Stay Right Here

ii

don't worry the fire was friendly

🌊 🌊 🌊

Percy and Hadley sat at an outdoor table at one of New Rome's cafes. He smiled as Hadley happily sipped at her strawberry smoothie and stared up at the flying warship. He'd been slightly nervous that his new friends wouldn't get along with his old ones. In his defense, Annabeth hadn't seemed to like Percy when they first met. Perhaps if he had given a goddess a piggyback ride into Camp Half-Blood she would have. Actually, Percy thought that would have made her like him less.

But now that everyone seemed to be getting along for the most part- at least no warships were shot from the sky- Percy could calm his nerves enough to enjoy the time with the girl in front of him.

"You're staring," Hadley sang, turning to Percy with a teasing smile.

"No, I'm not," Percy said. "Staring is creepy. I was respectfully admiring."

"Ah, of course." She propped her chin on her hand. "How could I have made that mistake?"

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Hads."

She laughed and took another sip of her smoothie. A warm breeze caressed her face and accented her laurels as they swayed in the wind. 

"I can't believe Reyna's making us do two senate meetings in one day." She stirred the smoothie with her straw. "That has to be some form of cruel and unusual punishment."

"They should let you talk the whole time," Percy said. "I'd prefer that over Octavian's lectures."

"I don't really give speeches. I'm pretty sure even I would stop listening to me at some point."

"At least you would be saying something interesting."

"You're praetor, why don't you do it?" Hadley countered with a smile. "Did you give a lot of speeches at your camp?"

"I gave one before the battle last summer." He shrugged. "I guess it worked pretty well."

"Then that settles it." Hadley leaned back in her chair with a satisfied look on her face.

"Hey, I may have been able to rally the troops once but I don't think I could go up in front of a crowd and call them- I don't know- a group of lazy grizzly bears, or something."

"Lazy grizzly bears?" Hadley laughed. "What does that even mean?"

"I don't know! You're the one who comes up with the names."

"Well, it's clearly not you. Not with those crumbly gel pen level of ideas."

Percy held his arms out toward her. "You're proving my point!"

Their laughter carried through the air. It took a few seconds to die down, leaving the pair with infectious smiles covering their faces. Suddenly, Hadley stilled. Her eyebrows knit together and she stared at the ground. Percy studied her face as she seemed to be scanning the grass like it had mind-breaking information.

"Hads?"

Her head whipped around to look up at the warship just in time to see the first ballistae fire. It whistled through the air and landed in the forum in a moment of silence before the explosion. A burning couch tumbled through the air. Demigods scattered in panic.

"What's happening?" Hadley asked.

"I- I don't know," Percy stared at the scene in shock. "Maybe it's a misfire. Or a malfunction."

The Argo II launched a second volley. Its port ballista fired a massive spear wreathed in Greek fire, which sailed straight through the broken dome of the Senate House and exploded inside, lighting up the building like a jack-o'-lantern.