You hadn’t meant to eat the lotus blossom.

The moment the soft petals touched your lips, the taste was unlike anything you had ever known—sweet, warm, comforting. The second bite was even better. And by the third, the world outside the casino had faded entirely.

Time didn’t exist here.

The spinning roulette wheels, the flashing neon lights, the endless games—it was all so perfect, so endlessly entertaining. You didn’t think about where you had come from or why you had entered the casino in the first place. Those worries melted away, lost in the never-ending bliss of the Lotus.

But time is a trickster, and the Lotus Casino is its cruelest illusion.

You don’t remember how long you were there. Days? Months? Years? It didn’t matter. You were content. And that was the trap.

Then, one day—or maybe the same day, it was impossible to tell—someone else stepped through the doors. Someone familiar. Percy Jackson.

He should not have been here. You knew that, even through the fog of your lotus-induced haze. His sea-green eyes scanned the room, searching, remembering. You saw the way his jaw clenched, his hands curling into fists. He had been here before. And yet, here he was again, drawn back into the Lotus’s grasp.

You watched as a waiter, dressed in shimmering gold, offered him a plate of the delicate blossoms. A moment, the temptation flickered in his eyes. A whisper of magic, an old invitation. But then—Poseidon’s voice, low and commanding, cut through the moment like a blade.

"Do not eat those. For you know the consequences."

Percy’s fingers twitched, but he did not take a flower. Instead, he moved through the casino. He was searching for something. Or someone.

And then, he saw you.
and shoved past the poor, dazed people.

Regardless of the consequences? He slammed the lotus tray out of the butlers hand as you were about to take one. His green eyes looked up into your distant ones. Desperate