INTERLUDE NO. 1
( GIFTS FROM FAMILY )

CENTRAL PARK ON A Saturday in late August was filled with people of all ages and races milling about. On a picnic blanket, Kali sat with a photo album in her lap.

During the summer, she had used the disposable camera she took from the water park in Denver and took the exact amount of pictures it allowed her to before the film ran out. The weekend after camp ended, she took a chance and asked Ralph to take her to get them developed. It surprised her when he agreed, but she didn't show it and just thanked him. He also allowed her to get an album to put them all in, which was exactly what she did the moment she got home from developing them.

One picture was of the day they got back from the quest. It was during the celebration. Arianna had taken the camera from her when Kali showed it to her, and forced her, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover to squish together for a photo. Each of them wore their laurel wreaths. Each of them looked exhausted but happy. Parts of other campers were seen on the sides and behind them. Only an Ares kid photobombing in a back was completely visible, flipping off the camera.

Another one was of her and Percy in the lake with the naiads, and half woven baskets. Then one of the campers of the Ares cabin after Grant and Connor's prank, with Adelaide laughing at the others on the side. Clarisse looked especially pissed. The picture was blurry because Kali didn't want to get pummeled by any of them, and had ran immediately after the flash went off.

There were twenty-four others, each a memory frozen in time – moments Kali didn't want to forget because of the joy and happiness they brought her. She was looking at the very first one she took back in Denver, of Percy, Annabeth, and Grover's backs at the water park as they walked through, when her younger siblings arguing finally got too loud for her to ignore.

"–arfire is better than Raven," Naia insisted.

"Maybe, but the real best Teen Titan is Cyborg!" Makoa argued.

Kali looked at them incredulously, attention caught immediately. She lowered the cold water bottle she was holding to her mouth so she could speak, and ignored the tooth ache. "What? You're both wrong. The best is Robin!"

Both Naia and Makoa looked at her like she was stupid.

"He doesn't even need superpowers to fight," she explained. "He's so much cooler than the rest for that."

"Cyborg doesn't have powers, either!" Makoa exclaimed, hands thrown in the air for emphasis. "Just robot parts!"

"But Robin is, like, completely human."

"Which makes him lame, Kali," Naia said in a 'duh' tone. "Unlike Starfire. Her eyes glow green! She's an alien!"

"So is Clark Kent, she isn't special."

"You're hopeless." Naia dramatically fell on her back. "Hopeless!"

Kali laughed. Maybe she said the previous thing just to get a reaction, but they didn't need to know that. "Okay, you don't like Robin. Why isn't Raven the best? Her eyes glow, too."

Naia's nose scrunched up. "Purple's ugly."

"But Starfire wears purple," Makoa immediately said.

She hesitated. "W-Well... Your face wears purple!"

His face twisted into pure confusion. "What?"

Kali couldn't help but bust out laughing in surprise. The other day during a ride on the subway from school, they got into a fight. Naia had said something about one thing or another being stupid, and Kali unthinkingly replied with, "Your face is stupid," in retaliation. After another argument involving Naia whining about how her face isn't stupid, everything calmed down and Kali had to explain the insult and that she really didn't mean it, and also gave other examples of using 'your face' as a comeback of sorts.

Safe to say, she hadn't been expecting Naia to use it. Or Makoa's utter confusion.

"My face doesn't wear purple," he said. "What does that mean?"

Kali tried to control her laughter. "It means your face, Koa."

"Huh?!"

It was Naia's turn to begin laughing.

"I don't get it," he whined.

"Don't- Don't worry about it," Kali said through some giggles. "It's nothing."

His lip jutted out in a pout. "But your laughing!"

"Because it's funny when you pout," Naia said.

"Hey, that's not nice," Kali told her somewhat jokingly.

Makoa crossed his arms and stuck out his tongue at them both.

Kali was about to return the action like the mature almost twelve year old she was, but stopped when she heard, "Hey, Kali," be shouted from somewhere behind her. She looked over her shoulder, eyes moving from person to person until she spotted a familiar head of dark hair and green eyes.

She grinned, closed the photo album in her lap, and pushed it and the cold water bottle she'd been holding aside as she stood. "Hey, Percy." The distance between them wasn't long, and she jogged the rest of the way to him. They shared a quick hug.

As he pulled away and said, "Happy early birthday."

"Thanks."

Then, he was motioning behind him. Kali recognized the woman from when Hades had shown her frozen in time in shimmering gold to Percy. It was nice to her not like that, and instead very much alive and okay and holding what looked to be a rectangular food container, fingers hooked around the handles of a birthday present. Percy held a bag, too.

"So, this is my mom," he said, then half turned to look at her and motioned to Kali. "Mom, this Kali, Po– uh, your ex-boyfriend's other kid."

The woman made a face like she was half amused by how Percy addressed Poseidon, but also exasperated. "Percy..."

"What? I'm not wrong."

The woman shook her head at her son and fondly smiled. Then, she looked at Kali and stuck out her hand. "Hi, Kali. I'm Sally, it's nice to finally meet you. When Percy said he had a half-sister I almost didn't believe it."

"Hey. Um, you too," Kali said, shaking her hand and then nervously pulling back. "I almost didn't believe I had a brother at first, either." The introductions were continued with Naia and Makoa, who both had sobered up from before.

"Where is your dad?" Sally asked. They all began sitting down. Percy helped his mom by taking the container. "His name is Ralph, right?"

"Oh, um. Yeah," Kali didn't look up as she took the presents and set them with the other on one corner of the picnic blanket. "He got called in to the fire station he got a job at a few weeks ago. He walked us here and then left for work."

Kali never thought that she'd be so relieved with him having a job as a firefighter again. Usually, his shifts were either 10 to 12 hours with three or four days off afterward, but there were also times he's had to go into a shift for a full 24 hours. This was one of those times, for some reason or another, and so they wouldn't see him again until around a little after lunch time tomorrow.

"Oh, well, that's too bad. I was hoping to meet him," said Sally. "Is there someone you're staying with while he's gone?"

She nodded. "Mr. Borhorquez. He owns a bodega close to our apartment building."

"Ooh, what's in here?" Naia scooted to the container Sally brought, diverging the conversation. Kali didn't know if it was intentional or not, but she was grateful for it anyway. "Is it cake? What kind?"

"Chocolate cupcakes with teal green icing."

Kali smiled. "Wow, I'm surprised your mom didn't make it all blue for you, Percy," she said as the other got loudly excited at the word chocolate.

"Dude," he said quietly. "You sometimes sleep underwater. You don't get to judge my blue food obsession."

"It's relaxing."

"Besides, it's your birthday tomorrow – not mine."

"Oh, right, yeah, I forgot you're old."

"Wha–! I'm only a year older."

Kali made a face. "Actually, it's more like a little over a year. Like... A year and a few weeks."

"That barely makes any difference."

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes, it does."

"No, it doesn't,"

"Yeah-huh."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yeah-huh."

Percy scowled. "Mom!" He looked at Sally and pointed at Kali. "Make her stop!"

Sally had a hand over her mouth as she tried not to laugh.

Kali laughed to herself quietly. "I wasn't doing anything!"

"Yeah, you were."

"No–"

"I'm not doing this again," he interrupted. When Naia patted his knee to get his attention, he looked at her. "Yeah?"

"She's being annoying on purpose," Naia said.

Kali innocently smiled when Percy sent her an annoyed look.

"I can tell," he grumbled.

Sally laughed at them. "How about we get started? Kali, do you want to open presents or have the cupcakes first?"

"Um..." She thought about it, eyes moving between the small pile of presents and the container of cupcakes. "Presents."

Naia and Makoa immediately started arguing which present she should open first – hers or his – and Kali rolled her eyes. She grabbed the bag Sally had been holding and said loud enough to get their attention, "I'm opening the one from Ms. Jackson." They looked over at her with twin betrayed expressions.

"Aww..."

"You can call me 'Sally', Kali," the woman told her with a kind smile.

She returned the smile and nodded, and began pulling the tissue paper out of the bag; Percy grabbed them and crushed them up into one big ball. Her smile grew as she pulled out two CDs: Never Gone by Backstreet Boys, and X&Y by Coldplay. Percy got her another waterproof disposable camera, and Naia and Makoa's present to her was a book on pirates their babysitter Ruby helped buy and wrap during the end of the summer, a few days before Kali came home from camp.

Kali loved them all. She thanked them multiple times, excited about each gift. The book was going to be a chore to read, but she didn't care; history fascinated her, even more so of the time of pirates.

Once she was done, and after the trash was gathered and thrown away, they ate the cupcakes – but not before her younger siblings made sure they sang Happy Birthday to her. The cupcakes were amazing. Kali made sure to tell Sally as such when she reached for a second one.

It wasn't too long after that when they all began to do their own things. Naia and Makoa played together as they ran around nearby. Sally stayed on the blanket and read a book, but also kept an eye on all the kids. Percy and Kali found sticks and, disguised as a game of pirates, practiced sword fighting.

Nothing exciting really happened afterwards. They spent another hour or so in the park, and then Sally offered to walk Kali, Naia, and Makoa to Mr. Borhorquez's place when everyone was ready to leave. When they got there, he, Sally, and Mr. Alba talked with one another as Kali, with Percy eighth behind her, hurried to the guest room she was staying in to put up her presents, which was just throwing them on her bed and putting them away later.

But there were things already on her bed.

Kali shut the door immediately at recognizing that the few packages were delivered from Hermes. She and Percy shared a quick look, and then she placed the presents from earlier on her pillow to grab one of the packages. It was smaller than the others, with a shimmery aqua blue wrapping paper and seaweed-like ribbons tied into a bow.

"Who are these from?" asked Percy. He picked one up to inspect it.

"Probably Ari and Grant and them," she mumbled, then frowned as she read the address sticker on the one she held.

"Yeah, this says it's from Grant."

"This is from Atlantis."

Percy dropped the packed and moved closer instantly. "What? Is from your mom or our dad?"

She shrugged and incoherently made an 'I don't know' noise. She inspected it a second longer before she finally gave into her curiosity and opened it. A folded up note sat atop a rectangular box made of gold, intricate designs covering it. She opened it with one hand, unsurprised at the Ancient Greek the letter was written in; Percy moved to read it over her shoulder.

Dear Princess Kalliroi,
Things are beginning to pick up for you in the mortal world, I hear. Aunt Eione informed Mother and I of your quest this summer and tales of how it went. I'm relieved your name has been cleared from being the lightning thief.
     That being said, I believe it is time that you have a proper weapon that solely belongs to you. I'm sure you're familiar with Riptide by now – Aunt Eione told us the centaur gave it to the bastard Prince. This is similar.
     This weapon used to belong to my daughter, Pallas. Rather than allow it to collect barnacles from lack of use, I have decided to give it to you. I hope you appreciate this gift and that you use it against all of your enemies.

          Sincerely,
               Triton, Prince of the Seas
                    P.S. – I do hope you visit soon. I can't wait to see with my own eyes how much my baby sister has grown.

Kali skimmed over it one more time, surprised. She never expected to get anything from Triton.

And she didn't really take kindly to Triton calling Percy a 'bastard prince.'

"Pallas?" Percy questioned. "I thought Pallas was someone else, not your, uh...niece?"

Her brows furrowed a little. "There's two. The Titan, and then Triton's daughter. She and Athena were friends, I think. I'm not totally sure on the story, though."

She tucked the note in a pocket and opened the box and looked inside.

A celestial bronze multitool pocket knife stared back at her.

"At least it's not a pen."

Kali huffed a little laugh, and took the pocket knife out. After setting the box it came in with her other things, Kali began to try and figure out how to get out one of the blades. She soon found a long, skinny, circular 'blade' among one or two other flat ones, and as she turned towards Percy, she did her best to pull it out.

"I wonder why this one isn't– whoa!"

Percy jumped back with his own shout of surprise as it formed into something bigger.

Within seconds, instead of a multitool pocket knife, she held a trident.

It was taller than her and stood at five and a half feet at least. Three prongs, a carved shell design at the bottom of them with swirls that almost were like waves, were at the top. A thin line circled up the shaft like a candy cane, and a spearhead was at the bottom. A couple inches beneath the prongs was something similar to a cross guard on a sword. Ancient Greek letters were engraved across it on both sides. Just like Riptide, this weapon had a name as well.

Maelstrom.

————

A/N— i did NOT intend for it to be this long of a wait for this, but well, life had other plans lmao. let's just say i'm posting this in honor of the pjo show finally being on d+ (even tho i have yet to watch the 2 episodes that are out lol). anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter!! part 2 should begin...soon-ish. i've started it, but i'm probably going to re-start it because i'm not 100% happy with it, so don't expect an update until either january or february lol

thanks for reading!! xx