wow I've been gone a long time. I wanted to write this before I left for the Honduran jungle but no luck. At least it's here now! It struck me as odd in Chaos 101, when each of the heroes just happened to have the key with them the day they were abducted. Not one was like "oh I found something like that but left it at home", so I started a fic! I love the title, so I feel like I might have to morph it into more than just a pre-canon story, so I don't waste such an advantageous title. I don't own Class of the Titans, that awesome title belongs to Nelvana, Teletoon and Stubio B productions.

------------------------------------

The Seven Keys

Jay

Jay moved swiftly, a small key swinging against his right leg with every second step. Recently it had seemed the only thing his mother did was encourage him to be less serious – wasn't that the opposite of what mothers were supposed to do? He wasn't mad at her, he could never really be angry at her, but he was frustrated.

"Jay, believe me honey I'm so proud of you, but you don't always have to take life so seriously; you may regret it some day," his mother had told him, with both hands on his shoulders and a look of exasperation and sadness, as if she were envisioning that hypothetical day of realization.

He thought about it again. Jay did take some things pretty seriously, but that was because he had to. Who else would? Even his mother wasn't always there when she was needed. He had to be prepared for everything.

Jay stopped. He had reached the edge of the dock he was walking along and now looked out over the crowd of white masts to the sea. He took a deep breath of the familiar air, with its tang of salt and lingering fish. Somehow this was the only place he could find release.

The sea had always called to him, even when he was very young. His mother had enchanted him with the adventurous stories of Odysseus and Jason, sailing across Greek waters into lands unknown where giant monsters and beautiful sorceresses lived. After those stories, he spent every waking hour staring out the one window that faced the sea or pleading for sailing classes so that he too could discover those amazing worlds.

That was his younger self. As he grew older, disappointments made him wiser but pessimistic. Not in every situation, but they made Jay stop dreaming and instead find wonder in phenomena like the cosmos – which were amazing, but proven real.

There had been two main disappointments in his childhood, both occurring in succession due to his first sailing lesson.

The first was the sailing lessons themselves. The camp his parents had signed Jay up for took place on a vast lake whose waters were a murky brown instead of the deep aquamarine out his window, and whose expansive width he conquered at the end of just two weeks. Jay's childhood heart felt deceived by the lake, which yielded no islands or adventures the likes of his mother's stories, and by the stories themselves, whose epic tales no longer entertained his betrayed imagination.

The second was when, noting Jay's sudden lack of interest in her stories, his mother asked if everything was alright. In one moment he spilled to her everything about the sailing camp: the lack of adventures, the absence of magical uncharted islands, the very normalcy of it.

Jay's mother had sighed when he had finished, quick-to-dry tears threatening to spill from him like his words. She decided, wrongly, that he was ready for his doubts to be confirmed and looked straight into Jay's young eyes.

"Jay, these are only stories," she said, throwing away the cheeky smile she usually answered with when asked if they were real. "Monsters and magic don't exist in real life, no matter how much you wish they did."

Jay hadn't wanted to believe her then, but as he grew older it was impossible for him to see how he couldn't. Everything had just been an enchanting tale from his heritage, but he hung onto the stories and portrayed advanced interest when he studied Greek mythology in school. His further interest and research just cemented the fact that, in entirety, they were impossible to be true, and Jay finally gave up.

Throughout all this Jay kept sailing, because he loved it, and because his instructor 'saw potential in him', advancing him and encouraging him even when Jay had half a mind to quit – that half brain never would have won, though.

Jay put his hands on his hips and inspected the boat below him. He was hoping to buy his own one day but for now he rented them for his daily sails around the marina, the small ones that floated beside every dock.

He felt almost guilty not having a lifejacket, but only the seagulls were there to scorn his infraction with periodic screeches. The wind was low, he justified, so he stepped down into the battered white hill anyway.

Jay put his hand down to support himself while he sat, but instead of rough plastic his fingertips brushed something cold and hard, that clinked as it skidded across the seat. Looking down, a small golden disc glinted up at Jay in the sunlight.

"What's this…?" he wondered out loud, picking it up and running his thumb over its raised surface. Turning it over, a curly J revealed itself on the other side.

Jay squinted and held the first side closer to his face in an effort to see the small details. The golden pendant hung off a similarly golden chain, though overall it was not what one would usually picture for a necklace.

It was heavy, and from the centre of the pendant sprouted a thin golden arrow, currently pointing to a symbol Jay recognized as the Greek letter delta. The whole circumference, in fact, was divided into 24 equal sections, each one labeled by a letter from the alphabet of the language his mother had tried to teach him when he was younger.

Jay poked the arrow with his index finger but it didn't budge. Probably rusty, he thought, though the whole thing shone as if newly polished. He linked his hand through the chain and held the necklace suspended, so it spun and reflected the sun into his eyes.

Jay clasped it again and got out of the boat, determined to do the right thing despite the strange urge he had to pocket the shining medallion instead. It probably belonged to another renter who would be missing it, surely.

The planks of the dock creaked from his weight and years of wear as Jay clogged along its wooden surface. He stepped onto the graveled path lined with tufts of grass that the dock connected to and approached a small wooden hut, painted green and adorned with a large 'RENTALS' sign.

The hefty man behind the counter grinned as Jay came up. "Boat not up to your standards, Jay?" he asked with a chuckle.

Jay gave him a slight sideways smile and shook his head. "It's fine Joe… just, is this yours?" Jay held up the pendant and it dangled in front of Joe's scrutinizing nose.

"Nope, I'd never wear something like that," he said, gesturing to his girth with a laughing shrug.

"Has anyone else rented boat 6 since I last did?" Jay asked, just fast enough for Joe to give him a curious look before pondering his question.

"I only ever rent that darlin' to you," Joe answered with a kind grin. Before Jay could dig himself any deeper into a suspicious hole, Joe added "that's probably yours, and you just can't remember. People lose all kinds of things and find them in their boats months later."

Joe's look told Jay to just take the pendant and go back to the boat. Jay slipped it into his pocket with an absentminded, "right, probably," his mind already drifting to the sailboat and the water. He turned back to the dock and headed toward his craft. He had to get one last sail in before the race tomorrow.

------------------------------------

I hope that was interesting! I had fun writing it, trying to do a little character analysis. I haven't written in a while though so review! Tell me what you think, how I can improve, anything, it makes me feel important :P