and the sun burns grass yellow, two quietly eases to three. It is the beginning of their friendship and the beginning of an end, though none of them know it yet.