=Leo=
I don't understand why the gods and goddesses are always using us demigods to do their dirty work. I was having a nice day, chilling with Festus (my bronze dragon) A gift from my older brother. We were tossing back and forth ideas to improve his guidance system, he was all like "Maybe we should add a navigation device, a compass that always points to Olympus and a monster detecting radar." Which were all great ideas. I mean honestly, how cool would it be for your pet robot dragon to be able to kill a monster before it reaches you? It'd be awesome. Or to always be able to get to 'home territory' from wherever you are? Or just to know where you are no matter where you go. These all would be brilliant things.
"Sadly," I said to the bronze dragon. "That technology won't be invented for a few hundred more years." I pat its side and stretched.
"You could invent it." He protested but ducked down for me to climb onto his back. It was time for our usual noon day flight over the current land mass we were above. But before we could lift off a chill settled down my side.
"Excuse me?" A girl asked, she was walking up from behind us and when I turned to tell her to 'back away from the flying death machine' I lost the ability to speak. She was beautiful, in that 'I'm so out of your league' way. Which I took to mean that she was so out of my league. "You're a demigod? Right?" This sent a oh-no through my mind. Either this girl was a monster, which would be just my luck. A hunter of Artemis, which would also be my luck. I hadn't left on good terms with them last time we crossed paths. Or she was a goddess. I hoped for the last. I nodded. "Good, you see my stupid brothers decided that it would be fun to play a game of catch with my tiara and they lost it somewhere around here." She noted to the general forest we were in. "I'd reward you if you find it for me."
"Look lady, I don't-" Her eyes swept up and down my body making me swallow nervously and she smirked.
"I'll make it worth your while." She purred.
"Yes ma'am."
"Great, I'll meet you over at the nearest town, the cute one near the ocean, when you find it." And she vanished into a pile of snow. Festus made fun of me for giving in so easily.
"You should've played hard to get." He told me as I climbed off his back. We started searching for the missing tiara, which seemed completely impossible to find.
"I'm a seventeen year old demigod who's never been kissed before, travels the world on a flying dragon and builds things for a living." I commented. "I mean honestly, a temptress like that even looking my way. It's unheard of." I jumped up onto a rock and my dragon looked at me, rolled his glowing eyes and watched as I drew my sword. I wasn't a swordsmen, I hated upfront confrontation and close combat fighting. It just wasn't my thing. I'll leave that to festus. "Me, Leo Valdez," I swung the sword pretending to fight. "Son of Hephaestus, tinkerer, monster hunter, Fire bender." The sword lit up in a blaze of fire and I flipped it in the air. Trying to catch it before it hit the ground, but with my unbelievable luck. The blade slid across my palm and landed in the grass below. "Damnit!" I clutched my stinging hand to my chest and dug through the magical tool belt I found… er… stole a few years ago. I pulled out a square of ambrosia, food of the gods, and popped it into my mouth, then watched as the magic healed the cut on my arm.
Festus was laughing at me. As usual, the dragon thought I was the funniest thing in the world. "I'm a funny guy," I muttered to myself then bent down and picked up my no-longer-flaming sword. What I didn't expect to see, was a shimmering snow white tiara resting next to it, as if it had been there the entire time. Which it hadn't. "Would you look at that?" I muttered picking it up. I inspected it, it was white, and shiney, and a tiara. Honestly I don't understand why girls wear these things. Princess or Goddess or not. There is no point to something.
"Alright you found it, now lets go get your prize." Festus commented, bending down so I could climb on his back.
"Gimme a minute I wanna see if this thing does anything." I told him and sheathed my sword and took the tiara into both hands. Usually I can tell if somethings a machine by touching it, but this was some gods shit right here so one could never be sure. I let my fingers trace the gems and curves of the white gold. I sat down as Festus huffed at me and let my instincts take over. Three hours later, nothing. My dragon had fallen asleep and I sighed, "Wake up." I got onto his back. "Lets go." Festus crackled with complaints before stretching his wings and heading off for the town. I enjoyed flying, the wind in my face, the bugs trying to avoid the giant bronze dragon charging after them, sometimes the rain that fell shamelessly down on them both delaying them. And the occasional attack of lightning. The town they were visiting wasn't really a town, more like three houses a blacksmith and an inn that usually didn't have anyone visit. When they landed, no one looked at them twice. "Gods I love mortals," I grinned climbing off the dragon and walking down towards the beach.
"Did that lady even tell you where to meet her?" Festus huffed and I rolled his eyes.
"No, but she's a goddess, they just appear." I commented. As if on cue, the pretty white lady that could turn into snow flashed to existence in front of them. She snatched the tiara from me and inspected it.
"Why are there fingerprints all over it?" She demanded.
"Because I had to touch it?" I offered, she narrowed her eyes at me. "Look lady, I did what you asked. Now you said you'd make it worth my while?" She rolled her eyes and moved towards me. Her lips pressed against mine and my eyes widened before closing. She pulled me closer and I could feel a chill going through my body. She deepened the kiss and the chill started to become painful. Festus made a noise of protest as she backed away and I found myself immobile. The goddess wiped her lips and looked at me as if I were a work of art. What the hell was she looking at? And why was I so freaking cold? Festus moved into my line of vision and attacked the goddess. She looked at my dragon with disgust, then snapped her fingers and and it was blown sky high, shattering into thousands of pieces in the air.
My Dragon! I felt an anger burning in me, shooting through my limbs and thawing me. Soon I was on fire, the snow goddess backing away from me shocked. "You blew up my dragon!" I yelled at her, "goddess or not nobody blows up my dragon. I flung a ball of flame at her and it tore into her chest, knocking her back and singing the white fabric. Complete shock was painted on her face and before I could send another string of fire at her she vanished in a stream of snow. I turned and saw the head of my dragon falling into the ocean without thinking, I dove after. I can't lose all of him, it's just not going to happen.
Swimming has never been one of my better skills, to be completely and totally honest. Fire and water don't blend well. That doesn't mean I hadn't learned how to swim. But it's still a challenge to swim in an angry ocean with waves battering at your face. Festus's head didn't fall too far ahead of me, but it still splashed into the water a ways ahead of me. The waves were trying to push me away from it. I dove, and followed the head deeper into the ocean, my fingers wrapped around the metal. It was surprisingly light for something so big and metal. Now the hard part, I pulled the head up to my chest and started swimming back up. Okay I lied, it was getting heavier now, and I need to breath. Gods how do some people stay under the water. Swimming is tiring, especially in the dark and trying to hoist a metal dragon head.
Here's a list of stupid things I've done in my life:
1) Took care of a giant metal dragon that my older brother gave me for my sixteenth birthday.
2) Traveling around the new world with said dragon and scare the lights of of mortals.
3) Fighting monsters, never a smart thing to do.
4) Leave home, and in extension to that: Leave camp. Camp was safe, one of the few safe places for demigods.
5) Willingly help a random goddess.
6) Kiss said goddess.
7) Dive after my blown up metal dragon without thinking about the fact that I need to breath.
I'm sure there was more but at the moment none that I could think of. Gods I'm an idiot. I should pretend to do something productive with my dying breath.
If my body is found, give the dragon head I'm clutching to the next willing Hephaestus child to repair it. Take the tool belt too, I won't need it. I'm dead. You can also take anything else you find of interest on my scrawny skeleton. Oh, and find my mothers grave and tell her I'm sorry. That sounds about right.
I need to breath. My legs were locking up and I felt like I was freezing all over again. Oh yeah, and find that stupid snow goddess and punch her in the face for me. Tell her: With Love, from Leo. Is there something swimming towards me? What the hell is swimming towards me? Is that a shark? Oh my god at least wait until I'm unconscious to eat me! I don't want to see you tear my limbs off!
My lungs gave out as soon as something grabbed onto my hand, I gasped for air and… I'm not taking in water? What? The thing holding onto me wrapped an arm around my waist and I shifted to look at it. We were moving up, towards the surface of the water and my fingers grasped desperately at my dragon head, I was chanting: Not losing this, not losing this. No I refused to lose my dragon if I was still going to live. A boy was holding onto me, bringing me to the surface of the water. But other then that I couldn't make out anything about him. And in my exhaustion I passed out.
ΩΔΩ=ΩΔΩ=ΩΔΩ=ΩΔΩ=ΩΔΩ
"Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus at your service." I saluted the captain of the ship. When I woke up nobody had really told me what was going on or how I ended up on a ship filled with girls. Well not including the captain. I had been sleeping on a cot in the large room filled with cots with my dragon head resting next to me when I woke, completely alone and completely lost as to where I was. Naturally the first thing I did was run into a beautiful black haired girl who glared at me before I helped her up then point me in the direction of the captain's cabin. On my way here I saw three other girls, two up steering the ship and chatting pleasantly and another, a redhead walking out of the room I was about to enter. She looked me up and down, rolled her eyes and told me that he was waiting for me.
"Beckendorf's brother?" The captain eyed me and I nodded. "Figures, I thought so when I saw the dragon exploding in the air. Had to check it out."
"You know Charles?" I asked curiously.
"He's an engineer on my sister ship." He answered. "What does Piper call it? The… uhh…" He rubbed the back of his head. "Gods she'll kill me if I don't remember." He shook his head then looked at me. "But yeah, I know your brother. So… what happened?"
"Festus was trying to protect me from a snow goddess." I shrugged. "She tried to turn me into an ice sculpture after I did her a favor. Not very nice."
"Really? How did you escape?" He wondered.
"I set myself on fire." I shrugged and held out my hand letting the flames dance across them. There was a gleam in his eye as he watched this.
"You're a fire user. How rare." He commented, then stood. "Tell you what, join me and my crew and I'll help you piece together your dragon."
"Dude, you got yourself a deal." I dropped the flames and held out my hand, he shook it. "So… who are you anyways? And where are we? I mean what ship." I wondered.
"Name's Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon." He answered. "I'm more known as the Prince of the Sea. You're on The Huntress, my ship." My eyes widened.
"You mean the pirate ship? One of the most feared ships on the seas?" I tried not to sound excited. "And you're like, The Prince of the Sea? The most cruel pirate captains known to sail. The one who raised the Huntress from the deepest pits of the ocean and crews an entire ship filled with the most feared women around?"
"Are those the rumors about me?" He laughed and walked around his desk, leading me out of the room. "And I don't know about cruel or the most feared. I did however raise the ship from the ocean bed, or I asked dad too at least." We stepped out of the room. "The girls can be fairly scary if you don't respect them. But we're fairly nice. I'm just searching for something… Let me introduce you." He looked up to the helm. "Driving is Clarisse LaRue, daughter of Ares. Next to her is Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, daughter of Bellona a Roman war goddess." He led me down into the ship where the girl I ran into earlier was talking to the redhead. "Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus and Rachel Elizabeth Dare the Oracle of Delphi."
"I suggest ducking when meeting our princess." Rachel told me.
"What?" Percy led me further into the ship and knocked on a door, then without waiting for a response opening it and stepping into the room. I followed him in and something fell onto my head, in shock I lit myself on fire.
"My dress!" A girl said completely shocked. The dress was torn from my head and the flames batted out. "This was my favorite one!" Oh gods, horrible first impression. "You're buying me a new one! Percy who is this. Why is he here? And why is he on fire?" I finally got the fire to dissipate and looked at the girl.
"Silena, this is our newest member Leo Valdez son of Hephaestus. Leo this is Silena Beauregard daughter of Aphrodite." He gave us proper introduction. "Leo has the power over fire, Silena can charm speak. Silena I will buy you a new dress when we port."