𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐇 [Jason Grace]

23

𝐉𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩.

Coach Hedge spent the first hour after curfew doing his nightly duty, walking up and down the passageway yelling, "Lights out! Settle down! Try to sneak out, and I'll smack you back to Long Island!"

The look on Dante's face when he saw their "adult chaperone" was a faun, was priceless. Jason half feared Coach would actually smack him with his baseball bat.

Even now, Coach banged his baseball bat against a cabin door whenever he heard a noise, shouting at everyone to go to sleep, which made it impossible for anyone to go to sleep. Jason figured this was the most fun the satyr had had since he'd pretended to be a gym teacher at the Wilderness School.

He stared at the bronze beams on the ceiling. His cabin was pretty cozy. Leo had programmed their quarters to adjust automatically to the occupant's preferred temperature, so it was never too cold or too hot. The mattress and the pillows were perfectly comfortable. A bronze lantern hung from the ceiling, glowing at whatever brightness Jason wished. The lantern's sides were perforated with pinholes, so at night, glimmering constellations drifted across his walls.

Jason had so many things on his mind, he thought he'd never sleep. But there was something peaceful about the rocking of the boat and the drone of the aerial oars as they scooped through the sky.

Finally his eyelids got heavy, and he drifted off.

In his dream, Jason was on sentry duty. It was his seventh year in the legion. If he wanted, he could retire anytime he wished. Though he was still young, the youngest legionnaire Lupa had trained yet.

Only eleven and yet he was just as capable if not more than the older demigods.

The first time Jason ever saw Dante, he was stumbling into the valley. He even fell down once, too busy staring at the Camp and city below him. Jason had giggled, he remembered.

The boy was his age, though he was covered in dirt and scratches. He also seemed exhausted the closer he got. Training with Lupa got intense, Jason knew how it was. She would tell them the location of the Camp and leave them to find it for themselves.

Jason had opened the fortress gate, let him in.

"I'm Jason Grace," he grinned. His right canine had fallen a few months ago and was yet to grow, he was sweating profusely from standing in the sun all day, and he was sure he smelled like a sewer.

But the boy smiled, up close, he was even more striking. One of his eyes was blue and the other brown. Jason couldn't look away from them. He had a splash of freckles across his face. His dark hair was wavy, shaggy and too long. "I'm Dante! Dante Pierce."

"Pierce?" Jason led him to the barracks, looking for a Praetor or even a Centurion. He'd have to bring Dante to Octavian to have his future looked at and then taken in front of the senate. Campers his age were few and far in between. Jason had gotten used to being an odd one out. He hoped Dante would join his cohort, then they could be friends. "That's a name for a warrior!"

"You really think so?" Dante grinned.

So they became friends, even though they were in different cohorts and sons of different gods.

"What does standing for me mean?" Eleven year old Dante looked at Jason with his beautiful eyes. He had been short then, and he was still shorter than Jason now. He fiddled with his probatio tablet around his neck.

He had been accepted into the second cohort and Jason couldn't help but be extremely proud of him.

"I guarantee your behavior," Jason told him. Dante looked funny with all the armor. His pilum was nearly twice his size. The older campers said they'd grow into it. "If you mess up, I get killed along with you."