The Lost Hero (And The Found Lover)

1. I Meet Cinderella's Long Lost Cousin.

DEIANIRA HATED HER LIFE.

Her mother disappeared soon after she was born while it took her father 9 years to get the courage to leave too.

She never even met her mother. She didn't even know her name.

Her dad, Mateo Hernandez worked in a machine shop with a woman named Esperanza Valdez. He met her in college and from then on they became friends and decided to open a machine shop together. That's how Deianira met Leo.

Leo was Esperanza's son. One day when she was 4 years old Deianira's dad decided to take her with him to work, since her babysitter wouldn't be able to come and keep an eye on her. She thought it was boring to sit around and watch her father handle all those strange tools while she couldn't do anything, and her ADHD didn't help, but when they arrived she realized she wouldn't be alone. In the workshop there was Esperanza and then there was also a child around Deianira's age who looked like a funny Santa Claus elf.

He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, he had a screwdriver in his hand and was working on something, his face was very focused, with his tongue slightly sticking out, and his clothes were all dirty with grease.

As soon as the boy noticed the presence of two other people he looked up and waved, smiling. "Hi Mr. Hernandez!" he said with great enthusiasm. Deianira's father waved back to the boy and then told his daughter to go and sit with him while he greeted Esperanza and began to work.

Deianira approached the bizarre boy out of curiosity and sat down next to him. "Hi, I'm Deianira. Who are you?"
The boy smiled at her, but his smile looked more like the evil grin of a goblin. He held out a hand covered in engine grease.
"The one and only Leo Valdez!"
She smiled politely and tried to avoid shaking his hand as kindly as possible.

At first she didn't like him, but then he showed her the little contraption he was working on: he was modifying an alarm clock to make it say funny things like "Hey idiot, get your sweaty ass out of bed!" or "Nap time is over, go take a shower, you smell like socks with moldy cheese in them!". And it was difficult not to be infected by the enthusiasm with which he spoke about his idea. Deainira found herself laughing with him and suggesting other funny phrases to add to the alarm clock.

The next day she asked her dad to take her with him to work again.

Everything went great until one day the machine shop caught fire and Esperanza Valdez died in the fire. A few days later her dad went out saying he was going for a walk and never returned. Deianira found a post-it on the fridge where her father told her that the pain of losing his only friend was too great and unbearable to continue living. She was 9 years old.

So she found herself a complete orphan, without a father or a mother or even a family. Just her and Leo. And as the years go by she will realize that that was all she needed.

Yes, she didn't have any parents, but she wasn't alone. Leo was her family.

And so began their endless journey between foster homes and orphanages. In three years they never found anyone willing to adopt them, or at least Deianira found someone but she refused to go with them since they didn't want to take Leo too. She wasn't going anywhere without Leo.

That was until a half-man half-goat with a baseball bat showed up at one of the foster homes and convinced Deianira to leave, leaving Leo behind, alone.

Long story short, Deianira's mom is Lyssa, the goddess of rage and madness, and Deianira is a demigod. Yes, greek gods are real, surprise!

Now Deianira lived at Camp Half-Blood, the only safe place for people like her. Gleeson Hedge, the half-man half-goat who brought her to the camp (he's actually a satyr, satyrs are very sensitive about this!) had tried to look for Leo after Deianira had told the satyr about him, perhaps she suspected that Leo was also a demigod, he actually had many characteristics of demigods, such as ADHD and dyslexia. Or maybe she simply missed her best friend.