𝕱𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖑𝖞 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊 - a Leo Valdez slowburn

Chapter four

Chapter four

[Leah wants to date Aeolus's assistant]

"If you really want to help humanity,

you can start with helping yourself.

If you don't have a sound mind and soul,

how will you help others to the same?"

Leah kept to herself until they arrived at the top of the stairs, but she did slow her pace. Just enough to walk next to Jason. She grabbed his hand, something that had become quite the habit for the girl. "I understand how it feels to lose a sister. We both lost her today." Her voice was quiet and her hand was small and fragile in Jason's. He squeezed her hand lightly. 

"Thank you." 

Piper looked back at the two. Her eyes darted to their entangled hands and she looked straight in Leah's eyes. It was clear that Piper was jealous. Maybe she thought that Leah was trying to hit on Jason? Who knows. Leah wiggled her eyebrows, a little smirk on her lips. She mouthed something to the daughter of Aphrodite, but seeing as she didn't understand the message, Leah gave up and waved it away. 

They walked in silence, their hand still loosely holding the other. Finally they arrived the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, although Leah couldn't possibly imagine what or who would attack this place. There was certainly no army small enough to cross the small link to Pikes Peak that couldn't just fly over the walls.

Jason shook his hand from Leah's and walked his way up to the front of the group, his leader personality taking control. Leah hung in the back, but did take the liberty to stand next to Piper and grab her hand.

Twenty-foot high gates opened for them, and a road of purplish stone led up to the main citadel - a white-columned rotunda, Greek style, like one of the monuments in Washington, D.C. - except for the cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers on the roof. Leah wondered how the place wasn't swarming with monsters - modern technology does attract monsters. 

"That's bizarre," Piper said. Leo was on the right of Piper, his hands fumbling with some metal scraps that Leah had no idea where he got from.  "Guess you can't get cable on a floating island," he said. "Dang, check this guy's front yard."

Leah let out a gasp. The rotunda sat in the center of a quarter-mile circle. The grounds were spectacular in a scary way. Leah could feel a shiver run up her spine, something that happened partly from the fear that the garden inflicted upon her and partly from the cold. The grounds were divided in four sections, each one representing a season. 

The section to their right was clearly dedicated to winter, an icy waste with bare trees and a frozen lake. Snowmen were scattered across the landscape and because the wind was blowing and howling as they rolled, Leah couldn't quite see if they were alive or simply decorations. 

The next, the one to their left, was an autumn park with red and gold trees, the leaves that fell from them blown into different patterns - gods, people, animals that ran after each other before they were once again scattered back to leaves.

Leah could see two more areas behind the rotunda. One was what seemed like a green pasture with sheep made of clouds, while the other was a desert where tumbleweeds scratched strange patterns in the sand, but Leah was a bit too far to see them precisely.