JUPITER, ASCENDING. (pjo)

pr.

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𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚎...

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒓𝒐 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒆

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JASON WOULD BE LYING IF HE said he wasn't antsy, at this point. It'd been almost six months since the quest to free Hera from the resurrected Porphyrion at the Wolf House— six more months that he'd been away from her. After their quest, Jason had tried (and failed) to convince Chiron to let him return to California, insisting that she needed him and that he needed to find her. Chiron had flat-out refused, saying it was too dangerous— Jason didn't particularly care about how dangerous it was. His sister was out there, and he'd abandoned her! —but the old centaur was insistent. Jason was not to leave the safety of Camp Half-Blood until preparations for the next segment of their quest had been completed. It's all fine and dandy when Chiron tries to take his leave, placing (what Jason assumes is supposed to be a comforting gesture of) a hand on his shoulder.

That is, until Jason remembers what he'd had to go through for the past couple of months. How a prophecy had told Annabeth that Percy would be returned to her. Percy had been snatched, his memory wiped, and held gods-know-where for gods-know-how-long, so why— why was it sounding like his sister had been taken, just like he and Percy had?

Oh, yeah.

Because she had. Rory had been snatched right up like a pawn in Hera's game.

Then, Jason gets angry. He shrugs off Chiron's hand, wants to know why he's made it sound like Hera hadn't kept up her end of the bargain, but the centaur refuses to say anything more on the subject. It's his eyes that give him away, though.

Chiron's eyes look sad.

And then, Chiron makes sure he's too busy to talk to Jason again. Avoids him with one excuse or another, running off to solve 'problems' that Jason's pretty sure are ones he comes up with on the spot. Leo and Piper try to distract him. They're worried about him, Jason knows. The two of them have been since the Wolf House, when Lupa had been startlingly aggressive towards Hera. Jason had thought it was just because of, yknow, the Greek/Roman rivalry that had been happening, until he looked at her again, and realized that wolf goddess looked for all the world like a mother on the defensive.

(Like Hera had stolen one of her pups.)

That had been the moment when Jason realized, and the jumbled pieces in his mind clicked together.

six months previous

glen ellen, california, 21 december 2009

wolf house

   "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT," Jason asks into the silence, when neither goddess says anything. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, feels the bile rising from his stomach towards his throat. "Lupa?"

"Ask the graecus," Lupa snarls. She practically spits the word at Hera, who stands in the center, still, recently restored to her glory.

Hera looks mildly offended. She shoots the goddess a dirty look even as she replies. "Here I was, wolf, thinking you only cared for the strong. The dutiful little soldiers who complete the tasks they've been given."