Present Day: Half Blood Hill
"Woah just a second, don't get so mad." Alyssa tried to reason with Chair.
"They lost Caligo, how do you not expect me to be mad? I have been searching for ten years for her. I was this close, and they lost her."
"Okay, but you can't just expect them to keep hold of her for too long. If she is as dangerous as you say she is, then she would have wanted to run away. Or maybe she would have wanted to do the same thing you are doing." Alyssa suggested.
Cahira released a large growl. Then she turned away from Alyssa and screamed out in frustration, with every word that left her mouth she brought more fire warriors.
"Why did this happen to us? Why us? Why?" She cried out, her whole body was on fire.
"What do you mean, why?" Alyssa shouted, trying to catch her attention.
Cahira turned, her flames extinguished but her eyes were glowing. She stomped toward Alyssa.
"Do you think that I would have chosen to be this monster? The bringer of death for valiant soldiers. Do you think I would have chosen to not age? No, I just want to be normal, and the only way for me to do that is to find my people. My sisters." Cahira hung her head and stuck out her palm.
Three flames in the shapes of girls danced across her palm, with their hands joined. She closed her hand and smoke rose from her fist. An idea came to Alyssa's head as she felt the anguish radiating from her friend, and she decided to thank her mother.
"I know someone like you. He's right here. In the camp." She breathed.
Cahira's head snapped up. She raised her eyebrows.
"He controls fire too, his father is Hephaestus. You can't burn him."
"Bring him to me. If he can't be hurt by fire then he can come to me." Then as years of loneliness cracked her voice, she surrounded herself in her only safe place, flames.
And suddenly Alyssa was knocking on the Hephaestus cabin door, and who answered but Leo Valdez.
"I need you to come with me." She said.
"Uh, okay."
"It's Cahira, she is really emotional right now and she only wants to be with people like her. To me thats fire people."
"An emotional fire lady in need of a fire boy, no a fire man. Sweet." He slicked back his hair.
"Valdez, she doesn't need you to lay on the smooth moves, she needs you to make her feel normal."
And suddenly they were at a wall of fire Leo smiled at Alyssa and then walked through. Inside he saw the girl who had busted into their meeting, she was watching two life sized figures made of fire dance.
"That's really cool." He said.
The girl's eyes drifted to him, tears of gold were there but she blinked them away.
"You're Cahira, right?"
"That's me." Her voice was hoarse.
After an awkward moment of silence, Leo spoke.
"Why are you upset?"
"I've been alone for ten years. Do you know what that loneliness feels like."
"Not necessarily, but I do know someone who has."
"If you're talking about me, I don't think its very funny." She sighed.
"No, I'm not. I know a girl, who has been alone for thousands of years. So your ten would actually make her laugh, and possibly roll her eyes." He said and leaned back.
The fire wall around them burned dimmer.
"Also, you might want to get rid of that, forest creatures will get pretty annoyed. Trust me, I know." He said.
"Do you really have the curse?" She asked.
"Two things. One: its a GIFT brings the ladies. And two: you talk really stiff, why?"
Cahira gave him a glare out of the corner of her eye, he stuck his tongue out at her.
"I was told that it would be easier to learn more that one language if I didn't become too comfortable in one. English just happened to be the one that is used the most." Cahira explained.
"How many languages can you speak?"
"How high can you count?" She spat out.
"I can count to seven. Not that impressive." He shrugged.
She rolled her eyes.
"How many languages can you speak?" She sneered.
"Barely one." He nodded.
She sighed and looked at him dead on.
"Could you show me your fire?" She asked.
He gave her a crooked grin and then set his hair on fire.
"Have you ever hurt anybody with your fire?"
"Holy Hades that is deep." Leo let out a gush of air.
"Answer the question."
"Yeah, I have. Or at least I thought I did it on purpose for the longest time. It was my mom." He sighed. "What about you?"
"I was made into a weapon, so what do you think? I've killed thousands of warriors. It wasn't my choice though, I was made this way." Cahira muttered.
"You know, just because you are made one way doesn't mean you have to stay like that. Like I had this really cool dragon. His name was Festus, and he was a machine. He was made to be a fire-breathing war machine, but he crashed and became something completely different."
"Your point?" Cahira asked softly.
"Just because you are made one way doesn't mean you can't change."