Disclaimer: I do not, in any way, shape or form, own "The Heroes of Olympus" series, nor do I own "The Percy Jackson and The Olympians" series.

Tragic, yet true.

Cinnamon. Light. Words.

These are things Ella likes-enjoys-admires.

She perches herself on the edge of the building of books and watches the boy-man-male. "Males are the embodiment of all things disgusting," from "Mary Talks". Biography published in 2003.

Embodiment: emˈbädēmənt; im-|

noun

a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling

The boy is the embodiment of what Ella likes, what Ella tries to smile at.

One time Ella smiled in front of a glass store window. Ella did not like the person smiling back at her. "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, whose the fairest of them all?".

"Sleeping Beauty", published in 1697 by Charles Perrault, in a set of stories titled "Contes de ma Mère l'Oye" translated as "Tales of Mother Goose".

Ella wasn't "fair". But her embodiment was, she decided.

Cinnamon.

There is always a scent-smell-aroma of cinnamon around him. Always by his mouth. Ella notices he is always chewing when he smells of cinnamon, but Ella never sees him swallow. So he is chewing cinnamon, but not eating? Ella wonders how that works. But she loves yummy cinammon, and sometimes wonders if his mouth tastes of cinnamon. Maybe if she pressed her lips onto his, like she'd read about in books, she'd taste cinnamon? Ella wants to try that someday, but she is too afraid he wil get mad, too afraid he will steal Phineas's weed wacker and hurt her.

Some days he is not chewing cinnamon. Sometimes his mouth is still, besides him talking. Ella likes his mouth, even when it doesn't smell of yummy cinnamon. He has white-sparkly-snow teeth "The yard was pure white, and Pa said that meant it'd be a hard winter. But it was hard to believe when it looked so beautiful, lying there untouched." Historical fiction book from the 3rd row on the 12th shelf in the book hall below her. Ella had liked that imagery, had imagined what it might've looked like.

But he is always flashing sparkly teeth, and he is always smiling, always talking, always smelling of cinnamon.

She tries to describe what his smile is like. "Jacob's eyes would squint at the corners, and his one crooked tooth-" No. Her embodiment did not have crooked teeth.

"He flashed a smile that made her knees go weak, his lips close together-" No. He was always laughing smiling opening his mouth.

None of the descriptions of smiling that she knew of fit him, fit her embodiment's smile. Maybe she needed to make her own? Ella blinked at the idea. Ella never wrote, never never never. Only read words, never wrote-formed-made words.

So one day she steals a greasy napkin and finds a cracked ball point on the sidewalk, perches herself on the roof of the hall of books and tried to decribe his smile.

"He is always smiling, his brown eyes are always lighting up like honey-caramel-cinnamon. His smile is slow, slow, in it's appearance. The bottom lip slides down slowly, showing those pretty white teeth. A tiny freckle on his top lip recedes into the folds of skin. And then he is laughter and sunshine and cinnamon, and he is smiling."

She presses the stained napkin between two tattered books in her nest and rereads it now and then.

Light.

Ella remembers his smile as she slowly circled Phineas's table. His brown eyes would light up when he smiled, sparkle like his teeth did. Ella had read in numerous books on birds that they liked shiny things.

Ella was no exception.

His hair was shiny too. Not greasy shiny, like her sisters looked sometimes. But clean-shiny, soft-shiny. Ella wonders what it might feel like if she ran her talons through it. Not in a sharp-fast-snatching way. A gentle, preening, tender way. Ella vaguely remembers a time when her hair had bee soft too, when she had liked running her talons through it.

But then the Earth Mother returned, Phineas returned. Weed-wacker arrived.

Ella shuddered at the memory.

Some days Ella would sit on a telephone pole across a window in the hall of books. On sunny days, light would stream in, and dust motes would glitter like specks of gold. Once, her embodiment had been stacking books when a cloud shifted and light flooded the hall where he had sat. He had glanced up, surprised, and then slowly smiled. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, and Ella was frozen, glued to the pole because he was beautiful amazing godly perfect.

In the moment, surrounded by books and lit up like a solid gold statue, he was perfect. Ella had seen Gods, knew what heavenly beings were like. But silently, in her head, Ella decided he was more perfect. But it was her secret, because if anyone found out she thought a mortal was more perfect. . .

Ella whimpered.

Words.

Ella remembers when words first appeared for her. Back when her hair was soft, a long long long time ago. The red brick building had slowly hatched, growing taller every day. For a long time, Ella never noticed it. Until she flew by a dumpster one day and saw a book. "A Guide to Greek Mythology", ironically enough. She recognized the 2 words; "Greek Mythology" and dived lightly, plucking it from the trash with her talons.

Words Words Words. Ella loved words.

Ever since then, she started going to the Library, even more so when weed-whacker arrived. She once tried to go in, but the people thought she was a pigeon and shooed her out. So Ella would get books from the dumpsters, sometimes pluck them from the outdoors return bin before the librarians would come to collect them.

The second time she had snuck in, it had been dark. The hall of books had been closing, only a few of the reading lamps on throwing random circles of light, and Ella decided she liked the idea of sleeping among words. So she found an off circular cushion, grabbed a book and began flipping through the pages lightening fast. She was immediately enthralled with the book ("Gardening for Dummies") and didn't hear the light foot steps until she saw a pair of beat-up Converse sneakers in front of her.

Ella blinked, blinked. Then looked up.

He looked down at her incredulously.

"What are you?" He asked, calmly, curiously.

Ella was frozen to the cushion. She stared at his hands. No weed-wacker. She stared at his face. He seemed surprised, but he wasn't screaming. She cocked her head and simply said "I am Ella. Aella. Harpy."

Then she tucked the book under her wing and half ran, half flew out-out-out of her beloved hall of words. Up-up-up, away-away-away.

That was how she met her embodiment of good things, yummy things.

So the other day I was at Target, and saw "The Son of Neptune" on a shelf. I immediately jumped across the aisle, snatched a copy up, cradled it to my chest and began petting it like a puppy. BUT WTH, WE NEED TO WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR FOR THE NEXT BOOK? Rick Riordan, you are a sick, sick sadistic person, but I must admit that the man can WRITE.

Ira: . . .*stares*

*coughcough* ANYWAY, I fell asleep plotting this story out the other night, when I stayed up reading till 12. So who is this "embodiment"? I wanna hear people's guesses e w e

And I tried to write from Ella's perspective. . . by the way, she is totally my new favorite character. Sorry, Nico.

Nico: I didn't care to begin with.

Yea, I figured.

So this will probably be a 3-shot~ Opinions, please? ; v ;)/