PHILOXENIA ➸ Percy Jackson¹

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EIGHT—Makeover Sequence

─── ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽☼☾.* :☆ﾟ｡ ───

There was the slightest chance that Lux could be on fire. She felt the heat all around her, curling and persistent, like it was demanding her attention. 

After the initial panic, she realized that she wasn't burning alive. If she was, her skin would be melting off, she would be screaming in agony, and her lungs would be suffocated with fumes. Instead, it felt like she was simply standing a little too close to a heater. Lux looked down, and she understood why she had this sensation.

Her arms were glowing—two columns of light that branched out into ten points where her fingers should be. She flexed them experimentally, and the light responded to her motion. It didn't feel like her body, and yet her mind was telling her she had become...whatever this was.

Lux lowered her arms to avoid a sensory overload, but what she saw in front of her was even more overwhelming. She was standing in a throne room dripping with gold and veils of buttered sunlight and lemon yellow, layering on each other like strips of silk chiffon. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view into the world outside, which was bathed in a darkness that seemed to be tearing at the seams. 

Suddenly, the room faded away, leaving her to stand in a clearing of sky and stars. It took her some time to realize that she was literally up in the sky. Fear gripped her heart and choked the scream in her throat. Her limbs began flailing to find something she could grab onto. The fact that she wasn't in immediate free-fall didn't help the situation.

Then, the sky shifted above her. Streaks of dawn splashed against the brightening canvas in wide arcs, subject to an artist's whim. Lux was mesmerized by the waves of colors, so close that it felt like she could reach up and touch them.

Her arm raised unwittingly, her fingertips making contact with something cool and soft, and then seemed to almost disappear into the sunlit tapestry. The aforementioned ball of gas itself was making its way from the horizon, dousing the world in its resplendent rays. It was a sight that she was more than familiar with, but something about being so near the sunrise took her breath away.

For a moment, Lux could forget that she had become a being of light, forget that there was a quest they could not afford to fail, forget the betrayals and all the directions the gods were trying to pull them into. 

There was nothing but the endless blue sky.

─── ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽☼☾.* :☆ﾟ｡ ───

There was blue all around her. The cerulean blue of a cloudless summer sky that almost hurt to look at. Lux blinked, and even without the sun on her face, her eyes felt like they were blinded. Her body still felt a little too hot, a possible illusion that made her question if she was really awake. She brought a hand to her face, relieved to see skin instead of pale golden light.

Lux turned, causing something to slip from her forehead—a damp rag that looked like it was torn from an old sailor's shirt. She was on a rowboat propelled by billowing gray sails stitched from uniform fabric. When she craned her head a bit, an expanse of sea opened up before her, the lapping waves a vibrant teal color that made her think of a certain person's eyes.

She tried to prop herself up, but her body immediately tried to put her back to sleep.

"Easy there, Lux. Wouldn't want you to faint again."

Ah, but his eyes had always been more beautiful. A shade that not even nature could compare to.

"Hi," she let out—breathlessly, deliriously perhaps.