Author's Note: Hey everyone! Sorry for not posting in a while...everything kinda piled up at once. Writer's block, depression, anxiety, change in sleep schedule, and a world wide pandemic kinda killed my motivation. I hope you all can forgive this for being so late, I had actually meant to have this and the next few chapters out by Christmas...but...hey...at least I made Christmas 2020, right?
The next day found Alexa and Argus waiting in one of the camp vans while Jazz lagged behind inside the big house. From the driveway, Alexa could just make out her friend's profile, but who she was talking to was beyond the view of the window.
"What's taking her so long?" Alexa grumbled. As always, Argus was silent, but the corners of his mouth twitched. The form of Jazz moved away from the window and after several minutes and a loud honk of the horn, courtesy of Alexa, the red head emerged.
"Come on!" Alexa whined, drawing the words out "Let's go, we're gonna miss our flight!"
"Keep your shirt on!" Jazz grumbled right back as she climbed in. "We still got time!"
Alexa pouted and turned from the daughter of Ares to take one last look at the Big House. She couldn't help but feel a bit of anxiety, knowing she was leaving Camp. Even if it was just for Christmas, it was still a terrifying prospect to leave a place that had sheltered her through the worst time of her life.
Just as the van pulled around Alexa caught a quick flash of yellow from the window. Then it and the house was gone, left behind as the van turned out onto the road.
The drive to the airport was uneventful, but once they had bid Argus goodbye and wished him a Merry Christmas they found the chaos taking place before them. Half the city, or so it seemed, was crammed into the airport, shouting, pushing, shoving, and just generally getting in each other's way.
"Oh good, it's not too bad" Jazz muttered.
"...This is not too bad?" Alexa asked incredulously.
"Well, yeah, some people still have an inch of space between them and no one's rushed the desk yet." Jasmine explained. It wasn't clear whether she was joking.
Quick as a snake, Jazz grabbed Alexa's hand and led her through the line of people. They got to check in, where one of the criminally overworked receptionists stood behind her counter. They handed over their luggage as the woman typed away on her computer.
"Is there going to be someone to pick you up when you land in Minnesota?" The woman asked.
Alexa thought this question was ridiculously stupid, and she had been about to say so, but Jazz cut her off.
"Yup! Mom's waiting to pick us up." She said before leaning forward and adding conspiratorially "Between you and me, I think dad's happy she moved so far away!"
The woman couldn't help but smile...or...well her lips twitched slightly towards a smile.
"Gate B-10, you're going to want to make a left up this way. Just follow the signs." The woman said. Jazz thanked her and hurried Alexa away.
"Word of advice; when they ask ya a stupid question like that, give them an answer that explains why you're traveling alone." Jazz said under her breath to her young companion.
"Why?" Alexa asked, her voice equally low.
"Trust me, nothing is more embarrassing than trying to go on a quest and winding up in airport security." Jazz responded darkly.
"No I mean...why do I gotta know that?" Alexa asked. Jazz stared at her as if she had just asked if dirt tasted like chocolate.
"Spits...you are one of the most powerful demigods I've ever met. Your power is incredible, you're great at making stuff, and you learn ridiculously fast. There's no doubt in my mind that when you're ready you're going to get a quest. And I know you're going to either kick it's ass or go down in a blaze of glory taking every monster in a square mile radius down with you!"
It might've been a bit of a downer to think about her own death, but Jazz's words did stir a strange feeling of pride in her. Jazz thought she was capable of quest! An actual quest!
This left Alexa smiling the whole way to their gate. The two girls quickly found their seats in business class, and Alexa claimed the window seat for herself.
Alexa had never been flying before, unless you counted on pegasus back. Even then, she had a tendency to slide off before they got too high. This was different, though. This wasn't a horse, heaving and pitching beneath her, this was a machine! A machine she'd have to actually try to fall out of! She was eager to see the ground fall away from that!
The engines took forever to start in the 6 year old's opinion. The machine slowly made its way to the runway, the engines slowly building in intensity as the moved away from the airport's main building. They paused for a few seconds then with a thrill they lurched forward, gaining speed with every second. Alexa could feel the slight twinges in her stomach as the plane's nose began to tilt, then all at once, they were flying, the ground rapidly shrinking away from her window.
Alexa sat there in silence for a moment, watching the city of her birth disappear replaced by a tangled web of rapidly shrinking suburbs. The houses beneath the plane's wing a far cry from the apartments she had spent the majority of her life around, and all blanketed with some amount of snow. She mulled over what to say in that moment, before finally asking.
"You ever wonder what it's like for...you know...grandpa?" She asks, putting just a small amount of emphasis on that final word. With all the rivalries and things going on at camp it was easy to forget that half the camp were first cousins.
"All the time. But which way do you mean?" Jazz asked, grinning that barbed wire grin of hers.
"I mean...seeing stuff like this, and more, on a daily basis." Alexa continued, nodding at the window. Jazz looked past her at the gray, green and white expanse below them.
"You have to remember just how old the old man is." Jazz said with a chuckle. "Flying might still be awesome for him, but I doubt he's looking down at a view like that, no matter how pretty."
"Unless some lady forgot to shut her window before her shower." Alexa added in an undertone. Jazz choked on the water the steward had just handed her and devolved into a coughing fit.
"Sometimes I worry about your childhood innocence, hanging around me all the time" Jazz muttered through her chuckles. Alexa thought that ship had long since sailed, but declined to say so. She didn't want to kill the mood.
The flight passed slowly, but the pair passed the time by treating it like one of their Saturday sessions; they talked, as well as they could when surrounded by mortals, they shared and they mused. As they neared their destination a thought popped into Alexa's head, and as sge was want to do, she just asked.
"Jazz, does your family know about camp?" Immediately Jazz's face darkened and Alexa wished she could take the question back.
"My mom does, I send her letters every other week or so." Jazz explained after a pause. "My grandma knows, but she doesn't believe a word of it. The extended family all think I'm in military school."
The tone in her voice told Alexa there was some history there. She didn't want to pry into it, if anyone knew about keeping things close to the best until you were ready to talk, it was her. Still she gave Jazz her best reassuring smile as they started their descent.
The plane's wheels hit the tarmac with a soft bump, and with that their trip through the air was over. They joined the crowd gushing from the aircraft like water from a fountain.
Alexa couldn't help but marvel; had they not had just spent 3 hours crammed into a metal tube she could've sworn they hadn't left New York. The barely contained chaos of St. Paul airport was identical in every way to the airport in Manhattan, as was much of the building's interior. It was only the skyline and the sheer volume of snow outside the windows that even hinted at the change. As it turns out, they had had a bit of a snow storm a few days before. Well over a foot of snow was waiting for them outside, far more than what they had left behind.
"Woah…" Alexa muttered. Jazz grinned.
"We are so having a snowball fight when we get home! Now come on, we gotta get moving!" Jazz said, nudging Alexa along.
They collected their luggage and headed for the pick up area. It didn't take long for Jazz to say. "Oh, there's my mom!"
Alexa looked in the direction Jazz had pointed and found her eyes drawn to an auburn haired woman in a thick black jacket and torn jeans, leaning against a wall, smoking with her arms crossed.
The younger of the pair took exactly two steps towards the woman when a large red and pink blur passed by on her left. She heard a thud and a slight squeal. Alexa spun on her heel, her hands half way to fists when she realized what had happened.
Jazz was being lifted off her feet by a monster of a woman. This would've been distressing had she not been laughing and saying. "Mom! There's not enough room for that!"
The woman that held her tight was not the woman in the torn jeans. This one was about a foot taller and built like a bear. Her hair was the brightest shade of red that Alexa had ever seen...and she was big. Not fat, but solid and wide. Alexa felt like she could break her hand just trying to punch her stomach, even with the thick pink sweater cushioning the blow!
"How can I help it? I haven't seen my baby in months!" The woman whined, giving Jazz one last powerful squeeze before pushing her out to arm's length.
"You got taller!" She accused "I swear every time I turn around you've gotten at least 2 inches taller!"
The woman's gaze fell on Alexa. She gave her a big smile, exuding warmth and a feeling that had been absent from Alexa's life for 6 long years; maternal affection.
"And you must be Alexa! I'm Melody! Jazz has told me so much about you! I hope your flight was okay! Did you manage to sleep last night? I know my first time in a plane made me so nervous I could barely sleep the night before!" She was bubbly, sweet, and just...kind. Alexa found herself liking her immediately.
"It was fine. Thanks again for inviting me Mrs. Sherman." Alexa said with a smile. It had taken an embarrassingly long time for Alexa to learn Jazz's last name, but when she finally did, she was unsurprised to find that her best friend, and a child of Ares, was named after a tank.
"Oh it was nothing! We're happy to have you!" Melody responded, giving Alexa's hair a playful tousle. "Speaking of, we should probably get going!"
Jazz's mother led the way out of the airport towards the parking lot. After a moment she began to speak again.
"Now, knowing my daughter, and how responsible she is, I assume she made sure you both ate before coming out here." She said in a voice that said, quite plainly, that she knew exactly what had happened back at camp. Jazz grimaced and cast a guilty look towards Alexa. Neither girl had stopped for breakfast at any point. In fact, the only thing they had had all day were some complimentary cookies on the plane.
"Still, I expect you two to be hungry and willing to eat when we get home!" She chirped, pulling out her car keys and twirling them on the end of her finger. "Nobody goes hungry in my house!"
Alexa allowed herself to be steered into a minivan waiting for them in the parking lot, acutely aware that, for the first time in her life, she was going to have an older woman fussing over her. Part of her wondered just what she had gotten herself into.