Prince. That was the first word that came to her mind whenever the topic of Jason Grace was brought up, and quite frankly the first thought she had upon meeting him-she guessed one wouldn't exactly equate "meeting" someone to helplessly gazing at them perched atop the roof of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at all.
Suddenly her brain flooded with other words to describe his ethereal and almost inhuman like beauty. Statuesque, agile, graceful, it was as if he was an extension of the marble temple itself, that was how perfect he was, and everyone else-including herself of course- was left to relish in his beauty.
It wasn't long until she discovered his parentage, he was a son of Jupiter, and she had thought that nothing had suited him better. Lady Circe had warned her of his kind, as rare as they were. Son's of Jupiter were known for their charismatic natures, and that he was, there was no use in denying that. Circe had also claimed that dangerous ambition, mania, deceitfulness and manipulation was something innate in all spawns of Jupiter, but as far as she knew Jason had wanted nothing to do with power and had chosen to associate himself with lowest ranked of all the legionaries in Camp Jupiter. The best leaders were those who did not seek nor originally want power or leadership, and that was what Jason was.
Unlike when she was in her more impressionable years, she didn't fall in love with the idea of Jason nor did she day-dream about him-there were already enough people doing that- but she wasn't the type to not give credit where it was due.
Her first couple of days in Camp Jupiter were spent in a limbo of some sort, that is until her sister sent in recommendation letters from her post with the amazons. It was in that time when Jason Grace had finally taken notice of her, perhaps because it was even more pitiful to not be a part of a cohort than to be part of the worst one. Cohorts were the only sources of alliances, friendships and security in Camp Jupiter and she had none. She was already scrawny and mousey to begin with, and she had already found it difficult to believe that even the fifth cohort would willfully pick her. Until Jason Grace did.
He had forcefully dug the butt end of his javelin into the dirt and called out in a clear yet decisive voice.
"I vouch for her."
He hid his uncertainty well, she thought.
One of the praetors-she hadn't caught his name yet-raised his brow sceptically.
"You do know what this means Jason Grace." The male praetor gazed at him shrewdly. "I trust I do not have to repeat myself in front of the entire legion."
A quiet snicker echoed from the mouths of the crowd.
"I've been here for over a decade Praetor Lucius," Jason said tactfully, with a keen smile making way on his face. "If I am correct, I've been here more than double the years you have."
It had astonished her how he could manage to make any insult that came from his mouth sound so polite and gentlemanly. Only he could get away with such.
"Well as gracious and honourable as that offer was, I'm afraid that Ms. Arellano's recommendation letters came in, and it would be completely unfair to our new prospect and the rest of the cohorts if its contents were to go unnoticed," Praetor Lucius finished, knowing that he had finally put Jason in his place.
Everything in the papers contents were nothing she hadn't known, it had contained her immortal lineage and her families origins in Roman Spain and other things of the sort, but it was clearly enough to cause complete frenzy amongst the cohorts. All at once they were competing for her attention-she had noticed that the fifth had withdrawn their offer upon the other cohorts standing for her-and finally she had narrowed down her pick to the second cohort. To her they seemed levelled headed, calculated and the only cohort to embody core Roman values, nothing like the power hungry and overly ambitious first cohort or the brute third and forth cohorts and absolutely nothing like the fifth.
Although members of each cohort tended to stick and mingle amongst each other, this was chiefly among the first but not the last of her interactions with the boy named Jason Grace.