Eight-Years-Old
Jason Grace was so. Hot.
"I'm sweating," a sweating Jason complained as they sat in the grass in Reyna's backyard. Hylla was babysitting them and her friend Kinzie was over so they had to stay out in the backyard and not make any noise.
Jason made some more noise.
"Oh, calm down, it's not the end of the world," Reyna snapped. "Shouldn't you be used to this weather?"
"Not as much as you!" Jason whined. "You were born in Por-Por-Porto Rico."
"Puerto Rico," Reyna corrected. "And more specifically, San Juan."
"It sounds better when you say it," Jason told her.
"Of course it does," Reyna said, rolling her eyes. "I have an accent, so when I say it, it sounds like it's supposed to. But you have an American accent, so you just can't say it properly."
"What's an accent?" Jason asked.
"It's, um, it's when your voice sounds different because you come from a country where they speak a different language. Sometimes you can be born here but if you speak that language enough you sort of get the accent."
Jason nodded.
"Can you speak Spanish?"
"For supuesto que puedo," Reyna replied, rolling her eyes.
"Say what?" Jason asked, confused. (He ignored how pretty the foreign words had sounded on her tongue.)
"Of course I can," Reyna clarified. "I was born there, what did you expect? Besides,
both my parents speak it, and so does Hylla."
"Isn't your mom from Rome?" Jason asked, confused.
"She went to San Juan for a business trip and met my dad there," Reyna explained.
"Ohhhhh," Jason nodded.
They were silent for a moment as they looked up at the clouds.
"That one looks like an angry duck," Jason noticed, pointing up at the cloud. Reyna tilted her head, trying to see it.
"I think it looks more like an angry crocodile."
"It's a T-Rex!" Jason exclaimed.
"Actually, from this angle it sort of looks like one of those pegasus things. You know, the horses with wings," Reyna added.
"And magical powers!" Jason cried.
"What magical powers?" Reyna asked. "What kind of magical powers would a pegasus have?"
Both kids were silent for a moment.
"Well, he has wings, so he can fly," Jason reasoned. Reyna nodded.
"Really fast and really high up." (Thalia wouldn't like that, Jason thought mentally. Whatever. Reyna evidently did, and Thalia wasn't helping them create an awesome pegasus.)
"Um… He has super strength!"
"And he can breathe fire and shoot lasers from his eyes!" (Why are we turning him into Superman? Reyna wondered.)
"And his name can be…"
"Scipio!"
"Scipio?"
"Scipio."
"Okay. Scipio. Should he have a middle name?" (After all, Reyna had a middle name, Jason thought. His dad had one too. He himself didn't but he didn't mind.)
"Steve. And his last name can be-"
"Pegasus! Because, you know, he's a pegasus." Reyna nodded to Jason's idea as if it made perfect sense. Of course, the pegasus's last name had to be Pegasus. What would they name it if they weren't?
"He's a good pegasus," Reyna said suddenly. "He's a good pegasus and he fights crime and he does good things and he protects… He protects baby animals and people and a bunch of other stuff."
"Yeah," Jason agreed, nodding empathetically. "And he has a gold sword. But it's a magic gold sword so when he doesn't need it, it turns into a… a… an ancient gold coin."
"And he wears a purple cape!"
"And he has a totally awesome looking tattoo-"
"-And two helpers!"
"But they're special helpers. Helpers like no other helpers."
"Yeah… Ooh! One helper can be made out of gold and the other helper can be made out of silver!"
"And they can have cool red eyes. Oh, and the eyes can be made out of rubies!"
"Jason, they can be dogs."
"YES." Both Reyna and Jason loved dogs, Reyna slightly -and by that I mean way more- so Jason really should have expected her to bring dogs into the conversation. It's not like he didn't want dogs, though. It was quite the contrary, actually.
"What can their superpower be?"
Reyna scrunched up her face, thinking, her tongue poking out a bit.
"Not lying."
"What?"
"A lot of people try to lie to Scipio because he's a good pegasus and tries to fight crime and stuff and some people want him to not fight crime and stuff because they're on the bad side. So the dogs can tell when people are lying and they can, like, growl and tell Scipio so that he knows that they're lying. And then people tell the truth because they know that Scipio's dogs and Scipio will know when they're lying."
"That's a good idea," Jason complimented, grinning. "How'd you think of it?"
"I don't like it when people lie to me," Reyna said, simply.
"Okay. But then, how can they be made of gold and silver and rubies and still be
alive?"
"They can be robots. You know, like the ones that Leo's mom makes," Reyna replied as if it were obvious. Jason nodded when he heard her explanation as if it was. Then, he stopped, another question on his tongue.
"What should their names be?"
"Um…"
"James and Joe? Mark and Phil?"
"No."
"Okay, okay. Gold and Silver?"
"Maybe…" Reyna said slowly. "But that sounds a little bland."
She was right. It did. Jason concentrated. "Maybe we could do gold and silver except in another language," he suggested. "Like, Spanish or something."
"Oro y plata," Reyna said.
"What?" Jason asked, confused.
"Gold and silver. You know, in Spanish."
"Hm… Maybe oro but plata doesn't really sound like a dog name," Jason criticized.
"You're right," Reyna agreed. "We need something more… Dog-ish."
They thought some more.
"Hey, wasn't Scipio someone famous back in ancient Roman times?" Reyna wondered. "My mom read to me about him. So if our Scipio is Roman, then maybe we can give the dogs Roman names too!"
"Yeah!" Jason exclaimed. "Maybe we could name them Gold and Silver except in… Um… Roman?"
"Latin," Reyna corrected.
"Yeah, Latin."
"Reyna, what's gold and silver in Latin?"
"Let's go check," she replied. They ran inside, ignoring Hylla's "Why are you guys inside?" and her "Reyna, why are using Mom's laptop?" and even her "I'm going to tell Mom!" because right now nothing was more important than finding out what gold and silver was in Latin.
Reyna typed in Google Translate and soon they had Aurum and Argentum committed to memory.
When Jason went home and talked Thalia's ear off about Scipio Steve Pegasus the Pegasus Hero and Aurum and Argentum his robot dog helpers all the freckled girl could do was smile because if Reyna made him this happy then she didn't care what weird things they came up with.
Hera Grace, on the other hand, did mind, but Thalia put a stop to that quick enough. Mix mood swings with Thalia Grace and you had one terrifying combination.
Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano wasn't sure why her family was smiling so much as she told them about the good pegasus hero Scipio who fought crime and his ruby-eyed dog sidekicks Aurum and Argentum but it made for a happy dinner so who was complaining?
Bellona and Julian just loved seeing the bright smile on her face as she talked passionately about the character she and Jason had created.
Hylla just loved how ridiculously adorable it all sounded.
So, if any of you speak Spanish and see any mistakes please tell me because I don't speak Spanish. I can do a little bit of French but that's neither here nor there. Next up, our protagonists will be facing the horrors of being nine, so send in any requests you have for that age group, or just about any in particular. Ten, thirteen, fifteen...
