Hera's Idea

Maria Solace-di Angelo Burns the Sun

Maria Solace-di Angelo Burns the Sun

I want to say that the end of June was interesting for me; that every moment in Camp Half-Blood was worthy of noting, but I'm not a liar. In fact, the last five days of June were suspiciously normal. No Tia Callida showed up to cement our fates, no more people from the future showed up, no more birthdays. It was just camp. In the past? Yes. But still. I spent so much time in the forges with the Hephaestus cabin that there was no real time for monumental moments.

Leo and I never really talked much about everything. Sure, I called him Papà now, but part of me still felt bad about it despite his insistence. As much as he tries (and I will give him credit for trying), he's still just an almost 17 year old boy. There's no way in Hades he could fully be a father to a fifteen year old. And I couldn't expect him to be, as much as I wish he could be. I missed Papà and Mom more than words could express, even when I was at Camp Half-Blood without them, I could always text them at night or write them a letter. Now, I had no way of communicating with them.

I wasn't the only one that felt that way. At dinner on the last day of June, Maria marched up to the Hephaestus table and just put her chin on Aidan's neck and wrapped her arms around him. That itself wasn't uncommon—Maria and Aidan were very best friends—but the look of pure despair and sadness is what clued me in that something was off about the youngest (or whom everyone considered the youngest) Solace-di Angelo.

Without a word, Aidan slid closer to me and patted the seat next to him, and waited until Maria untangled her arms and sat down to ask her, "What did Bianca and Naomi do now?"

Maria cracked a small smile, "Nothing actually."

That was surprising. And I vocalized my surprise with a squeak that made most of the Hephaestus table double over in laughter.

"Really," Maria chuckled, "They actually haven't done anything today. Though that could just be because Mimi's in the infirmary."

I hadn't heard that. "What happened to Naomi?"

"Strained her shoulder muscle after trying to throw a bass drum at Bianca yesterday. Da—Will—patched her all up, but made her stay in the infirmary overnight to make sure she's all healed."

Her face fell slightly as she corrected Will's name, something that I didn't fail to notice. I had an inkling why she seemed upset, but I didn't want to make assumptions.

"Did Bianca get hurt?" asked little tio Harley, a little too excited at the prospect of someone getting a drum thrown at them. "How far did Naomi manage to throw the drum? How come I didn't hear about this?"

"Bianca's fine. Like a foot or two, and I dunno. Will told our cabin not to talk about it, and I assume Nico told Cabin 13 the same. Probably didn't want the whole camp to realize what an idiota I'm related to."

"But you told us," pointed out Calypso.

Maria shrugged, "Yeah, because she's out of the infirmary now. It's not like—"

Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by a soft cough. Standing behind his daughter was none other than Will Solace.

To be honest, I haven't really spoken to Will at all since we time traveled. In my time, he and I are actually pretty close. Well, it's hard not to be after the Pittsburgh trip of 2029. I won't go into details but just know that the Solace-di Angelo's took me and Aidan to Pittsburgh the week after Emilia was born because I had a skateboarding competition. I sometimes get phantom pains in my back from the number of times the back of my seat was kicked before we had even left Indiana.

Anyway, in this time we don't have the shared Pittsburg trip, so I haven't seeked him out. Besides, we're both 15 and I honestly don't know how I'd feel if my friend's kid who's my age tried to strike up a conversation with me about a six hour car ride to Pennsylvania.