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˖*࿐ •*⁀➷
MABEL WAS fine with this entire situation.
The Greek warship hovered in the air over New Rome, casting a long shadow on the city still healing from a battle. Mabel had to admit, the ship was rather impressive— an enormous trireme with billowing sails and a white flag of truce fluttering in the wind.
But Mabel was not nervous; no, she was very normal about all of it.
It was the people around her making her uneasy, the crowds of legionnaires and families from the city shifting anxiously and murmuring to each other. Ghosts were flickering on the wind and her head was whirling and she had to blink hard to push the buzzing whispers from the edges of her mind.
Admittedly, Percy's arm around her shoulder helped. He seemed vaguely jittery too, but it seemed more like anticipation for him, excitement of some sort. He had Mabel on one side and Hazel tucked under his arm on the other, and something like a smile was tugging at the edge of his mouth.
She sort of envied his ability to forgo his nerves for something more positive— that'd never been her strong suit.
The contrast between the two of them walking together must've been jarring to the outside eye— Percy with his laid-back demeanor and easy smile, and Mabel with her blank stare and crossed arms. Or maybe they just looked like a mismatched pair, something that fit together either way.
Either way, Romans steered clear of them as they wove through the crowd, approaching the clearing that had formed just below the ship. Mabel supposed they were both considered pretty unsettling; Percy had killed a giant and Mabel had killed a person.
Up above, Terminus had teleported one of his pedestals to the deck of the Greek ship, likely arguing with the inhabitants, but after a moment, a rope ladder dropped from the edge and nearly brushed the ground twenty feet from Mabel, and she tensed.
The people rippled, forcing Mabel, Percy, Hazel, and Frank to take a step back into the crowd. Romans looked uneasy, like the ladder might explode in their face, but they waited for orders, which Reyna had yet to give.
The female praetor was staring up at something Mabel couldn't quite see over the edge of the ship's railing, until the person started to climb down the ladder and their blond hair flashed gold in the sun. Jason.
Mabel didn't quite react outwardly, but something in the pit of her stomach twitched and she felt mildly nauseous. He was here, alive, after eight months.
She didn't have to braid her own hair anymore.
Somehow, Percy sensed the miniscule shift in her demeanor and tapped his thumb lightly against her shoulder, a quiet reassurance. He'd abandoned his toga and cape while leaving the Senate house, standing in the sun in a faded t-shirt over a white long sleeve, the material a slate blue that made his eyes glow brighter.
