A/N: also published on ao3, under the name 'qtgoldstein'. more notes at the end !
"Fool, prate not to me about covenants. There can be no covenants between lions and men, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other through and through. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me, nor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall and glut grim Ares with his life's blood." - Achilles
"I get so much flack for that war, but honestly, Paris and Helen were a cute couple. And the heroes of that war are immortal now - at least in the memories of men. Love is powerful, Piper. It can bring even the gods to their knees." - Aphrodite
CHAPTER ONE: Life
Keep it together. Grab a sandwich at 7-Eleven on the way. Get there on time. Set up the props. Keep it together.
Piper felt someone shove against her. The tote bag barely hanging off her hand fell with a clanging thud. "Oh, come on…" she scowled.
"Excuse you." The older woman huffed, bumping against Piper one more time as she strode forward. The bus hissed to a halt in front of them and Piper joined the line in a lazy slide.
Keep it together. Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich? Onion's only good when the microwave's working. Keep it together.
Fifteen minutes later, Piper stood up from her seat. She made sure to bump her tote bag against the woman's head as she walked down the aisle. The demigod ran out before the woman could protest.
Fight Typhon's little grand-babies when I see them. Make sure the shoes as pure as gold are in place.
Bobbie from 7-Eleven waved at her through the window. She held up two sandwiches. Ham or Onion?
The cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, the shoes as pure as gold -
Piper raised up her right hand and waved. Grilled cheese, please!
It was good to have a routine. Sometimes she felt like Bobbie from 7-Eleven and Alex from Donut King were NPCs in the video game of her life. They'd say 'hello there, traveller, fancy seeing you here again!' and she'd pay them coins and they'd wish her well on her journey. And then she'd continue her quest, entering the premises of Brown Shoe Theatre. Fulfilling her role as the mighty stagehand. And repeat, for the next day.
"Booooooring," she could practically hear Leo teasing, just as he did the last time they spoke:
"Yeah, but it's my boring."
"Exactly. Which I'm super proud of, by the way. Look at you, making your own life and everything. Even if it is filled with bad coffee and sticky stage floors. But, still. It's what you always wanted, right? No prophecies, no gods…"
"Yet somehow I still get drama queens."
"Oh, you can never escape the drama queens."
"Any tips?"
"I dunno – throw a socket wrench at 'em?" He winked. Leo shimmered in the Iris Message. "Seriously, though, Donut King for dinner? The Beauty Queen hath truly lost-eth her throne."
And she liked it that way.
Piper snuck into the theatre right in the middle of the director scolding someone and snatching their bagel from their hand. "Okay, everyone, please, I'm issuing a ban, I'm making a new rule – new rule, everyone, come on, NEW RULE –"
The director banged her foot on the stage three times to catch everyone's attention. Piper quickly stuffed her donut in her mouth before the purge.
"No more food after the first thirty minutes of rehearsal. This is for everyone, including me. That means no more KFC, no more yoghurt, no more sushi, no more Subway. Eat before coming to rehearsal, or after."
A collective groan filled the small theatre.
"What about drinks?" someone shouted.
"No."
"Water?"
"Fine."
"But why can't we eat?"
The director pouted. "Because we don't have the money to clean up any more lasagne stains, Alex May, unless you finally learned how to eat with your mouth closed -"
Piper chewed her donut into pieces and finally swallowed it, her sandwich next. She hopped up from her chair, leaving her bag under the seat. Pumped her arms a few times. A few other team members welcomed her with a wave or a pat on the back. 'Sup Piper. Hey Piper. Piper, thank God you didn't eat the onion bagel today.
Food bans? Please. And Alex May really did need to learn how to chew with her mouth closed. Piper walked past her stuffing noodles into her mouth before the director could catch her, and the pair made faces at each other.
"You got a little Singaporean there, Alex May."
"Bite me."
"Sounds too advanced for you."
But before she could help everyone set up for Act One (the gold shoes, she had to remember), she had to go outside and fight a storm spirit.
After letting someone know she had to go pee (they just shrugged and let her go), she picked up her tote bag and headed to the back.
Pushing open the heavy stage-door, she was met with the cool Seattle air. Only one lamp-post lit the dim car park the stage-door led to. Five cars were parked there – almost all the drama students carpooled, or some of them took the bus like her. Not that she considered herself a drama student, no, she was a 'technical design' student until she could figure out what she actually wanted to do.
Piper leaned against the dumpster. She looked down at her watch: 7:18. She had almost two minutes of quiet to herself before the spirits attacked. Piper fiddled with the plastic wrapper of her sandwich, stuffed quickly in her pocket because the Director also had a thing about rubbish bins –which was to not have them, to promote less waste.
One year. One year she'd been here and she could finally say she was getting used to things. Getting used to the commute to the theatre. Getting used to the fact that she had anything to do with theatre. Piper McLean? Stagehand? Rushing around, wearing all-black, yelling at the AD and actors for not leaving their props where they should be? Working on Into The Woods?
This time last year, she was fighting off Laistrygonian giants just to get here.
She looked at her watch again: 7:20.
The wind picked up around her, colder, harsher. Paper and twigs and leaves started rushing around in a whirlwind, aiming for her face and getting caught in her hair. She held up her elbow to her nose, narrowing her eyes. Her sword glimmered in her tote bag.
"DEMIGOD –" A voice screeched in the wind. The wind formed the face of a screaming woman, reaching out to her with claw-like hands. Piper ducked and rolled to the side, picking up her sword on the way.
"DEMIGOD –" A deeper voice joined the mix. Piper's hair blew into her face, her cheap elastic hairband breaking completely. Distracted, the male ventus swiped across her face, grazing her cheek. Piper scowled at the sting.
"Huh," she said, throwing her hair back so she could see again. "Aeolus actually came through."
The wind stopped, collecting in one place, just outside of the lamp-post's pool of light. Piper took out her dagger from her boot, her sword in her other hand, and she charged forward.
Two weeks later, at opening night, after Piper dealt with the next set of venti Aeolus sent her, she had to deal with other evil spirits.
"You know what this reminds me of?" Neil, a stagehand, whispered to Piper's ear, blocking his mic with his hand. Piper sighed as she went to block hers. "That scene in Golden Throne Heroes where your dad faced off with the woman he loved after that huge misunderstanding?"
Piper tried not to make her grimace visible. Both of them were facing forward anyway, watching the musical from the wings.
"Miscommunication as a plot device is super annoying," she murmured. "And over-done." She paused, catching Neil's slight frown. Piper sighed. "At least they make up. Too bad she dies."
"Yeah, but, you gotta love the drama. Remember how when –"
"Do you have the beans ready?"
"Yeah, I do –"
"Do you have them on the front table or the back?"
"The back."
"They're supposed to be at the front."
"What is going on here?" The director whispered harshly, pinching both of them on their arms. Neil barely stifled his yelp and Piper just glared. "Don't test me, McLean," the director warned, "Absolute SILENCE."
"I'm sorry, but it was –"
The director made a zipping motion so furiously Piper shut up immediately.
The confrontation scene finished, and the next scene began. Piper mouthed along to the words of the song. She stepped aside as the next scene's actors rushed into the wings, preparing to go on stage. When one of the actors shoved against her elbow, she gasped at the sudden jolt of pain, gripping her arm immediately.
"Oh, my God, are you okay?" Alex May whispered, the other actors already rushing back onto the scene. The whisper echoed throughout the whole theatre and Piper thought she saw Alex May's soul leave her entire body. The audience outside tittered.
Backstage, the director may have died too.
Three days later, during a rehearsal where Alex May somehow ripped her dress by just walking around, Piper had to deal with her again.
"Looks like windburn."
"What?"
"Your arm. Windburn. Or sunburn. But it's been pretty cloudy, so…"
Piper furrowed her eyebrows, looking from pins and tools she had in her hand, to Alex standing up with her arm raised so the seamstress could fix the sleeve. She ignored her.
"Are you putting aloe on it?"
"We're still talking about this?"
"I don't think you could've gotten windburn from me." Alex's entire face seemed to droop with regret and shame. "My friends wouldn't stop laughing about it."
Piper sighed, resigned to her situation. "It wasn't that bad."
"Mariana's plotting my death, I can feel it."
"She won't kill you, she'll just punish you. Like me. I'm on Costumes now."
"Gee, thanks," the seamestress snorted. Alex gave her an apologetic smile. After holding out her arm to provide the seamstress with more pins, Piper caught Alex looking at her again. For five seconds, she had a good look at her. Alex had a kind and gentle face, one that seemed to apologise more than anything else. And her eyes…any other time, Piper might have said they were a fascinating sort of striking, but right now they just felt intrusive. Alex May seemed to see more than she should.
Please, don't say anything. Just shut up. Just shut up.
"It looks like it's getting worse," Alex pointed out. "And on your face too, it's a little red."
"I...get a lot of wind where I live."
Piper wrapped the towel into a twister around her head, making a face at Annabeth in the Iris Message. The daughter of Athena had her hair in a messy bun, a pen mark on her face that Piper still hadn't pointed out yet. She could just vaguely make out the Athena cabin behind her.
"The Olympians want another theatre," Annabeth groaned, dragging her hands down her face.
Piper slicked moisturiser messily over her face. "Wow."
"Any tips? From the greatest backstage crewperson of all time?"
"Make sure there's enough space for everyone to walk around. And big backstage areas. Oh, and kitchens."
"I don't think they have kitchens on Olympus."
"Can you just pull a Extreme Makeover on Brown Shoe?"
Annabeth did a dramatic gasp, her grey eyes widening. Leo never failed to make her laugh, but Annabeth never failed to make her really smile. "You mean you actually want me to come over?" Annabeth continued.
"You still want to come over?"
"Yeah, I do! Come on, you went to my gallery thing last month."
"You won't even see me on stage."
"But the principle of the thing is –"
Annabeth and Piper rattled on until it was well past midnight and Annabeth pointed out that Piper's hair was probably going to be greasy and terrible now that it had been wrapped in the towel for several hours. Piper retaliated by saying she'd just cut her hair into a buzzcut.
She was sure that Iris was sick of their messages. She was willing to bet a thousand dollars, and even more drachmas, that most of the Iris messages over the past year had been between Piper and her friends. But it had been the only way she could reach her friends, when she was convinced they still missed her.
Leo balanced a tea-cup between two of his fingers and Piper counted the seconds until it fell.
"Can't you just hold it properly, like a normal person?" Piper had her hand around the tiny-teacup like it was a beer glass.
"Oh, haven't you heard? I'm a demigod."
"It's going to fall and you poured it to the brim. That's burning hot tea."
"There are literally so many memes I could say right now, you just set yourself up for failure. But fire cannot kill a –" Piper leaned forward to push the cup onto Leo's lap, "HEY –"
There weren't a lot of things in Seattle to show Leo around. He wanted to go see Tom Hanks' boathouse from Sleepless In Seattle and Piper had to tell him she didn't think Tom Hanks even set foot on Seattle during the movie. They argued about which godly parent Tom Hanks would have (Leo said Apollo, Piper said Demeter). They visited the Museum of Pop Culture where Leo dramatically whispered 'IT'S ART' at everything and both of them took selfies and photos and pretended they both had arty Instagram accounts to cater to.
"Shouldn't a uni student have an Instagram account? To, like, post all your studying-not-studying photos and iced coffees?" Leo teased.
"You want me to get killed?"
"Well, it's not like you've met any monsters lately, right? Monsters you would've told us about?" asked Leo, giving her a knowing look. Piper narrowed her eyes at him.
They went to the Space Needle and Leo marvelled over the views, while Piper kept an eye out for the empousa she knew liked to loiter around the Needle for visiting demigods like them. Today, they managed to go through the tourist spots unscathed.
She missed Leo. Part of her felt like she wasn't really herself in Seattle, like she was intruding into someone else's normal life for a second, possessing a Normal-Student-Piper's body. And she didn't like the comment Leo made about the monsters. She'd been under the impression that everyone back at camp believed she was living a relatively monster-free life. Seattle was free of monsters, as far as they were concerned. Being so close to Camp Jupiter, and then with Aeolus' dominion stretching over to the western side of Canada now (though only Piper knew this), she could live the most normal life imaginable.
"You'd tell me if things were…weird, right?" Leo suddenly asked, just as they were walking to the train station. His day in Seattle had come to an end.
Piper took a deep breath and sighed, tucking one of her braids behind her ear. She smiled. "Depends on what you mean by weird."
"Demigod-weird. Us-level-weird. The barista at Starbucks suddenly turning into a monster?"
"Oh, that happened last week, I should've told you."
"Hey." Leo's mouth twisted into an uncertain line. "I'm serious."
Piper hesitated. But in the end, as with Annabeth, and as with Chiron who still checked in with her, and Hazel too, she told Leo that everything was fine. Only, unlike everyone else, Leo was the only one who didn't seem to believe her. Annabeth had made sure, and checked in probably more than Leo did, but there was an unspoken agreement between the two girls to just trust what the other said. But to keep vigilant watch. Leo was different. Leo cared, more than Piper felt she deserved. Leo was Leo.
Lying to Leo had become almost second nature over the years, and it scared her. There was a time when Piper couldn't keep her mouth shut about how she felt. Leo could open her emotional flood-gates faster than he could fix a clock. And she'd do the same for him. After the wars, after Jason, it became necessary. But with every shorter conversation they had, Piper felt herself stitch together tighter, preventing herself from spilling ever again, so that Leo wouldn't have to clean up her messes.
The thought made her heart ache. She'd been using Leo like a mop, that's what it was. That's why it was better to push him away. He had done too much for her.
And the strange part was…everything was fine. But maybe Piper's standard of 'fine' had just changed over the years. The venti Aeolus would send, she could handle that. She'd made a deal with Aeolus about it. School was fine, she was staying on top of assignments. Even the musical was fine, the director and Neil and Alex May altogether. And it was fine because it was all on Piper's terms. Nothing had happened yet that Piper hadn't expected.
Everything was fine.
"Pipes, you okay?"
She looked up to see Neil looking at her with concern. Piper pressed her lips together to a thin line. "I'm fine."
He handed her the props in his arms. The show began in ten minutes. Piper winced as the weight of the hats and books and signs fell on her windburned arms. She was fine. More or less.
The opening scene went by, all the stagehands mouthing along the the words. They changed the scenery and the second scene happened. Neil and another stagehand mocked the over-the-top acting of the comic character. Everyone was fully aware of their mics, not speaking a word, angrily gesturing when someone tried to speak to a mic'ed person. Alex May walked by Piper two times, one time trying to see her arm, and the next just smiling. Piper kept her tight-lipped smile the whole way through.
The last scene before the end of Act One was Piper's favourite. This was the 'here's the happy ending don't we all look happy? the end!' musical number, with the soaring chorus and the grand solos, and then Act Two would come by with a 'or IS it?'.
It was also the only scene she could completely enjoy. She usually missed most of the first Act because of her scheduled rassles with the storm spirits, and by the time the end of the Act came about, her wounds generally felt better.
Piper stood back, the stage still in view as she leaned against the old brick wall of the theatre, content to just watch and have the music wash over her.
And then, an unscripted scream.
One of the actresses, in the middle of a 'let's be a happy family' hug on stage, was pointing at the ceiling above the stage. The lights flickered. Everyone froze.
A loud whining, creaking sound echoed around the theatre, and then one of the stagelights fell down right in front of the actors on stage. Wide-eyed, Piper pushed her forward in the wings. Then the wind picked up.
Five storm spirits, maybe six, burst through the roof, creating a mini cyclone in the theatre. Everyone screamed and ran, or in the case of the actors, tried to run, as their costumes got caught in the wind. Capes, dresses, and wigs flew up and everyone held on to each other as they shouted. Piper pushed through the crowd of stagehands and actors trying to exit both backstage and front. She shoved aside Neil, who crashed against a fire extinguisher but she didn't have time to look behind.
The director seemed to be trying to get back to the stage, screaming about saving her actors, but the crowd was pushing her back. The AD was one of the people pulling her away. Piper's panic grew. Gods, what have I done?
Finally reaching her bag, she took out Katoptris and her sword. She rushed back to the front, her heart pumping and her entire being panicking as the screams got louder - and then more screams joined in the fray. Eerie screams mixing with the wind. Metallic clashes, and then the sharper gusts of wind that Piper knew only happened when a storm spirit disintegrated.
She thought of Leo. Did he actually stay? Did he call for reinforcements? Something like resentment began to grow in place of her fear, and she pushed past people rougher, more impatient, until there was no one left and she finally reached the wings.
The first thing she saw were imperial gold swords.
Piper paused at the wings.
The wielders were no one she recognised. Two fighters, a young man and woman, neither of them wearing the purple shirts. The way they fought was distinctly un-Roman, their fighting style seemed to be more Greek, which Piper believed was just 'stay alive, be crafty, and stab when you can'. She didn't know every Roman in Camp Jupiter or New Rome, but there was a certain style to the way they worked and moved, and this wasn't it. And then she noticed their arms: neither of them had the SPQR tattoo.
She hid behind one of the curtains, unsure as to what to do. If they weren't Romans, but they had the imperial gold swords, then that means they stole it from Camp Jupiter. Rogue...demigods? Assassins? Piper quickly looked again.
Neither of them wore Camp Half-Blood necklaces. Though she didn't always wear her own necklace, and wasn't wearing it now.
But they were killing the storm spirits. And enjoying themselves, from the looks of it.
The young man shouted a war cry as he fought with two storm spirits at the same time. The storm spirits looked as confused as Piper felt.
"WHERE IS THE DEMIGOD?" one of them screeched, and she recognised the voice as the female ventus she fought a while ago. Reincarnated already?
The fighters didn't answer. The young woman just continued to slash at the spirits, and they continued to scream frustration at her. One of them tumbled back in the air as they were defeated, bursting into the sharp winds that blew against the others on the stage. Piper's eyes widened as she remembered:
The actors were huddled along the back wall, Alex May in the front with her arms spread across them. Everyone's hair was in a mess, all in their costumes, their crazy makeup. She decided then and there that those fighters weren't allies. She wasn't prepared to trust them just yet, but she couldn't just leave the actors there – not when most of them had no idea what was going on. Everyone was looking around wildly, unable to see the ugly faces of the monsters, only feel the rough winds that tried to scratch at them – and the fighters who probably looked like they were waving around violins or baseball bats.
Piper prepared herself. Taking a few short breaths, like a runner preparing to sprint, she had her eye dead-set on the nearest ventus, the last one, which was getting closer and closer to the actors – until the woman fighter threw their sword at the ventus, the blade piercing through their face, and it died on the spot.
The sword lodged itself into the wall, right above one of the actor's heads.
Piper fumed, but for the first time in ages she was lost. Her brain suffered from an overload of information. She should say something, do something, jump out of the curtains she was hiding in and stop them from doing her job and –
"What the HELL?" the actor screamed, taking the words right out of Piper's mouth. "What the HELL is going on, why did you just THROW that at me, what is GOING ON –"
The woman fighter strode forward, and dislodged the sword. She jumped off the stage and landed on the floor with a heavy thud. The young man followed suit, but not without turning on his heel to speak to the actors with a salute: "Morituri te salutant!"
A/N:
me: says this includes spoilers from trials of apollo
also me: hasn't read trials of apollo
but im still in pain from those spoilers so
so this is also being posted on archive of our own, but i also miss the format of so i'll be posting them here simultaneously! my username over there is 'qtgoldstein' but i'll continue to use my (previously Sisters Grimm-only) account.
im still taking events from that series as canon (as much as i can anyway rip, riordan wikia is the bible). and i also haven't read the books in a while so i apologise in advance for any mistakes i might make ripriprpri
but i love these characters sm and their possibilities are endless, and i have a big plan for this story, so pls let me know what you think ! tysm !