Title: playing with lightning
Author: Pamela Turpin
Rating: T
Summary: she just didn't know she was playing with lightning.
A/N: Lately I've been hooked to Jason/Reyna ffs, and decided to do one of my own! This might be a slight cliche-y story, but do read it - I actually consider it not that bad. And no, I don't own the characters (if only I did...)
The first time the King and the Queen met, sparks flew.
(They were only little minions then.)
He told her his name days after, after all sense returned to her mind. Reyna doesn't smile. She isn't one to easily bestow her trust to someone that easily - not even to a boy who just saved her life and almost got killed in the process. Reyna was cunning and witty. She wasn't friendly by any cases.
She leaves the tiny, clean white bed and glasses of nectar the moment she's given the approval to. The Camp is so much larger than she would have expected it to be - people hurrying through the streets, laughing with their friends, Imperial gold clashing as they train. A spark of fury is in her somewhere - they've all never went through the things she has, despite her age.
Reyna doesn't let fury take her over that easily. She knows, though, that one day, she'll be a Queen of the place.
Nobody told her there was a boy in the equation.
(isn't there always a boy?)
Reyna proves herself right as she works her way up quickly and earns everyone's respect easily. Other campers with years and years of practice are almost nothing to her as she takes them down. Fighting is in her blood - she's a daughter of Bellona, a wa princess, a flawless hacking machine. All the fashion tips and magic tricks she learned in her dark past go to waste. She feels better than ever in every one of her victories - as if she finally had the power and reason to laugh in Circe's face. Everything fades over time, though, right?
(Not Hylla. Never Hylla.)
Everyone knows her name by now, and even though she doesn't have friends (there are no friends on a battlefield), exactly, many people respect her from a distance. She doesn't complain. Nobody gives her glares, nobody calls her names, and finally, she's not forgotten just because she isn't as beautiful and seductive as any of the other attendants at the spa -
She can't let herself be devoured in memories anymore.
But underneath all the masks and armors of words, she's still a teenage girl hardly older than you or I. She's a fourteen year old girl who has her share of dreams and hopes and longing for something new, something she's never known before.
Reyna is the last to realize that.
Nobody is surprised when Jason tries to pick up a conversation with Reyna. He's been known for trying to hit on any girl with a pulse and a slightly interesting personality. It works every time - he's probably had more flings than Venus. His deep blue eyes and slightly messy bad-boy blond hair makes it nearly impossible to resist, anyways.
"Can I sit with you?"
Reyna clutches her tray, slightly surprised at the sudden outburst. "Don't you have your friends to sit with?"
"Well, yeah," Jason replies. He knows enough about Reyna to know that she's not the kind to be easily impressed by looks. "But maybe we could get to know each other better, you know. You seem pretty cool from what I've heard."
Reyna doesn't reply and silently sits down at an empty table. Jason sits across from her and is reward by one of her infamous Reyna scowls. Jason tries to compliment her, and does everything the typical teenager girl would fall hard for - but Reyna doesn't even care to say anything until she finally can't stand it.
"If this is your attempt to woo me, Jason Grace, you'd better have other tricks up your sleeve." She looked at him pointedly. "It's not working."
Jason nods as if he completely agrees and it doesn't bother him one bit, and then launches into a rant about how it was amazing Reyna could win all those battles with a spear, rather than a sword. Of course she fires up and it leads to a full out heated conversation - with Jason enjoying ever second of it. There's something about Reyna that makes her different than the other girls he hits on - something that makes him question himself.
(He might be a womanizer, but he was smart enough to know that the only way to get Reyna's attention was to infuriate her.)
...and of course the boy manages to win over the high and mighty Queen with his words and a promise to defeat her the next day, as if to prove that her spear was never going to be good enough. When Reyna shouts a cry of triumph and as she pins Jason against a tree, breathing hard and fast with both her own spear and his sword in her hand, he smiles. And he thinks he sees the hint of a grin on her face.
(the bruises left were worth it.)
Reyna sits on the throne only a year or more after her arrival. Everyone's jealous, though nobody rejects and somewhere deep inside them, they're happy for the girl. She's always been the closed off, silent yet strong girl, working hard for her position, and a true Roman. From her tough looks to the way she defeats her opponents, she's fit for royalty.
A tear trickles off her cheek as she thinks of her sister.
She meets Jason's gaze, and she smiles.
Later, they go out for dinner, to the same place they always go, whether if it's to discuss battle strategies or just to have a good conversation. Reyna doesn't even remember where their conversation goes - from ways to annoy Octavian or her new villa. She would have said 'no' in a second if someone asked to be their friend years ago. But now, she's different, and Jason's nice to talk to, anyways.
"You really deserved it," he says as their glasses clink. "It was always going to be you, anyways."
Reyna rolls her eyes. "I wouldn't be surprised if you get chosen next, you know."
Jason smiles. "That would be nice."
Later, when they finish their meal and set down on the grassy hill and watch the starry sky, Jason presses her lips to hers and every memory returns.
(She doesn't know that she would be able to enjoy her position for long. She doesn't know what's in store - she doesn't know that every Queen has to step down. Reyna didn't take every second for granted.
Her mistake.)
When he disappears, she keeps her cool and does anything and everything in her power to find him. Numerous search parties are held, and she dedicates all the time she can. Reyna was not going to give up.
(she didn't want to lose him, lose the memories - the first time he took her in his arms, the first time his mouth ghosted her neck in the pale moonlight, the first time -)
A week passes, and she doesn't give up.
Two weeks pass, and she doesn't give up.
Three weeks pass, and she realizes she was playing with lightning.
Time passes so painfully slow until she hears Jason Grace is finally back, and a part of her heart is dancing, her broken soul mending, imagination running away -
she should have known that it wasn't going to be that easy.
The boy and the girl were in love, but Venus cursed them, made them shatter into a thousand pieces, never to be glued together again. He was all lightning and she was all faith - until faith died out. They say hope dies last, but in reality it's the other way around. The boy returned too late, and her heart was broken over a broken boy, and she was ruined.
In all those fairy tales, the prince is the savior, the sword and the shield, saving the maiden every time.
Reyna never believed in fairy tales, and so she didn't get her happily ever after.
When he gets off the Argo II, Reyna's warrior eyes find him at once - but he's got a girl holding onto his hand, with mischievous eyes and carefree hair and a glow of beauty and a seductive smile. She reminds Reyna of a girl she used to know, a girl who held onto her hand and sang her to sleep and always protected her and told her to never give up.
Piper McLean was completely different.
Reyna doesn't bother to talk to Jason. Love only destroys on the battlefield. There will only be one victor - and she wasn't about to let the boy who ran away from his duties to return with a daughter of Venus on his arm be the King.
(The irony.)
When the battle ends and Reyna doesn't even give him a look, his heart shatters into a million pieces.
Years later, when he goes to check the mailbox and finds a neat envelope with his name carefully written on it, he opens it to only find a wedding invitation.
He runs back into his apartment, where Piper sleeps soundly in the guestroom, and he doesn't even care about how anybody could hear him as he breaks down and cries. He cries rivers of memories, of the girl with the calculation stare and the rare, beautiful smile and the black eyes and her hair never down -
(the prince chose the wrong maiden, and it cursed him tenfold.)
Percy makes him to go the wedding, and he puts on his best clothes and doesn't tell Piper where he's going. He smooths his hair in the mirror and looks at the reflection that used to be of him, but only now it only shows the face of a broken man.
When he arrives at the ceremony and sees Reyna in a white gown, with her arm in another man's, he cringes. When they kiss, he doesn't look and excuses himself to go to the bathroom.
Later, when everyone's congratulation the two and he walks up to shake the man's hand (and tries not to squeeze the hand to death) and put on a fake smile as he greets the bride, teary, black eyes find his and Reyna, who never cried, never took sugar in her tea, never braided her hair, never slept with the windows open whispers in his ear -
"I married him for you."
The words haunt him for life, and he wonders if he'll ever be the same again.
Nobody gets a happily ever after in this story.
It's not a story. It's reality.
A/N: so, how was it? Thanks and ta-ta! Please review - even one or two words can brighten up a writer's day!