Fairy Tales (Percy Jackson AU)

Chapter 2: Three Wishes for Love

The worse thing about finding that lamp, was the explosions. Or at least it was in Jason's opinion. In Piper's it was the gods forsaken soot.

They'd been standing side by side not talking. Each lost in their own thoughts. Jason remembered it like it was yesterday. She was beautiful. Piper McLean, next in line for the throne of the Kingdom of Doves. It would be a crime if she was any less than stunning, considering her life had to revolve around the looking glasses that were around every corner of her castle.

Jason glared at the river they sat by hating everything about this. His eyes casted away toward the castle in the distance, the home that had been his prison since his older sister had disappeared. If his Sister were only here...this wouldn't be happening.

Piper, on the other side, was trying not to rip her hair out. She felt ridiculous. She looked ridiculous. She hated everything. She wanted to shove this Prince into the river and pretend not to hear him as he yelled for help. He had to be just another stuck up jerk after her for her looks rather than her heart.

They were both wrong.

Piper hated being, looking, or even thinking she was beautiful. She'd rather skip around in her older brother's, Mitchell's, tunic, swinging with his sword, and battling imaginary dragons. Piper believed Beauty came from within. And she wasn't planning on changing that any time soon.

Jason hated being forced to do things. He wanted freedom to choose what he wanted, he didn't want to be tied down to a kingdom or a beautiful nag. He wanted true love. Not some force fed marriage to join kingdoms.

"What's that?" Piper asked suddenly. Her long fluttering silk hair framed her exotic features, and her kaleidoscope eyes caught the sight of something metal sunken into the river.

"What?" Jason tore his scowl away from his castle to the river, a hand on his golden sword.

"The glimmering thing in the river."

"I don't know." Jason sighed, prudently. He turned away again.

"How do you not know?" Piper asked, inching towards the waterside. "This is your special place right? Where you take all your girlfriends right?"

Jason bit his tongue, to keep a particularly nasty remark in his mouth. In all honesty he'd never been here before. He preferred to be in the castle towers standing on the windowsills and letting the wind rip at him. He'd spend hours pretending to fly, setting the kingdoms from a Bird eye view. And perhaps he'd harbored the hope he'd see his sister appear in the courtyard one day, coming to take the throne back.

Jason never had a girlfriend.

"What are you doing?" Jason sighed looking at the princess, his soon to be wife. She was knelt next to the swiftly moving river and reaching into it.

"Trying to get it." Piper said her fingertips just grazed the metallic surface, she strained to reach farther.

"You're going to fall in." Jason sighed, "Don't you already have enough shining things to see your reflection in, Beauty?"

Piper bit her tongue. "Don't call me that!" She reached in farther. She could... almost... just...reach...it...

Piper dug out the golden object, pulling it out. The strange engravings were oddly mesmerizing. And despite the icy rapids of the river, it felt warm. It was...a lamp?

"PIPER!"

Jason yanked her backwards seconds before the river crumpled and succumbed into the rapids. The clumps of dirt were torn apart by the undercurrent, and Piper had little doubt that the hidden currents would have done the same to her just as easily.