Titans Wrath

Annabeth: Chapter 24

We held a memorial and burned a shroud for Jason the following morning. A lot of tears were shed. Because of his central role in both camps, being the Pontifex and opening up new cabins and shrines for hundreds of previously forgotten or unrecognized or just unrepresented gods, the memorial was held on Mount Olympus to accommodate the sheer size of mourners.

Demigods from all over the country and both camps had shown up. There had to be over 1000 of us total, but that number was merely an estimate. Thalia and Piper burned the shroud, and Jason's pyre. Piper was supposed to give a speech, but when she stepped up to the podium, she couldn't manage it. She simply let out a choked sob as Thalia escorted her off the pedestal. After seating the grieving Guardian off to the side, Thalia herself stepped up to the podium. She looked at the sea of faces before turning to look at the roaring flames of her brothers shroud, then back at the crowd.

Her head hung low for a moment before she looked back up and began to speak. "Jason was many things, to many people. Some called him friend. Some, praetor. Some called him pontifex and Guardian. I knew him simply as my little brother." Her voice shook slightly, but she steeled herself and plowed forward.

"One thing we all have in common, though, is that Jason Grace played an integral role in all our lives, in one way or another." Her gaze swept across the crowd, and she seemed to meet every pair single pair of eyes. Her own electric blue orbs were full of sorrow and an angry determination.

"Jason was a special person. As anyone who met him face to face will be able to tell you, Jason had a scar on his upper lip. To hear him tell the story, he got that scar fighting a monster with his bare hands. The embarrassing reality is that he got that scar when he tried to eat a stapler when he was five years old." She smiled as chuckles broke through the crowd. "You should have seen the look on our mom's face... The point of that story is, no matter how you saw him, Jason was just like every last one of us, despite the hero persona he put up. He made mistakes, he loved, he rose and he fell."

"Even though his life was cut short, much too short, he accomplished many things. He brought glory to the fifth cohort." She motioned, and a cheer rose from the crowd from the direction of the Roman demigods. "He rose from probatio to Praetor in the legion." An even larger roar of recognition followed.

Thalias' voice rose in volume and intensity the more she spoke, and the hearth flared with the rising emotions she was pulling from the crowd.

"Before he reached the age of sixteen, he led the demigods of camp Rome on a full frontal assault of Mount Othrys and slew the Titan Krios in single combat. He personally pulled the bolt from the heavens to split the throne of Kronos in two, and tore the palace down brick by fucking brick!" She was screaming now, her voice amplified and filling the space. She pointed behind her at her brothers still roaring pyre.

"And did he get rest and respite after that? No! He was ripped from his home, his memories wiped and placed into then enemy territory, and despite all his instincts telling him he was in the wrong place and that the Greeks were his enemy, he put his life on the line to traverse the couentry on dragon back leading a quest to help the demigods of Camp Half-Blood!"

She had the crowd in a frenzy now, all of us. The hearth roared with bright orange flames, over a dozen feet in the air, but the daughter of Zeus wasn't done yet.

"He helped to spear head the quest to link back up with Percy Jackson in New Rome, helped establish good relations between the campers, helped defeat Gaea and slew the giant Porphyrion with the help of his father, TWICE, and after ALL that, when the war was finally won, did he take the rest and retirement he so definitely earned and deserved? No! He continued to go between camps, pouring over research and working with the gods to make sure none of the minor immortals were forgotten again, building cabins and shrines and helping write peace treaties with said immortals."