reflection ● jason grace

Jason understands poetry

 "This is way too much sugar before bed," Reyna muttered, looking around. "This is way too much sugar."

"We're not children!" Nathan protested indignantly.

"You have chocolate ice cream on your face."

They were holed up in the Fifth Cohort mostly chatting. Jason was glad all of them were together, however fleeting their time may be. Daria was tucked under Nathan's arm. She looked radiant, if not a bit disapproving.

But he couldn't help but wonder what she was hiding. Daria was a good actress. If you thought she was hiding something, she probably was. Jason couldn't help but frown when she looked at him.

"Bed time," Clara announced, her hair in a wrap like she couldn't be bothered to spend any extra time awake once she entered her cabin. Her words were brisk. She stood as she continued her lecture. "Everyone clear your shit up. See you in the morning."

"Wait!" Nathan said in a stage whisper. "What about the thing? We're doing that now, right?"

All eyes turned to Jason.

"What?" He demanded. They didn't respond. "What?"

Daria narrowed her eyes. "What thing?" She repeated.

Dakota bounced up on the bed next to him, wrapping Jason in a hug. When they pulled away, it was with a solemn expression. "This is going to be cheesy as fuck."

"We just wanted to say our piece," Clara said from next to the door, wringing her hands together.

Jason stared at her incredulously. "Are you nervous?"

"It's a side-effect of being nice to you," Michael crowed from his beanbag.

"Just, okay," Reyna sighed. "We're not going to freak him out right now. But Koda, you have the paper?"

"Of course," they brought a piece of paper out from somewhere and handed it to Jason. It was enclosed with the stamp of Camp Jupiter, almost, someone had edited the text to simply read, To Jason. "Don't open it now."

"What is that?" Daria asked, craning her neck to make out the words. She looked just as confused as he felt, with a hint of annoyance that she hadn't been in on it. Which was fair, when Jason thought about it; everyone thought they hated each other.

"Daria," Nathan said nervously, tracing the tattoo on his arm. "You know how you said not to look at your poetry?"

Daria stared at him. "Nathan," she said slowly. "You have three seconds to leave the room."

Nathan yelped, scrambling up. Before Jason could blink, the two were out the door. He could hear their footsteps racing down the hall. "You didn't even get to three!"

"Anyway..." Clara said as everyone shared a look and cleared the room. "We'll let you be. Get some sleep, Jace."

Jason unfurled the parchment to see various types of handwriting on the page; from Nathan to Clara's messy scrawl. It was written in a strange mixture of Latin and English because Michael and Dakota weren't actually that dyslexic and they'd never been able to figure out the ancient language as well as the rest of them.

The Greeks, Reyna's handwriting said. Wrote about eight types of love. We negate Daria's writings of Mania and Eros here because they are of no use among friends, or whatever the future will call the seven of us. So we are left with six, and here, we share with you, Jason Grace, the knowledge that the Greeks possessed so long ago.

He looked at the rest of the page, emotionally preparing himself to read about how much his friends care about him. He wondered if this was why Clara insisted they all go to bed early, so he could have a little cry session before he killed some monsters.