CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The first time Leo met Calypso's family, he realised they were actually nothing alike.
Apollo's sun horse was unmistakable.
Its mane of flickering flames danced red the orange then yellow and back. But what really stood out was its body which gently morphed from bright orange to pink with yellow streaks, blue mottled with bright green and turquoise, deep mauve fading to the faintest lilac.
A living embodiment of the most beautiful sunsets in the world. No wonder the Hesperides wanted to keep it.
"Let's go." Calypso suggested under her breath, stepping forward with reluctance. She didn't seem to share Leo's wonder but the moment she moved, the shadows twitched.
"Have you come to retrieve our spoils, half-blood?" came a soft, cool voice and beside them, the shadows began to twirl until four Greek maidens clothed in white chitons and golden sandals stood before him.
"Err…I'm just here for the horse." Leo said but anything more convincing hitched in his throat.
It was Calypso. Four of them. Or at least, four of the old Calypso, the one who yelled at him and glared and kicked sand at his encampment.
He hadn't been prepared for such a resemblance, though the longer he looked, the more he noted the differences. Their cheekbones were higher, more artistocratic. No freckles, only dark golden skin, and their hair was much darker than Calypso's caramel. But mostly, it was how empty their eyes seemed. Still beautiful, to be sure.
But when the tallest one stepped forward, Leo could feel the ice in her gaze.
"He is ours now. We have claimed him as our prize." She looked as though she would be more at home hefting a spear like a Greek warrior. Aegle, he guessed from Calypso's brief description.
"Even Ladon defends him now." Another of them chimed in, head tilted curiously as she examined Leo top to bottom. Her curls were arranged into a gold hairnet at the base of her neck. Leo couldn't help but think it made her look like a supermodel lunch lady.
"He does not belong to you." Calypso interrupted then, stepping around Leo with a scowl. "He's Apollo's and he must return with us."
The shadows around the Hesperides hissed and writhed, casting their white dresses with shifting light.
"Sister!" The third sister wore her hair with lavish ivory pins to secure it in place. Each one ended in a slender, sharp point. "You have been released. How joyous."
"You can take Zoe's place, sweet Calypso." A fourth sister suddenly suggested eagerly. Her eyes shimmered like black glass, fixated on Calypso. "We will be whole once more."
"Sister?" Calypso echoed, scowling. "How can you call me that when you left me to bear my punishment, Erytheia."
"It was a necessary step." Lunch Lady replied instantly, entirely without apology.
"Hesperia is right, Calypso." Aegle said gravely. "We are not as strong as thee. We could not have borne such isolation as thou has."
"You be lily-livered, blackguard, yellow-bellied cowards!" Leo said in his best pirate/ye old English impression.
"Leo's right. You were weak and selfish." Calypso snapped. "I would never join you."
Erytheia with the glass eyes suddenly paused, brow furrowed as she studied Calypso. "Sister, thou art different somehow."
"I'm mortal now, Erytheia." Calypso replied boldly. "I gave up my immortality to join Leo."
The nymphs gave a collective, pained screech that caught even Leo off guard.
"They have stripped you of your power?" Lunch Lady wailed. "They have desecrated thee!"
"Was it this one?" Aegle demanded with a glower fixed at Leo. She certainly looked like she'd rather a Grecian spear now.
"Did thou force her to ruin herself?" Pin Head howled. "Are you as Theseus? And Pirithous? How dare you presume to steal our sister's power?"
For his part, Leo was entirely and painfully lost. "Theseus? Like the guy with the minotaur?" he echoed, bewildered.
Calypso let out an impatient sigh at her sister's antics. "Theseus and Pirithous once tried to steal Helen of Sparta and Persephone because they wanted godly wives. They think you stole me."
"Hey! I didn't stealanyone!" Leo protested. "I can't help my amazing attractiveness! It wins over all the ladies in the end!"
"Leo didn't takeme, I left Ogygia on my own will!" Calypso shouted angrily. "I gave up my immortality."
The eldest, the leader Aegle swept forward, bracing Calypso's face gently between her hands, as if she were a child again. "Why would you do such a thing? Sister, how can you bear it?"
Leo watched as Calypso leaned into the embrace for just a second, her expression a mix of nostalgia and sadness and longing.
And then she ripped herself free.
"Enough. I made the decision, I bear only my freedom. And I didn't come here for your judgement. You lost that right long ago."
Behind her sister, Lunch Lady looked utterly bewildered and repulsed. "You made this choice for one such as this?" she gestured to Leo.
"You're not exactly all that yourself lady," Leo snapped back, bristling. "I mean, good looks only take you so far but with that dragon breath scent, gods above, buy some deodorant already-"
"I love him. That's all you need to know." Calypso interrupted flatly.
Pin Head studied her younger half-sister closely, hesitantly. "Sisters, if she has found love…"
"Arethusa, you forget thyself." Aegle snapped. "Calypso has obviously been deceived by this half-blood, the same as Zoe."
"Aegle speaks truly. In fact, let us wake Ladon," Lunch Lady suggested, wickedly. "Let him tear the half-blood apart."
"Whoa!" Leo shouted in alarm. "Let's not do that. That sounds like a terrible idea!"
"You will not hurt him." Calypso ordered, impatiently. "We've come to retrieve Aeothon and that is all."
"C'mon girls," Leo tried to be charming. "All we need is the horse and we'll leave. I mean, I know it seems cute now but just imagine when you're stuck trying to clean fiery horse manure out of this nice garden?"
Lunch Lady (or Hesperia, he supposed) paused with a faint pout. "That is true…"
"Give him to us or we'll just take him by force." Calypso added, sensing their resolve weaken.
"You may try." Aegle snarled, boldly.
"It has been an age since you lifted weapons, Aegle." Calypso challenged, then lifted her hand. "And I will remind you, I learned the way of the Tides from Tethys herself. Do you really want to test me?"
"Ladon will defend us!" Hesperia replied, triumphantly.
"Maybe," Leo allowed. "But I think he might like eating Aeothon after he's done with us." He gestured to where one of the drakon's heads was absently chewing on Aeothon's fiery tail in its sleep.
Erytheia looked worried. "Perhaps it may be best. If he eats the immortal horse of sunset, there will be consequences for us, sisters."
The eldest's eyes narrowed, but she seemed to have run dry of arguments.
"Aegle," Calypso spoke softly. "We need to take Aeothon before the day closes without a sunset."
But the Hesperid suddenly smiled seductively at the pair.
"Oh sister, you have been touched by love." She suddenly chimed, prettily. "I can see now why you left the way of the gods. You poor child, let us help. Let us keep the sun horse and we will bestow upon thee an apple from the tree of Hera."
"Oh!" Hesperia looked pleased, her eyes lighting up. "Yes, take one, sister, for both of you."
Pin Head, or Arethusa, frowned slightly. "Sisters, perhaps we shouldn't…"
"Yeah, aren't you meant to stoppeople from taking those?" But Leo's mouth was suddenly watering as he looked up at the lowest hanging golden fruit. It looked… delicious.
"In exchange for Aeothon, the vessel of sunset himself?" Aegle's voice was silky smooth. "It is a fair trade."
"Leo, don't listen to them." Calypso warned.
But Hesperia and Erytheia were darting towards the tree, plucking the exact fruit Leo had been watching. When they turned back towards them, the pair looked a lot like Calypso, their faces softened with those pretty smiles.
The dragon curled around the tree twitched slightly in its sleep. One of the hundreds of heads began to snarl silently as if beginning to rouse.
But Leo's head was filled with the smell of apples, especially the one in Hesperia's hands, the one that glistened like an orb of solid gold.
"You would take back thy immortality, sister." Aegle purred. "Your half-blood could join you as well."
"Me? Immortal?" Leo echoed, stunned by the concept.
Hesperia handed the apple to her taller sister with a giggle. They seemed much nicer now, all giggly and pretty. Not at all cold like before. How could he have judged them so quickly?
"Leo-" Calypso stepped forward, but Ladon's heads hissed in his sleep in response. She froze, unable to move a muscle lest she wake the sleeping monster. "Leo stop."
"Of course," Aegle replied to Leo, ignoring her half-sister entirely. "You would never perish. She would be a goddess again, half-blood. You could even live here, with her for eternity."
In the distance, Leo noted that Calypso was calling for him but it was as though she were far away, or deep under water.
He could only focus on the picture Aegle's words conjured…of Calypso with her faint golden glow, her magic restored, so happy…of him beside her, able to give her back what she'd sacrificed for him…
It filled his head until he hardly noticed the way the dragon's heads were beginning to shake slightly as it started to awaken. He could give her power, all of it, back to her. Better yet, he could join her.
"-o! Leo, stop!"
In the metallic reflection, he could see them. Smiling and laughing together, both of them glowing with godly aura.
Without even realising it, his hand reached out towards the golden flesh.
Calypso screamed for the dragon. The sound of its roar flooded the garden like a tidal wave.
But she didn't call for Ladon.
"Festus?" Leo mumbled, shaken from his stupor. And there he was: his bronze dragon sailed high over the garden with a ferocious crack of his jaws. The sight made his jaw drop open slightly.
Which was when he realised, he had a piece of apple in his mouth.
"Holy Hephaestus!" he spat it out instantly, unable to fathom how close he'd been to swallowing it.
But there was no time to dwell. Leo was not the only one shaken by the roar. Ladon's thousand smelly heads finally rose from slumber with a long hiss, thousands of yellow-green eyes snapping open as he sensed the disruption of the garden.
It snarled furiously and fixed its thousand eyes on Leo and the apple in his grip.
"Throw it you moron!" Calypso bellowed as the dragon lumbered forth, heads swaying hypnotically like a thousand oscillating cobras.
Leo's head was still slightly fogged with the smell of apples and the sparkle of gold but his arm obeyed without thinking.
The apple sailed away from him, deeper into the garden and Ladon's intent eyes followed it with jealous greed, chasing after it.
That was when he realised Calypso wasn't the only one shouting.
"Fool!" Aegle snarled, her beautiful face carved with fury. With another shout, the shadows around them hissed and swirled and then suddenly exploded around Calypso, enveloping her into their depths.
"Calypso!" Leo shouted for her, but the garden was suddenly flooded with bright colours and pitch darkness, like a kaleidoscopic strobe light.
The Hesperides were manipulating the garden to throw him off his game, confuse him rather than fight. "Cowards!" he bellowed at them but when he reared back to throw himself at what he thought was Aegle, he landed amongst a thick patch of brambles that tore deep into his skin.
The shadow-light-shadow-light effect was so disorientating, Leo could hardly find his way out of the thorns but he staggered to his feet, trying to ground himself as he searched for the ex-goddess. "Calypso!"
He could hear Aegle's voice faintly over the roaring noises of Ladon returning to them. "Erytheia, secure Aeothon!"
A hint of movement amongst the shadows and Leo flung himself to the right when he thought he could see a hint of Calypso's dark red sweater but when he landed, he discovered Lunch Lady shrieking with gleeful laughter as she shoved him down upon the pave stones.
The strobe was blinding, dizzying—Leo could hardly think, not with his head throbbing like this, not with the sound of Calypso struggling— and him, unable to help her—he'd promised to be in her corner – she'd saved him from eating that apple, it was time to save her –
He needed a single light source, he realised. Something to cut through the strobe lights.
Gritting his teeth, Leo's hands filled with flames. He reached out, unleashing bursts of fire towards the biggest trees until they glowed, enormous torches that cast plenty of light across the garden.
"Calypso?" he shouted desperately, his vision still uncertain and spinning.
"-eo!" He had never been so glad to hear the sound of her voice.
On his feet finally, Leo clambered through the garden towards it. He wasn't even looking when the pillar suddenly toppled down across his path.
It missed him only thanks to a hand suddenly grasping the back of his shirt, pulling him backward.
Breathless, Leo glanced into the face of his saviour but his relief was shortlived: not Calypso, but one of the Hesperides, the one with the hair pins, Arethusa.
He was about to shove her away, wary of another attack but she was quicker, snatching one of the sharp ivory pins from her hair and pressing it into his hand.
"Take Calypso from this place, half blood." She urged.
He wasn't sure what he would have said if the sound of Calypso's desperate voice had not distracted him. "Leo! Leo, can you hear me?"
He lost interest in Arethusa immediately, racing forward to the voices.
"He has been taken, sister!" Aegle's voice rang out over Calypso's from beyond the pillared garden. She sounded triumphant. "You are freed forever!"
Leo skidded to a halt just in time to watch Calypso land a solid right hook to her eldest sister's cheek.
"You don't know the meaning of the word!" she snarled back, standing over Aegle's crumpled form. In the warm glow of the burning trees, she resembled every inch the goddess she had once been.
"Sunshine!" he called out, beyond relieved to see her unharmed. Behind the pair of them, Lunch Lady seemed to have been subdued. Erytheia was nowhere to be found.
Calypso's eyes locked with his immediately and he could sense her relief, her resolve. "Leo, take the bridal, stop Erytheia!"
Aegle seized her sisters ankle before she could say more, yanking her off her feet. They wrestled but Calypso's training was far fresher than the Hesperides; as she gained the upper hand, Leo set off for the orange horse visible just beyond the tree line leading toward Mount Orthys.
He discovered Erythiea struggling to guide the horse further, but it seemed wary of the Titan stronghold.
When Leo drew near, the nymph hissed at him. "Leave him with us, half-blood! Your kind has already stolen two of my sisters! Leave Aeothon with us!"
"You abandoned your sister." Leo corrected coldly, his hand once again wreathed in flame. "Now let go of the horse."
For all her glowers, Erythea was no warrior. With a last snarl, she dropped the rope around Aeothon's neck and vanished into the shadows once more.
Relieved, Leo felt around for the bridle in his tool belt, his flaming hands catching the shiny red leather alight like it had been soaked in gasoline.
Aeothon seemed rather heartened by the return of his bridal, though Leo struggled to fix it properly. Hazel would've done it better, he thought dimly. As it was, he just tried to make it as attached as possible.
He could hear the distant sound of Ladon growing louder and tried not to let his hands tremble as he coaxed the horse trot after him back toward the garden, whistling hard as he could to summon Festus for a quick escape.
He found Aegle once again at her younger sister's feet, scowling furiously. "You wasted our gift, sister!"
Lunch Lady glared at Leo with Aeothon but made no move to stop them. They weren't fighters, not like Calypso was. They were clever and ruthless. But they didn't have enough courage to stand for what they believed.
Calypso ignored her as Leo approached. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
"Are you?" he shot back, still shaken from having lost her.
"You betray thy family!" Aegle howled.
Calypso rounded on her like a goddess scorned. "You are not my family! You are not even memories to me anymore, Aegle. None of you."
Ladon's hissing grew ever louder. Calypso turned her back on her half sister and tugged Leo toward the exit. "We need to go. Now."
She didn't turn back but Leo did. For a moment he wondered if it was regret he could see in Aegle's face.
As soon as they moved through the arch, the garden disappeared.
Before he could speak, Calypso whirled around and shoved him hard.
"What were you thinking?" she near screeched.
Unbothered, Aeothon neighed happily at the sight of his master's sun passing ever closer to the horizon. He turned a shade of fierce magenta and orange in response.
Leo wanted to shout back, wanted to defend himself but there was no defence for the terror in her voice.
"I-I don't know." Leo mumbled, his voice made small by her fury. "It just seemed…I don't know."
"You took a bite! You nearly swallowed it!"
"I-I know, I'm sorry-"
"I toldyou to ignore their offers." Calypso lectured, heatedly. "Do you even understand-?!"
"I could see us, on the surface of the apple." Leo couldn't help himself; the words tumbled out without meaning to. "We were smiling. You looked so happy."
"I'm happy now." She muttered, not meeting his eyes. Instead, she grabbed his wrist and checked his watch. "Not quite sunset but close enough."
Leo released Aeothon's bridle, watching as the sun horse trotted westward, suddenly cantering up into the air until he disappeared. A second later, the sky was painted with colour.
All was well. Except for all the ways they weren't.
"I'm sorry." Leo said in a low voice, unable to look her in the eyes.
What had he been thinking? He would've eaten an apple of Hera's? Hera who already looked at him like she either admired him or wanted to crush him. He'd have incurred the wrath of the gods for being so weak, he probably would've been punished. Calypso most likely would've been punished as well. If Apollo was right and Zeus had turned psychotically paranoid, he might've suspected her of being in league with the Hesperides.
He could've sent her back to Ogygia and Leo somehow doubted he would've been allowed to go with her.
"I know." Calypso took a deep breath, as if to calm herself. "Men older and wiser than you have been tricked by my sisters, I should've known they could not be reasoned with."
Inside, he knew the reason the Hesperides' tricks had worked so well was because Leo had wanted to believe them. He knew Calypso was happy with him but part of him still remembered her face when his dad had explained the conditions under which she could leave Ogygia. Heartbroken, disappointed, lost.
If he could have fixed anything in the world, he wished he could fix that look.
"What happened to you?" he asked instead, looking over the bruises and scrapes that had collected on her arms. "What did they do? One second you were there, the next you were just gone."
"Aegle took me. She thought I might be reasoned with." Calypso said in a dull tone. Her smile was all bitterness. "She thought wrong."
"You weren't tempted?" he found himself asking, quietly. "Not even a little?"
Calypso's fury seemed to cool, to temper and harden like molten steel. Settled and certain.
"Tempted by what? Immortality so long as I remain in their garden, under their rules? Power so long as I lose my compassion? I have had immortality, Leo. And I've had power. I want different things now."
Leo tried for a weak smile. "What kind of things?"
Calypso let out a sigh that was half-laugh. "Gardens in the middle of cities. Mechanical dragons. Evenings spent by campfires with friends. Kissing you. Hot chocolate."
"Glad to know where I stand."
Her hand found his, hesitantly. "Leo, I didn't give up my power for you. I gave it up for the world you offered me the day you came back for me. I don't regret that. I never could."
Something in his heart eased, some old hurt that had been seared into the flesh decades ago. Some fear that he could never be enough to justify the things people had to risk or sacrifice or do in order to love him.
"So, I forgive you for nearly dooming us all with that apple. But I'm still angry at you, Wonder Boy." Calypso added quickly, climbing aboard Festus.
"I can work with that." Leo sent her a weak grin. "Out of curiosity, how many times would I have to sit through that lame classical concert before you like me again?"
"At least eight more times, I should think." She replied, thoughtfully as he climbed up after her.
He grimaced. "Fair enough." A thought occurred to him. "What did you say to Festus to make him fly over the garden?" he asked curiously as he recalled the dragon's reluctance to move past the borders.
The sunset was bright around them as Calypso looped her arms around his waist. "I told him you were in trouble."
He gave his buddy a little tap. "Who's a good dragon?"
Festus creaked cheerfully in reply as if to say Damn straight I am.
Calypso bit her lip and her hands picked at the loop on his jeans idly. "Leo?"
"Yeah, Sunshine?"
"You don't have to go to that concert eight times for me." She admitted.
"Oh yeah? Then what do you want?" he said, warily but hoping he wasn't going to regret the question.
"You could stop calling me Sunshine for one."
Leo let out a bark of laughter as they took off into that bright, blistering orange together. He had never felt so light.
"I think I'd rather go to the concert."
A/N: THEY SAY THAT TIME'S SUPPOSED TO HEAL YA, BUT I AIN'T DONE MUCH HEALING.