A/N: Hello everyone :D
Firstly, thank you for the overwhelming support over the last week, it means the absolute world to me and you are all super stars. Thankyou :3
Secondly, today's chapter was ready yesterday but it was about half as long. I just got caught up in editing and some how it doubled overnight, which is why it's late today. Sorry!
Thanks to all my lovely readers, you're wonderful and I hope you've had lovely weekends :) THANKS AND TRY NOT TO LYNCH ME WHEN THIS IS OVER :D
Shy
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The first time Calypso realised just how petulant Dionysus could be, she couldn't honestly say she was surprised. She'd never really held any belief that he could mature or behave like an Olympian. She was surprised by the extent he went to however.
The realisation came to her a few days after they'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood. Leo had insisted on spending more time showing her the camp considering his friends' comments and Calypso was more than happy to go along with it.
"The ocean feels different here." She told him when he guided her through the woods to the beach front. It was a long, thin stretched of sandy dunes and smooth white-capped waves brushing onto the shore, familiar and yet entirely different.
"What do you mean?" Leo asked, swatting at a passing fly absently.
She shrugged, trailing her fingers in the water. "It's just different. It feels strange."
"You're strange," he mumbled, sticking his hands into his pockets. It was just beginning to edge into November and the fall was turning cool and windy.
"And you," Calypso noted, turning towards him. "Are not enjoying this are you?"
"What? Of course I am!" Leo immediately defended. "I like getting to show you camp-"
"I meant, the beach." Calypso added, dryly as she sat close to where the forest melted into sand and beckoned him beside her. She wore a plain orange camp t-shirt and a pair of denim jeans that were rolled up a few inches above her ankle, her hair bundled to the back of her head. In comparison to her Greek get-up, she looked so utterly normal and unlike the former goddess he still saw in her face. "You don't really like nature, huh hero?"
"I wouldn't say I dislike it." He muttered back, sitting beside her as requested. She immediately leaned her head against his shoulder and his arm fell behind her back like he'd done it a million times. It was among the many things he secretly loved about the bossy former goddess- she could be difficult as all hell, pick at him, argue with him, question everything and contend with the answers, call him names and yet there were some times where everything was just so effortless.
She rolled her eyes. "You fidget even more when we're in the forest."
He tried not to wince. "I'm more of a city kind of guy."
"Why?" she asked, curiously.
"Why, what?"
"Why do you prefer the city? You seemed fine on Ogygia." She pointed out, idly.
Leo's brow furrowed as he thought. "I-I don't know. I was stuck there you know. And I guess it's just easier being around people." He shrugged.
"I don't know how people can live their whole lives inside metal boxes in this world." She marvelled, her eyes studying the dusky blue ocean beyond them. "I mean, people go from living in one, to driving in one, to working in one. Don't they get bored?"
It was a similar kind of mentality that places like the Wilderness School had first originated with. Leo remembered assembly after assembly and manifestos filled with lines like Rejoin your roots and Be aware of your surroundings. He remembered smirking at them with Piper and folding the pages into engineered paper planes that hit Coach Hedge from ten feet away.
He'd been on camping trips and obstacle drills with the Wilderness School that were meant to encourage him to expel all his excess energy and find the beauty in the desert. While it hadn't been entirely lost on him, Leo had to admit, forcing him into push ups and sprints in hundred degree heat only made him resent the outdoors even more.
"There's just more in a city, Calypso." Leo said, enjoying the sunlight before it ducked behind clouds again. Inside his head the biggest reason was beginning to rattle like a marble in a blender. "More places to hide, more resources, more people, more access. Only thing outdoors is dirt."
Calypso reared her head back as if offended by the very suggestion. "That's ridiculous." She told him outright.
"I'm serious, if I was in a tight spot, I'd rather be in a city than a forest." He insisted, enjoying the little wrinkle her nose made when she glared at him. She was kind of cute when she was arguing with him. "Hey, my talents, impressive though they may be, work a hell of a lot better in a city with metal and boxes, Sunshine."
"You're full of nonsense." She told him, dismissively. "Your talents work perfectly fine outdoors."
Unable to deny it, that pesky reason jostled to the tip of his tongue before he could catch it. "Not always." He muttered, his voice growing slightly dark. With his free hand, he traced the small clear vial that hung on a leather cord around her neck beneath her shirt, filled with glowing liquid gold that pulsed like a tiny heart.
Calypso paused at the reminder and grabbed his hand in hers. "I'm fine now though." She said, softly. "And it was only for a little while."
"I was still useless." Leo pointed out, not taking his eyes off the vial of ichor. In his head, the memory of watching the drops seep from the corner of mouth was tossed around alongside the feeling of his shaking hands when he asked her to wake up. "If I'd been here, if I'd found somewhere else to land, somewhere with tools-"
"Leo, there are some things that have to be sacrificed, not fixed or saved." Calypso interjected, quietly. "And I don't regret it. Do you?"
"Of course not!" the words shook him out of the memories with a slap. "Of course I don't, it's just-"
"Then let it go?" she asked, gently. "Please?"
He sighed and threw her a flat look. "Fine. But next time you're in trouble, I don't want to hear any of this 'sacrifice not save' stuff, got me? We did the sacrifice, now I get to fix you whenever I can."
Calypso's smile turned wide and she giggled, unable to help herself. "You are a strange hero, Wonder Boy." She told him, leaning in to steal a kiss.
Or at least, she would've if it hadn't have been for-
"Sorry to interrupt lovebirds but we have a problem." Rachel's voice emerged from the trees behind them, her normal cadence tainted with anxiety.
Calypso pulled away and exchanged a single, somewhat frustrated look with Leo. "What's wrong now?" the son of Hephaestus muttered, slowly getting to his feet.
Rachel's eyes were a brighter green as though the Oracle spirit were being riled up with her nerves. "You should probably just come take a look." She said, biting her lip.
Calypso took Leo's hand to stand, suddenly worried herself. Rachel led them back through the woods toward the Oracle Cave, her fiery curls ducking and weaving through the trees. The moment they neared the stream, Calypso winced.
"What? What's the matter?" Leo asked, frowning.
Calypso shook her head. "The dryads are irritated. They're muttering. All of them at once."
Leo glanced around and realised the canopies were swirling and losing leaves like a harsh wind was tearing through the woods. When he listened closely, he could hear the chatter Calypso mentioned- it sounded rough and a little disorientating, like the sound of tree branches rubbing against each other, leaves crackling beneath his feet and a high pitched buzz of the dryads' feminine tones.
"What on earth-?" he muttered as they continued forward.
The dryads were irritated alright. Every now and then, he could see faces emerging from the bark of passing trees, pretty round faced girls whose features were pinched with annoyance. "The nerve."
"What's he doing tossing that stuff near me?"
"All those herbs give me hayfever!"
"It's not fair-!"
"-shouldn't be there anyway-"
"Oh make him go away, he's yelling and carrying on like he's-"
"Mad?"
"Exactly!"
At the words, Calypso began to feel a sinking feeling in her stomach that she knew exactly what was going on and sure enough, when Rachel emerged from the forest at the entrance to the cave, Dionysus, Lord of Madness himself, was cheerfully commanding three satyrs in removing Calypso's things from the cave. Clothes, herbal jars, sacks of miscellaneous items were tossed out of the cave and into the forest surrounding it. No wonder the dryads were upset.
"What are you doing?" she shouted and the group paused for a moment, Mr D turning to face her with a flat expression.
"Oh, you again." He muttered, unimpressed. "Carry on!" he called to the satyrs who continued with a hesitant expression.
"Those are my things, Dionysus!" Calypso yelled, sweeping three glass jars that had nearly been smashed against an oak into her arms. "What are you doing with them?"
"Camp rules state that no one camper may store more than fifty items in their cabins at one time." Mr D lectured. He wore one of his hideously bright shirts, this one mustard yellow with bright green leopard spots and a pair of khaki shorts that looked fit to burst around his belly. "You've exceeded the limit so I am enforcing the rules as camp director. HA!"
"I've never heard of that rule before!" Leo snapped, grabbing a handful of Calypso's shirts which had been tossed from her dresser.
"Of course you haven't, you've barely been here a year, ridiculous fool." Mr D dismissed. "The rules are very clear and your little Titan pet is breaking them!"
"She's not a pet-"
"Semnatics!"
"Like I said," Rachel stressed, interrupting Leo from calling the Olympian some not so polite names that questioned the legitimacy of his mother's birth. "Calypso doesn't even have that much stuff!"
Mr D grabbed one of the herb jars filled with dark grey seeds from the satyrs and held it up, speculatively. "I would say there is more than fifty items just here!" Dionysus said, triumphantly. "Definitely rule-breaking property."
"This is bullshit!" Leo barked, stunned by the Olympian's childish vindictiveness. He caught the jar right before it crashed into his head (which he suspected was not unintentional) and set it at his feet.
"It is the rules." Dionysus said, his glee fading into narrowed eyes. "You decided to bring a Titan into camp, Lloyd Vargas, you deal with the consequences."
"Dionysus, this is absurd!" Calypso growled, stepping forward until she was nose to nose with the wine god. "It was thousands of years ago let it go!"
"Thousands of years!" Mr D harrumphed. "Do you even know how much flak I had to deal with from the others? And Hermes, the little pest! Years of mocking! At the hands of some powerless little nymphlet!"
"Nymphlet?" Calypso screeched, her fingers clenched into fists. "Take that back!"
Dionysus looked gleeful. "No!"
"Enough!" Rachel's voice was suddenly threaded with a noise like roaring winds and the shatter of hail on frozen earth. Enough to make even the Olympian pause and turn to her. When she spoke, the Oracle's cadence had left her but she still looked angry. "This is ridiculous."
Mr D looked mulish at the idea. "She started it."
"ME? You little-" Calypso looked ready to tear his eyes out with her bare hands.
"I will go find Chiron if you two don't stop." Rachel cut in again, warningly.
"I am camp director!" Mr D snapped, petulantly.
"And Chiron is the keeper of rules." Rachel countered. "He'll be able to make the final decision on the particular rule."
As though having forgotten the centaur's role around Camp Half Blood, the Olympian frowned, his expression distinctly irritated. "Fine," he spat. "But this is not over, Titan. You are not welcome here." With a snap of his fingers, the god disappeared along with the three satyrs, leaving the Oracle Cave in total disarray and the dryads behind them still complaining about the mess that had been tossed into their woods.
"You're gonna have to tell me now." Leo said, offhandedly as he helped right the dresser with Calypso who frowned.
"Tell you what?" she muttered, wearily. It had taken the better part of two hours to collect her things from where Dionysus had had them tossed and another half an hour to convince the dryads not to stuff her shoes with mud and worms when she wasn't looking in retaliation. She was exhausted, in a poor mood and down trodden.
She hadn't really expected a welcome with open arms from the camp. That was hardly feasible in any world. But the kind of raw venom Dionysus bore towards her was infectious- she worried that it would trickle down into the rest of the campers and she would lose any hope at all of making this place her home.
"What happened with you and Lord Douche?" Leo reiterated, neatly fixing the broken handle on one dresser drawer with his clever fingers.
Calypso winced. "I don't want to discuss it." She mumbled, trying to focus on folding her clothes. Many of them were soiled now with mud and several torn in places. If she had her loom, it would be a simple matter to replace them but she didn't even have that.
Leo scowled. "Calypso, an Olympian just trashed your room and threatened to kick you out. I think I should know what we're up against here."
"You already know Dionysus." She evaded, keeping her voice low as Rachel worked on a new painting across the cave. The Oracle had offered to help clean up but Calypso had refused- Rachel Elizabeth Dare had already helped her enough for one afternoon.
"No, I know the normal, grouchy Mr D," Leo corrected. "This is like- like Mr D on crack after someone put rotten eggs in his pillow case. What the hell happened Sunshine? I mean, it can't be that bad, right?"
She didn't reply and Leo's stomach sank. "Oh gods," he muttered. "How bad is it?"
Calypso let out a long sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, it was a long time ago."
"What happened?" Leo winced. "Did you attack him?"
"What, no!" she said, offended. "Dionysus brought it on himself."
"That's a pretty common theme for the gods." Leo told her, dryly. "Seriously, Calypso, what's going on?"
For a long while, she didn't reply and his thoughts spiralled as he wondered what she'd done that would've made Dionysus so vindictive. But then-
"It was a very long time ago." She stressed, still folding and putting away her things. "And I was much younger than I am now."
"Well this story is starting out well." He muttered, sarcastically.
She cut him off with a pointed look. "You wanted to hear it hero. Anyway. When I was first sent to Ogygia, after the first few heroes- well, some of the gods came up with the foolish idea that I was starved for…affection and that I would be more…welcoming than I was."
The words clicked inside his head. "They thought you were going to- to-?"
She seemed to hear the unspoken words and shook her head immediately. "It was a different time- they were…wooing, would be the best word in this language." Calypso stressed, her voice high pitched and uncomfortable.
"Wooing." Leo repeated, flatly with a furious pressure building in his chest. "My girlfriend was wooed by gods. Great."
"I didn't say they succeeded." She added, hastily. "I sent them away. Some left, some tried to stay, some came back, others didn't-"
"Wait, how many were there?" Leo blurted out before shaking his head, the pressure growing even worse. Jealousy, he realised. It wasn't a good realisation. "No, wait, I don't want to know. Just tell me Mr D didn't woo you too."
"Oh he tried." Calypso said, her voice hardening. "But by then, I was angry. Angry at them all for thinking I'd be open to such a thing, especially from the gods who destroyed my family, imprisoned my father and banished me."
"What happened?" Leo asked, this time wondering if he actually wanted to know. Horrible images were sneaking into his skull- of her in her pretty Greek dresses, laying on the white beaches alongside some stupid shirtless, muscled up god with a toothpaste-commercial-smile, drinking cocktails and giggling away-
He shook it to rid himself of the images, knowing they were stupid and jealous and impossible. Calypso wouldn't give a god the time of day and there were no cocktails on Ogygia. He would know after all-
"I-I flirted." Calypso said, not meeting his eyes. "A lot and- Leo?"
"Yeah?" he replied tightly.
"Your hands are on fire." She said in a small voice.
Leo glanced down and sure enough, bright golden flames had engulfed his hands up his forearms. "So they are." He muttered the gritted teeth as he concentrated on putting them out. The brief flashes of himself strangling Mr D with a flaming grip that circled inside his brain did not help but they made him feel better.
"It was a lure!" she defended, shrugging uncomfortably. "I flirted, Dionysus appreciated the ego boost, we danced, I flirted more, he drank a lot. He was prepared to go back to Olympus and tell his brothers about how he finally caught the eye of the fussy little Titan girl on Ogygia."
He grimaced. "Man, now I'm actually gonna puke."
"But," she said, grabbing his hand which was now curled into a fist at his side. It was still warm. "When the time came for him to leave, he'd drunk a great deal and hadn't realised I had not."
Leo paused. "You got the Wine God drunk?"
"Sort of?" she wheedled. "The point is, after he passed out, I dragged him down to the shore line and chained him to the rocks. And when he woke up, he was neck deep in water and the tide was coming in."
Leo blinked. Then blinked again. "Alright, I'm gonna need you to repeat that." He told her, bewildered. "Because it sounds like you chained Mr D to rocks and nearly drowned him."
She flinched. "I was young and upset! I made him swear that he'd repeat the story on Olympus to warn anyone else who might appear and that he'd never return himself."
"So you extorted him." Leo said, comprehension flaring to life in his eyes. "Whoa."
"I didn't ever think I'd be in a position for him to retaliate." Calypso admitted, sheepishly. Leo's head bowed and he pressed his fingers to his temples like he was trying to calm down. "I don't regret it. But I'm sorry he's causing so much trouble." She added, reluctantly. "I never really thought-"
"Are you actually apologising, Sunshine?" Leo's head snapped back up and he stared at her, astonished.
"Perhaps?" she replied, unsettled. "You aren't…angry?"
"Calypso, I'm furious." He said, a small smirk stretching across his face but his eyes remained tense. "But not because of you."
"I don't understand." She said after a moment.
"You were standing up for yourself." Leo told her with a hard laugh. "You didn't deserve to be treated like that. I'm pissed off that anyone thought they could do that in the first place." New thoughts began to explode in his mind: a Calypso in her pretty Greek dress standing over Mr D with a stern face, while he wailed and cursed and demanded to be released. Making him swear never to bother her again, proving that she was so much more than any of the gods cared to think about. "It's not fair."
"There's that word again." She murmured back with memories of Leo's final night on Ogygia at the front of her mind: I'm coming back here with my dragon, and we'll spring you. Take you wherever you want to go. It's only- "Fair."
"Look, Mr D will get over it eventually." Leo tried to reassure her. "It was his fault for being a sleaze. He's just being a sore loser now but everything will work out."
"In some ways, I do regret it," Calypso admitted, quietly. "It's causing trouble now. Dionysus will just continue to look for ways to retaliate until he finds one that works."
"What's the worst he could do?" Leo pointed out, looping his arms around her back as she stepped close into his chest. He liked keeping her here, liked being able to feel her breath tickling his neck. "Turns us into shrubs?"
Calypso didn't reply but her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "He could attack you." She murmured. "He could throw you out of camp. You'd be an outcast like me."
"He could try." Was all Leo could reply, to hide the fact that the possibility had occurred to him also.
It was another two days before Dionysus' next tactic came to fruition.
Calypso was the first to admit, shamefully, that she'd let her guard slip. Frank and Hazel were due to head back to Camp Jupiter that afternoon and she'd been spending most of her time with Leo and his friends, enjoying the time together by the dormant camp fire.
Jason and Piper had joined them- they were both still dressed in work out clothes and sweaty from the Arena. Piper was trying to better her hand-to-hand combat and Jason had offered to help out but they'd both taken the afternoon off to spend time with their friends. Calypso suspected that Jason might've been disappointed to be the only Roman in the Greek camp again when they left.
She thought it was a shame that Hazel and Frank were leaving so soon; despite being Romans, Calypso found herself enjoying talking to the Daughter of Pluto, in particular. Hearing her talk about how she'd adjusted to the new world was, to an extent, much more helpful than Leo's intricate explanations of modern technology and society.
"It's not a criticism," she told him when he pouted. "But sometimes you talk too much and say very little."
"That doesn't make any sense." Leo replied, flatly.
"If you'd ever actually listened to yourself, it would." Frank interjected.
"Quiet Beast Boy." He ordered, warningly. "I'll have you know I am an excellent explainer."
"Sometimes I don't need to know how it works to know what it does, Wonder Boy." Calypso explained. "Like yesterday with the shower-"
Jason choked on his water bottle. "Excuse me?"
Leo's face exploded with red. "Not like that-"
"Leo!" Piper's expression was caught between outrage and amusement. "What-?"
"Minds out of the gutter, I was just showing her what it was!" he exclaimed, turning even redder.
Calypso rolled her eyes. "You only told me after I'd turned the tap on!"
"It was an accident!" he insisted.
Frank sent him a sideways look. "Sure it was."
"I'm serious-"
"I was drenched!" Calypso continued, outright laughing now. "From head to toe."
This time, Leo couldn't hold back his grin. "It was a good look for you." He told her, cheekily.
"I looked like a drowned ferret." She retorted.
"A very cute drowned ferret." Leo persisted but Calypso simply rolled her eyes again and seemed ready to argue more but something behind him caught her eye.
"Looks like we're on a road trip, huh cupcake?"
Leo would've known that voice in his sleep. "Coach Hedge?" he said, tilting his head back to see the grouchy, familiar expression of his favourite half-goat.
"Roadtrip?" Piper repeated, confused. "What roadtrip?"
"Are you accompanying Hazel and Frank back to Camp Jupiter?" Jason wondered aloud.
Hedge grunted and jerked his thumb at Leo. "Nope, just one cupcake this time. Pack your bags Valdez."
Leo frowned and turned to see the satyr better, who looked less than pleased about the situation. "What's going on? Where am I going?"
"I've got a demigod pick up in Chicago." Hedge explained, gruffly. "Good for monsters this time of year so I volunteered. Gonna need my muscle for the trip. And looks like you're coming with me."
"Says who?" Leo argued. He hadn't spent a lot of time at CHB but he was fairly certain demigods did not accompany satyrs for recruitments around the country.
"Óti áthlia nyfítsa." Calypso cursed under her breath right as Coach Hedge gestured to the Big House.
"Orders come from Lord Dionysus himself." The satyr said. "No getting out of 'em. Pack up Valdez, we leave tomorrow morning."
A/N: I told you Mr D was gonna be a pain.
Anyway, thanks everyone for being patient with me last week and this week, I'm sorry for being a little off schedule lately. Hopefully, I'll be better next time :3
Óti áthlia nyfítsa: Greek for 'that miserable weasel'.
Review time!
Caro: Naww, I'm glad you enjoyed it and thanks for being patient :D I'm really excited about the project, I have to do a bunch of testing and stuff beforehand but it's gonna be really fun I think :D (Also hoping to have some time to write if not post during the trip too so *fingers crossed*) Anyway, hope you liked the new chapter!
KagomeRevekagurl: Ha, I'm glad you're enjoying it do far! And yes, I absolutely agree, I live with my nose in books, if they were real, reality would be far more interesting :3 And as for demigod parents, I honestly don't know- I'm an ocean kid, I live near it, swim in it, love it to bits and always have but I'm a writer first and foremost. So many Apollo? Or Athena? If we're just talking preference, I think Hermes would be a hell of a lot of fun :)
Guest: It is very long, I hope you like this one too, it's about ten pages in Word ;)
Doriana: Aw, don't worry! I'm just glad you liked it so far! Hope the wait for today's update wasn't too painful and that you enjoy it ;)
Chocolate Lover: Hello again! Yeah, I liked that part too. TBH, I like writing Leo and Calypso like regular hormonal teenagers, they're really cute when they're flustered ;) Anyway, enjoy the new update!
Red: Hi! They are cute, right? Glad you enjoyed it and hope you like the new one too! Sorry it's late, I got a bit carried away in editing and wrote another four pages (oops)
Guest: Typically, yes I did mean Monday 20th January. But I got caught up in editing and wrote another part of this chapter so I was a bit late posting it, sorry! Usually though, I update on Mondays and Fridays :) Hope that clears it up, if not, feel free to message or review me!
Tara Luna Apple: I try not to be later than a day but this week has been hectic. Thanks for being patient and I'm glad you found it adorable, I found it adorable to write too :) Enjoy the new update!
Starry: It was just a few people with some not-nice comments but thanks for the support :) As for Caleo and Percabeth, they are definitely high on my OTP list. I can't help it, they're just too cute and wonderful to write ;) When Percy comes back, well…it'll be interesting, let's put it that way! I'm glad you're enjoying the characters- I try to make sure they all have their own doubts and strengths and fears and development so it's nice to hear you're enjoying them :D Thanks for reviewing and enjoy the new update!
Love Caleo: Yay! I'm glad you like it! It's really cool to hear people who have only just started reading it :D Anyway, thanks, I liked this chapter, it was cute to write ;) Thanks for being patient and enjoy the new update!
Hannah: Your reviews make me happy too, thanks!
AvidReader101: Thanks for being patient, this chapter demanded I write more overnight which is why it's late ;) Enjoy!
RandomDemigod: Ship away, my friend! Savour the burn of CAPITAL LETTER FEELS ;) Anyway, hope you like the new chapter and thanks for reviewing!
Thanks for reading everyone!