ALEA IACTA EST ; GRACE

003.

"OH, LOOK AT THAT,   Philomena Yıldırım has decided to grace the colosseum with her presence," Alex spoke sarcastically as she made her way over to Philomena who had just walked through the entrance.

Sarcastically, Philomena bowed for her. "Trust me, I'm not here on my free will," she stated, standing back up and walking with Alex back to the training ground.

Her red eyes scanned over everything and everyone, noticing the many people that were present, and just to her luck, she also took note of Jason Grace's presence in the middle of the arena.

"On second thought, I would rather get another punishment from Julia than being here," the Turkish girl spoke and was about to turn around and walk right back out of the arena.

A strong hand settled itself on her shoulder and gripped it tightly, forcing Philomena to turn back around. "Sorry, I got special instructions to keep you here," Alex told her, her tone serious as she released Philomena from the grip of her calloused hands.

Philomena looked over to her, having to look slightly down since she was rather tall and Alex was on the shorter side (which in no way meant that she was any less threatening).

She wanted to retort something, wanted to just run and hoped that Alex wouldn't be able to catch up (she would) but Philomena knew that all those attempts would be futile, because once Julia, one of the two praetors, wanted something to happen, it would happen. And just to her luck, Philomena was now the target of Julia's attention and she knew that the praetor would stop at nothing to get her to finally train now that she had set her mind to it.

"Hi Alex, hi Philomena, what are you doing here? You never come to training," a voice that was too familiar to them, made the two girls turn around and face Jason Grace who was wiping his forehead with his shirt (Philomena couldn't get how someone could sweat and breath heavily from training and still look as good as Jason did then and there. Life was unfair).

Alex just grunted in response, not eager to interact with him and she sure as hell didn't want to explain their little situation to him.

Philomena instead just wanted for Pluto to make the earth swallow her so that she wouldn't have to face him.

In hindsight their conversation the other day had been too deep and Philomena overstepped one too many lines, which she was well aware of, but it seemed like Jason didn't really care.

Putting up a front of nonchalance, Philomena shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, you see, I missed sweating and getting hurt so I decided to come by."

"What she actually means," Alex intervened, "is that Julia has forced me to keep her here and not let her leave before she has spared at least once with someone."

Jason chuckled at that, knowing that this sounded like something their praetor would do. "So, how about we two spar, Philo?"

Considering that Jason would be the only demigod willing to spar with her, seeing as Alex couldn't fight anymore, she guessed that this would be her only way out of the colosseum. "I guess so, but only if you swear to never call me that again." Then, like an afterthought, she told him, "And just so you know, I can't even hold a sword the right way, so please try not to kill me."

Jason watched her walk over to a rack of random swords and looked to Alex, helpless and unsure if what Philomena had said was the truth. The latina girl just nodded in response and walked off, as if to say 'she's your problem now, I'm only here to keep her in the arena'.

In the meantime, Philomena had picked out a sword. One that was neither too long nor too short for her statue and should actually be easy to handle for her. However, as Jason looked at her, holding the sword and walking up to him, he realized that Philomena hadn't lied at all.