Wildfire (Leo Valdez x OC) (1)

Walking in a windy wonderland...

As we climbed up to Aeolus's palace, Coach seemed to be the only one in a good mood. He was bounding up the slippery staircase and kept trotting back down to usher us along. "Come on, cupcakes! Only a few thousand more steps!"

"How can you be positive at a time like this, Coach? I think I'm about to pass out." I said, trudging along next to Leo.

"Same." Leo panted.

"What happened to tough Hephaestus kid?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

Leo kept swatting at his legs, as if worried he was going to spontaneously combust again and shook his head. "Ignore past me, he's an idiot."

I snorted and looked back at Piper and Jason. They were walking at the back of the group and had been in silence for most of the way.

Jason seemed lost in thought and Piper was walking next to him because she was worried he was going to 'think himself off the cliff'. Of course, we had tried to remind her that in the unlikely event that happened, Jason could fly, but even Leo and I were worried. It was unlike him to not at least smile at one of our jokes.

Finally, we arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls rose from the frozen earth all around the fortress grounds. Gates, at least five times as tall as us, opened as we stepped up to them and a road of polished purple stones led up to the main citadel – a white-columned rotunda, Greek style, like one of the monuments in Washington, D.C. – except for a cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers on the roof.

"That's bizarre." Piper finally said.

"Guess you can't get cable on a floating island." Leo shrugged. "Dang, check this guy's front yard."

The rotunda sat in the centre of a huge circle. It was divided into quarters like huge pizza slices, each one representing a season.

The section on our right was an icy waste, with bare trees and a frozen lake. Snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, so I couldn't tell if they were decorations or alive.

To our left was an autumn park, with red and gold trees. Mounds of leaves swirled in the air and flew into patterns – gods, people and animals that ran after each before scattering back into leaves.

In the distance, I could see two more areas behind the rotunda. One looked like a field with sheep made out of clouds. The last section was a desert where tumbleweeds scratched patterns into the sand like Greek letters, smiley faces and advertisements that read: Watch Aeolus Nightly!

"One section of each of the four wind gods." Jason said. "Four cardinal directions."

"Glad to see you got your head out of the clouds." I said.

Jason frowned. "Technically all of us still have our heads in the clouds, we're pretty high up."

I furrowed my brows. "I-" I frowned. "I have no words."

"I'm loving the look of that pasture over there." Coach licked his lips. "You guys wouldn't mind if-"

"Go ahead." Jason said.

Coach grinned and ran off.

While the satyr went to attack springtime, we made our way down the path towards the steps up to the palace.

We passed the front doors into a white marble foyer decorated with purple banners that said, Olympian Weather Channel, and some that just said OW!

"Hello!" A woman floated up to us.

She was pretty in that elfish way I associated with nature spirits back at Camp – petite, slightly pointed ears, and an ageless face that could've been sixteen or thirty. Her brown eyes twinkled cheerfully. Even though there was no wind, her hair blew around in slow motion, like she was in a shampoo advert. Her white gown billowed around her like parachute material.

I couldn't tell if she had feet, but if so, they didn't touch the ground. She had a white tablet in her hand that kept vibrating as if she were getting hundreds of messages at once, I was surprised she was still holding onto the thing.

"Are you from Lord Zeus?" She asked smiling. "We've been expecting you."

Jason opened his mouth as if to respond but then frowned. "Are you a ghost?"

The woman's eye twitched and the corners of her mouth turned downwards. "I'm an aura, sir. A wind nymph, as you might expect, working for the lord of the winds. My name is Mellie. We don't have ghosts."

Piper came to the rescue. "No, of course you don't! My friend simply mistook you for Helen of Troy, the most beautiful mortal of all time. It's an easy mistake."

I thought she had gone a little over the top but Mellie blushed. "Oh... well, then. So, you are from Zeus?"

"Er," Jason said. "I'm the son of Zeus, yeah."

"Excellent! Please, right this way." Mellie led us through a set of doors into another lobby, consulting her tablet as she floated. She didn't look where she was going, but apparently that didn't matter, as she floated straight through a marble column with no problem.

"We're out of prime time now, so that's good." She mused. "I can fit you in right before the 11:12 spot."

"Um, okay." Jason said.

The lobby was a pretty distracting place. Winds blasted around us, so I constantly felt like I was being pushed through an invisible crowd. Doors blew open and slammed by themselves.

The things I could see were just as bizarre. Paper aeroplanes of all different shapes and sizes sped around, and other wind nymphs, aurai, would occasionally pluck them out of the air, unfold and read them, then toss them back into the air, where the planes would re-fold themselves and keep flying.

A harpy flew by, her black hair tied up in a hairnet, arms like a human plus wings like a chicken and a fat, feathered body with talons for feet. It was a miracle she was still flying as she kept bumping into marble columns and drifting away looking rather dizzy.

"Not an aura?" Jason said.

Mellie laughed. "That's a harpy, of course. Our, ah, ugly stepsisters, I suppose I would say. They're spirits of violent gusts, unlike us aurai. We're all gentle breezes."

She batted her eyelashes at Piper.

"Course you are." Piper said, blinking in confusion.

"So," Jason prompted. "You were taking us to see Aeolus?"

Mellie nodded and led us through another set of doors like an airlock. Above the interior door, a green light blinked.

"We have a few minutes before he starts," Mellie said cheerfully. "He probably won't kill you if we go in now. Come along!"

First of all, I would like to apologise for the chapter title, I had to.

Anyways. Hi, so this was a pretty short chapter, but I have been pretty busy with homework lately and my sister has a friend round right now which is making it pretty difficult to write because they are being very loud.

I've pretty much lost any normal update schedule, it's just once a week now and not even on a specific day so don't expect an update every Tuesday or anything, it's just whenever I can.

I must say I didn't think it was possible to get as much homework as I'm getting but here we are. Hopefully, you guys aren't getting much homework, I swear homework is the bane of my existence.

That's all I have to say for now, nothing really has happened lately. 

I hope you are all having a good day and if not then I hope reading this made you feel better, even just a tad.

Bye from Corgi :)

P.S. (feel free to skip) Just a reminder that all characters (apart from Anwen) belong to Rick Riordan, this is merely a fanfiction based of the Heroes of Olympus series.