The engine's humming grew louder.

As they got closer to the monsters, the sound of Charybdis got louder and louder. It was a horrible wet roar, one Percy quietly referred to as the galaxy's biggest toilet being flushed. Every time Charybdis inhaled, the ship shuddered and lurched forward. Every time she exhaled, the ship rose in the water and was buffeted by ten-foot waves.

Undead sailors calmly went about their business on the spar deck. Aurora guessed they'd fought a losing cause before, so this didn't bother them. Or maybe they didn't care about getting destroyed because they were already deceased. Neither thought made her feel any better, but it did make her sort of want to be one of them, because whatever the outcome was wouldn't matter.

Annabeth stood next to Aurora and Percy, gripping the rail. "You still have your thermos full of wind, Seaweed Brain?"

Percy nodded. "But it's too dangerous to use with a whirlpool like that. More wind might just make things worse."

"What about controlling the sea?" Aurora pondered. "Use your water powers. Be magical, Mr. Son of Poseidon." She considered telling Percy about her encounter with his father, her mocking grin tightening as she spat out his name through gritted teeth, but given the fact that both Percy and Annabeth were begging for things to make fun of her for, she didn't want to give them ammunition, or for them to think she was weak for succumbing to the god so easily. She couldn't pick a fight with every god.

Percy shut his eyes, and Aurora watched him with tentative worry. Had she put too much pressure on him? She hoped not.

After a second, Percy's sea green eyes fluttered open. "I... I can't," he admitted miserably.

"Well, that's okay!" Aurora cleared her throat, feeling as though some of his dejection was her fault for instilling hope in the plan, futilely—and stupidly—attempting to cheer him up. "At least your eyes look pretty."

"T-thanks?" Percy stared at her with surprise and alarm, the compliment unexpected and causing clear confusion in his head. The syllables of his singular word in response tripped over each other, causing him to fall to a stuttering stop.

"Okay, backup plan time." Aurora concluded, taking charge after a sudden surge of confidence. "'Cause whatever this is isn't gonna work. I love Clarisse, but we're gonna die."

"Rory is right," Tyson said. "Engine's no good."

"What do you mean?" Annabeth asked.

"Pressure. Pistons need fixing."

Before he could explain, the cosmic toilet flushed with a mighty roar. The ship lurched forward and they were thrown to the deck. Aurora gasped as her body hit the cold water. She was in the whirlpool.

"Full reverse!" Clarisse screamed above the noise. The sea churned around them, waves crashing over the deck. The iron plating was now so hot it steamed. "Get us within firing range! Make ready starboard cannons!"

Dead Confederates rushed back and forth. The propeller grinded into reverse, trying to slow the ship, but they kept sliding toward the center of the vortex.

A zombie sailor burst out of the hold and ran to Clarisse. His gray uniform was smoking and his beard was on fire. "Boiler room overheating, ma'am! She's going to blow!"

"That's what she said," Percy muttered quietly. Aurora's head shot towards him as she tried to stay afloat, a wry smirk on her lips as his eyebrows raised in surprise that she could hear him.

"Well, get down there and fix it!" Clarisse demanded.

"Can't!" the sailor yelled. "We're vaporizing in the heat."

Clarisse pounded the side of the casemate. "All I need is a few more minutes! Just enough to get in range!"

"We're going in too fast," the captain said grimly. "Prepare yourself for death."

"No!" Tyson bellowed. "I can fix it."

Clarisse looked at him incredulously. "You?"

"He's a Cyclops," Annabeth said. "He's immune to fire. And he knows mechanics."

"Go!" yelled Clarisse.

"Wait!" Aurora shouted, her eyes widening. "He can't!"

"Tyson, no!" Percy grabbed his arm. "It's too dangerous!"

He patted Percy's hand with a kind smile. "Only way, brother." His expression was determined—confident, even. Aurora had never seen him look like this before. "I will fix it. Be right back."

Aurora wanted to stop him. He was such a sweet soul, and she wanted to trade places with him. She would have in a heartbeat—seriously, she was considering following him—the ship lurched again and she saw Charybdis.

The monster appeared only a few hundred yards away, through a swirl of mist and smoke and water. The first noticeable thing to Aurora was the reef—a black crag of coral with a fig tree clinging to the top, an oddly peaceful thing in the middle of a maelstrom. All around it, water curved into a funnel, like light around a black hole.

Then, she saw the horrible creature anchored to the reef just below the waterline—an enormous mouth with slimy lips and mossy teeth the size of rowboats. And worse, the teeth had braces, bands of corroded scummy metal with pieces of fish and driftwood and floating garbage stuck between them.

Charybdis was an orthodontist's nightmare.

Aurora turned away in horror. She was absolutely disgusted. The entire sea around her was sucked into the void—sharks, schools of fish, a giant squid. And the CSS Birmingham would be next.

"Lady Clarisse," the captain shouted. "Starboard and forward guns are in range!"

"Fire!" Clarisse ordered.

Three rounds were blasted into the monster's maw. One blew off the edge of an incisor. Another disappeared into her gullet. The third hit one of Charybdis's retaining bands and shot back at them, snapping the Ares flag off its pole.

(Aurora had to admit, that wasn't a huge loss. In fact, she appreciated the action, and she cursed the war god triumphantly on his own ship.)

"Again!" Clarisse ordered. The gunners reloaded, but Aurora knew it was hopeless. Everyone knew. They would have to hit the monster a hundred more times to do any real damage, and they didn't have that long. They didn't even have fifteen more minutes. They were being sucked in too fast by the void.

All of a sudden, the vibrations in the deck changed. The hum of the engine got stronger and steadier. The ship shuddered, and they suddenly started pulling away from the mouth.

"Oh my gods," Aurora exclaimed. "Tyson did it!"

"Wait!" Clarisse said. "We need to stay close!"

"We'll die!" Percy argued. "We have to move away."

Aurora gripped the rail as the ship fought against the suction. The broken Ares flag raced past them and lodged in Charybdis's braces. They weren't making much progress, but at least they were holding their own. Tyson had somehow given them just enough fuel to keep the ship from being sucked in.

Suddenly, the mouth snapped shut. The sea died to absolute calm. Water washed over Charybdis.

Then, just as quickly as it had closed, the mouth exploded open, spitting out a wall of water, ejecting everything inedible, including their cannonballs, one of which slammed into the side of the CSS Birmingham with a ding like the bell on a carnival game.

They were thrown backward on a wave that must've been forty feet high. Another smoldering sailor burst out of the hold. He stumbled into Clarisse, almost knocking them both overboard. "The engine is about to blow!"

"Where's Tyson?" Percy demanded, his frown deepening. Aurora made her way over to him, his grip tightening on the rail with fear.

"Still down there," the sailor informed them. "Holding it together somehow, though I don't know for how much longer."

The captain shouted, "We have to abandon ship."

"No!" Clarisse yelled.

"Not with Tyson still here," Aurora added, her voice grave and determined.

"We have no choice, m'lady. The hull is already cracking apart! She can't—"

He never finished his sentence. Quick as lightning, something brown and green shot from the sky, snatched up the captain, and lifted him away. All that was left were his leather boots.

Aurora had to admit, the timing was comedic. But Annabeth would've brutally maimed her if she laughed.

"Scylla!" a sailor yelled, as another column of reptilian flesh shot from the cliffs and snapped him up. It happened so fast it was like watching a laser beam rather than a monster. Aurora couldn't even make out the thing's face, just a flash of teeth and scales.

Aurora pulled out Oleander in the form of a bow, slinging her quiver over her shoulder and releasing a dozen arrows toward the monster.

"Everyone get below!" Percy yelled.

"We can't!" Clarisse drew her own sword. "Below deck is in flames."

"Lifeboats!" Annabeth said. "Quick!"

"They'll never get clear of the cliffs," Clarisse said. "We'll all be eaten."

"We have to try. Percy, the thermos."

"We can't leave Tyson!" Aurora responded for Percy, locking eyes with the son of the sea god.

"We have to get the boats ready!" Annabeth argued.

Clarisse took Annabeth's command. She and a few of her undead sailors uncovered one of the two emergency rowboats while Scylla's heads rained from the sky like a meteor shower with teeth, picking off Confederate sailors one after another.

"Get the other boat." Percy threw Annabeth and Aurora the thermos, the daughter of Athena catching it with disbelief. "I'll get Tyson."

"You can't!" Annabeth fought. "The heat will kill you!"

Percy clearly didn't listen, and Aurora let out a huff of annoyance.

"He knows I'm going after him, doesn't he?" Aurora asked Annabeth, and she bolted after him before the blonde girl could protest any further.

"Perseus fucking Jackson! What do you think you're doing?" Aurora shouted as she followed Percy, who was running for the boiler room hatch.

Percy's footsteps skidded to a halt, and he turned around with his eyes wide with terror. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Tyson is my favorite person on this planet, dipshit, and you really thought I was going to let you go in there alone?" Aurora shouted back, and she grabbed the still boy's elbow. "Come on—"

However, she didn't have much time to talk, because all of a sudden, Percy's feet weren't on the deck anymore, and Aurora was clinging to his elbow with all her might, so that she didn't fly off with him.

"Let go, Flower Face!" Percy tried to pry free of her grip as he flew straight up, Scylla catching him by the knapsack.

"Are you insane? Do you want to die?" Aurora snapped back, her voice hoarse from all the yelling. She pulled on his arm harder, as if she and Scylla were playing tug-of-war over Percy.

"Well, I don't really care, but I don't want you to die!" Percy shot back.

Per usual, Aurora ignored him. With her free arm, she angled her bow in between her shoulder and her hand, so that the front of the bow rested against it. She pulled the string of the bow as far back as possible, releasing the arrow just as Percy was snatched higher.

Thank the gods for Artemis, because the arrow managed to stab itself right in Scylla's beady yellow eye. She grunted and dropped Percy miraculously.

"It's going to explode," Percy warned—using his nautical senses, of course—and he grabbed Aurora's arm. They began running faster than they had ever in their entire lives (Percy wasn't a runner, and his attempt at sprinting was almost comical) and they leapt onto the lifeboat Annabeth was holding out for them.

Aurora gasped, trying to smother her trepidation. "Oh no. Our octopod!" She wailed, but she couldn't help feel the dread. Oh gods, she thought desperately, come on Tyson. Come on, Tyson!

As soon as they jumped in, the engine room blew, sending chunks of ironclad flying in either direction like a fiery set of wings.

"Tyson!" Percy yelled. His voice was guttural and shocked, and Aurora had never seen him look so terrified in the entire time they'd known each other.

Aurora felt her insides rip apart, and she bit her lip hard so as to not show any emotion. "Oh my gods," she whispered to herself, her hand shaking involuntarily as she tried to turn Oleander back into a ring. "Oh my gods."

Then, Aurora heard a different kind of explosion—the sound of Hermes' magic thermos being opened a little too far. White sheets of wind blasted in every direction, scattering the lifeboats. However, since their lifeboat was far too close to the exploded ship, the wind skidded them out and up, giving them height in the air before propelling them across the ocean.

As they were in flight, Aurora felt the boat knock into something hard, the wood shattering in half. She felt her body float, without anything securing her back to land, except for the warm flesh of someone else's hand wrapped around her own, which was still shaking.

The last thing Aurora remembered was sinking in a burning sea, knowing that Tyson was gone forever, and knowing she was able to drown. And for some reason, Aurora was not afraid.

Because she deserved it.

ೀ⋆｡🌷 the mother of perora speaks ...

word count: 5315

date published: july 12, 2024

thoughts: THIS WAS A LONG ASS CHAPTER. I'M SO SORRY. PLS FORGIVE ME. IT WAS ALSO SUPER BORING BUT I FILLED IT WITH A BUNCH OF PERORA MOMENTS SO HOPEFULLY IT MADE UP FOR IT. but it's a bunch of gross fighting scenes ewwwwww. anyway i've concluded that perora is fast burn feelings (kinda) and super slow burn emotions, because this is a slow burn. i love you all so so so much and shoutout to my best friend keke because it was her birthday on wednesday!! so much love for everyone 💋💋💋