Arsonist's Lullabye ──── Leo Valdez

34: Aphrodite special glow ups

─────Vincent woke up at a table at the sidewalk café.

It took him a minute to get used to the sun making him squint and the bustling crowd around them. The air was brisk but not unpleasant for sitting outside. At the other tables, a mix of bicyclists, business people, and college kids sat chatting and drinking coffee.

He could smell eucalyptus trees. Lots of foot traffic passed in front of quaint little shops. The street was lined with bottle-brush trees and blooming azaleas as if winter was a foreign concept.

In other words: he was in California.

Someone's voice had jolted him awake, but he couldn't remember what or who had woken him up. Beside him, Jason, Leo and Coach stirred as well.

"What?" Hedge demanded. "Fight who? Where?"

"Falling!" Leo grabbed the table. "No—not falling. Where are we?"

Vincent blinked, trying to get his bearings. 

Jason looked at Piper and made a little choking sound. "What are you wearing?"

Piper blushed. She was wearing a turquoise dress with black leggings and black leather boots. She had on a silver charm bracelet and the old snowboarding jacket she had worn when Vincent found the three, which amazingly went with the outfit pretty well. 

"It's nothing," she said. "It's my—" She paused like she wasn't supposed to mention it "It's nothing."

But even without mentioning her mom, Vincent knew this couldn't be anyone else's doing. "Aphrodite strikes again, huh? You're gonna be the best-dressed warrior in town at this pace, Piper."

"Hey, Vince." Jason nudged his arm. "You look at yourself recently?"

"What... oh."

All of them had been give a makeover. Vincent wore a graphic t-shirt, and a denim jacket that looked eerily similar to his dad's old ones, even though he hadn't been to his old home in eight years. He even wore a colorful friendship bracelet with the letters— LEO that he distinctly remembered Leo making for him when they were ten. His shoes were thankfully relatively normal converse with flame designs on the side (whatever that meant). 

"Why does he get to look normal?" Leo huffed.

He was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white shirt with suspenders, and his tool belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat. On his right wrist, he wore an atrociously clashing bracelet, just like Vincent's, except this one said— VINCE. He actually would have pulled the outfit off, if it wasn't for the hat.

"God, Leo." Piper tried not to laugh. "I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt."

"Hey, shut up!"

"I think he looks good," said Coach Hedge. "'Course, I look better."

The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate.

"Well," Jason said, "at least your mom overlooked me."

Jason was dressed simply in jeans and a clean purple T-shirt, like he'd worn at the Grand Canyon. He had new track shoes on, and his hair was newly trimmed. His eyes were the same color as the sky. 

Vincent thought he saw Piper stare for a moment longer than needed.

"Anyway," she said uncomfortably, "how did we get here?"