#mark of athena the part where Piper Hazel and Annabeth encountered Aphrodite

[avaetin]

Luke liked Annabeth in that way. I'm not making this up.

But.

Maybe Annabeth is.

Mark of Athena, everyone. Please don't ask me for the page, I only used the pdf.

[lesbianrewrites]

Blood of Olympus - Chapter 54

*disclaimer* This is a project done for fun, and none of these characters/works belong to me. I do not claim to own any of the material on this page. This is a Lesbian edit of The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan. Chapters will be posted every day at 10am EST. Google doc version can be found here. The chapter can also be found under the cut. Enjoy!

THE NEXT DAY, THERE WEREN’T MANY ANSWERS.

After the explosion, Piper and Jessica – free-falling and unconscious – were plucked out of the sky by giant eagles and brought to safety, but Lorena did not reappear. The entire Hephaestus cabin scoured the valley, finding bits and pieces of the Argo II’s broken hull, but no sign of Festus the dragon or his mistress.

All the monsters had been destroyed or scattered. Greek and Roman casualties were heavy, but not nearly as bad as they might have been.

Overnight, the satyrs and nymphs disappeared into the woods for a convocation of the Cloven Elders. In the morning, Grover Underwood reappeared to announce that they could not sense the Earth Mother’s presence. Nature was more or less back to normal. Apparently, Jessica, Piper and Lorena’s plan had worked. Gaia had been separated from her source of power, charmed to sleep and then atomized in the combined explosion of Lorena’s fire and Octavian’s man-made comet.

An immortal could never die, but now Gaia would be like her husband, Ouranos. The earth would continue to function as normal, just as the sky did, but Gaia was now so dispersed and powerless that she could never again form a consciousness.

At least, that was the hope …

Octavian would be remembered for saving Rome by hurling himself into the sky in a fiery ball of death. But it was Lorena Valdez who had made the real sacrifice.

The victory celebration at camp was muted, due to grief – not just for Lorena but also for the many others who had died in battle. Shrouded demigods, both Greek and Roman, were burned at the campfire, and Chiron asked Nicola to oversee the burial rites.

Nicola agreed immediately. She was grateful for the opportunity to honour the dead. Even the hundreds of spectators didn’t bother her.

The hardest part was afterwards, when Nicola and the six demigods from the Argo II met on the porch of the Big House.

Jessica hung her head, even her glasses lost in shadow. ‘We should have been there at the end. We could’ve helped Lorena.’

‘It’s not right,’ Piper agreed, wiping away her tears. ‘All that work getting the physician’s cure, for nothing.’

Hazel broke down crying. ‘Piper, where’s the cure? Bring it out.’

Bewildered, Piper reached into her belt pouch. She produced the chamois-cloth package, but when she unfolded the cloth it was empty.

All eyes turned to Hazel.

‘How?’ Annabeth asked.

Frances put her arm around Hazel. ‘In Delos, Lorena pulled the two of us aside. She pleaded with us to help her.’

Through her tears, Hazel explained how she had switched the physician’s cure for an illusion – a trick of the Mist – so that Lorena could keep the real vial. Frances told them about Lorena’s plan to destroy a weakened Gaia with one massive fiery explosion. After talking with Nike and Apollo, Lorena had been certain that such an explosion would kill any mortal within a quarter of a mile, so she knew she would have to get far away from everyone.

‘She wanted to do it alone,’ Frances said. ‘She thought there would be a slim chance that she, a daughter of Hephaestus, could survive the fire, but if anyone was with her … She said that Hazel and I, being Roman, would understand about sacrifice. But she knew the rest of you would never allow it.’

At first the others looked angry, like they wanted to scream and throw things. But, as Frances and Hazel talked, the group’s rage seemed to dissipate. It was hard to be mad at Frances and Hazel when they were both crying. Also … the plan sounded exactly like the sneaky, twisted, ridiculously annoying and noble sort of thing Lorena Valdez would do.

Finally Piper let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. ‘If she were here right now, I would kill her. How was she planning to take the cure? She was alone!’

‘Maybe she found a way,’ Penny said. ‘This is Lorena we’re talking about. She might come back any minute. Then we can take turns strangling her.’

Nicola and Hazel exchanged looks. They both knew better, but they said nothing.

The next day, the second since the battle, Romans and Greeks worked side by side to clean up the warzone and tend the wounded. Blackjack the pegasus was recovering nicely from his arrow wound. Guido had decided to adopt Reyna as his human. Reluctantly, Lou Ellen had agreed to turn her new pet piglets back into Romans.

Jill Solace hadn’t spoken with Nicola since the encounter at the onager. The daughter of Apollo spent most of her time in the infirmary, but whenever Nicola saw her running across camp to fetch more medical supplies, or make a house call on some wounded demigod, she felt a strange twinge of melancholy. No doubt Jill Solace thought Nicola was a monster now, for letting Octavian kill himself.

The Romans bivouacked next to the strawberry fields, where they insisted on building their standard field camp. The Greeks pitched in to help them raise the earthen walls and dig the trenches. Nicola had never seen anything stranger or cooler. Dakota shared Kool-Aid with the kids from the Dionysus cabin. The children of Hermes and Mercury laughed and told stories and brazenly stole things from just about everyone. Reyna, Annabeth and Piper were inseparable, roaming the camp as a trio to check on the progress of the repairs. Chiron, escorted by Frances and Hazel, inspected the Roman troops and praised them for their bravery.

By evening, the general mood had improved somewhat. The dining hall pavilion had never been so crowded. The Romans were welcomed like old friends. Coach Hedge roamed among the demigods, beaming and holding his baby boy and saying, ‘Hey, you want to meet Chuck? This is my boy, Chuck!’

The Aphrodite and Athena girls alike cooed over the feisty little satyr baby, who waved his pudgy fists, kicked his tiny hooves and bleated, ‘Baaaa! Baaaa!’

Clarisse, who had been named the baby’s godmother, trailed behind the coach like a bodyguard and occasionally muttered, ‘All right, all right. Give the kid some space.’

At announcement time, Chiron stepped forward and raised his goblet.

‘Out of every tragedy,’ he said, ‘comes new strength. Today, we thank the gods for this victory. To the gods!’

The demigods all joined the toast, but their enthusiasm seemed muted. Nicola understood the feeling: We saved the gods again, and now we’re supposed to thank them?

Then Chiron said, ‘And to new friends!’

‘TO NEW FRIENDS!’

Hundreds of demigod voices echoed across the hills.

At the campfire, everyone kept looking at the stars, as if they expected Lorena to come back in some dramatic, last-minute surprise. Maybe she’d swoop in, jump off Festus’s back and launch into corny jokes. It didn’t happen.

After a few songs, Reyna and Frances were called to the front. They got a thunderous round of applause from both the Greeks and Romans. Up on Half-Blood Hill, the Athena Parthenos glowed more brightly in moonlight, as if to signal: These kids are all right.

‘Tomorrow,’ Reyna said, ‘we Romans must return home. We appreciate your hospitality, especially since we almost killed you –’

‘You almost got killed,’ Annabeth corrected.

‘Whatever, Chase.’

Oooooohhhhh! the crowd said as one. Then everybody started laughing and pushing each other around. Even Nicola had to smile.

‘Anyway,’ Frances took over, ‘Reyna and I agree this marks a new era of friendship between the camps.’

Reyna clapped her on the back. ‘That’s right. For hundreds of years, the gods tried to separate us to keep us from fighting. But there’s a better kind of peace – cooperation.’

Piper stood up from the audience. ‘Are you sure your mom is a war goddess?’

‘Yes, McLean,’ Reyna said. ‘I still intend to fight a lot of battles. But from now on we fight together!’

That got a big cheer.

Zhang raised her hand for quiet. ‘You’ll all be welcome at Camp Jupiter. We’ve come to an agreement with Chiron: a free exchange between the camps – weekend visits, training programmes and, of course, emergency aid in times of need –’

‘And parties?’ asked Dakota.

‘Hear, hear!’ said Conner Stoll.

Reyna spread her arms. ‘That goes without saying. We Romans invented parties.’

Another big Oooohhhhhhhh!

‘So thank you,’ Reyna concluded. ‘All of you. We could’ve chosen hatred and war. Instead we found acceptance and friendship.’

Then she did something so unexpected Nicola would later think she dreamed it. She walked up to Nicola, who was standing to one side in the shadows, as usual. She grabbed her hand and pulled her gently into the firelight.

‘We had one home,’ she said. ‘Now we have two.’

She gave Nicola a big hug and the crowd roared with approval. For once, Nicola didn’t feel like pulling away. She buried her face in Reyna’s shoulder and blinked the tears out of her eyes.