AN: I never made it clear just how tall Percy was so I'm picturing him between eight feet and eight and a half feet tall.
Dragons-bane
Chapter 6
-Percy-
-Olympus-
"So what exactly's going on here love?" Carlotta asked him as he pulled her to where he was sitting, their kids cuddling up with their grandpa who was more than happy to reciprocate "I pick the kids up from lessons with their tutors only to learn you were brought here."
"The Fates had one more prophecy they had intended for me to deal with," he sighs in exasperation "luckily the gods have agreed to a few demands in exchange for me cleaning up this mess. I assume you left Balgruff in charge while we were away?"
"Of course, Perseus," she leaned into his side "so what else have you done here?"
"Some of them questioned whether I had the skills necessary to fight in a war." Was his dry response as his beloved wife, the mother of his children and high queen of Skyrim, gave the must un-lady like derisive snort many had ever heard at his statement. "I agree, so I've begun telling them my story since Helgen." Realizing something he looked over "Speaking of father, I don't want my kids picking up certain words just yet. Think you could do a spell or something so they don't hear words they're too young to know?" Nodding in agreement Poseidon began muttering a simple spell over the kids.
Hearing a faint sound of thunder, he turned to see Zeus glaring and pointing at his own throat, "Oh right, forgot about you." Percy shrugged, not caring about Zeus' outrage at being brushed off "Let's see if you're going to behave yourself now. Zul Daal Tinvak. Now, if you keep mouthing off I'll do worse than just silence you for a bit." Zeus kept silent, for the moment at least, and kept to sending petulant glares along with his son.
"So Percy," Hermes began, rubbing away the palm print left on his cheek from Aphrodite "why don't you go back to your story, this is interesting." The god of thieves smiles as Hestia sat with him and Apollo and made the trio a big batch of popcorn, all of them looking like eager kids for story time.
Chuckling he nodded "Well after the mine we made our way out and towards Riverwood-"
-Story-
"There it is," Hadvar said with a smile as a wooden gate came into view in the distance "home."
"Quaint little place." Percy noted, looking at what was currently visible of the small village. Nelsi was sticking close to Ralof's side.
"It's a good place to grow up." Hadvar smiled as they reached the gate, a small child seeing them and running off towards the mill.
"Well, my sister will know we're here soon." Ralof sighed at the child's actions, "Be prepared for an interrogation."
"Two actually, my Uncle sees us." Hadvar groaned, the two warrior's families heading towards their group, expressions demanding answers.
"Hadvar!" a little girl exclaimed happily, running past the frowning adults to hug the Imperial soldier, "You're back!"
"Hey Dorthe." Hadvar smiled as well, ruffling her hair even as a small boy ran up to hug Ralof.
"Frodnar." Ralof grins "You been taking care of your mom for me? You know how hopeless she is without us around. Ow!" the previous Stormcloak grumbled and rubbed his head as a tankard fell to the ground.
"Ralof, explain…now." The woman demanded, eyes narrowed as the large group stood in the town gate.
"The Imperials managed to capture Ulfric and our battalion near Dark Water crossing." Ralof explained as the woman gasped, sucking in air through her teeth while Hadvar's family remained stoic. "We are loaded up and sent to Helgen for execution. Perseus here was captured by an Imperial captain as he hunted in the area and was thought to be a Stormcloak as well."
"Damn Imperial bastards." Ralof's sister sent a glare towards Hadvar at that piece of news.
"The captain who captured Perseus tried to order him executed despite his name not being on our list." Hadvar picked up the story, unphased by her glare "I spoke up in his defense and when she attacked me he intervened. The General ordered her stripped of rank and detained for it. Partway through the executions the city was attacked…by a Dragon."
"A…dragon?" the blacksmith, Alvor, looked stunned "That's insane. You aren't drunk, are ya boy?"
"There was a dragon." Percy spoke up, looking down at his new companions' families, "And Helgen was burnt to the ground. Ulfric took the chance to flee without bothering to try and protect the civilians from the attack." Gurdur's eyes widened as she looked to Ralof who nodded at his sister.
"It's true." Ralof scowled, "And I swear, I'll bury my axe in that bastard's skull first chance I get."
"But we have other problems." Hadvar looked at the villagers seriously "On the way back we found a bandit camp in Embershard Mine. We cleared it out but apparently he has more bandits in the area. I need to send Perseus to Whiterun to warn them about the dragons and get aide sent here. In the meantime, Ralof, Nelsi, and I are going to stay and protect the village from any bandit attacks."
"What do you need?" Alvor asked, the man showing complete faith in his nephew.
"The only weapon I have right now is this axe." Percy hefted the executioner's axe "And it isn't the best for actual combat. If you could get me some new weapons and armor that would help, I have some gold to help pay for it." He pulled out his portion of the gold they had gained escaping Helgen and going through Embershard.
"What type of equipment are you looking for?" Alvor took the gold and counted it, Hadvar, Ralof, and Nelsi offering to help pay as well despite his protests.
"Heavy armor." Percy sighed, recognizing his companions were too stubborn to back down "And either a greatsword or longsword made to fit my size."
"You are rather large." Hod, Ralof's brother in law, noted. The Nords were all large but looked exceptionally small next to his own massive frame.
"Or you're just short." The sarcasm he had inherited from his birth father showed up with spades.
"I'll get started." Alvor went over to the forge, "Hadvar, Ralof. You brats can make yourself useful and help me."
"Right!" the two friends rushed over to the blacksmith, falling into position with ease that showed it wasn't the first time they had helped at the forge.
"Nelsi right?" Sigrid smiled at the woman from Helgen, "Come with me, I'll take you to my home, so you can get changed and clean. While I'm there I'd like to know more about the woman Ralof used to talk so much about."
"He what?" Nelsi asked in surprised confusion as she was led off, Hod going back to the Mill and the children running off to play.
Shaking his head, Percy walked about the small village, seeing the sights and meeting the locals. "A dragon, I saw a dragon!" an old lady was insisting to her son, the man's attitude causing a scowl to Percy, remembering Hod mentioning something as he left about a man named Sten walking off during work again.
"Actually, there was a dragon." He spoke up, smirking at the man looked stunned at being told he was wrong, "My equipment is getting prepared by Alvor before I go warn the Jarl of Whiterun."
"Then you had best warn the Jarl as soon as you can." The man, Sten, nodded before frowning and attempting to look intimidating "But while you're here you'd best keep your hands and eyes to yourself around Camilla Valerius, she's mine and everyone but that idiot Faendal has accepted that." The man seemed to get an idea and quickly pulled out a piece of parchment and scribbled out a letter "Listen, I need you to give Camilla this letter and say it's from Faendal. That should keep that damn elf away from her." Pushing the letter into his hand before he could protest, Sten ushered his mother into their house.
Frowning, Percy opened the letter and read its contents, his frown becoming a disgusted scowl at the worm's attempt at manipulation. Heading to the mill, he found Faendal, the elf in question, and told him what Sten had attempted. "That bastard." The elf scowled before getting a wicked gleam, "Well let's see how Sten likes losing at his own game." Writing out a letter, Sten handed it over and "Give it to Camilla and tell her it's from Sten." The elf gave a cackle "That'll show him." The elf quickly rushed off to go back to work as Percy's eyebrow twitched, seeing a very similar letter to Sten's.
"That's it." He grit his teeth, heading over to the golden claw trading shop and the woman in question.
"Hello," he called out as he entered, seeing what looked like the tail end of an argument, "I'm looking for Camilla Valerius."
"Um, that's me." The confused woman nodded, "And you are?"
"My name is Perseus." He told her, bringing out the letters, "Two of your fellow villagers asked me to give you these. Sten asked me to give you this letter and say it's from Faendal and Faendal, after I told him about it, asked met to give you this one saying it's from Sten."
"They what?" she asked confused before reading them and looking outraged, "Those bastards!"
"What?" her brother took the letters and read them as well before growling.
"I figured you might appreciate knowing the truth." He told her, as she nodded, "I might be back to buy some supplies once my equipment is ready, assuming I have any gold left."
"Thank you stranger." The store owner nodded, the siblings resuming their argument as he left.
-Olympus-
"Disgraceful." Hera scowled at the mention of what Sten and Faendal had both tried to do, "Simply disgraceful."
"Yeah, and even after Camilla got married, they continued trying to woo her." Percy frowned and sent a glare at Aphrodite, "Sound familiar to anyone?"
"At least there's one man who's willing to honor wedding vows and respect the sanctity of marriage." Hera nodded to him, glaring at Zeus who sniffed haughtily and looked away.
"Well those two weren't the worse I met in my journey." Percy scowled as he remembered the irritant that had constantly pestered his wife, "Not even close to the worse."