Making Sand Dollars was a lot harder than one might think.
Real sand dollars were alive at one point, skeletons of living beings. But Purifying Sand Dollars? Those were hand created with magic. The process was not simple either.
First you had to gather the sand, a very important component in Sand Dollars.
The sand had to be clean, naturally formed sand. It needed to be free of imperfections, and could not have dirt, glass shards, or any other materials in it. Gathering the sand took ages, Percy had to carefully filter it a dozen times to be sure it was clean.
Once the sand was gathered, filtered, and triple checked, you needed to compress and shape it.
If gathering the sand was time consuming, compressing and shaping it took an eternity.
Compressing it wasn't hard , it took a few tries to figure out but with water the process was fairly simple. Just press it, use water to make it stick better, add pressure with water and his own hands, boom done. But to compress and shape it?
The inside was not solid, it was a delicate framework with an intricate array of interior ivuisav, the sea runes that aided its power. Each part had to be compressed to the full extent while being shaped properly. And that wasn't even including shaping the outside with the proper star to stabilize the magic and allow the flow of energy in and out of the Sand Dollar, which let the purification inside the Sand Dollar grow over time.
If you made it properly the energy within should be stable and steadily raise in power over time. The ivuisav, if done properly, would be able to handle a slow influx of power that could grow for as long as the Sand Dollar was intact. The longer it was unbroken, the more power it had, and the more it would cleanse.
Breaking the sand dollar would allow the purification energy to surge out all at once and clean the area.
Unfortunately, Percy's weren't that good.
He could do the outer shape just fine, it was the easiest part. But the inside was so complicated– He'd spent weeks carefully trying to match the diagrams he had in his books. There were several ways of doing it, just one of them would work.
Percy could sorta make the inside, but it wasn't compressed enough, it wasn't smooth enough, wasn't shaped right, and the ivuisav not detailed enough. If it absorbed the purification energy at all then it wasn't able to hold it well, causing it to leak without drawing any in.
He broke his attempts quickly so that they could at least give some benefit.
After weeks of practice he managed to get one that didn't seem to leak at all… or if it did it leaked too slowly for Percy to notice. It had the basic inside shape, carefully balanced. He was afraid to even move it too fast for fear of it breaking.
But it was there , and that was his best result yet. Nothing compared to the two Triton gave him, but it was a start.
Triton's Sand Dollars were carefully locked up so they could build power, he'd use them one day when they were needed.
In the meantime, he'd keep working on making his own Sand Dollars.
OO OO OO OO
Triton had given Percy a lot of books, and he was still working through them, but this one was making him a bit confused.
The book he had at the moment was on the lineage of sea deities.
A good number were related, not just the Greek ones but in several pantheons. The different pantheons weren't related to each other mind you, but within the pantheons themselves a lot of the Gods were related…
Percy was pretty sure it was supposed to be bad to be related to people you married, did it work different for immortals?
Percy looked up why humans couldn't be with family, apparently DNA was a big reason, it would mess their kids up. And apparently all species had an instinctive a- aver-sion to being with family, even plants. That was cool.
It didn't explain why Gods would get married to family though…
He'd ask Triton.
OO OO OO OO
Triton told Percy that Gods were different than mortals.
They didn't have DNA for one, Gods were Divine Beings, They had no proper "human" form with DNA and all. Having children was different for the Gods. And They weren't family like humans either.
Humans were family, they raised each other and cared for each other and protected each other.
The Gods were family that They chose. Familial terms (like mom and dad, Percy learned so many new words from Triton) were used as titles, not as family . Some of Them were more family than others, but it just… wasn't the same as humans.
Percy thought it was confusing but nodded along.
OO OO OO OO
The book on Family lines was interesting to Percy though. It was probably stuff he needed to know, especially since he knew Triton and the River Gods. Triton said They were all Greek Deities.
The Greek Pantheon was the most likely one for Percy to be connected to, so he focused on that family tree.
Poseidon had a lot of kids, like a lot. Humans and otherwise. There were a lot of Kyklopes kids, though he didn't know why Cyclopes was spelled that way. Everyone else spelled it with a C.
He'd ask Triton later.
He wondered if he was related to Triton, it would make sense. Triton would probably know who his dad was if he was related to him.
He considered Poseidon briefly, but Poseidon had so many children he couldn't possibly be Percy's Metua. If it was Poseidon then there would be no reason for the camp to have an issue with him. Why would they? They probably had at least three of his kids already.
He ran his fingers over the family tree, lingering on the various Sea Deities with a frown.
Who didn't have many demigod kids, or had ones that did bad things? It was probably something like that…
His finger stopped on Okeanus.
Okeanus was a Titan God, one who didn't have any mortal children as far as Percy could tell. He wasn't someone who fought against the Gods, and Percy remembered seeing that Okeanus was traditionally neutral in all conflicts… but the Gods didn't seem to like the Titans.
If the camp was for children of the Gods, maybe it didn't like children of Titan Gods.
Okeanus had a lot of kids Himself, several thousand, but all were immortal. There weren't any notes on mortal children of Okeanus.
Maybe He had some that weren't written down? Percy would have to check sometime. But if not, was Percy the first? Or maybe not but they just didn't like Demititans… Percy just didn't know enough.
But none of the others in the family tree made sense, Okeanus was the only one who seemed to make any sense to be his Metua, his Father.
It had to be Okeanus, or Percy just didn't know who it could be. Whatever the reason was that camp wasn't safe, it must've had to do with Okeanus being a Titan.
Maybe the camp didn't like them because of the conflict with the Gods, but he thought that wasn't quite fair. He didn't side against the Gods, and neither did Okeanus.
Whatever the reason, Percy would just have to prove he was great.
And he would have to learn more about the Titans, They were his family too after all. He'd been focusing mostly on the Gods, since they had the most info, but if his dad was Okeanus, he needed to know about the Titans.
He made a note of it.
He'd be ready when he entered the immortal world. And maybe one day he'd get to meet his Metua, and maybe other Titans too!
There were so many things said about Them, but the myths he'd seen didn't seem super bad, not the early ones at least. He was certain they were great once you got to know them.
What could go wrong?
OO OO OO OO
Most books were in English unfortunately. Or in languages he didn't know.
They weren't in Halmaheran, which… made sense… He didn't have to like it though.
He did his best to read them, it was his heritage they were talking about. And he learned a lot with every page he read.
Okeanus had a bunch of kids, like a bunch . There were at least six thousand, maybe more. He wasn't the best at the math.
Tethys and Him had had to divorce because they kept drowning the Earth when they "made love". He didn't know what that meant, but it was a shame. They seemed to really love each other, They had to if They were forced to divorce because They loved each other.
He was confused by some of the details in the books, like Amphitrite's parents. A lot of works said Nereus, but one part of Apollodoros' works said Okeanus. Maybe Triton could clear that up.
He didn't understand Homer's works though, why did he describe the Okeanides as "deep-bosomed"? What did that even mean?
He asked his mom and she said it was just that they had big chests.
That was so weird to point out?
Anyways, he learned a lot of cool things about the Titans.
Their era was known as the golden age for a reason, and the Titans were wonderful rulers… at least until that dumb prophecy ruined everything.
Percy didn't like prophecies. He supposed that sometimes they didn't actually… make things happen. Like the time that Athens just requested a new one during that war. But a lot of the prophecies were self-fulfilling or made people go crazy.
Percy decided he would be careful about any prophecies he got involved in, which would hopefully be none.
He made a note of it anyway.
OO OO OO OO
Percy spent a bit considering if he should tell Triton about knowing Okeanus was his Metua. The more he read of the myths, the more it made sense that Okeanus was his Metua, the war with the Titans was really big after all.
He wondered if that made him Triton's uncle.
He supposed that depended on which myth was accurate about Amphitrite's parentage, and Okeanus', there were a few versions of that too.
He ended up deciding not to tell Triton right then, Percy didn't want to worry him. And maybe not telling would mean that whatever risks there were wouldn't happen.
OO OO OO OO
The Fall Equinox came up soon after Percy determined Okeanus was his Metua, and it was a lot of fun. He shared snacks he'd made with his mom with Triton and they talked a bunch.
He asked Triton if he celebrated the Greek Holidays while they were there, but Triton said that the sea worked differently. Apparently they did a hunt and gathering event on the Fall Equinox, then had a big dinner that night with the foods they gathered.
Percy was disappointed he couldn't join Triton in that, but he decided to do some extra research on the Greek Holidays, to see if there was anything interesting.
But it probably wasn't too important, he was of the Sea after all, and that was better to learn first.
He did remember to ask Triton about the Kyklopes versus Cyclopes issue though. Apparently it was a lin-guist-ics things. In Ancient Roman times, the phonetic (a weird word that apparently meant the sounds of something) sounds of C was a K sound, so Cyclopes was pronounced with hard C's. But now people pronounced C like an S a lot, so it wasn't right anymore.
So the new phonetic (sounds) spelling was Kyklopes.
Percy thought that was annoying, he decided to stick with the K spelling, it was how it sounded. And Percy found it a lot easier to say the word when the letters were the right sound. He didn't think he liked the Romans, changing pronunciation like that.
Cyclopes, how annoying.
OO OO OO OO
December was rapidly approaching and Percy was glad.
He'd made it through the first half of the school year without any new disasters, which was amazing. But there was a teacher that he was eyeing. They made his head buzz and ache a bit, and if he squinted he swore they only had one eye.
But surely a Kyklopes wouldn't attack him, they were Poseidon's kid! Or well, not all of them were, but a lot were…
Though there was the one that ate people…
The Kyklopes at the school didn't seem to have anything against him though, and didn't do anything when Percy watched.
If they were gonna attack they probably would've already, it'd been months and he'd been trapped alone with them a few times already.
It was probably fine, and anyways, he had far more important things to worry about.
Like the upcoming solstice! He needed to make something for Triton, something that would beat Triton this time.
The school's library had computers (which were life savers for his research in general, he'd never have had so many references on Greek mythology without it) that he searched for ideas. He needed something good, but that he was also able to make.
He was already planning to give two of his best sand dollars, the ones that didn't seem to leak any power (but also didn't seem to grow either). But they weren't enough.
He needed something better.
OO OO OO OO
It took too long in Percy's opinion, but he figured out what to make Triton.
He'd found an old wooden chest when cleaning the river. It had some old tattered dresses and stuff in it (no jewelry), but otherwise was empty. More importantly, the wood was very sturdy and didn't seem very damaged by the water.
He wasn't sure how it ended up there, but decided that it didn't really matter.
The wood would be perfect for his present.
OO OO OO OO
The Winter Solstice's arrival heralded the arrival of Triton as well. He couldn't stay long, the Winter Solstice was the start of the New Year weeks. Nearly two weeks of preparation for the new year, with the last three days very important.
Percy didn't know too much about it, but Triton had to be there for the events. So he was only with Percy for a short while.
But it was more than enough time to trade presents!
Triton gave him a really cool stone, it made rainbows !
It was super pretty too, all dark but bright with shiny colors and sparkles- Triton said it was used for Iris Messages, which he then had to explain were messages through the rainbow that the Goddess Iris controlled.
He gave Percy some drachmas too (gold ones) to pay for Iris' aid.
Percy asked why gold and not silver, since Gold coins weren't very important in Ancient Greece from what he read. Triton said that drachmas were and Triton said that on land Gold was more valuable these days, and the money of Olympus adjusted with it.
Percy thought that was kinda interesting, but the fact that the rainbows the stone made were untraceable was cooler.
Unless Iris decided to share it, but Triton said she wouldn't.
Apparently the sea didn't use Iris Messages as often as other methods of communication, but it was still useful.
Percy clutched his Rainbow stone tightly and thanked Triton a bunch. Now he could talk to Triton even when he was away!
Though this also meant Triton had more than outdone him on the gift giving scale, how annoying.
He wanted to show Triton how much he cared, but then Triton had to go and outdo him.
He still gave Triton the two Sand Dollars though, and couldn't help but preen when Triton praised them. Apparently they were very well done and Percy did a good job shaping them so well!
Triton informed him that making sand dollars took years to learn and master, but Percy had good fine-control so could do it pretty well.
Percy was really glad he'd put all that work into his control of water, he'd have to thank the River Gods next time he saw Them.
One day he'd master Sand Dollars too.
He quickly gave Triton the other gift as well, a hand carved hair pin. Percy had done it himself out of the wood he'd retrieved, carving the top so it was shaped like a trident.
Triton seemed pleased with it, thanking Percy for both gifts.
OO OO OO OO
Percy did his best to focus more in school in the New Year, he needed to do good if only for his mom.
Triton didn't really care too much how Percy did in land school so long as he did well enough to live alright on land. He said it wasn't fair for a child of the sea to learn using land languages. Percy hated struggling so much with reading and writing though, dyslexia sucked .
Percy was still glad that Triton didn't mind though, he didn't want to disappoint Triton and it was clear that Triton didn't care if Percy did badly in land school. Though that never stopped Triton from being proud of him when he did good on stuff.
Percy was really happy that Triton had helped teach him though, his math skills were at least doing much better. He hated to think of how things would be if he didn't have Triton.
Both in school and out.
OO OO OO OO
Percy had been expelled… again.
This time was definitely not his fault though. He was very much framed.
The school was doing this fancy mural thing for some fundraiser, and he'd missed the day that his class did their sections, so he had to stay after school to do it. But he'd had a detention with the totally-a-Kyklopes first 'cause he forgot too many homeworks.
By the time he'd reached the mural the area was a wreck. The paint cans were all over, and the contents splattering everything . The mural was more than ruined, and the walls, and the floor, and even the ceiling .
Percy didn't know how it happened, and the totally-a-Kyklopes seemed equally baffled, but since the cameras were down in the area and a teacher had walked in on him holding a paint can (he'd picked it up at the entrance then seen the disaster)... well…
The totally-a-Kylopes had vouched for him, but he was a "new teacher" and the "old teacher" had more authority, and said it was Percy. So the totally-a-Kyklopes got accused of being an accomplice too.
Thus, he was expelled… again.
And the totally-a-kyklopes teacher was fired.
OO OO OO OO
Percy had a lot of free time after being expelled, his mom just had him homeschooled until the next school year, so he spent it studying.
Not school stuff mind you, that was boring. He was studying sea stuff.
Triton told him that he could go with to one of the "introduction events" in the sea if he could prove he'd be able to handle the etiquette and speak Halmaheran properly the whole time.
Percy was determined to do it, even if he was half convinced Triton only offered that to cheer him up after being expelled. Percy wondered why his method involved giving him a lecture on the nature of "Introduction events".
Introduction events were done to introduce mer of various skills to each other, usually by their teachers or guardians. It was a thing for mer that had some sort of speciality usually, like how Percy was good at controlling water. The speciality could be magic, weapons, fighting, swimming, or even knowledge.
The events were meant to allow the young mer to get friends, and to make connections that could help them later in life. They also functioned as an introduction to sea matters, and the politics and the like that come with higher rank (and if you had any particular skill, you could usually bring your rank up no matter where you started).
You could only start going to them once you reached ten Veruov, and couldn't do any of the bigger things till sixteen Veruov.
This one would just be a small one with a few of the ones in town for the event. Triton apparently occasionally introduced mer to these events, so it wouldn't be too odd for him to introduce Percy.
Percy was determined to look good for Triton though, he would be representing himself, Triton, and his "unknown" Metua (Okeanus).
He was studying up on Halmaheran as a result, and he really did like the language. It was kinda similar to English in grammar, but also kinda different.
Like- unlike English you could change the time frame by changing the ending or adding a word to the front. Which- you could sorta do in English, but it was more com-pact in Halmaheran.
Like, "to bite" was "ie opal", and then "bit" was "opalir", but "recently bit" was "yame opal", and "bit a long time ago" was "yame opalir". It was similar for future tense too.
And you could also exclude people when you talked about them, like saying, "us but not you".
So it was a lot of fun to work with.
He'd need to be good at word play in the events too. A lot of the ones there would be trying to show off, to get recognition from any adults there, and to make themselves look the best of the mer there.
Showing you could hold your own, verbally as well as physically, was important. Triton said that most didn't have any interest in a mer that couldn't use their words.
If you weren't able to handle things with style and decorum then what was the point?
Percy wondered if that was because of Siren's Song and how important it was.
Percy really wanted to go, so he studied hard and practiced a bunch. He'd prove to Triton he could do this.
OO OO OO OO
Drying flowers with his powers took a lot of practice, but he'd figured it out. Now he had a nice set of them that he could tie together and make a bouquet out of it. He'd give them to Triton for the Spring Equinox.
They couldn't really go in the sea, that would ruin them, but he could share them.
He made flower shaped falafel with his mom the night before to share with Triton too. And cookies, cause cookies were great. Triton had supplied some berries from the sea (Posidonia berries) to eat too.
It was a nice relaxing evening.
OO OO OO OO
Summer was well on its way when Triton decided Percy was skilled enough at undersea etiquette and Halmaheran to go to one of the events.
So he gave Percy his birthday present early that year, a new charm for his bracelet. Percy didn't know why he got it early, the stone was very pretty and shone like a rainbow, with a cool twist to it that flared out at the bottom, but it didn't have anything to do with the events.
Triton told him to pull on it, a smirk on his face.
A swirl of bubbled, tingling through his body that made him squirm and twist in the water, light curling over and in him and his tails flailed for a moment as the muscles clenched briefly and then-
Wait.
…
…
...
HE HAD TAILS!!
OO OO OO OO
Percy was calm now, totally calm, 100% calm. He was the calmest ever.
Super calm.
It was totally not him spinning the water cause he was so excited.
Definitely not.
He was the epitome of calm.
OO OO OO OO
Percy loved his tails. They were amazing, shiny and glittery and blue and green and had flowy fins down the sides and on his arms- and around his wrists- and on his waist- and they almost seemed to glow in the dark and the fine at the end of the tail was so pretty and the scales shone- did he mention they were amazing?
He loved them so much.
Triton told him the charm naturally shifted his biology to that of a Mer, so those were the tails Percy would've had if he'd been born a mer.
Percy would be able to shift back and forth at will, so long as he had the charm. If he lost it he'd be trapped in the form he was in when he lost it.
Percy wasn't too concerned, he never took his bracelet off after all.
His tails though, they were amazing! And flowy tails usually meant strong magic!
He was super excited to practice more magic.
OO OO OO OO
Percy spent only two short weeks practicing his swimming with his tails.
There were a lot of crashes, more than he was willing to admit, and he struggled to move a lot at first, but he got better!
He thought he was doing pretty good until Triton raced him down the river.
Percy was in awe of Triton's speed, he was so fast . Percy had a lot of work to do to catch up to him.
But it was a lot of fun, and Triton was grinning when he showed Percy how to flick his tail just so to move quicker.
OO OO OO OO
They were off to the introduction!
Percy had managed to convince his mom that he was spending the night with a friend. She wasn't happy that their "parents" weren't available to talk, but allowed it as long as he was back by noon the next day.
He did have to give her the address of his friend, but thankfully Triton gave him an address to use. Percy wondered where he got it, but mom accepted it so it didn't really matter.
But then he was off! And they were going to the introduction. Triton got them to the ocean proper, and then led Percy to the event.
The fish were so pretty though, he just wanted to take a quick look. Oh look at the cool coral shape- That was a shark! Oh Pontus was that an octopus? He'd never seen one before. Ooh, a school of seahorses, a herd? A gaggle? A pride? He didn't know.
"Percy," Triton said with a fond smile as he led Percy away from a cool anemone. "We need to get going."
So maybe he was more dragging Percy to the event than leading him, but they got there.
Eventually.
OO OO OO OO
The space the introduction was in was so pretty!
The underwater lights shown a thousand colors, the glowing fish circled and darted through, the pretty corals acted as tables and seats and walls, and there was so much coral and anemone scattered around.
The bubbling lilting music added to the atmosphere and Percy decided that it was all amazing.
Triton told Percy to stop gawking with a smirk on his face.
Percy stuck his tongue out super maturely, then pulled his expression into one of "proper princely calm" like Triton taught him.
He'd practiced it in the mirror for hours.
Percy and Triton swam down to the event and Percy forced the grin away again.
He was finally home.