Adventures of Alexander the Great(er)

vii

vii. midnight

Alex stared at the blank ceiling, thoughts swirling in his head, and let out a long sigh. He sat up and looked at the clock that shone on his bedside table. Alex knew he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, so he walked to his door. He made sure to keep quiet as he walked down the dark hallway.

Alex knew the path to the roof well, he went there whenever he needed a break from reality or during sleepless nights like the one he was having. He walked to the stairs in silence, trying to sort out his thoughts. As he climbed up the stairs and walked across the roof to the blanket he kept up there he didn't see the figure that was laid out on their back.

It wasn't until he focused on the city lit up below him that Alex heard the voice behind him. "Beautiful isn't it?" Alex jumped at the sound of the voice and whipped around to see who was talking to him.

It was hard to make out the figure in the dark, but after a minute or so he had her pegged as Kaya Blackwood. His co-praetor looked down at the sparkling city when she spoke. She walked over to Alex and sat next to him, pulling her legs close to her and placing her chin on her knees.

"Yeah," Alex whispered, he felt like if he spoke any louder he'd disrupt the peacefulness of the night. "What are you doing out here?"

"Nightmares," she said. They were common with demigods and, Kaya learned, after really bad ones she wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. "I ran out of work to do, so I came here. And you?"

She didn't look at him when she asked the question, she kept her gaze on the lights below. "Just couldn't sleep," he looked at her briefly and leaned back on his hands, gazing up at the stars. They let the silence surround them, Alex watching the stars and Kaya the city.

"Does carrying the weight of the camp ever get easier?" he asked after 10 minutes. Alex was deemed praetor a month ago and put an immense amount of pressure on himself to uphold the camp. By now the two were laying on their backs, looking up at the stars.

Kaya shifted slightly and turned to look at the boy that had a frown etched on his face. "In the end, it's always the same weight, but you just have to learn how to share it." Again the two let the silence encase them as they gazed up at the stars.

"Know any constellations?" Alex asked Kaya. He always had a fascination with stars, but was always really bad at spotting constellations.

"Yeah," she moved her arm in a triangle, squiggly shape. "That one is Draco the Dragon, it's my favorite."

Alex watched her trace in a random shape and looked up at the sky. "What?"

"Come here," Kaya laughed and patted the space next to her. He moved next to her and she took his hand in hers. She moved it in the triangle shape again, which was not actually a triangle, but a quadrilateral. "That's the head of  the dragon, see," she moved her hand in a long squiggle. "That's the body and the tail."

"Oh yeah, I totally see that," Alex nodded. He really didn't, and Kaya knew. She laughed again, a twinkling sound that made Alex feel light inside.

She moved closer to Alex, closing the couple of inches of space between them, and pointed their intertwined hands at the sky in a spoon shape. "That's the Big Dipper, it's called that because it looks like a spoon."

By now Alex wasn't paying attention, distracted by the fact that they were holding hands and looking at Kaya while she talked so enthusiastically about the stars. A small grin stretched across his face as he stared at the girl next to him and realized just how much he liked her.

She turned to Alex, done talking about the constellation, and saw him already looking at her. "What?" she asked, touching her face. "Is there something on my face?"