LABYRINTH ↬ leo valdez x reader, book three

10. THE GOLD

"So how is it?" I asked.
"It's messy." Valentina replied gravely. "We're all just trying to get through it."
"It would be better with you." Gracie chimed. "That's what Valentina meant to say."
Valentina twisted down her lipstick and leaned forward, her chin on her knuckles. "So how is it? Anything to fill us in on?"
I tilted my head. "I guess." I said to the compact in my hand, preparing to retell every waking minute since I left.

When the ship docked at the harbour in Piraeus, on the outskirts of Athens, I didn't feel relieved that we had arrived safely or that we were finally where we had come all this way for. Instead, my legs were shaky and my body had a nasty feeling of dread. Today, one way or another, our journey would end. And that made me sad, melancholy, more than anything else.

Last night I had a dream after sipping on some chamomile, just like the doctor ordered. I wished the dream hadn't come at all, because it was something I had long forgotten.
Sitting with my grandmother on her porch, at the secluded house. No ice cream, as it was autumn. The leaves were dying, crisp and now crumbling away into a distant memory.

I missed my grandma so impossibly much. THe wrinkles by her eyes, how we looked exactly alike. This afternoon, waiting for my M/P to pick me up, she told me something.
"Now, Sunshine, how would you feel if I told you I can foresee the future?"

"Grandma, M/P said you just write poems that you pretend are the future."
"They're called prophecies, lovely little Y/N. Do you know what an Oracle is?"
"Nope." I responded, popping the 'p'.
She chuckled and held me in her arms.

"I'm the Oracle of Trikala. You don't have to believe me darling, but you are destined to do such great things. You can help people that are sick, you know that?"
I held her hand. "What do you mean?"
"Once, I was very sick." She started. "And you came to visit, you talked to me and I felt better just having you around. You're so incredibly lucky Y/N, because you've been chosen. By the gods, by Asclepius. By her, Y/N, the Earth herself."

"Grandma!" I squealed, hopping up. "You're crazy."
And at the time, she was. She was speaking nonsense. "Y/N, you will know what to do when the time comes. Just never forget your old Grandma back home, okay?"
I embraced her and promised myself I would never let go. I did let go, though. And I've never held onto something so tightly since...

After the dream, the memory that intruded into my soul and left me in a state of sadness, I didn't even feel phased when we sat for Bundt cake with the snake man.

His face was chiselled and bronze, his eyes black as basalt, his curly dark hair glistening with oil. His upper body rippled with muscles, covered only by a Greek chlamys – a white wool cloak loosely wrapped and pinned at the shoulder. From the waist down, his body was one giant serpent trunk – about eight feet of green tail undulating behind him as he moved.

"Please take a seat," Jason offered.
Kekrops wrinkled his nose. "Snake people do not sit."
"Please remain standing," Leo said. He cut the cake and stuffed a piece in his mouth. "Dang!" He grinned. "Snake people know how to make Bundt cake. Kind of orangey, with a hint of honey. Needs a glass of milk."

"Snake people do not drink milk," Kekrops said. "We are lactose-intolerant reptiles."
"Me, too!" Frank said. "I mean ... lactose intolerant. Not a reptile. Though I can be a reptile sometimes –"
"Anyway," Hazel interrupted, "King Kekrops, what brings you here? How did you know we'd arrived?"

"I know everything that happens in Athens," Kekrops said. "I was the city's founder, its first king, born of the earth. I am the one who judged the dispute between Athena and Poseidon, and chose Athena to be the patron of the city."
"No hard feelings, though," Percy muttered.

Annabeth elbowed him. "I've heard of you, Kekrops. You were the first to offer sacrifices to Athena. You built her first shrine on the Acropolis."
"Correct." Kekrops sounded bitter, like he regretted his decision. "My people were the original Athenians – the gemini."