𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄 - j. grace, ocxoc ¹ ✓

xxxii. would it be enough if i could never give you peace ?

XXXII.      JASON GRACE   !
⋆ ★
would it be enough if i could never give you peace?

       The council was nothing like Jason imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage.

Jason looked around the room and tried to remember everyone's name. Thankfully, Kaori, Kaen and Delilah sat on one side and Leo and Piper sat on his other side—it was Leo and Jason's first meeting as senior counselors. Even though Piper wasn't a counselor, Delilah wanted her there. Kaori and Kaen, didn't exactly have a choice in sharing councilorship seeing as they were twins. The quest was an effort on all of their parts and it wasn't fair if Piper didn't attend just because she wasn't head. Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis's nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist.

Jason had hoped Thalia would show. She'd promised, after all—but she was nowhere to be seen. Chiron had told him not to worry about it. Thalia often got sidetracked fighting monsters or running quests for Artemis, and she would probably arrive soon. But still, Jason worried.

Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at Jason.

Annabeth didn't look so relaxed. She wore armor over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. As soon as Jason walked in, she fixed him with an expectant look, as if she were trying to extract information out of him by sheer willpower.

Delilah spun her cup around with her shaky hand. A few days ago he wouldn't have bothered to notice it but now he knew why. She had her sword at the side of her chair which contradicted her pink converse. Her brown hair was shiny compared to what it was yesterday and brushed back into a ponytail.

"Let's come to order," Chiron said. "Travis, if you'd kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Kaen, Kaori, Delilah, Jason, Piper, and Leo — boy, a mouthful— but they have returned successfully. . . more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in."

Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story. the others chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot.

It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Jason knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera's visit right before the meeting.

"So Hera was here," Annabeth said. "Talking to you."

Jason nodded. "Look, I'm not saying I trust her—"

"That's smart," Annabeth said.

"—but she isn't making this up about another group of demigods. That's where I came from."

"Romans." Clarisse tossed Seymour a Snausage. "You expect us to believe there's another camp with demigods, but they follow the Roman forms of the gods. And we've never even heard of them."