Dedicated to Radycat, for many reasons.

When I put that little note at the bottom of the previous story in this series (How Deep is the River), I was not at all expecting this ship to take off the way it did, and all credit for that falls squarely at her feet. I would strongly recommend checking out the #pipalypso tag on her Tumblr as it is full of wonders.

Chapter 1: PROLOGUE

Piper McLean was going to take the year off.

She'd carefully planned for all of her various projects to wind down around the date of her twenty-third birthday, which had passed and been suitably fêted last week.

The new Greco–Roman demigod-and-legacy exchange program was fully orchestrated and ready to take off. Reyna and Annabeth's efforts in New Rome, Percy and Jason's efforts at Camp Half-Blood, and her own tireless intermediation had finally paid off: Greek and Roman demigods and legacies would be taught about each other's histories, be given a chance to experience each other's cultures, and would learn to respect each other and work together from now on. Secrecy hadn't helped anyone in the war against Gaea, and it was inefficient to fight alone when there were allies there for the making.

It was an issue near and dear to her heart, and to the hearts of all the veteran demigods who had fought against Gaea with her, especially the rest of the Seven. How much pain, how much suffering could have been avoided if they'd fought back to back from the start, if they hadn't had to negotiate and learn to trust each other while already under attack? They'd all lost friends and comrades, and were all determined to save their future generations from the kind of pointless pain they'd suffered.

In the mundane world, she had finally completed her double major in political science and history, after five years of hard work and focus. She had a few more supplementary courses planned, just to round out the edges of her education and give her an edge. Once she had everything she wanted under belt, she would start trying in earnest for a job in international relations. It seemed like a foregone conclusion, in a way, but it wasn't. She'd gone through a dozen possibilities before settling into it, realizing that there really wasn't anything she wanted to do more than facilitate world peace. It was a lofty goal; but then, she was literally superhuman.

The uneasy truces she'd brokered between various deities were all holding steady enough. She'd also already helped most of the major ones through the integration of their divided personalities. In addition, she'd done her best to prepare them for any further drift that might occur thanks to the growing American awareness of their existence, as the inevitable differences in opinion and viewpoint resulting from that would probably continue to affect their aspects.

She was owed a lot of favours, from people in very lofty places. There was no need to call them in yet, but she wasn't likely to forget what she was owed. Having powerful people owe one favours was a very useful tool, even just as leverage in an argument or negotiation.

All told, she'd saved quite a few lives and preserved peace and earned an armload of accomplishments, and that was more than enough for any twenty-three-year-old to be satisfied with for the time being. She'd been very busy for the past seven years, and she was in dire need of a vacation and a half.

So, she was going to take the year off.

There were a few protests, of course. She'd made herself somewhat indispensable to some, but she was still mostly a human being, and she needed to take a vacation more than they needed her to stay and keep the peace.

Now she stood on the tarmac ten feet from the love of her life, admiring it.

It had been a gift from her father on her nineteenth birthday, perhaps by way of apology for all the time he hadn't spent with her when she was growing up. She had long since forgiven him for that, but the gift... certainly hadn't hurt.

She'd paid for her own training and licensing fees out of the sporadic income she earned from amateur modelling work — she still thought she made a terrible model, but the camera and her wallet disagreed — and then spent her two years in flight school visiting it and staring at it in desperate yearning before actually being able to do anything with it. They'd been worth it. Her first flight... well. It was one of her most precious memories of all time. Top three, for sure.

The love of her life was a series seven Denney Kitfox, painted hunter green with cream racing stripes. She'd spent those two years she couldn't fly it getting all her friends with any facility in the magic area to enchant it down to its very nuts and bolts: enchantments for true flight, greater speed, unsinkability, gentle landings, one to make its trunk bigger on the inside, another to dim the roar of the wind and engine so she could play music in flight and actually hear it. The paint was enchanted. The upholstery was enchanted. The whole lovely thing was drenched in magic, and this would be a new test for it; she'd flown it across the continent many, many times while setting up the exchange program, but never across a major ocean.

She wasn't worried. It had never, ever let her down, and she was rigorous about its maintenance, to the point where her friends joked that it was almost like a religion for her. Honestly, she found it hard to argue: she had an object of worship, weekly rituals, and endless faith; all the necessary ingredients. She even had conversations with it, sometimes, when she'd been alone with it long enough, and sometimes when she was actively trying to imbue it with a soul of its own. So they weren't far from right, if one looked at it from the right angle.

Certainly she had more faith in and love for the little plane than she had for most of the actual, real-life gods she knew.

The matte runway framed its reflective surfaces nicely, and the white June sunlight made it sparkle. Its angled lines made it look like it was staring skyward with great yearning. Piper knew that feeling very well.

She wouldn't be the first to fly a Kitfox intercontinentally, but it would be easier for her than it had been for Michel Gordillo, since he'd been flying an earlier model without the benefit of godly blessings — as far as she knew, anyway. The list of demigods Hazel and Frank were compiling was still far from complete, and might never see true completion, since so many demigods lost their magic and became nearly mundane in their adulthood. Gordillo may well have been her godly elder brother, and she might never know. In any case, she was looking forward to being the second to make the attempt, even though it wouldn't give her much in the way of bragging rights.

The flight plan she'd registered listed an airfield in Iceland as her destination, but she doubted she would stop there. There was lots of cool stuff to see in Iceland, to be sure, but she had a whole year. It might be cool to circumnavigate the globe. It wasn't the accomplishment it had once been, but it would still be fun to be able to say she'd done it.

Leo stepped up beside her and clapped her on the back.

Adulthood hadn't changed him much. Same wiry figure, same curly hair, same crooked, lovely smile. Same boring fashion sense. Since learning to appreciate fashion a little herself, Piper had tried to talk him into more flattering things on occasion, but he insisted on his perpetually stained white shirts and khaki overalls and ancient jeans, and firmly so. When she thought about it, her motivation faltered anyway; he spent so much time in the workshop surrounded by grease, good clothes would be wasted on him.

Besides, she wasn't looking much the fashionista today anyway; she was wearing jeans, too, and a red plaid button-down with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Her hair had recently been cut into a fashionable sharp-edged bob, but today she'd just braided the edges back to keep it out of her face and left the rest to hang in a shaggy mop to the nape of her neck.

They looked almost like siblings.

"Send postcards. And souvenirs. And, uh."

"I know," she said, affectionately bumping his shoulder with her own. "If I see Calypso I'll let her know you say hi."

He grinned at her, but it was a little hollow. He'd been busy for the last seven years, too, tinkering with the dulled bit of crystal Calypso had given him from the wall of her home and with his own gadgetry, trying to find a combination that would lead him back to Ogygia's shores. He had promised, after all. Sworn on the River Styx and everything. Piper was pretty sure that the infatuation that had first prompted him to make the oath had faded, but she was also pretty sure that even if breaking an oath on the Styx had no consequences at all, he would continue to try and keep the promise anyway. He would keep trying until something worked, or he died.

In the meantime, he had the garage, and plenty of occasionally magical engineering projects to keep him busy and well paid. If he sometimes took a few extra days off on a weekend and sailed out into the Atlantic on Percy's ship for a week, if sometimes he secluded himself in the workshop and talked to nobody for days, if sometimes he had dark circles under his eyes like he'd been missing sleep or crying or both... well, nobody gave him crap about it. Piper least of all.

She'd been flying internationally a lot since she appointed herself Mediator for the Gods, and so somehow they'd wound up with that inside joke between them.

A joke, because they both knew the gods only ever sent male heroes to torment the goddess in exile, and Piper was many things to many people but that wasn't one of them. A joke, because Leo had to find a way to laugh about the things that hurt him or he couldn't handle them for long. A joke, because it was too heavy to be serious about long-term.

She ruffled a hand through his wild curls and pulled him in for a long, close hug. "Don't worry, I'll write all the time. And it's only a year. I'll be back before you know it, kiddo."

Another inside joke. She'd had a late growth spurt, and had three or four inches on him now. She'd stopped a few inches shy of six feet, and was taller than every girl she knew except Annabeth, while Leo was shorter than every one of his male friends. He took their ribbing good-naturedly, and Piper thought he might actually like it when she drew attention to their height difference and called him by affectionate nicknames, though he had... other reasons for it.

Neither of them had much in the way of family. Leo's father and her mother had been necessarily absent for most of their lives. Leo had lost his mother to the fire, of course, and she'd half-lost hers to his career. What bridges could be mended had been by now, but they still didn't think of their living parents as people who could be relied on for much in the way of support.

So, over their years of friendship and tramping through various perils together, they'd come to some silent but mutual agreement and adopted each other as ersatz siblings. They made a point of never talking about it out loud, as if they might jinx it if they did.

They just had their inside jokes, and affectionate hugs, and when things went pear-shaped, they called each other first.

"You'd better," he said with mock severity. "Or else."

"Promise."

"Okay. Don't forget to keep your cell charged."

"Right, yeah. Speaking of that: when Nico comes back, give me a call, okay? I'm still mad that they sent him alone, and I'll rest easier when I know he's okay."

Leo nodded glumly. "Will do."

He would've gone with Nico in a heartbeat, as would half a dozen other people, but Nico hated taking other people to the underworld, let alone the really harrowing deeps he'd headed down to this time. A missing goddess was a big enough deal to warrant an entourage normally, but he was really the only person at all qualified to carry out the investigation — except for maybe Hazel, but she'd always avoided the underworld for the most part and didn't know her way around like he did. He'd insisted he would be fine, and everyone had had little choice but to take his word for it and cross their fingers.

Demigod lives were always dangerous anyway.

"Thanks. Any other words of caution?"

"Nah. Have fun."

"You bet," she said, giving him one last affectionate squeeze. "Okay, I'm off. See you in a year."

Piper boosted herself into the comfortable cockpit, checking the arrangement of her baggage a third time to make sure nothing would go flying if she changed speeds too quickly. The trip wouldn't take her as long as it should, thanks to all the enchantments— around eighteen hours, instead of nearly two days — but it would still be a long trip, and she'd rather not deal with a badly packed trunk at twenty-five thousand feet.

"Safe travels!" Leo yelled. He'd prudently backed away to a safe distance, and stood at the edge of the tarmac with a broad grin.

She waved and winked at him cheerily, then closed the door and went through the second half of her pre-flight checklist. When at last she was satisfied, she fired it up and tore away down the long road and up into the clear June sky. The Kitfox seemed overjoyed to be in flight, and so was she. The weather was perfect, the winds felt kind, and she had twelve entire months of freedom and adventure ahead waiting for her.

It was going to be a good year.

X

A/N: Things to thank Radycat for in this chapter:

- Piper's outfit
- the briefly mentioned Nico subplot