sup peeps? nothing much? do anything interesting today? yes? no? well I had a snow day and got three teeth pulled today :/ my whole top lips was totally numb and I couldn't talk, eat, drink (I was super thirsty too!) or close my mouth for a little over two hours! my super literally consisted of a freezy and mashed potatoes that I had to eat with my head tilted sideways so I could somewhat chew because this was like two hours after I got frozen so the half of my mouth with only one needle was starting to unfreeze. all in all, it was an interesting new experience for me, and I really hope I don't have to go through that numb-mouthed torture ever again.

anyway, I do not own stuff, it is all rick's save for val and clara of course ;) hope you like

Chapter 14

Clara's point of view

"I repeat, what are you doing?"

"Oh my gods. It's not–we just–I mean…" I spluttered to a stop and cursed my brain for its love of turning to mush at important times such as these.

Leo climbed to his feet and explained slyly, "Well, you see Val. When two people love each other very much, they decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives together. So typically, what they do is–"

"Leo!" I clamped a hand over his mouth and glanced at Val desperately. She looked like she was trying really, really hard not to laugh, and honestly, she was failing miserably. "Ew! Leo! Did you just lick me?" I snatched my hand back and looked at the slimy liquid glistening on my palm. "Gross!" I whipped my hand all over Leo's shirt as he and Val broke down into fits of hysterical laughter.

"Oh, gods! What a fail!" Val wheezed, clutching her stomach and gasping for breath.

Pfft. Like it was really that funny.

"Leo made me a bow, okay?" I squeaked.

"Really?" Val laughed, her eyes shining like they did every now and then when she was in a good mood.

"Umm, yes!"

"Oh, ok," she looked at Leo and asked, "Can I see?"

"Umm, sure, if you can find it," he shrugged and chuckled as Val considered this.

"Whatever."

She began gently kicking things out of the way, searching for the ring. Leo and I watched her, and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing, When did she get in such a good mood?

Maybe it was after she pulled that prank on Nico? Or after her and Leo had sort of made peace? Who knows?

"Is this it?" I looked over to see Val standing a few feet away from where Leo dropped the ring and frowning down at it. "And this is supposed to be a bow? How did you make this Leo?"

"Oh, you know," Leo grinned and looped an arm around my waist, causing me to blush. "Just another example of my natural awesomeness."

"Yeah…definitely…" Val eyed Leo menacingly for a second before she tossed him the ring, which he had to let go of me to catch.

"Demonstration time!" Leo grinned and handed the silver ring to me. "Put it on. Left hand."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," I shushed him and took a second to admire the ring.

It was thin and silver and there was something etched onto the inner side, something Greek.

Quickly, I slipped it onto my middle finger on my left hand. Holding it out in front of me, I admired how beautiful it was. The flickering flames danced off the smooth silver, and the sunlight pouring in through the forge entrance make on side of it glow.

"Well?" Val prompted.

I'm pretty sure she was about one second away from ripping it off my finger and activating it herself, so I quickly tapped it. Immediately, it glowed silver and started to expand in my hand. The next thing I knew, there was a full sized bow within my grasp.

"Whoa!"

"Where are the arrows?" Val asked doubtfully.

"Oh, it's magic. See," Leo took the bow from me and drew back the string, aiming for a map on the far wall. As soon as the string was in motion, a graceful silver arrow with a bronze tip shimmered into existence at the ready. "As soon as you pull the string, one will appear." He gently released the string, guiding it back to its resting position and the arrow disappeared. "I'm about ninety-two percent sure that the supply is limitless," he told me as he handed it back, a half smile of pride set firmly on his face.

"This is awesome, Leo!"

"It's pretty cool," Val agreed reluctantly. "But how do you get it back to ring form?"

Leo shrugged and looked at me.

"Just touch this letter here," he leaned in and showed me a small Δ etched into the inside curve of the bow.

The second his finger came in contact with the letter, the bow began to shrink back to ring form.

"Wow," I murmured. "Can you do this with anything?"

"Oh, that reminds me!" Leo darted away and shot me a lopsided smile that was just the hottest thing ever…

Er, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Leo.

He was digging through a pile of metal scraps on a table muttering to himself. Val walked over beside me and together, we watched him sift through different things, tossing some to the ground, and stuffing others into his tool belt.

"Where did they go? I could have sworn I brought them in here!"

"What are you looking for, Leo?" I called out to him tentively.

"I'm looking for…oh wait! Here they are!" Leo spun around with a huge grin on his face and two bracelets in his hands.

He handed one to me and one to Val, and honestly, mine was so beautiful, I could have kissed him! (well, maybe not in front of Val) It was made up of about a dozen delicate, interlocking silver circles that jingled when they knocked against each other.

"It's beautiful!" I gasped.

I reached out and quickly pulled Leo into a tight hug, squeezed all the air out of him in about two seconds flat, then let go and turned away with what I'm totally positive was a bright red face.

I heard Leo laugh dumbly behind me as I scampered over to Val.

"What's yours?" I snatched it out of her hands, relieving it from her unimpressed scrutiny. "Oh Val, look it's so pretty!"

It really was, too. And not pretty like I would wear, it was totally a Val pretty. Does that make sense? What I mean was, it was totally her. It was a thick strip of black leather with silver studs encircling it. There was no clasp or anything though, and it looked too small to slip over her wrist. And last time I checked, leather wasn't stretchy.

"Leo? How do you get this on?" I asked him.

"It expands when you go to put it on," he explained. "Try it."

I looked at Val, and she looked at me. We both shrugged and she stuck out her left hand. Grabbing both sides of the bracelet, I moved to pull it over her wrist and I swear, I didn't even see it expand or stretch or anything. It was just like it had always been the perfect size to slip right over her hand without a problem, and once I let go of it at her wrist, it was like it had always fit snugly right there.

"Cool," both Val and I breathed at the exact same time.

"Does mine do that?" I looked up at Leo excitedly.

Hey, don't judge. I wanted a magical bracelet too.

"Umm, no," he rubbed the back of his neck uncertainly and glanced at the bracelet in my hand. "It should fit good enough so that it doesn't come off though."

"Oh," I looked at the bracelet in my hand a moment before I slipped it over my hand and onto my wrist. I held out my hand and examined it while I turned my arm around a few times. "Well, it's beautiful anyway."

I gave Leo a bright smile and continued to twirl my arm around, making the links jangle.

"Yeah, thanks," Val echoed much less enthusiastically then me. "But what are they for?"

Leo shrugged, and a mischievous glint appeared in his eyes.

"Tap 'em and find out," he invited with a sly smile.

Val eyed him warily for a moment, but I knew she would tap it. She was ridiculously curious.

So, just as I thought, the next second she was slapping the studs (thankfully Leo had put on those dull studs instead of pointed ones) and a shield half the size of her was springing out from her arm.

"Whoa!" Val leaned back away from her arm and the shield that was now hanging from her wrist.

Both of us stared at it hanging from her arm. Then she slipped it off and placed it on one of the work tables. All three of us crowded around it, Val and I taking in the piece of art, and Leo examining his work critically.

There wasn't much to be unhappy with though, even I could tell that. It was about three and a half feet in diameter and curved outwards slightly like someone had lopped off the very top of a giant black leather sphere. Just like her bracelet, there were silver studs lining the perimeter of the shield, and even more outlining a complicated skull design complete with a beautifully replicated rose branching out of its left eye socket, and a delicate, swirling pattern like henna designs spiraling outwards from behind the skull.

"This is…I–I don't even believe this!" Val spluttered.

As Val continued to stare at her shield, Leo turned to me with a sparkle in his eye.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" he nodded to my bracelet. "Open it!"

I wanted to tap my bracelet and activate my shield, I really did. But, do you want to know the truth? I was scared that the weight of such a big metal thing would be too much for me to hold, and I would fall over. How absolutely mortifying would that be?

"Come on Blondie," Leo prompted.

He was practically bouncing up and down on the spot by now, and I figured that if I didn't hit it now, Leo would. And, with the logic that I would be more prepared if I activated it myself firmly implanted in my brain, I held my breath, closed my eyes and smacked my bracelet.

I waited with my eyes closed for the weight to bring me toppling down, and with my luck, into a puddle of machine oil. But nothing happened. There was the faint tinkling sound of the links rebounding off each other, but nothing more.

Confused, I opened my eyes only to find Leo grinning like a maniac at me over top of a silver shield.

"What?"

Val looked at me and laughed, and Leo did the same. I couldn't help it either, I giggled. I don't even know what I was giggling at, I just was.

I looked down at the inside of my shield and saw that my arm was through the middle of a soft white leather wrap, and my fist was folded around a cool metal grip attached to the inside of the shield.

"Here," Val offered, taking the non-existent weight off my arms and turning it around so I could see it.

"Oh, Leo," I gasped.

My shield was just about the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Forget Val's shield, forget my dagger, this was the real thing. It was the same size and shape as Val's but instead of black leather and studs, mine had been crafted out of a gleaming plate of silver. Flawless gold strips lay embedded in the silver, forming the remarkably detailed outline of an orchid in the top right corner (can you call it a corner if it's a circle?) of the shield, and delicate leaves as well as smaller lilies and delicately arched flower stems followed the curve of the shield, strategically placed into a masterpiece.

"This is the most beautiful…" I quickly trailed off. Maybe if I was Val, or some other person who was good with coming up with adjectives or whatever you call them, I would have been able to continue. But the thing was, I couldn't come up with the right combination of words to tell Leo how amazingly beautiful what he'd made was.

With my mental shut down, I glanced over to Val, hoping for some help. That was one thing she always did when I was talking and forgot a word, she would immediately supply a couple of words for me to choose from. She was kind of like my own personal walking dictionary.

But when I looked over for a word, she wasn't there anymore. The shield was propped against the leg of a table, and Val's shield was gone. I looked across the forge and saw her examining a life sized bronze statue like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Realising that this in itself was the word she was giving me, I looked back at Leo and threw my arms around his neck.

"Thank you, Leo," I murmured in his ear.

I felt him chuckle as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed me flush against him. We stayed like that for several minutes, and I've gotta say, it was a pretty frickin amazing several minutes. Leo's cheek was pressed into my hair, and mine was pressed tightly into the crook of his warm neck.

Why is he always so warm when I touch him? On the beach, in the forge the first time, the bunker, all those times it was like he was burning up.

So then, blame the brain melting power of boys, but I pulled back and asked Leo, "Why are you so hot?"

He quirked an eyebrow and one corner of his lips tugged upwards a tiny bit.

"Genetics, my dear Clara," he all but purred in what I assumed to be an attempt at a seductive voice.

He did it very well. And if anything, that just fuelled the blush enflaming my cheeks.

"You know what I meant…" I mumbled, wiggling free of the hold he had on my waist.

Leo shrugged and seemed to develop a sudden interest in his grimy work boots.

"I dunno, it's kind of just…ah–"

All of a sudden, there was a symphony of loud crashes and bangs, evidently saving Leo from any explanation he's been about to give.

Both our heads snapped towards the source of the interruption.

Can you guess what it was? No? Well then I'll give you a hint. She was moody, cold hearted and apparently a sadist as she seemed to love watching me suffer...

Yup, it was Val! She was standing with her eyes scrunched shut and a tight grimace on her face. She had her shoulders hunched up as high as they could go and her hands balled into fists at her chest. She was standing so tensely, you could see the taught muscle carving rigid lines in her legs through her tight jeans, and in her exposed arms.

All around her, bits and bobs were laying in a line like dominoes. I saw shields and swords, hammers and monkey wrenches, and even the huge statue and an anvil, which must have been accountable for the loudest of the metallic clattering noises that had my ears ringing.

Suddenly Val cracked one eye open and peered down at her feet warily. Loosening her muscles, she looked sheepishly at Leo, who was staring at her with his jaw flapping in the wind.

"What…happened?" he exclaimed, lurching forwards and frantically picking stuff up and placing it on a few different tables.

"Umm, I actually have no idea…" Val leapt over the barricade of spilled metal and hid behind me. "I feel like he's gonna lob a fireball at me," she whispered urgently. Then, probably a bit too dramatically in my opinion, she grabbed my shoulders and held me out in the line of fire and begged, "Protect me!"

I laughed and stuck out my tongue at her over my shoulder.

"Use your shield, stupid!"

"Pfft," she blew her bangs out of the way and rolled her eyes at me. "He would hurt the shield, but he wouldn't hurt you!" she winked at me and danced out of the way as I tried to elbow her in the gut.

Was she going to take now to get back at me for all those years of me teasing her about all those guys? But it isn't the same if you don't like them right? So she shouldn't be allowed to tease me about someone I actually liked, right? Please tell me you see the logic in this too, I can't be the only one!

"Ugh, my siblings are going to kill me!" he examined a broken sheet of metal for a moment and turned to Val and cried, "Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm in? I'm dead! Totally dead! In fact, I'm more than dead! I'm–I'm–"

"Leo, relax," Val purred. "We're leaving today remember? You'll be outta here before they even notice what's broke."

"Yeah…but what about when I come back, huh?" he challenged, tossing the broken whatever-it-was on a worktable. "What do I do then?"

"Look on the bright side, maybe you'll die before then and then you won't have to face the consequences when you come back here."

With a cruel smirk, Val whisked away and out the door to who knows where.

"Well, she's got a point…" Leo looked at me and sighed. I think he tried to smile then, but it quickly broke apart and formed a grimace instead. He rubbed his neck anxiously and said, "We should probably get going though, it's almost ten."

"How do you know what time it is?" I asked.

Because, seriously. He didn't have a watch, and unless he had a built in clock in his brain, then I didn't know how he just knew what time it was.

"There's a clock, Blondie. Right up there on the wall."

He motioned to some overcomplicated jungle of gears and metal parts hanging from the wall, and before I could catch myself, I blurted, "That's a clock?"

"Umm, yeah. See the hands? And the numbers?" Leo joked.

"Shut up!" I pouted and pushed at his chest, marching past him and deciding we needed to find Val and Nico so we could hurry up and leave already like Leo wanted.

Leo's laugh chased me out the door and across the grass. Val was…nowhere to be seen. How far could she have gotten in just a few seconds? I hadn't left more than thirty seconds after her, so where was she?

"Clara?"

"Val?"

"Clara! Help already!"

"What do you mean help?"

Where was her voice coming from? To the left? But I still couldn't see her.

"Yeah! I'm stuck in a hole!"

"What?" I laughed.

Had she just said what I thought she'd said?

"Don't laugh! Get me out of here!"

I skipped ahead to where her enraged voice was coming from. Immediately, I noticed a dark splotch marring the brilliant green grass. As I got even closer, I noticed it looked like the beginnings of a deep hole…

"Having a bit of troubles, are you?" I called down to Val from the edge of the hole.

There she was, glaring up at me from the bottom of her own personal hole about fifteen feet straight down.

"Just shut up and get me out!"

"Well did you try jumping out?"

There was a pause. I heard Val take a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then she looked back up at me with a deadly calm expression, which, quite frankly, made me a tiny bit worried for my wellbeing.

Okay. More than a tiny bit.

"Are you kidding me? Jump?" she threw her hands out to either side of her and yelled, "This freaking hole is fifteen feet deep!"

"Well, maybe you should work on your jumping skills then," I squeaked.

"I would strangle you right now," Val breathed heavily. "But I can't reach!"

"Okay, let me just go find–"

"What's with all the yelling over here?" Leo called out as he bounded up to me.

"Perfect! Leo do you have a rope?" I demanded.

"Why do you need a rope?"

Val snapped from down in her hole, "Do you really need to ask?"

"What in Hades?"

Leo leaned over and peered down at Val standing with her arms crossed at the bottom of her narrow hole. She glared severely at Leo until he pulled back and looked at me with a face that clearly said he was trying his hardest not to burst out laughing on the spot.

I really couldn't blame him though.

In fact, I was impressed that he wasn't already laughing so hard he gave himself a nosebleed.

"Get–me–out."

"Umm, yeah hold that thought…" Leo looked at me apprehensively and whispered, "I don't think I can get any rope out of this thing!" he motioned to the belt hanging loosely off his waist and cringed.

"What's going on?"

Leo and I both whipped around to find a blond boy equipped with a golden bow and a quiver slung over his shoulder standing there giving us the strangest of looks. I wonder why. Couldn't have been the fact that we were both just talking to the ground.

"Oh, hey Will," Leo nodded to him in greeting and casually slipped is hand into his tool belt. Glancing behind this Will guy, he added, "And Michel, and Courtney, and Connor…"

I looked behind Will and saw the first kid–obviously Michel–sauntering up to us. He was short, had a squinty looking face and I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure he was like, cross eyed or something.

Behind him was Connor Stoll walking hand in hand with a blond girl whom I assumed to be Courtney. She had a bright red face and I was kind of wondering if she had been hit in the mouth with something or if her lips were always swollen like that, when she smiled politely at me and pressed closer to Connor. His face was red as well, and he had a slightly dazed look and a funny little half-smile one his lips. It looked like he wasn't all there at the moment.

"Yeah," he murmured. "All the yelling was kind of distracting."

For some reason, that earned him an elbow to the gut from the blond girl tucked into his side.

"Oh, we all know what you two were distracted from," Michel grinned evilly and wiggled his eyebrows at Will.

Before anyone had a chance to react, Val yelled up from her little pit of doom, "What the hell is going on up there? Did you forget about me or something?"

"Who's in the hole?" Will asked, pushing past Leo and leaning over the edge to see Val fuming at the bottom.

He laughed and motioned his friends over.

"Hey, you guys! Check this out!"

They all crowded close and I got pushed back away from the edge of the hole. They all started laughing and I imagined Val glaring up at them, red faced and white knuckled.

A few other stray campers moseyed on over to check out the freak show (don't you ever tell Val I just called her a freak show!). Pretty soon there was a sizable mob crowded around Val's hole, and Leo and I had both been shoved right to the outside.

You know, there was so much pushing and shoving, I'm surprised that Val remained the sole occupant of the hole.

After a few more minutes and about three rocks shooting up from the middle of the mob (I think one of Val's throws even smacked someone in the head!), a cool voice spoke up from right behind Leo and I.

"Do you think she's having fun?"

Leo let out an impressive sounding yelp and jumped almost high enough to get out of his own hole. Me, well, I don't want to brag or anything, but I think I took that little stat pretty well. I only jumped like, three feet up and made a tiny little squeaking noise that I don't even think anyone noticed! Hopefully not anyway…

"Jeez Nico!" Leo gasped, clutching at his heart as he spun around and glared accusingly at Nico. "Could you maybe not scare the crap out of me next time?"

I turned around and thought, Wait, isn't this kid supposed to be pink…?

Because, he wasn't. His hair was just as black as it ever was, and his weird Goth clothes had been returned, and his skin was back to that seriously unhealthy, sun deprived, albino white shade with the plum coloured bruise brushed across his nose and eye just as it had been before Val had dyed him pink.

"What happened to your pinkness?" I cried, at the exact same time that Leo laughed, "Did you put Val in this hole?"

A faint smile ghosted its way across Nico's pale lips as his black eyes flickered past us to the hoard of heinous orange t-shirt wearing kids.

"You would think so wouldn't you," he replied without looking away from the small crowd.

"So you're saying you didn't land Val in that hole over there?" Leo accused.

"Oh no," Nico looked back at Leo with dark humor dancing in his eyes. "That was definitely me."

"Hullo!" I waved my hand in front of Nico's nearly emotionless face (gods he was even worse than Val for that!). "Are you going to tell me why you aren't pink anymore? I want to know!"

Almost as if there was a lag time in between the time my hand crossed his vision to the time when Nico saw it, he looked at me a second later with an ice-cold glare.

"Percy called in a favour with the Aphrodite girls for that," he growled. "Lucky for you two."

"Me?" I squeaked. I was on this guy's hit list? Not good! "It wasn't even me! It was all Val!"

"I can hear you, you know!" Val yelled.

"Oops…"

"Look, Nico, can you just let her up? We've gotta leave," Leo reasoned.

Who would have thought that he would end up being the voice of reason?

Nico glared hard at Leo for a long time. Then, he spun on his heal, snapped his fingers and stalked away. I swear though, when he snapped his fingers, there was like this…ripple in the ground that went out right from where Nico was standing. Am I crazy?

There were disappointed murmurs coming from the crowd now, and a few that were on the edge pressed closer and craned their necks to try and see what happened–exactly what I was doing.

A second later, someone cried out and the mod surged backwards, knocking me flat on my butt.

"Move it or lose it!" Val yelled angrily. "And you'll be losing it the hard way!"

I saw her shove some guy at least a head taller than her out of her way and call him something…pretty offensive. Let's just go with that because, I don't really want to repeat that.

By the time she reached me, she hadn't even calmed down a smidge. Like, seriously. If we were in a cartoon right then, she would have steam blowing out her ears and her nose, and would have little flames dancing in the background. No joke.

"I–will–kill–him!" she raged.

Her breathing was raged, and her fists were clenched so tight I was surprized she wasn't bleeding from cuts from her nails.

"Calm…" I soothed. With a sharp glare, Val shoved by me too, and I was left staring at her retreating figure as she stormed off to the Big House. Looking at Leo I muttered, "Or not?"

He gave me a tentative shrug and offered his hand. Of course, when I hesitated, he reached over and took it anyway. Great.

As the crowd trickled away, He started towing me after Val. As he did so, he looked down and gave me a playful smile.

"You ready to get your quest on?"

heey review and stuff s'il vous plaît! (that's right! I know French! not really though) also thanks to all those who have stuck with me so far and who have been reviewing :) you guys rock