preserve your ego,
you won't feel a thing
always number one

Bittersweet. That was how Calypso felt when she learned about the Olympian's victory over her grandfather. It was good that Kronos had been defeated, he needed to learn a little humility.

But then she had heard that Percy Jackson received one wish from the gods.

And instead of saving her, Percy had saved the other demigods.

Calypso tried not to get too angry about it. After all, she was but one being, and Percy was saving hundreds, maybe thousands of demigods from being killed by allowing them to be claimed.

It still really bent her out of shape, as Hephaestus put it. He also said that it was grinding her gears, whatever those were.

She had every right to be mad at Percy! She had fallen for him, just like all the other boys and men, and he had deserted her, just like all the others.

So why did he promise that he was different?

And why did that crush her so entirely, all the way through her very soul?

She was so tired, so very tired, of being left behind on her beautiful prison. When would someone finally come to rescue her?

Why am I always forgotten, left alone?

And that was when she had heard the thump of her table being destroyed.

He had called her Carribean music, reggae, and merengue. She didn't know what any of those things were, but when he had remembered her real name, she had felt that familiar pang.

Not again! Stop thinking about him!

And he said something about opening a place called... Leo and Calypso's Garage: Auto Repairs and Mechanical Monsters? It sounded interesting, and Calypso had wanted to leave so, so badly with him. With her entire heart, her entire being, she had been drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and no matter how much she resisted, it was no use.

He was so much like... him... but so different. So good, so pure.

And his looks were just a bonus of the package that was Leo Valdez.

Calypso winced internally. Stop thinking his name! No name thinking allowed anymore!

Did she know for sure that... he... returned her affections?

Yes, she did. Calypso grinned smugly. She had kissed him, and he had kissed her back.

And he promised her that he would come back.

That kiss had made her feel tingly, made her feel alive from her head to her toes, had made her feel...

...had made her feel... in love.

But not the Fates-coordinated, unreal, forced-into kind of love that she usually felt.

This was true, genuine, 100% for real, love.

Calypso's grin became even wider.

She only knew what true love was, because it felt less... distant, less like admiration, than the love she had always felt for her visitors.

And that was why it was good to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.

A few days, months, or years later, Calypso started to worry. What if he forgot about her, too?

No. Leo was too caring for that. He wouldn't leave her here... would he?

Just like with the other boy of his generation, she was assuming that she was too important to be forgotten.

Her fatal flaw was that she cared too much; she assumed that others cared as much as she did, and that clearly wasn't true.

She had assumed the last boy cared for her, just like the other one from his generation.

Boys were jerks.

And she had done it again.

She had taken him for granted.

dropping your bombs now
on all we built
how does it feel now to watch it burn?