CLOVIS

The Underworld had a way of making time feel unreliable.

Days could pass like minutes.

Minutes could stretch into something endless.

The darkness beneath the earth did not follow the same rules as the world above. Rivers carried forgotten things. Shadows whispered with voices from centuries past. Ancient halls stood untouched while generations of heroes lived and died without ever knowing they existed.

It was a place where memories mattered more than almost anything else.

Which made what happened there especially dangerous.

The quest had started like any other impossible mission.

A prophecy.

A destination nobody wanted to visit.

A list of dangers that grew longer every time someone explained the risks.

Entering the Underworld was never simple. Even the most experienced demigods understood that. There were rules, boundaries, and consequences for stepping somewhere meant for the dead rather than the living.

Yet somehow, you had made it there.

And somehow, during the journey through the endless paths beneath the world, something went wrong.

Nobody could explain the exact moment.

One second, everything had been moving forward.

The next, something had changed.

The river had been there before anyone realized it.

A quiet current flowing through the darkness.

The River Lethe.

A place associated with forgetting.

With things lost.

With memories slipping away like water running through open fingers.

The warning signs had been known.

Everyone knew what Lethe represented.

Everyone knew that a single mistake could mean losing pieces of yourself that might never return.

But the Underworld had a way of making even familiar dangers feel distant.

The river had called.

And somehow, you had drunk from it.

Now, back at Camp Half-Blood, everyone was trying to understand what came next.

You were alive.

That was the first thing everyone focused on.

You had returned.

You had completed the quest.

But something important had been left behind in the Underworld.

Your memories.

They were not gone completely.

Not like they had never existed.

They were scattered.

Fragments hidden behind a wall you could not see.

A familiar face might bring a moment of recognition before disappearing again.

A place you had visited a hundred times might feel strangely unfamiliar.

A name might sound important without any clear reason why.

The memories were there.

Somewhere.

They just needed help finding their way back.

That was where Clovis came in.

A son of Hypnos was not exactly the first person most people expected to handle a memory recovery process.

Especially not Clovis.

Clovis had a natural talent for dreams, sleep, and everything connected to the strange places the mind wandered when people rested.

He understood that memories were not just lists of facts.

They were emotions.

Images.

Sounds.

Sensations.

The smell of a familiar cabin.

The sound of someone's laugh.

The feeling of holding a weapon during training.

The warmth of sunlight on a summer afternoon.

Memories were entire worlds compressed into tiny moments.

That made him the perfect person to help rebuild what Lethe had taken.

The problem was that Clovis had one major obstacle.

He was a child of Hypnos.

Sleep followed him everywhere.

Literally.

The moment he settled into a comfortable position, his eyelids became heavier.

The quieter the room became, the harder it was for him to stay awake.

The longer he focused on dreams and memories, the more his own mind tried to drift.

Helping someone recover from memory loss while constantly fighting the urge to fall asleep was, according to several campers, the most Clovis situation imaginable.

The first sessions took place in a quiet room inside the Hypnos cabin.

The space was calmer than most places at camp.

Soft blankets covered the beds.

Dreamcatchers hung from the ceiling.

The air always carried a faint sense of warmth, as though the room itself encouraged people to rest.

Normally, it would have been the perfect environment for Clovis.

Normally, that would have been the problem.

He had prepared carefully.

Very carefully.

A cup of strong coffee sat beside him.

A pile of notes rested nearby.

Several alarm charms had been borrowed from the Hephaestus cabin.

At one point, someone from Hermes cabin had even suggested attaching a string to his wrist that would pull whenever his head started dropping.

Clovis had not appreciated that suggestion.

The first memory exercises were simple.

Not forcing.

Never forcing.

That was the most important rule.

Memories connected to Lethe could not be dragged back through sheer effort. Trying too hard could make the process worse.

Instead, Clovis focused on gentle reminders.

Objects.

Places.

Sounds.

Things connected to moments from before.

A camp necklace.

A weapon.

A familiar book.

A map from the quest.

Each item carried history.

Each one was a possible doorway.

Clovis would hold something up, study your reactions carefully, and take notes whenever something shifted.

Not every attempt worked.

Some memories remained distant.

Others appeared briefly before fading again.

But progress existed.

Small pieces returning one at a time.

A familiar location.

A skill you somehow still knew despite forgetting where you learned it.

A person whose name felt important even if the reason remained unclear.

Clovis treated every recovered fragment like something valuable.

Because it was.

The rest of camp learned quickly not to interrupt the sessions.

Not because Clovis demanded it.

He rarely demanded anything.

But because everyone understood the importance of what was happening.

The Ares cabin became unusually quiet when passing by.

The Athena cabin offered old maps and notes from past adventures.

Will Solace helped monitor the physical effects of the memory loss, making sure exhaustion did not make things harder.

Even campers who had never spoken much with you before became careful around the situation.

Everyone knew what it meant to lose something important.

Especially demigods.

Everyone at Camp Half-Blood carried memories they wished they could forget.

And memories they would do anything to keep.

Clovis understood that better than most.

Dreams were strange places.

They collected pieces of people.

Sometimes the mind hid things during waking hours and revealed them only when someone slept.

Sometimes the subconscious remembered what the conscious mind couldn't reach.

That was why Clovis paid attention to details others might overlook.

A repeated image.

A familiar expression.

A reaction to a certain sound.

The smallest things could become the thread that pulled an entire memory back into place.

The only issue was staying awake long enough to notice.

There were moments when Clovis would be halfway through explaining something and suddenly become completely still.

A pause.

A blink.

A dangerous silence.

Everyone in the room would know exactly what was happening.

Sleep was winning.

He would immediately sit up, straighten his notes, and insist he was fine.

The problem was that nobody believed him.

Not even himself.

The most impressive part was that he kept trying.

Despite the exhaustion.

Despite the constant battle against his own instincts.

Despite the fact that helping someone navigate lost memories required patience and concentration.

He stayed.

Every session.

Every attempt.

Every small breakthrough.

Because Clovis understood something important.

Memories were part of who someone was.

Not because they defined everything.

But because they connected a person to the people, places, and moments that shaped them.

The quest had taken you through the Underworld.

It had brought you face-to-face with one of the most dangerous forces a demigod could encounter.

But returning from that place was only the beginning.

Finding your way back to yourself was its own journey.

And Clovis was there to help guide it.

Not with grand speeches.

Not with impossible magic.

Just patience.

Careful questions.

A ridiculous amount of preparation.

And a determination to stay awake even when every instinct told him to close his eyes.

Over time, the sessions changed.

They became less about searching for what was missing and more about reconnecting what had already returned.

A memory here.

A detail there.

Pieces slowly forming a larger picture.

The river had taken things away.

But it had not erased everything.

The mind was stronger than that.

The people around you were stronger than that.

And somewhere beneath the confusion and uncertainty, the person you had always been was still there.

Clovis knew that.

He believed that.

Even when his eyes were half-closed and his notes were becoming increasingly difficult to read.

Especially then.

Because every time he almost fell asleep, every time his head dipped forward and he had to force himself awake again, there was always another memory to uncover.

Another piece to recover.

Another step toward putting everything back together.

And for a son of Hypnos, there was perhaps no greater challenge than staying awake for someone else.

But Clovis did it anyway.