ᑎᗴᗷᑌᒪᗩᗴ ➪ 𝙿.𝙹 + 𝙿.𝚂. + 𝙰.𝙲. [𝟸]

𝗧𝗪𝗢; 𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗡 𝗙𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗧

𝗣𝗢𝗟𝗔𝗥𝗜𝗦 𝗛𝗔𝗗 𝗡𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗘𝗘𝗡 such a quick mealtime setup. Sets of couches and low tables were carted into the forum until it resembled a furniture showroom, more rapidly than she could even follow. Demigods did most of the grunt work, but it seemed they were being helped by some form of magic, probably a spirit, like the aurae. It would take twice as long for Camp Half-Blood to set this up, as chaotic as they were.

Romans lounged in groups of ten or twenty, talking and laughing while wind spirits swirled overhead, bringing an endless assortment of pizzas, sandwiches, chips, cold drinks, and fresh-baked cookies. Drifting through the crowd were purple ghosts—Lares—in togas and legionnaire armor. Around the edges of the feast, satyrs (no, fauns, Polaris thought) trotted from table to table, panhandling for food and spare change. In the nearby fields, the war elephant frolicked with Mrs. O'Leary, and children played tag around the statues of Terminus that lined the city limits.

The whole scene was so familiar yet so completely alien that it gave Polaris vertigo. All she wanted to do was be with Percy—and  Annabeth. She knew she would have to wait. If their quest was going to succeed, they needed these Romans, which meant getting to know them and building some goodwill.

Reyna and a few of her officers (including the blond kid Octavian, freshly back from burning a teddy bear for the gods) sat with Annabeth and her crew. Percy joined them with his two new friends, Frank and Hazel.

As a tornado of food platters settled onto the table, Percy leaned over and whispered, "I want to show you around New Rome. Just us three. The place is incredible."

Maybe Polaris should've been thrilled. Just us three was exactly what she wanted. Instead, resentment swelled in her throat. How could Percy talk so enthusiastically about this place? What about Camp Half-Blood—their camp, their home?

She tried not to stare at the new marks on Percy's forearm—an SPQR tattoo like Jason's. At Camp Half-Blood, demigods got bead necklaces to commemorate years of training. Here, the Romans burned a tattoo into your flesh, as if to say: You belong to us. Permanently. She swallowed back some biting comments. "Okay. Sure."

Annabeth's eyes were storming and grey when they turned on Polaris. She shrugged helplessly.

"I've been thinking," Percy said nervously. "I had this idea—"

He stopped as Reyna called a toast to friendship.

After introductions all around, the Romans and Annabeth's crew began exchanging stories. Jason explained how he'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood without his memory, and how he'd gone on a quest with Piper and Leo to rescue the goddess Hera (or Juno, take your pick—she was equally annoying in Greek or Roman) from imprisonment at the Wolf House in northern California.

"Impossible!" Octavian broke in. "That's our most sacred place. If the giants had imprisoned a goddess there—"

"They would've destroyed her," Piper said. "And blamed it on the Greeks, and started a war between the camps. Now, be quiet and let Jason finish."

Octavian opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Polaris really loved Piper's charmspeak. Octavian seemed like the type of person Polaris could learn to hate.

"So," Jason continued, "that's how we found out about the earth goddess Gaea. She's still half asleep, but she's the one freeing the monsters from Tartarus and raising the giants. Porphyrion, the big leader dude we fought at the Wolf House: he said he was retreating to the ancient lands—Greece itself. He plans on awakening Gaea and destroying the gods by. . .what did he call it? Pulling up their roots."

Percy nodded thoughtfully. "Gaea's been busy over here, too. We had our own encounter with Queen Dirt Face."

Percy recounted his side of the story. He talked about waking up at the Wolf House with no memories except for one memory—a faint scene from his second quest, on a boat in the middle of the ocean. He remembered Polaris and Annabeth, and that was it.