𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜

Yes, I'm Short, I Get It.

"SO, IS WILL YOUR OLDER BROTHER OR SOMETHING?" Piper asked.

I chuckled and shook my head. "As I told Leo earlier, no, he's my twin, I'm like, fifteen minutes older than him."

"Why are you so short then?"

"My mom's genes. Apollo wanted Will to be tall, like him. So I got my mom's genes and am short."

Piper nodded. "Okay."

I shivered a bit, wishing I had more than just a sweatshirt. Seriously, I wasn't wearing anything underneath the hoodie, and it wasn't very thick either. Quite the opposite actually. Festus' hide was warm, kinda like a seat warmer, but that did nothing about the fact that I was cold. If my upper body is cold, it stays cold. My body temperature is weird and stubborn like that.

In front of me, Leo used the reins to steer the dragon into the sky like he'd been doing it all his life. The metal wings worked perfectly, and soon the coast of Long Island was just a hazy line behind us. We shot over Connecticut and climbed into the gray winter clouds.

Leo grinned back at us. "Cool, right?"

"What if we get spotted?" Piper asked.

"The Mist," Jason said. "It keeps mortals from seeing magic things. If they spot us, they'll probably mistake us for a small plane or something."

Piper glanced over her shoulder. "You sure about that?"

"No," he admitted.

"We'll be fine, Piper. If Percy battling Ares looks like a gunfight instead of a sword fight while in the water, we should be fine," I assured.

"That's actually happened before?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, I told you about Percy's first quest, right? He got into a fight with Ares and Ares surrendered after Percy stabbed his ankle."

"Wow," Piper said. "That's not something you hear everyday."

I shrugged. "Fighting a god, sure, but other things similar, you hear them more often than not. Sometimes I'm jealous of mortals for being able to live in a world and not be threatened by monsters 24/7."

"Yeah," Jason agreed. "We're making good time. Probably get there by tonight."

"Where are we heading?" Piper asked.

"To find the god of the North Wind," Jason said. "And chase some storm spirits."

;-;

I shivered. I was seriously starting to regret wearing just a thin sweatshirt. I should've asked Will for a coat or something before we left. I had my arms tightly wrapped around myself, my backpack strapped to my leg so I didn't lose it.

Leo glanced back at me and picked up on the fact that I was cold. He shrugged off his jacket and held it out to me. "Here, you look cold."

"I'm fine, seriously, you can keep your jacket, Leo."

Leo shook his head and shoved it into my folded arms. "Put it on, Kody. Seriously. I don't need it as much as you do. Besides, you're shivering."

I huffed in protest, but put the greasy jacket on anyway. And I hate to admit, but the jacket was really warm, it also smelled of Leo, plus a lot of tabasco sauce and motor oil, but there was a hint of cinnamon and campfire in there.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. It wasn't comfortable silence, per say. But it wasn't awkward either.

"Shut up, me," Leo said at some point. Scaring me out of my thoughts.