daylight | percy jackson

is this the end of all the endings?

Aurora laughed, the sound melodic and sweet. Aria could already guess who her godly parent was.

"Aphrodite?" Aria questioned.

The girl smirked. "How'd you guess?"

"Cause you're gorgeous," Aria said simply. It was true.

Aurora smiled, her white teeth gleaming in the dim campfire light.

"Ditch your little sea boyfriend and come get with me please," she joked, her eyes wandering over to where the son of Poseidon was standing, stupidly dropping every single marshmallow into the fire.

"We aren't together," Aria explained. "I don't like him very much."

Aurora's eyebrow raised. "Hmm my mother tells me otherwise..."

Aria let out a frustrated sigh. "Why does everyone keep telling me this!?"

Aurora stood up, elegantly brushing off her baby pink tee. "My mother and her favourite assistant Fawn, live for this story."

"What story?"

Aurora rolled her eyes. "Gods you really are oblivious. Dite is gonna have a field day with you."

Aria pushed herself off the bench so that she was now at the same height as Aurora. She opened her mouth to speak but Aurora spoke first.

"We better get going, I hear Dionysius's welcome home speech for you is going to be even better than your dad's haikus," Aurora said, taking Aria's hand in hers before Aria could ask any further questions.

She left the log more confused about her predicament than ever.

The two demi-gods wandered closer to the fire where Dionysius's speech was underway already.

"Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an ever bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday..."

Aria zoned out halfway through the announcement and she casually pulled her hand out of Aurora's grasp.

"I'm feeling pretty tired, imma head back to my cabin," she explained when the girl gave her a confused look.

"Sounds good! By the way, you should give him a chance. Percy, I mean. He's definitely down bad for you," she encouraged while pulling out a silk light green bow out of her mini backpack. "You should have this, it'd look great with your eyes and I normally keep bows on me for those worthy of them."

Aria chose to ignore the Percy comment, but she gratefully took the bow, delicately placing it in her hair. She thanked Aphrodite's daughter profusely, and then headed off to her cabin.

She didn't notice Percy watching her leave.

On the fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they weren't going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosion. They had anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of patriot missiles. The blasts would be sequenced so tightly they would look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed to be a couple of thirty-metre-tall spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colours.