A train, Eighth Avenue Express, Columbus Circle Station,
New York City
December 13, 2011
The automatic doors slid open, letting in the piercing cold air mercilessly. Theo Grigori - a long and lean girl with a regal but harsh face - tugged her scarf and jacket impossibly closer, her breath coming out in short puffs of mist. She hauled her backpack over her shoulder and stepped onto the platform, where she was met with a blast of Christmas cheer, mainly the reggae version of Jingle Bells played by two caramel skinned men with dreadlocks. The infectious groove rang in her ears as she followed the crowd up a set of wide, dirty steps to the snow-blanketed aboveground, humming unwillingly to the lyrics.
Theo glanced at the decorations warily and took in at what she had been missing the past few years - the mistletoe both artificial and real that swayed above every entryway, the not-so-jolly Salvation Army Santa Clause whom swung his brass bell around lazily, green and red Christmas lights that over-lit the streetlamps. Theo stared at her watch, and saw, to her surprise, that they were only twelve days until Christmas.
Every year hoards of tourists came to the city around the Christmas season, and every year Theo sought refuge at the camp in California, hiding away from the red-nosed reindeers and pink-cheeked elves from behind her golden bow. Her step-father, and half-brother - who lived in their Greenwitch Village studio - always sent a small package of gifts, which she usually opened over the phone. Usually after she would practice with Bobby or anyone else willing from the Fifth Cohort.
Theo stalked through awing crowd, scuffing through the slush and salt-strewn walkway. Exactly why Juno had sent her all the way across the country was still beyond Theo's imagination. If it wasn't such an important quest she would have insisted on sending some other demigod who came from a more valuable Cohort and be done with it. But one of their Praetors, the champion of Juno, was missing and apparently she was the best to send out, seeing as she was one of Jason Grace's closest friends. Reyna couldn't leave as she was the other Praetor, Dakota and Gwen were both the Centurions, and Bobby had less experience than she. Besides, the Queen of the Heavens had dictated that Theo were to follow the orders in the dream, to be the one to go. If Juno had ordered her to travel to the original Rome, then Theo were forced to have found away.
At the center of Columbus Circle, the gazing Christopher Columbus on his marble pillar loomed over the traffic, framed by the skeleton trees of Central Park. Theo hated the sight for multiple reasons; the bony branches reached out towards her greedily, as if groping for something important. The statue always seemed out of place, gaudy, over-mannered. His pose with his hand on his hip and the way he stood reminded her of the Venus girls. The only reason that Theo hadn't tried to burned the statue down years ago was of the angel that leaned against the base of the plinth, twirling the globe of the world between its fingers. It reminded her of the many statues she'd seen of the gods, so lifelike as if it were about to come unmoored entirely and unfurl its wings to fly high above the Empire State Building.
Theo leaned up against one of the fences and proceeded to stare up at the gray swirling skies. She fingered the aureate pendant hidden beneath her cream knitted scarf, aching for its usual warmth against her collarbone. The tiny gold lyre had belonged to her mother, Marlene Grigori, daughter of Apollo, and had came into Theo's possession upon her death. Its value to Theo remained purely emotional, despite it being an antique, finely wrought Imperial gold. Not that the mortals knew that. After the small funeral, a young man - "I was a...friend of your mother's," he had explained lightly - had fastened the necklace himself for Theo. Leaning in closely, the smell of his expensive cologne overwhelming her senses, he showed her the other lyre of Orpheus pendant hanging loosely around his own neck
"Promise me you'll wear it at all times, just as Marlene had." He looked uncomfortably similar to her mother, enough to force Theo to promise to this complete stranger. He had the same sun-kissed skin, and the golden locks that were just as wavy as the sunbeams that she used to draw around her Kindergarten smiling sun. He also grinned in that same lopsided way that only showed half of his blinding white teeth. The only difference was the cerulean of his eyes, the same shade of the sky on a cloudless summer day.
It was only until after she left for the Wolf House when she figured out the man had been her grandfather, Apollo, and reality had gruesomely set in that only weeks before her mother had died a hero's death at the hands of a Sphinx. She could only remember fragments of her mother - Marlene's wondrous green eyes; the sound of her rapid, silvery French; the incredible height of her shadow, always snaking its way across the floor, enough darkness to obscure Theo's nine year old form. Even after so many years it still upset her that she could only remember the small details of her mother - the stacked heels and bronze zippers that tracked from ankle to calf of her mother's gleaming brown boots - but Theo couldn't for the life of her make out the curve of Marlene's shoulders, the tightness of the renaissance curls that tumbled down to her tapered waist.
After her first year of attending Camp Jupiter she had came out to visit her family again. It had been an uncomfortable visit; her father had been frozen still on the leather couch, watching her with great interest, as if she were an experiment he wished greatly to observe the outcome of. He would gaze intensely into her face, searching for the face of his beloved wife. But frankly, Theo looked absolutely nothing like her mother, aside from the emerald green eyes. She had been told repeatedly by Marlene that she had taken after her biological father, just with more feminine features. It was the likeliness that her step-father had chosen to ignore. To this day, he still held steadfast to his belief that his youngest resembled a ghost.
Not moving her eyes off the darkening sky, Theo rubbed a hand over the gray sleeve of her forearm, where the SPQR tattoo was branded. Just by imagination she could make out the six bar lines below the bow and arrow pair, loaded and aimed to shoot. She frowned a little as a chittering dove fluttered down next to her, staring her down with beady red eyes.
"Do I have to go?" she muttered. She huffed as the dove jerked a little, as if to say, Well, duh.
The daughter of Cupid clambered up the edge of the stone bridge. Thankfully, no one in their right mind would take a stroll through the park on such a cold afternoon. She swayed her arms a little for balance, and prayed to the gods that she wouldn't be spotted or fall flat on her face through the frozen unforgiving waters below. Silently thanking her father for especially choosing her for his more powerful gifts, she infused magic for allowing her to materialize a pair of great, snowy white wings. The same as a dove's. She took a deep breath and leaped off the bridge, her heart lodged in her throat as it always had before, although knowing already her temporary wings wouldn't fail her. With a great sweep of weightlessness, she rose into the icy currents and trailed invisibly after the dove, cursing Juno for throwing her into the arms of every roman's enemies.