CATHARSIS, jason grace¹ [EDITING]

𝟬𝟬𝟯. ready to thank me yet?

IF AERA HAD KNOWN exactly the kind of stress-wrinkle-inducing dilemma she had woken up to, she never would have brought a hand-fan to a fart fight (that was how the saying went, right?) In any case, she couldn't take all the blame for that idiotic lack of insight. Whichever dense deity took a makeup wipe to her brain's recollection of the past week and dumped her on a school bus in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a handheld DIY AC system and an ugly Christmas sweater to defend herself had to be held responsible.

To solve her hair-rifling problems, Aera first indulged in her favorite hobby in the whole wide world: shopping. Though, wrinkling her nose at the collection of basic printed t-shirts in the gift shop could hardly be counted as shopping. She couldn't find any item worthy of being worn on her divinely ravishing body, but alas, the daughter of Aphrodite was a natural improviser. And improvise she did.

After snipping through a few usable fabrics, Aera exited the girl's bathroom, finally feeling like herself again. Now dressed in a trendy white blouse with a soft cardigan over a pleated skirt and a delicate pair of slingback heels, Aera finished touching up her makeup to perfection and was fully ready to rain The Underworld on whoever had put her in such a drab outfit in the first place.

Predictably, her debut out of the restroom immediately attracted tumults of attention. Even those near-sighted mortals appreciated beauty when they saw it. Aera was waving and smiling for all the commoners to coo and ogle at when she heard a scream erupt from the far end of the hall. Normally, she could've cared less about mundane peasantry affairs, but everyone who was admiring her started to migrate towards the commotion.

Aera stomped her heels against the floor. Couldn't the universe let her have one good thing? Now that all the attention had been unjustly stolen from her, she had to go see what was more captivating than her pageant queen wave. This was her first mistake.

Her second mistake was pushing past the crowd swarmed at the door and almost over-ruffling her brushed hair in the chaos (she was so not used to having long hair).

The kids from The Wilderness School were pounding on the glass, screaming and shouting like a bunch of ragtag barbarians, but the doors seemed to be stuck. When she got to the front row, Aera watched the most tediously unimpressive scene unfold through the glass.

Piper was the closest to the door, lying on the glass floor like Sleeping Beauty. For some unknown reason Aera didn't even want to try and probe at, her fingers were wrapped around a thick wooden branch with a bunch of leaves sticking out of it. She looked like she was ready to brain the first prince who tried to kiss her awake.

Then, Aera caught glimpse of Leo. He had been thrown off the railing and was hanging onto a thin ledge about fifty feet below. Coach Hedge must have been trying to save him, climbing down at rapid speeds with his goat feet out (gross!).

One of the jocks from the school bus—Ditch? Derek? Dexter?—whatever-his-name-was was leering at them all like a dollar tree Joker. He was flanked by two ghostly young men with smoky wings and eyes that flickered with lightning.

His current opponent was Jason. Aera had high expectations for this Jason, sensing that he was a powerful demigod when he resisted her charm. After what happened last summer, Aera knew better than to play with the heart of a strong half-blood.

Despite what the myths and hymns said, heroes weren't ideal lovers. Also too busy hero-ing to care about their loves. Aera had learned that the hard way last year. She figured her best option was to ghost this Jason before she got tangled in another twisted romance plot from her meddling mother, but she couldn't help but feel entranced as she watched him on the battlefield.