ANNOUNCEMENT: Parts IV and V of In the Netherwood are back in progress!
At first, there was only darkness. A sea of black, utterly devoid of any sound or feeling.
Time stretched on without end while you drifted through the endless void. But then, the faint smell of smoke tickled your nose, followed by the distinct scent of cinnamon and firewood.
Though you could not place it, the scent was familiar; the kind that you recognized deep in your bones, even where your memory otherwise failed you.
You hadn’t known whether your eyes had been open or shut as you floated amidst the black, but a faint orange light glowed dimly some indiscernible distance away. You struggled to move toward it, uncertain of how to move your limbs — or whether you had any to move at all. But the orange light grew larger the more you twisted, growing still until you slammed into creaky, wooden planks.
Not an ounce of black remained around you now; rather, you found yourself sitting upon an old, weather-worn floor before a great, crackling fireplace. One whose hearth was intricately painted with a distinct, hanging floral motif; one that you’d spent many nights tracing over with absentminded fingers.
As you sat up, you leaned back against the edge of a rocking chair you knew would be seated behind you, facing the roaring fire. Any residual alarm or uncertainty you had melted easily away as you looked around; for here, you could never be in danger.
Because this was a place where you were warm. Safe. Loved.
Home.
“How long has Grandfather been gone?” You asked, spinning a small wooden top against the cabin floor. Every time the toy threatened to spin too far out of your reach, you slammed a tiny hand over it, before dragging it back to you.
Warm hands, gentle though wrinkled with age, smoothed over your hair. “Six years, my dove.”
The hands urged you to sit back and lean against the legs of the person perched in the great rocking chair. You followed without complaint, your toy falling to its side, forgotten.
You hummed as those fingers began combing through your hair, working through its knots and tangles. “And my parents have been gone longer?”
“Yes,” the voice spoke wistfully. “Trying to help your grandfather.”
“The Netherwood,” you whispered softly, and you shuddered against the ominous chill skirting down your skin.
The fingers in your hair paused, and you frowned. You turned into the legs against which you’d been resting, peering up at the person sitting behind you.
There, you saw the familiar face of a home that was no more.
“Gram,” you murmured pressing your cheek against her knee. “How did you meet grandfather? Was it love at first sight?”
Your grandmother blinked down in surprise at you, taken aback at the girlish excitement shining in your eyes. But then her expression softened, and she smiled ever so gently as she brushed her hand over your cheek.
“It was,” she said simply, eyes swimming with warmth. “This village is not a welcoming place. It looks down upon outsiders. That was true even when I first arrived here. Outsiders were viewed as undesirable; untrustworthy.”
Gram smiled, and suddenly, she seemed miles away from the cabin in which you now sat. “Your grandfather was the first kind face I met when I arrived here.”
“When you first arrived?” You repeated, brow furrowing before your eyes widened. “You came from another village?” You gazed up at Gram in awe. “But that means — that means you traveled through the Netherwood! You made it through!”
Gram chuckled softly. “It is not an impossible feat, my flower.”
“How did you do it?” You sat up eagerly, leaning forward in your grandmother’s lap. “Were there monsters? Shadows? Nymphs?”
Your mind ran wild with images of creatures of various shapes and sizes from the many stories she’d told you about the cursed, ancient Wood. Ones of dragons and pixies. Of shifters that could take on the form of any animal you could imagine. Ones of nymphs, beautiful nymphs, with voices sweeter than any human melody.
“Hush, child,” Gram tapped the tip of your nose, motioning for you to turn back around and resume your place at her feet. “I will tell you the story of your Grandfather, but you must sit still.”
You groaned. You hated being sedentary, always eager to run, to talk, to find Kotoha and orchestrate some elaborate prank on the village’s crankier residents. But you loved your Gram’s stories more than most anything, and so you complied, rolling your shoulders as you positioned yourself at her feet, limbs held perfectly still.
Gram guided your head into her lap, and began sectioning your hair into pieces, to braid. As her old, wisened hands began weaving the strands of your hair together, she opened her mouth to speak.
But when Gram’s mouth started moving, no sound came out. All at once, the light in the cabin grew dimmer, the memory foggier, until it faded away like smoke in the wind.
And there was only darkness once more.
👀👀👀
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Meeting the family
Just some Raturine ideas (it could have been a fic if I could write)
Part 1. Aventurine takes Ratio with him to Sigonia-IV (a bit sad).
Part 2. Ratio retaliates (less sad).
Part 1.
On Penacony, Aventurine was forced to confront his tragic past in a rather abrupt and traumatic way. He now feels that, to make some semblance of peace with it, he has to revisit Sigonia-IV after all these years and face it on his terms.
The problem is, he's not sure he'll ever be strong enough to do it alone.
Luckily, there is Ratio. Probably. They have been in a weird sort of relationship for months now. They clearly enjoy spending time together, but they'd rather die than talk about their true feelings. Both are stumped by overanalyzing this situation. For Ratio it's "Yes, he's being playful and charming with me, but I saw him act the same way with other people, he's probably just toying with me, I shouldn't embarrass myself by showing my true feelings."
And for Aventurine: "Does he care for me in a special way, or is it just a part of his "I'll keep the damn gambler safe and emotionally stable because I'm a decent person" routine, am I a burden to him, is he deliberately being emotianally distant with me or is it just how he normally is?, I know that I'll never be able to tell him how I actually feel because he won't believe me, he'll think that I mock him, it'll just drive him away."
So, as a last resort gamble, he tells Ratio, in the most nonchalant way possible, that he's going to visit Sigonia, and Ratio can go with him if he wants. He fully expects to hear an indifferent "Why are you telling me this, why would you expect me to go with you?". Instead, Ratio is in shock.
He did do some research on Aventurine's past. So he realizes immediately how important this trip should be for Aventurine, and how real and vulnerable he's being right now, and what that offer means for their relationship. It's much more revealing than any confession Aventurine might have made. He realizes that it's also Aventurine's subtle, desperate test for Ratio's true feelings. So he doesn't even bother to say yes, he goes directly to planning.
They finally end up going to Sigonia. Imagine the most tragic road trip ever. "In this valley, most of my people were brutally massacred." "Behind that rock my mother died in my arms," "And that's where I said goodbye to my sister forever," "This is where I've been cought", "Over there are the ruins of the town where they sold me into slavery." Meanwhile, Ratio is quietly panicking: ("Veritas, you stupidest person ever, say something reassuring. Hold his hand. Do something")
At the end of the day, he would end up awkwardly putting his hand around Aventurine's shoulders. They'd just silently sit like this looking at the sunset.
(at first it ended here but then I decided to lighten the mood, so…)
Part 2.
After that, Ratio would realize that it's time for Aventurine to meet his parents. He would introduce Aventurine as a "collegue", to his amusement. As far as I know, there is no info on Ratio's family, so the following is pure HC. I like to think that his parents are alive and well. They are weird and quirky, and they love their son in their way, and they are beyond happy that their son has finally found a "colleague".
Cue all the most cheesy and stereotypical "meeting the parents" tropes.
Them immediately referring to Aven as Ratio's boyfriend (you are not fooling anybody, doc). Them being a bit skeptical of Aven first ("Our little Veri deserves only the best"). Followed by the obligatory nine circles of humiliation hell for poor Ratio, with all the child photos and embarassing stories ("Here he's 5, he's dressed up as Nuos for the Autumn Spirit Festival", "And here is him getting his first quantum nanoscope for his 9th birthday (a photograph of an awkward lanky child with thick glasses and brackets)", "Veritas, dear, remember that time when you got accepted into all these prestigious schools you applied to and cried all night because you couldn't decide which one to choose"). Them besieging poor Aventurine with all kinds of questions about himself (he'd end up sharing much more about himself than he intended to). The parents getting absolutely charmed by Aven and immediately taking him under their wing ("Feel free to call us whenever Veritas decides to be difficult", "Visit us anytime, you can come alone, we know that our son apparently has more important things to do than visiting his poor old parents")
("Oh and here are socks Grandma knitted for you both when she heard that you were about to visit")
Meanwhile, aventurine.exe has stopped working 5 minutes after meeting them, not fully able to comprehend what's going on (these weird people are so unlike his own parents, yet being with them feels so painfully familiar, and this long forgotten feeling of being a part of something big, safe, and accomodating, is it what having a family feels like?, why are they so warm and welcoming to somebody they just met, and why is Ratio so comically embarassed, shouldn't he be the happiest person ever with parents like that?)
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“They never actually got married even though they told everyone they did”
WAIT WHY
Mom is a very strong independent person who isn't afraid to speak her own mind. Like when she finds out she's pregnant with Hattie, she's not nervous or worried what Quinn will say, because with or without him she's got this, thankfully Quinn was all in on babygirl.
Quinn and Mom were always going to get married, that was the plan: get drafted, get engaged, finished school/play in nhl, get married, move to Vancouver, have a family, win a Stanley cup. They accomplish 1 ½ of those things before they found out about Hattie. Quinn already had an engagement ring picked (Luke and Jack helped him ☺️) so he moved up his proposal date. Mom said yes and they started planning a wedding.
They wanted to get married before baby was born, or at least thats what both their parents told them. And as the date got closer and things started to become overwhelming for our strong mom. The thing that set her off was Ellen wanted to add more family and friends to the guest list.
She cried to Quinn about everything. Quinn was shocked, he had never seen her cry like this before. Quinn suggests forgetting the whole big white wedding and eloping instead. They can just cancel the wedding, they don't have to explain anything to anyone, grab a friend and elope. Mom agrees and they plan the next time he's in the states to go to the court house.
But the day of her hormones are getting the best of her again. She's feeling like she's disappointing everyone, especially Ellen by doing this, and everyone's going to be judging her.
They're at the courthouse waiting for their mystery friend, Mom's upset and Quinn takes matters into his own hands. He gives her the band that matches her engagement ring.
"Let's wait Y/N. You're upset, I don't want you upset on your wedding day." Quinn rubbed his hand up and down her arm, calming her down some.
"No no. We can do it now, I want to do this now. We need to do this now, we've already cancelled the wedding. It'll be too late to schedule something else before March." Y/N wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands. Quinn saw how important pleasing his mother and their family meant to her. His happy-go-lucky girl was never like this.
"Or" Quinn took her left hand, and slid the white gold sparkly band next to the big diamond. "we just tell everyone we eloped now. And later once babygirl is born, we can actually elope. Won't it be more fun to include her anyways?"
They believed the lie for so long that they eventually forgot them never tied the knot. Mom legally got her last name to Hughes, and no ever suspected a thing. Though the subject gets brought up in arguments from time to time.
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Still kind of miffed that the sequel series wasn't Olympus versus the underworld like it was kind of setup throughout PJO. like the whole ending to the underworld stuff was sort of... boring. when you look at it. like hades gets blamed in TLT despite no proof, TTC his daughter dies and her body just disappears (and it's never brought up why they couldn't find her body, like??) and his son runs away, TBotL shows how powerful and deadly children of Hades' can be
(in a way that Percy really hasn't shown with his own powers imo, like Percy and his usage of his powers doesn't really happen very much until TLO, it's generally just small things like healing himself, or swimming, etc. nothing particularly big. like the most notable event prior to TLO is blowing up that volcano, and that's fucking four books in, bro, Percy please. why is the first time you summon a hurricane in the middle of a battle, baby, please hyperfixate on something other than your sword)
anyway Nico also states that children of Hades have never been accepted at camp (why, why, why - like the implication is because no one trusts Hades, but what does that mean for his children when they do go to camp? Plus Hades saying his kids rarely have happy endings in BoO, like WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, this is why my headcanon is they literally got bullied into suicide or "accidentally" killed off by other camper, and they just. fucking accepted it because they had to protect the other underworld kids and better they got beat and harmed than the children under their wing - they can handle it, they're stronger and they're not afraid of dying)
and then in one of the side stories we find out through Persephone that Hades may never have actually been on equal footing as his brothers, that Melinoe might've helped Ethan with Bob (and thus was on Kronos's side to some extent.
and in TLO we find out morpheus, born of the underworld, is on Kronos's side and also that Zeus straight up tried to kill Nico and Bianca and judging from Hades' insistence w/ trying to get Maria to agree to go to the Underworld with him, it's not a surprise to him that this happened, if anything it was anticipated - which means it had to have happened before, either with him or with anyone. he knows that if he refuses his brother's demand (his brother who is not a king to him, mind you, olympus has no bearing on the underworld) that his brother will strike and he will not be able to do anything direct about it because conceptually the underworld is smaller than olympus, and has few, probably none, allies outside of its underground walls, so he would be risking everything if he fought back at his brother for the death of his beloved and his children
it's also why my headcanon is that zeus wanted all his niblings rounded up into one place, and then he sent down the seed of "hey, kill your cousins to save the world" to his kids and there was a big all out battle, and everyone died (because it's so easy to blow up people without anyone noticing your involvement when lightning is being flung everywhere) and like. i am. jsut
this would've been so cool
but also rick probably would've effed it over so lmao because he's not the best at nuance and complex situations - see Hermes as an Olympian and a Chthonic deity, where would he sit if he had to choose, what side does he pick?
see Annabeth as a child who has grown up in camp, who views things from a logical perspective and can see why Nico would be dangerous to keep around, the risk he carries from the death that oozes off his fingertips with ease, who can see why past campers tried to get rid of him and his ilk.
see Percy who has no loyalty to Olympus or camp, he is only loyal to his friends and his friends belong to Camp, Annabeth belongs to camp, Grover is literally akin to an olympian deity right now, but Percy intrinsically feels the need to protect Nico and Nico belongs to the Underworld - what does he do when his heart belongs to different powers? does he steal nico away while his family burns and lets the kids hate him again, so long as he's safe? does he help him and watch the place he just worked so hard to save be brought to its nees? does he try to be diplomatic about it? try to mend things back together?
the complexity of it - the choices you'd have to make and the reasonings you'd have to apply to the characters so nothing seems out of place, but also so that no one is enraged by the characters they loved making decisions they don't agree with, so maybe it's a good thing this story never got told
but it would've been so cool to see, if it had
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