Chapter 4 - Percy
As Percy grew from a babe, to a toddler, to a young woman; she knew there was something different about her.
Most little girls didn't dream of a long forgotten land, of what she knew could only be Sparta. They didn't dream of their life that once was, they didn't dream of what they had once hoped for, what they had once lost.
And yet Percy's dreams were haunted by such things. She dreamt each night of her beloved Sun God, Apollon. Although he was known now as Apollo.
Percy's dreams were haunted by the life they'd lived together, the laughter and happiness they'd shared. Of the passion they'd awoken in one another.
But Percy's heart was far more haunted. She was haunted by the ‘what-if's'. What-if Apollo wasn't happy to see her, what-if he wasn't happy that she'd returned? What-if Apollo had moved on, loved another far more than he'd ever loved her? Percy, Hyacinthus, had always known
that her time was limited with Apollo. He was a god, the Sun God, he was handsome and powerful and charismatic. He could have had anyone that he wanted and Hyacinthus had always wondered why he'd been chosen to receive the Sun God's love? Why was he chosen to encourage Apollo's
wrath when he had been relentlessly and unwillingly pursued by Zephyrus? Why was he chosen to break Apollo's heart?
How could Apollo ever forgive Percy for leaving him alone?
But Percy also knew there were things, people, that she could hold onto. If Apollo turned her away, if he had another to love for eternity....Percy could leave him alone. She could step aside and let Apollo be happy - that's the only thing that mattered to her, to Hyacinthus.
Percy was fifteen. All of her life, she knew that she had been hidden away. She was being protected from something, maybe someone?
The old man that lived on the same floor as them in their apartment complex was someone that Percy knew was hiding something. For ever so brief moments, his appearance shimmered and changed. Instead of the
gentle elderly man from the end of their corridor, Percy sometimes saw a middle-aged man with black hair with wisps of grey smoked through, she saw deep, fathomless hazel eyes and a flicker of chiton.
When Percy and her mother, Sally, visited the main city centre, she often saw a young man in his mid-twenties with long black hair bound in a loose bun with several strands framing his face. His sea-green eyes looked like her right eye and his black hair looked a little similar too, although hers was more black then his that shimmered
brown beneath the sun. At Montauk is where her friend, Kym, visited too. Her trips usually lined up with Percy's and they often played on the beach together.
Percy had once even seen a young woman with the same wild curls of hers at the community centre's pool. She'd smiled and waved happily at Percy from her lifeguard's chair overlooking the children.
Sometimes, when playing in the park, Percy saw young men with one eye hidden beneath the brim of their caps. She saw little girls walk out of tree trunks and young women climb out the lakes. She saw young men
with goat's legs, playing music on their reed pipes.
Just last year, when she'd turned 14 years old, she had gone on a school trip. The kids had all been taken to the beach and she had seen a hulking, writhing mass beneath the waves but when had tried to point it out, she'd been laughed at for her imagination.
The year before that, Percy's school had taken her class on a school trip to the aquarium. While there, the fishes and other sea life had followed her around in their tanks. The dolphins had flipped through the surface, the whales had sprayed water in delight, the sharks wiggled happily and the otters had chittered and chirped along with
the seals clapping. She couldn't remember the last time that she'd felt she belonged before. But that's how the sea and water creatures had made her feel...welcomed.
Even years earlier, when Percy was 8 years old, she'd seen a large winged horse with black hair and flowing mane on the roof of the building across from their apartment. The pegasus was always there, always watching. And when winged creatures that shrieked and charged at her, tried to hurt her, the large pegasus intervened. He'd run down
the harpies and they'd disappeared in a shower of golden blood.