A/N: ⚠️ Warning ⚠️ The next 5-6 chapters are very Luke Focused, so just be warned and get your complains out of the way now.
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[Third Person Pov]
A while ago…
Luke was plunged into the sea below as Thalia's second lightning dragon claimed him. His mind went white with agony, blood seeped out from the grievous wounds on his body, his skin charred, flesh burnt and peeling in places where the lightning had struck hardest. The pain was all-consuming at first, swallowing every coherent thought until even the idea of survival felt distant and abstract.
His eyes were half-lidded as he sank further down, staring up at the night sky as it warped and rippled through the shifting surface above him. The moon fractured into pieces across the water, the stars stretching into thin, wavering lines as his vision struggled to hold onto them. His body refused to respond to him any further, having been pushed far past its limits. Every attempt to move, to even twitch a finger, was met with nothing but a hollow, unresponsive silence.
The waters around him grew dark, tainted by the steady spread of his blood. It drifted outward in slow, blooming clouds, swallowed piece by piece by the vastness of the sea. For a moment, a quiet and almost calm thought settled in his mind. This was the end. Not dramatic, not meaningful, just an inevitable conclusion.
But his eyes, dulled as they were, still held a trace of resistance. He refused to die like this. Not without having done anything that mattered. Not as something insignificant, a stepping stone for someone else's story. The thought lingered stubbornly, even as everything else began to fade.
Despite that, his body would not answer him. It betrayed him in the simplest way possible, by doing nothing at all. His lungs burned, his chest tightened, and the last of his strength slipped away. His gaze dimmed as the light above grew more distant, until he could no longer keep his eyes open.
Darkness took him.
Perhaps it was luck, or perhaps it was simply fate, but as his body continued to descend, it was caught in a powerful underwater current. It dragged him sideways rather than down, pulling him through the depths with an unrelenting force. His limp body was tossed and turned by it, carried far from where he had fallen, away from the center of the destruction and toward something else entirely.
Time lost meaning after that. There was no sense of how long he drifted, no awareness of distance. Only fragments remained, broken pieces of sensation and fading consciousness.
When he surfaced again, it was not in the water.
He was dimly aware of rough grains beneath his face, pressing into his cheek and lips. The rhythmic pull of the tide brushed against him, water washing over his body before retreating again. His lungs spasmed weakly, his body struggling to remember how to breathe properly.
He drifted in and out of awareness, each return to consciousness brief and unfocused. At some point, he became aware of a presence. It wasn't a sound at first, more a feeling, something approaching, something close.
His vision was blurred, unfocused, but he could make out shapes. Movement. The faint outline of someone standing over him. The only clear detail his eyes managed to latch onto were her feet. Clean, well-manicured, resting against the sand. She wore high strap sandals, the thin bands wrapping neatly around her ankles.
His hand twitched weakly before lifting, every movement heavy and delayed. It took more effort than it should have, but eventually, his fingers closed around her ankle. The contact was faint, barely there, but it was enough.
He tried to look up, to see her face, but the rising sun behind her cast her features in shadow. All he saw was light, blinding and overwhelming, swallowing whatever details he might have recognized.
Darkness claimed him again before he could understand anything more.
He slipped in and out of consciousness as she worked on him. There were moments where he felt pressure against his chest, firm and rhythmic, forcing his body to respond. At other times, there was warmth against his lips, air being pushed into his lungs. His body reacted violently to it, coughing up a mouthful of seawater that burned his throat on the way out.
He barely registered the relief before everything faded again.
The next time he surfaced, it was only briefly. He felt movement, his body being dragged across uneven ground. There was strain in it, effort from whoever was pulling him. His limbs bounced uselessly with each shift, his head lolling to the side as the world tilted and blurred.
Then nothing again.
When he awoke next, it was to heat.
It wrapped around him suffocatingly, his body burning from the inside out. His skin felt too tight, too sensitive, every inch of him aching in a way that went beyond the injuries he had already suffered. The smell hit him next, thick and overwhelming. Herbs, crushed and steeped into something pungent, filled the air around him.
His body was wrapped in bandages, rough against his damaged skin. Every small movement sent sharp reminders of just how badly he had been injured.
The fever twisted everything. Time stretched and snapped without warning. He woke only to fall again, each moment of clarity slipping through his fingers. Sometimes he woke screaming, his body reacting before his mind could catch up. Other times, he barely had the strength to turn his head before nausea overtook him, leaving him dry heaving or vomiting whatever little remained in his system.
His body fought desperately to keep him alive, the fever a byproduct of that struggle.
There was a moment, brief and fragile, where his vision cleared just enough for him to see her.
She sat nearby, watching over him. Her features were soft, composed, untouched by the strain he knew she must have gone through to bring him here. Long hazel hair was tied into a single braid that fell over her shoulder, neat and controlled. She wore a white toga, simple but clean, a stark contrast to the state he was in.
For a second, he thought about speaking. About asking something, anything.
But the moment didn't last.
His consciousness slipped away again before he could form the words.
…
He finally awoke with a low groan, the sound rough and dry as it left his throat. Slowly, he pushed himself up, one hand immediately rising to clutch his head. A sharp, relentless pounding greeted him, the kind that blurred his thoughts and made even the smallest movement feel like a mistake. It felt less like a simple headache and more like something splitting his skull apart from the inside.
He forced himself to breathe through it, steady and controlled, until the dizziness settled just enough for him to stay upright. His body protested every inch of movement. Muscles ached, his skin burned beneath the wrappings, and there was a stiffness to him that made it feel like he had been broken and put back together without care for how the pieces aligned.
His gaze dropped to his body, taking in the bandages wrapped tightly around his torso, his arms, and up along his neck. He could feel them there now that he was aware, the way they clung and constricted. Slowly, almost hesitantly, his fingers moved to the edge of the wrappings near his neck.
Beneath them, he felt the raised, uneven texture of scarred skin.
His expression tightened slightly as he shifted the bandage just enough to reveal it. The scar stretched upward from his neck, jagged and branching, unmistakable in its shape. A lightning bolt. It arced along the side of his jaw and cheek, disappearing beneath the remaining wrappings. Even without seeing all of it, he knew it went further.
He let the bandage fall back into place, his hand lingering there for a moment longer before dropping to his side.
His attention shifted outward then, finally taking in his surroundings. He was lying on what could only be described as a stone bed, its surface uneven despite whatever effort had been made to smooth it. The air was cool, carrying with it the faint scent of herbs and damp earth. The walls around him were natural, rough and curved, marking the space clearly as a cave.
His eyes moved, scanning slowly, until they landed on something familiar.
His sword.
It rested against the cavern wall not far from him, placed within reach.
He swung his legs over the side of the stone bed, pausing as the motion sent a wave of weakness through him. The ground felt unsteady beneath his feet when he stood, his balance wavering for a brief second before he forced it to stabilize. Ignoring the protest of his body, he stepped forward, each movement deliberate despite the strain it caused.
By the time he reached his sword, his breathing had grown heavier, but his grip remained steady as he wrapped his hand around the hilt. The familiar weight grounded him in a way nothing else had since he woke.
That was when he heard it.
Footsteps.
They were light, measured, approaching from the cave's entrance. His body reacted before his mind fully caught up, instincts snapping into place. He turned sharply, ignoring the way the motion pulled at his injuries, and brought the blade up, pointing it forward.
She stood there, just inside the entrance, framed by the light filtering in from outside.
The woman from before.
Hazel hair, tied into a long braid that rested over her shoulder. In her hands, she carried a basket filled with herbs, the same scent that lingered throughout the cave. Her posture stilled the moment she saw him, her gaze flicking from the sword to his face.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
They simply stared at each other, the silence stretching just long enough to become noticeable.
"You… who are you?" Luke's voice came out rough, lacking any of its usual strength but not its edge.
Her expression shifted, not quite annoyed but close enough. "Is this how you thank the person that took care of you? You point a sword at her?" She let out a small sigh, adjusting her grip on the basket. "Did the outside world forget common courtesy or something?"
Despite her tone, there was a brief flicker of tension in her posture. She had noticed it, the look in his eyes. Cold. Guarded. Ready.
"Fine," she continued after a second, her expression smoothing over into something softer, more composed. "You may call me Calypso. There's no need to be wary of me. I only wish to help you."
She offered him a smile then, one that would have been disarming under different circumstances. It was practiced, controlled, and undeniably beautiful.
Luke didn't lower his sword.
If anything, his grip tightened slightly.
He trust neither her or her smile.
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