Reyna closes her eyes and lets the sun shine on her face as she lies on the slope of Temple Hill. The green grass makes her arms itch, but she ignores it.
It's such a beautiful day, even if it's hot outside. Everything just seems enhanced. The clouds are big and puffy against a bright blue sky, the hills are green and beautiful, and the camp seems to glow in the sunlight.
Behind her lids, it grows darker. Like something is blocking the sun.
She opens her eyes slowly. Jason's face is upside down, inches away from hers. She screams in surprise and sits up, her forehead knocking against Jason's chin.
"Ow!" Jason exclaims.
Reyna rubs her head and mutters cuss words in Latin.
"What do you want, Jason?"
"To get your attention. And I did, didn't I?"
Jason slides down next to her on the hill. Reyna rolls her eyes at him,"Yeah, I guess you did."
They sit propped up on their elbows, watching demigods in the distance dropping from high flying eagles, then rolling when they hit the ground.
"Nice day." Jason acknowledges.
"Too bad it has to end." Reyna responds.
She lies down in the grass again. Jason lies down with her.
Reyna has to admit, he's sort of making her a little uncomfortable. Being this close to her.
Jason's shoulder and arm is pressed against hers. They're practically holding hands. Reyna's first instinct is to pull away, to get up and leave. She's never had a boy be this close to her. Even though she'd been taught for a major portion of her life not to trust boys, Reyna knows now that she can. She trusts Jason more than anyone, almost as much as she trusts her sister.
But Reyna doesn't move. She's too comfortable, and feels too safe to move. Reyna steals a glance at him, half expecting him to be staring back at her, but instead he's watching the skies.
"Rose."
"What?"
"That big cloud looks like a rose. See it?"
Jason points to a cloud in the distance. It takes Reyna a while, but it does sort of look like a rose.
"The one next to it looks like a sheep." Reyna says, smiling.
"Or the big, fluffy head of a lion."
They laugh, and spend the rest of the day laying side by side, watching clouds drift past, seeing different things in them, and trying to see them from each other's perspective.
Much later in the day, Jason falls asleep and Reyna does, too. It's so calm and peaceful that it's hard not to.
Jason wakes up first, and gently shakes her awake so they won't be late for evening muster. Reyna blinks a few times, then gets up, reminding herself that all good things must come to an end. But, that also all bad things come to an end, too.
"Race you." Jason says.
"Okay. On three?"
"One. Two. Three!"
Reyna shoves Jason down and runs past him as fast as she can, laughing as she does so.