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jflashandclash · 4 months

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Axel I: Into the Lion’s Maw

Axel I: Into the Lion’s Maw[1]

Or Labyrinth of Treachery

Mist poured everywhere, both magical and nonmagical. Axel liked to think Alabaster’s mom had the same flare for the dramatics that he did, if not a little more pronounced.

The dilapidated church flickered with light from three torches, forming an equilateral triangle. Two hovered behind them and one above a scorched altar. Their eerie green light cast everything in shades of grey and turquoise.

Reflexively, Axel knelt and crossed himself upon entering. He swatted Pax to indicate that his little brother should do the same. Pax did, but with about as much reverence as grabbing a napkin for eating at a barbecue.

“Hello. Hedonism. Blasphemy at forever o’clock.” Pax mumbled, rubbing the back of his head with a pout. He’d gotten more mouthy. Axel couldn’t tell if it was from discovering he could adjust to people’s gender preference when he flirted his way out of things. Or, more likely, because their surrogate father had been different since he’d been trapped on Calypso’s island.[2]

Recently, Jack had been… worse. He’d come into dinner toying with a tendon he’d ripped out of a captured Roman’s knee and wondered why some of the demigods didn’t want to participate in Spaghetti Night after he lost it. The monsters thought he intended it as a Happy Meal toy. Great for monster moral. Great for demigod nightmares.

Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them as he and Pax approached the hooded figure in front of the altar. The person was meditating. Alex would say praying, but Alabaster didn’t pray to deities. He spoke with them as equals. Any misrepresentation of that, Axel knew, would be considered a “grievous offense.” Axel wasn’t in the mood for another thirty minute lecture.

Without checking to make sure it was Alabaster, Pax scurried up alongside the figure. He sat beside his assumed babysitter and shuffled closer until their legs touched. If that was Hecate, she would need to come up with a creative punishment for impertinence. If she turned Pax into a pole cat, he would consider that a reward.

“Pleasure seeing you here. You come to church often?” Pax teased.

“Ajax,” Alabaster’s warning was half-hearted.

Axel could hear Pax roll his eyes. “Fine,” Pax corrected, “Do you come to evil church often?”

Alabaster’s response was dry, “Every night in my finest robes in hopes of attracting… what does Mercedes call them? Persistent parasites?”

“Ah.” Pax patted down his duster jacket. “Sorry I forgot my occult robes.”

“I have some for you in the pews.”

Axel snorted. The pews were, mercifully for their eternal souls, empty of said robes. He scanned the church, checking for exits or potential ambush areas. Not that they could be ambushed here.

“Do we finally get to see the secret project you’ve been scheming over?” Axel asked. The question came out a little too serious for Axel’s liking. This was some kind of special occasion for Alabaster. The invitation in Axel’s back pocket proved it. The envelopes had been waiting on their pillows on thick, dark paper and swirling golden script.

Axel Pax,

Your presence is formally requested at the altar of Hecate.

Directions to Address: Fall asleep at a reasonable hour.

I know that’s hard for you. Your attendance will be appreciated.

--Alabaster C Torrington

Axel wondered if Pax had been twiddling his thumbs outside the church for hours or if Hecate had given him a sleep Fast Pass. Knowing Pax, he would have been thrown out of Hecate’s realm for making ghostly faces through the windows had she not.

Axel had tried to sleep on time. He really did. He just saw corpses of the people he killed each time he closed his eyes. He tried reading the brick-of-a-book Alabaster lent him. As it turns out, the dog-eared pages about overcoming a sinisterly encroaching tyranny? Not a good substitute for counting sheep. Especially not when it had Axel pacing in the world’s shortest loop across his and Pax’s room, wondering if Alabaster was referencing how Luke—no—no—how Kronos had been acting. Did Alabaster disapprove of Luke’s new management style as much as Axel did? Axel had been wondering about that until Pax threw a pillow at him with a, “Axxxeelllll! I wanna see Witch Boy’s mysterious whatever! Go to sleep!”

Axel had succeeded without being drugged by Pax, which Pax claimed his invitation instructed him to do.

Alabaster didn’t respond to Axel’s question about what this mysterious night time meeting. But, the room seemed to. Axel felt the air thicken. His breath strained.

The gleam of torchlight above them sank. A stoic whisper entwined with his own thoughts, making him flinch.

I can’t give you back what you had…

The Mist expanded, enveloping the room. A river gurgled nearby. The stars sparkled into life above them, thousands more than could be seen in Los Angeles or at the new site for Mount Othrys. Bugs hummed and Axel found himself smacking a mosquito that landed on his neck.

Belize.

They were in Belize.

Sort of.

Axel was left with the uneasy superimposition of the evil church amidst the calming jungle: a scorched altar and pews dropped into the thick undergrowth. Vines wrapped along the rotting wood, as though the disjointed images had been one for years.

Nearby, Pax wept softly. He and Alabaster were still kneeling in front of the altar. Pax turned to press his face against Alabaster’s shoulder, quivering at…

The last time they were in Belize, their father had killed their Uncle and Aunt in front of them. Axel hadn’t been strong enough to save them. All he’d done was get his arm broken.

Someone touched Axel’s hand, the one he had on his neck. I can’t give you back what you had…

He couldn’t tell if it was an echo or if she was repeating herself. Axel clenched his jaw. No one could give him Frasco or Nilley back. But… But Belize and Chiich… his siblings. They were still alive—they were—

Axel didn’t feel like a trained killer when his gaze turned to see the titaness beside him.

But you don’t have to do this on your own.

They had walked among titans and gods for years now, yet Axel felt his knees go weak seeing her. Her black hair swayed in the humid breeze. Her white robes with the ornate silver runes—all of it was immaculate despite their surroundings. Her eyes blazed like the orbs themselves were made of emerald fire.

Even if you’re never going home…

Pax hiccuped with a sob. What even was home for them now—

“You’re not alone.”[3] Until the last part, her mouth hadn’t moved.

Axel found himself staring a moment longer than he intended. “Hecate,” he breathed. Alabaster’s mysterious mother. Although she mothered at least a fourth of Luke’s troops, Axel had never directly seen her.

Hecate stroke Axel’s cheek and temple with gloved knuckles. She was investigating the swirled patterns of his fresh scars. “You ran out of room in your graveyard,” she observed.

His stomach plummeted. His graveyard? His and Pax’s room. He had run out of space for his—what else could he call them but trophies? Graveyard felt more appropriate: the pieces he collected from those that he murdered, his way of honoring the dead. They had become too numerous, too heavy. Encroaching into his sleep at night and into his thoughts during the day.

But he couldn’t forget them. He couldn’t pretend they were nothing. He couldn’t become his father. So he’d started to carve them into himself.

Because, wasn’t that how it started? Choosing yourself over them? Deciding people were insects because you’d shatter to think anything else?

“You’ve been having more bad days,” Alabaster said evenly. He wouldn’t look at Axel.

Axel knew that. If Axel clenched his jaw any tighter, his teeth might break. This felt like an ambush. It didn’t help him to dwell on the bad days. That was the problem. That’s all his brain wanted to do—to rewind, replay, repeat.

Breathing exercises and meditation didn’t work anymore. All he could do—as he did now—was fumble a hand into his pocket for a cigarette.

Hecate’s brow furrowed. “My son is worried about you, Jaguar Child.” When her fingers curled around Axel’s ears, his grip loosened on the cigarettes. Her touch was soothing, almost mesmerizing. He hadn’t had someone scratch behind his ears like that since he was very little.

“I—I don’t need help—yours or otherwise,” Axel said. He didn’t need help. He was the cavalry. He couldn’t need help because—because where would Pax go when he was crying from a nightmare? Or Jack when he was panicking over which band covers they would pick? Or—or Luke if he—if one of Axel’s best friends needed someone to kill them—[4]

“Holy Titan!” Pax sniffled away his tears. Something had thrilled him. “Did you hear the quaver in his voice? Do whatever you just did again!”[5]

Axel glared at his little brother. He would have smacked the back of his head if he were closer. All Axel could do, for the moment, was reach behind him to grip the backing of a pew. Hecate’s presence thickened the air with the tang of lavender, mint, chamomile, rosemary—a cycling swirl of scents that overwhelmed Axel’s sensitive nose and made him lightheaded.

Those gloved fingers scratched along his other ear. Axel thought about slapping her hand away but—

“Axel Pax,” she said his name like it was a secret, “A poison has infected the members of this camp and spread to you. You’ve seen it growing.”

“I don’t want to lose you to it. Now that I’ve decided the two of you are worth something beyond being lab specimen,” Alabaster said. He tilted his head to allow his hood to drop back. He withdrew his spiral notebook, flipped it open, looked up, and startled. “Mother, what are you doing?”

“Calming your wildcat,” she said. Axel could see her lips curl into a humorless smile. He swallowed deeply. She had stronger features than most of the Greek goddesses. When he lost focus (something he struggled to keep with her touch) he swore he could see multiple faces beside hers—one a residual of her past expression and one, he could only guess, a foretelling of her future. “I’ve been rather fond of cats as familiars in the last few centuries, especially since polecats are harder to come by. It’s important that they know your scent and show them you mean no harm before you make deals.”

No harm—deals--? Axel’s mind spun. He jerked his head back. Although he felt her fingers lose contact, there was a shadow of her hand, a lingering, that rolled along his chin, just as another phantom of her limb withdrew sharply. Axel shook his head, watching as the shades unified into one hand.

His arms strained. Axel realized, with some mortification, that he’d bumped the backs of his knees into the pew. The only things keeping up upright were his claws, digging into the wooden backing.

“Deals?” he managed. His face felt hot; his legs were shaking. Axel hoped his ears weren’t a dead giveaway about how uncomfortable he was. He focused on orienting himself instead of replaying the feel of Hecate’s gloves on his ears. What were they talking about—his nightmares. Maybe something about Luke. Maybe this could be related to the book Alabaster lent him?

Axel glanced to Alabaster for answers.

He thought he’d seen Alabaster angry before, when he muttered about “causing his downfall,” during their celebratory dance. Axel had been wrong.

Had Hecate not been standing beside him, Axel could have felt the Mist radiating off Alabaster from the Princess Andromeda to Mount Othrys. His freckles looked like cooled black spots on a volcano, his face had gone so red.

“My child, shall we continue? Weighing the options?” Hecate asked, stepping past Axel towards the altar.

“I’m reconsidering,” Alabaster growled.

Axel fumbled to find his footing. Hecate’s, um, greeting hadn’t been weird. And, it wouldn’t intrude on his nighttime moping for the next week. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them before he could stop himself, something that made Alabaster’s glower deepen. Alabaster’s mother, he chided himself. Not that he needed chiding. He hadn’t done anything.

Pax looked delighted. His little brother was likely devising the best teasing strategies that would incur the least amount of injury.

Axel wouldn’t look at Hecate as she ran her gloved hands along the scorched altar. He gritted his teeth, seeking that indignant rage he felt moments before, instead of… instead of whatever that had been. “Is this supposed to be some kind of intervention? I’m fine.” He just hadn’t been sleeping. That was it. He had been waking up screaming for years. It was routine by this point.

“Augh, you had to focus on the boring part of this interaction, not the sexy one” Pax complained.

“Ajax!” Alabaster and Axel scolded in unison, going red for very different reasons.

Hecate remained impassive.

Alabaster fought to keep his voice level. “We talked about this?” Raising an eyebrow at Pax.

Pax rolled his eyes. “Fine! Fine—the fact that Axel has startled backwards from new campers, thinking they’re people he’s killed that have come back for vengeance? Totally normal.”

Axel clenched his fists. That had only happened once. But, it had been while he was helping Flynn train new recruits. A bad look for their camp. She had been furious and made him smack himself with a sword hilt.

With the alteration in conversation, Alabaster’s expression eased back to a calculated calm. He gently disentangled from Pax and stood. “This is more than an intervention, Axel, and this proposition goes far beyond counting sheep before bad dreams.”

He stepped to the side of the altar, parallel to Hecate, his swaying dark robes contrasted hers. “For…” Alabaster closed his eyes, quoting, ‘Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.’” He opened his eyes, Hecate’s emerald fire reflected in his own. This must have been a quote from the loaned book. Axel didn’t have the heart to tell Alabaster there was no way he would remember a quote like that.

Alabaster continued, “Elevating a thug to a position of power to destroy other thugs—that is a contradiction.” He nodded to his mother.

No incantations or movements came from the Goddess of Magic, not that Axel saw or heard. Unlike her son, she didn’t seem to need them. Axel felt her will ripple the air around them. The pressure in the jungle dropped. Axel’s ears pop. Pax slapped his hands to either side of his head, like he could stop the sensation.

Mist thickened around the altar, strands winding into three orbs. One reflected the green of Alabaster’s eyes, one the gold of Axel’s, and one of utter blackness. A nod towards Ajax’s black eye? Or perhaps my Mist mask? Axel wasn’t sure. He’d seen displays of godly power before, but this made him shiver with excitement. Pax had sat up, shifting his weight from side to side in anticipation.

The weaving tightened into distinct shapes. Teeth sprouted out the golden mass. A mane of red pilled out its back.

Horns jutted from the central, black Mistform. The blackness chipped and shriveled away to hardened ivory. It pooled and gathered into two central eye sockets in a cervine skull.

The emerald smoke undulated in leisure waves before solidifying into serpentine scales.

All three settled into oblong shapes with distinctive eye sockets and mouth openings. The green and gold glimmered with metallic sheen; the former, a platinaed bronze, the other a pure gold. The last one kept the texture of bone.

As the Mist twisted away, three helmets remained. They hummed in deep guttural tones.

Axel’s heartbeat pounded alongside their two-toned cacophony. Adrenaline pumped, though he wasn’t sure if it was to rush towards the helms and grab one—the gold one, the feline one—that one is mine—or turn and flee this desecrated holy ground, maybe shrieking a few octaves higher than he’d normally allow.

“These,” Alabaster said, settling his hands onto the bone helm, “were made to eradicate contradictions.” Alabaster’s gaze turned to Axel. His expression was hard and defiant.[6] “The idea that Kronos would rule over freed demigods? That is a contradiction.”

He spoke so openly of treason. Axel almost forgot they were in Hecate’s realm. He’d broken into a sweat. Luke had become so paranoid; he and the other titans spread rumors that the walls of Mount Tam had ears. Some deep instinct warned this would be the perfect way for Mercedes and Alabaster to rat out dissenters, to trick Axel into admitting he disapproved of Kronos.

He thought of the promise he’d so casually given to Luke on the edge of a cliff. It was one of the last times Luke had acted like himself. It was when Axel had promised to kill his friend if he ever became a danger to those he loved.

Jack had lamented why they couldn’t just spend the evening talking about cute girls. It felt so absurd now. There had never been a future where Axel could just worry about girls, or school, or a job. He’d spent months strategizing the murder of his father; would killing his friend be that different?

Axel swallowed, looking from the golden helm, the feline curves of its face, back to Alabaster. Maybe these helmets would be the one way he could bring the promise to fruition.

“I’m listening.”

***

Thank you for reading!

(And waiting two years >>’’’’ Those of you that are my original readers.)

I hope you’re having an excellent start to the New Year!

I can’t make any promises, but I’m hopppppinnnng to stick to: Stay tuned in two weeks for part II!

I will address some of where I've been in a post, shortly. In theory.

***

Footnotes:

[1] In which Jack has to begrudgingly let Axel be a badass instead of having his kneecaps hit every thirty seconds. I spent four books breaking this unbreakable rock, and I got so grumpy when I realized I need to actually let him build up to being Reyna-worthy in this one. *sighs* Can’t I just continuously beat up the Pax boys?

[2]When I need to edit stuff out and just can’t delete it, I’m going to start slipping it into my notes: Not that Jack had ever been the role model for stability—he couldn’t make it through a concert without striking up casual conversation with the base. Not the base player. Jack was the base player. The instrument itself. Something that surely would have made fan girls jealous if Flynn didn’t give away free ass kicking for anyone dumb enough to hit on Jack in front of her.

[3] For anyone wondering, yes this entire sequence was inspired and written to The Puppet Song by TryHardNinja. It felt appropriate. <3 It’s one of the first songs on their Spotify playlist that I will one day release.

[4] All equal IOUs in Camp Othyrs.

[5] What Pax wanted to say was, “I think he just went through puberty!” but fortunately the Fates prevented this.

[6] Pax guesses Alabaster practiced this line, and its bravado, over and over, both in front of a mirror and in front of Mistforms of his own creation, so they would applaud him each time. Just imagine him lecturing Hunnie, Baller, and Nietzsche and three tiny weasels standing up on their hind legs to applaud.

#percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olypmus #PJO #HOO #tales from mount othrys #TFMO #Axel #Pax #alabaster c torrington #hecate #fanfiction #writing #did you know... there might finally be WEASELS soon?#hey--long time no see #how is everyone doing?

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