"You might want to grab my sleeve." I told Piper, she looked at me puzzled, "Why…?"

I smiled lightly, "So we can go invisible, I'll take you to the Aphrodite cabin. If you want I mean."

She nodded, "Yeah that would be nice. Thanks."

"No problem." I said.

I took her to cabin ten, a place I'd rather not go in, the Aphrodite cabin, "Well…Good luck, I'll see you later I guess." I told her turned us back to normal, "I'll tell everyone I took you here."

She looked at the entrance to the cabin, she looked like she was trying to see some way she could fit in with those glamor kids, and then she frowned, "I'm never going to get used to staying here…"

I sighed, "We all have that same feeling and thought, but remember they're your brothers and sisters now, even if one of them is a…uh hem, hard to deal with, they're family now."

Piper eyed me suspiciously, "What's up with you and Drew?"

I really didn't want to tell her, so I told her that I was going to help Leo find them something that can fly. "Okay, thanks again." She told and hesitantly walked inside. I went back to the camp fire and told everyone what I did, and then they complained about it, because they wanted to be weird and stare at her some more…Anyway! I went to find Leo. He was waiting for me at the big house.

"There he is! Uh, not to be rude, but why did you volunteer to help us?" He asked cautiously. I smiled, "Because it's the way I've always been…" I trailed off, the way I've always been huh? I've been a traitor, a killer…And a liar I guess. What else oh yeah, an orphan.

Leo looked at me, and he seemed to know what I was feeling, "I don't mean to get semimetal on you, but I lost my mother at a young age too. And I've also been named a thief and a problem child, even a liar, but soon I just ignored all that and laughed at anything that reminded me of the past."

I looked at him, he was the same height as me, I didn't take him as a kind of kid who would open up to just anyone. "At a young age? Try fresh out of the-

"I get it!" He shouted and rubbed his head, "You and I aren't so different." He grinned.

I shrugged, "I suppose, but I guess the biggest difference is that you can die and I can't. Plus I don't age." I said. He smiled at me like I just told him a joke. But then he saw that I was serious, "Are you really a demi-god, or a god in disguise?" He asked.

I grinned, "I'm a demi-god, but then I may as well be a god, since I have so much power and I can't die or age. But no, I'm a full fledge demi-god."

He crossed his arms and looked at me left arm, "Power?"

"Despite me having one arm, I have a lot of power. You want to see?" I asked mischievously. I know this'll freak out the campers, but maybe they'll also think it's me and not the dragon that's roaming around in these woods. He returned my smile with the same one. "Show me what you got."

The things I showed him were something's I didn't show anyone else. I slowed down time, but I made sure Leo could move normally and then I showed him how I can walk through walls and everything, and then when we got the fire, he looked a bit…distracted, "You got something against fire too?"

He looked up at me and tried to hide his pain with a smile, "No, of course not! Fire can bite my-

"Leo, I lost someone to fire too…But the way we lost that someone is probably different." I told him. He frowned, "How could you tell…?" I sighed and looked at the stars, "Because you have a sadness deep in your eyes, not many people will notice that, but they don't have that same sadness we do. They didn't lose someone so close to them that they would have broken down and never got back up, we did, but he got back up, and then we got back up again and again."

I smiled and continued, "You're alright Leo, and I wish we could have met sooner. Because we share that sadness and don't want anyone to know about it. But let me tell you this, the sadness I carrier is too heavy for any regular demi-god to handle."

"This person who died to fire…Who was it your mother?" Leo asked.

I shook my head, "No…It was my sister…But…Well it was more of an explosion then her dying by a fire." I looked at my remaining hand, "I was the one who killed her. I didn't want to, it just happened. Some monsters got the jump on us a couple years ago and I…Wasn't thinking straight, they took her hostage and let one of their weaker allies bait me to kill him. I did, but what I forgot to keep in mind was that all monsters of the underworld can shadow travel…" I summoned a black fire ball. "This is what I used." I showed him.

Leo stared at it, he looked a little frightened. "This one is different from all the other fire balls I can make. This right here can obliterate a single being, in an instant. And if I want, a whole city." I said to Leo. He was looking at it like he was having a nightmare. "You okay?" I asked.

He snapped out of it, "Uh- Yeah, I was just thinking." More like he just relived how his mother died. He took a deep breath and said, "Like I said, we aren't so different."

Leo told me about a babysitter of his when he was young, her name was 'Tía Callida'

The first time Tía Callida tried to kill him, Leo told me he must've been about two. Tía Callida was looking after him while his mother was at the machine shop. She wasn't really his aunt, of course—just one of the old women in the community, a generic tía who helped watch the kids. She smelled like a honey-baked ham, and always wore a widow's dress with a black shawl.

"Let's set you down for a nap," she said. "Let's see if you are my brave little hero, eh?"

He said he was sleepy at the time so he wasn't exactly sure what was real and what wasn't. She nestled him into his blankets in a warm mound of red and yellow—pillows. The bed was like a cubbyhole in the wall, made of blackened bricks, with a metal slot over his head and a square hole far above, where he could see the stars.

Then he suddenly remembered resting comfortably, grabbing at sparks like fireflies. He dozed, and dreamed of a boat made of fire, sailing through the cinders. He imagined himself on board, navigating the sky. Somewhere nearby, Tía Callida sat in her rocking chair—creak, creak, creak—and sang a lullaby. Even at two, Leo knew the difference between English and Spanish, and he remembered being puzzled because Tía Callida was singing in a language that was neither.

"I'm guessing…That was Hera?" I asked.

Leo narrowed his eyes at me, "I'm the one telling the story…But yes I realized that was her back then." He told me and continued. "Everything was fine until my mother came home. She screamed and raced over to snatch me up, yelling at Tía Callida, "How could you?" But the old lady had disappeared."

Leo sighed, "After many years later, I realized that I was sleeping in a blazing fireplace. And do you want to know the weirdest thing? Tía Callida hadn't been arrested or even banished from our house. She appeared again several times over the next few years. Once when I was three, she let me play with knives. 'You must learn your blades early,' she insisted, 'if you are to be my hero someday.' I somehow didn't kill myself, but I could tell 'Tia' couldn't care either way."

"That's Hera for you…Doesn't care what a demi-god does or even if they die helping help. Leo, trust yourself only when talking to Hera, got it?" I said.

He nodded, but then he frowned, "That's not the ending."

I frowned, "Thought so."

He stopped to think about how he was going to tell me about his mother's death. "When I was about four years old, Tía found a rattlesnake for me in a nearby cow pasture. She gave me a stick and encouraged me to poke the animal. "Where is your bravery, little hero? Show me the Fates were right to choose you." I stared down at those amber eyes, hearing the dry shh-shh-ssh of the snake's rattle. I couldn't bring himself to poke the snake. It didn't seem fair. Apparently the snake felt the same way about biting a little kid. And I could've sworn it looked at Tía Callida like, Are you nuts, lady? Then it disappeared into the tall grass."

Leo chuckled, but then he sighed, "The last time Tia babysat me, I was five. She brought me a pack of crayons and a pad of paper. We sat together at the picnic table in back of the apartment complex, under an old pecan tree. While Tía Callida sang her strange songs, I drew a picture of the boat I saw in the flames, with colorful sails and rows of oars, a curved stern, and an awesome masthead. When I was almost done, about to sign his name the way he'd learned in kindergarten, a wind snatched the picture away. It flew into the sky and disappeared.

"I wanted to cry. Since I spent so much time on that picture—but Tía Callida just clucked with disappointment." Leo just laughed a little and continued.

"'It isn't time yet, little hero. Someday, you'll have your quest. You'll find your destiny, and your hard journey will finally make sense. But first you must face many sorrows. I regret that, but heroes cannot be shaped any other way. Now, make me a fire, eh? Warm these old bones.' She told me before she..." He trailed off, bur then he smiled.

"A few minutes later, my mom came out and shrieked with horror. Tía Callida was gone, but I sat in the middle of a smoking fire. The pad of paper was reduced to ashes. Crayons had melted into a bubbling puddle of multicolored goo, and my hands were ablaze, slowly burning through the picnic table. For years afterward, people in the apartment complex would wonder how someone had seared the impressions of a five-year-old's hands an inch deep into solid wood. I remembered after that last visit, my mom took me inside and had a long talk with me, but I only understood some of it at the time." Leo explained to me.

"'She can't come back again.' My mom had a beautiful face with kind eyes, and curly dark hair, but back then she looked older than she was because of hard work. The lines around her eyes were deeply etched. Her hands were callused. She was the first person from their family to graduate from college. She had a degree in mechanical engineering and could design anything, fix anything, build anything...Not that it mattered..." Leo said sadly.

"No one would hire her. No company would take her seriously, so she ended up in the machine shop, trying to make enough money to support the two of us. She always smelled of machine oil, and when she talked with me, she switched from Spanish to English constantly—using them like complementary tools. It took me years to realize that not everyone spoke that way. She'd even taught me Morse code as a kind of game, so they could tap messages to each other when they were in different rooms: I love you. You okay? Simple things like that." He smiled, I guess that was a good memory.

"'I don't care what Callida says,' my mom told me. "I don't care about destiny and the Fates. You're too young for that. You're still my baby.' She took me hands, looking for burn marks, but of course there weren't any. "Leo, listen to me. Fire is a tool, like anything else, but it's more dangerous than most. You don't know your limits. Please, promise me—no more fire until you meet your father. Someday, mijo, you will meet him. He'll explain everything."

"I tried to believe that, but he never showed, he never tried to contact me either. So I just stopped believing that" Leo said.

Leo eyes were watery, "For the next couple of years, they were happy. I almost forgot about Tía Callida. I still dreamed of the flying boat, but the other strange events seemed like a dream too. But it all came apart when I was eight. By then, I was spending every free hour at the shop with my mom. I knew how to use the machines. I could measure and do math better than most adults. I even learned to think three-dimensionally, solving mechanical problems in my head the way my mom did..."

"It sounds like you were really close to your mother, and what happened?" I asked softly.

He smiled, "Yeah I was...But, one night, we stayed late because my mom was finishing a drill bit design she hoped to patent. If she could sell the prototype, it might change our lives. She'd finally get a break. As she worked, I passed her supplies and told her corny jokes, trying to keep her spirits up. I loved it when I could make her laugh. She'd smile and say, 'Your father would be proud of you, mijo. You'll meet him soon, I'm sure.'"

Mom's work space was at the very back of the shop. It was kind of creepy at night, because we were the only ones there. Every sound echoed through the dark warehouse, but I didn't mind as long as I was with my mom. If I did wander the shop, me and my mom could always keep in touch with Morse code taps. Whenever we were ready to leave, we would have to walk through the entire shop, through the break room, and out to the parking lot, locking the doors behind us. It was hassle, but if I was with my mom I didn't care." He told me.

Leo frowned, "That night after finishing up, we just gotten to the break room when my mom realized she didn't have her keys...'That's funny.' She said to me. 'I know I had them. Wait here, mijo. I'll only be a minute."

Leo looked to the ground, "She gave me one more smile—the last one I'd ever get —and she went back into the warehouse..." And then I stopped him, I know where this leads.

"These things...They happen for a reason..." I patted Leo on the back, "Leo, and those things are what we have to overcome, listen Leo, I lost my mother after I was born, and then after ten years I died. I stay dead for a good seventy years. Things happen for a reason, we just don't know what they are yet."

I got up, "Let's go find that dragon."

Leo smiled halfheartedly. "Sure."

I won't be uploading any chapters until next week, because this week I'm going camping! :D

Thanks for reading! I hope you all have an awesome week!

Rilurz~