A/N: So this is an idea that I've had since the end of the Blood of Olympus. Basically this is a story about Leo and Calypso and their journey once they leave Ogygia. There will be some old and new characters incorporated, and they all have a mythological background. It will be a lot like the actual series in terms of plot, and I will try to use Riordan's writing style as much as possible. I will post the chronology and the main character's ages later on, once the characters themselves find out when everything is happening. This is going to be from Leo's point of view the entire story, so you will find out everything with him. I don't really want to do a Calypso POV because I'm afraid I'll screw up her character, and she's so amazing the way Riordan wrote her.
Probably the most important thing you have to understand before you begin is that this is not a one-shot about Leo and Calypso returning to camp. No. This is a multi-chapter story with a plot and the rest of the Seven and friends will be shown very little, if at all. Leo and Calypso might not even return to camp. You'll have to read to find out. The main struggle is important only to Leo and Calypso and whatever side characters I have decided to include. Got it? Good. I'll repeat it one more time to make sure. THIS IS NOT A ONE-SHOT ABOUT LEO AND CALYPSO'S RETURN TO CAMP AND THEIR REUNION WITH THEIR FRIENDS. Thanks!
Warning: BoO SPOILERS
Disclaimer: I am not Rick Riordan, and I do not own PJO or HOO.
Leo didn't really have any idea what he was doing. Which wasn't a good thing, considering he was flying on a rapidly deteriorating bronze metal dragon whose navigational systems hadn't worked since he'd left Ogygia earlier that day. He didn't know where he was or even what day or what year it was, and being dead for gods-knew-how-long wasn't really helping him make any estimates.
From what he could tell about his surroundings, it was night. That was pretty much it. The dragon's heat made it hard to tell what temperature it really was. The few times he had taken Festus under the cloud cover before sunset, all Leo had seen were forests stretching into the horizon. The terrain had been hilly, and Leo had a bad feeling that he had been flying in circles like some demented bird of prey for hours. He really didn't want to know what the mortals were thinking, if there were any. There hadn't been any signs of civilization, either.
What Leo did know aside from that was pathetically limited. He knew he had to fix Festus, his bronze dragon, for one thing. Leo still couldn't believe the dragon was back in his old form again, but it was clear from the way Festus was tilting dangerously to one side and smoking from several holes that time was running out. Leo needed to make some repairs, and fast. He didn't even know where he could find celestial bronze either, because according to Festus's scans, there wasn't any in the area. Which was weird, because Celestial Bronze was always hidden in scraps just about everywhere, if you knew how to look. Old heroes tended to throw away their weapons after any tiny defect. Leo thought that was completely stupid, but hey, that meant more scrap bronze for him. Leo just hoped he would be able to find some before they came crashing down in a fiery ball of hero and metal.
Leo also knew that, as cheesy as it sounded, he would be okay with Calypso at his side. Leo knew Piper would go into fits of happiness if she ever heard him say that, but it was true. Watching Calypso slumped forward, sleeping face-down on his shoulder, her caramel hair slowly rising and falling with each deep breath, made a warm feeling rise up in Leo's chest. He had done it; he had saved her from her paradise prison. He had done what Odysseus hadn't done; heck, he had done what Percy Jackson hadn't done, and that guy had done everything.
Watching Calypso, he began thinking about his future, something that he had been running away from his whole life. He thought about the repair shop the two would open in the United States, the family he would finally be a part of. He could almost see himself and Calypso growing older – wait a minute.
Leo felt a weird panicky feeling growing in his throat, like he had eaten too much of those spicy chips his mom used to buy him when he was younger. As far as he knew, he was fifteen years old now, but Calypso couldn't be more than sixteen in biological age, and she would probably stay like that forever. That was what Leo liked to call a seriously long time. Sure, she had said that she didn't know if she would remain immortal or not, but she was the daughter of Atlas and Tethys, two Titans. Minor or not, she was a Titaness (Yes, Leo had looked her up in the Argo II. No, it wasn't weird!). Leo couldn't stay with a sixteen-year-old until he was old, because he was pretty sure that would make him a creep.
Leo added another thing to his to-do list: Figure out the mortality situation. That officially made his list two items long, including the whole dragon repair problem. It was times like this that he could really use Annabeth, even though she was a pretty scary person.
Leo was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear Festus until it was too late. He didn't notice the dragon's unusually soft creaks until he noticed that they were losing altitude quickly. Leo cursed and rapidly snapped to attention.
Celestial Bronze below. Lots of it, Festus wheezed in his metallic language. The dragon continued to fall, but now he was losing control over his descent. They were losing altitude faster and faster, and Leo started panicking. He reached for his Archimedes sphere, but he hesitated when he saw Calypso, still asleep, painfully oblivious to the fact that they were headed for what was likely to be a fiery and painful death. She looked so adorable, Leo felt bad for wanting to disturb her. He was so caught up staring at her that he jumped when her head suddenly snapped up.
"Dang it, Leo!" she yelled over the wind roaring in their ears. "Stop staring at me like an idiot and try to save us!"
Leo frantically took out some tools and began to work on Festus's circuits. "Sorry, Sunshine! Don't worry, Commander Tool Belt has everything over control!"
He fiddled with some circuitry in Festus's head, but there was only so much he could do falling at terminal velocity over some forested landscape. All he was thinking about as he worked as hard as he could was that he would not lose Calypso or Festus again, and he would certainly not die this death, which was much too anticlimactic for Leo's taste. If Leo was being honest, dying because his dragon crashed sounded too boring. Actually, it sounded pretty cool, but that wasn't the point.
Calypso leaned forward and screamed something into his ear, which sounded like a whisper against the roaring winds. "Look down!"
Peering over the side of the dragon, Leo almost felt like crying with joy. There was a huge garden covering a big portion of the hills, lit up by some artificial lighting system. Leo couldn't really make out any details, but it was big and flat enough for him to have a shot at landing safely.
He meddled with a few more wires, praying to all the gods of Olympus that he would finish on time as the lights below got brighter and brighter as they came closer and closer. When he was sure there was almost no time left, he managed to pull Festus up into a steep coast. Although they were still going fast, they were going slow enough to make a relatively safe landing. It wouldn't be a pretty landing, and Festus would need to be repaired afterward, but nobody would get seriously hurt, and Festus would be able to make a full recovery. Probably.
Calypso reached out and hugged Leo, and Leo hugged her back. She smelled like cinnamon, as always, and it was strangely comforting to Leo. The ground came closer with an almost human whistling sound, or maybe that was just their screams. Yeah, it was their screams. They hugged each other tighter, and Leo didn't even get a good view of the garden before the world faded into darkness.
For once, Leo didn't have any dreams. He wondered if maybe this was a side effect of dying. If so, did that mean that there were other cool side effects? Because that would definitely be a bright side to the whole situation. Before he could continue to ponder the subject, however, he fell into an even darker sleep.
When Leo woke up, he thought he had reached Elysium. He was lying down in the edge of one of the most beautiful gardens he had ever seen. The sun was seated right above the horizon, and it was growing bigger by the minute, like a balloon being pumped up. The garden itself was made with huge fields of the most beautiful flowers Leo had ever seen, most of which he couldn't recognize. Dotting the iridescent meadows were marble statues of Ancient Greek people. These statues slightly concerned Leo, because they all had looks of pure agony on their faces, and they were so lifelike, they looked like they had been made out of the past demigods that had crashed into the area.
Leo brushed off his concern and looked into the distance, where he saw a tiny castle on the horizon. Leo couldn't make out any details, but aside from it, there seemed to be no other places were there could be human civilization. He doubted that there were people hiding out nearby, waiting for him in the elegant gazebos with fruit smoothies and tasty snacks.
Still lying down, Leo turned his head, and instantly regretted it. Pain flared up from every part of his body, but it was a dull, throbbing pain, like he was extremely sore. The good thing was that he probably didn't have any major wounds, but he was too afraid to check. Behind him, there was a huge forest, but there was something slightly off about it, like it wasn't exactly a forest the way Leo knew it. Leo squinted his eyes and looked closer. He wasn't sure, but was that bamboo in the background? Where exactly was he? Was this some weird, giant Chinese restaurant? Leo wasn't sure he wanted to find out.
Leo stayed lying down for a while as the sun slowly crept over the horizon. He felt himself getting slowly better and better, and that was when he realized that there was an angelic voice singing next to him. The melody was ancient, and the power of the words flowed through him and reinvigorated him with every note. Leo guessed that he hadn't noticed because it fit so perfectly with the beautiful garden ahead of him, he had accepted it as part of the Elysian scene.
He looked up and realized that his head was on Calypso's lap, and that she was where the singing voice was coming from. She probably looked a lot better than him, because she was up and alert. Her head was swiveling around as she sang softly, like a baby that had just seen the world for the first time. Her eyes were wide, and she was drinking in the scene eagerly. She looked so cute that Leo broke out into a grin, which hurt, but not as much as before.
Calypso noticed the movement out of the corner of her eye and smirked down at him. "What now, Commander Tool Belt?"
Leo wanted to ask how Festus was doing, but all he managed to say was some weird strangling sound. Thankfully, Calypso seemed to understand.
"Do you mean Festus?" asked Calypso. She looked off into the distance and grimaced. Uh oh. "He's that pile thing over there, I think." She pointed to some point in the distance, in the middle of the gardens. "Hold on, now that you're awake, let me get you some nectar and ambrosia."
Calypso gently removed Leo's head from her lap and ran off into the distance. Leo pulled himself up in a slow and painful process and sat against a nearby tree filled with beautiful golden fruit that seemed inexplicably dangerous. Leo really didn't like the vibes he was getting from this place, like he didn't belong here or something.
When he saw where Calypso was headed, his heart sank. She was headed toward the middle of some field that looked like it had once been filled with some purple gem-like flowers before it was ruined by a giant metal dragon falling from the sky. Now it had a smoking crater in its center, and in the middle of that was a giant pile of Celestial Bronze that had been broken and beaten until you couldn't distinguish any individual parts. Forget scrap metal, Leo needed a forge to repair Festus. He could only hope that the owners of the palace in the distance were nice people who had a forge filled with Celestial Bronze lying around and liked to help lost demigods in their spare time. But that was highly unlikely.
Calypso soon returned with Leo's backpack, and she began to feed him nectar and ambrosia while singing old Ancient Greek hymns. Leo fell into a dream-like trance, and when he came to again, from the position of the sun in the sky, it was noon. He had the weirdest feeling, like he had fallen asleep in a really boring English class and had completely forgotten what was happening. He looked around and saw Calypso sitting across from him, a picnic set between him and her.
"Eat," commanded Calypso in an almost amused tone. Leo gladly obliged, and he was glad to see that he wasn't the least bit sore anymore.
"So," he began. "Where'd you get all this food? Not that I'm complaining."
"Well, I had this feeling that you didn't actually pack for any emergency situations, even though you practically are an emergency situation, so I packed some."
"Well, thank the gods. I haven't eaten since my past life. I'm starved."
Calypso rolled her eyes. "Shut up and eat." Leo didn't protest.
When they were finished, they packed up their stuff into two backpacks. "I think we should go for the castle in the distance. Gods, everything is so big," Calypso said, gesturing to the building in the distance.
"Welcome to the real world, Sunshine," replied Leo. "But yeah, I think that's a good idea. Hopefully there'll be people there, because this silence is giving me the creeps."
Calypso shrugged. "I'm used to it." She turned to face him. "Hey, you know what we should do? We should race. First one to the palace wins. Starting now." Calypso took off running, Leo following closely at her heels.
The two ran through the fragrant fields, laughing and stretching out their legs. Leo felt like he hadn't run in forever, and in the back of his mind, he felt slightly worried. Exactly how long had he been out? He had no idea. He cleared his head and began to run even faster, reaching Calypso, who looked like she was having the time of her life.
Eventually, at one of the biggest meadows, filled with so many white flowers that it looked like snow, Calypso stopped and fell down laughing. She looked like she was having some sort of sensory overload, and Leo watched amusedly from a distance.
"Enjoying yourself out there?" he called out.
Calypso pranced, yes, pranced, over, and lightly slapped his arm. "Fine. Be that way. But don't you just feel free?"
"I'll feel more free once I realize what's going on," Leo said, trying to sound serious, but he felt ridiculously unprepared for the leadership role, like a little kid wearing a business suit. He really wished Jason were here so that Leo could be the one breaking the rules.
"Fine," Calypso replied. "I'll be serious. Let's walk."
Before Leo could reply, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He spun around and got a closer look. He gasped at what he saw, and Calypso gasped from behind him, apparently having seen it at the same time. Tending one of the meadows was an invisible servant just like the ones Calypso had had on Ogygia.
"Um," Leo said, fidgeting. "Is there any chance you know other people who are magically imprisoned, like maybe from a Magical Prisoners Anonymous meeting or something?"
Calypso turned to look at him, eyebrows furrowed. "No, as far as I know, I'm the only one. But my servants, they were a gift from Hera. They were completely unique. I think these are different. Look, they're more machine-like. Mine were clumsier, more human."
Leo took a closer look at the servants, and he realized Calypso was right. These performed their duties with a mechanical perfection, and Leo wondered if they actually were machines. He took out a sphere and began programming it.
"Leo, what are you doing?" Calypso said, a slightly afraid tone in her voice, like she expected the object to explode and kill them. Leo was hurt by her lack of trust. The sphere wouldn't explode unless he told it to. Probably.
In response, Leo pressed a button on the sphere and stepped back as it grew helicopter blades and flew over to the servant. The sphere paused, scanned the area where the servant was working with a blue light, and returned. Leo checked the scan and pumped his fist in the air.
"What is it?" Calypso asked, but now she seemed impatient. "Is it something that's going to kill us in a really cool way or something?"
Leo laughed. "You're doing well, young grasshopper. Day one and you've already learned one of the most important lessons: Almost everything in the real world wants to kill you."
Calypso snorted. "That's really depressing. Also, 'young grasshopper'? What is that supposed to mean?"
Leo clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Yet still so much to learn. Anyway, these servants are just what I thought: machines. And not just any machines, sophisticated machines made of Celestial Bronze and a really cool chameleon exoskeleton that – "
"We get it. They're cool. Does that mean that we can get help nearby?"
Leo nodded his head eagerly. "The machines aren't equipped for war, so we know that the person inside probably doesn't like to kill, and there needs to be a forge nearby to keep up with the rate of repairs. In fact, I think my dad himself might've made these. Scratch that, we're probably not that lucky. But still."
"Well, let's get moving," said Calypso, and they began to walk to the castle, which was getting a lot bigger. As they got closer, they saw more and more of the automatons tending the gardens, and automatons that looked like they were heading out to work in the outskirts. Leo hoped they wouldn't touch Festus, but they didn't seem like they were headed in that direction.
"So," Calypso said. "Have you thought more about the plan? You know, for the future?"
Leo sighed. "First we've got to fix Festus, and then we've got to tell the rest of the Seven I'm all right. And between those two steps, we've got to fix that tiny immortality problem. But you know, then we can go explore the Earth or build a repair shop or whatever you want really."
"Immortality problem?" Calypso said. "What do you mean?"
"There's kind of the teeny issue of you being immortal while I'm not. But you know, no biggie."
Calypso looked concern. "Don't say that. You don't know that. You are not dying on me, Valdez, let me just make that clear."
"Yes ma'am."
"That's the spirit. You know, I'm probably mortal too; people do not age on Ogygia."
Leo turned to look at her. She looked so determined to have some degree of mortality that he didn't have the guts to tell her that that probably wasn't true.
Leo was saved from carrying on the conversation by their arrival at the grand courtyard in front of the palace. The courtyard itself was huge, and the palace was bigger. The courtyard, however, was completely empty; there wasn't a single automaton in sight. It was surrounded on all sides by marble columns, and the pathways crisscrossing the perfect green lawn were also made of marble. The statues here were even bigger, perhaps twenty feet tall. Now that he saw them up close and enlarged, Leo definitely thought they were creepy. All were in positions of pain, with expressions of fear and agony on their faces so prominent that it hurt to watch.
Beside him, Calypso whispered, "Do statues normally look this pained?"
"No," Leo whispered back, although he wasn't sure why. He just didn't want to disturb the almost sacred silence that enfolded the entire scene. "I would definitely classify this as alarming."
"Well," Calypso said, clapping her hands and making Leo flinch with her sudden loudness. "Let's go explore."
They walked forward together, toward the grand palace in front of them. They stayed quiet, wary of the complete silence that followed them around like a ghost.
After what seemed like a very long walk, the two arrived at a huge marble doorway. It was open, and it gave Leo a clear view of a grand marble foyer. Leo looked back and noticed the position of the sun in the sky. It was afternoon now, and when he looked at the ground, he saw that the castle was at the top of a huge hill covered with the garden he had just walked through.
Leo turned to look at the inside of the foyer and closed his eyes. Reaching out with his Hephaestus senses, he checked the area for booby traps.
"It's not booby trapped," he whispered, because the silence in here was just as great as before. "But just in case, stay behind me."
Calypso nodded and grabbed his hand, which made Leo feel all warm and tingly inside. Together, Leo in the lead, they walked forward. Inside, it was beautiful. The marble floor was covered in a red velvet carpet, and there were huge windows that flooded the foyer with daylight. The walls were covered in tapestries depicting nature-scenes so lifelike Leo felt like he was standing in a mystical forest. It was so beautiful, Leo felt instantly suspicious. In the demigod world, beautiful things were usually traps. Well, not everything, Leo thought as he turned to Calypso, whose amber hair and almond eyes glittered in the foyer, making her look like an angel.
"Do I have something on my face?" Calypso said, a smirk on her face.
Leo turned away, cheeks burning. "No. What – what do you mean? You – your face looks fine. More than fine – "
Calypso laughed, and the sound made his heart race. "You can stop babbling like an idiot now."
Calypso shoved him forward. Leo blushed again; he hadn't even realized he'd stopped to stare at her. Together they made their way up the carpeted marble stairs, avoiding the many side passages opening up. At the end of the principal hallway, two huge oak doors loomed over them, standing there like they were thinking about how amusing and unprepared the two were.
"What do you think lies beyond those doors?" Calypso whispered, quieter than ever.
"I don't know," Leo replied, barely audible. "I guess we'll have to find out."
With those words, he reached out and pushed open the pair of giant doors with a grunt. Inside was a room even more splendid than the foyer through which they had just come through. It was huge and made entirely out of marble, and like before, huge windows allowed daylight to flood in. Golden curtains framed each window, matching the color of the carpet leading to the throne.
The walls were filled with tapestries even more beautiful than the ones Leo had just seen, and the most prominent one was just behind the throne. Leo shuddered when he looked at it. It depicted an epic war scene, one filled with dying heroes and acts of valor. Leo almost felt like he was in the scene, dying alongside the heroes and fighting for the glory of his kingdom. Leo almost felt like he recognized the scene, like he had seen it or heard about it somewhere before, though not nearly as beautiful and heart wrenching as the tapestry portrayed it.
But the most beautiful feature of the entire room was seated on the golden throne, reading a book. Leo and Calypso gasped when they saw her, and, seemingly taking notice of the two for the first time, the young woman put her book down and stood up.
The young woman had to be the most beautiful girl Leo had ever seen, aside from Calypso, of course. She was so radiant, so stunning, that it almost hurt to look at her, but at the same time Leo felt herself drawn to her. The girl herself was wearing just a simple white sundress, with golden gladiator sandals and gold accessories. She was tall; just one or two inches shy of six feet, and slim.
Her hair fell in soft waves down to her back, an orange-gold color that reminded Leo of the most beautiful sunsets he had seen aboard the Argo II. Her face was made of beautiful, regal features that seemed sculpted to perfection. She gave the pair a dazzling smile with her full, red lips, showing perfect white teeth, and the two stepped back, stunned by the girl's beauty. She didn't seem to be wearing any make-up or anything; she was just naturally this magnificent. She couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen, but it was hard to tell, her face was just so timeless. But her eyes were what struck Leo the most. Long, dark eyelashes framed electric blue eyes. Electric blue. The same exact shade as Jason's eyes, or his sister Thalia's. But on her, it seemed more dazzling and electrifying still. She was even more beautiful than Aphrodite herself, and she wasn't even trying.
The girl walked down to the pair, still smiling. Leo and Calypso stood frozen in place, paralyzed by her beauty. She walked with a regal grace, but there was something calculating in her gaze, like she was dissecting them, trying to find out their secrets. This girl's stare was scaring Leo almost as bad as Annabeth's, and that was a pretty high standard.
The girl stopped a few feet in front of them, just enough so that she could look at them without having to look down at them, since she was half a head taller.
"Greetings, young heroes," she began, her voice sweet like honey. Yet it reminded Leo of Jason yet again; it was filled with a commanding tone that seemed to let everyone know that she knew what she was doing. "Welcome to my home. I hope you have found it to your liking. It's nice to have visitors."
Calypso replied with a weird sound that might've been yes. Then she cleared her throat and began again. "Yes, thank you. Um, who are you again?"
The girl grimaced, but even that looked beautiful on her face. "I hate this part." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "My name is Helen, immortal daughter of Zeus and Leda."
Leo and Calypso gasped. Several pieces clicked into place: why this young woman reminded Leo of Jason, why she was so beautiful. Leo wasn't very good at myths; well, he was pretty much terrible, but even he knew the myths of Helen of Troy, the woman whose beauty had started one of the bloodiest wars in history. Leo could see why now. This girl was hot. Not as hot as Calypso, of course. Nobody could ever reach Calypso's level.
"Wait," Leo said, finally regaining his voice. "You mean, like, Helen of Troy?"
Helen scowled, and, in the distance, the sky rumbled. With a start, Leo realized she had been the one that had caused it. "I don't like to talk about that period in my life, but if it helps you to recognize me, then yes."
Calypso looked at the magnificent tapestry behind the throne. "That's what that tapestry is showing, isn't it? The Trojan War?"
Helen looked at Calypso with the same dissecting stare as before. "Yes, Calypso. You know, I never expected to meet you. But I guess if someone got you out of your prison, it would be Leo Valdez, – "she turned to face Leo, "– the bane of Gaea. It's nice to meet you as well. Glad to know you didn't actually explode in one final act of bravery."
She smiled at Leo, and Leo somehow felt somewhat comforted by her presence. She seemed like she was actually trying to be genuinely nice. "Thanks," Leo said, finding it a lot easier to talk to her now. "So, do you mind helping us out? I mean, if it's not too much trouble. All we need is – "
"Oh, don't worry. I know you need help. And I'm perfectly willing to give it," Helen said, and Leo felt his hopes rise, but they soon came crashing down. "But the thing is– and you'll really have to forgive me, because I know how hard it is for you – I kind of need your help, and I can't help you until you have been of some assistance to me. I have a sort of quest for you, if you will. Doesn't that sound great?"
A/N: So this was the first chapter; I hope you enjoyed it! I'll try to update as much as I can if I'm not busy or working on other stories. Also, if anybody wants to beta for this story in the future, I'd really appreciate it, because I'm new and don't really know how to choose a good beta. Thanks!