μάγευμα ✸ pjo x hp

ii. δευτερος

The next morning Lola found herself on a bench in a city. She had no clue how she got there. She just knew that during the night she had wished to be anywhere other than Aeaea, and that something must have answered her prayers. The city looked a lot different from what she remembered, but the skyscrapers made it abundantly clear she was in New York. Lola was having fun exploring in the shadows of the buildings, when she heard a loud growl and knew she was fucked.

A Mormolyca, of all creatures, smelt her and was ever so clearly ravenous. Mormo, the name so affectionately given to this creature, was a Corinthian woman who ate her children alive. She was used as a bogeyman to small Greek children, and looking up at her, Lola could confirm that she was absolutely goddamn terrifying. Her first instinct was to run blindly, so that's what she did. If the New Yorkers saw anything strange about a small girl in a long white gown getting chased frantically by a ravenous monsters, they didn't say anything.

Lola was armed with a small Greek kopis and a lot of sheer willpower, but she didn't think that it was quite enough to fight a monster like this. After almost a full hour of running, she didn't think she had much of a choice. She was on a hill of sorts, well away from the bustling city. So she turned and faced the monster, who unfortunately seemed no less tired then it was at the start of their nice run.

The mormo caught up in no time and when striking blindly at it a couple times, Lola began feeling faint. Circe had wasted no time training her when she got to Aeaea but that was only in- magic. Of course. And with a quick spell the monster was ridded of its senses. With a quick movement the kopis was embedded where it's heart would be, and it crumbled into a golden glitter.

Then she turned and saw a centaur as long as the two demigods who burned down her home walking towards her, and realized that perhaps that spell took a little too much out of her, before falling in a dead faint.

At camp half blood there is a beach. It's a pretty beach. If you further down and pass through part of the woods you get to a little cove, shielded from the elements, and invisible if you don't know where it is. Lola found it on her third day in camp. Upon getting to camp, she became the shiny new object that everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of but she just longed to return home. She would rather her life in Aeaea over her life at camp half blood, no matter how boring or miserable it got.

It's easier, Lola finds, to try and remember Aiaia in all the ways she hated it and none of the ways she loved it. Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. Homesickness didn't even begin to express how she felt. It's easier to not think of Circe at all, or how Lola will hopefully never see her again, or how winter has come and gone and she felt the cold, biting sting of the wind for the first time in years because it simply passed Aeaea by. It's easier still to not think about her eleventh birthday coming up in mere days, and how this time she will spend it by herself, in the comfort of her little cove.

Lola had made friends of course, accepting other people's company with little objection. She was friends with Drew Tanaka, a daughter of Aphrodite, who despite her sharp mouth, was actually rather nice. She was friends with Ethan Nakamura, an unclaimed demigod, but who was amazing with a sword. And most surprisingly, she was friends with Thalia. The headstrong daughter of Zeus upon finding out about her escape from the island had tracked her down, for the main purpose of shit talking Percy.

Percy was another matter altogether. Despite her having been at camp for several months with no problem, he still didn't trust her and whenever he iris-messaged he always asked about her as if he thought she would turn someone into a Guinea pig anyway now. It isn't that Percy is a bad person, he's a glorious hero. He just hasn't been particularly welcoming. And, well, above all, Lola knows that although she helped by turning a blind eye at Annabeth, he did destroy her home.