THE TUNNEL THROUGH ROME
A/N: Another one-shot! Why is writing one-shots so much easier than long fics? I really need to stop surfing Pinterest in the middle of an online class.
This fic was inspired by Ruskin Bond's story 'The Playing Fields of Simla'. I recommend reading it, it's a really beautiful story.
"How evanescent those loves and friendships seem at this distance in time…We move on, make new attachments. We grow old. But sometimes, we hanker for old friendships, the old loves. Sometimes I wish I was young again. Or that I could travel back in time and pick up the threads. Absent so long, I may have stopped loving you, friends; but I will never stop loving the day I loved you."
― Ruskin Bond - Delhi is not far
It had been a lonely winter for a twelve-year-old.
She hadn't really got over losing her home to pirates, or joining the said pirates, or parting ways on bad terms with her sister a few months previously. And she hadn't quite reconciled herself to the idea of serving in the legion and being a Roman for the foreseeable future.
She didn't have too many friends in her Cohort. She had always been a loner, rather reserved, looking out only for her sister to swoop her away on their next adventure. Those days would not come again, if their last conversation near the Wolf House was anything to go by. Even Lupa had grinned at her with that wolfish grin, calling her the lone wolf.
She wanted a friend, but it was not easy to find one among a horde of rowdy, pea-shooting teenagers who only maintained order when it was required. Had she grown up amongst other children of her age, she might have developed a taste for their anarchy, but the events at San Juan had turned her into a somewhat sombre adult. She instead spent most of her free time in training, working hard to become one of the best fighters in the legion.
After a month, she noticed a blond boy with fierce blue eyes who was there everyday at the Field of Mars, just like her, and she only noticed him because he seemed to take no part in the prevalent jokes of the legion. Once, while she was catching her breath after a run, she saw him at work at the practice dummies in the field. He caught her looking and smiled ruefully, tolerantly.
Even before they began talking to each other, they developed an understanding of sorts. They'd nod in acknowledgement to each other while passing through the streets or while practicing in the arena. They were not in the same Cohort. It was not an explicit rule, but it was understood that members of different Cohorts did not interact too much with each other. And certainly there could be no friendship between a member of the Second and a member of the Fifth.
However, these barriers vanished on their first quest to clear up nearby monster hoards, with Gwen from the Fifth for company, Jason in the offense, her in the defense. To be honest, she was annoyed at being given the defensive role, but Jason as a son of Jupiter could attack better with his lightning. And a defensive position suited her somewhat, since years later, she was still defending, her home from the giants, her family from destruction, her legion from Gaia...
The son of Jupiter spoke to her occasionally, and they fought especially well together in the field. A year had passed since she joined Camp, and they had practiced their swordplay against each other. A good understanding was required between members of a quest in the fights. She could anticipate his moves, and he was familiar with hers.
It wasn't until they were completely away from the influence of the legion that their friendship flourished. Strike teams were sent to various locations around Mount Tamalpais to kill the rapidly gathering monsters, and they were often paired together on these missions after Centurion Gwen remembered how seamlessly they could combine their attacks. On those occasions that they could catch their breath after fighting, they exchanged amusing stories and other confidences.
Jason never knew his family. He had been barely two years old when he was left with Lupa, and he couldn't remember much, other than vague memories of his mother, and perhaps a sister, though he confessed that those grew fainter day by day. She felt a strange mixture of jealousy and sympathy for him; she would love to forget her father whose ghost still haunted her dreams, but she wouldn't have traded all her other memories of Hylla and San Juan for anything.
"What is your sister's name?"
"Hylla."
"It's a nice name, like yours. What does your name mean?"
"Uh... queen."
Jason grinned. "I love your name."
They returned to Camp Jupiter soon after, and along with the rest of the strike teams, they were heroes for a couple of days, and Reyna found herself losing some of her reticence. She even participated in some of the pranks staged by Jason's friend Dakota. Her Centurion, Sarah, pulled her aside and gave her a stern warning against fraternizing with 'those people from the Fifth'. Despite that, a couple of weeks later, both of them received promotion to the rank of Centurion.
"Will you join your sister after a few years?" Jason asked her one day.
"I don't think so." She frowned. "We aren't really on talking terms, and besides, I want to be known as something more than just Hylla's little sister. I've played second fiddle to her for long enough."
"You should try talking to her." He commented. "Family is important." He added wistfully.
She didn't agree with him, but she let the matter slide without argument. Not all battles needed to be fought.
"Everyone is saying that a huge war is coming." He said when she didn't say anything. "We will storm Mount Tamalpais, and we will destroy Othrys! But it will be dangerous, and many of us will die."
"Oh, that won't happen." She said glibly. "The gods can't expect us to actually fight Titans, can they?"
But even as they were speaking, war maps were being charted in the Principia by the Praetors.
Before the gods' decisions impinged on their lives and everyone else's, they found a little freedom of their own- in an underground tunnel near the barracks of the Third Cohort.
It was really just an old drain which had been out of use and run dry, and when they started exploring it, they had no idea how far it extended. After crawling on their elbows and knees for about twenty feet, they were in complete darkness. Despite that, they continued moving forward- moving backward would be quite difficult, if not impossible- until she saw a glimmer of light in the darkness. Dusty, covered in cobwebs, and a couple of stray spiders, they emerged at last on a grassy field outside the camp, near the Grizzly peak.
"Wow." She breathed, staring at the view in front of her.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" He asked from behind her. "The sunset looks lovely."
"We should keep coming here." She decided. "No way we can let this go."
"Don't tell anyone." He said. "They will spoil it. This is our secret."
"Of course. This is... peaceful. No one else can come here."
But more monsters were coming, and more wars.
Another two years passed quietly, but there was a definite buzz of excitement at the end of them. It seemed as if everyone was tense, like they were all waiting for someone to blow a whistle and they would set off running.
Things came to a head when Senior Praetor Samuel asked everyone to assemble at the Field of Mars after the evening roll call.
He spoke of momentous events that were occurring around them- a new war was about to begin, the gods were busy fighting Typhon, their dreaded enemy, and Camp Jupiter was required to fight the war for them at Mount Tamalpais, toppling the throne of Kronos to destroy his power...
A week later, the first scouting party made up mostly of children of Mercury was sent to the base of the mountain, to gather information, to find out about the size of the enemy forces, and get out of there, preferably, without contact or casualties.
None of them returned alive.
The rumors flying around and the scraps of information overheard from the Praetors kept them somewhat abreast of events, but in their tunnel, they felt immune from everything that was happening, worlds away from the fighting, blood, and revenge.
And outside the tunnel, on the knoll on the mountain, there was only fresh untrodden grass, sprinkled with clover and daisies, and the best view of Oakland for miles around, especially at sunrise and sunset. Who could touch them there?
"And when all wars are done, this place will still be here, waiting for us." Jason said one day, when they were sitting on the grass after a rather competitive frisbee game. Reyna insisted that he had totally cheated, being able to control the winds and all. Jason insisted she was a sore loser, and they had ditched the game due to the danger of a fight breaking out.
"Turning into a philosopher, Grace?"
Jason scoffed. "Just saying what I think. I'll bet you thirty denarii."
"Bet me what?"
"Two years later from today, we'll both still be coming to this place."
"Two years? Who knows what might happen in two years?"
"We will. I promise."
They didn't know how long two years could be.
During the rainy months, the tunnel was flooded, the drains choked with running water.
One day, the Praetors announced that in a few months, they would be storming Mount Tam. Centurions were required to give extra training to the legionnaires, so that they were at their best capacity when they finally went to war. Strict curfew was imposed, and roll call was required to be taken every four hours.
The tunnel no longer provided an escape for them. The outside world was out of bounds. The streets of New Rome were deserted, an atmosphere of fear everywhere they went. She and Jason sat on a damp wooden bench and talked about the future in vaguely hopeful terms, but they didn't solve any problems. The Praetors and Lupa were doing all the solving.
"I thought I'd find you here."
Reyna turned around to see Jason crawling out of the hole. "Is something the matter?"
"I should ask you that, actually." He said, sitting next to her. "You've been very quiet these few days."
She rubbed her face tiredly. "It's just all catching up to me, I guess. The war, the people who died, becoming Praetors... I hadn't processed it before."
"Yeah, it's weird." Jason stared at the skyline. "We're fifteen, and we're in charge of a city. It's kind of scary."
"At least we have time to get used to it."
The Fates were probably laughing at them.
It had been months since she came up here.
Reyna took a deep breath and inhaled the sweet evening air of the place, the sun setting to the west, creating a reddish-gold landscape, as if some cosmic painter had waved his brush across the horizon. Clouds chased each other across the sky, white in some places, blue in others, and slowly turning to red on the western side. The place was silent, except for the chirping of birds around her, and as she took a sip of hot chocolate after being away for so long, she finally felt at home.
The memory of the place felt slightly bittersweet. Jason had been found, only for her to realize that something had fundamentally changed within him, as if what had made him the boy she knew had been taken away. She wanted to approach him, to talk to him about what he remembered, but the truth was that she knew, he didn't remember it all.
He'd confessed it to Gwen and Dakota when they had asked him why he was staying at Camp Half-Blood instead of returning to Camp Jupiter. "It feels like those memories of my past are someone else's. Like it's another person's life and I'm watching a movie about it. Sorry, guys. But Camp Half-Blood seems more real to me now."
But this place had been hers just as much as it was his. She hadn't told anyone about this place, not even Nico. Because Reyna had made a promise, and when she made a promise, she kept it. She hadn't talked to Jason. He was as much of a stranger to her as he was on the day they joined. They were acquaintances now, or even allies. Friends? Not really. He had written a couple of letters to her, about building new shrines on the Temple Hill for minor gods, and that was the extent of their conversation. She did not hear from him again. They had both moved on with their lives, and he barely entered her thoughts, except when she was on the other end of that tunnel. Not even Aurum and Argentum were allowed to enter it. She was always alone whenever she went there, with nothing but the ghosts of memories for company.
A year later, she got news of him, but in an entirely different context.
The god Apollo had become mortal, and in his quest to defeat the Triumvirate, several people had been killed by Caligula and Medea. Jason was one of them.
She cried for the first time since being captured by Blackbeard.
As she watched the funeral pyre burn, she couldn't stop the tears streaking down her face. Her best friend was inside it, and he was being burnt. Ash to ash.
Was it all this was? Fight, live, love, and all of it to be gone, turned to dust? Were the handful of ashes all that remained of their lives?
She cried for her lost friend. She cried for the boy who had been the first to make her feel at home in the legion. She cried for the boy who crawled with her to explore an abandoned tunnel. She cried for the boy with blond hair and blue eyes who told her that no matter what, they would still have their secret meeting place.
Reyna took one last look at her surroundings before getting up. She touched the grass for the last time, before making her way to the hole. "Damn you, Grace. You owe me thirty denarii."
As she made her way back to the Camp, she couldn't help but wonder whether at least, after his death, he had gotten back his memories properly, not as someone else's life, but as his own, full of color and emotion. Did he remember the games they knew so well as children? Did memories of their teenage years flood his mind? Did he remember the tunnel through which they used to make their little escapes to freedom?
But there are no tunnels out of death.
"This is the drain." She told a son of Vulcan she had requested her to meet there. "It's small, but it leads outside the camp, and if we can go out, smaller monsters like telkhines might make their way in."
"Are you sure, Praetor?"
"Of course. There's no use for it anymore. Seal the tunnel."
Some secrets die with the keeper.
A/N: Again, never been to the US, never been to San Francisco, so I have no idea whether you can crawl through a tunnel in near the Caldecott and end up near Grizzly Peak. But Yelp tells me it's a 0.7 mile distance, which seems manageable. Still not sure about that, but feel free to point out the mistakes. I do not own any of the characters.I also do not happen to own the idea. I only gave it a Riordanverse twist. On the other hand, it's no different from writing a trope, albeit a nonexistent one.
Adios,
TheStarkster