Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus series, it belongs to Rick Riordan. I'm merely using this for my own entertainment.

Warnings: Violence. Death.

Decaying Hyacinths

Prologue

(She doesn't remember anything, not her name, not her family, and certainly not her home and friends and every other things that might have happened in her life. But what she remembers is this: a reoccurring dream that fills her soul, both negatively and positively)

The hyacinths bent beneath her fingers.

Persephone Hyacinth Jackson—or simply known as Cynthia or Percy—was having that dream again. She always had that pleasant dream: of a blonde man who glowed like the sun, laughing as he twirled a metal ring, sitting among a field of hyacinths.

Then, the nightmare will always follow: the metal ring flew out of his hands, coming right at her and she knew he killed her.

And, all she could feel was the boiling anger and hatred.

She didn't know whose body she was in, but it was always from the same perspective; of her getting killed that cause her to shy away from any blonde-haired blue-eyed male.

Percy knew where the dream was going even before her dream-body stood, a smile playing on her lips—not knowing that it would be her last smile—as teasingly, challenged the man to beat her to getting the metal ring.

He laughed, said something her dream-self couldn't hear as the wild wind, like a mini hurricane, blew wildly.

All she knew was that, when she turned, the metal ring flew at her with a velocity capable of killing.

She took a step back, but it wasn't enough to outrun the ring's speed.

The last thing she saw was a face within the wind, something akin to triumph glinting in the eyes and then everything went black.

She screamed. She was sure she did, but then someone was calling her name, shaking her awake.

Her sea-green eyes snapped open, gazing into a pair of sea-blue eyes. She reached up to grasp her mother's arm, to make sure she wasn't about to die and released a sigh of relief when she realized that she was still alive.

Her mother, sweet, beautiful Sally Jackson, reached out to smooth out her hair.

"Bad dreams, sweetheart?"

Percy flinched slightly at the endearment; she was sure the man in her dreams had said the same thing and his promises of love were what terrified her, hurt her with his betrayal in the end.

Percy nodded, blinking when her mother reached out to wipe her cheeks, the mortal woman's fingers coming up wet. Sally looked sad when she gazed at her daughter. "Will you tell me about it?" It was always the same question, her mother always asked and she'd simply refused to answer.

Not that she was embarrassed or anything, just... she felt silly for taking things so seriously in the dream. Not that she could be blamed; she shuddered, the god of dreams was truly good at his job for creating such a lucid dream.

Her dreams were never so frequent, but ever since her cousin was saved last summer, she was dreaming every moment she was in Hypnos' domain. She didn't think it was Thalia's fault though nor did it had anything to do with the daughter of Zeus (who had problems about as serious as Percy's).

Percy hesitated, wondering whether or not she should tell her mother.

"There's this dream," she said slowly, and her mother tilted her head to the side, silently gesturing for her to continue. "that had started since, well, my involvement in that world started." Her mother hummed in thought. "It's always the same, sometimes, it's pleasant, ending with laughter. But, more often than not, the nightmares came: I died."

Her mother gasped. "How...?"

"That man killed me," Percy scowled. "one dream, he's promising to keep me safe, and then the next, he's flinging a deadly projectile at my face."

"Arrow? Bullet?" Her mother's face was pinched in concern.

"No..." Percy frowned, drawing in air. "It looks like a metal ring... we're playing a game I think, we have to throw the metal ring to a protruding stick, a pole... baton?" She shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure myself."

Sally tapped her cheek in thought. "Perhaps... quoits?"

The daughter of Poseidon wrinkled her nose in confusion. "Excuse me? Kill-aids? I thought there's only Band-aids."

"Hush, you," Sally smiled at her daughter's dry humor. "It's a game often played in the old times." A memory of a famous, tragic myth tugged at the back of her mind. She pushed away in lieu of comforting her daughter. "Perhaps it's time you made an offering to Lord Morpheus?"

Percy smiled slightly. Her mother was awesome; the woman always seemed to have a way to solver all her problems, chasing away all the young teen's problems.

"Sure!" She slid off her bed, clinging onto her mother's forearm like a child, as if she was six years old again but she didn't mind. "Do you think he'd like apples?"

Sally smiled sadly.

"Minor gods like him are always forgotten," she said, always the empathizing one. "Whatever offerings are given to him, I don't think he'd be picky as it's very rare he gets anything from us."

"Do you have a particular deity you often sacrifice to?" Her daughter asked curiously, opening the fridge and rummaging about for a fresh apple. "Dad?"

"No, guess."

Percy pinched the bridge of her nose in thought. "Uh... Zeus and Hades to not kill me within the year if possible?"

Sally laughed. "I give my offerings to Lady Hestia, dear."

"Why?" Percy wasn't being rude, but she wasn't sure she had ever heard of this Hestia. Sounds familiar. "And she's..."

"Your aunt," Sally said, silently reminding herself to lend her daughter her Mythology book. "She was once an Olympian before she stepped down for Lord Dionysus."

"Oh, I remember that now," Percy frowned. "Huh, I don't know her, but I'm sure she's way nicer than Mr. D."

Percy snuggled up by her mother's side, already dozing off when her cellphone blared loudly. She jerked awake, suddenly alert. It was sad but true, that even the slightest noise could have the daughter of Poseidon jerking awake due to unfortunate encounters with monsters and stuff.

"Who's that, Mom?"

Seeing as having a cellphone for a demigod was bad, Percy didn't have a phone to call her own, which was why she gave the guys at Camp her mother's number.

"It's Chiron," Sally said, sighing as she passed the phone to her daughter even though every motherly instinct in her told her to kill the call and prevent her daughter from going on another dangerous life-threatening quest.

Her daughter blinked, accepting the phone. "No, it's not Chiron," she mumbled to her mother. "It's Annabeth and Thalia." She went back to her call, nodding, giving a few grunts of affirmation but the daughter of Poseidon ended the call with a whine: "It's midnight for crying out loud!"

"What did they want?"

"Sorry to bother you, Mom, but can we drive to Camp, like, now?"

"Why?" Sally asked even as she stood to retrieve her keys. "Did something bad happened?"

It was a redundant question. Even her daughter knew it. "Mom, every time they called, something bad has happened. I dunno how badly will this go, but we have demigods to retrieve."

The daughter of Poseidon glanced at the row of hyacinths she had grown by the balcony, feeling strangely nostalgic when she saw them.

"I'll be back," she promised, thought to who, she didn't know.

(She doesn't remember anything, but she remembers her own words, her own promise to someone she can't recall and for something she can't even begin to comprehend.)

A.N: An Apollo/Fem!Percy story to replace the elimination of this pairing in DOT - which I'm revamping and I advise readers of Daughter of Time to check it out. n.n

REVIEW!