New Age of Argonauts

10. Civis Romanus Sum

Jason paced the deck, double-checking their white flag was raised and their ballistae were locked down. He could feel Piper's eyes on him, willing him to stop pacing, and if he didn't know better he would've thought she could charm speak without words. He moved to stand near her at the bow of the ship.

"Everything is in order, Jason," she reassured him. "You've run through the plan a million times."

She was probably right, Jason knew. But he had this weird feeling, like a mysterious chill he'd felt since the ship launched, which was twice as odd because Jason was mostly impervious to wind chills. It couldn't have been their altitude he felt.

Jason snapped out of his thoughts as the ship started its descent through the clouds. Their impending arrival had Jason second-guessing himself. Romans were not very welcoming to outsiders. He knew how they operated when confronted with the unknown: neutralize potential threats before they become a problem. Percy would be safe because he's a god. But the others? His friends? They'd only be seen as outsiders, Graecus. And what if the legion viewed him as a traitor come to invade their home?

The Argo II definitely did not look friendly. Two hundred feet long, with a bronze-plated hull, mounted repeating crossbows fore and aft, a flaming metal dragon for a figurehead, and two rotating ballistae amidships that could fire explosive bolts powerful enough to blast through concrete... well, it wasn't the most appropriate ride for a meet-and-greet with the neighbors.

Jason had tried to give the Romans a heads-up. He'd asked Leo to send one of his special inventions—a holographic scroll—to alert those inside the camp. Hopefully, the message had gotten through. Leo had wanted to paint a giant message on the bottom of the hull—WASSUP? with a smiley face—but Jason vetoed the idea. That was not the sense of humor the Romans would appreciate.

The clouds broke around their hull, revealing the gold-and-green carpet of the Oakland Hills below them. His crew mates took their positions—Leo frantically checking dials at the helm and Piper taking his place with the pacing, going over how she could placate them if they were hostile—and Jason stepped up onto the bow so the Romans would see him first.

Jason clutched the hilt of his golden sword in a death grip, the only outlet he had for his nerves at the moment. He tried to let the breeze settle over him, embracing his father's domain. It was enough for Jason to relax his face into a calm countenance. Over his jeans and orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, he'd donned a toga and a purple cloak — symbols of his old rank as praetor. He'd grown up at Camp Jupiter, so hopefully, his familiar face would make the Romans hesitant to blow the ship out of the sky.

Jason didn't know how to feel about returning. He'd been part of Hera's forced "exchange program" to introduce the two camps. The Queen of Olympus had convinced the other gods that their two sets of children—Roman and Greek—had to combine forces to save the world from the evil goddess Gaea, who was awakening from the earth, and her horrible children, the giants.

Without warning, Juno had plucked him up, wiped his memory, and sent him to the Greek camp. In exchange, the Romans had gotten Percy, the patron god of demigods who was somewhere below them right now.

Oh, gods. Panic welled up inside him. He forced it down. He couldn't afford to get overwhelmed. Would it be awkward? Would Percy be resentful? Jason couldn't reconcile that the dude used to be just like him, a demigod trying their best to do the right thing. The stories put him on a pedestal next to Theseus and Hercules and Atalanta. But despite what ran through their veins, everyone called them cousins. Jason never had someone he could consider family. Sure, he made close friends over the years—some lasting, some not—and they were like family, but to have someone that was (more or less... mostly less) related to you was different for him. And while he was grateful to have reunited with Thalia, she was an immortal huntress. Their sibling relationship would never be the kind of familiar bond Jason always wanted.