The Story of Paul Cooper: Book Two

Shining Like the Sun

Look, I hate to say this, and possibly give it away to those of you who honestly couldn’t figure it out. So, basically, what just happened, you ask? Short answer: I saw my father in the godly/divine/you’ll-burn-to-a-crisp-if-you’re-a-demigod-or-mortal-and-become-a-pile-of-ashes stage, and figured out how to ‘Stay gold, Ponyboy,’ myself. Yeah, I went into the divine thing, too.

                I was trying to figure out how to turn the golden thing off, when my father, Apollo, grinned, and vanished in a cloud of gold smoke; I was starting to see the smoke-color thing. Aphrodite had pink, my dad had gold, etcetera.

                Anyway, I (eventually) ‘turned my divine’ off without even realizing it, and began continuing my walk back to my ‘room’. I pushed aside the curtain, and was sitting down in the chair at my new desk, when I heard a chorus of coughs from behind me. I spun around, since my chair was the best kind: a swivel chair.  I saw my friends seated on various articles of furniture: Kate, Zach, Arlia, Jack, Emily, and Zoë. Yeah, yeah, you’re wondering where Sam, Nick, Hailey, Aurella, Calypso and whoever else, wondering where they are. Sorry, but I don’t really consider them friends…yet.

                “So…”I said slowly, looking at each of them. “How did things go?”

                Kate shrugged and stood up.

                “Okay, I guess. We only spent time with Calypso, Aurella, and Hailey, and just sat there,” Kate sighed.

                “Yeah, it was awkward,” Arlia snapped, inspecting one of her silver arrows. If you don’t remember, Arlia is a Hunter of Artemis, my aunt. Literally.

                “Sorry about that, it’s just…I needed to talk with my aunts,” I said, amazed at how the phrase ‘my aunts’ came easily. Hey, I barely knew any of my immediate family members. Oh, I’ll have eternity, right? Right.

                “Godly duties,” Jack grinned, but his smile vanished when he saw the glare from Emily.

                “So, which one of your aunts did you meet?” Emily continued, after glaring at Jack a little while longer.

                “Aphrodite and Athena,” I replied casually, as if I had lived here, on Olympus, all my life. Unless you don’t count the fact that I really had lived here, since before the Trojan War when everything got weird…moving on.

                Zoë perked up.

                “My mom? You met here? Did she…ask about me? Did she think I was doing well as a demigod?” Zoë said quickly, standing up, her white robes (yeah, we were all still wearing traditional Greek clothing) gracefully falling around her.

                “She said she was worried about you,” I replied coolly, but my statement came out more as a question than anything else.

                Zoë’s face seemed crestfallen, and so did everyone else’s’.

                “What time is it? Maybe we can go train…or read…learn something?” I stuttered, nervously running my hand through my hair. I saw my reflection in the nearby mirror, and was stunned. I hadn’t seen myself- in a mirror- in a while. Wow…my hair was really blonde…

                “Yeah,” Zoë sighed, as Arlia put an arm around her, “that’s fine.”

                So, as it may seem, Zach, Jack, Arlia, Emily, Zoë, Kate, and myself all decided to train, since we just fight all the time, and I’m serious about that.

                Since the others (except for Jack and I) are actually demigods, they can die at anytime, by either an immortal weapon, or a normal one. They have a double-chance at getting killed, while I can’t die at all, which isn’t too fun, since…never mind. I’ll get into that discussion later.

                So, we fight to live. Or, they fight to live, since I just fight to help them live, if that makes sense at all.

                I was walking next to Zach, since I really haven’t talked to him much in the past hours, or day- however much time has passed while we’ve all been on Olympus.

                “Having fun?” Zach asked, a smirk across his very Greek-looking face. I don’t know  if I’ve ever told you this before, but I think Zach looks Greek. I mean, he has a sort of pointy nose, and smallish ears, and bright, almost creepy blue eyes, and extremely curly black hair. Not messy hair, curly. And, he’s thin and tall. All of these things combined, and he’s Greek- well, and half-American. He’s from Pittsburgh, so there you go.

                “I guess,” I laughed, making sure that my dog-tag-that-turned-into-a-bow-and-quiver-full-of-arrows was still clanking around my neck. Good, it was still there.

                “Listen, Paul,” said Zach, and I realized for the first time that ‘Paul’ isn’t a very Greek-god type name. ‘Oh, yeah, class, this is Latin, so we’ll also be learning about the Greek and Roman deities to further out knowledge in the months of the year, etc. The god Paul, was the god of-’

                And, for one thing, can you imagine listening to that? Also, what was I the god of? I mean, Zeus is the Big Cheese, and the lightning guy, Hera is Queen of Heaven, and the patron to mothers and children, so what was I? The kid who just likes to goof off?

                I don’t think so.

                “Paul?” Zach’s voice was calling me back. I’ve been a little…ADHD lately, if you get that. 

                “Yeah?”

                “Listen, I don’t know why I’m here, but I want you to know that…er, well, I think that if anything goes wrong here- not that anything would- we’ll get through it,” Zach said, only loud enough for me to hear.

                I nodded.

                “By the way, where do we train?” Zach continued, a little nervous. I laughed.

                “Oh, Zachery, this is why you’re one of my best friends. Always hilarious, without realizing it,” I grinned. He smiled, too, and we all kept walking.

                “No, really, where do we train?” he repeated. I stopped walking.

                “I don’t know.”