sweet dreams • leo valdez

14

Soon enough they were walking through the streets of Portland, Delilah's confession as forgotten as it could be - not completely, but enough so that she could relax.

Percy was waving Thai noodles around, wafting it so that the harpy might catch its scent. Hazel had her sword drawn, Frank an arrow notched in his bow, and Delilah clutched the charm which soon turned into her sword as dark as the Underworld itself. They kept a tight formation, Percy in front and flanked by Frank and Hazel, Delilah behind so that they were in a diamond shape. There were harpies following after them in the sky, trailing the smell of food. 

They eventually found the runt harpy flying around in a park and so sat on a bench observing. 

"Looks like Hannibal." Hazel said thoughtfully about a massive sculpture of an elephant which was next to the bench. 

"Except it's Chinese. My grandmother has one of those." Frank winced as he spoke. "I mean, hers isn't twelve feet tall. But she imports stuff... from China. We're Chinese." Delilah fought a small smile at his awkwardness as the other two tried but failed to hide their laughter. "Could I just die from embarrassment now?"

"Don't worry about it, Zhang. We all get tongue-twisted from time to time." Delilah murmured in an effort to try and make him feel better. It seemed to work as Frank sent her a grateful smile. 

"Let's see if we can make friends with the harpy." Percy decided and raised the noodles in the air, fanning the smell towards the harpy. It made Delilah's stomach rumble. 

"We won't hurt you." Percy called up in a soft tone. "We just want to talk. Thai noodles for a chance to talk, okay?"

It seemed to work as the harpy flew down, landing on the elephant statue. It pained Delilah to see how thin she was, with her sunken cheeks and stick-like legs. 

"Cheese. Ella doesn't like cheese." The harpy mumbled out as she twitched slightly. Her eyes darted around, looking anywhere and everywhere.

"So your name is Ella?" Delilah asked her hesitantly.

"Ella. Aella. 'Harpy'. In English. In Latin. Ella doesn't like cheese." Ella said without even taking a breath. Then before any of them could even move, Ella darted at the cinnamon burrito, taking it before moving back to the elephant. 

"Gods, she's fast!" Hazel exclaimed, jumping slightly at the quick movement.

"And heavily caffeinated." Frank added a likely guess.

"Cinnamon is good." Ella said as she sniffed the burrito and nibbled at it. "Good for harpies. Yum."

Then just as she started to eat it, bigger harpies swarmed down and started to hit at Ella with their wings. "Nnooo!" Ella screamed as she failed to hide under her wings. "N-no! N-n-n!" 

"Stop it!" Percy yelled and led the four of them to help Ella, all holding their weapons high. Unfortunately they were too late. One of the harpies had stolen the burrito and the others had all dispersed. Ella was left alone, shivering and shaking in fear.

"I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Hazel placed her head on Ella's foot. 

Ella poked her head out of where it was hidden under her wings. She was trembling and there was a cut on her back from Phineas' cruel behaviour. "S-small Ella. W-weak Ella. No cinnamon for Ella. Only cheese." She stuttered out angrily. 

Frank glared angrily at where the harpies were sat on the other side of the street, destroying that burrito. "We'll get you something else."

Percy put down the Thai noodles with a sympathetic yet determined look on her face. "Ella, we want to be your friends. We can get you more food, but-"