Eh, not too fond of this one. I wanted to get past it, so that's why it's so short and bleh-like.

Also, who else could guess I was gonna do a Grace family thing with the Dream Catcher prompt? Probably everyone xD

I own nothing you recognize as canon.

10: Dream Catcher

They Be Cool

Mark Grace shook a colorfully-wrapped box excitedly. The six-year-old had opened three presents so far on this awesome Christmas Day—a new eagle t-shirt from his dad, Jason; a box set of Deltora Quest from his mother, Piper; and of course…a brand, spankin-new Nintendo 3DS made monster-free from Mr. Valdez. This next gift was from Mr. and Mrs. Zhang.

"Well, go on and open it," Jason prompted. "You've got a lot more presents from Mom and I after you open Frank and Hazel's."

"He's fine," Piper said. "There's no rush. It's Christmas."

Mark ripped up the wrapping paper and opened the box. Inside was a cool remote control dragon with a pack of ten batteries.

Piper groaned. "That dragon's gonna keep us from sleeping, isn't it?"

Jason chuckled. "I'll call Frank and electrocute him over the phone, if you'd like."

"Please."

At that moment, a knock on their hotel room door sounded. To clarify, every year the Seven and their families switched between spending Christmas together in New Athens (or maybe somewhere special for vacation) and spending it with their respective families. This year, it was the latter. Annabeth and Percy would be spending Christmas with Sally and Paul (maybe Dr. Chase if he could spare the time to travel), Frank and Hazel would spend it in Canada at Frank's old estate (with or without his grandmother, they still would go to pay respect), Leo and Calypso would sometimes go to Houston to visit Leo's mother's grave, and Jason and Piper would come visit Hollywood to spend Christmas with Tristan McLean.

Speaking of whom, as soon as Jason answered the door, the super star from Hollywood stepped through the threshold, grinning from ear to ear and holding a few big presents in his hand.

"Grandpa!" Mark shouted, rushing over to the man and hugging his grandfather. That surprised the older man into dropping all the presents.

"Look how big you're getting!" Tristan cried, picking up the six-year-old and setting him down after a minute. He looked at Jason and grinned, his perfect white teeth shining. "What do you think, Jason? Lookin' more and more like his granddad every day."

Jason rolled his eyes. "He looks more like his mom to me."

"Where do you think his mom got her good looks from?"

"From Grandma," Mark said happily. "Mommy said so!"

Tristan frowned. "Okay, well, I can't argue that. Your grandma was a real looker."

Piper came up and hugged her father happily. "Glad you could make it, Dad."

"I managed to talk my director into givin' me a few hours." He held up the boxes he'd dropped earlier. "I brought presents!"

Mark grabbed a few, not caring who they were meant for, and scuttled away to the lounge part of the hotel room. The adults moved behind him more slowly.

Soon enough, everyone was opening presents again. Mark had gotten a pair of roller skates, one of two presents from his grandfather. He was already tearing open the second gift.

Piper turned to Tristan. "Please tell me it's not something loud and obnoxious, Dad."

Tristan winked. "I got him something my dad gave me when I was his age."

"An Indian headdress and handmade lanyards?"

"You're so funny, Pipes."

"What is this?" Mark asked, holding up a circle with webbed string in the middle, decorated with beads and feathers.

"That," Tristan explained, "is a dream catcher."

Mark shook it around. "What's it do?"

Piper giggled. "It catches bad dreams, Mark. You hang it over your head when you go to bed and the bad dreams get caught in it."

"Won't that make them stay with me?"

Tristan chuckled. "Smart boy," he said. "Y'know, there's an old Indian legend your great grandpa told me about these dream catchers. There was a man—a leader of a tribe—who went up a mountain on a spiritual journey."

"Which mountain?" Mark asked.

"Doesn't matter. On that mountain, he met Iktomi, a wise trickster in the form of a spider. The trickster wove a web in a circle and instructed the man to weave similar items for his people while teaching them to do the same. Iktomi said that both light and dark forces can enter people's dreams. With a dream catcher, the light forces would be caught, allowing the dark ones to slip away and burn up. Without the light, the dark would simply die."

"Cool," Mark said.

"Very," the star agreed. "So, Iktomi said that by teaching his people how to make dream catchers, the man would be allowing them to achieve bright futures. The dream catchers would capture all the good dreams that the winds of the night blew their way."

"Why would a trickster give the chief something good like that?" Jason asked.

Tristan shrugged. "You ever meet Iktomi, why don't you ask him? Maybe he asked for something in return and the story teller didn't think it was worth mentioning."

Piper cleared her throat. "Pardon me, Dad, but there's something about that story I don't get."

"What?"

"That's a Lakota legend," Piper clarified. "We're Cherokee."

Tristan grinned. "I like to think their version is cooler. It was either that or the Ojibwe version of an old woman with a spider over her bed weaving every night. The dream catcher came from them but the Lakota version's cooler. I think it's the same as the Cherokee version, anyway, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "Whatever."

Tristan looked at Mark. "It's still cool, though, isn't it, Sora?"

Mark grinned. "Totally! Can I go put it above my bed now, Mom?"

Piper nodded. "Go ahead. What do we say to Grandpa?"

Mark ran over and hugged his grandfather. "Thanks, Grandpa!"

That night, and every night since for years, Mark had good dreams. It was only when he forgot to put the catcher in the Aphrodite Cabin when he was twelve when he conveniently started having the stupid demigod/legacy dreams.

To Mark, it only confirmed the magical-ness of his grandfather's gift (even if he'd bought it at a gift shop somewhere) and made his Cherokee heritage cooler.

A/N: Aaaand I gave up on that ending. Enjoy that for now. I've got something better for the next one. I promise.

Dream catchers are awesome, okay? I had one for a long time until around high school...or maybe it was when I moved into a new room in the house...hard to say.