nor·mal : adjective
conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.
Normality, you think, is relative. For the rich and famous, normal is fancy galas and expensive dresses and massive mansions that could house half of a third world country, but don't. For high schoolers in Virginia, normal is Friday night football games and snowy winters and small diners with nice elderly waitresses named Flo. And for demi-gods, normal is monsters, Mount Olympus, and a centaur for a camp counsellor.
So, you might not be normal by your father's standards, and you might not be normal by your peer's standards, but you are normal by your family's standards. Except… not really.
Normal demi-gods live with their half siblings and learn to shoot an arrow and offer part of each meal to their parent. Normal demi-gods climb a lava mountain and play capture the flag on steroids and sneak their cell phones at night. Normal demi-gods aren't you.
Because you've got an evil giant goddess thing sending you cryptic dreams full of threats and your best friend – boyfriend? – doesn't know shit about himself though you swear that he was at your school for the past few months and you can compel people to do whatever you want and now you're part of a seven demi-god team that's supposed to reunite two feuding families before going off to defeat who the hell knows how many evil giant goddess things and fuck.
Normality may be relative, but abnormality is always definitive.
beau·ty : noun
the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations
People always call you beautiful. And they're right. Your mother being who she is, there's really no other way to describe you other than beautiful.
But what is beauty? What makes one person more 'beautiful' than another? Cause, really, we're all just thousands upon thousands of atoms stuck together to form a being. If you're lucky, some of those atoms will give you big eyes and full lips. But what makes big eyes and full lips more desirable than average eyes and thin lips? They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but who decides what the beholder finds appealing?
Beauty isn't colourful eyes and straight teeth. Beauty isn't an hourglass figure and long legs. Beauty is donating clothes to an orphanage. Beauty is old books in a dark shop lit by candles. Beauty is the one song you always hum while making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Beauty is the little skip in your step. Beauty is eating the cheese off the pizza before licking the remaining sauce.
Because you know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later they're as dull as a brick? Then there are other people. When you meet them you think, "Not bad. They're okay." And then you get to know them and their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality's written all over it. And they just turn into something so beautiful.
That's beauty.
A/N: I actually wrote this nearly a year ago (dated 6/23/2012) but just stumbled upon it and decided I liked it enough to publish
Disclaimer: the wonderful Piper belongs to RSquared and those are actual definitions from an actual dictionary
Note: I've got a couple of large projects that I'm working on and since I took my last exam of sophomore year today, hopefully at least one of them will be published soon