madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-wouldn't you like to know [weather boy]-

oh my gods this one is so long its like 4k please get comfortable.

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Teqi couldn't help it, she had to close her jaw herself. And restrain herself from covering her ears with her hands.

Aeolus's fortress was as big as a cathedral, with a soaring domed roof. Television equipment floated randomly through the air—cameras, spotlights, set pieces, potted plants. And there was no floor.

Leo almost fell into the chasm before Jason pulled him back.

"Holy—!" Leo gulped. "Hey, Mellie. A little warning next time!"

An enormous circular pit plunged into the heart of the mountain. It was probably half a mile deep, honeycombed with caves. Some of the tunnels probably led straight outside. The whole cavern bustled with crowds, but for three of them, it would be a very long, very fatal fall.

It was like the lava wall back at Camp had been inverted.

"Oh, my," Mellie gasped. "I'm so sorry." She unclipped a walkie-talkie from somewhere inside her robes and spoke into it: "Hello, sets? Is that Nuggets? Hi, Nuggets. Could we get a floor in the main studio, please? Yes, a solid one. Thanks."

A few seconds later, an army of harpies rose from the pit—three dozen or so chicken ladies, all carrying squares of various building material.

"The names a bit on the nose, don't you think?" Teqi asked.

They went to work hammering and gluing—and using large quantities of duct tape, which didn't reassure anyone. In no time there was a makeshift floor snaking out over the chasm. It was made of plywood, marble blocks, carpet squares, wedges of grass sod—just about anything.

Teqi spotted a collection of cereal boxes stacked together.

"That can't be safe," Jason said.

"Oh, it is!" Mellie assured him. "The harpies are very good."

Easy for her to say. She just drifted across without touching actual the floor. They pointedly turned to Jason, since he could fly and so he stepped out first. Amazingly, and impossibly, the floor held.

Piper reached and held his wrist, lifting up her still bandaged ankle gingerly. "If I fall, you're catching me."

"Sure."

Leo stepped out next. "You're catching me, too, Superman."

"I guess I'll just fall and die," Teqi said, burying her hands in the pockets of her shining jacket and shuffling across the grass sod and plywood.

"I'll catch you!" Jason argued.

She eyed him with a raised eyebrow. "And what's your maximum carrying capacity."

He looked like he was actually trying to figure it out, so she patted him on the back and let Mellie direct them toward the middle of the chamber, where a loose sphere of flat-panel video screens floated around a kind of control centre.

A man hovered inside, checking monitors and reading paper airplane messages. He paid them no attention as Mellie brought them forward.

She pushed a wide flat tv out of their way and led them into the control area.

Leo whistled. "I got to get a room like this."

The floating screens showed all sorts of television programs. Teqi didn't have a lot of experience with actual television programs, all of her media came from decade old magazines stacked up in cabin ten, and the same DVD's that were being passed around and traded for.