XX JASON
THEY WERE FLYING AGAIN, this time for Crete. Jason stood at the helm on guard-duty with Annabeth and Percy, watching the land and sea roll down below. The sky was mostly cloud-less, the waters of the gulf glistening in the afternoon sun.
Piper joined him.
"See that little town over there?" she asked him, pointing to an island ahead of them. "That's Mykonos. If you Google pictures of Greece, you'll get photos of that place. It's a really popular tourist attraction because of all its white buildings."
"I think I've heard of it," Jason told her. While he was out in Thessaloniki Piper had redone her hair, braiding in a beautiful white dove feather. How she had gotten a feather on their quest was too difficult to contemplate and too rude to ask.
"That's a pretty big white building," he noticed, pointing at it.
"Those are just birds," Piper told him, smiling and playfully punching him. "Dummy."
They watched the birds fly up into the sky, all of them squawking loudly. If Jason hadn't known any better he would have thought they were running away from something.
"I like these short intermissions," he told her. "The breaks in between all the fighting and action. They're peaceful and not that terrifying and dangerous."
"Don't jinx it," Piper warned him, still smiling.
The birds kept rising into the air.
"We're going to hit them," Jason realized with a start. His paranoid side was already reaching for his weapon.
"I don't think so," Piper told him, although she seemed a bit worried. "They wouldn't be dumb enough to get in the way of a giant Greek battle ship. Unless… you think they're monsters?"
"Maybe," he said, pulling out the gladius Juno gave him. "Maybe not."
They flew over the city of Mykonos. The birds dove toward them, squawking loudly.
"And intermission is ended," Jason muttered. "Hit the deck!"
The birds didn't attack them. They landed on the ship, yes, but they didn't try to kill anyone, which was a nice change. Most of them kept flying as if the Argo II wasn't even there, desperately flapping away from the island. Unfortunately, this led to several other problems.
"Ah!" Leo yelled, running out of the helm to have a bird hit him in the face. "Pigeon attack!"
Frank and Hazel appeared from below decks. Frank wore a breastplate backwards. "What on earth—?" Hazel managed before a bird used her hair as a landing pad, squawked, and kicked her nose. She stumbled backwards into the mast. The onslaught of birds continued for another half a minute, until all of them were long gone.
"What was that?" Hazel asked, rubbing her face.
"I think a better question is what is that?" Piper yelled back to them, leaning forward on the railing. The others rushed over.
A volley of spears and arrows and stones and bricks were flying toward them, somehow defying the laws of gravity. Some of the arrows were on flames. Most of the stones were the size of Jason's head.
But they weren't headed toward them. All the missiles were aiming straight for the passing flock of birds. Most of the poor creatures were killed on the spot, their lifeless bodies falling several hundred feet back into the sea.
"That was weird," Percy commented once it was over.
"I think we should get out of the area," Frank added.
"No, duh, Zhang," said Leo, returning to the controls.
Jason turned away from the railing. "Well, guys, just be glad those birds weren't psycho monsters or something, because then we'd have had to fight them all off—"
Something hit the back of Jason's head. It was hard and heavy and landed the deck with a loud thunk. A stray brick. The world spun. Disoriented, Jason grabbed for the railing behind him but missed, falling on nothing but air.
"Jason!" Piper cried, reaching out for him. Jason felt the world plummeting sideways, and suddenly he was falling.
-o-O-o-
Fortunately for him, he was a son of Jupiter. So his landing was less pancake and more of a painful tumble-through-the-branches-of-a-forest. Jason landed on the roof of a building on his face.
He lay there for a moment, cursing his throbbing head and every brick on the planet. Slowly he rose to his knees, looked up, and froze.
He was surrounded by an army of tiny people. And when he said tiny people, they were legit tiny people. The tallest must have been two feet, the shortest… was that even measured in feet? Maybe inches would be better. Or centimetres. They were squat (and, okay, a little ugly), but they all wore Greek armour and bore pointy weapons. Most of those weapons were out, the pointy bits trained at Jason.
"Halt!" one of the tiny people announced. His voice was unnaturally high-pitched. His shaggy red hair was tucked underneath a warrior helmet, and his beard went all the way down to his chest. Jason had to resist reaching out and yanking on it. "As declared in the holy text of the Order of the Pygmies, you have an obligation to silence. Any confrontation to this obligation of silence will be led to your permanent silence. Do you have anything to prove against this silence?"
Jason shook his head.
The tiny man—what was it that he had called themselves? Pygmies?—huffed satisfactorily. Jason found the whole idea a little stupid, but at the moment he was at an equal height as the two-foot man, so he was in no position to ridicule.
"You will speak when spoken to!" the pygmy man continued. "Other than that, no word shall be uttered!"
"Of course," said Jason.
The pygmies all gasped, taking a step away from him in revulsion. One of them fell backwards off the roof. The speaker glared at Jason in horror, shaking his head in disgust.
"How he mocks us!" he roared. "You shall be punished for your breaking of the law of silence!" He pulled out his sword (which, by standards, was technically shorter than a dagger) and held the tip at Jason, advancing toward him. Jason kept his arms raised ever so slightly, trying not to fall backwards away from the guy. He didn't want to accidentally squish somebody.
The tiny man kept advancing until the tip of the sword hovered a foot away from Jason's chest. "Was I not clear before?!" he demanded. "Did you not understand you were not supposed to speak!?"
Jason shook his head.
"Do you understand me now!?"
Jason nodded.
"Good. No talking!" he roared.
Jason nodded.
"Now, you will be questioned!" the man continued, sheathing the sword and turning away, walking a couple of steps away from Jason. "Why were you with the flock of birds?"
Jason didn't know if he should stay silent or answer the question. But either way it didn't matter, since he had no clue what the pygmy was saying. "What are you talking about?" he asked.
The little man turned back and frowned, as if he hated not having exact answers. "That flock of birds," he repeated, which was no clearer. He turned to the rest of the group, holding up a fist. "The ones trying to escape their inevitable providence of ruin and mortification!"
The pygmies roared their approval. Jason just sat there, confused as heck.
"What?" he asked. "Why are you fighting birds?"
Suddenly the tip of the tiny sword was pointed at his chest again. "I will ask the questions," the red-bearded pygmy warned him in a low voice, which was still pretty high. "If we deem you not guilty of being an ally to the birds, you shall be allowed to speak freely. Now, what is your name, you insolent cow?"
Jason didn't like being called a cow, but he decided to humour these guys. "Jason," he told them. "Son of Jupiter."
Immediately murmurs began to spread across the crowd of tiny men.
No…
Could it be…?
The great hero…? Jason…?
Cows are delicious…
The leader pygmy stomped his foot until the others were silent. He was red-faced in anger, which Jason thought went well with the hair. "You dare lie to us, treacherous fiend?" he demanded.
Jason was about to say no, remembered the obligation to silence, and shook his head instead.
Then Red-beard laughed. Slowly and hesitantly, some of the others did as well. Soon all the pygmies were chocking on their laughter insanely, and Jason wondered why they took ROFLing so seriously.
"That… that is a good one," Red-beard admitted, wiping away a tear of laughter. "The great hero Jason? Ha! I think not."
"But—"
"Next question!" he declared, suddenly serious again. "Where does your allegiance lie?"
"My… allegiance?" Ooh, that was a tough one. "My friends. We're on a quest."
"Let me guess!" someone shouted. "You and the Argonauts hunting for the Golden Fleece 2.0?"
"No," Jason replied. He started to explain, but the pygmies didn't want to hear it.
"Since that simple enquiry seems to be too much for you to handle, I will ask something much more plain," the pygmy leader announced. "Who do you hate?"
That was an easier question. "Gaea," Jason announced. "I'm also not that fond of giants, monsters, or anyone/anything else that tries to kill me. Including bricks."
Red-beard seemed a little more satisfied with this answer, although not completely fulfilled. "What about gods? Which gods do you hate?"
Dang it, pygmy. Now either Jason got skewered by a mini-sword, or turned into a vegetable. He didn't reply.
"What do you think of Hera?" Red-beard finally prodded.
Hera? Well, she did mind-wipe him, send him off to the opposite side of the country, forced him to free her, and begun this chain reaction of craziness. "I'm… not too fond," he admitted hesitantly. Please don't turn me into a peacock. Please don't.
Instead, the pygmies roared in approval. They stomped their tiny feet against the ground and cheered, occasionally throwing their neighbour off the side of the building.
"Now, the final question," Red-beard declared once everyone had quieted down. "What is your opinion on birds?"
"Uh… they're birds. Nothing special. Although…" Jason remembered the flock that had been trying to escape the volley of spears, arrows and rocks. Were these the people that had been throwing them? "…although they're annoying and loud and messy," he decided, hoping that would somehow earn him some I'm-on-your-side points.
"Hmm…" contemplated the pygmy speaker, stroking his beard thoughtfully. Jason wondered if he had considered auditioning for The Hobbit, because he would have made an excellent dwarf. "Gathering!"
Most of the pygmies hurried back, a few of them coming forward. The ones in front gathered around Red-beard and discussed something in low voices. Jason hoped it wasn't his execution sentence. Every now and then they'd glance back at him, scowl, and return to arguing. After a minute, the council's meeting ended and Red-beard began speaking to Jason again.
"We have discussed," he started, "and have decided to tell you a little of our history. Birds are our foreign enemies. They're evil, mocking us with their flight and long beaks perfect for pecking! Gah! I hate them! Back in the day, we used to fight only cranes. But now we see the truth… the entire nation of birds is out for our blood! It's horrible!"
Jason nodded solemnly. "Such terrible times," he agreed gravely.
"And once upon a time, Hera was mad at us. Gods knows why! And she turned our queen into a crane! We were obligated to kill her, and now leaderless, we were forced into hiding. Stranded on this tiny island of white! Our numbers diminished, until we are all who remain.
"But you, Jason, have answered our questions well. You have taken the name of a proud and noble warrior. You show loyalty and teamwork with friends on your perilous quest. You hate birds and Hera! And that is why, Son of the King of Kings, we have decided to replace you as our new queen!"
Jason felt the blood rush out of his face. "Say… what?" he stammered.
"Yes! The noble and righteous Jason! New queen of the pygmies! All hail!"
"All hail!" the pygmies roared, and proceeded to kick each other off the roof. Jason figured that wasn't good for their 'diminishing numbers'.
He looked up and saw the Argo II, hovering in the air a few kilometres away. He hadn't seen anyone get off, but it was obvious his friends wouldn't abandon him here. And hey, maybe being queen of a race of gnomes would prove to be helpful.
"Yes… but I cannot stay," he announced. "My friends are waiting for me. Perhaps I will return to visit—"
"Nay! You shan't leave!" Red-beard declared. Suddenly the pointy weapons were trained on Jason again. "You shall not abandon your loyal subjects!"
"But if you're so loyal, why do you not allow me to go?" Jason challenged, getting to his feet. His head still hurt.
Red-beard faltered when he saw Jason's full height, which was, like, three times his own. Then he sheathed his sword again and turned to the other pygmies. "We shall do whatever Queen Jason wishes! And if he wishes to be returned to his friends, so be it!"
Jason grimaced. "Please, just 'Jason' is fine," he told them.
"Yea! Queen Jason wishes to go by only 'Jason'!"
"Yea! All hail Queen Jason!"
Jason decided that his first law as ruler of the pygmies would be to banish alcohol. It was clearly not doing these guys any good.
"Jason!" someone called, her voice sounding far away. "Jason, where are you?"
Jason recognized that voice. It was Piper. He stumbled over to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. Piper was wandering the streets with Hazel, calling his name.
"Piper!" he shouted, and the two girls looked up. Relief rushed into both of their faces.
"You're alright!" Piper cried as Jason floated down. They kissed.
"Yeah," he told them. "And I made some friends." He jabbed his thumb behind his shoulder, over at the rooftop. The pygmies had all gathered at the edge, watching them carefully. Two had already fallen off.
"What are they?" Hazel asked, squinting at them.
"Queen Jason!" Red-beard called down. "Who are these… blasted foreigners?"
Piper gave him a look, like, I would ask, but deep down inside I really don't want to know.
"These are no foreigners," Jason told Red-Beard. "These are my friends."
One by one the pygmies began to climb down to the ground, Red-beard going first. "Then they shall be celebrated as heroes!" he announced with a crazy grin, unsheathing his tiny sword and holding it up high.
Hazel frowned. "They're tiny," she noticed.
"Yes, obviously."
"I mean, I could step on one of them," she noticed, holding up her foot to show. She brought it down on the head of a nearby pygmy to measure his height, and the gnome squeaked and scampered away on all fours, diving into a garbage can.
Suddenly Red-beard gasped. All the pygmies did the same, although it was very clear they didn't understand what they were gasping at. He pointed at Piper—at her dove feather.
"The symbol of Bird!" he shouted. Then he turned to Jason. "You and them are spies for the feathered folk!" he accused.
"What? No!" Jason protested, but the pygmies wouldn't hear it. They roared, growling and stomping their tiny feet.
"You are a treacherous queen!" Red-beard blamed. "You and your friends will be punished for such!"
He pointed his sword at them and shouted a cry Jason didn't understand. The rest of the pygmies followed his lead.
"We killed our first queen!" Red-beard roared. "We will not hesitate to do the same!"
"Uh oh," said Hazel.
The three demigods turned and ran.
I originally had a stone hit Jason, but then the idea of a brick was just too funny to ignore.
So, guys, I've recently watched the season finale of Doctor Who modern season 4, and now I keep bursting into tears at random moments. Only a few days before I watched the Deathly Hallows part 2 movie, which made this Doctor Who thing even more depressing.
Any Whovians reading this get a cookie. (::) (::) Just because I need a ton of them.
-o-O-o-
"But I don't want to go..."
*regenerates*
*I sob to the end of infinity*
