It isn't that Reyna doesn't like her subordinates. It isn't even that she wants them to fear and respect her. She just can't help being serious, strict, and okay... bossy.
Take now, for example. She's doing paperwork - all of it. The reason the Romans have two praetors is not so that one won't suck up all the power; it has to be because all the paperwork is too much for one person, she's absolutely certain.
She has to fill out a form for every single scratch someone gets in training; there is a piece of paper with her name on it for every bandage, every meal, and every gods-forsaken toothbrush the legion goes through.
If she happens to hear Dakota informing the newest recruits from the city that, although alcohol is strictly forbidden, sugary substances like Kool-Aid are allowed, it's her responsibility to keep the peace. And letting Dakota addict twelve-year-old probatios to Kool-Aid is hardly doing that.
So she sends the kids back to training, takes Dakota's flask, and dumps his Kool-Aid out.
"Dakota, there is something big coming, something bad. Octavian has seen a war. You are in charge of keeping the Fifth Cohort alive. And you can't do it to the best of your abilities on a constant sugar rush. Get addicted to grapes, get addicted to oatmeal, get addicted to thrice-be-damned coffee, I don't care. But if I see you so high on sugar that you can't think straight again…"
She makes the appropriate threats, and then sends Dakota back to training, and continues filling out the paperwork that Jason should be helping her with, although his help always ran more towards making her laugh than actually filling out forms. (And even though she won't let herself think it, she knows that if Jason had been there, she would be laughing about Dakota's problem right now, instead of worrying that it would get him and the rest of the Fifth killed.)
If Jason doesn't show up in the next week and a half, then Octavian is going to end up with his position. Hylla has broken off contact, monsters aren't staying dead for long enough, and something bad is happening.
She'll have to stop sleeping, just to keep up with it all.
Annabeth is alone. She is sitting on a plane with the plans for the first building she designed for Olympus up on the screen of her laptop. They're like old friends, she knows them so well, and that's why she has them there.
She is alone, but as long as she has these plans, she has the memory of Percy spilling juice on her second draft, she has Rachel painting over a copy, she has Katie charging into Cabin Six with a preliminary sketch that the Stolls had taken for some reason or another.
She has Chiron looking proud, and Thalia telling her that it all just looks like a bunch of lines to her. She has her mother's thanks. She has her father's smile. She has Mrs. Jackson's questions, about the building, about the decorating, once the building is intact, and then, whispered, about her and Percy. She has her friends, her family, all just by having these plans.
So she absolutely refuses to feel all alone in the world. She won't start sobbing when she sees blue food. She won't have a pit in her stomach when she sees people with writing on their arms. She's stronger than that.
And she set herself up for this, after all, when she decided that Juliet, Mackenzie, and Sophia were not going to get tangled in the prophecy, not if she could help it. They didn't abandon her.
She left them, because when all is said and done, she walks alone.
Rachel sits on her bed in the Big House, having been yanked from Clarion to help save the world. She sketches her dreams; all of them disturbing.
Annabeth, glowing silver, running through the streets of Rome, from landmark to landmark, her knife out all the time, killing the monsters that are charging her from every side.
Percy, standing very pale, at the feet of a giant, capping Riptide.
A buff Asian boy with the face of a kid standing in front of an African-American girl, arrow at the ready. The girl has a long sword, and her battle armor is strange. Her hands are over her stomach, like it hurts.
Leo, on fire, hugging Piper, who seems unaffected by the flames, but is sobbing nonetheless.
The Hunters of Artemis in a circle around Thalia, shooting at Earthborn, as Thalia tries desperately to summon lightening.
Clarisse and Chris, charging towards a group of centaurs with horns, overwhelmed, but fighting like the demons Rachel secretly suspects they are.
Jason, standing on the top of an eagle, in the middle of a storm cloud, talking to a dark-haired girl with a harsh face, who is on a dark Pegasus. He kisses her, and then they both swoop in on a giant, spears poised to strike.
Nico di Angelo, looking more like one of the ghosts he summons than ever, chained in a cave, with a dark figure standing over him.
A man in an orange jumpsuit driving a forklift towards a hell-hound. There is a woman standing on top with a sword in her hand.
The Stoll brothers, shaking hands with a watery form and then rushing a giant, drawing him into a river.
The earth shifting under a group of demigods fighting little figures that appear to be calling out types of grain, swallowing them, then spitting them back out.
Chiron, outfitting campers for war, and sending them off to fight and die bravely, and maybe save the world.
A pack of wolves, surrounding an army and gradually picking off monsters, under cover of darkness.
The Argo II flying, and she, Percy, Piper, Leo, Jason, the Asian boy and the African-American girl are standing on the deck, and she knows, as she knows all else in these dreams, that the insides of the ship are crammed with demigods, the best fighters both camps have to offer. Others will be coming later.
Rachel sees all this, and more in her dreams. Then she draws it, and shows it to Chiron, Piper, Clarisse, Will, and Malcolm, who are kind of in charge of things now that Percy and Annabeth are gone.
The drawings are prophecies, but there is nothing they can do but try and get the Argo II in the air.
Hurry, Rachel thinks, as the visions rush her again.
Leo frantically hammers, welds, screws, configures, and absolutely anything else that needs to be done to build a boat, anything to finish it quickly. Annabeth left last night, and they should have left too, but something went wrong.
So their best strategist, their leader, even... is gone. Officially, Clarisse, Will, Piper, and Malcolm are in charge. And Leo, who is in charge of the boat, is sort of in charge. Piper is more in charge, as the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, but she just makes people do what Leo says, because, hello, if they don't get the damn boat off the ground, then it is literally the end of the world. And Leo has to fix it.
Which brings him back to his original problem - the boat refuses to be fixed. He turns a wrench, tightening the bearings that hold Festus's head in place. He changes the oil, and checks over everything. Literally everything.
The boat still isn't working. He curses, conjures a fireball, and tosses it at a scrap of metal.
"Temper, Valdez." Piper admonishes, walking down into the dregs of the Argo II, probably wanting to know if they are any closer to takeoff than they were two hours ago.
"I threw it at scrap metal, not the ship. That's awesome temper control," Leo replies. "Everything should be working fine! I oiled it all, readjusted every little thing down to the millimeter, I even tried talking to it!"
"If nothing's wrong with the boat, it has to be something else. Gaia messing with us?" Piper tells him. "If we tried putting it in the water, and then getting it to start, would it damage anything?"
Leo glares. "Would I make a boat that wasn't waterproof, Beauty Queen?"
"How many times have I told you not to call me that, Valdez? I'll go see what Chiron thinks of it, and get Jason. Hopefully he can lift it into the water right away."
She isn't on the ship.
Percy is standing there with the rest of the Twelfth Legion, watching people get off the Argo II. Clarisse, the Stolls, Malcolm, Pollux, Katie Gardner, Lou Ellen, Rachel even, everyone he knows from camp, and some people he doesn't.
Everyone but Annabeth.
Clarisse, Malcolm, and a blonde kid he doesn't know step forward. Right as Malcolm opens his mouth, a curly-haired kid comes charging off the ship dragging a girl with black hair. He skids to a stop next to the blonde kid, and solemnly intones, "We come in peace."
The girl with the black hair hits him.
"Leo. We agreed that you weren't allowed to talk."
The curly-haired kid – Leo - pouts.
Malcolm clears his throat.
"I think what Leo was trying to say is that, in interest of stopping Gaia and thus saving the world, we would like to propose an alliance. We unite, go to Rome, and then Greece. If we are strong enough, the gods will help us. We can kill the giants."
Reyna, who is no good at speaking, but very good at bravery, steps forward and says, "We are a democratic people. Your leaders will have to make your proposal before the Senate."
Percy, who is even worse at talking, and an old pro at stupidity - he can hear Annabeth calling him Seaweed Brain even as he starts to speak - says, "Speaking of leaders, where's Annabeth?"
He knows he isn't going to like the answer, not when Clarisse looks at him sympathetically, not when Rachel drops her head, not when Annabeth clearly isn't there.
Finally Clarisse answers. "There was a prophecy. Rachel...?"
Rachel's eyes flash bright green, and she repeats the prophecy that Ella has been mumbling about for weeks.
"We know Annabeth is wisdom's daughter; we know this because she threatened genocide if it was any of our younger sisters. She got on a plane to Rome two weeks ago. She said to tell you she'll see you when we win." Malcolm explains.
Percy's throat closes up and his eyes start to sting, because she isn't there. Wasn't he worth seeing, at least, before they all went off to maybe die?
Gaea says that he'll give up the world to save Annabeth. He knows, in the darkest corners of his mind, that she's too smart to do the same thing.
My revisions are in. Much thanks to my beta, ., who gives very wise and encouraging advice.
As always, I'm not Rick Riordan.