Before the sun had fully clawed its way over the horizon. Before the camp stirred to life. Before people -- loud, intrusive, alive in ways he had long since stopped relating to -- started filling the space with noise.
The cold bit at the air, sharp and clean, settling into his lungs with every steady breath. The path was familiar by now -- packed dirt, scattered frost, the faint crunch beneath his boots the only sound accompanying him. He didn’t think much while he ran. That was the point. Movement without memory. Breath without thought.
A flicker of movement off to the side caught his eye.
He slowed before he meant to.
Atticus exhaled slowly, already knowing what he’d find before he turned his head.
The dog stood just beyond the tree line.
A German shepherd, same one as always. Tall, broad through the shoulders, coat thick and dark against the pale morning light. It didn’t approach him. Though, it never did. No, the dog only watched him with that same steady, unblinking patience -- like it was waiting for something.
“…You again.” His voice was rough with disuse, barely more than a mutter.
The dog’s ears twitched.
Atticus scoffed under his breath, dragging a hand down the back of his neck. He’d seen it enough times now -- same stretch of trail, same distance kept. Never closer. Never farther.
Persistent.
Annoying.
He should keep moving.
Instead, he reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling free a strip of jerky -- something he barely touched himself -- and crouched, slow and deliberate.
“Don’t make this weird,” he muttered, more to himself than the animal.
He tossed it a short distance between them.
The dog didn’t move at first.
Then -- careful. Measured. It stepped forward, nose lowering, eyes never leaving him as it took the offering. Atticus watched it chew, expression unreadable, something faintly tightening in his chest before he shoved it down just as quickly.
“Congratulations,” he said flatly. “You’ve officially got better persistence than most people.”
The shift in the air came first -- the faint disturbance of movement behind him, the quiet crunch of footsteps that didn’t belong to him… or the dog.
Atticus' shoulders went rigid.
He didn't turn right away. His jaw tightened instead, gaze flicking once toward the shepherd before settling forward again, posture going still in that particular way that wasn’t calm so much as coiled.
“You can come out now,” he said, voice low, edged -- not raised, but carrying.
Location: Right outside the Apollo cabin, Caelum had a nightmare/vision
Fevered visions had pulled Caelum from his sleep again. Peeling the sweat soaked shirt from himself as he swung his legs out of the window of his room, hopping down on the ground instead of opting to go through the hall and see his brother's. Plagued by precognition, it always came with a fever, and always only tragedies when he was asleep. The visions that came in his waking hours tended to be more...peaceful. He had long ago stopped trying to decipher them. If his father wanted him to pursue them he would show him the visison more than once.
The cool night air helped soothe not just his heated skin but also his mind. Shaking the vision from his mind he leaned back against the outside of the cabin, clearing his throat, deciding to sing to clear his mind.
His voice as clear and beautiful as any angels, a hymn to the gods. Was it a bit too complimentary? Sure but it was taught to him by one of his older brothers when he was still young. Music had always soothed him.
When he did, it wasn’t dreams that came -- it was memory. Twisted metal. Blood in the snow. Silence where there shouldn’t have been any. He’d learned, quickly, that sleep was a liability.
So he was already awake when the noise started.
A soft thud. Movement outside the cabins. Then -- of all things -- singing.
Atticus went still, head tilting just slightly as the sound carried through the night air. Clear. Controlled. Too clean for this place. It didn’t belong out here, not among the cold and the quiet and the things better left undisturbed.
He stepped out anyway.
Barefoot. Shirt half-buttoned. Expression already set into something sharp and unimpressed. He found him easily -- leaned up against the cabin like he owned the silence, like he hadn’t just broken it. Atticus watched for a moment. Didn’t interrupt. Let the sound finish bleeding into the dark before he spoke.
“…You done?” His voice cut through the last note, flat and unamused.
He dragged a hand through his hair, gaze flicking over the other man -- sweat-soaked, flushed, like he’d just crawled out of something unpleasant.
“Because if that’s supposed to be soothing,” he added, lip curling faintly, “you might wanna try something quieter. Some of us don’t need a damn hymn in the middle of the night.”
A beat.
His eyes narrowed, just slightly.
“You sick,” he muttered, more observation than concern, gaze lingering a second too long before he looked away. “Or is this just… your thing?”
duke stepped back and admired the small poster he’d just pinned to the corkboard. it was the last of a handful he’d strewn across the island and he was eager to finally get the advertisement for his practice out there. duke had been on the island for almost five years, but remained very closed-off about his previous life. only his closest friends and family on the island knew more than superficial details about the man.
before landing on olympus, duke was born and raised in new york city. he graduated as a hypnotherapist almost ten years ago. he’d been drawn to counselling well before learning the truth of his father; connecting with the god of sleep and developing his powers in his 20s made everything fall into place. he counselled his patients with traditional means, and only when necessary would start experimenting with hypnos' influence.
a part of him was hoping to slip away before anyone noticed the advertisement and asked him about it. he was feeling anxious about putting himself out there, but excited to see if his methods worked on demigods. duke turned around, not realizing someone was standing behind him. "oh hey, sorry man. didn't see you there. let me know if you've got any questions" he awkwardly gestured to the poster, which was a brief advertisement of his services and pull tabs along the bottom with his contact info.
He didn’t need to sit across from some stranger and be told what his feelings were or what they meant. He knew very well the bottomless well that was grief -- that was despair. What could someone who had never truly lost anything pretend to understand about that kind of emptiness? That aching, hollow nothingness?
It was all bullshit, as far as he was concerned.
So no, he hadn’t stopped to read the practice advertised in neat, careful handwriting. If anything, he’d meant to scoff at it -- dismiss it outright -- and continue on his way back to his cabin.
He’d had enough of training for the day. The cold might never touch him, but the warmth of the sun felt like a brand -- a welcome torment. Sometimes, he leaned into it. Let it burn. At least then, he could still feel something. At least then, he could pretend he was something like alive.
He grunted when the other man turned, running straight into him.
His scowl shifted -- just barely -- at the man’s words. Him? Asking questions about therapy? The idea was almost laughable.
Atticus’ lip curled.
“Questions?” He let out a soft, derisive breath of a laugh. “Is this bullshit supposed to be helpful?”
Atticus preferred the silence of his own company… and, on occasion, the silence of Jack’s.
There weren’t many people he tolerated on the isle. He wasn’t exactly your average Ned Flanders. If anything, he’d learned that if he scowled long enough, people tended to get the message -- and fuck off.
He hadn’t always been this way.
But these days… he preferred not to keep people too close. That only complicated things.
Jack, at least, was uncomplicated -- in the only way Atticus could tolerate.
It helped that the guy knew a hell of a lot more than Atticus did about how everything worked. Not that Atticus cared all that much. But since death didn’t seem particularly interested in keeping him, he had nothing better to do with his time than… this.
Which was how he found himself dropping down beside Jack -- who had set himself up high in the amphitheater, where the view of the ocean was brightest, though he remained tucked into the shade.
Atticus stared out at the horizon, expression hard, distant.
[ henry cavill, bisexual, cis-male & he/him] — a new age of heroes approaches, among those is ATTICUS GALEN, child of BOREAS. they have walked this earth for 40 years, living in ANCHORAGE, ALASKA, as a SURVIVALIST, until they came to the isle of olympus 1 years ago. they will carve their name in myth with their STEADFAST, ADAPTABLE, RESILENT but the fates know of their CURT, SARDONIC, DOMINEERING that may immortalize them forever.
Atticus had always loved the cold -- the bitter bite of it, the soft caress of the north wind, harsh and unyielding. Where others hid beneath coats, scarves, and gloves, he stood outside unshielded and basked.
It was an odd thing for a child to love. And yet, oddly enough, his mother didn’t seem surprised at all. If anything, it only seemed to warm her to him, to deepen the bond between mother and child.
Jane Galen was a good mother. She was soft, gentle, and skilled at shielding his young mind from the harshness of the world. They were poor in wealth and status, but rich in warmth and love. He wanted for nothing in his childhood.
She even gave him the greatest gift of all, one snowy January morning: a younger sister, bright red and disgruntled, but the cutest thing Atticus had ever laid eyes on.
He loved her, he knew, even more than he loved the cold.
His mother named her Freya, after the Norse goddess of love and beauty, and with each passing year, she grew to resemble her namesake more and more. She was a clever child, with sky-colored eyes and hair that glinted like gold in the sun.
As Atticus grew older, he saw himself less as a son or a brother, and more as a protector of his family. His mother never spoke of his father -- nor Freya’s-- only that they were different, and she didn't wish to reminisce.
He didn't understand why. And he wouldn't. Not until much, much later.
Years passed as they always do -- quietly, and then all at once.
Atticus grew.
By the time Freya was old enough to braid her own hair and wander too far from home, he was already a man in all the ways that mattered. Broad-shouldered, steady-handed, and stubborn in a way that made people trust him, even when they shouldn’t. The cold clung to him still, as it always had. It didn't bite him the way it did others. It welcomed him.
Work came early.
There was no money for schooling beyond what was necessary, and Atticus didn't complain. He found his way into logging -- hard, unforgiving labor that suited him well. The forests were vast, endless things, and the deeper north he traveled, the more at ease he felt. The air was sharper there. Cleaner. Like something ancient breathed beneath it.
Canada became a second home in time -- weeks and months spent among snow-laden pines and frozen earth, the rhythm of axe and timber a constant in his bones. He wrote when he could. Sent money when he couldn’t be there. And every time he returned, Freya was taller, brighter, more radiant than before.
Their mother was proud of him.
She said it often.
Until she no longer couldn't.
The sickness came quietly, at first. A cough that lingered too long. Fatigue that no amount of rest seemed to cure. By the time Atticus returned for good, it had already taken hold of her in a way no warmth could chase off.
Cancer.
The word felt wrong in his mouth. Small. Insufficient. As though something so ordinary had no right to touch her.
He stayed.
There was no question of leaving again -- not for work, not for anything. He sat at her bedside through long nights, listening to the shallow rhythm of her breathing, willing it to steady, to strengthen, to stay. Freya hovered close, quieter than he had ever known her to be, as though speaking too loudly might break something already fragile.
Winter came early that year.
Atticus barely noticed.
His mother passed in the morning, just before dawn, when the world was still and gray and holding its breath. Freya’s hand was in his. His was in their mother’s.
After, the house felt too large. Too empty. The warmth that had once filled it thinned into something hollow and echoing. Atticus did what he could to keep it alive -- for Freya, if not for himself.
At ten years old, she became his responsibility.
He didn't resent it, not even a little bit.
Years slipped by again, though more sharply this time -- each one marked by the quiet, steady weight of absence. Freya grew into a remarkable woman. Laughter returned to her, slowly at first, and then burst from her as if it had never left. She shined, even in grief.
Especially in grief.
Atticus watched over her the way he always had. More carefully, now. More deliberately. As though the world had already taken enough, and he wouldn't allow it to take more.
He was wrong.
She was fifteen when it happened.
The roads were slick with ice, the kind that looked like nothing at all until it was too late. Atticus remembered the sound more than anything -- the sharp, violent crack of metal folding in on itself, the shattering of glass, the world spinning out of control in a blur of white and steel.
Then silence.
Cold.
So much cold.
When he came to, it was already over.
The car had twisted into something unrecognizable, half-buried in snow. The windshield was gone. The engine hissed, dying. Somewhere in the distance, wind howled through the trees like a living thing.
“Freya.”
His voice broke on her name.
She never answered.
He found her slumped beside him, far too still, far too quiet. Blood -- too much of it --dark against her skin, against the snow that had begun to drift inside the wreckage.
His hands shook as he reached for her, as he tried to pull her close, to wake her, to fix it. There had to be something he could do. There always was.
There wasn’t.
Her eyes never opened.
The cold pressed in around him, thick and suffocating. It seeped into his bones, into his lungs, into his heart -- but it didn't hurt. Not the way it should have. Not the way it would've for anyone else.
Time passed.
Minutes. Hours. Slowly it ticked by. After a while... he lost track.
Snow gathered in his hair, along his shoulders, across his unmoving body. The wind howled, and still he breathed. Slow. Steady. Unbroken.
Anyone else would have frozen.
Anyone else would have died.
Atticus... did not.
By the time they found him, he was still there, cradling her against him, untouched by the cold that had taken everything else.
At some point -- hours later, or maybe days -- voices had come. Hands, too. Careful at first, then firmer when he didn't respond. They spoke to him as though he were something fragile, something that might break if handled too roughly. They were wrong. He had already broken.
Atticus didn't remember leaving -- only that, at some point, the world grew quieter. The roads disappeared. Then the houses. Then the distant hum of people living lives that no longer had anything to do with him. He walked until there was nothing left but trees and snow and the endless stretch of sky above him, and still, he kept going.
He didn't bring much. He didn't need to. The cold welcomed him as it always had, wrapping around him like something familiar, something patient, something that had been waiting. Days bled into weeks, weeks into something less measurable. Time stopped behaving the way it used to. There was only movement, and stillness, and the quiet, gnawing absence that followed him wherever he went. He didn't eat much. Didn't sleep much. It didn't seem to matter.
At first, he thought it was grief keeping him alive -- some cruel, lingering thing that refused to let him go. So he pushed further, deeper into the wilderness, higher into the mountains where the air thinned and the cold sharpened into something lethal. The kind of cold that stripped flesh from bone, that froze lungs mid-breath, that left men as statues buried beneath snow. He welcomed it. Waited for it. Dared it.
It never came.
The wind howled. Snow fell in heavy, suffocating sheets. Ice crept across the ground, thick and merciless -- and Atticus walked through it all, untouched. Days passed with no shelter. Nights came without fire. Still, his breath remained steady. His pulse, slow but ever-beating. Over time, he began to understand.
It started small -- a shift in the wind, subtle enough that he almost missed it. The way it bent around him, not against him. As though it knew him. As though it listened. He tested it without meaning to -- stepped forward, and the gusts parted. Paused, stilled.
“Stop.”
The word left his mouth raw and uncertain.
The wind obeyed.
After that, it became harder to ignore. Frost gathered where his hands brushed stone, spreading in delicate, creeping patterns that didn't melt. Ice thickened beneath his feet, forming solid ground where there had been none before. Snow fell heavier when he wished to disappear, swallowing him whole in white silence until there was no trace left behind. He didn't practice, didn't train, he simply ... was and the world bent around that truth.
The cold was no longer something he endured. It was something he carried. Something that answered him. Something that belonged to him in a way nothing else ever had.
It should have felt like power.
It didn’t.
It felt like a cruel joke. A gift given too late to matter. A reminder that he had survived when he shouldn't have -- when she hadn't
Atticus thought of ending it only once. He climbed higher than he ever had before, into the kind of altitude where even the air seemed to reject him -- where the wind screamed without pause and the cold became absolute. He stood there for hours, waiting for his lungs to fail, for his heart to slow, for something -- anything -- to finally give.
Nothing did.
The storm rose around him instead -- violent, furious, alive. Snow whipped through the air in blinding sheets. Ice cracked beneath his feet, then sealed itself again as though unwilling to let him fall. The wind howled so loudly it drowned out thought, drowned out memory, drowned out everything but the deafening, inescapable truth:
He wasn't meant to die like this.
Perhaps, not at all.
The realization settled into him slowly, like frost spreading through bone -- heavy, unwelcome, permanent. Atticus closed his eyes, and for the first time since the accident, he felt something other than grief.
Not hope.
No... never that.
But something colder. Sharper.
Understanding.
He wasn't human.
Well... perhaps not entirely.
And whatever he was -- whatever had kept him alive, whatever answered when he spoke, whatever shaped the wind and bent the ice --
It wasn't done with him yet.
It would be some years later that he learned the truth -- of demigods, of the Isle of Olympus.
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