Premise: Soulmates gaining mastery over a skill that their soulmates were really, really good at.
Percy can't forget the last look Luke gives him before the his blue eyes turned glassy. It stays with him during the cleanup and the subsequent months of grueling labour.
He's reminded of them whenever he sees Annabeth yelling orders across Camp Half-Blood.
He thinks Annabeth knows what's going on because the fragile thing between them had fizzled post-war and they were both oddly relieved about it.
He thinks Clarisse might know because he spies that look on Chris' face whenever he steals a look at her when he thinks she isn’t looking.
Percy never quite understood why Chris would think he was being sneaky. If he could see that from a mile away, then surely Clarisse knows about them too. Children of Ares have heightened senses that could put Big 3 children to shame, and Clarisse is the most Ares child to ever exist in Percy's book.
He remembers that strange look filled with emotions he couldn't quite place and find himself feeling strangely hollow. So, on a particularly bad day, he turns to an unlikely source for answers. Mr. D.
It had started like any other day. He'd been planning on helping out with the building efforts for the other cabins when he overheard them.
Some of the older Apollo kids were talking about the death toll and how many demigods have gone missing. He hadn't noticed any of those things and it felt like Clarisse had run him through with her electric spear.
He started to wonder then, whether he was partially to blame for those demigods who have fallen post-war. He had promised Luke and sworn that he'd bring them all home, but so many have slipped through the cracks when he was busy rebuilding the camp.
He wanders aimlessly and eventually finds himself sitting on the Big House's porch. Looking back, Mr. D probably begrudgingly left his games because he could smell the madness wafting off him. And what was more tempting to the God of Madness separated from his domains than a demigod losing his mind?
Percy remembers, in a fit of vulnerability, asking whether it was normal to feel so hollow after battle, whether it was normal to remember a fallen hero so vividly.
The look on Mr. D's face had been unreadable. The bored lines of his face were no longer slack in his idleness, but taut in his attentiveness. Percy could barely see make out reflection in the god's swirling purple eyes, but he saw enough to recognise that the hunched figure in those pools of madness was none other than himself.
Eventually, Mr. D parted his lips, uncharacteristically solemn. "The soul is a powerful yet fragile thing. Perhaps your soul is simply mourning a lost possibility, and your mind is just scrambling to make sense of it. Dwelling on it will only bog your soul down further. Perhaps, Perseus Jackson, you should focus on the vow instead of the hero."
And so, Percy began to run himself ragged trying to find demigods who have slipped through the cracks during the war, convincing them that they always have a home at Camp Half-Blood.
He notices very quickly that there's a certain sharpness to how he swings his sword after rescuing these demigods from the jaws of pursuing monsters time and time again. He notices sudden bursts of speed even when there's no body of water in sight, but he dismisses them, thinking that it's the Curse of Achilles working overtime.
(He doesn't notice how the demigods who'd fought with Luke widen their eyes with realisation and sadness when he swings his sword. He doesn't notice the campers' nostalgia when he beats them to the ground during training sessions. He doesn't notice how his sword now sings so beautifully when it never did before.)
But he notices how flecks of blue would appear from the corner of his eyes from time to time and how the empty, empty feeling never really goes away.
A pair of blue eyes and a witty voice with an undercurrent of anger haunts him whenever he fights. He doesn't remember who they belonged to, but he finds himself yearning for that person anyway.
He finds himself always on the look out for The Voice, perking up with each angry yells and stern teachings. He throws himself into dangerous situations, marvelling at how well he could sneak into monster dens and run circles around them.
He hears The Voice screaming at him in exasperation and laughs and laughs and laughs.
This mystery man was proof that he was someone before his abrupt introduction to the streets, that he hadn't just shown up fully grown like some monster.
There's a feeling of disappointment and betrayal that he couldn't quite place when he meets Jason. He doesn't know why, but he is unsurprised when he learns that he tried to kill him later, enthralled or not.
It is only after Second Great Prophecy that all the pieces fall into place.
He'd been sparring Annabeth when it happened, squashing the uncomfortable feeling in his chest when he saw the wistful look in her eyes. He didn't need more weird emotional turmoil when he was already feeling restless after spending too much time in the same room with Jason.
Don't get him wrong, Jason is a good dude. But the murmurs in his head about how Jason's eyes were the wrong shade of blue, how his hair were the wrong shade of gold, or how his scar isn't supposed to be there, grows louder whenever they spend too much time together.
Part of him wonders whether he's feeling this way because their fathers' rivalry has somehow become a heritable trait. It wouldn't surprise him at this point. He's had to suffer more than his fair share of divine shenanigans that he wouldn't discount that possibility until proven otherwise.
Still, he thinks that Jason would likely sign the adoption papers to be Poseidon's son just to spite Zeus, and sniggers.
Anyway, the beginnings of his dawning despair happened when Nico, who was sparring Jason to the side, was suddenly holding a medieval lightsaber that nearly sliced Jason's arm right off.
Nico had a Stygian sword.
Nico, who was also spending a lot of time with Will recently.
When he saw Nico turning bright red at Jason's eyebrow waggle, his brain supplied helpfully—Will and Nico are soulmates.
Percy looks down at his sword, his wrist twisting it in a painfully familiar motion before he sheathes it. He stares.
He looks up to meet Annabeth's grey eyes, the sadness and wistfulness in them more pronounced after that display.
He couldn't help but recall something he'd heard in passing.
"People gaining mastery over their skills might seem random, but those skills often begin to manifest after one falls in love with their soulmate."
He remembers a silly question that someone had asked just to be contrary.
"What if you only fall in love with your soulmate after you lose them? Do we still learn their skills?"
He'd written it off as a grand joke then, because three-year-old Percy had lived in a world spun of sugar.
How could someone lose their soulmate?
How could someone not fall for their soulmate at first sight?
How could someone not see their soulmate and just know that it was them against the world?
He remembers of those blue, blue eyes and thinks, "Ah, I'd rather not know the answer, after all."
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