𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕎𝕒𝕣||HoO

𝐗𝐈𝐕

THEY WENT down to the men's section. Leo and Jason looked super excited to shop for clothes. Maisie went to go down to the women's section, but the princess stopped her, "Come look at this first. You might find something you like."

Maisie nodded, "Okay, yeah."

She went over with Jason to a rack labeled DISTRESSED CLOTHING. There were a bunch of different types of clothing: shirts, pants, jackets, armor, togas. All of them were mostly destroyed. There was a bright orange Camp Half-Blood shirt with a hole through the middle, as if it had been hit by a javelin. Next to that was a dented bronze breastplate pitted with corrosion like it had been splashed with acid, and a Roman toga slashed to pieced and stained with red.

"Why does with look so familiar?" Jason frowned, holding up a purple shirt that looked like it had been attacked by tigers.

"Jason, it's like yours," Piper said. "Now we really have to leave."

Maisie didn't want to leave. She wanted to keep shopping.

"Nonsense," the princess said. "The boys and Maisie aren't done, are they? And yes, my dear. Those shirts are very popular - trade-ins from previous customers. It suits you."

"Your Highness," Piper said, bring Maisie's attention to her. "Why don't you tell them how you betrayed your family? I'm sure they'd like to hear that story."

"More story?" Leo asked.

"I like more story!" Jason agreed.

Maisie smiled widely. She loved hearing the princess' story. She nodded enthusiastically.

The princess gave Piper a look, "Oh, on will do strange things for love, Piper. You should know that. I fell for that young hero, in fact, because your mother Aphrodite had me under a spell. If it wasn't for her -  but I can't hold a grudge against a goddess, can I?"

"But that hero took you with him when he fled Colchis," Piper remembered. "Didn't he, Your Highness? He married you just as he promised."

"At first," Her Highness admitted, "it seemed he would keep his word. But even after I helped him steal my father's treasure, he still needed my help. As we fled, my brother's fleet came after us. His warships overtook us. He would have destroyed us, but I convinced my brother to come aboard our ship first and talk under a flag of truce. He trusted me."

"And you killed your own brother," Piper said.

Something about the story made Maisie uneasy. She glanced back at the rack of destroyed clothing. Her eyes landed on the Camp Half-Blood shirt with the hole. Something was wrong.

With the story being told, it was familiar. And a name wit the letter M. It couldn't be, no.

"What?" Jason stirred. "Killed your own-"

"No," the princess snapped, and Maisie's suspicions disappeared. "Those storied are lies. It was my new husband and his men who killed my brother, though they couldn't have doe it without my deception. They threw his body into the sea, and the pursuing fleet had to stop and search for it so they could give my brother a proper burial. This gave us time to get away. All this, I did for my husband. And he forgot our bargain. He betrayed me in the end."

Maisie felt uneasy. Something was wrong. She didn't know what, just something.

"What did he do?" she asked.

The princess held the sliced-up toga against Jason's chest as if measuring him. "Don't you know the story, my boy? You of all people should. You were named for him."

"Jason," Piper said. "The original Jason. But then you're - you should be dead!"

The princess smiled, "As I said, a new life in a new country. Certainly I made mistakes. I turned my back on my own people. I was called a traitor, a thief, a liar, a murderess. But I acted out of love." She turned to Maisie and the boys, giving them a look that made Maisie's heart ache. She wished she could help her. "Wouldn't you do the same for someone you loved, my dears?"