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Piper knew she wasn't normal from the start.
For starters, her dad is a famous actor. Not only that, he's Tristan McLean. The guy who acted in the movie about Sparta. The movie where he was shirtless for a poster. The movie where she got to spend more time with her father than she'd ever had to research Greek mythology and the customs of Ancient Greece.
For starters, her mother was never there. She left when Piper was born. Piper doesn't know anything beyond the fact that her father fell in love with her and had a child with her before her mother abandoned them shortly after her birth.
For starters, her dreams are weird. They are filled with the most vibrant and animated stories that weave together a tapestry of one consistent story. A story that is so, so, so familiar to her and brings her the comfort of warmth and security that the truth brings to her yet so distantly cold and unfamiliar with unknown words flowing past her lips.
Piper knew she wasn't normal from the start.
Because why else would she be expecting something to happen? Why else would she be waiting in anticipation for that something to happen? Why else is she so antsy for that something to happen? Why else is she so antsy to do something, anything, just to do it? Why else is she so antsy to do something for someone who isn't there but there all the same because their presence is felt? Like their presence is an ever-looming storm over her head, like the calm before the storm? Like at any second, she will struck down by lightning for her inability to do something? Because she was useless in doing anything to stop it? Because she was powerless to stop it because she never recognized that she could do something about it?
Because why else would she long for someone who isn't there and perhaps never will be? And why else would she feel like she was drowning in a sea of expectations that she thinks she couldn't ever hope to achieve because she just wasn't good enough? And that she never will be?
Some time ago, Piper tried again and again to gain her father's attention. Through playing "Any Three Questions" with him, spending time with him for that movie about Sparta and researching Greek mythology and Ancient Greek culture for it, hanging out with him when he didn't have work, surfing with him, playing card games with him — anything. But all of those moments would be interrupted when he was called back for work.
So Piper resorted to different methods. She resorted to committing misdemeanors. When that only gave her only a minuscule amount of his time, Piper resolved to committing bigger crimes. She even stole a BMW once and managed to drive it out of the parking lot after talking the dealer into letting her borrow it.
Eventually, she'd be found for her crimes. Eventually, Jane, her dad's assistant, would tell her dad about it. Eventually, she'd finally have her dad's eyes on her. Eventually, her dad had to work out what to do now regarding the crimes she committed. Eventually, she'd feel incredibly guilty for the problems she's undoubtedly putting her dad through with each crime. Eventually, she'd still feel guilty for each crime because of the worry and stress her dad expresses however minuscule on his face. Eventually, she'd do it again because she just wants her dad to focus on her since he's almost never there.
Eventually, Piper was enrolled in the Wilderness School, a school for delinquents and criminals.
Eventually, Piper met Leo. Fiery and warm Leo.
There was a lot she could say about Leo.
She could say that Leo was warmth and safety — the need to strike a match to light a fire to be warmer.
She could say that Leo was like slushing your shoes into the melting snow.
She could say that Leo was like hot chocolate on a cold winter day when you just wanted to stay inside.
She could also say that Leo was the blazing flame in a snowstorm, refusing to be snuffed out despite how it should be out because of the conditions.
She could also say that Leo was all jokes — both good and bad. Some of his jokes don't land but that's what makes it funny — at least that's how Piper views it.
She could also say that Leo reminds her of someone. Someone whose name meant "burner of ships" — someone she associates with boats in general and has an affinity for the sea. Someone whose hair was fiery red.
There was a lot she could say about Leo. And one of those things she could say about him was that he was her friend — her best friend.
There was something about Jason that drew her to him.
But at the same time, there was something about Jason that unnerved her.
It was hard for Piper to discern what it was that unnerved her. There was nothing about Jason that should've unnerved her.
He was blonde, blue-eyed, a perfect student, and an all-around good guy. He was objectively attractive, too. Maybe it was the perfect student part — it was strange for someone so... perfect to be in a school for delinquent teenagers.
But despite Piper telling herself that, she internally knew there was something deeper to it — something she once again didn't have the answer to. Just as her strange dreams of another person's life — dreams of a story she found while she researched with her father for that movie about Sparta. It frustrated her to no end that she had no answers, but alas, there was nothing she could do to jumpstart the thinking process when she had nothing to lead her on that path.
If you told Piper that she would one day meet something called an anemoi thuellai or a ventus or find out that Coach Hedge was half-goat or see Coach Hedge get abducted by said anemoi thuellai or get meet with a dagger from a blonde girl who was practically shouting in her and her friends' faces asking about a guy they knew nothing about or promptly crash-land into a lake at a camp that the blonde girl was supposedly from or learn that she and her friends were demigods or Jason was a son of Zeus, king of the Greek Gods, or Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, was her mother, she would've called you crazy.
As a matter of fact, she thought she was going crazy herself. She was either hallucinating or having some crazy dream — yep, that's it. She'll just go to bed in this very pink and frilly and overly decorated cabin and sleep and then she'll wake up in her own bed at the Wilderness School dorms and this will all be some crazy dream she dreamed up that she can laugh about later with Leo and Jason and there won't be any anemoi thuellai or ventus Devin or whatever that guy's name was and Coach Hedge won't be half-goat and there will be no stressed blonde girl whose lost sleep over her missing boyfriend. Yep, she's just dreaming.
You can imagine the sinking feeling of devastation she felt when she woke up the next day, and it turned out that she was, in fact, not dreaming all of the prior events.
She was half-convinced that she was going insane when she went to bed last night, and was fully convinced that she had gone insane by the time she woke up.
Good news is, she at least had a decent amount of knowledge about the Greek mythological world because of that prior knowledge she had when she researched with her father for that Sparta movie. Bad news is, she was pretty positive that she couldn't wield any of the weapons well enough to not make a total embarrassment of herself in battle and inevitably get herself killed.
The fact that she was even able to use that damn dagger of Troy was a shock to herself. She thought for sure that she'd missed badly each time she used it, but it was like an extension to herself. The weight of a dagger was familiar to her despite the fact that she'd never seen this dagger nor ever used a dagger in her life. You did, her mind supplied. Remember, Te—
She shook her head to rid herself of the strange thoughts she's been having as the quest to rescue progressed. She still didn't understand why she had those thoughts and what they were on about. Those thoughts whispered strange sentiments to her, saying she knew all of this stuff before when she never did. She even got whispers of how the blonde girl, Annabeth, was familiar to her — those were the strangest whispers of thoughts she had. She never knew Annabeth up until that day at the Grand Canyon.
Then there were her dreams. Half of them were the prophetic demigod dreams where she could see the real-time movements of an upcoming enemy in her mind's eye and subconscious. The other half... Well, they related to her strange thoughts of familiarity and her early dreams of someone else's life. She saw a fiery girl who brought the warmth and passion of a fire wherever she went, a woman whose aged face and callused hands brought her a rush of familial love deep into her bones, and a man who, despite his awkwardness, showed love and care.