SANITY; heroes of olympus

02.5

Those were the days that Zara wished she could run back to. She wished she could run back to them and never have to leave; she wished she could escape Fate and its hold, that maybe she could escape reality and the fact that life would never be what she wished.

She would never be able to live a quiet life. She would never have a small cottage on the beach, only to wake up to gentle mornings with a slight breeze, or the sound of the waves crashing softly against the shore. She had come to accept that; that she would never have the life she lived when her eyes were closed.

But she could dream, right?

—🥀—

Percy made sure to keep his leather necklace with the beads, the silver ring, and the probatio tablet, and of course he had Riptide in his pocket. He kept going to twist something around his neck—not one of those already there—but whenever he reached up, he found his hand falling back to his side, not having found what it was searching for. He felt like something was constantly wrong. That something was always missing, yet he had no idea what.

He folded his tattered orange T-shirt and left it on his bunk.

"I'll be back," he said. He felt pretty stupid talking to a T-shirt, but he was really thinking of Andromeda, and his old life. "I'm not leaving for good. But I have to help these guys. They took me in. They deserve to survive."

The T-shirt didn't answer, thankfully, but he couldn't help but let his eyes linger on the small dried green patch on it—it looked like nail polish. He ran his thumb over it, and briefly blinked away some tears before turning away.

One of their roommates, Bobby, gave them a ride to the border of the valley on Hannibal the elephant. From the hilltops, Percy could see everything below. The Little Tiber snaked across golden pastures where the unicorns were grazing. The temples and forums of New Rome gleamed in the sunlight. On the Field of Mars, engineers were hard at work, pulling down the remains of last night's fort and setting up barricades for a game of death ball. A normal day for Camp Jupiter—but on the northern horizon, storm clouds were gathering. Shadows moved across the hills, and Percy imagined the face of Gaea getting closer and closer.

Work with me for the future, Reyna had said. I intend to save this camp.

Looking down at the valley, he understood why she cared so much. Even though he was new to Camp Jupiter, he felt a fierce desire to protect this place. A safe haven where demigods could build their lives—he wanted that to be part of his future. Maybe not the way Reyna imagined, but if he could share this place with Andromeda...

They got off the elephant. Bobby wished them a safe journey. Hannibal wrapped the three questers with his trunk. Then the elephant taxi service headed back into the valley.

Percy sighed. He turned to Hazel, Frank, and Zara—who had just joined them— and tried to think of something upbeat to say.

A familiar voice said, "IDs, please."

A statue of Terminus appeared at the summit of the hill. The god's marble face frowned irritably. "Well? Come along!"

"You again?" Percy asked. "I thought you just guarded the city."