kaleidoscope gold ● jason grace

and

 Hazel was done with nature.

First it had been the schist on their way to Alaska, now the ourae, as Annabeth had called them. The next time anyone at Camp Jupiter suggested a picnic, Hazel would bury them.

She dove as a boulder flew into the mast, toppling it with an unpleasant, crack! In a similar position were Leo and Nico; the former got up cautiously, swinging his Wii remote back and forth.

"Stupid rock gods!" Leo yelled at nothing. "That's the third time I've had to replace that mast! Do you think they grow on trees?"

Nico frowned. "Masts are from trees."

"That's not the point!" Leo snatched up one of his controls, rigged from a Nintendo Wii stick, and

spun it in a circle. A few feet away, a trapdoor opened in the deck. A Celestial bronze cannon rose. A moment later, a series of explosions crackled across the mountains, followed by the outraged

roars of mountain gods.

"Ha!" Leo yelled. Unfortunately, Hazel knew from past experience that this would only anger the ourae. Running back to his dashboard, Leo yanked the throttle to get them out of range.

Hazel sighed. The last few days had been simultaneously chaotic and exhausting. The atmosphere on board was increasingly tense. She wished she didn't have to point fingers, but Percy had been raging around, snapping at nearly everyone, except for maybe Annabeth. Leo was driving himself insane with his work and Piper remained silent, Hazel would catch her staring mournfully at the mural of Camp Half-Blood during meals, as if picturing better times.

And in addition to that, three days ago, Hazel had broken up with her boyfriend. This was partly his fault (after everything that had happened with Daria and Frank's overall bitterness with the situation, she didn't see how they could possibly make it work in the moment), and partly hers (she had rushed into the whole relationship, without realizing that she wouldn't have any time to work on it).

Overall, they had both taken it well. She and Frank were both kind people, so she couldn't assume that there were any serious feelings of ill will between the two, just...awkwardness. Especially now that she had begun to spend so much time with Leo.

She stood on the quarterdeck as Nico picked mast splinters out of his arms and Leo punched buttons on the ship's console.

"Well, that was fucking awful," Leo said. "Should I wake the others?"

"No," Hazel said firmly. "We can figure out another way." In all honesty, she just wasn't sure if waking the others would be much help. All they seemed to do was argue these days.

Most of all however, she missed Daria and Jason. Their absence surrounded her, and she was aware of it at any given moment. No, she decided. They could figure out their way around the mountains; she was going to make Daria proud.

"Another way,' Leo muttered. 'Do you see one?"

To reach Epirus, where they were supposed to meet their lost friends, all they had to do was go straight east- over the Apennines and across the Adriatic Sea. But it hadn't worked out that way. Each time they tried to cross the spine of Italy, the mountain gods attacked.

"We could sail around the southern tip," she pointed out. "Travel by sea."

"That would take ages," Nico pointed out. "And I have a feeling that we're going to face monsters either way."

Leo frowned. "Well Hazel's got a point. We've been flying without..." His voice cracked. "You know...our sky expert, Jason."

The name hung in the air like an impending storm.