Okay seriously, every single time I set out to write ch. 13 of a story, it takes forever for me to finish it. Every. Single. Time. D:

I'm so sorry. I wrote this like a sloth (because, you know, I was lazy and unmotivated, which is nobody's fault but my own [and is actually kind of offensive to sloths; oops I like sloths, sorry sloths :P]). I went on vacation, and then I was sick for a while, and then I started school, but that's not really an excuse. I should have gotten this out sooner... Especially because it's not even that long... :/

Oh well, hope you enjoy this anyway!

Disclaimer: I don't own HoO.

Discoveries

Jason and Reyna were having their first (semi-)normal conversation in months when Anna Marie burst into the tent, her eyes sparkling—figuratively and literally. They were reflecting the light of the glowing wings sprouting from her back. "Reyna, Reyna, Reyna!" Anna Marie babbled enthusiastically. "Reyna, Jason, Reyna! You'll never believe what just happened!"

Reyna looked at Anna Marie's glowing wings and smiled. She was pretty sure she knew exactly what had just happened, but all she said was, "What is it, Anna Marie?"

Anna Marie hopped up and down, too excited to stand still. "I was sitting with Dakota, telling him about how the Vulcan campers I knew would design an awesome metal leg for him, and Leo could help because he built that super cool boat so he could probably build all sorts of other cool stuff, and—"

"You know Leo?" Jason asked in surprise. Reyna elbowed him for interrupting, but Anna Marie didn't seem to mind.

"Everybody knows Leo," she said. "He's hilarious! But anyway, I was just convincing Dakota that his metal leg would probably be even more amazing than a regular one, and everyone would be impressed, and Gwen would definitely think he was super brave for continuing to serve in the legion even though he was injured, and—"

"Dakota thinks he's going to keep serving after this?" Reyna growled. "I swear, Jason, as soon as you let me get out of this bed, I'm going to walk right over to that idiot and set him straight because he needs to recover and retire after—"

"Reyna, who's interrupting now?" Jason muttered.

She flushed. "Sorry, Anna Marie. Continue."

"That's all right, Reyna!" Anna Marie promised, her attitude just as bubbly as before. "So I was in the middle of talking about Gwen, right? And then I noticed that this weird light was coming out of nowhere and Dakota's mouth dropped open and I twisted around and saw these wings on my back and . . . and . . ." Anna Marie was so excited, she was having trouble getting the words out. "DAKOTA TOLD ME THAT THESE WINGS ARE A SYMBOL OF VICTORIA! My mom CLAIMED me, Reyna and Jason! I'm a daughter of Victoria!"

Jason raised his eyebrows in surprise, but he snapped out of it to grin at Anna Marie. "That's awesome!" he proclaimed. "Daughter of Victoria? That's crazy cool!"

"That's what I said!" Anna Marie shouted giddily, forgetting all about the principle of inside voices. The sound made Reyna's head throb, but she ignored it because she was so pleased to see the girl happy. "Dakota said that was probably why I always beat him at cards, but then Bobby walked by and said no, I always won because Dakota was drunk as a skunk on Kool-Aid during the games." Anna Marie turned to Reyna quizzically. "What does 'drunk as a skunk' mean?"

Jason snorted, and Reyna hesitated. "It means . . . distracted," she said finally. "Bobby thinks that Dakota was too busy drinking Kool-Aid to pay attention to card game strategy. But I disagree," she added quickly. "You definitely won because you're Victoria's daughter. And, of course, because you're a super smart, super skilled card player." She beamed at Anna Marie. "Congratulations on being claimed, kiddo. That's the greatest thing I've heard all day."

"Really?" Anna Marie asked, astonished. "Because it's not the best thing I've heard all day."

Reyna frowned. "What do you mean?"

Anna Marie shrugged. "I mean, it's cool to know who my mom is and everything, but I knew I would get claimed sooner or later. The best news I got was when Kayla and Austin came out of the infirmary tent and told me you would be all right."

Without warning, the newly-claimed daughter of Victoria leaned over the bed and threw her arms around Reyna's neck; then, before Reyna even had a chance to hug her back, Anna Marie let go and skipped away. Her glowing wings fluttered on her back as she stepped, so it almost looked like she was flying out of the room. "This is such a super great day!" she yelled over her shoulder as she left. "I can't wait to show everyone else my wings too!"

Jason watched her leave thoughtfully. "She does realize those wings are just a temporary blessing, doesn't she?"

Reyna felt her stomach drop. "Gods, I hope so. I'd hate to have to explain that to her in a couple hours. She'd be so disappointed. It would ruin her good mood."

Jason grinned. "Oh, don't worry about that. If she is upset, we'll just get Dakota drunk as a skunk on Kool-Aid so she can win a couple card games. That should cheer her up. And Dakota will be too . . . distracted to care."

"Oh, gods," she groaned. "Stop that. What else was I supposed to tell her? I'm not about to explain alcohol to a seven-year-old . . . even if it's not technically, you know, alcohol." She turned to Jason accusingly. "I didn't see you stepping up to help me out."

Jason laughed. "You seemed to have it under control. Really, though," he added more seriously, "I don't think she'll be that disappointed. You heard what she said. Being claimed wasn't even the best news she got today."

Reyna felt her face turn red. "I know," she said softly. "And then she left before I could even . . . What was I supposed to say to that, Jason?"

"I don't think she expected you to say anything at all," he answered. "And she left before you had to. Honestly, Reyna, it shouldn't be so surprising to you. I mean, finding out that you were all right was the best news I'd gotten all day, too."

Reyna decided to lighten things up a bit. "That," she said, "is only because your second best news was finding out that your best friend hasn't actually had a crush on you for the past four years. And I don't even know if that counts as good news. I mean, you hung out and flirted with a girl for four years, and she still didn't like you? That has to be a hit to your ego."

"I—I did not flirt with you!" Jason spluttered. "There was no flirting involved! I don't know how the Styx you could ever even think tha—"

Reyna lost her grip on her poker face and started cracking up. "I thought you were better than this," she scolded him eventually, once she had started to calm down. "Camp Half-Blood made you lose your edge. You've become entirely too easy to confuse and then tease. Also . . . you're not very good at handling jokes with grace anymore."

Jason stared at her. "No."

Reyna smothered a smile. "Yes."

"You did not just make a 'Grace' pun."

"Heck yeah, I did."

"I thought we got past this two years ago!"

Reyna gave up and smirked at him. "Oh, we are never past the 'Grace' puns, Grace. Especially when I have the chance to slip one into a conversation so gracefully."

"Just stop. Please."

She smiled viciously. "Never."

He sighed. "I can't take this anymore," he said bluntly. "I'm changing the subject."

"Oh, bravo," she said dryly. And then, because she just couldn't resist the jibe, "That was a very graceful transition."

Jason decided to ignore that one. "So Anna Marie's a daughter of Victoria, huh?" he said pointedly. "I don't suppose there's maybe a connection between that and the reason you didn't die yesterday?"

Reyna shrugged. "Well . . . Victoria and Bellona have always gotten along well—they're mentioned together in the myths pretty often—so maybe Victoria felt obligated to help me because of that. And maybe the fact that I'd been helping Anna Marie for the last few days was a bonus."

Jason snorted. "Whatever, Reyna. You got lucky in your choice of small unclaimed children to help. I guess maybe you should have been a daughter of Fortuna."

"Yeah, right. If I was a daughter of Fortuna, I wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place."

"True. And we wouldn't keep getting mixed up in these stupid battles."

"And I never would have gotten captured by pirates."

"And possessed-Leo would have missed when he fired on New Rome."

"And Octavian would have gotten kicked out of the legion for teddy bear abuse before we ever became praetors."

Jason laughed. "Gods, Reyna, how'd you screw up enough to be born as a daughter of Bellona?"

Reyna rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Grace. I'm sorry for being such a disappointment."

I'd been impressed by the piles of expensive items that fill this cavern, but when they block my mobility in dodging the drakon's attacks, all the precious metals suddenly seem a lot less cool. In fact, the whole finding-missing-treasure experience is starting to become totally disappointing.

"Jason?" I call out, crashing into a golden pedestal when I jump away from the monster's jaws. "How's that treasure-hunting going?"

"Working on it!" I hear something clatter in the distance, then a loud curse.

"Oh, yeah. Sounds like you're making serious progress," I mutter. The drakon lunges towards me, its jaws wide open. I jump sideways, and its fangs miss me by inches. I skip backwards a few steps, hoping to give myself a moment to come up with a plan of attack, but it whirls around at a ridiculously fast speed and slithers toward me again. A few more swipes of its head have me retreating like a novice because I can't hurt this thing, thanks to its armor-like scales. I can't even look directly at it because I'm worried it could paralyze me with its eyes. And on top of it all, my back is starting to hurt again. Maybe I should have let Jason handle this after all.

"Yeah, right," I say to myself. "Like that dork could do any better against this thing." To prove my point, I slide under the drakon's next attack and stab my knife into the slightly softer scales at its throat. Unfortunately, "slightly softer" turns out to mean that they're as hard as steel instead of titanium. My knife bounces off, jarring my arm painfully. As if that's not enough, I barely have time to roll out of the way before the drakon drops its head to the ground again. If I'd been a moment slower, I would have been crushed.

While keeping up a stream of curses at Jason for searching so slowly (and at Bobby and Dakota for not keeping the drakon distracted), I roll again and come up on my feet, my back against another stack of treasure. The drakon hisses and slithers toward me. As it approaches, I know I have to find the drakon's weakness. They've been killed before; I have to be able to take this one down. I won't be able to keep dodging forever, so I try to think instead of just blindly attacking. Blindly . . . Before I can hesitate, I throw my knife at one of the drakon's eyes—and my aim is as good as usual. My knife buries itself into the eye up to its hilt.

The drakon wails and crashes to the side, thrashing around. I finally found a weak spot in all that armor, but it doesn't last long. I dash to the side, but the drakon still has one good eye. It whips its tail around, catching me in the stomach and sending me flying into a stack of golden . . . sharp things? I slide to the ground, clutching my abdomen and thanking the gods that by some miracle, the worst injuries I got from landing on a hill of weapons were the bruises on my stomach and some scratches from various blades. Then I snatch up a spear that toppled down beside me, fling it at the drakon's other good eye . . . and miss. I've never held a spear before, much less thrown one.

"Styx."

The next second, the tail is whipping over my head and sending a bunch of shiny pointy objects crashing onto me. Nothing stabs me directly, but I get a nasty gash on my arm, and maybe others I can't feel because I'm distracted by something far more painful. My back isn't healed enough for all this banging around.

"Reyna?!" Jason's voice rings around the cavern. "REYNA! Are you okay?!"

Not really, I think, but all I yell back is, "Back to work, Grace! Just find that stupid armor so you can join in the fun!"

I don't know if he can hear me while I'm underneath all these weapons, but that's all I can do to keep him out of danger. Gods, I can't even move. I shift around to try to dislodge the weapons, which results in several hitting my head and very few actually falling off.

The drakon's hissing sounds closer. Styx, Styx, Styx. I shift again, this time managing to roll all the way to the side—just before sizzling liquid burns through the weapons to my left. "Just my luck," I mutter. "Like the hydra wasn't enough, I now have to fight another venom-spitting, reptilian monster? Gods."

With another heave, I manage to dislodge most of the weapons and shoot into a crouch, both of my hands closing around the hilts of a couple of knives—skinny, silver-colored knives, but knives nonetheless. Knives I can use. The only problem is, the drakon's head is rearing up. I'm staring up at its fangs, not its eyes. "Styx."

As the drakon plunges down, I leap to the side and chuck one of my knives into its gaping jaws. It just bounces off the roof of its freaking mouth. Cursing with each step, I turn and sprint in a random direction (that I know leads away from Jason) with no real plan other than to avoid its attacks for a moment. Pain lances up and down my back—damn this ridiculous injury—but I'm not about to give up now. I stop, whirl around, and throw my other knife at the drakon's one good eye, hoping to catch it by surprise—but the massive snake just jerks its head to the side. The knife misses it completely. Gods, I'm having an off day.

The drakon glares at me viciously, and I'm out of weapons yet again. I consider jumping onto a stack of golden dinner plates, springing from there onto the drakon's head, and trying to yank my dagger out and stab its other eye before I get thrown off and killed . . . and then the drakon wheezes—actually wheezes, like he choked on his tongue while hissing or something—and spins away from me. What the . . . ?

"Hey, Snake Dude! I just stabbed your tail so forcefully that I actually penetrated your scales! You're not mad, right? Oh, you are? Well, crap."

I frown. If I crane my neck, I can just make out a mop of black hair by the far end of the drakon. "Dakota?! What are you—?"

"Sorry it took us a while to get here!" Bobby shouts back instead. This time, I catch a glimpse of brown hair as he dives to the side to avoid the drakon's thrashing movements. "I swear we were running around for a long time to lead it away from its cave, but I guess it lost interest in chasing us. When we turned around to face it, it had already left and slithered back here. Then we had to run all the freaking way back. Gods, it took forever."

"Don't know why it lost interest in us!" Dakota interrupts. "I mean, I'm super interesting!"

"Shut up, Dakota!"

"Don't tell me to shut up, Reyna! I just saved your life!"

"We just saved your life!" Bobby corrects with annoyance. Then his tone becomes teasing. "We ran all the way back here just in time to see you miss the drakon completely with a silver dagger."

"Bobby, if you don't shut up too, I swear I'll—"

"I mean, the drakon dodged, so any of us would have missed too," he adds hurriedly. "Where'd you find one of those knives, anyway?"

"Look around, dumb-ass," I say, detouring around a few piles of treasure to avoid getting slammed by the monster's tail again. "Where do you think?"

"Fair point," he laughs. "So do you have a plan for killing this thing, or are you just—"

His voice cuts off abruptly. "Bobby?" I yell. "Bobby! Are you all right?"

Silence. What the . . . ? I race around the final pile of expensive junk, just in time to see Bobby staring fearfully at the drakon's one good eye. He seems frozen to the spot. Apparently he was stupid enough to look directly at it, forgetting that its gaze could paralyze him. Idiot.

While I'm taking in the scene, Dakota scrambles to his feet, clutching his shoulder. He yells to try to divert the drakon's attention, but it's pretty fixated on Bobby. I glance at the piles of treasure around me, hoping one of them will contain weapons, but no luck. One's comprised of statues, and the other—wait, statues? I give the first stack a second look and realize that by some crazy coincidence, we've worked our way around to where Jason and I were searching just a few long minutes ago. The silver and gold dogs are sitting at my feet, and they're just large enough that if I threw them at a certain monstrous drakon, I'd be sure to get its attention. Before I can think about the fact that I'm still weaponless and injured, I grab the golden dog by its neck, brushing the golden tag on its golden collar as I get a good grip, and hoist it up—and almost fall over because it's lighter than I was expecting. Is it . . . hollow?

No time to wonder about that now. Hopefully it's big enough to make a good distraction anyway. I throw the dog shotput-style at the drakon—

And it lands on its head on all fours before sinking its metal teeth into its skull.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?" Dakota demands from the other side of the drakon.

I'm too busy gaping at the pile of statues to answer. Are . . . are they not statues after all? I look at the dog, which is currently hanging onto the drakon for all its worth while it swings its head trying to throw it off. The movement snaps Bobby out of it, and he backs out of range hastily.

Oh, they're definitely not statues. I rub the silver dog's collar tag next. As its ruby eyes light up, I grin. "Go help your brother, boy." The silver dog takes off like Dakota looking for Kool-Aid.

After that, I move on to the rest of the pile, activating as many automatons as I can and directing them to the drakon. Bobby and Dakota have the good sense to back off as the automatons swarm. They don't do any real damage, but they take up its attention, and that's what I need at the moment. While it's confused, I sprint back to the collapsed pile of weaponry—somehow during the fight, I've actually learned my way around this cavern—and snatch up another spear.

This time, I run directly at the drakon, trusting the automaton dogs to keep it distracted. This time, I plunge my spear into its eye with all the force I have left. This time, I don't miss.

Once I'm sure the drakon's dead, I yank my dagger out from its other eye, wipe it on its head, and shove it back into my belt. Then I leap back to the ground just before the monster collapses in on itself. As far as I can tell, its insides crumbled to dust, but its skin's still intact. I figure that's supposed to be my spoil of war for killing it, but I'm not particularly interested in hauling around hundreds of feet of snakeskin. "All right, that's enough," I tell the automatons, which are still attacking the remains of the drakon. "Thanks for all your help. You can power down now." Almost immediately, they slump over where they stand, crushing the skin as they deactivate.

"Are you guys okay? I came as fast as I could, but I'd worked my way mostly to the back of the cavern by the time I heard all the noise an—" Jason skids to a halt, taking in the scene. "What the HELL is going on?!"

"My thoughts exactly," Dakota mutters.

I turn and look at the three boys, who are all openly gaping back at me, and can't help but laugh, possibly for the first time since the pirates. That just makes them stare more.

"You . . . You laughed," Bobby says incredulously. "I wasn't sure you knew how to laugh!"

"Oh, shut up."

"But what's even funny?" Dakota demands. "We almost died!"

"But we didn't," I remind him. "And we're alive because I chucked a statue of a dog at the drakon, and it turned out not to be a statue. You've got to find that mildly amusing, at least." Then I smirk. "But the real funny part is the look on all of your faces. And the fact that Jason looks like an idiot in that armor." I turn to him, resisting the urge to laugh again. The armor's far too big for him. "Is that the stuff we came here to find?"

"Yeah," he grumbles. "And it's supposed to adjust to the wearer's size, but apparently it hasn't gotten the memo yet—" Just then, the armor shrinks to fit him perfectly. "Oh, now you work!" he yells in exasperation. "That would have been helpful while I was running through half this cave!"

At that, Bobby and Dakota start cracking up too. "Okay, that is pretty funny," Bobby admits. "But now can we get out of here before the drakon turns out to have an angry mom or something?"

"Sounds good to me," Jason begins, but I cut him off.

"One second." I walk over the the silver and gold dogs, which shut down with the rest of the automatons. I glance at the boys. "I'm taking these with me," I say firmly.

"I don't know," Dakota says uneasily. "I'm not sure Lupa would like—"

"Oh, screw Lupa," Jason grins. By the way Bobby and Dakota gasp, I decide that very few people dare to insult this Lupa person. "Reyna could probably take her."

"Yeah, right," Bobby counters. "No one can take Lupa."

My eyebrows furrow. "Lupa," I say slowly. "As in, Lupa, the wolf who raised Romulus and Remus? That Lupa?"

"One and the same."

"In that case," I smirk, "I think she'd love to have a couple of dogs around. They're basically her annoying little cousins, right? But these dogs are vicious drakon-killers who are neither little or annoying, so I think they'll be okay."

"But I—"

"Drop it, Bobby. I'm taking the dogs."

He sighs. "Whatever, Reyna. It's your life." He looks at Jason accusingly. "If she gets mauled, I'm blaming you for encouraging her."

While they start arguing, with Dakota butting in to annoy them every once in a while, I crouch down and rub both dogs' collars. They come to life, tilt their heads, and look at me inquisitively with those ruby eyes. "You're coming with me,"I say cheerfully. "Oh, and with those idiots over there. Is that all right with you?"

Immediately, the silver one starts whining low in his throat, while the gold one lopes straight over to Jason and growls at him. The brave, strong, powerful son of Jupiter looks a bit nervous, but I just laugh again. "I know he seems weird and annoying," I say to the dog, "but you get used to him after a while. He's really not that bad."

Jason glares at me. "Gee, thanks." But he can't help looking relieved when the dog backs down. He even pats him awkwardly on the head and reads his collar tag. "'Au'," he says thoughtfully. "Think someone abbreviated his name?"

I shrug and check the silver dog's. "This one says 'Ag'."

Jason thinks for a while, then snaps his fingers. "I've got it! Augustus and Aguistin."

I snort. "Aguistin?"

"Yeah! It means 'deserving of respect' in Latin. Fits him perfectly, as far as I can tell." He folds his arms. "Come on. You can name your dogs after the first emperor of Rome and a cool Latin word. How perfect is that? Everyone will know not to mess with them."

"No. Augustus and Aguistin are not dog names."

"Oh, come on." He appeals to Bobby and Dakota. "Don't you guys think they're awesome names?"

Bobby just raises his hands and backs away. Dakota follows suit. "We're staying out of this one, dude. You're on your own."

"Traitors." Jason looks back at me. "Seriously, Reyna! Just think about it. You could train them to know their own names, get them to do tricks and follow you around without leashes—"

I shake my head and stand up. "Not a chance, Grace. Let's go." I start walking out of the cave, and then turn and look at the two dogs. "Aurum? Argentum? Are you coming or what?"

First the gold, and then the silver dog barks its approval and trots after me.

Jason doesn't stop complaining for the rest of the night.

"I hate this," Reyna confided to Jason. "It's only been a few hours since I woke up, but I hate being confined to this bed, not allowed to do anything. I want to get out of here and fight. There's too much at stake in this war for me to be stuck here."

"Yeah, maybe, but there's also too much at stake for you to put yourself at risk by fighting before you're ready. I don't want you getting seriously hurt again."

"Well, obviously I would prefer that too," she said, rolling her eyes, "but that doesn't mean I can't be frustrated." She tilted her head and eyed him suspiciously. "And I know you want to help out in this war as much as I do, so why are you still here? I'm alive. I'm awake. You can leave and start fighting now. I'm sure they could use a son of Jupiter's help."

Slowly, Jason nodded. "You're right. I mean, there have been a couple more monster attacks since I brought you back here—minor ones," he added quickly, before Reyna could freak out, "but that's all died down now. I guess Gaea decided to concentrate her forces in Athens." He grinned at her. "Especially because she doesn't have an endless supply anymore."

Reyna couldn't help but smile. "So you admit that my getting almost killed was good for something."

"Yeah," he said reluctantly. "Just don't make it a regular occurrence." He stood up and started strapping on his weapon's belt. Then he frowned at her. "Promise me you won't do anything stupid after I leave. Wait until you're healed to start fighting again, okay?"

"Ugh, fine," she sighed. "I won't do anything stupid after you leave. Just go kick some serious ass for me, all right?"

He laughed. "If you insist, Praetor." He stood there for a moment. "Well, I guess I'll find Kayla and Austin before I leave," he said slowly. "So they know I'm going, and so they know to check up on you later. Then I'll just—"

All of a sudden, a girl with long, dark, braided hair, a back jumpsuit, and a golden belt burst into the tent. "Reyna!" she yelled. "What the hell were you thinking?!"

Jason jumped, looking terrified. "Okay, I'm going," he told Reyna hurriedly. "Um . . . good luck with her." Then he ducked around the furious older girl and raced out of the tent.

Hylla barely seemed to notice his retreat. "Well?" she demanded. "What the hell, Reyna? One minute I'm fighting a gorgon, and the next Annabeth has killed it for me and is dragging me out of the fight and telling me that you were hurt over at the infirmary, and she wasn't quite sure how badly, and I commandeered a pegasus and flew over here as fast as I could and . . ." Hylla trailed off as she took in the bandages covering the majority of Reyna's body, some of them with blood showing through. "Oh my gods," she whispered. "What did you do?"

Reyna winced. "Sorry, Hylla," she said. "It's . . . it's a long story."

...Ten years from now, Piper and Jason are married, and Piper is pregnant with their first kid... And Reyna's "Congratulations" card only has two sentences written inside. "Piper, whatever you do, no matter how tired you are—do NOT let Jason name the baby. Trust me." ;)

Anyway, I think there are only two chapters left! (And hopefully they'll get written faster this time. D:) Thank you once again for all your reviews and support for this story! Tell me what you thought!