Fanfiction: The Sky Will Burn (Percy Jackson)

[nebroadwe]

Title: The Sky Will Burn: A Sequence
Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Character(s): Calypso, with cameos from various others
Pairing(s): one-sided Calypso/Percy
Word Count: 700
Rating: PG
Warnings: Set during Battle of the Labyrinth; no earth-shattering spoilers.
A/N: I don't usually write in book fandoms because I find stylistic pastiche harder to pull off than character/setting pastiche. Then Calypso decided she had something to say to me in her own voice and this drabble sequence was the result. Concrit welcomed with a sea-proof scarf. Crossposted from nebroadwe to cabinthree and percylicious.
Dedication(s): For ravensnow, who's borrowing my copies of the books.

---

      The gods send her no warnings, only guests.

      Calypso gleans what portents she can from the wheeling stars, but they tell of what has passed, not what is to come. Even nature's perturbations are subdued on Ogygia: the cloudburst that wrecked the spoilers of Thrinacia fell here as gentle rain, and the Titan's daughter was as surprised as the Phaiacian princess when a half-drowned hero crawled out of the foaming surf.

      Sometimes her heart seizes at small things -- cloud shadows, mews' quarrels -- until the island weaves them into its accustomed tranquility, reassuring (taunting?) her that she is still alone.

≈
      She's known many half-bloods -- wily Odysseus, witty Churchill, pious Giovanni Bernardone with his troubadour's tongue -- but this one is different. Though his skin hangs slack on his bones like a graybeard's, he is young, very young: a boy for her to mother, not a man for her to love. She bade her own sons farewell long ago, rejoicing in their freedom; she will aid this child likewise, defying the Fates. She will nurse him back to health and see him on his way without regret.

      "Ei, ei, ei," she sings, drawing the fever from his wasted limbs. "Whatever hurts will heal ... "

≈
      While the hero slumbers, Calypso walks to the beach to greet the inevitable messenger. "Lord Hermes," she says coldly, managing not to add, You again?

      He sketches a salute. "How's the patient?"

      "He mends, but his wounds were great. He needs rest -- "

      "Sure, nothing like Ogygia for peace and quiet." Hermes tosses a stone into the lake with a hollow plop!, then shrugs. "Don't let him get too used to it, though; there's this prophecy -- "

      "Isn't there always?" she interrupts, bright and brittle. "Don't worry, my lord: I won't keep Perseus Jackson from his destiny."

      "No," says Hermes. "You won't."

≈
      Her guest -- Percy -- is a charming young man, strangely spoken but kind. Her reserve piques his curiosity: he studies her raptly as she gardens, smiling when she calls her birds.

      He, too, would come to her arms if she beckoned.

      But he has never known a woman's caresses. He touches her artlessly and when she draws back, he frowns, hurt. She doesn't want to hurt him. ("Whatever hurts will heal ...") She wants to hold his hand and laugh at his jokes. She wants to enjoy his presence without constraint.

      Calypso feels her resolve running out like an ebb tide.

≈
      While Hephaestus speaks to Percy, Calypso wanders among her half-stripped beds of healing herbs: woodruff and feverfew, wormwood and poppy and balm. She meant to teach her guest their properties: useful knowledge for any man, not least a hero.

      Too late.

      She knows without eavesdropping what the crab-footed god has come to say and how Percy will answer. Whenever his body rests, his true heart seeks its friends; dreaming, he murmurs their names: Grover, Tyson, Annabeth ...

      Her own heart is troubled and divided, a turbid creek that splits around a rock. I should have planted starflowers, she thinks, not moonlace.

≈
      As Percy's raft disappears into the mist, Calypso's latest visitor twirls her parasol and pouts. "Not even a backward glance! And you -- " Aphrodite lifts a hand; Calypso flinches, but the goddess merely wipes away her tears and displays them on delicate fingers. "Lids puffy, eyes red -- if you can't even weep prettily, I suppose I can hardly blame him." She snaps the parasol shut. "You should at least have kissed him properly. That boy has so much to learn about love."

      Calypso remembers Odysseus, another hero who spoke in his sleep. "He already knows the most important thing," she says.

≈
      The gods are silent, but the earth cries havoc. Ogygia trembles; birds take wing from the cedars as the lake heaves like the sea. Calypso stands in the mouth of her cave, listening to clay jars judder off their shelves and thump or smash upon the floor, watching thunderheads swirl in a lowering sky. If they part, will she see her father come to rescue her? Dare she hope for her own freedom?

      ("There's a prophecy ...")

      The island calms, though clouds still hide the stars. Calypso harvests all the flax in her garden, spinning it into thread for bandage linen.

---

Author's Note: Half the fun of this series is tracking down all the references yourself, but here are a few pointers. The "spoilers of Thrinacia" are Odysseus's doomed crew and the "Phaiacian princess" is Nausicäa. Calypso's song is part of an old Greek lullaby, "Nani Mine, Nani, Nani." Starflower, also known as borage, is an ancient remedy against depression; the seventeenth-century author Robert Burton mentions it in his famous work The Anatomy of Melancholy, wherein he also compares the heart to a divided creek. The title of this piece is taken from the song "Calypso" by Suzanne Vega.

[Acknowledgments: The books of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series were written, and their copyright is held, by Rick Riordan.]