When the blackness starts to fade, light peeking out of the corners of his vision, Luke finds himself sprawled on the shore of a beach. Sand coats his body. Water licks his scalp from where his head lays in the wake of the ocean. Saltwater stings his eyes. His entire body feels like he just got dumped into a hurricane and dunked into a sandbox.

He sees both Ashton and Calum also sprawled on the sand. The only person still standing is Michael, who seems to have been the only one able to stay on his feet. His wide green eyes look surprised to find them all on their backs.

Luke grunts and pulls himself to his feet, dusting sand off his clothes as he does. He shakes sea water out of his hair. Ashton complains under his breath as droplets spray onto him unintentionally.

Calum looks disorientated, his polished clothing not at all looking as clean as they did before. His glasses are askew on his face, his sweater ripped at the wrist. His button up collar is crooked, and Calum fidgets with it in an effortless attempt to make it straight. He shakes water out of his loafers with a frown.

Michael awkwardly picks his way across the beach until he rests his hand on a very old looking sailboat. It is anchored on the sand, water lapping the front that sits in the shallow ocean. Luke stares at it. The boat has definitely seen better days.

Ashton wrinkles his nose at the boat. "That's what we're going to be travelling on?"

Michael blinks at him. "We're only going to the Underworld. It's not a long ride."

Ashton looks like he wants to say something else, but then he decides against it. Michael adjusts the flowers tucked behind his ears and swings a leg covered in black jeans over the side of the boat. His pale skin looks ghostly in the sunlight.

Luke checks to make sure his sword is still in his sheath, not lost in whatever dimension shadow traveling goes, and then he climbs into the boat after Michael. Michael settles at the end of the boat, bracing his hands on the wooden seat. Luke starts fixing the sails to push with the wind. He looks sideways at Michael's white knuckles.

"Do you not like sailing?" Luke asks. The ropes rub his palms raw, but he keeps pulling.

Michael stares at him with glazed eyes. "Water isn't really my thing. I prefer underground. It's less-- chaotic."

Luke considers this. "Maybe so," he says. "But on the ocean, you're free. You're trapped when you're underground."

Michael allows a smile. "Maybe so," he echoes. The boy falls silent as he watches Calum and Ashton stumble their way into the boat, his eyes very big and very green. Luke takes the time to analyze him silently. His hair is soft and wispy, fluttering in the breeze off the water. His skin is the palest Luke has ever seen, but it compliments him somehow. The flowers behind his ears frame his face, despite being so out of the blue considering his dark moods and clothes. Luke can't easily forget the way he defeated the three of them in a matter of seconds. Luke didn't even see him coming.

Luke focuses back on the sails. He finally adjusts the sails to perfection, and uses an oar to help push to boat off the sand and into the shallow water. Luke feels the bottom of the boat grinding against the wet sand. He grimaces and pushes harder using the oar. The boat starts to move toward deeper waters.

Ashton winces as a wave breaks against the boat and splashes them all with water. Luke shakes sea water out of his eyes and keeps going while Michael fixes his flowers and Calum wipes his glasses.

"Keep off your glasses until we're past the waves, Calum," Luke advises. "They'll just get wet again."

Calum removes his glasses.

"Have you done this before?" Ashton wonders. He is flattened at the end of the boat, ducking away from the spray of the ocean waves. Another breaks at the front and drenches Luke head to toe. Luke just shakes water from his hair and keeps going.

"Used to with my mom and her friends," Luke replies. He has to shout over the wind to be heard. Ashton gets slammed in the face with another wave. He sputters.

Michael has taken the initiative to crouch under the wooden seats to avoid the water, something Ashton looks close to doing until finally, Luke pushes the boat over the last wave. The water begins to even out. The wind stops howling in their ears. The sails deflate.

Michael slowly sits back on the seat. Ashton shakes himself like a dog after a bath. Calum wipes his glasses uselessly on his wet shirt and puts them back on his nose. Luke drips over the boat, placing the oar back under the seats.

The boat drifts on its own further from shore. He sits down on the bench beside Calum and runs a hand through his slick hair, flattening it on his head. His now transparent white t-shirt sticks to his chest. Michael stares at him underneath his eyelashes.

"So. The Underworld," Luke says. Michael straightens.

"Yes." He hugs his black backpack to his chest. "The Underworld."

Ashton stares at all of them. "Am I the only one not looking forward to going to Hell?"

"It's not Hell," Michael says coldly. "Tartarus would be a more efficient comparison. The Underworld is merely where you go when you die."

Ashton considers this. "Okay, but we're off to go meet the god of death. Isn't that scary in itself?"

Michael looks ready to strangle Ashton. "Thanatos is the god of death. Not my father."

"Anyway," Calum interrupts, eyes travelling from between Ashton to Michael. "It's on the prophecy, so it must be important. We'll be in and out and off to save the gods from whatever is endangering them, and then we'll be free to continue our lives the way we did before."

Nothing is said for a little while afterwards, just the slow churning of the water and the occasional splash of a wave breaking against the boat. Michael removes the flowers from behind his ears and instead tucks them into the pockets of his backpack. Ashton rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and tries to get sun on his arms. Calum sweats uncomfortably underneath his thick sweater and button up.

Luke rests against the wooden pole that holds the sails, the rope loose but prepared in his hands in case they need to change directions. He lets his eyes shut, the breeze blowing off the water and fluttering his hair from his eyes. He feels at home somehow, like the sea is his. Salt fills his eyes and mouth and nose, but it feels comfortable. He breaths the air with open lungs.

A very long and slightly boring hour passes before they see land again. The boat slides past what looks to be a simple island, small but thick with bushes and undergrowth. Ashton leans over the side of the boat and watches the water lapping against the rocks. Luke twists the sail to slow the boat, and then he drags the oar against the current. Calum puts on his glasses. Michael tilts his head.

Luke squints at the island. "Do you think anything lives here?"

Calum picks at his sweater. "It seems awfully small for anyone to live on."

Michael says, "But maybe something lives around it."

They all follow his gaze to the shore of the island, just rocks upon rocks with heavy waves slamming against them. Ocean water sprays in their faces. The water is clear but a dark, dark blue. Everyone stares at the water, and then Luke notices the sudden ripples among the waves. A tail, slim but powerful, breaks through the surface of the water before slipping back underneath.

Ashton's face lights into astounded wonder. "Mermaids?"

Calum's face falls. "Worse. Sirens."

The boat is at a crawling speed, and Luke watches as figures, slick with water and seaweed, begin lifting themselves out from the water, hands braced gracefully on the rocks on the shore. Ashton's jaw drops. Michael's eyes widen.

The women were beautiful. Almost too beautiful to look at. Their hair, long and curling down their backs, adorned with shells and beads and glittering sand. Their skin is smooth, eyes bright and wanting. Their long torso stretches to their hips, until the rest of them slims into a mermaid's tail, soft and bright and sparkling with scales that look like crystals. As they rise from the water, perching themselves on rocks or swimming towards the boat, they begin to sing.

Calum and Michael slam their hands over their ears. Ashton doesn't make a move, but Calum removes one of his hands to press it over Ashton's ear.

Luke hasn't moved. His head swims. The sirens sing, their words and melody hypnotizing his mind. His thoughts muddle, his ears hear nothing but the women's voices. Luke grips his hands on the side of the boat. One of the sirens swim close to the edge, her lips parted, sound filling his head. One of her webbed hands stretches up towards him.

Luke reaches to take it.

At the same time, Calum grabs his arm, trying to pull him back, but the siren's song is stronger. Luke slides over onto the edge of the boat, and the siren takes his hands, slick and cold, the smell of fish filling his nose.

And he jumps.

The mermaids are all around him, delicately running their hands over his skin. They pull him underneath the water, his mind full of the soundless thought of their voices. Their gorgeous faces smile at him from underwater. His lungs burn. Their hands touch his chest, his stomach, his legs. He tries to kick his legs, but they don't move. It's like his brain has disconnected from his body.

Suddenly, something slams into one of the sirens holding onto his arm. It's too fast and too big to see, but they emerge from the darker waters under them and start kicking the mermaids aside. One of them grabs onto Luke, his hand big and strong as it wraps around his arm.

Luke's mind begins to clear once the sirens are aside, and his lungs feel like they are being crushed. The hand pulling him is attached to a man, dark, muscled skin and slick black hair. Human, Luke thinks, until he lowers his eyes and sees the human-ness stop at his hips, instead stretching into what looks like a mermaid's tail, except these men have horse-like front legs that are covered in fish scales. Their hooves have small green fins.

Luke's head starts going foggy again, but this time it's not because of the sirens. The man looks at him as he pulls Luke along.

"Breathe, child," says the man. "It will be alright."

Not when you're underwater, Luke thinks. But his lungs feel like they are about to implode, so he takes a deep breath.

Except instead of choking, he breathes air. He looks around him, and he sees a thin film of oxygen spread over him like a second layer of skin. His wet clothes hang and stick to his body. He takes gulps of air. Underwater.

The man holding him chuckles slightly, but Luke doesn't see any air around him. He seems to just be breathing the water.

"See, Child of the Sea?" says the man. They have stopped, far away from where the sirens grabbed him and where Luke's friends still stand on the boat. "Don't you feel the ocean in your bones?"

Luke can feel the ocean everywhere on his body, considering he's in it, but he doesn't say it. He instead glances around him, at the open ocean, and then looks at the man again. He sees other men like him start returning from the sirens, swimming towards him.

Luke blinks, shaking his head. "Who are you people?"

One of them mutters, "A thank you would have been nice."

Another replies, "Oh, get over yourself."

The man who took Luke looks at him, with big, sea-green eyes. He offers a smile. His face is covered in stubble, his hair looking soft in the water. "Luke, yes?"

"Yes," Luke says, eyebrows raised.

"We are the Ichthyocentaurs," says the man. "My name is Gat. We," He gestured around him. "are centaurine sea-gods. The centaurs are our land brothers."

A man to the side of him rolls his blue eyes and says, "Lots of help they are. All they do is drink and party."

Gat smiles. "We do tend to be the more-- hm. Sophisticated, species of centaurs."

Luke has to tread the water in order to stay beside them, but he finds he has very little trouble doing so. "You said child of the sea."

Gat nods and points above his head. "Yes. It seems as though your father has claimed you at last."

Luke's heart leaps into his throat. He turns his head upwards, just in time to see a blue symbol shimmering above his hair, a trident spinning in the center. Luke gapes at it until it fades away. "Poseidon."

"Yes, yes, Poseidon. A good friend of ours. A good man to this sea," Gat says. He gestures around him. "We all are honored to meet you, Luke Hemmings. It has been a long time before Poseidon has had a child."

The men around him nod respectively. Luke doesn't know what to say. His mind tumbles and turns. His father has claimed him. Poseidon is his father. This is his element-- the sea. Water. The ocean. He can hardly wrap his brain around it.

"Had you told the sirens to stop, they probably would have," Gat muses. "You do help to control the sea and its inhabitants, you know."

"I didn't know," Luke says, and stares at his surroundings. Everything feels surreal. "Thank you. For not letting the sirens drown me."

Gat grins pleasantly. "Of course. Were your friends hypnotized as well?"

"No," says Luke. "They covered their ears."

"Smart," Gat says. He swims over to where the rocks and cave walls meet. From this angle, you can see out into the open space of the ocean, including the shore of the island where the sirens were. Luke joins him. "You and your friends. You are on a quest?"

"Yes," Luke says. "Could you help us?"

"It would be an honor if I could," Gat says. He takes a deep breath. "I assume you know what is causing the turmoil on Olympus?"

"No."

"No?" Gat looks surprised. "Persephone, goddess of flowers, wife to Hades, has been kidnapped."

"Kidnapped!" Luke echoes. Gat nods solemnly.

"Unfortunately so." He leans against the cave wall. The other Ichthyocentaurs drift away, leaving the two of them be. "We think it has something to do with the group of monsters and figures who want to avenge the gods. While the gods are usually good, some of them have done very bad things to people or to monsters in the past, and those people want to take revenge on them. Doing so is to start with the demigods, so that the gods will have no backup for help."

Luke wishes Calum were there, because he would understand everything Gat is saying. Luke doesn't know which gods or goddesses were mean to which monsters and which people. He has hardly any background of mythology at all. Gat's words mostly go in and out the other, but most of it seems to click.

"There's a group of monsters who are out to get the demigods so that they can destroy the gods?" Luke clarifies. Gat nods.

"Indeed."

Luke swears colorfully under his breath.

"The first thing for you to do, child of Neptune, is to find Hades and ask him about Persephone. Beware, though, as he will be angry and heartbroken," Gat advises. Luke's blood runs cold.

"What if Hades destroys us on the spot?" he asks nervously.

Gat considers this. "He probably will not. He is not one for violence."

"He sends people to Tartarus and lives in a world full of dead people," Luke says slowly. "He's literally the king of Hell."

"Yes, but if I were you, it would be Persephone I'd be worried about," says Gat. "She is the queen of Hell, as you put it, and she is also the one who delivers most violent of punishments. Hades, as I said, doesn't like violence very much. He enjoys living in peace and solitude."

Luke takes this in silently. Then he takes a very deep breath. "So I need to find Persephone, and in doing so, I will find the group of monsters as well?"

Gat nods. "I wish you the best of luck, Luke Hemmings. Know that the Ichthyocentaurs will always be there for help in you need it."

Luke smiles genuinely. "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

Gat turns his back and begins swimming in the direction of the rest of his kind. Luke allows himself to float in the ocean and enjoy the sensation of the water on his skin for a little while longer, the blood rushing in his veins, pulsing in time to the crashing of the waves. He can sense the water's movement around him, the schools of fish swimming nearby, even the swish of the siren's tails far away near the island. He feels a surge of gratitude towards Poseidon. Something in him feels a little more complete.

Thank you, Poseidon, Luke thinks. He doesn't know how praying works in Olympian god form, but he hopes that suffices.

Then Luke begins to think hard. Go to Hades. Find Monsters. Release Persephone. Simple tasks with inevitably impossible consequences and responsibilities. He's not even sure Calum, with all of his insane brainiac superpowers, will be able to figure this one out. He thought that perhaps there would be rules and tasks and cross-off check marks on a to-do list during the quest, but it turns out to be the complete opposites. It's like that one sci-fi book Luke read when he was a kid, where the world was facing an apocalypse. It's every man for himself. No laws to abide. Just sheer survival and one very impossible looking goal.

Luke smiles to himself, swimming up to the surface with ease. At least, at the very least, he knows who his father is. He knows where he belongs.

Luke breaks through the surface of the water with ease.

Except, astoundingly, the boat has disappeared. For a moment, Luke thinks maybe he surfaced at the wrong spot. But a quick look at the island and where the sirens had nearly drowned him, he knew the boat was simply gone.

Which mean all of his friends were gone, too.

---
A/N: this was a badly written chapter but I hope you enjoyed anyway

I love the ichthyocentaur myths, lol I just had to include them. They definitely don't get enough credit!! like they are under the sea centaurs how cool is that??

everyone tell me the name of your crush!!

i'm inspired because i saw the CUTEST boys at the beach today. one looked like a mix of calum and nat wolff idk it was magical

but I think harry styles would have to be my #1 I would marry you in a heartbeat crush tho

okay thanks for reading!! I rlly appreciate it!! I would also rlly appreciate it if you voted or commented :):):) it boosts my low self-esteem

i love you to the moon

bye