#maternal instinct

Athena is one of the few godlings to survive and she's such a delicate thing. Zeus and Hera are heartbroken to separate from her but it's judged safest for her to grow up beneath the waves in Atlantis whilst the God King and his Queen handle whatever threat has inadvertently put her at risk.

Athena is raised by Triton the only surviving child of the Sea's alongside his daughter Pallas.

Things are as happy as they can be when tragedy strikes and Athena and Pallas are stolen by Titan loyalists.

At this point Fate has been searching for a way to craft children for it's gods for a while and like with most of these fics it resorted to searching for another world to steal them from.

When Athena and Pallas are taken Fate panics at the thought of losing two of the few children who's threads it was able to save and does something drastic.

It takes a champion from another world and sets them lose.

Ariadne Jackson has nothing and no one left.

She comes from a world where her mother was killed by the Minotaur.

A world where Grover never managed to trick the Cyclops and it was his spirit that guided her to the fleece out of a desire to protect his friend one last time and prevent any more satyr's being tricked and eaten.

A world where Annabeth died in Tartarus and Aria killed Aklys in order to take her control over Poison in a desperate attempt to save the woman she loved.

A world where, when pulling the poison from Annabeths body wasn't enough to save her, the only mortal daughter of the sea forcibly claimed dominion over Purification in a vain attempt to save her lover's life.

Ariadne is seen by the gods (including her divine father) as a weapon to direct at whatever problem they have and now that the 2 wars are over they discard her like yesterday's trash.

Uncaring of the trauma she has suffered, nor the grief that she is drowning in.

Aria's inability to save Annabeth and so many of her friends and family breaks something in her. But it isn't until she learns that Annabeth never made it to the afterlife due to Tartarus shredding her soul that she shatters completely.

Ariadne has already begun ascending, she is losing control.

She has no intention to survive this, preferring to fade rather than become one of the gods she hates.

The demigods watch on in grim understanding, they do not wish to see her in pain but understand why she would shun immortality.

They try their best to provide what comfort they can before her passing.

Then something reached out to her and offered her a chance at a better world for the demigods she had so fiercely guarded, loved and lost.

All she has to do is what she's best at.

Fight.

Fate was always planning to take the unloved godlings of this world but it originally intended to give them a second chance at being children and let them experience the childhood that was stolen from them by the cruel, apathetic gods of this world.

This intention remains true for the most part.

But if Pallas and Athena are going to survive they will need a protector, something Ariadne cannot be if the innocence of youth is returned to her.

So instead it takes the leader of this other worlds demigods, a child more god than mortal and drops her near where the two godlings are being kept.

For me?

This basta—