#reyna

The first thing I noticed about you was that you didn’t flinch at the sight of blood. We met at the border of Camp Jupiter . I was injured after months of training with Lupa and walking from Seattle to San Francisco and a run in with the Namean Lion, its pelt heavy on my shoulders, but I finally made it, stumbling and slicked red with blood. You were on guard that afternoon, and you rushed forward and caught me before my knees could fully buckle. 

Your grip smeared blood onto your palms and my arms, but your stare never faltered. “You’re safe now.”

“Who are you?” I croaked, blood bubbling past my lips.

“Jason Grace,” you said, and even then I knew your name carried more than your identity. 

The rest of my memories from that day are a blur. I remember you half-dragging me to the shores of the Little Tiber, and offering a prayer to Juno before submerging me. I wasn’t healed, but the waters stabilized me, enough for you to get me to the Infirmary, at the very least. You stayed at my side the entire time, like a soldier assigned to a post, unerring, undaunted, unsmiling. As the world faded to black, there was one detail I couldn’t help but fixate on.

Your hands were still red.

When I woke up, yours was the first face I saw. You smiled at me for the first time, though your eyes stayed guarded and your teeth unbared. “Hey. You feeling any better?”

“Marginally,” I groaned. I blinked at you for a moment, trying to get my vision to focus. “You’re Jason Grace?” You nodded, and I gave you a cautious smile of my own. “My name’s Reyna.”

After that, life moved quickly, and I learned what it meant to be part of something for the very first time. Before, I had only ever had Hylla and my own blade, but now I had the Legion, I had all of Rome at my back, but most importantly, I had you. You still didn’t smile at me often, but that was fine, I didn’t smile at you, either. We both had the weight of legacies bigger than ourselves on our shoulders, and joy is a luxury rarely afforded in the line of duty. We couldn’t share our load, but we could bear our burdens together, and that was more than I had ever dared to hope for. We stood by each other, shoulder to shoulder, even when others shied away and averted their gaze.

They averted their gaze far more than they ever dared to look at you.

You’d always unsettled people. You stood too still, watched too carefully, and when you struck it was with animal violence that no one could replicate. People talk, and more than one person wondered if Lupa was the source of your divinity rather than Jupiter. 

I saw it when we were on a quest together, and we were cornered by monsters, completely unarmed Everyone thought we were going to die, but you launched yourself forward, teeth bared and fingers curled into claws. You killed the monsters with your bare hands, and when you turned back to us, your mouth and hands dripped with golden blood, but your eyes were hard in the way I had learned meant hurt. 

Everyone was terrified, wondering if the threat was truly gone or merely changed shape, but I remembered the boy who saw me covered in blood and held out a hand so I stepped forward and offered my own. You didn’t flinch that first day, and I didn’t flinch any of the following. You took my hand, smearing ichor between our fingers, and I never let go.

Because of that, I saw you, Jason Grace. I saw you more clearly than anyone who had ever dipped their head in respect of your name. They looked at you and saw a savior, the prince of Olympus and Champion of Rome. You were all but a god to them, and everyone knows that gods don’t bleed. They certainly don’t cry.

But teenage boys do.

I found you after the Battle of Othrys, after they lifted you on their shields and named you their leader. I had sought you out with the intention of celebration. We were both Praetors now, we could lead Rome together the way I’d wanted us to since I had learned what a Praetor was. I wasn’t expecting to find you kneeling at the banks of the Little Tiber, desperately scrubbing your already raw hands in the waters as tears rolled down your cheeks.

“His blood,” you said hollowly when you finally noticed me standing there. “It’s– I can’t get it out from under my nails.”

“Whose blood?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Christopher,” you said. “I held him, and he died, and now I’m wearing his title like a crown.”

You broke down after that, grief radiating off of you thick enough to choke. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t comfort you, not really, so I stood there silently as you wept. We didn’t speak again after that night, not like we used to. We were Praetors together, and that was it. I will forever wonder if that was my fault.

And then, without warning, you were gone. Juno, the goddess you prayed to save me, took you from me. I searched as long as I was able, but you were gone, and I wondered if that was my fault too. 

When you came back, you were different. You smiled with your whole face, teeth bared, and you laughed. You held hands with Greeks, and there wasn’t a drop of red or gold on your fingers. You smiled at me with teeth and without recognition and offered me a hand that anyone else would call clean, but I have always seen you, Jason Grace. There was blood on the hand you offered me.