Five-Years-Old

Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano did not like dresses. They were stuffy, and uncomfortable, and you couldn't sit down properly without showing your underwear. (And my properly, Reyna meant so that you dress wasn't riding up on your thighs.)

However, it was graduation day (for kindergarten) and apparently that meant you had to wear a dress. Reyna was going to hunt down the idiot that had made that rule. (The scowl on her small face unnerved even her father, who was married to Bellona which meant that he was subject to a lot of scowls.)

"Mommy, why do I have to wear a dress?" She whined.

"It's graduation, Reyna," Bellona said gently. "That means that you have to look nice.

All the other girls will be wearing dresses too."

"Can't I look nice in jeans?" Reyna asked. Her mother sighed.

"Believe me, reina, I asked my mother that my whole life. It never did work." She

ruffled her daughter's hair. "But, come on, the minute we get home you can take it off. Okay?" When her daughter pouted, Bellona sighed and added a bribe. "And then I'll take you out to that cafe that you like and we can get hot chocolate."

Reyna tilted her head for a second, her eyes furrowed as she considered her options. Her mother tried not to smile at the serious expression on such a young face that still had baby fat and wavy tendrils of hair.

"When are we coming home?" She asked, after a moment. Bellona sighed, rubbing her temples.

"Reyna, this is your graduation. Don't you want to at least try to enjoy it?"

"I could enjoy it better in pants…" Reyna taunted, looking up at her mother with wide eyes. Bellona rubbed her temples.

"Julian!"

Jason Grace didn't really mind suits. After all, his parents had made him wear them for the majority of his life, (his five-year long life, but still) and he had learned to live with them.

But this?

Jason was old enough to know when someone looked like they were trying too hard.

This looked like a torture device. There were cufflinks and slacks and a tie that was tied really weirdly and a vest and a weird-coloured shirt and shiny shoes and he was only five-years-old who wore this kind of stuff when they were five-years-old?

"No," he said, shaking his head abruptly. "No, no, no, no, no."

"Jason, honey-" Hera started, kneeling down.

"No," he interrupted, shaking his firmly. "That looks weird and I don't want to wear it."

"Now, Jason, come on-" Hera tried again, but Jason wasn't having any of it.

"I don't want it, it looks weird, and no one else ever wears things like that."

"Jason, it's good to be different, we've taught you that." Jason scowled.

"Yeah, but that's a bad kind of different. When I wear that I look mean."

"Jason, you never look mean-"

"When I dressed like that, no one wanted to be my friend at nursery school!"

"You probably don't really remember it all that well, sweetie, plenty of kids wanted to be friends with you! Remember, you had Reyna, and Octavian, and Percy, and-"

"No," Jason interrupted. "Octavian was mean and Percy played with Grover and Annabeth and the only person who played with me was Reyna."

"Well that's still someone," Hera said hopefully.

"Yeah, but that's because Reyna's different," Jason replied. And Hera didn't have anything to say to that.

Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano was bored out of her mind.

"Are you bored?" Jason hissed out of the corner of his mouth as Ms. Lupa began giving out the diplomas.

"Sort of," Reyna whispered back.

"Your face looks sort of weird," Jason told her. Reyna discreetly kicked him in the leg. Jason winced.

"Your clothes look weird," Reyna told him before he could apologize.

"My parents made me," Jason grimaced. "I didn't want to wear it."

"I didn't want to wear this dress," Reyna said, scowling down at the flowery fabric. "But my parents made me wear it too."

They both sighed and waited as Ms. Lupa handed Dakota Campbell his diploma.

"Does my face really look weird?" Reyna asked for a moment.

"Just… Sort of… Like you're itchy or something." Reyna rearranged her face then turned back to Jason.

"Better?"

Her eyebrows were still a bit too furrowed and her face a bit too scrunched up but Reyna hated dresses and sitting still for way too long and Jason had a feeling that this was the best he could get. So he tilted his head and said-

"Not totally, but better."

Reyna tried harder but now she looked prim and sophisticated, without the furrowedness and the scrunchiness.

"I liked you better before," he whispered. Reyna scowled and decided to just relax. When Gwendolyn Harper (Gwen, to everyone else) went up to get her diploma, Reyna's eyebrows were sort of furrowed and her face was sort of scrunchy but Jason didn't say anything because this was perfect.

Jason Grace looked up when Ms. Lupa called his name and walked up to his teacher and the principal. The adults cooed at his outfit and a few of the kids snickered and pointed, a few wearing envious sneers until they suddenly stopped. Jason turned around, curious, and grinned broadly at what he saw.

His best friend Reyna was shooting all the kids who laughed piercing glares from her dark eyes. The snickers stopped abruptly and Jason smiled as he received his diploma because yes what he was wearing was ridiculous and yes he would rather wear nice pants and a dress shirt like the other boys but the other boys didn't have a friend like Reyna so yes Jason was glad for her.

He shot glares at everyone who laughed at Reyna's dress because she still managed to pull it off even with the scrunchiness and furrowedness because she was Reyna and did anyone expect anything different?

Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano only lost the annoyed look on her face when she ran upstairs to her bedroom and changed into leggings and a T-Shirt. Bellona chuckled lightly as she saw her daughter hugging her familiar, none poofy clothes -No, she wasn't one of Aphrodite's daughters, even though Piper had always been a little bit different- because honestly, who wouldn't? (Laugh, she meant, not hug clothes.)

Reyna was just glad that she was out of the dress.