Fairy Tales (Percy Jackson AU)

Chapter 1: Before You Say No

"CONNOR WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU I'LL-" Travis swung wildly in the air spitting curses that would make any self respecting village girl feint. In his opinion that was the first step in sorting out the nags from the preferred one nighters, but this was not cool.

His dagger had fallen out of his hands at the sudden reverse of gravity. So here he was dangling upside down in the middle of some gods forsaken forest miles away from the nearest kingdom.

He half expected his identical brother to pop out of nowhere laughing his head off. His bag of particulars had spilled in the ground, revealing a variety of expensive and exquisite objects, from golden lamps to elegant (possibly cursed) knives.

"CONNOR!" Travis shouted again. A huge amount of pressure was going into his head, blood pounding in his skull. He jerked against the rope tie trap that his boot was ensnared in but no prevail.

"Filthy son of a Hydra!" Travis cursed his younger brother.

"Will you please shut up! You're scaring all the game away!"

Travis stared down at the clearing surprised to see not his brother, but a girl with hair as dark as that sweet food he gotten from that village years ago. What had they called it? Chocolate?

Her eyes were green as the foliage around them with a fire that embark his own passion. Her cloak was ratty, a mere maid get up. And yet...

Travis could already tell she was annoying.

"Hey! Pretty girl!" He called, "Little help?"

She looked at him disgusted. "Uh, no."

He glared down at her. "I'll scare your game even further away!"

Her dazzling green eyes bore into his dull blue ones. "Didn't matter. I don't need it. Find your own way out, foreigner." Her gaze turned to the items on the ground, glittering gold in the sunlight. She knelt beside the artifacts, which were probably more than she'd seen in her entire life.

"Where did you get this?" She held up the lamp that was decorated in fire from another far away kingdom. "A friend of mine told me a fine tale of a lamp that held a genie that could crate anything with just his hands and a couple pieces of metal. She said the genie united two rival kingdoms with the marriage of the gorgeous princess to the other kingdom's Prince, before the genie left on a quest to find his true love with his Dragon."

Travis pretended to be shocked. But in truth he already knew the story. Actually he'd been there. And he'd stolen that lamp from right under the princess's nose after the genie of fire had left.

"That's preposterous!" Travis chided her, "I'm a well known trader upon all the kingdoms of the Half Blood Hills as well as the countries of Rome and Olympus itself! Never in my time have I heard such a ridiculous story! Now cut me down, peasant!"

The girl scowled, "or perhaps I could leave you up there to die!"

Travis was staring to see stars in his vision. Irritation sprang on his senses. "If you cut me down you can take whatever you want from my bag! I've got a brilliant pair of glass slippers that would look good on your legs!"

"Oh gods no!" The girl yelped, she was already putting things back in his leather satchel, "Those would be terrible to run in! I'd lose them the first time I'd tried to run up the steps! Besides, what's stopping me from just taking whatever I want now?" She stood up holding a dangling diamond earring, "What do you think, trader? Diamond, right? Why would you only have one?"

Travis wanted to say because the matching one was in his tunic pocket but the blood was pounding in his head. If there was one thing he never sold or even let out of his sight it was those earrings. They were a gift, which was not something he got very often, from the most gorgeous woman in all of the land. She worked with magic and told him one day the earrings would lead him to true love.