becoming ● reyna ramirez arellano

six: the begrudged

"I can't believe Jason was friends with these people," Will muttered. "Reyna looks like she wants to kill us."

Maia winced at his tone. The son of Apollo was known to hold grudges – if making Clarisse speak in rhymes for a month was any indication, but he wasn't far from the truth. The daughter of Bellona was self-assured and queenly, with her piercing eyes and black hair always tightly braided, but Maia figured there was more to the story. She looked like someone who'd fought to be heard her entire life. In all honesty, Maia felt bad for her.

They stood on deck and Maia let the setting sun wash over her. "And Nico," she added miserably. "I don't even know what I did."

"But we're sticking together right?" Leo had one hand on the steer and another wiping away oil from Festus's affectionate kisses.

Maia didn't know about that. "And leave Jason to dust?"

"Well, no," Will said, wringing his hands out in front of him. "But Jason can take care of himself. Plus, you know he doesn't take sides. He's probably still down there lecturing Nico and Reyna about something dumb."

"And they'll want to jump overboard," Leo agreed. "Good for us."

Maia hadn't trained with the Hunters for three years, but some things never went away. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as Will opened his mouth to reply; she shoved him to the side. "Incoming!"

Will immediately drew his bow. Maia grabbed Leo and pulled him hard to the ground. With a thump, a winged boar landed on the deck, and on it...was a harpy? Maia shook her head, mystified. Well, she supposed there were stranger things.

"What are the wings for?" Leo muttered.

Will looked at him like he was stupid. "Flying?"

"Well, then why is it on the boar?"

Maia had heard enough; she stood. "Can we just kill it?"

The harpy cackled. Maia barely had time to draw her dagger before it leapt, whip crackling, snapping a little too close to Maia's ear for comfort. She wished she could draw her bow, her preferred weapon, but long range would do no good now.

"Ah!" Leo jumped backwards, hands ablaze. "Listen lady, you want to bring heat, all you had to do was say so!"

Maia wished he'd do a little less smack talk and a little more smacking, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Will scrambled up on the railing, perfectly balanced like only someone with Apollo's blessing could. They looked like they had it covered, and Maia heard furious grunting behind her.

"I'll take the boar!" She called to him, turning to face the gigantic beast. "Will, don't let Leo die!"

Leo yelped as the whip cracked again. "Yeah, that's fair!"

The boar was extremely slow, but it could fly, which was one skill that Maia definitely did not have. They danced around each other for a while, moving in perfect synchrony. But that would get them nowhere; summoning all her courage, Maia dove.

The monster's stomach was just as leathery as the rest of it, but there was no time to stop in disgust. Wrapping her legs around one of the boar's own – thick and hard to get a grip of, she drove her dagger up; barely, it pierced the skin. The boar roared in anger, rearing its legs, trying to fly away, but Maia (as she kept saying) was stronger than she looked.

Then, her vision blurred.

She scrambled backwards before she knew what she was doing. The boar got a good kick to her head that she knew would sting till kingdom come. And as if matters couldn't get worse, it snached her dagger right out of her hand, swallowing it down like it wasn't a pound of pure bronze.

Well, Maia really didn't know what to do about that. On one hand, she wanted to be impressed; on the other, she wanted to stay alive. You know how these things went.

But before she had time to raise her eyebrows and utter a "did you just-", the thing charged at her, grunting angrily and tusks lowered, aiming to kill. She was too close to the railing to run. She wondered if she could still do a backflip or if this was how the quest was going to end for her after all.

"Rivers!" She didn't know who spoke, but she caught the sword thrown at her effortlessly and jabbed, wincing as the boar vaporized on her in a heap of monster dust.

"Ugh." She brushed off her clothes, touching her forehead to see if it was bleeding (it wasn't, thank goodness). The sword in her hand felt heavier than normal, and she saw it was made of pure Stygian Iron.

"Thanks for the sword," she said dumbly, sounding pathetic even to herself. "Um, here."

Nico considered her as he took it back. "No problem."

Her stomach dropped again. The look he was giving her could only be described as detached. It had only been a few hours on the ship, but Maia wasn't sure how much more of Nico's hatred she could take.

The moment only lasted a second. Over on the other side of the deck, Jason was helping Leo to his feet. "What was that?"

Maia could feel Will roll his eyes. "My great aunt. What do you think-?"

"Sorry for caring!" Jason protested. "Next time I'll just stay below deck and-"

"It's not like you helped," Leo grumbled, digging ambrosia out of his tool belt. He had a nastly cut on his leg, whip apparently tearing through his blue jeans.

Her boys, Maia thought, shaking her head. Always arguing.

"You had it."

Maia turned. Nico had disappeared down below almost instantly, frown on his face. And that left Reyna, who was staring at her now, brown eyes unreadable and sparkling in the last few morsels of sunlight. "What?"

"I'm saying," Reyna repeated, walking closer. Even as she moved, she kept her posture stark straight; Maia's own father would've respected that. "The boar. When you were scrambling out from underneath it. You had it. Why didn't you go for the kill?"

"I..." Maia had never been called out on it before. She wasn't entirely sure what to do now. Reyna was closer to her than she'd ever been, eyebrows sharp and skin radiating warmth. "I stumbled," she said, trying not to wince at the obvious lie. "Froze. For a second."

The other girl rapidly closed in for the kill. "They let you freeze in the Hunters?"

Jason's hand appeared on Reyna's shoulder as Maia caught her breath; they didn't break eye-contact as he spoke. "Reyna, back off." There was a hidden meaning to it – Maia was sure, but she didn't know what it meant.

"No it's..." Maia shook herself out of the seeming haze she'd fallen into. "It's fine, Jason. How do you feel about dinner?"

He let himself be pulled away, and Maia looped her arms through Leo's and Will's as they (she) skipped over to the stairs. She was sure Reyna was trailing behind them, but refused to turn and look. Something about Reyna brought out the stubbornness in her.

Problem was, Maia wasn't very good at being stubborn.

Hello, I miss you all dearly. Side note: thinking about doing a short story of the trio (dars, jace, nathan & daniel, leila, etc.) in Elysium. Would you read?

-M