The Son of Vulcan | ✓

II

Percy

Percy would have been the first to admit that the whole situation was a little strange.

Everyone seemed happy to meet Calypso. When she turned to him, the first thing out of his mouth was: "So, I experienced your curse while I was in Tartarus."

Her cheeks turned bright red. "Sorry."

Percy shrugged. "A-plus for creativity. The others were all experience my pain and die like me. But that whole game of keep away? Very creative. Gold stars for you."

Annabeth smacked him for that one, even though he swore he wasn't being sarcastic that time. He also assured Calypso that he'd never let her live it down, for which he got three slaps-one from Piper, one from Annabeth, and one from Calypso, which was greatly encouraged by Annabeth and Piper. At least Jason tried to sort of defend him. Leo and Nico just laughed at him.

While the girls discussed sleeping arrangements for Calypso, Jason made a weird hand motion that nobody seemed to understand. At least he followed it up with a complete and coherent sentence. "While the girls figure that out, we should go to Chiron and Coach Hedge and let them know that Leo's okay."

Leo smiled. "Let's go."

Percy had decided that the best way to break the great news to Hazel, Frank, and Reyna was to Iris-message them. They were set to meet in his cabin after dinner. While Jason hunted down the girls, Leo tinkered with Festus and carried on a conversation with Will Solace and Nico.

At dinner, Percy spent a while thanking Hades, Thanatos, the Fates, and any other gods involving death that he could think of. For the first dinner ever at camp, Percy drank something other than blue Cherry Coke-some brand of soda with a Spanish name, which happened to be Leo's favorite. Leo was all too happy to finally have a camp meal after so long without, and Calypso, sitting next to him, seemed just as content.

After dinner, they skipped the sing-along-with permission, of course-to go to Percy's cabin.

Once inside, everything of the day seemed to melt away. With the exception of Annabeth, none of the others had ever been inside his cabin. They all explored it, mouths open and eyes wide.

Jason pretended to pout. "Oh, so Fish Breath gets a cool cabin, but I have to deal with the mausoleum featuring a huge statue of my dad?"

Percy shrugged. "Luck of the draw, man." He shot a glare at the son of Jupiter. "And don't call me Fish Breath."

"But Annabeth calls you Seaweed Brain."

"Annabeth is my girlfriend, Sparky."

Jason narrowed his eyes at Percy. "Touché, Jackson."

"Seaweed Brain, are we going to get this started?" Annabeth placed her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at him.

Percy nodded. "Right." He cleared his throat, and everyone turned to look at him. "Hey guys, check this out." He walked over to the small fountain. It was made of gray sea rock and decorated with coral, and a fish spit water from its mouth. Percy reached down in and fished out a golden drachma. He held the coin for a second before tossing it into the water. "Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering." He mumbled it and quietly added three names--Hazel Levesque, Praetor Frank Zhang, and Praetor Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano.

Lucky for him, they were all together. Percy smiled and waved. "Hey, guys!"

Hazel jumped. "Gods, Percy!"

Frank laughed. "Hey!"

Reyna just rolled her eyes and shook her head. There was a smile on her face. "What do you want, Gracea?" It was a running joke with all of them.

Jason popped up beside him. "Well," Jason said. "You'll never guess what turned up."

Hazel raised her eyebrows. "What turned up?"

Percy grinned. "Okay, so we were all kind of chilling out, doing our usual things--"

"--being lazy Greeks," Frank added.

"Shut up, Zhang."

"That's Praetor Zhang to you, Jackson."

Percy let out a snort of laughter.

"Anyway," Jason said. "So we were all minding our own business, when suddenly this gigantic hunk of Celestial bronze fell from the sky."

"Okay?" The Romans looked confused.

"It was a dragon." Percy clarified. "Festus, to be more exact. And he had two passengers." He motioned for Leo and Calypso to enter the Romans' line of vision.