Hello! After some brainstorming and plotting and other adjustments to the story (like adding a crapton of memories), I can confirm that it will be at least twenty short chapters for those who asked. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below. Fight me on the fact that Jason had a stuffed giraffe as a child.

What about Angels

II

Fili Romani

Jason liked Camp Jupiter. It had taken a long time for the nightmares to stop since he didn't like sleeping in strange places so far from Mama and Lia and Spots the stuffed giraffe, but those were over. He liked his centurion Michelle who took care of him. He liked how Grant, a son of Vulcan, had made him a wooden sword so he could practise while the older legionnaires dueled. Every Sunday when they had their day off, sometimes the legionnaires would bring him to Gaius' Gelato in New Rome. Sometimes they taught him words to marching songs and the girls showed him how to braid their hair so he could be useful in the morning.

But he liked Lupa's woods better. He didn't have to stand up straight and he could crawl and he could rough play with the wolf cubs without being told to act proper. Lupa wouldn't let him slouch, but he didn't have to tuck in his shirt or wear shoes with the impossible laces. That was the best part.

Soon you'll be of age to live with the legion full time, little one, Lupa said one day while she watched Jason pick berries.

"Not soon," Jason said. "When Jason is ten."

Yes, I suppose that's still five years for you, Lupa said. Time will pass differently when you get older.

"I won't get older," Jason said. He'd noticed that the older kids had to clean the barracks and shovel smelly poop in the stables and look tired and talk about the mountain in quiet and nervous voices. He didn't want that.

Lupa laughed. Wolves didn't laugh like humans, but it was the one that Jason knew best.

I wish you had that choice, Lupa said.

"Is growing up an order, Lupa?" Jason asked.

Not quite, but you don't have any other choice, my cub. And it won't be as easy. I fear that you'll have to grow up fairly quickly, my cub.

"Why?" Jason asked.

Lupa approached him and nuzzled his belly. You're special, remember? Do you recall who your father is, Jason?

"Uh-huh," Jason said. He couldn't prononce the name because it was so hard, but he remembered it. When Michelle had shown Jason how to spell it, it had started with a "J" in English and a "I" in Latin, just like Jason's name. He'd been proud.

That's a reason enough, Lupa said. But you're a very special boy even on your own. You'll be a good leader one day, Jason. You'll be a strong man. You'll give and give and give. You'll fight and fight and fight. I see a great protector in you Jason, for Rome- and more importantly, for anything you chose to love.

"Love," Jason said quietly.

Yes, Lupa said. Love is ultimately what can make or break an empire, Jason. Romulus killed his brother for the love of Rome. Julius Caesar saw it fit to break Rome's laws for her own good when he crossed the Rubicon. Do you understand, Jason, how important the things you love will be?

He thought of gelato every weekend and braiding the older girls' hair and the way they cooed when he said "fishtail".

"Uh-huh," Jason said.

I don't think so, demigod, Lupa said. Wolves didn't sound sad, but Jason knew that Lupa wasn't used to being wrong- not one bit. I think you don't understand how important it is for a leader to be ready to die for what he loves. For a good man, too. You may die for Rome one day, Jason- and she is your lesser romance, one you are born infatuated with and not one that you chose.

"Jason doesn't want to die," he said quietly. He knew the word 'die' from when legionnaires talked about friends who hadn't been around in a while, when they told stories about terrible beasts that had taken their brothers and sisters… Michelle had told Jason that since Lia wasn't taking care of him, she had probably died, and Jason should get used to being with the Legion.

Lupa doesn't want you to die either, the she-wolf assured him. But the merit of life is what we assign to it, and there is nothing greater than assigning your life to something bigger than you when and if the time comes. One day you'll understand, my cub. For now I am wasting my breath on you. Go play some more while you can. That's enough berries for today.

Jason had obeyed without being told twice.

At camp, they had called him "the cub" when his stays had started to become regular and prolonged. It was true; Jason had been raised by wolves. On his darkest days when he requestioned who he was, he could always trace himself back to them, and it always made him feel stronger and better about who he was.

He knew a lot about wolves. For example, it was possible to escalate within a pack. The alpha was the strongest: if he died, he'd be replaced by the beta. The omega was the weakest and the last to get meat from a kill: if the omega finally perished, a new wolf would become the weakest by default. There would always be an omega, and there would always be an alpha. The pack just readjusted itself. Even when you left you still belonged to the pack; you were just its rogue.

So in a way, there was no escaping the legacy of wolves, even if you were (at least in part) human.