madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-oopsy daisy-

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"Austin's going to music school?" Apollo asked gleefully, his hand pressed to his chest. The sun shone brighter. "Oh which one? I should write him a letter of recommendation... He takes after me! You know I got him his first saxophone, that was the one a cyclops crushed, but then-"

"The grand piano!" Teqi said, like a joke she'd already heard the end of.

They dissolved into giggles.

Leo looked between her and Apollo. They'd been sitting here cross legged for half an hour at least, on the cracked stone stage, while Leo got a sunburn, laughing and talking about their favourite thing in the world:

Cabin 7.

He cleared his throat, inching into the conversation. "So the thing is, Zeus is already pissed off at you, right? If you help us defeat Gaia, you could make it up to him."

Apollo wrinkled his nose. "I suppose that's possible... But, well, I don't actually have the physician's cure."

"I thought you were the god of medicine."

"And dolphins," Teqi whispered, leaning back on her hands.

Apollo gasped. "That was not me, I got into a fight with your father and it wasn't my fault that Kayla was canoeing at the time! It was like, mortal bedtime anyway, why was she on the lake?"

"So who has the physicians cure?" Leo asked. He really hated to break up the fun, he hadn't seen Teqi smile this much in weeks, but his friend's soul was splintering into pieces back on the Argo II as they spoke. She sent him a look.

"For the physician's cure, you would need to see a specialist – the only one who has ever successfully cured death: Asclepius, my son the god of healers!" The sun god said proudly. He really did love his kids.

Although from what Leo had picked up, he saw himself as more of a fun babysitter then a legitimate parent. Driving them through the sky to concerts and the like. Not bad, compared to the rest, he supposed.

Hephaestus hadn't contacted him in months, despite the (admittedly occasional) prayers.

"I'll give you directions to Asclepius. He's really very close!"

Teqi narrowed her eyes. "How do we know he'll help us? We've only got two days."

"He'll help!" Apollo promised, picking at a daisy by his feet absentmindedly. "My son is very helpful. Just plead with him in my name of course, you'll find him at his old temple in Epidaurus."

"What's the catch?" Leo asked.

The god shrugged. "Ah ... well, nothing. Except, of course, he's guarded."

"Guarded by what?"

"I don't know!" Apollo spread his hands helplessly. "I only know Zeus is keeping Asclepius under guard, so he doesn't go running around the world resurrecting people. The first time Asclepius raised the dead ... well, he caused quite an uproar. It's a long story. But I'm sure you can convince him to help."

"Okay, but..." Leo said, pulling his jacket over his sleeves when the fog surrounding the island brought a chill. "What about the last ingredient – the curse of Delos. What is it?"

Teqi leant forward. "Wait, he raised the dead?"

"Yes, isn't that why you're-"

"Rotting corpse in the ground dead, not in a coma dying dead?" she clarified.

He nodded. "I can give the last ingredient to you, then you'll have everything you need for Asclepius to brew the potion."

"So he did that a lot?" Teqi asked. "Just bringing random people back from the dead?"

"Well, yes, Capaneus, Glacus the son of King Minos, Hippolytus the son of Thesus, Lycurgus son of Pronax, and King Tynadarus of Sparta himself! It was about then that my father realised that was too many people and cracked the shits, but you get the-"

Leo felt a bit like he was sitting between the mad hatter and the march hare at a tea party, trying to have a serious conversation. He took a breath. Was this what everyone else had to put up with when he started rambling?

"And the curse?" he asked weakly.

Apollo sighed in exasperation. "That's just a nickname. When my mother, Leto was pregnant, Hera was angry, because Zeus had cheated on her again. So she made the nature spirits in each place promise to turn my mother away so she couldn't give birth anywhere. But not from Delos, because back then Delos was a floating island. The nature spirits here welcomed my mother. She gave birth to my sister and me, and the island was so happy to be our new sacred home it covered itself in these little yellow flowers.

Apollo stood, and walked over to the nearest patch of wildflowers and picked said yellow flower from a crack between the stones. He was wearing sandals. "This is the curse of Delos."

Leo stared at it. "So I could have just picked a daisy myself and walked away."

"Pretty much, yeah. Why?"

Hazel and Frank waited at the Delos docks. Artemis was nowhere in sight. Neither was the bunny rabbit. When Leo turned to wave Apollo goodbye, after dragging a hugged out and gift laden Teqi with him, the god was gone, too.

"You got a daisy?"

"It's the final ingredient to cure death, Zhang. It's a super daisy! How about you guys? Learn anything from Artemis?"

"Unfortunately, yes." Hazel gazed across the water, where the Argo II bobbed at anchor. "Artemis knows a lot about missile weapons. She told us Octavian has ordered some... surprises for Camp Half-Blood. He's used most of the legion's treasure to purchase Cyclopes-built onagers."

Teqi folded her arms. "He's doing what?"

"Oh, no, not onagers!" Leo said. "Also, what's an onager?"

Frank scowled. "You build machines. How can you not know what an onager is? It's just the biggest, baddest catapult ever used by the Roman army."

"He's doing what?"

Hazel grimaced, hugging herself as her hair was blown every which way by the wind. "If Artemis is right, six of these machines will be rolling into Long Island tomorrow night. That's what Octavian has been waiting for. At dawn on August first, he'll..."

She paused, looking at them both a bit apologetically. She spat out the end of her sentence quickly, like it tasted bad. "Have enough firepower to completely destroy Camp Half-Blood without a single Roman casualty."

Teqi burst into a fit of laughter, her anger long gone.

There was a grin on her face as she leant against Leo. He smiled at her infectious, well, mirth, but he wasn't sure why they were happy about this turn of events. Yay, querida, we're about to have matching families.

"Sorry, oh my god. That's hilarious." She straightened up, wiping her teary eyes. "I mean, he can try."

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