SNAPSHOTS
Fly Free
Ding. Dong. Ding. The clock tower in New Rome struck 10:00pm. Reyna knew this instinctively from her seat in the principia, four miles away, as she had been counting the bell tolls every hour since 5:00 in the afternoon. Every hour, she simultaneously sighed and had a mini panic-moment as she realized she had only accomplished a miniscule amount of paperwork. Every hour, on the hour, she had the urge to slice the reams of paper on the table to shreds and pour them out the window like white confetti. And yet, every hour, she had resisted that urge. She had, instead, told herself No, that's just exhaustion. You just need a little break.
But now that it was 10:00, the official curfew for Camp Jupiter, she allowed herself to leave her desk and all that paperwork behind for some other day. After she turned off all the lights and locked the building, she made her way slowly towards home. Her mind must have been wandering because she found herself pulling aside the door to the stables. Before she knew it, her purple praetor's cape was falling to the ground, and she was reaching out to stroke Scipio's neck, resting her head against his rump.
A loyal pegasus, Scipio did not make a sound as his owner led him quietly out of the stables and into the breezy night air. The pair took off at a canter, then a run across the Field of Mars. Reyna's stomach flipped when Scipio took to the skies, and she felt herself leaving her anxieties behind.
Reyna loved to fly. Everything about her life felt more distant and less bothersome in the air. She didn't have to be a praetor. She didn't have to be a daughter of Bellona. She could just be a girl, a person, and live in the moment. Feel the cool wind setting off goosebumps along her arms. See the glow of San Francisco across the bay. Smell the salty sea air that blew from the Pacific. Taste the freedom of being untethered to her responsibilities. She could simply be.