Jɪɴx ➪ 𝙡. 𝙫𝙖𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙯

time

short chap cause i don't feel like writing but i also don't wanna leave you guys hanging

chapter 22; Time

An awkward silence followed Jinx's statement.

"The what now?" Piper peered at the legion.

Nico scratched his head, "are you okay? There are no poets."

Jinx shook her head, "no, you don't get it."

"So help us understand." Piper helped Jinx to her feet.

"Khaos... My dad, he said a few things to me when I met him earlier." Jinx's eyes were glued onto the straggler. "I was confused at first because why would a poet be among soldiers? But he told me there would be."

Jason nodded in agreement. He walked to her and put an arm around her, "Okay, so what does that mean?"

She looked up at him, noticing the concern in his eyes. She wasn't the crazy sister, that was clearly Gaea. "The poet. It's that guy! Out of all of the soldiers here, he's the only dead ghost to have a quill sown into his armor. Wouldn't they separate writers from soldiers, soldiers from healers?"

Jason creased his brows in thought. He wasn't sure if back then they did that, but it would have been reasonable.

"Why would a poet be in a war?" Piper twirled her hair around, asking what everyone was thinking.

Jinx shrugged.

"He lived and died in Rome." Frank's deepened voice startled Jinx out of her thoughts. "He was a soldier at some point and he still serves Rome even as a poet."

"I need to talk to him."

Nico held up his scepter, its orb dark and dormant. "The dead won't stay much longer, now that the battle is over."

Jinx's face dropped.

"We don't have enough time!" Piper groaned in frustration.

Time. She needed time.

"I got this, guys." Jinx clapped her hands and sucked in her breath. "Give it a second."

She would attempt something she had never tried.

Holding Time's hand, she would stop it and keep all of her friends in motion.

Jinx had never purposely allowed more than one person into a frozen time bubble. Nico and the undead would be fine since they were literally out of time.

Jason, Frank, and Piper... They were breathing living things belonging to the correct time.

Jinx closed her eyes in concentration, hoping that Time would grant her this wish.

"Gods, what the fuck is this." Piper put her hands around her stomach.

Frank let out a very loud and loaded burp. He politely apologized and hid his face behind his giant hands.

Jinx glanced at Jason, waiting for a side effect to hit him like the others. Time does not take lightly to outsiders.

"What did you do?" Piper squeaked out. "Fuck, this is a horrible feeling, it's just so ugh..."

Jinx nodded. "Side effects. Welcome to a time bubble. Time is frozen. No one but us and the undead are moving about."

"I don't think a time bubble restrains the zombies." Nico wiped his sweat away, "they don't follow those rules so you should hurry up."

She hated when her technically younger cousin, bossed her around. It was a family thing. Jinx was about to start stomping her way to the poet when Jason fell to his knees and threw up.

Jinx gagged and covered her eyes. Seeing and hearing someone throw up made her want to do the same. Nico pinched his nose and turned the other way.

Piper pats his back and helped him up.

"You were holding that back in, weren't you bud?" Jinx grimaced.

Jason nodded, wiping his mouth.

Jinx felt like she could hear Time laughing at the effects it made the demigods have. Time was mean like that.

"Okay, now that everyone is done. I'm going to go talk to that guy over there and hopefully, he gives me some answers." She took a step forward, "wish me luck."

"Good luck!" Frank, always the kinder one, shouted.

"Luck." Nico, always the one needing to be different, said. 

"Off I go."