Chapter Text
Reyna needed to keep it together. Usually, this was not a task she particularly struggled with. Considering how her powers influenced the people around her, keeping her emotions in check had been one of the most important skills she’d taught herself. She couldn’t afford to let her fears and doubts bleed over into her troops mid-battle, after all.
But even years of learning to control herself could only do so much now that Scipio was nothing but gold dust between her fingers—indistinguishable from the many monsters Reyna had fought over the years, like he hadn’t been so much more.
Scipio had been the first friend she’d made after Circe’s Island.
Hylla had slotted right into place with the rest of the Amazons, but even in those early days, it had been obvious Reyna would never be at home there.
She’d spent the first week aimlessly wandering their headquarters. She still remembered stumbling into the massive hall of Amazon returns, filled to the brim with random boxes and magical items.
Reyna had barely paid attention to most of it—her eyes had immediately been drawn to a cursing Amazon in the middle of escorting the most majestic creature she’d ever seen out of a ridiculously-sized crate. She should have been careful, but her awe had briefly overwritten the caution she’d learned to carry herself with, and so she’d approached, eager to find out what was happening.
The Amazon had introduced the pegasus as Scipio, then spent a lot of time complaining about the difficulties of live pegasus shipping and how people should really learn to measure their stables correctly, but Reyna had only half-listened. She’d been too busy looking at the animal that had looked back at her with big black eyes, then gently lowered his head to nuzzle her cheek.
“Huh. Pegasi are usually really grumpy after shipping. He seems to like you,” the girl had said, eyebrows shooting up. “You wanna take over guiding him to the stables?”
Back then, Reyna hadn’t been able to control her powers the way she could now. She hadn’t even fully realized she had powers at the time. Now, she wondered if maybe Scipio had felt her awe and returned it in kind.
Not like she’d ever get to ask.
She held the remnants of gold dust to her chest, just for a moment. She didn’t know how to allow herself this ache. Didn't know how to make space for this grief without bringing down a whole ship of demigods with her—a ship of demigods who the continued existence of the world depended on. That was far more important than her and Scipio would ever be. Her friend had not bled and died only for her grief to mess up everything they had fought for.
Reyna took a few deep breaths, then stepped closer to the railing and opened her hands.
“Farewell, my friend,” she said quietly, blowing the dust off her hands and allowing it to scatter in the river below. Poseidon’s descendant returned to the currents.
Reyna thought quietly to herself that maybe this was part of Venus’ curse—for anyone who’d grow to love her in any way that mattered to inevitably leave her behind.
Reyna did not want to turn her back on Scipio for the last time. Did not want to face the world without her friend. But the only way she had left to move was forward, and moving forward alone was a concept she’d grown used to over the years. She no longer remembered how to be anything but a millstone around people’s necks that they eventually cut loose. She was not sure she’d ever truly known how to be loved as anything else.
Reyna willed her shaking hands to still, but they would not.
She was dreading to see the way her grief might have spilled over and affected the others. She turned regardless.
Reyna was surprised to find the deck of the ship almost deserted. The others had returned shortly after she’d arrived, asking her questions her brain hadn’t had the space to answer. Someone—through the haze of grief, she couldn’t remember who—had gently pressed a few ambrosia cubes into her hands. They’d eased Scipio’s pain, even if they hadn’t saved him. Reyna was grateful for that.
She hadn’t questioned why the noise around her had died down. She’d been too focused on Scipio to really think about it.
But now she found herself almost alone with her grief.
The only collateral was Piper McLean. She was leaning against the mast, messy hair moving in the wind. She was covered in cuts and bruises from a battle Reyna hadn’t witnessed, but she stood tall and proud, every bit the daughter of a goddess who symbolized love and war and victory each.
Reyna wasn’t sure how much of her inner turmoil Piper had felt, or what she’d say. From the very beginning, it had been hard for Reyna to get any kind of reliable read on Piper.
Maybe this shouldn’t have been surprising. She was her mother’s daughter, after all. Love was a force of nature—as inexorable and violent as it was beautiful—and it frightened Reyna more than most battles she’d fought.
Powerful, her mind had supplied when she’d first met Piper—arm linked with Jason’s, a smile on her lips and a dagger strapped to her belt. Dangerous, it had whispered when she’d first heard the magic in her words, and again when the crew of the Argo II had fled New Rome, as she watched Piper confuse dozens of well-trained soldiers with nothing but a few well-chosen words.
Now, her smile was friendly and her eyes were kind, and Reyna didn’t know what to make of that, either.
“Where is everyone?” she asked cautiously, quietly cursing herself for how watery her voice sounded. She needed to keep it together.
“I figured you’d want some space, so I sort of told them to scram,” Piper admitted, sounding almost sheepish. Reyna knew the way her voice sounded when it was infused with magic—knew all the ways the right words from the right person could twist someone’s mind—but there was no power in it now. “I didn’t stay to watch, for the record. That’s not- that would be weird. I just came back up to check on you,” she scrambled to explain, and Reyna was surprised to find that Piper seemed… almost nervous. “To ask if you, uhm, needed anything. Is there anything I can do?”
The alarm bells Reyna’s brain usually set off around her quieted down significantly. She allowed herself to consider the question, but regretted it almost immediately. There was only one thing she truly wanted, and it was an impossible ask.
Reyna wanted Jason. Not the version of him that was on this ship—the version of him that had left her, the way everyone always seemed to. Not the version of him that only remembered her in fragments. She wanted the Jason who’d been her best friend for three years. The Jason who'd known Scipio since her first day at Camp Jupiter, and who Scipio had bitten by way of hello.
The Jason that was here didn’t even know her. She had no hopes of him understanding her grief. No hopes of him standing next to her and holding out his hand—a quiet offer, the first time they’d had to light a pyre for a mutual friend, repeated at every funeral they attended after. Of sitting quietly on picnic blankets in the dark, both of them silent in their grief, but never alone.
Even if Reyna could have asked for him, she found she didn’t want to. She didn’t want another reminder of all that she’d lost.
“I don’t know,” she thought. “I have no idea what I need.”
It was only when Piper visibly reacted, lips parting slightly, that Reyna realized with horror she must have spoken the words out loud.
“That’s okay,” Piper said gently. “Maybe come below deck for now? You’re probably exhausted. It might be nice to just sit down for a moment, and you can figure things out from there.”
Reyna took another deep breath, then nodded. She was relieved Piper didn’t press her to talk. They just quietly walked beside each other until Piper pushed open the door to what Reyna assumed to be her bedroom.
Reyna allowed herself to sink onto the bed. The mattress was much softer than the ones she was used to, but she found she didn’t mind all that much. Piper had been right—she was exhausted.
She willed herself to take steady breaths, trying to fill up the aching hollow in her chest with air. She needed to focus on something—anything—else.
She made herself look around, trying to blink back her tears.
The room was tidy-ish, in the way the bunks of certain members of the legion were when they’d learned there’d be a barrack inspection fifteen minutes before it happened and had hastily shoved all their belongings out of sight.
There wasn’t a ton of furniture. Aside from the bed she was currently sitting on, there was a bedside table, a small desk and a closet that someone (most likely Piper) had shoved the desk chair in front of in what Reyna assumed to be an attempt to keep the doors from bursting open and spilling whatever she’d stuffed in there all over the floor.
Despite its newly acquired semi-clean state, the room was anything but empty. As temporary of a home as it was, Piper had obviously put great effort into making it look lived-in.
Most of the floor was covered by a huge teal carpet. A stack of CDs took up most of the bedside table. The walls were decorated with a bunch of random trinkets: things that looked like cheap souvenirs and several posters for games and movies Reyna had only vaguely heard of, along with a bunch of photographs. Some were framed and clearly older, showing a younger Piper with a man that Reyna thought looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t pinpoint where she’d seen him before. There were several more pictures that were obviously more recent and looked like they’d been taken with a cheap instant print camera.
A shot of Piper and Annabeth at a campfire. Piper with a boy that looked around her age and a girl that was clearly a few years younger—her siblings, maybe? Piper and Leo pulling faces at each other. A series of pictures that had clearly been taken in quick succession: Piper sitting next to Jason who had an arm wrapped around her, followed by a blurry shot where a moving figure had squeezed into the space between their shoulders, followed by another shot where they'd moved apart to make space for Leo. Reyna’s eyes lingered on a picture of Jason with some sort of white goop in his hair and what appeared to be ketchup and salad bits sticking to the front of an orange camp shirt. He was smiling so widely that she almost didn’t recognize him. Reyna’s chest ached.
“Food fight,” Piper explained, unprompted. “We had to give Jason a haircut after because there were a bunch of marshmallow bits stuck in his hair that even my siblings couldn’t get out.” She snorted. “Leo’s gonna try to take all the credit when asked, but between me and you, that was entirely my fault.”
Reyna tried to fit her Jason into this picture—a Jason that was kind, yes, but also serious and reserved and always a little sad—and found that she could not. Her eyes welled up again. She tried her best to swallow down her tears.
Reyna hated herself for this. For looking at this picture of Jason, happy, and the way she couldn’t help resenting him just a little. For wanting to resent Piper and Leo for taking her best friend away from her.
Piper’s kind, easy smile made her sick with guilt.
“The idea of Jason participating in a food fight is strange to me,” Reyna admitted tersely. He wouldn’t have, had he still been her Jason. But it grew more and more obvious that the best friend she’d grown up alongside was gone—most likely for good. “A praetor of Camp Jupiter needs to lead by example.”
“If it helps: Leo and I had to bully him into it. He ended up having a great time, but he insisted on cleaning up afterwards because he’s a dork.” Piper laughed. “You should try it sometime.”
“I…” Reyna was going to tell her that this wasn’t going to happen, but her words tapered off when she caught a glimpse of herself in the porthole window. Her armor was a wreck, dented and showing signs of corrosion, barely hanging on by one very worn shoulder strap. The shirt beneath was torn and bloody, and her hair had come entirely loose from its usual neat braid and was completely disheveled. “Gods, I’m not exactly doing a great job leading by example either, am I? I look like a mess.”
“I mean, I think you look amazing,” Piper said immediately, then went red in the face, hastily clearing her throat. “For someone who flew across an ocean on a pegasus, I mean. That must have been exhausting, and somehow you don’t look any worse than I do when I roll out of bed in the morning.”
“I-” Reyna hesitated, then shook her head, scolding herself for being silly. “Do you have a brush I could borrow? I need to fix my hair.“
Perhaps it was a stupid request, but if there was nothing else she could control, she at least wanted to look like herself again, even if the fresh wound on her heart meant she’d never quite return to being the person she had been before this journey.
“I could get you some fresh clothes, too, if that would help.”
“That would be appreciated, but-” Reyna started, glancing suspiciously at Piper’s closet.
“My clothes wouldn’t fit you,” Piper said, a little too quickly. “I can steal something from Annabeth, though. Your armor looks rough, too, but Leo could probably fix it, if you’d let him.” She chewed her lip. “He feels horrible for what happened in New Rome, by the way. He was taken over by an Eidolon. He didn’t mean to-”
“I know he didn’t do it on purpose.” Reyna sighed. She’d grown up surrounded by ghosts. The concept of possession wasn’t exactly new to her.
Right after the attack on her home, Reyna had been furious. But even back then, a part of her had realized that what she’d felt was not entirely rational. She’d been looking for reasons to distrust and resent the people who had changed her best friend, and she’d foolishly allowed that to cloud her judgement. She should have known better. Should have figured that there was something more going on, and that no version of Jason, no matter how different he was, would have returned with people that he considered a genuine threat to their home.
But she’d let her temper—which she tried so hard to control, and which was so much like her father’s, sometimes, that it terrified her—get the better of her.
She knew better now.
“So you’ll let him fix your armor?” Piper asked, still looking unsure. “I know it seems like he never takes anything seriously, but Leo’s great at what he does. The Fates chose him for this quest for a reason.”
“I’ll take your word on that,” Reyna said, reaching for the one strap still holding her armor in place. Piper and Leo were not the enemy. They were Jason’s friends. Piper had been nothing but kind to her since she’d landed. She could at least try to trust her in return. “The armor hardly provides much protection in its current state, anyway.”
Reyna struggled to unbuckle the strap of her armor for almost half a minute because of how badly her hands were still shaking before Piper gently asked “may I?” and did it for her, hand lingering on Reyna’s shoulder just a little longer than necessary.
Before Reyna could think too hard about this—about the weird tingle the touch sent through her body—Piper moved back, awkwardly clearing her throat.
“Wow, your shirt is wrecked.” She looked Reyna over, expression quickly turning concerned. “Is that your blood?” she asked, staring at a dark splotch on the left side of the shirt that had previously been partially covered by the armor.
“I-” Reyna hesitated. “I’m not sure, actually. It might be.” She carefully put her hand on the spot and winced. “Yes, definitely mine.”
“Adrenaline is one hell of a drug.” Piper shook her head. “I’ll be right back.”
Reyna wasn’t sure how it happened, exactly. Wasn’t sure at which point she’d decided this was safe. But when Piper returned with a change of clothes and bandages, Reyna let her take a look at the injury—a large claw mark she had probably sustained in the same fight that had severely injured Scipio. This also explained why she hadn’t realized it was there. Ever since that gryphon attack, she’d been so preoccupied with worrying about her friend and trying to give him the strength to carry on that any concerns she might have had about her own health had been pushed into the background.
Piper gently disinfected the wound with a bit of nectar and bandaged it up, then offered her a cube of ambrosia that tasted so much like the brownies at the bakery that Jason had always dragged her to on breaks that she almost broke down.
Despite this, Reyna felt better, bandaged and wearing fresh clothes. Piper had even made sure that the shirt she borrowed was purple.
But that still left the matter of her hair. Reyna wanted her hair fixed. She needed to look like herself again, even if she wasn’t sure the person that had left on this quest still existed after everything she’d been through. She needed to take back at least a little control in order not to come apart entirely.
But her hands—the same hands that had held the knife that had ended Scipio’s life before the poison could overwhelm him—would not obey her. They just wouldn’t stop shaking.
Reyna couldn’t stop thinking about it—about the way Scipio had looked at her unflinchingly when she’d raised her pugio, nothing but trust in his eyes.
“He was grateful, you know,” Piper said quietly. “That it was you. That he managed to bring you here safely before he collapsed. I don’t speak horse the way Percy does, but love… I’ve never needed words to understand that.” Piper paused, then amended, “not for platonic love, anyway. Romantic love… yeah, I’m kind of garbage at that. Don’t tell my mom. She’d probably disown me.”
This time, Reyna realized Piper was trying to make her laugh. Or if not laugh… maybe at least spare her the discomfort of having to address how thoroughly the words had shaken her. She just moved on to a lighter topic while Reyna was still processing what she had said, not forcing her to share anything that felt too private to voice by letting the silence stretch between them.
Somehow that made it easier.
“His name was Scipio,” Reyna said quietly, trying to breathe past the lump in her throat.
“Like the Roman general?”
Reyna nodded. “He’s had that name since before I met him. But I nicknamed him Skippy, because his coat was the color of peanut butter.” She closed her eyes. “He was my friend. I don’t know if I ever told him that.”
“He knew. Animals are smart like that.”
Piper held out her hand for Reyna to squeeze. Reyna had no idea how she knew to do that, and maybe that should have scared her, but her fingers found Piper’s regardless. It felt nothing like it had with Jason. His hands were calloused from years of fighting, large enough to make Reyna’s seem small in comparison and always a little too cold. Piper’s hands were warm and soft with short, chipped nails, and they fit into Reyna’s own perfectly.
For a moment, they just sat there, a serene quiet settling over the scene. It felt almost like it had with Jason. It also felt so completely different from how it had been with him.
Reyna barely knew Piper. Being in her presence shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?” Reyna finally asked, breaking the silence. “You barely even know me.”
“Because it seemed like you could use a friend,” Piper said, like it was that simple. “Besides, you flew across the Atlantic Ocean by yourself, despite the dangers, based on nothing more than a note. You’re brave, and stubborn, and you want to do the right thing, even when the odds are stacked against you to a ridiculous degree. Kindness is the least of what you deserve in return.”
“I…” Reyna swallowed. “Would you do something else for me, if I asked?” she continued before she could talk herself out of it.
“Anything,” Piper said immediately.
There was no magic in her words, but the sincerity in voice made Reyna’s head spin.
“Could you braid my hair?” Reyna hadn’t asked this of anyone in years. Not since Circe. Not since Hylla. But proud as she was, she couldn’t do this by herself. She held up her free hand, which was still trembling. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Usually I’m not…” She trailed off.
“I can’t promise I won’t be awful at it, but I can try,” Piper told her with a smile. “But if you get to make fun of my disastrous hair braiding skills, I’ll need you to do something for me, too, okay?”
Reyna froze. Her hand in Piper’s suddenly felt clammy.
This was it, she supposed. She’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. But she’d maneuvered herself into a corner—foolishly allowed herself to let her guard down with someone she barely knew. She’d felt safe. And now she was trapped.
“What is it?”
“I know it won’t be easy, but try to be gentle with yourself, okay?” Piper said, squeezing her hand before she slowly untangled their fingers and reached for the brush that she’d placed down on her nightstand earlier.
“I- what?”
“Our reactions to death aren’t rational because love isn’t rational. You feel a lot right now because you love your friend, and suddenly all that love has nowhere left to go.” The brush went through Reyna’s hair in gentle strokes. “It’s okay to let yourself grieve that.”
Reyna wasn’t sure what sort of request she had expected, but this one was both kinder and more impossible than anything else Piper could have asked of her.
“I can’t promise you that. It’s not something I’ve ever been good at,” Reyna admitted. A part of her chided herself for telling Piper this, but the rest of her found it was likely that this was obvious—if not to everyone, then at the very least to Piper.
“I don’t need a promise. Just tell me you’ll try.”
More brush strokes. Piper’s hand in her hair, holding it up as she worked on section after messy section in a rhythm that was almost meditative. It stung less than Reyna had expected.
“I will.”
“Good.” More brush strokes. A moment of silence. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but… what was your favorite thing to do with Scipio?”
Reyna didn't even have to think about it.
“Sunrise patrols. They weren’t a necessity—there are guards on watch at all times, making sure the area is secure—but I usually wake up early, and Scipio liked getting to stretch his wings first thing in the morning.” Reyna wiped at her face. “New Rome never truly sleeps, but there is something so peaceful about the city at night, when most of the lights have been dimmed because the demigods who live there have returned to their families. I liked being a part of that. I liked knowing we were keeping people safe. No place has ever made me feel safe and welcome like Camp Jupiter has. New Rome is the first place where I truly felt like I belonged. Seeing another sunrise with my friend by my side, feeling the wind in my hair and the sun on my face, knowing we were making sure that people like me had a future and families to go home to… that meant something.” Reyna sniffled.
“That’s beautiful.” Piper’s voice was warm.
“Scipio always got super grumpy when I missed those early morning flights. Sometimes me and Jason were sorting out praetor duties late into the night and I dozed off and didn’t wake until the sun was already up. Always took at least one apple and two sugar cubes for him to forgive me.” Reyna realized that now that she had started to talk about Scipio, she found it hard to stop. Her eyes were welling up with tears once more, and she couldn’t find it in herself to swallow them down again. It had been years since she’d last allowed herself to cry like this, especially in front of another person. Weirdly, despite how much she’d dreaded it, Reyna felt nothing but relief. “Didn’t really work for Jason, though.”
“You tried to apologize to Jason with sugar cubes and apples?” Piper asked, clearly struggling not to laugh.
“What?” The thought was so ridiculous that Reyna almost smiled. “No, I meant Scipio wouldn’t accept them as apologies from Jason. Those two never got along.”
“That… makes a lot more sense.” Piper snorted. “Also doesn't really surprise me. The pegasi at Camp Half-Blood aren’t very fond of him, either. Percy says it might be because they’re descendants of Poseidon and he’s a child of Jupiter.”
“That probably doesn’t help, but Jason is also just not great with pegasi. He tried to pet Scipio’s wings when they met. Immediately got himself bitten, and Scipio never forgave him.” Reyna shook her head. “You don’t touch the wings of a pegasus. You just don’t. The wings are super sensitive, so it causes them stress and can even hurt them. It also completely messes up their grooming, which they take very seriously.”
“Really? And they’re still okay with taking people on their backs, despite how close they get to their wings in the process?”
“Only if they trust you or have been trained for it. And not being careful of their wings when they’ve allowed you to sit on their back is the fastest way to get yourself thrown off.”
“Was that also an experience Jason made?” Piper asked, chuckling. She had apparently finished brushing Reyna’s hair, because Reyna could feel her sectioning it off into parts with both hands now. “Also, fair warning, this might take a minute. I’ll probably have to start over a few times. It’s been ages since I last braided my own hair.”
“That’s alright. I don’t mind.” Sitting with Piper and telling her about her friend, Reyna felt strangely at peace. Talking about Scipio made her heart ache, but it also made warmth spread throughout her chest. Her breaths came a little easier. Her hands didn't tremble quite as badly. Besides, Piper was a great listener. “To answer your question, Scipio would never have allowed Jason on his back, especially not once he learned Jason could fly himself. The only exception was when Jason got himself injured or knocked out, and even then it was begrudgingly. But when we were scouting out Mount Othrys at the end of the Titan war, we figured it would be good to have an additional set of eyes, so we asked Gwendolyn. Her and Jason were centurions of the Fifth Cohort at the time, but more importantly, she’s a legacy of Apollo with the eyesight and aim required for archery. Not quite so good at figuring out how to fly a pegasus, as it turned out.”
“Oh no.” Piper laughed. “Was she okay?”
“More or less. We ended up taking one of the other centurions along and I made sure to instruct them properly before they got onto Scipio’s back. Scipio forgave Gwen more easily than he did Jason, but Gwen also has a very sunny personality, so it’s hard to stay mad at her.”
“Well, if she’s a legacy of Apollo, I guess that makes sense,” Piper joked. Reyna groaned. “Sorry, I’ve clearly been spending too much time with Leo. His terrible sense of humor is starting to rub off on me.”
“You two seem close. Have you been friends for a long time?” Reyna had never really wondered about that before.
“We’re actually not sure.” Piper sighed. “We went to school together for a few months before Jason showed up, but when he did, the Mist really messed with our heads. Convinced us we’d been friends with Jason for months, and that I’d been dating him for a few weeks. It was really confusing, finding out those memories had been made up on the spot. I’m still dealing with the aftermath.”
“I had no idea. I knew Jason and Percy had suffered memory loss, but it didn’t even occur to me that you and Leo might have been affected.” Reyna wrung her hands. She felt terrible that Piper had had to go through this. She felt worse about the fact that she almost found it comforting—to talk to someone who shared an experience Reyna had convinced herself no one else would ever understand. “How did you… deal with it? With having a best friend that you shared no memories with?”
Piper’s hands were still in Reyna’s hair, undoing another attempt at a braid she apparently wasn’t satisfied with.
“It was weird. And it hurt, finding out we’ll probably never get those first few months of our friendship back. But Leo is still my best friend. A few messed up memories aren’t going to change that. Besides, we’ve made a bunch of new memories since.” Reyna could feel Piper starting the braiding process over from the roots of her hair, gently pressing the topmost part of the new braid against her scalp. It felt nice. “Memory loss or not, Jason still cares about you. He misses you. I know he does.”
“Not in the way I spent years wishing he would,” Reyna said quietly. “But I knew that he would never see me like that long before Juno sent him on this quest.”
Venus’ prophecy rang in her ears, like it so often had around Jason. You will not find love where you wish or where you hope. No demigod shall heal your heart.
Piper shrugged. “Honestly, that’s his loss.”
Reyna almost choked. “I’m sorry?”
“I mean, have you seen yourself? You’re gorgeous and brilliant and a great leader. Anyone would be lucky to have a girlfriend like you.” Piper cleared her throat. “Anyway, I just. I think you’re really awesome.” She sounded a little embarrassed.
“I… thank you.” Reyna was glad Piper was still working on her braid, then. She wasn’t sure she could have met her eyes at that moment. “And I owe you an apology. I’ve seen how charmspeak can affect people, and it made me wary of you—unfairly so. We’re lucky to have you on our side. I’m grateful that I met you.”
“Thank you.” Piper’s voice sounded a little shaky as she spoke. “Also, I’m done with your braid,” she said, right as Reyna felt the hair tie pulling taut. “It’s not perfect, but I’m not sure it’ll get much better than this, honestly.”
She handed Reyna a hand mirror, explaining that she’d also stolen that one from Annabeth. Then she moved away from where she’d been sitting, scooting over until her and Reyna were sitting side by side at the edge of the bed
The girl who stared back at Reyna looked strange. She was obviously exhausted. Her face was blotchy and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. But she did look more like herself now than the reflection she’d caught in Piper’s window earlier. Her posture was a little straighter, she wasn’t wearing a wrecked shirt that was covered in blood, and her hair was no longer a disheveled mess. The braid wasn’t nearly as tight and neat as Reyna would have made it, but it still made her look and feel more like herself.
“You did well.” Reyna smiled. The only thing that looked truly out of place was the very colorful hair tie that definitely wasn’t the one she had been wearing when she’d gotten here. “But I don’t think that’s my hair tie.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that.” Piper rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “The one you had looked like it might snap in the next gust of wind, so I figured I’d use one of mine. I use these more as accessories than I do for my hair, so all the ones I have are pretty colorful. If it bothers you, I can go see if Annabeth-”
Reyna waved her off. “No, that’s alright. I don’t mind. Besides, I think you’ve spent quite enough time in other people’s closets for my sake.”
For some reason, that made Piper burst out laughing. “Oh, you have no idea.”
“I’m not sure I understand the joke.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Piper waved her off, though she still looked amused. She looked Reyna over again. “Different question: I’m scared to even ask, but when was the last time you slept?”
“I’m… actually not sure.” Reyna and Scipio had taken a brief break in Split after finding Jason’s message at Diocletian’s Palace, but it wasn’t like they’d been able to take a lot of rest stops while flying across the Atlantic, and with Scipio unable to rest, Reyna hadn’t felt like it was fair for her to sleep. Besides, she’d had to be on guard for monsters.
Once they’d crossed into the Mare Nostrum, the monster attacks had just gotten worse. Besides, they’d had a trireme to catch up with. The more breaks they took, the more likely it had been they wouldn’t make it in time.
“That’s not an acceptable answer,” Piper told her, an eyebrow raised. “You should sleep for a bit. Give the ambrosia some time to work its magic.”
“We don’t have time for me to-” Reyna started to protest, but Piper didn’t let her finish.
“Nope. You look like you’re about to fall over, all of us just got out of battle, and Percy and Annabeth just came back from Tartarus. We’re allowed a few hours of downtime before the next war council,” she told her in a voice that was decisive and commanding enough to rival any decent praetor, even without charmspeak. “You can have my bed. Unlike you, I’ve slept a few hours ago, so I’m still good at the moment.”
Reyna opened her mouth to protest again, but Piper just shook her head and grinned at her. “Don’t try to fight me on this. I’ve wrestled Leo out of his workshop before. I can and will take drastic measures.”
She pulled her blanket up over Reyna’s knees.
“Fine.” Reyna figured she might as well resign herself to her fate at that point and let herself sink down onto the mattress. The exhaustion that had been getting worse since she’d landed fully overtook her the moment her back hit the mattress. Within seconds, her eyes were drooping.
“The world will be much easier to save when you’re not on the verge of passing out, trust me,” Piper told her, pulling the soft blanket up all the way. “You’ve been fighting your way here for days. You can rest now.”
Weirdly, Reyna believed her. No charmspeak required.