REMEMBER ME ---- BOOK I / Heroes of Olympus / Leo Valdez Fanfiction

aiolus. not aeolus. jupiter. not zeus. please *tries not to cry*

☀

SHE HAD GAINED AND LOST SOMETHING IN less than an hour. As they climbed the cliffs of the floating island, she kept looking back to check on Leo. He still looked guilty about the bridge.

The golden backpack of winds was strapped over Jason's shoulders. The closer they got to Aeolus's palace, the more the bag moved. The winds struggled, rumbling and bumping around. Penelope was worried that would make Jason fall. But then he could fly.

At the same time Penelope felt nostalgia when came to Aeolus's Palace. It felt like she'd been here before, for help she thought. She didn't know what for, but for something important. She didn't care of ever thinking about this, but now, she felt worried, that she might be doing something wrong. Memories flood and hovered, just like when you are the most clueless, and no one gives a shit 'bout it. 

The only one who seemed in a good mood was Coach Hedge. He kept bounding up the slippery staircase and trotting back down. "Come on, cupcakes! Only a few thousand more steps!"

As they climbed, Leo and Piper left Jason and Penelope in their silence. Maybe they could sense her bad mood. Piper kept glancing back, worried, as if she were the one who'd almost died of hypothermia rather than she. Or maybe she was thinking about Thalia's idea. They'd told her what Thalia had said on the bridge—how they could save both her dad and Hera—but Jason didn't really understand how they were going to do that, and he wasn't sure if the possibility had made Piper more hopeful or just more anxious.

Leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs that his pants were on fire. He wasn't steaming anymore, but the incident on the ice bridge had scared the shit out of Jason. Leo hadn't seemed to realize that he had smoke coming out his ears and flames dancing through his hair. If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough time taking him anywhere. She felt guilty to think about it the same time, because it wasn't exactly his fault.

Mostly, though, Penelope worried about what Leo's theory. She didn't want to be one outcast demigod who was a bridge to camp. She just wanted to get back home. Sure, she knew that people hated her back there, but some people loved her too. She wanted to reach back to them. And maybe, if Leo agreed, she'd take him with her. She was sure she liked him, she'd been kind to him to lay on her lap which is a big sacrifice thanks very much. 

Each time the wind slapped her body, she longed to get back. 

Finally they arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds. Twenty-foot-high gates opened for them, and a road of polished purple stone led up to the main citadel—a white-columned rotunda, Greek style, like one of the monuments in Washington, D.C.—except for the cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers on the roof.

The rotunda sat in the center of a quarter-mile circle. The grounds were amazing in a scary way. They were divided into four sections like big pizza slices, each one representing a season.

The section on their right was an icy waste, with bare trees and a frozen lake. Snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, so Jason wasn't sure if they were decorations or alive.

To their left was an autumn park with gold and red trees. Mounds of leaves blew into patterns—gods, people, animals that ran after each other before scattering back into leaves.

In the distance, Jason could see two more areas behind the rotunda. One looked like a green pasture with sheep made out of clouds. The last section was a desert where tumbleweeds scratched strange patterns in the sand like Greek letters, smiley faces, and a huge advertisement that read: watch Aeolus nightly!

"One section for each of the four wind gods," Jason guessed. "Four cardinal directions."

"I'm loving that pasture." Coach Hedge licked his lips. "You guys mind—"

"Go ahead," Jason said. She was happy to get rid of the satyr for the while. It would be hard enough getting on Aeolus's good side without Coach Hedge waving his club and screaming, "Die!"

While the satyr ran off to attack springtime, Jason, Penelope, Leo, and Piper walked down the road to the steps of the palace. They passed through the front doors into a white marble foyer decorated with purple banners that read Olympian weather channel, and some that just read ow!

"Hello!" A woman floated up to them. Literally floated. She was pretty in that elfish way Jason associated with nature spirits at Camp Half-Blood—petite, slightly pointy ears, and an ageless face that could've been sixteen or thirty. Her brown eyes twinkled cheerfully. Even though there was no wind, her dark hair blew in slow motion, shampoo-commercial style. Her white gown billowed around her like parachute material. She floated like a ghost, that scared Penelope for a second. She had a white tablet computer in her hand. "Are you from Lord Zeus?" she asked. "We've been expecting you."

Penelope's jaw fell down in fear at the spirit. She tried to speak, but couldn't. Unlike others, she needed a filter on her mouth.

"Are you a ghost?" he asked.

"She's too pretty to be called a ghost..." Penelope spoke slowly. She was sure that she heard Penelope.

Right away she knew he'd insulted her. The smile turned into a pout. "I'm an aura, sir. A wind nymph, as you might expect, working for the lord of the winds. My name is Mellie. We don't have ghosts. And thank you love for calling me pretty!"

Mellie the aura blushed. "Oh ... well, then. So you are from Zeus?"

"Er," Jason said, "I'm the son of Zeus, yeah."

"Jupiter..." Penelope grunted under her breath.

"Excellent! Please, right this way." She led them through some security doors into another lobby, consulting her tablet as she floated. She didn't look where she was going, but apparently it didn't matter as she drifted straight through a marble column with no problem. "We're out of prime time now, so that's good," she mused. "I can fit you in right before his 11:12 spot."

"Um, okay," Jason said.

The lobby was a pretty distracting place. Winds blasted around them, so Jason felt like he was pushing through an invisible crowd. Doors blew open and slammed by themselves.

The things Penelope could see were just as bizarre. Paper airplanes of all different sizes and shapes sped around, and other wind nymphs, aurai, would occasionally pluck them out of the air, unfold and read them, then toss them back into the air, where the planes would refold themselves and keep flying.

An ugly creature fluttered past. She looked like a mix between an old lady and a chicken on steroids. She had a wrinkled face with black hair tied in a hairnet, arms like a human plus wings like a chicken, and a fat, feathered body with talons for feet. It was amazing she could fly at all. She kept drifting around and bumping into things like a parade balloon.

Penelope flinched. "Oh dear-" 

"Not an aura?" Jason asked Mellie as the creature wobbled by.

Mellie laughed. "That's a harpy, of course. Our, ah, ugly stepsisters, I suppose you would say. Don't you have harpies on Olympus? They're spirits of violent gusts, unlike us aurai. We're all gentle breezes."

She batted her eyes at Jason.

"Course you are," he said.

"So," Piper prompted, "you were taking us to see Aeolus?"

Mellie led them through a set of doors like an airlock. Above the interior door, a green light blinked.

"We have a few minutes before he starts," Mellie said cheerfully. "He probably won't kill you if we go in now. Come along!"

"Kill us? Dude-" Penelope punched Leo on his head.