ALEA IACTA EST ; GRACE

001.

WHEN YOU ARE IN CONSTANT DANGER OF DYING,   Philomena noticed as she overlooked New Rome, time passes quickly.

She could still remember the day on which she had passed the tunnel two years ago and had entered Camp Jupiter, after having trained with Lupa for one and a half years.

"Philomena really hated the "Guardian of Rome" as everyone liked to call the oversized wolf here.

Like come on, how do you expect her to like the goddess when she had ripped up all of Philomena's dresses (which she had put a lot of effort into to steal and collect them during her journey from Texas) and told her that they were useless and ugly anyway?

So yes, one could say that Philomena and Lupa didn't have the best of first meetings and from there on out, things just got worse. The wolf told her day in and day out that she was worthless and should just give up, because she would never reach Camp Jupiter alive, so why try?

Then and there Philomena Yıldırım decided that she would survive everything that the world of gods and monsters threw her way just to spite Lupa.

Philomena then of course was released from the wolf house after Lupa got sick of her (in reality, the goddess was satisfied with the little girl's abilities) and she arrived in Camp Jupiter after encountering monsters and other strange creatures.

The beginning of her life in Camp Jupiter wasn't all that rosy either.

After all, Philomena, being twelve years old at that time, had to watch her favorite stuffed animal (it was a unicorn, which she had called Pinkie Pie and also stolen on her way to the wolf house) be sacrificed on an altar by a strange blond boy who was around her age.

Everything she received in return was a nod of approval by the boy and she was sent on her way to find someone who would show her the way around Camp.

This someone was Alexander Evander, as Philomena would later learn, but she only went by the name of Alex, never really having liked the name her father had chosen for her.

Alex was the first and one of the few people Philomena ever befriended at Camp Jupiter, because, first off all Alex was kind of Philomena's mentor (they were forced to spend time together and befriended one another because of that) and secondly, because Philomena refused to talk to anyone the first week after her arrival at the Camp seeing as she had to mourn the death of Pinkie Pie.

Looking back, maybe those are the reasons as to why Philomena had no real friends at Camp Jupiter and only Alex who was more of an acquaintance than anything else.

Philomena remembered that she had cried almost each night in her barrack because of her loneliness but now? Oh, how she loved not having close friends and could really care less.

You see, having friends, especially close friends, as a demigod can only equate to pain and grief later on, especially with a war brooding over their heads. Which was why Philomena preferred her solitude, so she wouldn't have to feel all that much pain when the battle would eventually come up and one of her friends would die (though, she had to admit, were Alex one of the victims, Philomena wouldn't know what to do with herself even if the two of them weren't all that close).

Anyways, right now there was a war coming up.

Philomena knew it and everyone around her too. Even if most of the legionnaires liked to pretend like there was no war approaching, that they didn't care, that they weren't scared, Philomena knew better.

Everyone was scared. She could feel it, could see it; the camp's atmosphere had been getting darker and darker in color with each passing day.

This war wasn't something that Philomena was looking forward to.

She wasn't born to handle weapons, be a fighter or a hero. She was good at art, liked her history and philosophy lessons and liked working with the kids in New Rome but when it came to combat, Philomena dreaded every second of it.

For instance, the Turkish girl was a hopeless case with any of the weapons the camp had to offer, except for the bow and arrow her father had gifted her when she was eleven. For some reason, she can't even hit a target with any other bow, but when she used her father's she hit home even with her eyes closed.

Well, because Philomena hated combat, she often opted to skip out of training in the colosseum, which led to her getting punishments like unclogging the sewers or aqueduct. This of course sucked, but Philomena would much rather do this than get humiliated in front of the whole camp because she can't even wield a sword the right way.

This week the praetor's had been kind with their punishment, (or maybe they have finally given up on her) and had given her the task of guarding the tunnel, which she rarely did since she couldn't really defend it, seeing as she was such a bad fighter. Because of that she always got paired with someone who was a strong and good fighter like Reyna, daughter of Bellona, or Jason, son of Jupiter.

Philomena liked the few times she was on guard duty with Reyna, since the girl was a no nonsense kind of person and didn't talk if it wasn't necessary, so Philomena could enjoy the hours of standing around in peace and silence.

The hours she had to spend with Jason were less enjoyable. Rome's golden boy didn't know how to shut up for once and was always trying to befriend Philomena, but she had seen through his act the week she had arrived in camp.

Jason wasn't trying to befriend her because he was particularly interested in her as a person (even if Philomena didn't know how that could be, she was a very interesting person, to herself at least). No, rather, he was only trying to befriend her so people wouldn't expect so much of him, so that they wouldn't see him as the god-like son of Jupiter and partly he also wanted to be her friend so that she wouldn't always "have to" be alone (Philomena likes being alone, thank you very much, Jason).

So yes, Philomena wasn't particularly interested in talking with Jason, but she knew that he only meant well. She knew that he was trying to avoid the fate of a son of Jupiter, who was worshiped by everyone and their mother, and worst of all, she could understand him and his motives.

Philomena hated that about herself. She could always understand why someone felt the way they felt and acted the way they did. It made her life difficult because like this, she excused everything anyone had ever done wrong, without even realizing it most times (like the one time she apologized to a son of Apollo after he had almost killed her with an arrow because he was jealous of her talent for archery).

Anyway, just to her luck she would have to spend this guarding shift with Jason and she was really looking forward to it (not). 

HOPE speaks!

hello my dearies, 

this'll be a double update bc I'm just rewriting and editing the first chapter that I had already published and honestly, it all got out of hand and now it was about 3.000 words long so I decided to split it up :) 

I really hope you enjoyed this chapter and would be happy if you were to leave a vote, comment or follow ! 

lots of love <3