Catching Lightning | Jason Grace

vii

☀️☀️☀️

To fill the silence in her head, Aurora quietly sang to herself as she watched the sky around them. She tended to forget other people could hear her when she did that. In the Apollo cabin, there was always some noise. Whether it was singing, an instrument, or arguing about the tidiness of the cabin before inspection. One minute someone is humming the melody to a song then the next the whole cabin is having a karaoke night. Sometimes even Castor and Pollox would sneak over from the Dionysus cabin to reenact movie scenes.

Aurora was suddenly reminded that she could be heard when Jason leaned forward. "Is that High School Musical?"

"What? It's fitting," Jason raised an eyebrow. "Come on, it's almost too obvious. We're soaring, flying." She spoke the words.

Jason chuckled. "If you insist."

"So you have no idea who you are but you know about High School Musical?"

"I gotta keep my head in the game don't I?"

Piper rolled her eyes with a small smile. "Do you talk in song lyrics often?"

Aurora shrugged.

"What can you expect Piper?" Leo asked. "Apollo's her dad. Songs, and rhyming, and stuff."

Aurora scoffed.

"Excuse you, Leo
Apollo kids don't spend their
Whole day making rhymes"

"Uh, Rory..." Jason started. Her eyes widened and she began counting on her fingers.

"Did I just haiku?
Oh no I'm still doing it
Gods, please make it stop!"

Leo laughed as she panicked. "I should've installed a recording feature in Festus."

Piper looked at Aurora over her shoulder, feigning a confused expression but Aurora could see the smile tugging at her lips.

"Stop laughing at me.
This is very serious.
I will end you guys."

A laugh escaped Piper's lips. "This feels like it's some kind of weird demigod disease you caught."

Aurora's hands went to her face.

"What is happening?
You guys have to help me, please.
Curse you, Apollo!"

"Blaming your dad?" Leo shook his head. "That's low, Rory."

Jason poked his head over her shoulder. "Has this ever happened to you before?"

"It's fine, I can stop.
I'll just start using bigger
Terminology."

"Good try," Jason tried to comfort her but Aurora could feel him shaking with silent laughter.

"Ooo. Five syllables in one word," Leo teased. "You get some vocab points for that."

"I can't believe this.
I'm never going to talk
until my life ends."

Aurora glared up at the sky, seemingly attempting to stare down the sun. Jason had no idea how her eyes weren't even watering as she stared directly at it. She pursed her lips, deciding it was best not to talk until she could use more than 17 syllables and the demigods fell back into a comfortable silence.

"Shut up, me," Leo said suddenly.

"What?" Piper asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Long night. I think I'm hallucinating. It's cool."

Jason, Piper, and Aurora shared concerned looks.

"Just joking." Leo decided it might be good to change the subject. "So, what's the plan, bro? You said something about catching wind or breaking wind or something."