ᑎᗴᗷᑌᒪᗩᗴ ➪ 𝙿.𝙹 + 𝙿.𝚂. + 𝙰.𝙲. [𝟸]

𝗢𝗡𝗘; 𝗥𝗘𝗨𝗡𝗜𝗢𝗡

𝗣𝗢𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗦 𝗛𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗗 𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 weren't supposed to explode, exploded. Like statues, for instance.

This was supposed to go well. She and Annabeth had planned everything perfectly. Nothing was going to go wrong. All morning, they'd been checking and then re-checking things off their lists: the locks on the ballistae, the white "We come in peace" flag on the mast, the general plan with the rest of the crew-- it was all supposed to work out! There was backup plans for the backup plan!

Polaris paced the deck while Annabeth stood eerily still, eyes running over her notepad as if she'd forgotten something. Which was impossible. She'd even remembered to get Coach Hedge on the TV downstairs in his room. They'd thought of everything.

But as they descended through the clouds, Polaris felt a chill up her spine, like something was going to go horribly wrong. She forced that thought out of her mind. Even if it took brute force and several violent actions, she was going to make this meeting go okay. If she needed to, she'd jump down into New Rome, grab Percy, and have Annabeth pilot the Argo II to safety. It was one of many backup plans.

The Argo definitely did not look friendly. Two hundred feet long, with a bronze-plated hull, mounted repeating crossbows, a metal dragon for a figurehead, and two rotating ballistae that could fire explosive bolts that could blast through concrete-- it looked like a demigods nightmare.

Polaris really hoped the Romans didn't shoot them out of the sky. Leo had sent one of his nifty scroll messages, but they had no way of knowing if it had been received or not. Months of waiting had culminated into this moment. Soon, Percy would be back with her, and there wouldn't be an emptiness in her soul. She would be reinstated as High Priestess of Urania-- begrudgingly-- if this was successful.

The clouds broke around their hull, revealing the gold-and-green carpet of the Oakland Hills below them. Polaris slowed to standing beside Annabeth, and gripped the railing.

Their three crewmates took their places.

Leo was rushing around the steering area (okay, listen, Percy was the boat expert of their group, and even Annabeth knew more after helping building the Argo. Polaris had no idea what anything was called. She couldn't even tell the difference between port and aft-- or starboard? One of those things.)

Leo was very much the 'H' of ADHD. Polaris could make a case for AD, too, but he was a little scared of her after seeing her fight for the first time, so he always paid attention. Anyway, most helmsmen would've been okay with just a pilot's wheel or a tiller. The son of Hephaestus had also installed a keyboard, monitor, aviation controls form a Learjet, a dubstep soundboard, and motion-control sensors from and Nintendo Wii. He could turn the ship by pulling on the throttle, fire weapons buy sampling an album, or raise sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast. Polaris couldn't make heads or tails of it, and Annabeth had banned her from ever steering.

Piper was pacing, practicing her lines.

"Lower your weapons," she murmured. "We just want to talk."

Her charmspeak was incredibly powerful, from what Polaris understood. One of her cousins, Isabela, had developed a mild form of charmspeak because her mother was Erato, goddess of love poetry, and liked to give gifts. A child of Aphrodite, like Piper, had a much more potent version.

Unlike the rest of her siblings, Piper tried hard to play down her beauty. She wore cut up clothes, worn out jeans, and a lot of Hello Kitty merch from the thrift store that the Hermes kid got most of their contraband from. She wore her hair in choppy braids, and usually sported a pair of beaded earrings.