Warriors || Leo Valdez [2]

3

After introductions, the Greeks and the Romans began to exchange stories. Jason and Alex took turns explaining what had happened nearly seven months ago while Piper seemed uncomfortable and Leo stuffed his face with food. 

Percy recounted his adventure too, and Alex felt a bit of pride being related to him. She even decided she liked Hazel and Frank. 

When Percy had finished, Jason whistled appreciatively. "No wonder they made you praetor."

Octavian snorted. "Which means we now have three praetors! The rules clearly state we can only have two!"

"On the bright side," Percy said, "both Jason and I outrank you, Octavian. So we can both tell you to shut up."

Octavian turned as purple as a Roman T-shirt. Jason gave Percy a fist bump and Alex snorted. 

"The return of Persassy everyone!" Violet chuckled and Percy grinned. 

Annabeth turned to Alex and the others with a faint smile. "That's Violet Keen, I know the last time you guys met, they weren't their for very long. But they're a good friend of ours"

"They?" Jason raised an eyebrow. 

"It's called being nonbinary, pretty boy" Violet spoke up. "My pronouns are they/them. What are yours?" 

Jason stuttered, clearly unfamiliar with the concept. "Er- the boy ones?"  

"He/him?" Alex said it almost as a question. "Then mine would be she/ her"

"Correct" Violet grinned. 

"Right now we have more serious issues to deal with." Reyna said, "we'll have to deal with the extra praetor problem and the pronoun thing later"

"I'll step aside for Jason," Percy said easily. "It's no biggie."

"No biggie?" Octavian choked. "The praetorship of Rome is no biggie?"

Percy ignored him and turned to Jason. "You're Thalia Grace's brother, huh? Wow. You guys look nothing alike."

"Unlike you two? you could pass for twins" Jason nudged Alex and Percy, "Anyway, thanks for helping my camp while I was gone. You did an awesome job ."

"Back at you," Percy said

"We should talk about the Great Prophecy. It sounds like the Romans are aware of it too?" Annabeth interjected, seeming to end the bromance as soon as possible.

Reyna nodded. "We call it the Prophecy of Eight. Octavian, you have it committed to memory?"

"Of course," he said. "But, Reyna-"

"Recite it, please. In English, not Latin."

Octavian sighed. "Eight half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall-"

"An oath to keep with a final breath," Alex continued and then Annabeth added- "And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."

Everyone stared at them-except for Leo who gave Alex a pat on her back while absent mindedly constructing a pinwheel out of aluminium foil taco wrappers and was sticking it into passing wind spirits .

Alex smiled sheepishly, she wasn't sure why she blurted it out but Percy gave her an impressed thumbs up.

The big kid, Frank, sat forward, staring at Annabeth in fascination, as if she'd grown a third eye. "Is it true you're a child of Min-I mean, Athena?"

"Yes," she said defensively. "Why is that such a surprise?"

Octavian scoffed. "If you're truly a child of the wisdom goddess-"