caughtinanetwork | Quest ♆ oo1 [video]

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Quest ♆ oo1 [video]

[Percy looks tired. He's in his pajamas and drinking milk at the counter in his kitchen.]

Hey, people of Vatheon. I figure it's about time I introduced myself on here. So far I've met some really cool people, and it's helping me get my bearings in this strange new place.

[He takes a swig of the milk, then wipes away a milk mustache with his sleeve. So classy.]

So anyway. I'm Percy Jackson. Been here a couple weeks now.

[His smile fades.]

I haven't been sleeping well. Anyone have any tips?

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Sometimes, the obvious needs stating.

[Leo looks impressed.]

Baking, huh? And what in Hades is strifing?

[His head tips partway to the side.]

I'm not baking for you, if that's where you're going with this.

It's fighting. Sparring, smacking weapons together, whatever, generally nonlethal and most often it's just practicing on my own to keep my skills sharp.

[He throws his head back and laughs.]

No, dude. Not asking you to bake for me. I can cook for myself. But baking, huh? Never would have pegged you for that.

Cool. Been trying to do more of that myself. Didn't get much time to back home because I was busy building a spankin' hot war machine for a prophecy. 6 months is a short deadline for building a flying warship.

Some dude taught me and another taught me more, and it's relaxing, okay?

[Also he has a sweet tooth. He frowns a bit.]

So you're a mechanic sort, good for you. What's your weapon?

I'm not knocking it.

[Adorable.]

Yeah, that would be me. Right now, a 3 lb club hammer. Need to find a forge so I can make something awesome.

[Karkat eyes him a moment longer, skeptical, but lets it go.]

Try asking around and you might be able to find one. Alternately I have a friend who uses hammerkind and could probably help you alchemize something good.

Thanks, dude. I'll ask around. I appreciate the offer on the alchemy thing, but forging your own weapon is sort of a rite of passage type thing for kids of Hephaestus.

It would be making your own, in a different way, but if you want the hands on method then do what you want. I take it Hephaestus is the "god" that claims you?

Hands on is the best method.

Yeah, Hephaestus is my father. God of forges, fire, technology, craftsmen, sculptors, volcanoes, and blacksmiths.

... You know what. Setting aside the belief debate because Percy can tell you my thoughts on that just fine, I will never understand why gods have such weird focuses. Why volcanoes? Why technology? Why do you even need a god for those things? And that's not even the weirdest I've heard of.

You're asking me like I know all of this. I wasn't around thousands of years ago when they came into being. I guess it's just what interests them.

My dad likes inventing and creating things and then forges, fire and volcanoes kinda go hand in hand with that. Volcanoes are like natural forges.

Yeah, I know. What's the weirdest you've heard of?

It's still bizarre. Why do they even come into existence? Not that I expect you to tell me, so consider it musing aloud for lack of a better person to voice it to.

The weirdest for me had to be what seemed like a god of walls. And that's one I've actually seen and believe in. Just this fucking cat who climbs up them and taught me how, and then I was a god and then I wasn't, long story.

Because they were born.

[Leo raises his eyebrow] Okay, that is weird... I don't know if there's a god of walls where I'm from, but then I don't know all of the gods and goddesses... So there could be.

Born from what, though? How the hell do gods even work?

It wasn't from my world, so go figure what the story was there. The only person I could ask isn't here anymore.

One day the earth met the sky and they were like 'Yo, I like you," and then they had kids. And those were Titans. And then the Titans had kids and those were gods and goddesses. And there were a bunch of trickery, wars and killing parents and stuff. It's a long story. I won't go into it.

The gods can have kids with other gods to make more gods. Or the gods have children with mortals and that makes demigods like Percy, Annabeth and me. And sometimes demigods get turned into gods. And it's usually those ones that have the weirdest things attributed to them.

The earth and the sky? The earth and the fucking sky? Are you kidding me?

Nope. Not kidding you.

We were actually on a quest to stop Gaea - the earth - from rising up and taking over the world before we wound up here.

She's pure evil. [He really hates her.]

The--earth.

[Karkat quietly sinks his face into his hands.]

I give up. I do not understand gods, I am never going to understand gods, and the few I actually like do not actually do anything to help this. I don't know why I bothered; I already gave up on existence making sense a while back, so what's new here? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. My sponge is just going to shrivel in on itself until it crumbles away into dust, and the empty air blowing through my hear ducts will brush it away with the wind.

Sorry, dude, didn't mean to break your think pan with that. [He's pretty sure he remembered that term properly.]

[Good job, Leo, you did it.]

Odds are I would have asked you or Percy about it sooner or later, and so this was inevitable as the rise and set of the sun. But they're parts of space! Not even neatly defined ones! How do they have children together?

They have kids by touching. There's a Titan called Atlas that stands on top of a mountain and holds up the sky so they don't touch.

[Karkat's hands drop away. His eyelid is twitching now.]

But that doesn't even make sense! They're not--physics doesn't work that way. They're gas and solid matter, dirt and rock and shit versus the air that makes up the atmosphere, not things that can be held. They touch all the time!

[Leo puts his hands up like "not my fault, bro."]

I didn't say it made sense. {He pauses to think a moment.] I guess the sky and air are two different things. Air is just air, but the sky is a thing that can be held.

No. It's not a thing that can be held! There is absolutely zero way I refuse to accept that such a thing is actually possible, because it isn't, and it never will be! My brain will explode in a fountain of bloody gore before you make me believe it.

I'm not going to make you believe it. You do or you don't, man. [He shrugs.] I'm just tellin' it like it is.

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