#I'm assuming this is about the poll for who's nightmare comes out next | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saibug1022 · 6 months

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Prologue

A/N: Okay, so, per the poll from a few days ago I'm gonna be posting my personal pet project, a PJO OC fic, on here and on ao3! It has its own masterlist, which I'll be updating as I post more chapters, and also has the summary for the book! This chapter contains mainly OCs and a lot of backstory for the main character, Kieran Athantis, but next chapter is where the PJO stuff really kicks off I promise.

Link to masterlist

Link to ao3

Okay, look. Thinking back, all the signs were there that what Kieran had assumed were chronic nightmares were very much not just nightmares. The signs were neon yellow, in blinking lights, and about a billion feet tall and there were a ton of them, all right in front of his face. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

For instance, the nightmare from a week or so ago.

If Kieran didn't know any better, he'd think the sky was going to explode. Actually, he did know better and he still thought the sky was going to explode.

He was trapped in a storm on the beach. Every clap of thunder shook the earth as colossal waves crashed onto the shore threatening to drown him. Lightning fell like rain. It was a miracle he wasn't dead.

This nightmare Kieran had had a few times before, or at least variations of it. Sometimes he was just fine. Sometimes he was struck by lightning or dragged out to sea to die. Sometimes he heard a laugh coming from a crevice in the ground behind him only to die to a curved blade through his chest from behind when he tried to look for the voice.

But this time was different. He was protected. Whenever he'd survived this dream before it was pure luck and because he'd managed to hide in the crevice, echoing laughter following him as he awoke. But this time, even as he was tossed around by thunder and water, he was safe. The waves never dragged him or got too high, lightning never got near him.

Kieran looked around, hoping to finally see the owner of the voice maybe, or whoever it was that kept stabbing him, but instead there was a sword next to him. It was stuck into the sand which couldn't be very stable but it didn't budge no matter what happened around it. It was made of a strange metal. Not steel like you'd expect a sword to be made of, but what looked like copper or bronze.

Somehow Kieran instinctively knew this sword was protecting him. He had no idea how it got there or who it belonged to because it definitely wasn't his and it didn't look like the blade that had killed him in these dreams before. But there was just a feeling of rightness he got when he neared it and despite the maelstrom around him, he felt safe. When he put his hand on the hilt he suddenly knew its name, like he'd been around it all his life.

Anaklusmos.

"Ky!"

Kieran jolted as he was yanked back by the collar of his shirt, frantically looking around as he tried to find the sword. But there was no sword, not even a storm, and definitely not a beach. Probably because he was never on a beach and actually lived smack dab in the middle of Missouri which funnily enough did not have an ocean.

"Dude, what was that?!" Mavros demanded.

Mavros Hawthorne, Kieran’s friend for pretty much all of his life. Kieran’s mother and their little baby self had moved in next door to baby Mavros, his father, and his step-mom. Mavros’s parents had been more than happy to pawn him off to play dates at Kieran’s house (three guesses as to Kieran’s opinion on them) and Kieran was just happy to have a friend. They even stayed friends when Mavros’s dad got promoted and his family got to move to a nicer house than Kieran’s mom could afford as an artist.

Mavros wasn’t exactly a popular guy; he was crude and grumpy, not to mention his resting face looked like he was imagining whoever he was looking at on fire. Imagine his glare. Plus there was just something off about him, something genuinely scary. Almost cold. Even Kieran saw it sometimes. The guy didn’t exactly have a lot of friends. But he was genuinely one of the best people Kieran had ever met and as someone who had been to six schools in six years, Kieran had met a lot of people.

“What was what?” Kieran asked.

“You almost walked right into the street!” Mavros exclaimed. He grabbed Kieran’s arm and sat him down on a nearby bench to get him out of the way. “Where is your head at, man? You scared the shit out of me.”

“Right, right, sorry,” Kieran muttered. Mavros’s glare softened a little and he sighed.

“Have you been getting any sleep?” Mavros asked and Kieran looked away. “This is getting seriously unhealthy.”

“Trust me, me and my report card agree with you,” Kieran replied.

“Is it still the nightmares?”

“Every single night.”

“This is so weird. This has been going on for months, hasn’t it?”

“Ever since winter break. I don’t remember exactly when because at first I thought it was just a normal couple of nightmares. But then they just didn’t stop.”

“Come on, I’m taking you home and knocking you out with a brick,” Mavros decided as he dragged Kieran to his feet again. Kieran wrapped his arm around Mavros’ arm purely as a show of affection and because he was a touchy person, not at all because he was stumbling and could barely keep his eyes open.

“Who knows, that might work,” Kieran said. “It’s just about the only thing we haven’t tried yet.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Kieran groaned. “I think I’ve been to literally every doctor in the state, every therapist in three states, and tried every combination of anxiety and sleep meds there is. Nothing’s helped. My mom even mentioned some specialists in California, New York, and Boston. Hey, maybe I’ll get to visit you.”

“Yay,” Mavros muttered. There was that iciness the kids at school were all scared of.

“Speaking of, you were saying your parents put an offer on a house, right?” Kieran prompted. Mavros didn’t reply momentarily, just paused and hit the button to cross the street. It wasn’t until they’d gotten the signal and gotten to cross the street that he finally spoke again.

“Yeah,” Mavros confirmed. “One of those compact brownstones. It’s got roof access. Dinah’s excited.”

“You definitely seem excited.”

“Not the time for sarcasm, Kieran.”

“Sorry. You seem annoyed.”

Mavros takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “Can you blame me? My whole family is picking up and moving to Boston at the end of the summer and they won’t tell me why but my dad and my step-mom are acting like they hate me even more than usual so I have to assume it has something to do with me. Also, I don’t know if you noticed but I’m not exactly good at making friends so I’m gonna be alone with four people who hate me in a brownstone.”

“Your siblings don’t hate you,” Kieran assured him and Mavros shrugged.

“They definitely don’t like me,” Mavros replied.

“Maybe that’ll change by the time summer is over?” Kieran tried but Mavros just gave him a look. “I know I know. Why wait till the end of summer if you have a house already?”

“Apparently something big is happening on the East Coast that they don’t want to risk getting involved with,” Mavros shrugged. “Heard Dad mention something about drawing attention.”

“Your family is so weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

The conversation lulled from there as Kieran tossed everything Mavros told him around in his head. It was a good distraction from his own problems. The only problem was that with the silence there was nothing to really keep him focused. His thoughts were jumping around, sure, but they did that in his sleep because ADHD was annoying. The conversation had actually engaged him. With that gone, well, there wasn’t anything to keep him awake.

So it only took a few minutes before he blacked out and slumped forward, only to be jerked back up by Mavros and another arm.

“Oliver?” Mavros said, sounding surprised. Kieran struggled to blink the black spots out of his vision but he could have sworn the guy holding his other arm was Oliver, from their school. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I saw you guys and Kieran freaking passed out, dude!” Oliver protested. “I wasn’t gonna just leave you guys on the street!”

“Yeah well back off,” Mavros snapped.

“At least let me help you take him home,” Oliver pleaded as Mavros tried to shoulder all of Kieran’s weight and stumbled.

Oliver Mossley was honestly the last person Kieran expected to see. You know those kids that seem like they live at school? Like once that bell rings they just kind of stop existing? Oliver was one of those kids. He had a limp, nothing too bad, he didn’t use crutches or anything, and he was always wearing these bright clothes with super in-your-face patterns on them. His hair was super curly and if you looked at the right angle he almost looked like he had a beard. They didn’t have many classes together but Mavros saw him in the halls constantly. Yet he’d never seen him outside of school even once. His parents and family never showed up for school events. Hell, he never even talked about anything outside of school. It was kind of weird but at the moment Kieran was dizzy, his head was pounding, and he wanted a nap so Oliver could’ve been the Green Goblin for all he cared.

“Let him, Mav,” Kieran mumbled. He could barely get his feet under him and Mavros wasn’t much bigger than him. “It’s just a few more blocks.”

“...Fine,” Mavros conceded.

He very obviously wasn’t happy about it but he let Oliver take Kieran’s other arm and the two helped him stumble the rest of the way home. Honestly, Kieran was just glad he’d been around. These dizzy spells had happened a few times but luckily they’d all happened either while he was in class or at home, they’d never happened just walking down the street. As much as Kieran trusted Mav, he wasn’t sure his friend would have been able to haul his near-dead weight all the way back to his house.

This dizzy spell must have been particularly bad too. He’d never had hallucinations before. At least he assumed it was hallucinations. He didn’t really have any other explanation for Oliver whispering an apology in his ear about not knowing it had gotten this bad. So yeah. Hallucination. Although Oliver was just a weird kid, so, it could’ve been that.

They finally got back to Kieran’s house and Oliver dropped him on the couch in the living room while Mavros went to look for Kieran’s mama. Oliver was pacing the room and he kept looking at Kieran like he was going to keel over again which was kind of annoying even if it was completely fair.

Kieran’s mama looked frantic when she burst in, immediately putting her hand on his forehead to check for a temperature and opening his eyes for whatever reason. This wasn’t exactly normal but it had been the last few weeks.

Kieran’s mom, Helena Athantis, was normally way more upbeat. She was bright and soft and loud all at once like if you forced a rainbow into human form. Her black hair, matching Kieran’s own, was braided back with the few stray strands having paint in them from whatever project she was working on. She was also absolutely gorgeous with elegant but soft features and bright green eyes. It still blew Kieran’s mind that she was an artist instead of a model or a freaking movie star or something because she totally could be.

But lately, her forehead had been creased with worry more often than not and her lips always seemed to be just slightly downturned like Kieran wasn’t supposed to notice she was constantly on the verge of frowning. She’d been worried about him since the nightmares started, obviously, but for the last week or so it was like she was actually scared for him.

“I’ll be fine, Mama,” Kieran promised.

“You passed out!”

“Almost passed out.”

“You can’t really think that’s better.”

“I’m trying to reassure you here.”

“I appreciate that but you are failing.”

“Damn.”

“Um, Ms. Athantis?” Oliver spoke up and if Kieran didn’t know any better they’d say she actually looked scared for a second.

“Oliver?” Mama said. To anyone else, she’d seem confused and slightly surprised but Kieran was too smart with that, especially where his mother was concerned. Her voice was just a little too tight like it was when she was forcing it not to shake. “What are you doing here?”

“Wait a minute,” Kieran realized when he stopped worrying about his mom for .2 seconds. “You know him?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure why he’s here,” Mama nodded, not looking away from Oliver and making sure the last part was very much pointed to him.

“I-I was just in the street and I saw him almost pass out,” Oliver stuttered. “I just, this is really bad. It might be time to call-” Oliver glanced at Mavros for half a second before looking back to Mama. “...a specialist. This might have something to do with his uh, with his mom?”

“My mom?” Kieran raised an eyebrow. “Not only do you for some reason know my Mama but you know my mom? I don’t even know my mom!”

Kieran knew he had two moms, he always did, it was why his Mama was, well, his mama. She had him call her that when he was little just in case and it stuck. He didn’t know all the details of his birth or how it happened but he also didn’t really care. What he did know was he did have another mom involved but she disappeared pretty much as soon as he was born. His mama talked about her all the time but somehow never mentioned details. She talked about his mom like she was the best person in the world but one time when she came back tipsy from a date Kieran had managed to get it out of her that she was angry at his mom for having a kid with her only to leave, and that apparently she’d used a fake name so Mama didn’t even know who she was.

“I think it’s time for you both to go,” Mama decided, completely ignoring Oliver.

“Ms. Athantis-” Oliver protested but Mama stood up and glared at him to quiet him. “I-I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s a good idea-”

“She said we’re leaving so we’re leaving,” Mavros declared, grabbing Oliver by his arm and physically dragging him from the room. It was only after he’d shoved Oliver out the front door that he turned back. “...keep me updated.”

“I love you too Mav,” Kieran snickered. Mavros quickly flipped him off before he slipped out the door too, leaving Kieran and his Mama alone.

“Don’t ask,” Mama said before Kieran could even open his mouth. To be fair, he was definitely about to ask.

“Don’t ask?” Kieran looked up at her in disbelief. “The weirdest conversation of my life happens in the middle of my living room, my mom is involved and I just don’t ask?”

“That’s not a conversation to have when you’re half asleep, kiddo,” Mama chuckled but it was so forced Kieran didn’t even humor it. “Just, just try to get some sleep, okay?”

“Yeah because I’m gonna be able to sleep after that,” Kieran pointed out.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, kiddo.”

“Maybe what happened?”

“Not telling you that.”

“Why?!”

“Already answered that.”

“That is such bull and you know it,” Kieran grumbled.

“How about a vacation?”

“...are you serious?”

“The psychiatrist recommended it a while back, remember?” Mama said. “The one from Kentucky? She said it could get your mind off things and help you relax and like, reset your system?”

“So we’re just going to drop everything and go on vacation?” Kieran raised an eyebrow. “I have a doctor’s appointment in two days.”

“Then we’ll just go on a little day trip,” Mama nodded and patted Kieran’s leg.

Kieran wanted to argue further, he really really did. But he knew that pleading look in his mama’s eyes. He recognized the way she just slightly squeezed his leg. She genuinely believed this would help him. She needed this to help him so she’d stop driving herself crazy trying to figure out why Kieran was keeling over in the street. She was just going to worry herself to death. She had to keep trying things. This was as much for her as it was for him. Plus? He just didn’t have the energy to fight.

“Alright,” Kieran agreed. “A day trip.”

“Perfect,” Mama grinned. “You get some sleep, okay? I’ll pack your stuff. And when you wake up we’ll head straight for St. Louis.”

#percy jackson #pjo #pjo oc #percy jackson oc #percy jackson x oc #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo fic #percy jackson fic

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bopinion · 3 years

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2021 / 15

Aperçu of the Week:

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. (Winston Churchill)

Bad News of the Week:

On Friday, I got a message from my kids' school: there will be distance learning again next week, because the 7-day incidence is higher than 100. No surprise there, as the numbers have been steadily rising over the past few days. The surprise is in a side sentence. There it is mentioned that the school directors assume that until the end of the school year - that is with us in Bavaria at the end of July! - no more normal presence school might take place, but distance and shift learning in the change.

Wait a minute! We will all be vaccinated soon. And are tested twice a week. And it's getting warmer. Our sacrifices have to be worthwhile somehow. Are we losing confidence? Likewise, I read the day before yesterday that immunologists believe a booster vaccination will be needed in the fall. And then more vaccinations every year. Because the virus will continue to mutate, it's in its nature. And the new mutation from India seems to be somewhat immune to the current vaccines.

Wait a minute. Shouldn't the nightmare be over at some point? Shouldn't we have reached herd immunity by late summer? Shouldn't the pandemic be under control? The answer is simple: the pandemic will eventually be over. But not the presence of the coronavirus and its ever-expanding family. According to Wikipedia, a pandemic is defined as follows: "A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of people." But how far does a virus mutation have to be from its progenitor to be considered a new virus? After all, we are currently battling "SARS-CoV-2." So there was already a SARS-CoV-1, in 2002 and 2003 to be precise, and this ancestor was also classified as a pandemic by the WHO. Is this never going to stop?

No. It's not going to stop. Neither the presence of the current coronavirus, because our poor handling of it allows it to survive. Nor can we rule out the outbreak of SARS-CoV-3 (or whatever its name will be), since our way of life - and we're not just talking about China here - not only favors but virtually forces the infestation of humanity by viruses from the animal kingdom. We will probably have to live with it. In the long term. The meaning of normality must be redefined. That's not bad news. That's plain and simply bad.

Good News of the Week:

Germany's conservatives have always been divided into two parties. In Bavaria there is the CSU (Christian Social Union), in the other (first 9, after reunification 15) federal states the CDU (Christian Democratic Union). At the federal level, there has always been closest cooperation possible. In parliament by means of a parliamentary group, in government by means of a coalition. Obviously a recipe for success, the CDU/CSU has been the chancellor in 15 of the 22 federal governments since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany. At the end of September this year, the 4th legislative period with Chancellor Angela Merkel will come to an end. And she will not run again. So the Union needs a new candidate for chancellor. So far, the Union sent 17 chancellor candidates from the CDU and 2 from the CSU into the race. The CDU was successful in 15 of 17 cases, the CSU in 0 of 2. So all clear for the upcoming nomination of the Union's candidate for chancellor? No.

There has been a power struggle in the CDU/CSU for a week now. The CDU's candidate is Armin Laschet, a moderately successful politician who is currently minister president in North Rhine-Westphalia. He has struggled to reach the top of the party and is seen as a suitable candidate for chancellor by only 17% of the conservative voter base. The CSU's candidate is Markus Söder, a classic power politician on a steady path to success who is currently the Minister President of Bavaria. He became party chairman as a self-runner and is seen as a suitable candidate for chancellor by 72% of the conservative voter base. So all clear for the upcoming nomination of the Union's candidate for chancellor? No.

Laschet announced last Sunday that he would be available as a candidate, of course. Last Monday he got the support of the presidium and executive committee of the CDU and assumed that, as the candidate of the larger of the two sister parties, he would have a "right of access" to the official candidacy. Söder also announced last Sunday that he would be available as a candidate. Won the support of the presidium and executive committee of the CSU last Monday and assumed to have a real chance as an option clearly leading in the polls. A parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday was not officially responsible, but important for a "mood picture" - after all, the prospect of individual members of the Bundestag retaining their seats also depends on the pulling power of the top candidate. The result was probably inconclusive. Surprising, considering that the clear majority belongs to the CDU.

In recent days, there have been endorsements and criticism from both camps. Many in the media are talking about a hanging game, which would not be good. Not for Germany, not for Europe and not for the world. Why, actually? After all, politics works like this: a politician tries to organize a majority for himself as a person or for his program. In order to take responsibility and implement what he stands for. A competition of ideas and positions. Democracy at work. It's nice that there's still room for this even in such difficult times. Now all that remains is to put a theory into practice: that the better man may win. Actually, it's quite simple.

Personal happy Moment of the Week:

Easter is the most important time in Christianity. Palm Sunday is also a part of it. On this day, palm bouquets, bound palm catkins from a willow tree, are blessed in church. Then you keep them at home for two weeks as a decorative messenger of springtime and then throw them away, when their life force vanishes. It's stupid because you're ripping out an early bloomer that's important for botany. So I had mixed feelings when a little willow seedling came into our house. Traditional and pretty, yes. But probably soon - like its Christmas counterpart, the poinsettia - in the organic waste garbage can. But our spring greeting has decided to survive: for a few days now it has been sprouting strong, fresh green. A vital sign of life energy. And encouraging, especially in these difficult times. Thank you, dear nature!

As I write this...

...I'm still in my pyjamas. There's nothing better than whiling away a Sunday cozy at home when it's uncomfortably cold and damp outside.

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