Lenore's Musings

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As a rule of thumb, Tristan often tried to ignore the strange things that happened around both him and his daughter. As well as the friend group of fellow transmigrators who ended up with demigod children through no fault of their own. It’s not easy sometimes, what with his daughter attracting strange people that seem to want to just take her from her cradle like a demented baby-stealing witch from those old creepy fairytales.

And then there were the doves. The damn doves that are always outside his lawn or in his trees or perched outside the windows of his house. Piper likes them, at least. His sweet, precious little girl would coo enthusiastically at the birds, making little grabby gestures at the, admittedly, pretty white birds. 

But Tristan managed to do it.

Somehow.

He will admit, it takes a good few pills of denial and swimming in a river in Egypt to deal with all of the strange stuff (aka, The Plot [tm]) going on around him. And his group of weird friends don’t really help in minimizing the supernatural stuff from going on.

Frederick got baby-trapped for a second time by the owl lady, this time with twins. 

Priyanka had two stalkers after her, the milkman and his schizophrenic murderous Roman alter ego. 

Beryl has the horniest god to ever exist, the most evil stepmother to ever be an evil stepmother, and the horny not-as-crazy-with-the-vibes schizophrenic alter ego all after her. 

Ash lived in blissful ignorance in knowing if the animals that he interacted with were actually sent by his godly stalker. 

And Violet’s baby daddy is actually in her twin’s lives, even if it’s a bit limited.

Sometimes he’s thankful that Aphrodite stays mostly away, bird stalking aside. It’s hard to ignore The Plot if the love goddess is right there, reminding Tristan of the dangerous world that his little girl will have to enter eventually.

But she’s only a child, Tristan thinks. That’s still so far away, it’ll be years before Piper has to go to Camp Half-Blood.

Still, it gives him anxiety to think of his daughter going on dangerous monster slaying quests. His daughter with her little hands, warm touch, baby smell, and happy laughs. His daughter with her sweet smiles and changing eye color.

At least she is not a prophecy child the same way that Sally’s boy and Beryl’s girl are. His daughter is a child of a love goddess, one among several. A daughter of Aphrodite among many similar little girls.

His daughter is not burdened with being the child of a super powerful deity with a prophecy looming over her. 

She’s just Piper. A demigod, yes. But not one whose birth was foretold in a great prophecy.

So feeling reassured about his daughter’s future, Tristan happily opens her bedroom door to wake her up from her afternoon nap for dinner. He had made broccoli and cheese soup for the two of them, and hopefully he wouldn’t get a call from his agent trying to convince him to take a certain acting role. 

“Piper sweetie, I made some soup,” Tristan begins as he opens the door. “And I put no chicken or animal meat in it, just like how you like it—”

Tristan freezes when he sees a woman dressed in what looks to be a Greek dress, those seen on half-broken statues, holding his daughter in her arms. She’s cooing, making little bird noises that has Tristan thinking about the doves that Aphrodite sends.

And she’s crying.

She’s crying.

This strange woman, with a changing appearance that settles into that of beautiful Cherokee woman the more Tristan looks at her, is crying as she holds his daughter.

(Distantly, he’s reminded of the beautiful woman that he met during a Saint Valentine’s Day parade that he had gone to with his friends from community college. She had been lovely, and she had loved roses. Tristan had fallen in love and she had loved him back. A few months later and there’s a beautiful baby girl crying and the woman that he loved is leaving him with a broken heart on the worn wooden doorsteps of his childhood home.)

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Tristan’s heart is going to explode. And who is going to take care of his little girl if that happens and when he’s gone? He doesn’t trust anyone he knows in Hollywood to do that. And his friends are too occupied with their own demigod children and godly stalkers.

Piper only has him.

So with a heavy, anxious feeling Tristan demands, “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”

The woman stops and Tristan feels like dying from the anxiety. “Get away from my daughter away, I don’t know who you are,” 

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. 

Tristan is going to die and get killed just because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But what is a father worth if he can’t protect his own child? Tristan thinks as he swallows back bile. What’s a father worth if he can’t even fight for his child? 

The woman stared at him, her eyes too intense. Tristan squirms under her gaze, but he doesn’t back down. He steps forward and keeps his gaze on the woman. “Will answer my questions?” He demands. “Who are you, what are you doing here, and why are you holding my daughter?” 

Eventually the woman finally speaks, “You are the child’s father?” Her voice is low and gentle, but it still echoes in the room.

“Yes,” Tristan answers evenly. “I’m the child’s father, and that is why I demand to know who you are and why you’re holding my daughter,”

The woman simply hums, soft and low. “I am the child’s mother,” she says. Tristan’s heart practically stops. What? 

“No, that can’t be right,” Tristan murmurs. “That can’t be right, my daughter’s mother left her with me on my father’s doorstep and left,” 

The woman’s eyes narrow, they shift from a beautiful black color to a furious hot pink shade. Tristan almost backs away from her on pure instinct.

But Piper makes a little noise, it’s nothing more than the sleeping whines of a child. But it’s enough for Tristan to ignore how every cell in his body is screaming at him to get the hell away from the strange woman.

“I see,” the woman says, her voice is dangerously calm. Tristan is reminded of the agents who looked at him (Cherokee, motherless, from a reservation, hair longer than any of the boys in class, on a scholarship and with financial aid) and expressed disappointment in him yet again turning down a Native American role in a movie.

It’s not a pleasant feeling.

“My daughter,” he says, voice shaking. “Give me back my daughter, I don’t know you and I don’t want you anywhere near her,”

“I’m afraid that I can’t do that,” the woman replies. Her voice shifts, and Tristan can hear several others voices speaking her words. 

“And why— why not?” Tristan tries to ignore how his voice breaks.

The woman smiles, and Tristan’s mind becomes blank. “Because I am her mother,” She sings, her smoke growing. Her teeth are pearly white, too white. Inhumanly white. “And since you are her father, that means that you must come with me,”

Her smile is sharp. Too sharp.

Tristan frowns. That…that doesn’t seem—

“Come with me,” the woman tells him. 

“Come with you…?” He whispers.

“Yes,” The woman (Aphrodite) replies sweetly. “Come with me,” She holds up one of her hands and offers it to him. “Take my hand Tristan, take it. We will be happy together, the three of us. So take my hand,”

Tristan raises one hand and hesitantly gives it to her. She smiles triumphantly, her teeth turning sharp. “Good,” she coos. “Very good Tristan. Now, let’s go home,”

Woah I love love love this! Tristan is so, so good, and doing his best, and the details you've added about his backstory are beautiful! Of course Love is the first to win over this foreign world. Charmspeak is just too OP.

Hi! I forgot if I explicitly mentioned it, but for my fics the Greek gods ≠ Roman gods. Thus, the Romans' mentality for having children is quite different. While of course they chase after pretty nymphs, etc., they usually have children in order to benefit Rome as a whole, e.g. Venus fathering Aeneas so he could help found Rome later. So they're really into virtuous, hardworking people who embody key traits necessary for statecraft.

Enter Beryl Grace. Transmigrator!Beryl is very different from Canon!Beryl for two main reasons.

Rather than relying on her beauty as a Hollywood starlet, she defines herself by her social work, including her foundations to support working women and single parents. Anna May suggested this to try and prevent Sally Jackson from getting with Gabe. Beryl didn't want someone to suffer if she could help it, plus she wanted to do something good for the world instead of just being another parasite Hollywood elite.

Due to Transmigrator!Beryl's background as a computer scientist, she, Anna May, and the other transmigrators are trying to set up a more modern form of Internet, albeit with more guardrails than the modern day. After all, if they can found it before Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk can ruin everything, maybe it would still be a happy place. This is something the Greeks (via Hermes) are very, very interested in as well.

Both of these traits made her highly intriguing to Jupiter, especially since in his mind, all this character development happened post-Thalia. It's clear that Beryl is a devoted mother and a visionary. Why wouldn't Jupiter want her to be the mother of his herald in this new, modern age? Especially since fathering another godling with Juno would upset the balance of power between the Greeks and Romans.

So he gets her pregnant via a one-night stand, and then starts on the wooing with promises of protection from Zeus (an absolute nightmare of a god she wants to avoid at all costs) and Hera (staying her hand only because all the other transmigrators begged on their hands and knees for a month straight). Juno agrees to help foster their children and raises them as her own, citing the Ancient Roman custom of concubinatus for Beryl to stay in her household. While usually this law only allows for one monogamous union at a time (meaning Jupiter really shouldn't be with Beryl), Juno allows it because she finds Beryl and her children rather charming.

Essentially, at any moment Beryl can expect to find the king and queen of the Romans just hanging out in her penthouse. While they are rather possessive and behave like a power couple out of Beryl's steamiest romance novels, they don't set off her creep senses as much as Hermes, Zeus, or any of the Greeks do. Plus it's nice to just avoid the drama sometimes, you know?

Meanwhile Priya is clawing at the walls and screaming because they're using her! They're all using her, Beryl, you need to get out! (She readies the holy water spray bottle and hits Mercury with it. Said god is nonplussed and is now cooing at her and her twins. Deep down, she finds it weirdly charming.)

From Zeus's perspective, this is rather unacceptable, because he was there first! He had Beryl hanging onto his every word and was fully prepared to revisit her when she was at her most desperate. But now he has to watch her and their daughter play house with the Romans, and seemingly enjoy it too!

Why not give her more conflicting feelings in the form of his power lingering in her? Luke is dead, but his wish for her to grow safe and well is not. He killed Kronos and gave him to her in place of the one that promise he broke.

Kronos took everything she ever loved. But deep down, she fears that she'll need his power to keep those she loves safe. His power is a double-edged sword she hopes she'll never have to use.

Nope! The Romans are separate deities who unfortunately have to share a body with the Greeks in the modern day. In the past, they considered their Greek counterparts like cousins who they were frequently mistaken for, but due to modern misconceptions about how syncretism works, they were forced into one body. Said body sharing also lead to an extreme Greco-Roman feud, because who wouldn't be upset? This means that Mercury would literally rather die than continue to be called 'Hermes'. Someone get him out of there!!!

Apollo would probably be the sole Greek pulled along for the ride, but if we take Diana as a separate deity, then she would hate having to call him brother, especially since this Zeus is extremely delusional and dotes on both of them like they're toddlers. Apollo also wants to die, because not only does he have to cohabitate with the Romans, but he has to deal with his father treating him like a child.

Minerva has no mother to deal with because Zeus still ate Metis, but if we pretend he didn't just for drama, we could have her feel guilty for basically stealing Athena's mom, even though she really hates her.

For bonus points, we could have the BP!Olympians' mothers (Leto, Maia, etc.) be deranged about their 'children' coming back from the dead. Mercury has to spend an awkward few days in Cyllene while Maia believes him to be her dead son. Just because the mortals got confused about his heritage does not mean *he* is confused about his heritage. He manifested out of the Dii Lucrii, he's not Maia's son! And Leto. I feel that poor Leto just gets the raw end of the stick in BP!AUs since everyone knows Hera as her children's mother, so why not make it up to her and give her Diana (not her daughter) and Apollo (actually her son, but having to play house with a very angry Roman).

Demeter and Hera are no better. Since Liber Pater and Prosperina (Libera) are the children of Ceres (Demeter's Roman counterpart) BP!Demeter promptly goes insane over their 'miraculous' survival. For his part Mars would like to go back to Juno and Flora, they were much more rational than this crazy version of Hera, Venus, help him--

Actually, if we go by the Homeric backstory, Aphrodite is also a daughter of Zeus, so Venus could be stuck too. The delusional oceanid Dione who tried and failed to birth Zeus's child hovers like an annoying gnat, one which Venus unfortunately cannot get rid of. At least it lets her stay close to Veritas and Jupiter's other children.