HORIZON ⸺ jason grace

ix. love is in the air (coach hedge does not approve).

FORGET THE chicken-nugget smoke screen, Violet wanted Leo to invent an anti-dream hat.

That night she had horrible nightmares. First she dreamt that she was falling through an open sky, just as she had done six months ago in Detroit. Clouds parted as she wizzed by at top-speed towards an open sea.

It's just a dream, she told herself. I'll wake up. But that didn't make it any less terrifying.

It should have been sort of comforting to know that she was hurting towards her element, but flying had always terrified Violet, and Jason wasn't there to save her. She hated having no control over her limbs as she spiraled, and there was no way she could do anything except brace herself for the impact that she prayed she could cushion.

Stop panicking, she told herself. This isn't real.

The choppy surface was getting closer as she heard the words carried by the breeze.

Petite-filleeeeee. Petite-filleeeeee.

Just when she hit the water, the dream changed.

She stood in a vast gloomy space like an underground parking garage. Rows of stone pillars extended off in every direction, holding up the ceiling about twenty feet above. Freestanding braziers cast a dim red glow over the floor.

Violet couldn't see very far in the shadows, but hanging from the ceiling were pulley systems, sandbags, and rows of dark theater lights. Piled around the chamber, wooden crates were labeled PROPS, WEAPONS, and COSTUMES. One read: ASSORTED ROCKET LAUNCHERS, which Leo would have found too interesting, she was sure.

Violet heard machinery creaking in the darkness, huge gears turning, and water rushing through creaking pipes.

Then she saw the giant...or at least, Violet guessed that he was a giant.

He was about twelve feet tall—a respectable height for a Cyclops, but only half as tall as other giants Violet had dealt with. He also looked more human than a typical giant, without the dragonlike legs of his larger kin.

Nevertheless, his long purple hair was braided in a ponytail of dreadlocks, woven with gold and silver coins, which struck Violet as a giantish hairstyle. She wondered if they braided each other's hair, and snickered at the thought.

He had a ten-foot spear strapped to his back—a giantish weapon.

He wore the largest black turtleneck Violet had ever seen, black pants, and black leather shoes with points so long and curly, they might have been jester slippers. It was a fashion disaster, to be sure, and any Aphrodite child would have had a fit. He paced back and forth in front of a raised platform, examining a bronze jar only a bit bigger than Violet.

"No, no, no," the giant muttered to himself. "Where's the splash? Where's the value?"

He yelled into the darkness, "Otis!"

Violet heard something shuffling in the distance. Another giant appeared out of the gloom. He wore exactly the same black outfit, right down to the curly shoes. The only difference between the two giants was that the second one's hair was green rather than purple, and she couldn't tell which was worse.

The first giant cursed. "Otis, why do you do this to me every day? I told you I was wearing the black turtleneck today. You could wear anything but the black turtleneck!"

Otis blinked as if he'd just woken up. "I thought you were wearing the yellow toga today."

"That was yesterday! When you showed up in the yellow toga!"