![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
( eachdraidh inbox )
( AUDIO | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION | GEORGE AND MARTHA | ETC )
( identifiers: luke castellan | ophiotaurus | αλεπού (the fox) | george and martha through luke castellan || LOCKET + COMPASS )
( AUDIO | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION | GEORGE AND MARTHA | ETC )
( identifiers: luke castellan | ophiotaurus | αλεπού (the fox) | george and martha through luke castellan || LOCKET + COMPASS )
audio.
Hey- Is that...? Is that Martha and George?
[ the excitement from the familiarity of their voices is short lived, if only because of Luke's response. and yeah, alright, he'd been expecting that. it wasn't like he thought Luke would be jumping right back into anything, especially not with the entire gaggle of demigods. ]
Seriously? You've giving up the opportunity to get the moon back with people from home that you've fought with before and are familiar with in battle? What, are you worried you're too rusty to be a good thief now? [ stick, bear, poking. ]
audio.
Percy!
How are you?
Got any rats?
[ he sighs, quite audibly. he's not going to turn them into an ipod just to shut them up. they have every right to be in their snake form as he does to his anger. but he truly wishes george and martha were on his side. if percy confirmed he had rats, he knows george would at least jump ship immediately. ] Forgotten I fought against you, Jackson? Always knew you'd taken too many blows to the head.
Luke!
[ gods, he's getting reprimanded on the phone by someone who isn't his mother. it's almost embarrassing. he rolls his eyes, but relents as it's martha. and where he had been resistant to the poking, he feels that stick nudge right into his ribcage. ] I'm not rusty.
[ martha sounds proud, ] He stole the Dara!
Yeah, but no —
Rats. Yeah, I get it. [ he'd laugh at george's antics, but hearing them speak so proudly of his own achievements when they're merely dust to those in drabwurld sees his hackles rise. ] I can steal the moon back blindfolded. [ and he sounds proud of himself at that, but his tone drops after a pause. ] It doesn't mean I'm going to. [ it's a lie. there's a reason why he's not doing this via video, and it's because percy would know he's back in caer glaem. he may not know what his room looks like, but percy's not as dumb as he sometimes seems to be. ] You can even tie my hands and spin me around with that blindfold, I'd still hit that piñata, but it doesn't mean I'm going to pick up that stick.
audio.
[ SIGHS. well that didn't go according to plan, he was hoping he could have baited Luke into actually coming to help them. and maybe he could, if he wanted to keep poking. he could also bring up the fact that Thalia and Annabeth will be with them, but he's- not entirely sure if that would do more harm than help in getting Luke to come along.
alright, poking the bear continues? yeah. ]
You think so? I'm not sure. I think you might have lost your touch and that's why you're refusing to come with us. I understand, I mean, I get it. I wouldn't want Annabeth or Thalia to see me suck at my abilities either, if our situations were reversed. I'll just tell everyone that you're, uh, busy.
audio.
[ his words really mean nothing. annabeth and thalia aren't here. how can he care about his own demonstration of his abilities if neither girl is here to see them? it's a hint that luke doesn't quite catch, despite being sharp and capable of reading betweent he lines when he's not on the cusp of anger. ]
[ his own tone is really firm. ] I haven't lost my touch. [ and that stick just rams itself right into its ribcage, doesn't it? ] In case you forgot, Percy, I was the one who told you I was the Lightning Thief. Haven't exactly lost that skill of stealth, not even in death.
[ maybe he wants to poke him back. but is that stick ramming itself into the right ribcage? ] What you think doesn't matter to me. [ except it does. senpai wants to make grasshopper proud on some level, deep down, hidden beneath all that anger. ]
audio.
[ because Percy realizes that Luke probably doesn't know. that he likely has no idea that Annabeth and Thalia are actually there, that they'll be coming on the quest to try and retrieve the moon.
so fine, alright, he can concede that trying to make a dig at his abilities isn't working in his favour. but that doesn't mean he's about to give up. ]
They came in with the newest arrivals. Annabeth and Thalia. They're both in the Seelie court like the rest of us. They're coming on the quest to try and get the moon back, so when I say if you don't want them to know, I'm serious. I can say you're too busy to help if you don't want to face them.
audio.
[ as far as he's concerned, those two girls will think more about how he had betrayed them than his abilities. the last time he'd seen annabeth, she'd been hurt and exhausted at the feast. her shard had been the last part of her he had selfishly kept, refusing to even let percy in on what he had taken from her (what she had left behind). he still doesn't want to tell him he'd thieved that from her room, too. he may be proud of his abilities, but he isn't stupid enough to leave himself too vulnerable to a kid who would take the shard from him if he so much as hinted he had it in his possession. ]
[ and thalia ... ]
[ he's been thinking of her less and less, a contrast to how it'd been at camp where all he could do was think about her being trapped within that tree, alive but barely living. it's a dagger to his chest all over again. still, even to this day, he feels the impulse to give her the world if she were to ask him to. he wants to leave his suite and see to them, falling back into a role he has no right to reclaim, but he stays where he is, stubborn, anchored down by his own anger as he isn't quite sure what to think. ]
[ he doesn't want to face them, that's the problem. ]
I can steal a moon, Percy. [ he sounds angry. ] I'm dead to them. You forget about that, too? I'm old news. Four years kind of makes that whole hero of the prophecy seem a little insignificant in hindsight, doesn't it?
audio.
[ he finds it all too easy to get irritated about it, to be frustrated, because had their situations been reversed, he's not sure he could have kept his distance from people who had been that important to him at one point or another. if he'd died in the Titan War, if he died at the end of the Giants War -- no matter what, he'd always want to see those people again.
(he knows it isn't that easy, knows that Luke has traitor etched through him from bad choices piled upon bad treatment by people who should have done better by him. but it's still impossible for Percy to consider, to think that Luke would rather avoid them.)
there's a slow exhale, like maybe he realizes he can't push him into this the way he'd hoped. ]
Look, man. We could use your help. I don't think anyone but you could handle doing this, and without you- We're all running right into a fight without someone to count on to bring the moon back. [ a beat. ] If you decide not to come, I'll let you know if we all survive, okay?
disconnect.
[ of course, it's an excuse. luke's the god of making them, knowing it'll assist him in worming his way out of travelling down roads he doesn't know how to navigate. this particular path is one he can do quite well, but with the anger thrumming beneath his skin, he knows it's a path he has travelled along with his feet stomping into the earth before. a part of him doesn't wish to flank their sides in case they see it to, the way he's unravelling as he had done so quietly years before. he can feel it where they may not be able to see it, consistently blind to the dead boy none of them particularly see as their friends flock to the drabwurld and steer them far from where he happens to be. ]
[ he wants to stomp percy's faith in him out. rather than confirm he's in caer glaem and about to take to searching for the symbol of artemis, he decides against it. he's only useful for the god he's born from, with his tricks of trade and his ability to navigate and run and deliver prized parcels without so much as getting a flat tire or even a broken bone as he travels upon rocky and unfamiliar terrain. ]
[ heroes always survive; it's the villains who perish and are only resurrected when they're required. like now. ]
[ tersely, ] Good luck being a hero.
[ he hangs up. ]