Pership Chapter 1: Hestia

I was sitting by the campfire feeling hopeless and broken. Why, you may ask. Well, let's just say it's not a nice thought. Actually, its not a nice memory and I would do better than delving into it.

I stared into the fire when a warm tender hand slipped into me, comforting me and I felt waves of hope and feeling of home enter me. I grinned as I looked at my favourite goddess, Hestia.

Out of all the goddesses, she is my most favourite one. Apart from being pretty, she gives hope when everything feels lost, like in my case. I gave her a warm smile and said, "Hey Lady Hestia."

She smiled back sending more waves of hope to me and said, "Hello Perseus."

I frowned and said back, with mock sterness (not that she will ever know… hopefully), "Its Percy, milady. Percy. P-E-R-C-Y."

She looked at me sheepishly before countering, "And its Hestia. Not Lady Hestia. Hestia."

I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly and said, "Very well then La… I mean, Hestia."

She smiled at me and said, "So Percy, why do I feel you losing your hope vanishing?"

My smile wavered before I plastered it back but apparently, she caught it as her smile vanished, replaced with a frown and concern.

She held my hand slightly tighter, which brought a blush to my face, but I didn't mind it, to be honest.

She asked, "Percy? What's wrong?"

I shook my head and said, "Nothing Hestia, absolutely nothing."

She glared at me and said, "you were always a bad liar, Percy. Now are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to resort to the use of force?"

I was shocked partially that she would use but also because she cared enough to use force.

I gave her a weak smile and said, "I'd rather not Hestia. Forgive me."

She glared harshly and what she said next broke my heart, "Fine, I thought you trusted me, but I can see that it's not the case."

With that she turned away, glaring at the fire. What was surprising was that, I could swear I saw tear droplets in the corner of her eyes.

I sputtered, "w-wh-what? O-of c-c-cou-course I-I t-tr-tru-trust y-you."

I gave her hand, which she hadn't retracted, a squeeze and, making sure I had her undivided attention, said, "But the memory is something, I wish not to relive or share. So please, for my sake, try not to search for it."

Her glare softened but the fire in her eyes enlarged. Before I knew it, she hugged me. Of course, she had hugged me before, but the unexpected change was… well, unexpected. After a few seconds, I hugged her back.

We probably stayed that way for a long time because soon the silence turned awkward and I pulled back noticing Hestia's cheeks, tinged red and from the feeling of blood and heat (the heat could be the result of being right next to Hestia, you never know), I could tell mine weren't that different.

I looked at the sky and noticed it was pretty dark and before I could open my mouth to ask, Hestia interrupted me and said, "10:48 pm."

I nodded at her response to my unasked question, not at all freaked about how she knew about what I was thinking as, truthfully, I have seen waaaaaay weirder things.

I yawned and rubbed my eyes and turned to Hestia and said, "I should probably go to sleep now Lady Hestia. It was pretty fun talking to you. I hope we talk again soon."

She simply waved goodnight at me before flashing out to wherever she had to go. I reached my cabin and lay on my bed, instantly falling into a dreamless sleep.

*Time Skip*

I was wandering through the forest, just getting my thoughts together. Yesterday, I talked with Hestia and now I feel a lot of hope course through me. Well its Atleast more than what I had yesterday.

I looked at the watch, which I was wearing today, and saw it was 3 pm. I stopped and then retraced my steps back to the camp.

Because I had survived 2 wars, almost all the monsters knew about me and fled when they saw me. It grew quite boring because this just meant that I would be free.

I bumped into someone and rubbed my forehead looking at who I hit and noticed Hestia on the ground, rubbing her butt and had a pained expression.

I quickly bent and helped her up and kept saying, "Oh my god, I am so sorry Hestia. I didn't know you were here right now. I wasn't looking around. Are you ok? Do you want me to get the Apollo cabin to heal you? Can you walk? I am so sorry. Are you hurt?"

I realised I was rambling and stopped and saw Hestia standing with a hand on her hip, looking at me with amusement in her pretty and intense eyes. WAIT WHAT? Did I just say pretty and intense? What the hell is wrong with me?

I broke out of my thoughts when I felt a strange feeling of being burnt on my arm.

I looked and saw my left hand on fire. I stared at it in shock before the pain registered and I let out a very un-manlike yelp and fell on the ground. I patted the flame and glared at Hestia who was looking at me in innocence.

I rolled my eyes and said, "Hey Lady Hestia." This earned me a slap on the back of my head. I rubbed it and exclaimed, "OW"

This time Hestia rolled her eyes and said, "It wasn't even hard. Also, Perseus, shouldn't you be having lunch right now?"

I shook my head and said, "Nah. Not really hungry."

She nodded and I noticed her eyes take in my body and I noticed a blush form on her cheeks and a fire, same as last night, ignite in her eyes. I turned away before she could know that I noticed her checking me out, but I made a mental note to tease her about it later.

I looked around and noticed all the campers coming out of dining pavilion. I sighed as I noticed all the couples, hand in hand or kissing. I wanted something like that. But I can never have it. My past tells me that.

Unfortunately, Hestia heard my sigh and said, "Perce? Is something wrong?"

I nodded, not really noticing the nickname she just called me by. "I want something just like them. I want someone to turn to if I have any problems. I want someone to hug and kiss. Someone who understands me."

She nodded at my statement and said, "You know, I never really wanted to be a maiden. Well, not initially."

I raised my eyebrows in question. She sighed and said, "I wanted to find love. But I never found anyone. Sure, there were some suitors Zeus selected, mainly his children. When he noticed that I would never marry my nephews, he thought that I might like him, and he tried to make a move. Of course, before he could, Poseidon asked my hand in marriage. The same time, Apollo had come to ask my hand in marriage too. They both began fighting and Zeus, finally noticing that they would fight forever over me, decided to have me make an oath to never get married and be a virgin like his daughter, Artemis."

She sighed and I placed my hand on top of her hand, providing her silent reassurance. She gave me a smile of gratitude and said, "I was against it but then the next day, there was a party. I attended and, in my sadness for having no person to love, drank too much and ended up sleeping on the ground, outside Olympus. You know what happened after that."

I nodded and asked, "So, you never swore an oath."

She gave another sigh and said, "When Zeus told me what happened, I decided that I had to take the oath and I did. But I made a slight change where I can break it if I wish to. Of course, Zeus didn't realise it and the mythology wrote me as having swore the same oath as Artemis."

I was confused now, "so you never found anyone?"

She shook her head sadly and said, "I only found one person I loved, but it is hopeless to chase after him."

I felt slightly heartbroken that she loved someone, but I said, "Don't say that Hestia. You are the goddess of hope. You can't lose hope in the person you…" I hesitated, but continued, "…love."

She looked at me with an unreadable face and the fire in her eyes grew. She said, "Very well. I'll tell him."

I nodded but, on the inside, I was hurting for some reason.

*line break*

It happened several times. We talked every day, till I spent all my time by the campfire, chatting with her. We talked about stuff about her life and mine. Slowly and unknowingly, my feelings for her grew till I figured them out as love. But I realised it was a hopeless cause because she loved someone else.

Though the thing that confused me was that, I would always notice fire in her eyes when she talked with me. It was like a feeling she was trying share but wasn't able to.

Right now, we were sitting by the campfire… again. I looked at her and realised she was in her 19-year-old form, which was quite common nowadays.

We were just talking about how she should confess her love to HIM. To my frustration, she never told me his name or identity. All she said was that he was very loyal and handsome and modest as hell.

I had zoned out in the middle of what she was saying before a wave of hand in front of my eyes woke me up, figuratively. I looked at her glaring at me and eating… was that popcorn?

I rose my brows at her in question and she blushed and said, "I got bored waiting for you to wake up from your beauty sleep."

I rolled my eyes at her and snuck my tongue out at her playfully. She lit her finger on fire and shot it at my unsuspecting tongue which would have burnt it had I not been expecting it.

All of a sudden, the campfire went down. Another thing I noticed was that the campfire changed according to Hestia's mood. Like now.

According to what I could tell right now, she was either sad or nervous, or both. I looked at her trying to figure out what happened and asked, "Hes what's wrong?"

Another thing was that I started calling her Hes playfully and it used to calm everytime, just like now.

She calmed down and turned to me and said, "Perce, I… uh… I had to… uh… tell y-you s-some-thing."

Just like that day, I held her hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze. She sighed and said, "I… uh… I love you."

Everything stopped. Stilled. No breaths were taken. No movements.

I looked her in the eyes searching for lies or deceit. Spotting nothing but love and uneasiness, I decided to ease her down. I caressed my palm across her cheek and said, "Hes, I love you too."

She finally calmed down and leaned into my palm. I smirked and leaned till we were breathing each other's breaths. I took it one more, brushing my lips across hers. She gasped and then went one more step till the brush wasn't a brush of lips anymore.

Now we were full on making out. I pulled back to breathe and looked at her, love shining through my eyes.

She looked back with the same expression and chuckled, "So I finally told you how I felt about you, huh?"

I let out a few chuckles as well and said, "Yeah, yeah you did. Can't believe it. So, I was the guy you talked about every time?"

"Yeah" she snorted, "I can't believe you were that dense though."

I rubbed the back of my neck embarrassedly, "Well, you should have been more specific." She rolled her eyes at me and gave me a peck flashing out.

I sighed and went back to my cabin to get some well-deserved sleep.

Tomorrow's going to be interesting

Next on Pership: Pera

"I can't believe you would do that Annabeth" Percy screamed as he saw Annabeth screaming in pleasure with…

A/N: And done. There you have Perstia. If you don't like it and want some changes, specify and when I am done with the series, I will edit it. Also, next is Pera and after that is probably going to be Perodite. No Perlypso as she isn't exactly considered a goddess, but I might think about it later if I get some requests for it.

Following is the template you can type it as:

Name of series (fixed, do not change): Pership

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-TidalMoon2003