four writes

It was in the middle of the night, no one was awake. The odds were that it was easier being caught by one of the harpies than getting some marshmallows at 2am. But who cared?

Normally she would just wake some of her friends up and they would chat until she felt more sleepy than hungry, but she had gotten claimed by Apollo recently, and her friends stayed stuck in the Hermes cabin.

Amanda jumped out of her bed and tried to open the door of the Apollo cabin as quietly as she could, being careful enough to not wake up anyone. 

Her dirty blonde hair was tied in a lazy bun and she was wearing an oversized sweater with baggy pants.

Right, she thought, if you manage to get past the Hephaestus cabin without anyone seeing you can totally make it to the kitchens. You can do it!

And so, Amanda started to walk out.

Just before she turned around the corner of the Hephaestus cabin, she heard a door snap open and a voice speaking to hear.

“Why wasn’t I informed that it was pajama day?” she heard a boy ask.

Amanda turned around, her face tinted with the brightest of reds. She felt like she was looking just like one of her friends when the only boy who lived in the pitch black cabin waved at her. She never understood why.

She knew that voice.

Valdez. Leo Valdez.

“Um… Hi?” she said, suddenly ashamed of what she was wearing.  She was probably looking ridiculous.

“Aren’t you the new girl in the Apollo cabin? Amanda?” Leo asked.

“Um, yeah!” she replied, a little too excited. “Call me Harley, everyone does.”

“Did you just quote Harley Quinn?”

“I guess so.” Gods of Olympus, I’m so stuuuuupid!, Amanda actually felt like she needed to bang her head against a wall.

“That’s cool.” He gave her a warm smile.

Alright, Amanda. she started. This is it. Leo freaking Valdez is talking to you. You gotta woo him. If wooing ironically works with your friends, then it should work unironically with the boy you have a massive crush on.

“Leo… You’re…” You can do it, girl! “Smoking!”

Oh my gods, someone shoot an arrow aimed at my head.

Leo’s eyes widened in fear for a moment.

“Really?!” he said. “S-Shit!”

She watched the fire emerge from the son of Hephaestus, the flames licking his skin like it was nothing. Juliet's eyes wided when she noticed, for him, it was nothing. How it was even possible? The hispanic boy narrowed his eyes at her, they were silver, like hers had once been. Danger. Danger. Her senses told her that the boy was going to try to kill her. 

She clenched her hands into a pair of fists, the boy mirrored her movement. So... This is how it's going to be? she mused mentaly. Alright, you got your fight right here. Bring it. 

She had no weapons, though. Well, she would have to handle that with her powers and her powers alone. Time to see if water would beat fire.

"Mum?" the tiny girl called out. Juliet was nine years old at the time, she still lived with her mother in Brighton, a city near the sea of the always rainy England. Her mother didn't deserve the mother of the year award, she had to admit. Neither did her step father. Charlotte and Henry Fairchild were perfectly normal, and they were truly proud of it. Henry wasn't a big fan of his wife's daughter, so after a while, he simply choose to forget that she ever existed. It worked well, for a few months. 

She didn't had any friends back home, being often called a freak by the kids' neightbors, because of her unsual sea green eyes that seemed to darken when she was either sad or angry and the weird acidents that rounded her wherever she went. 

The world turned into pure black void for a period of time that seemed to be endless. Juliet's knees bunked as she felt the harpon digging its way through her right shoulder. She cried out, already feeling the salty tears burn her eyes and roll down her cheeks. Her right arm was useless at the moment and there was this little tiny detail about shoulde wounds liker hers. If it bleeded without control for about three minutes, she would die of blood loss. So bloody lovely. 

When her senses returned - which honestly didn't help at all, her mind and vision was a blurry as it could get -, she felt someone backing her against a wall his/her hand touching her face in a gentle manner. "Can you hear me?" the person asked. She nodded weakly in reply, wincing in pain as she did so. 

The haze that was her mind at the moment made her feel numb. "Alright, okay. Sorry, this is gonna hurt." at first she didn't understand what the person, whom she had indentified as a raven-haired boy, said at first but then she felt him pull out the harpon out her shoulder. 

She screamed, feeling the pain emanating from her in waves, that seemed more like tsunamis. Oddly enough, she didn't cry, but that was because she was already crying for a while, the tears opening a patch in the dust and grime that covered her face. "We need to go." the boy said, tearing a piece of fabric which he had gotten out of nowhere(was she starting to hallucinating already?) and used it to patch up her wound. In a matter of milliseconds, the fabric was already bloodstained, but she could feel that her bleeding had slowed down a bit. 

Another thing about shoulder wounds: they're easily patchable. 

Juliet woke up, squeezing her eyes at the bright light of the sun. She had sleep on a bench at a park, again. Her neck hurted like Tartarus, so did her spine. She really needed to find a more confortable place to sleep. 

She yawned, getting up as she tried to fix the mess that was her hair. Her backpack was still with her, no one tried to steal it during the night. Good. Her hands flew to the tiny neckless she got, which hided her trusty trident, to check if it was still there. Well, another thing that she didn't lose. 

She had been three weeks on her own now, all she could do was do the same thing that she always did. 

"So bloody cold..." Juliet shivered inside her oversized jacket, which she had stealed in a hurry. Runaway life was terrible sometimes, especially when it was snowing. All she could do was find a place to get warm where people wouldn't give her that pity look.

She had been on her own for about two weeks. Curse that blasted ghost that convinced him to leave me behind, she said mentally, staring at a mirror that had been left in the street and somehow wasn't broken. There were dark blue shadows under her eyes, almost purple, her face was pale as milk and she looked sightly skinner than she remembered herself being. She looked so tired. 

Wait, she was wrong. Runaway life was terrible sometimes, it was always terrible. She would be always alone, always running, always starving. It was easier for monsters to track her down, so she was always injured, always ready to collapse. 

Bluh. It's not Olympus was such a big deal. It was just the place where the fire of the Western Civilization burned bright and where most of the gods lives. Yup, not a big deal at all.

Juliet just saw that place as the place where her not-so-lovely uncle Zeus lived with his wife, Hera, a some of his kids, who were, by the way, all poweful gods that could kill her with one look. 

It's not like she wanted to be there. She was called there, along with her brother, her best friend, her Roman cousin and her other cousin who was cooler than the first cousin. Basically it was just a Uncle Zeus wants to show the kids his new house, considering Olympus was rebuilt after the end of the war so... Yeah. 

There was no way in Tartarus that she would not go after the Seven. 

The Argo II was her free pass to Rome, where she was sure she was going to find out what the bloody hell happened to her best friend. She probably would have to hear a lot of that you-are-too-young-to-help-us-save-the-world-and-we-already-got-a-child-of-the-sea-god-with-us crap but she would argue with whoever she had to to get a place on that ship. Considering Leo had only made seven room(because originally only The Seven would be on that stupid war ship) she would sleep on the floor or on a coach, it's not like she minded anyways. It didn't matter, she just needed to get on that ship.

Because she needed to save him. She was going to save him, just as she promised.

A battle cry warned her that the Romans where approaching. After what happened, Octavian would probably want and would torch her alive as if she was a witch if he caught her. 

She whistled and it was only a matter of seconds until Nymeria landed before her. The beautiful caramel colored pegasus speard her wings. I haven't seen you in a while! she heard Nymeria's voice echo inside her head So, what's the emergency? You normally call me when the situation is bad. she didn't bother to answer that one. It's that bad, uh? Ok, I got it, You don't want to talk about it. So where to? 

"The Argo II. It's probably still flying." 

Ooooh the pegasus sounded excited. Blackjack was following that ship! C'mon lil' Fray! This is going to be an awesome trip!

Juliet wasn't so sure about the awesome part but it sure as Hades it would be a trip. Rome waited for her, and probably a lot of fights with her half brother too. She wasn't going to rest until she located Death Boy.

"So that's why you want to save him?" she questioned, shaking with rage. Juliet could not believe in what she was hearing. "Because he apparently holds the 'key of endless death'? Not because you own him big one? Not because you care? What in Hades is wrong with you?" 

The seventeen year old stood speechless in front of his half-sister. He really didn't know how to reply to that and if answered that with what he had in mind, she would probably kick his way out of the ship or jump out herself. He stopped paying attention to what she was saying.

"If it wasn't for him, you wouldn't be 'Percy Jackson, the guy who fought Kronos and won'. You would be just another guy who died in the Titan War." she spit her words like they were poison. "If it weren't for him, you would just another corpse. We wouldn't have won the war, I would still be trapped inside my own body while a goddess kills and tortures while wearing my face."

She closed her eyes and Percy noticed a tear rolling down her cheek, he wanted to brush it away but she was probably still so mad at him that she would probably slap him right there. 

It all started when she was 10. Now she was almost 14, and also, a completely different person. She wondered what would happen if she meet her 10-year-old self. "Why you look so tired?" she would ask. "Why you look so sad? You are supposed to be a super awesome demigod not this!" 

Things had changed, a lot. Since she ran away from Camp. Since she found out her mother had died while she was at that stupid military school in the States. Since the Labirynth. Since she fought that blasted goddess during the war. She was forced to grow up the moment she followed her best friend, who now was even worst than she was, out of Camp's borders.

Her name's Juliet Fray, she's only thirteen years old. Her father is a god and her mother is dead. Things didn't work out for her, at least most of them didn't. Sadly, she got used to living in her brother's shadow, whom is said to be the most powerful demigod in the last two millennia. Who was she compared to that?  

The answer was at the tip of her tongue.