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fel1ra · 4 days ago

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Hi everyone, it's me again! I'm back, and this week I'm bringing in Best Girl Hazel for her debut chapter! Y'all, I love this girl SO much. She is a DREAM to write for and I love love loved it! Also, for those of you who are curious, Hazel is wearing a knee-length denim skirt because in my head she's wearing skirts/dresses 7/10 times. The other three she's wearing very cute overalls <3

With that out of the way, may I please present The Strings of Fate Chapter 9: HAZEL Outruns a Turtle

“You mean the magic stuff?” Frank asked, and Hazel could hear the way his eyes shined with mystified wonder. “It’s so cool that you can do that.” “It’s… going.” It’s certainly not going well! Gale piped up, and Hazel was glad she was the only one who understood her. You’re so busy being caught up in your teenage whirlwind romance, that you don’t even realize your time has run short! That actually got Hazel’s attention, and she pulled away from Frank to frown at Gale. “What do you mean?” “Uh, what do you mean?” Frank asked a bit nervously. “Gale said something,” Hazel dismissed, staring Gale right in the eye. “Something about time running short.” “What does that–” Frank was cut off by the boat lurching forward like it had hit an iceberg, sending him and Hazel painfully toppling over one another into a heap. Frank managed to get a mouthful of her sneaker and she nearly brained herself with the not-a-sundae dummy arm. Gale leapt off the railing like it was nothing and landed in front of Hazel. Her eyes gleamed, and Hazel didn’t have to speak mustelid to know that she was practically bursting with eagerness. No time for questions now! she chittered. It is time to see how you measure up, Hazel Levesque.

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I wish I had a banana split sundae, Hazel thought to herself, staring down the arm of the training dummy that had been the victim of Jason’s most recent bout of sword play. She could picture it perfectly: A long, crystal clear bowl with three scoops of ice cream – vanilla, chocolate, strawberry – topped with three perfect swirls of whipped cream and three bright red cherries, wedged between two halves of a banana, and drizzled with rich chocolate syrup. One of the drug stores she walked past to get to school in New Orleans had sold banana split sundaes, and she’d always wanted one, wanted it so bad she could almost taste it, but she’d never gotten the chance to have one. Now, she could have one if she focused. She’d been told by a goddess that she could bend the world around her to her liking if she really wanted it. Please turn into a banana split sundae.

Predictably, the arm stayed exactly as it was.

You’re not trying hard enough, Gale chided sharply from where she was watching Hazel’s pitiful display. Hazel wasn’t quite sure how she understood Gale, she knew that nobody else on the Argo II understood her, and she wasn’t talking, not exactly. It was more like Hazel just… understood her. She figured it was sort of like some of the Roman demigods, the ones who spent a longer time with Lupa’s pack or who went to her at a younger age, could communicate with Lupa and the other wolves. She’d heard it explained before in awkward, halting sentences, trying to use words that simply didn’t fit. They said it was just an inherent, innate understanding, like a whole new language sometimes dubbed Wolf Speak. Apparently, in addition to a crabby mentor, Hecate had gifted Hazel with Weasel Whisper. Gale bared her teeth and chittered like she somehow knew she’d been insulted. Focus!

“I’m trying!” Hazel snapped back. She waved her target around. “This is a piece of wood wrapped up in some straw and a t-shirt. How, exactly, do you want me to turn it into ice cream?”

This is why you fail, Gale said. You’re not meant to turn it to ice cream!

Hazel grit her teeth. Gale had been the one who told her to picture what she wanted to see and use that, but now, apparently, that was a stupid idea and also all Hazel’s fault because of course it was. “Then what am I meant to turn it into?”

You’re not meant to turn it to anything!

Hazel thought back to Percy’s muttered offer to throttle the polecat when he’d seen the little bite marks Gale had gifted her with, but she set that aside. “I’m confused. You told me I needed to change this into something. Something I wanted. Is the thing I’m turning it into meant to be real or not?”

Yes, but actually no, Gale squeaked. She scratched behind her ear and Hazel wondered if magic immortal polecats could get fleas. More accurately, no, but actually yes.

Hazel felt her temple throb. “Would you like to say something that makes sense?”

Gale cocked her head to the side and the glitter in her beady black eyes somehow looked amused. You’re trying to shape reality to your whim. What? Did you think it would be easy?

Hazel heaved a deep sigh and looked out over the ocean. If there was one good thing about her Mist Lessons with Gale, it was that they were distracting. With Gale barking and squeaking orders, she didn’t have time to think about the quest or Piper and Leo or her dreams or even about the fact that she was supposed to be sea sick. No, she was too focused on feeling like every inch of progress she made was met with a monumental backslide. She’d been so desperate for help that she’d actually asked Annabeth if she could call some of the Hecate kids at Camp Half-Blood for her. That hadn’t gone all that well, seeing as IMs were so sketchy these days, even with Hazel asking Flossy to do her a solid. Even when she had managed to get in contact, the Hecate kids weren’t really all that helpful. The Mist ran through their veins right alongside ichor, so reaching out and plucking at its strings was just as simple as reaching out and grabbing a pencil off the table. She could still Picture poor Lou Ellen’s forehead crumpled in frustration and focus as she waved her hands around and said, brilliantly, “You just… do it.”

Fortunately, Annabeth had overheard the conversation and offered her own advice. She wasn’t a magic user herself by any means, but she knew a bit about how certain things on the ship worked, and apparently that was Mist and Magic and Hecate-ness, and she’d even seen her friend Thalia manipulate the Mist on much smaller scales. She said it was about confidence. About belief. About wanting something so bad you could ignore the fact that it wasn’t possible. Thalia was confident she could get into any place she wanted, so security stepped back with a snap of her fingers. The Kerkopes had believed that the hand grenades could make green slime, so they did. Leo and the other Hephaestus kids and everyone at Camp had wanted this ship to fly so bad that it didn’t matter that it was a 50-ton boat with no wings or visible flight capabilities.

And that was the problem wasn’t it? Hazel wasn’t confident. She didn’t believe she could do this. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to anymore. She’d never really found her footing, not even in her first life, but things were even worse after she’d come back from the Underworld. It was strange, knowing she’d died when she was just a child, and the world had just… moved on. She doubted if the Alaskan town where she’d sacrificed herself had even mentioned her in an article beyond the obligatory obituary. She thought about poor Sammy Valdez, the one person who would remember her name with any fondness, and how she’d left him to die, thinking he’d cursed her. Then, to make matters worse, she’d gone and let his great-grandson fall into Tartarus. She didn’t know what she was doing, she was stuck on the sidelines most of the time and the one time she’d asked to lead one of their side quests, she’d gone and gotten herself poisoned while Frank had to be the real hero. Speaking of…

“Hazel? Are you okay?”

Hazel looked over at Frank and then up and up and up. It had been three days since Frank’s radical transformation in Venice, and she still wasn’t quite used to it. Frank had always been big but now he was just… He looked older, and not just physically. His eyes were different now, a little harder and distant. Sometimes, he got the same look Nico did after he spent too long with the dead. Sometimes, Hazel didn’t recognize him at first glance, and it always sent a bolt of terror right through her, like she was looking at a stranger. In some ways he was nothing like that boy who would always shyly volunteer to take the worst watch shifts with her and insisted on carrying anything over fifteen pounds when they were stuck mucking the stables together.

But at the same time, it was still Frank. He was still her very best friend who she loved so very much. He still tripped on his own feet and laughed when he got nervous and insisted on carrying heavy stuff for anyone shorter than him. The only difference was that “shorter than him” included the whole crew now. His eyes were still gentle when they looked at her and his smile still made her heart beat a little faster in her chest. He was still soft and strong and squishy and he still gave the very best hugs.

“I’m just tired, I think,” Hazel sighed, burying her face in his chest while he wrapped his arms around her. “I haven’t been sleeping right.”

“Dreams?” Frank asked, his voice colored with concern. “Is it–”

“It’s not got anything to do with the quest,” she assured him. “Well, I think it might have something to do with my quest, but not the rest of everything.” Her mind wandered to the dreams she’d been having. The highlight reel of all the most miserable moments of her life, always ending with the stark memory of her father on the stairs in New Orleans. Of his cold fingers and colder gaze and his words. The dead see what they believe they will see. So do the living. That is the secret. The words hollowly echoed in her head the same way they had in that stairwell, but they made just as little sense now as they did back then.

“You mean the magic stuff?” Frank asked, and Hazel could hear the way his eyes shined with mystified wonder. “It’s so cool that you can do that.”

She was suddenly glad for another reason, other than the obvious, that she had her face pressed to Frank’s chest. She didn’t want to tell him that she’d spent the better part of an hour arguing with a polecat about ice cream, or how she’d failed spectacularly at turning Hedge’s club into a hot dog or even just back into a baseball bat. She didn’t want to tell him that they were sailing towards a battle they were counting on her to win and she wasn’t even sure if she’d even be able to wield her weapon. “It’s… going.”

It’s certainly not going well! Gale piped up, and Hazel was glad she was the only one who understood her. You’re so busy being caught up in your teenage whirlwind romance, that you don’t even realize your time has run short!

That actually got Hazel’s attention, and she pulled away from Frank to frown at Gale. “What do you mean?”

“Uh, what do you mean?” Frank asked a bit nervously.

“Gale said something,” Hazel dismissed, staring Gale right in the eye. “Something about time running short.”

“What does that–”

Frank was cut off by the boat lurching forward like it had hit an iceberg, sending him and Hazel painfully toppling over one another into a heap. Frank managed to get a mouthful of her sneaker and she nearly brained herself with the not-a-sundae dummy arm. Gale leapt off the railing like it was nothing and landed in front of Hazel. Her eyes gleamed, and Hazel didn’t have to speak mustelid to know that she was practically bursting with eagerness.

No time for questions now! she chittered. It is time to see how you measure up, Hazel Levesque.

*-*-*

Annabeth Chase could swear better than anyone Hazel had ever known, and that was saying a lot because Hazel had met some rather unsavory characters in the form of her mother’s clients, and any of the nuns she’d gone to school with could tell you just how skilled she was herself. Still, Hazel was almost glad that she’d missed the first half of Annabeth’s furious tirade as she and Frank scrambled to the rest of the group.

“–one more flea-bitten Tartarus reject attacks my fucking boat I’m going to shove my boot so far up its ass the son of a bitch’s grandmother is going to taste rubber!” she snarled, half hanging over the edge of the boat, held up only by Percy’s grip on one of her belt-loops.

“He wants you to know that he doesn’t have fleas,” Percy said, almost conversationally. “I don’t even know if turtles can get fleas.”

“I don’t care!”

“What in the world is going on?” Hazel demanded. Nico popped up at her side and she turned on him. “Well? Did you see anything keeping watch?”

“Turtle,” Nico said unhelpfully. “Very big turtle.”

“A turtle?” Frank echoed. “Can Percy talk to it?”

“Tried that already,” Percy reported, having finally coaxed Annabeth away from the edge. She was still obviously furious and her hands were flying over the Archimedes Sphere, but at least she didn’t look like she was going to vault the edge and fist fight whatever was attacking the boat. “Can confirm that it’s not friendly.”

Hazel frowned and turned to face their foe, wondering how something like a turtle could possibly cause so much of a problem. She personally really liked turtles, even the big Galapagos tortoise she’d seen at a zoo once. She thought they were charming, and she liked the patterns on their little shells and how shiny their eyes were. What she saw turned everything she knew about turtles on its head.

The thing she was looking at was so incomprehensibly large it was hard to wrap her head around the fact that it was even alive, and not just a very inconveniently placed landmass. Giant hills of bone with deep scars like canyons and vast forests of kelp and algae covered its massive shell and aaaaallll the way on the other side of the boat was its gigantic kaiju head, where Jason and Hedge were already giving it everything they had with their javelin and club respectively. The turtle didn’t seem to mind though, and just snapped its jaws, taking about a half dozen oars with it to the sound of Annabeth’s wordless howl of fury.

“Beth, can you get us out of here?” Percy asked. “Fly or something?”

Annabeth whirled around on him eyes wild. “Oh, flying! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Why don’t you just have that thing spit the oars back up and we can just be on our merry way!”

“Sheesh! Okay, no flying!”

“Can you get us to those straights over there?” Nico suggested, pointing. “I saw them from the crow’s nest.”

Annabeth whipped her head around to see what he was pointing at and narrowed her eyes before she started punching at something on the Sphere. “Yeah, I think I can– Jason! Hedge! Get out of there now!” Jason, ever the proper soldier, retreated immediately, but Hedge stayed behind. Hazel watched Jason wrestle with the portly satyr for a moment, losing his javelin in the process, but soon they were both back on deck. “You guys good?” Annabeth called.

“Fine,” Jason reported, glaring death at Hedge. “Unarmed, but unharmed.”

“Good. Brace yourselves!” Annabeth took up a power stance, a Switch controller in each hand, then thrust them both forward in one motion like she was engaging rocket thrusters. Which, apparently, she was, seeing as in response the ship shot out four jets of white-hot fire directly into the turtle’s face, and the Argo II was sent skipping forward across the water towards the cliffs. “Ha! Take that you stupid fucking reptile!”

Unfortunately, the fire seemed to bother the turtle about as much as a good old fashioned Hedge Bashing, and was in pursuit, quickly gaining on them, despite their lead. “We need a distraction,” Hazel muttered to herself. “We’ll never make it there otherwise.”

A distraction could work, Gale agreed. Her eyes glittered knowingly. But there’s another option for you, isn’t there? Are you going to save your friends? Are you going to be a hero? How do you want this story to go?

Hazel wanted to scream. She knew Gale wanted her to use the Mist. To make the turtle tiny or turn it into an actual harmless island or something but she couldn’t. She didn’t know how. But she had to do something. She had to think and she needed help.

Right on cue, Hazel felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, and she looked up just in time to see a massive column of mist (lowercase ‘m’) come tearing across the sea towards them, and her heart leapt with joy. Within seconds, her best equine friend was standing on the deck before her, and she threw her arms around his neck. “Arion!”

He knickered and Percy scoffed. “Still hasn’t learned any damn manners.”

Hazel didn’t really think he had any room to critique her horse’s foul language, considering Annabeth’s party trick, but she decided to ignore that. She glanced over at Gale, who was watching the scene with her head cocked to the side curiously. I suppose this would be what you wanted to see most, isn’t it?

Hazel ignored that, too, and just climbed up on the horse’s back. She offered Percy a hand. “Come on, we’ve got to distract that thing so the others can get to cover.”

“You got it!” Percy grinned, taking her hand and jumping up behind her. He mounted Arion backwards, probably to give himself more room to do his Percy Thing, and smacked both hands down on Arion’s hindquarters. “Giddyup!”

Hazel didn’t have to speak Horse to know that the neigh Arion let out was not polite.

Without waiting for another second, Arion leapt over the railing and headed straight for the turtle, his hooves moving so fast they didn’t have time to sink into the water. Hazel’s heart leapt into the back of her throat, but she just twisted her fingers into Arion’s mane and urged him forward. The turtle was big and powerful, there was no denying that, but she was fast, she was agile, and she was smart.

And she had Percy.

Percy let out a whistle loud and sharp enough that Hazel was pretty sure a taxi somewhere in New York City pulled over out of sheer respect, and shouted, “Hey, big fella! I’m gonna need you to take a look over here! Ignore the boat full of snacks and look at me!”

Very slowly, the turtle turned its massive head towards them, only to be met with a mini tsunami straight to the face, causing it to let out a loud, grating shriek. Another wave swelled and Arion let out a somewhat deranged whinny before he sprinted up the back to race across the crest, his hooves splashing in the seaspray. He leapt from the top, sailing over the turtle’s head and Percy let out a victorious crow, and slammed what was probably several lakes’ worth of water straight down, forcing the turtle under the surface.

“And that’s for pissing off my girlfriend!”

“Speaking of!” Hazel shouted. She gestured over to where the Argo II had managed to limp into the nearby straight. It was barely big enough for the ship, which meant that the turtle would definitely not be able to reach them. “Time to get back to the crew!”

Percy nodded in understanding, took a deep breath, then thrust both hands forward like he was trying to shove someone over. In response, all of the water around them rushed at the turtle with such speed and force that Arion was stuck running on a watery treadmill for a moment, and the gigantic turtle was sent careening away. Percy let out another victorious whoop, and Hazel couldn’t help but laugh along with him as they raced towards the boat.

As soon as they were on deck, Frank was right there, eyes shining in wonder as he offered Hazel a hand down. She gratefully accepted the offer, feeling like a princess, and she beamed up at him. “Thanks, Frank.”

“That was amazing, Hazel,” Frank gushed. “The way you just– Wow!”

“Hey, I helped, too,” Percy complained. His eyes were shining with mirth though, so Hazel didn’t really think he was all that mad.

“You were impressive, too, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth soothed, kissing him on the cheek. Now that there wasn’t a turtle eating her boat, she seemed to be in a much better (and way less scary) mood.

Percy grinned and opened his mouth to say something, but Hazel would never find out what it was because an arrow suddenly planted itself in the mast less than a quarter of an inch past the end of his nose.

“Get down!” Jason ordered, and everyone hit the deck except Percy. He just stood there, eyes wide in shock and face a little pale as he gaped at the arrow shaft like a fish. Jason grit his teeth and dragged him down. “Jackson!”

Several tense seconds passed, but no more arrows were shot. Annabeth was the first to speak, eyes narrowed at the arrow. “I… don’t think they mean us any harm.”

“The hair on the end of my nose begs to differ!”

Annabeth ignored him and slowly got to her feet to investigate the arrow. “No, seriously, look. There’s a note attached to it.” She quickly untied the scroll and cleared her throat. “Stand and deliver. This is a robbery. Send two of your crew to the top of the cliff with all of your valuables. No flying, no horse, no tricks. Just climb.”

Immediately, Hazel felt cold. Not the same cold that she got from the dead like she had in Venice, this was more like the feeling of dread she’d gotten when she walked into class and realized that she’d forgotten to study for a very important test, only this was much, much worse. As if to sell the point, Gale appeared in front of her, nearly nose to nose, eyes glittering. Well, Hazel Lavesque? What will you do?

“What do they mean by climb?” Frank asked nervously.

“I’m guessing they mean that,” Nico said, pointing to a very narrow, very steep staircase. He winced and looked away. “Something tells me this isn’t the first time this straight has been used for an ambush.”

“We were tricked,” Annabeth agreed bitterly. “According to the letter, whoever this is is friends with the turtle.” As if to confirm the claim, the turtle let out another one of those awful grating cries.

“Let’s cannonball him!” Coach suggested. “Blow him up to kingdom come!”

“No way,” Frank disagreed immediately. He was also on his feet and squinting up at the top of the cliff with one hand held up to shield his eyes from the sun. “I can see him from here, and there’s no way we could get the cannons or catapults to shoot straight up like that.”

“But, I mean, you can totally break the laws of physics and shoot him with your bow, right?” Percy asked, his tone hopeful, but Frank just shook his head. “Damn.”

Hazel took a deep breath and got to her feet as well. “I’ll go.” Gale chittered with delight and scampered up a nearby pole so she could leap onto Hazel’s shoulder. Hazel wished that was more encouraging than it was.

Annabeth didn’t look nearly so impressed. “I don’t make deals with terrorists,” she said firmly, crossing her arms. “Who’s to say we can even trust this person?”

“I’m not saying we should trust them, but we don’t really have a choice but to play along,” Hazel pointed out. “Besides, if I go up there, I can just… give them all the gold they can carry and we can leave.”

“Not bargaining with a terrorist, just buying one,” Percy added helpfully.

Annabeth’s face was still puckered in displeasure, but she relented. “Fine. But you need to take someone with you. I’d rather it be two but well–” She waved the note around to prove her point.

Hazel nodded in agreement. “Okay, I can take Frank then.”

Annabeth shook her head, eyeing the stairs suspiciously. “No, you should take Jason. You guys can’t fly, but this isn’t going to be a fun climb. If you fall, you should have someone who can catch you.”

Jason, who had stiffened at the sound of his name, looked almost sick at the mention of catching her, but he still gave Hazel a serious nod. “I won’t let you fall.”

Hazel swallowed back bile. “Great.”

“I’m going to need a weapon first,” Jason added. He scowled death at Hedge. “Thanks to someone, I lost mine.”

Hazel didn’t think, she just held out her hand and within seconds Jason’s familiar magic gold coin was sitting in her palm. She frowned slightly at the sight, considering she hadn’t felt the normal tug in the back of her mind she got when she used her powers, but she handed it over to Jason. “Here you go.”

Jason’s eyes widened, and he looked her over, clearly impressed. “Thanks.”

“That had to have been almost half a mile,” Annabeth gaped, and everyone else looked just as shocked.

Percy was the only one who wasn’t surprised, he just gave her a proud nod. “Like in Alaska. Nice.” He clapped a hand down on her shoulder. “You’ve got this, Hazel.”

She smiled weakly, and she wished she could believe him.

*-*-*

Hazel didn’t want to be climbing this mountain with Jason, wind powers or no. She would have much rather had Frank as her backup. She would have also gladly accepted Percy or Nico. To be honest, even Coach Hedge would have been preferable to Jason.

It wasn’t so much that Hazel didn’t trust Jason could catch her. In theory, that is. Jason was strong and capable and always tried to keep his friends safe. He just… scared her, in a way. Other than Nico, Jason had been her very first friend, even before she’d met Frank. He’d been her Centurion and even when others would whisper behind her back, Jason saw her just as she was and treated her with the same kindness and respect that he showed everyone. She’d honestly been thrilled when she’d seen Jason Grace step off the Argo II back in New Rome, but then Piper and Leo had jumped out after him, and Hazel realized immediately that the Jason Grace standing before her was not the boy she’d called Praetor.

Then Rome happened, Piper and Leo fell, and Jason changed to yet another version of himself. He was no longer the Jason she’d started this quest with, but he wasn’t the Jason from before, either. This Jason was cold and stormy and so very angry all the time. He rarely spoke, even more rarely rested, and Hazel had yet to see him smile. This Jason only cared about getting to Epirus to rescue Piper and Leo, and Hazel wasn’t sure what he’d do if he decided that saving her wasn’t helpful for getting him there. She was a little scared to find out.

That theory was tested about halfway up the cliff. They’d been walking in complete and utter silence, save for Gale’s excited chittering, when Hazel had stepped on a particularly slippery spot and her foot had slid right out from under her. She had a split second to bitterly think about Venice and how her stupid habit of tripping on rocks was going to ruin her mission again when Jason’s hand flew out and landed directly between her shoulder blades, steadying her. She felt her breath hitch in her throat. Jason had caught her so fast. Not a moment of hesitation or even thought. He just steadied her like it was second nature. “Th-Thanks.”

“Be careful,” Jason responded, his tone even and quiet, but nothing like a reprimand. Gale squeaked something back at him, and Hazel could almost hear Jason’s brow furrow. “Why did you bring your weasel?”

“She’s a polecat, not a weasle” Hazel corrected before Gale could throw another taxonomy tantrum. “She’s the one who’s teaching me magic, and apparently this is some kind of test.”

Jason hummed in thought. “Are you going to pass?”

Hazel’s gut instinct told her to lie to Jason just like she’d been lying to everyone except herself. She wanted to say that of course she was going to pass. She was nailing this whole Mist manipulation like it was child’s play, this was going to be a walk in the park. But at the same time, she was tired. She was so tired of forcing that smile and shoving falsehoods from between gritted teeth. She came to a stop and clenched her fists. “No. I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail in a pretty spectacular fashion. Sorry you got dragged into the mess with me.”

“I’d rather be dragged into a mess than know you had to face it by yourself,” Jason said automatically, and the response sounded practiced but no less genuine. “What’s going wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Hazel admitted. Hot, humiliating tears stung in the corners of her eyes, and she reached up with one hand to scrub them away before they could fall. “Gale just keeps telling me all this conflicting information, and she’s mean, and I can’t even figure out what it is I need to fix, much less how to fix it.”

She kind of expected silence from Jason in the face of her little tantrum. Maybe a cleared throat and an awkward topic change, if she was lucky. Instead, Jason hummed sympathetically and brushed the back of his knuckles against her wrist. “I get it.”

Hazel turned around so she could face him and blinked. “You-You do?”

Jason nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t personally have any experience, but back when we were still at Camp, Piper–” He cut himself off with a grimace, and Hazel resisted the urge to grab his hand. He took in a short, sharp breath and began again. “Back at Camp, Piper had to learn how to properly learn how to use her Charmspeak, and the only one who could teach her was her sister, Drew. Learning from Drew probably wasn’t any easier than learning from a we–” Gale growled and Jason corrected himself– “polecat. In fact, she might have been worse. There were a few months there where Piper was convinced she’d never understand anything.”

Hazel stared at him. She thought back to all the times she’d seen Piper use Charmspeak and how it seemed to flow from her lips effortlessly. The idea that she’d ever struggled with it the same way Hazel struggled with the Mist was mind boggling in a way. “How’d she figure it out?”

“Well, Drew basically told her that imposing her will on other people wasn’t going to work. When you completely try to overwrite something like that, you have to unmake their mind and then remake it,” Jason explained. “She said it’s always easier if you can just mold what’s already there to get them to do what you want.”

Hazel’s heart froze in her chest and for possibly the first time ever, Gale was completely silent. “H-How do you do that?”

Jason shrugged casually. “You tell them what they want to hear.”

With those simple words, the world spun around Hazel and her knees buckled.

*-*-*

Hazel was six years old sitting and coloring quietly in a corner while her mom conducted her business. The man across the table from her was young, with soft brown hair and sparkling green eyes. He was a sailor, stateside for the first time in months, but not home, and he wanted to know if the girl he’d left behind had stayed loyal. Her mother just hummed softly and kicked a little trap door to let thick, perfumed smoke slowly fill the room. She asked him to describe the girl he loved so much and let him wax poetic while she looked deep into the big crystal ball she’d picked up that weekend. When he was done, he looked up at her with wide desperate puppy dog eyes and she just smiled.

“I have seen beyond the Mist, my child,” she said in that soothing, hypnotic voice she always used when she was fortune telling. “Your love for this girl is true, and true to your love she will stay. Fear betrayal only if you betray her first with doubt.”

He beamed at her like all of his dreams were coming true at once before he placed a few bills on her table and shook her hand. “Thank you, Queen Marie. I will be loyal and I’ll trust her. I love her so much and she loves me, too.”

Hazel’s mom gave him a warm indulgent smile as she slipped the bills into her pocket. “That is good to hear. my child. Take your vows and hold them close to your heart.”

“Vows…” His eyes suddenly went wide and shiny. “I’m gonna get married?” Hazel’s mom only answered by arching her eyebrow, which was apparently more than enough for him because he leapt to his feet, practically dancing with excitement. “I’m gonna get married!” He shook her hand again, then frowned at the empty table in confusion before pulling out his wallet. “Thank you so, so much. How much do I owe you? Is this enough?”

Hazel’s mom graciously took the money. “My child, your joy is payment in and of itself.”

The sailor beamed at her before turning to leave. From the street, Hazel heard his victorious voice ringing back up to her ears, “Fellas! I’m gonna marry my girl!”

Once things were quiet and Hazel’s mom was just sitting there counting the money she’d made that day, Hazel quietly approached. “Mama?”

Her mom glanced up and smiled at her before returning to her money. “Yes, my jewel?”

“How come you lie to all those people?”

That made her mom pause. She sat the money down and gave Hazel a curious look. “Now what makes you think I’m lying to them?”

Hazel didn’t know how to tell her mom that she could just tell. She didn’t think that her mom would understand that sometimes when she was telling fortunes, Hazel could see little clouds curling past her lips. When she was doing a proper reading with her tarot deck, the clouds were thin and silvery whisps, but when she pulled out things like a giant ball of glass from the flea market, the clouds were a dark gray that billowed out and fell to the floor like smoke. Instead, she just shrugged. “Your voice sounds funny when you fib.”

Her mom looked shocked for a moment then she laughed and held out her arms for Hazel to climb into her lap. “Aren’t you a clever little thing, my jewel? Nothing gets past you, hmm?”

Hazel climbed up so her mom could hold her close. She fiddled with one of the cheap pendants around her mom’s neck. “Mama, I thought lying was bad.”

Her mom hummed softly in thought as she rocked them back and forth. “I don’t like to think of it as lying,” she said finally. “People don’t go to a fortune teller if they want to hear the real truth. So, I tell them the truths that they want to hear.”

“But they’re not true,” Hazel protested. “That’s not how lying works.”

Her mom’s eyes glittered and she smiled conspiratorially. “Maybe they’re not true. Or maybe they’re not true yet. Maybe someone needs to be shown the truth they want, and they can make that truth real, just by believing it’s true. Maybe that’s the real secret.”

*-*-*

When Hazel came to, Jason was holding her up, his eyes wide and wild and obviously terrified. “Hazel! You-You just–”

“Passed out?” she guessed, righting herself with a groan. She shook her head and smoothed down her skirt. “That just happens. Let’s keep moving.”

Jason looked like he wanted to protest, but Hazel had already resumed her climb, so he was forced to follow after her. Around her neck, Gale made a quiet noise. Have a productive nap, did we?

Wouldn’t you like to know? Hazel shot back, and she got the feeling that for the first time ever, Gale actually heard her silent retort. The world around her felt different. Hazy, almost, but brighter and more clear than ever before. She felt like everything was just humming with potential, ready and eager to be whatever she wanted, she just needed to ask correctly. She squared her jaw and kept climbing, refusing to allow herself to be distracted.

She had a test to take.

*-*-*

By the time they got to the summit, their host was impatiently tapping his toes and scowling at them over the bandana that covered the lower half of his face. “Took the two of you long enough! Now–” he raised a pair of flintlock pistols, one aimed at Hazel and Jason both– “stand and deliver!”

Jason growled at him, the sound low and menacing and coming deep from his throat. “Why should we?”

Sparkly green eyes narrowed dangerously at him and one of his pistols slowly cocked itself. “I think I might be able to find a reason that will get through that thick skull of yours.”

“What he means,” Hazel interrupted, “is that we ought to have introductions first. My name’s Hazel, daughter of Pluto, and this is Jason, son of Jupiter.”

The bandit considered her carefully before holstering his guns. “Alright then, Hazel, daughter of Pluto. The name’s Sciron, son of Poseidon.” She gave him her most winning smile and his eyes crinkled and sparkled in a way that was almost familiar for just a moment, then he shook his head and leveled a pistol at her. “Nevermind all that though! I told you two to bring your valuables! I don’t see anything even remotely shiny, so I’m guessing you two are offering your life in exchange?”

“No, no, we’ll get you your valuables!” Hazel promised. “But first, how do we know you’ll let us go free afterwards?”

“They always ask that. Why do they always ask that?” Sciron complained, and Hazel got the feeling he was talking to his gun. “Do we not seem trustworthy?”

“Well, you did corner us into an ambush with a giant turtle, then threatened us at gunpoint.”

Sciron paused, like he hadn’t considered that before, then waved his free hand dismissively through the air. “Nevermind that! I swear on the River Styx that as soon as I have what I want, I will send you right back down that mountain, no shooting involved.”

Thunder rolled in the distance, but even with that insurance, Hazel still had her doubts. Jason spoke first though. “We could just kill you instead,” he offered, his voice chillingly even. “It’s not like you can fight us and hold the ship captive at once.”

Hazel had the briefest moment of hope before it was dashed with a BANG! BANG!

Sciron had both of his guns out again, one pointed straight at Jason’s face and the other pointed down at the Argo II . Jason hadn’t flinched, but he did bare his teeth in a snarl, and he now had a smoking groove cut through his hair. Sciron’s eyes were squinted up and shining in obvious delight. “Better be careful about assuming what people can and can’t do, cousin.”

“Wh-What did you do?” Hazel stammered.

“Well, I gave your friend here a fetching new haircut,” Sciron explained, gesturing at Jason, “and I gave the messy-haired fellow down on the ship one to match.”

“Percy!”

“Seems like as good a name as any for him,” Sciron shrugged. He twirled his pistols and holstered them again with a flourish, but Hazel knew better than to think him unarmed. She also suspected that his guns had magically reloaded themselves. “That was, of course, just a demonstration. Either one of those shots can be a little closer to center next time, if I want them to be.”

“Percy’s a son of Poseidon, too, you know,” Hazel ventured.

“I had assumed as much, seeing what he did to my poor turtle,” Sciron said sourly. “I can’t help but notice that our dear father didn’t gift him a turtle. I think it’s pretty obvious who the favorite is.”

Hazel quietly agreed that it was obvious, but she likely didn’t have the same answer as Sciron. “Well, if you’re in Poseidon’s good graces, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be helping the gods?”

“Now, now, I didn’t say anything about me being in his current good graces,” he dismissed. “I died and did my father bring me back? No, of course not. Gaea did, and she told me I could terrorize the coastline and rob demigods to my heart’s content, and that’s exactly what I plan to do!” He whipped out his gun one more time and pointed it directly at Jason, who just bared his teeth again. “Now, I’m gonna say this one last time, and I will not repeat myself: Stand and deliver.”

Hazel didn’t blink. She didn’t have to try and summon the precious metals from the Earth; her nerves were so shot that it had taken considerable concentration to not summon them. In an instant, she was up to her knees in precious metals and gems and coins from just about every time period she could think of: Greek drachmas and Roman denarii and Lydian staters mixed together with raw chunks of gold and silver and crystals the size of her fist.

Sciron was obviously delighted. “Now, that is a neat trick, cousin! Why, you’re a bandit in your own right, robbing the very earth itself like that! You sure you want to stick with this lot? I’m sure the two of us would make a fine team.”

Hazel didn’t have an answer for him, and even if she did, she didn’t want to give him one. “Just-Just take it and let us go. Please. You have what you want.”

Sciron was sorting through the treasure with delight. “Well, now, normally I’d be more than happy to finish up with the two of you, but I’m afraid I’m under orders. If you’ll remember my invitation, I said to bring all your valuables, and I happen to know you’re toting around a very nice statue.”

“You can’t have the statue,” Jason growled. “Non-negotiable.”

Sciron looked up, seemingly startled. “Why I don’t want it, of course. Much too bulky to be carrying around if I want to rob people. I suppose I could mount it to my turtle, but he wouldn’t like it very much. No, my patron is the one who wants it, and, well, I do owe her a bit of a favor, don’t I?”

“Gaea’s lying to you,” Hazel said seriously. “She told you that you can rob the coast forever? How, exactly, do you plan to do that when the world is destroyed?”

Sciron froze. He flicked his gaze over to Hazel. “I beg your pardon?”

“Gaea’s plan involves destroying the gods and everything they’ve built,” she told him. “And that includes everywhere you could even think about spending all your precious gold. Assuming you survive, that is.”

Hazel could hardly hear the blood rushing in her ears over the sound of her bated breath as Sciron considered her words. He was still in silent contemplation for what felt like an eternity before he looked up at them with a wide smile. “Good news, you two! I’ve decided I don’t have much use for that statue after all. I mean, how would you even get it up the cliff? No, no. Better to just cut my losses and not get caught up on one little thing.”

Hazel’s knees went weak in relief. “S-So, we can go?”

“Ah, ah, ah! Not so fast!” Sciron chided. “Before you go, I demand a show of respect. Wash my feet.”

“Your… feet?”

“Of course! It’s tradition, after all.” Before Hazel could say another word, Sciron yanked off his boots, one right after the other, then sat down on a rock near the cliff edge so he could gleefully kick his feet through the air. Hazel would admit that she always found the sight of bare feet unappealing, but the things attached to Sciron’s ankles were beyond anything she’d seen before. They were pasty white and wrinkly and swollen and each furry toe was grotesquely misshapen and sporting a crusty yellow toenail. Sciron looked very proud of himself. “Ta-da!”

Hazel was about to say something, but then the smell hit her and she had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from being sick. Even Gale made a retching sound from her spot on Hazel’s shoulder before hiding herself in the safety of Hazel’s tee-shirt.

“Now, normally, I have one person do both feet, but since there’s two of you and we’re family, I’ll go easy on you,” Sciron promised. “One each. One cleans the left and the other cleans the right.”

Jason was practically shaking with fury. “If you think for even a second we’re going to–”

Click.

Hazel froze as Sciron’s pistol cocked itself again, aimed directly at Jason’s head. Sciron’s eyes glittered with delight and malice in equal measure. “Oh, I’m gonna think it for more than just a second. I can promise you that.”

Hazel swallowed down a yelp. “Y-You promise you’ll let us go?”

Sciron turned his attention back to her. “Of course! You wash my feet, and our business is done. I’ll send you right back down the cliff, I swear on the River Styx.”

Thunder rolled again, and Hazel felt time stop around her. He’d made that oath like it was nothing, like it was a vow he could keep without a second thought. It probably was. He’d probably made that exact promise a thousand times over to each and every one of his victims. He kept his promise to each and every one of them, and they’d been blind to his trick until it was too late. He never said that he’d let them go, his victims just heard that because that’s what they wanted to hear.

Jason let out an agitated huff, but stepped forward to do his part. Hazel whipped out a hand to stop him in his tracks. “Wait! Give us a moment! Please!”

Sciron arched an eyebrow at her. “Give you a moment? For what? Would you like to soak in the aroma?”

Hazel fought the urge to gag. “No, we just need to discuss, uh, who’s getting what foot. It’s a very big decision. I mean, cleaning your right foot? What an honor.”

Sciron’s other eyebrow shot up to meet its twin, but he shrugged. “Very well. Take your minute then, cousins. In fact, take two.”

Hazel scrambled forward and dragged Jason along, tugging him back down the staircase until she was hopefully out of earshot.

Jason scowled at her, clearly not pleased that they were being delayed. “What? I don’t care who cleans what foot–”

“Sciron’s going to kick us off the cliff,” she interrupted. “That’s how he gets his victims. When they kneel to wash his feet, they get overwhelmed with the smell, then he kicks them over backwards.”

Jason considered that for only a second. “Then we kill him.”

“We can’t, he’s already proven that,” she reminded him. “Anything we try to do to counter him head-on will just end with us dead and him playing carnival games with the Argo II.”

Jason’s scowl deepened. “Well, then, I hope you’ve got an idea.”

Gale’s head popped up out of her shirt again, and she made her excited chittering noise. Hazel took a deep breath. She did have an idea. She knew what she needed to do. She just had to believe she could do it.

The dead see what they believe they will see. So do the living.

Maybe someone needs to be told the truth they want to hear, and they can make it real, just by believing it.

“I do have a plan. But I need you to believe in me.”

*-*-*

When they got back up to the summit, it was clear that Sciron was tired of playing games.

“You two don’t have any manners,” he complained. “I was kind enough to give you two whole minutes, and you took advantage of my generosity. Shame on you.”

“Our apologies,” Jason gritted out, glaring death at the bandit. “It was just so hard to decide who got to wash which foot.”

Jason was by no means a good actor, but it didn’t matter because his script was exactly what Sciron wanted to hear, and he beamed. “Fantastic! You first, then?”

Jason nodded, and with a flourish, Sciron pulled out one of his pistols and spun it around his finger. The air around it seemed to shimmer, and its form flickered. For one moment, the weapon held the form of endless potential. It was a gun, a handheld crossbow, a coil of weathered rope, a scroll, a remote control, and, irritatingly, a banana split sundae. It was anything and everything in that one single instant while Hazel waited to see what it could be.

When it settled, it was simply a cloth and a spray bottle that had Fabuloso written on it in bubbly blue letters with a rainbow. Jason took the bottle looking baffled. “You want me to wash your feet with kitchen cleaner?”

“It’s a multi-purpose cleaner,” Sciron corrected. “Trust me, it takes a lot more than water to cut through this crud, so you’ll need it. It also promises long-lasting freshness and it smells like peaches.”

“How… creative,” Jason said sourly. He stepped forward and knelt before Sciron. His back was to the ocean and while his stance was steady, he wobbled, likely a little dizzy from the smell. He didn’t flinch, but Hazel could see the way his eyes watered, and when he tried breathing through his mouth, he visibly gagged. Still he raised the bottle and began to clean. The air was filled with a scent that was highly chemical and only vaguely peach, but Sciron made no sudden moves, and Hazel found herself praying that she’d been wrong about this whole thing.

When the foot was almost clean, Sciron suddenly spoke, his smug grin audible in his voice. “Humility looks good on you, cousin. But you know what? I bet terror looks even better on you both.”

Then, with one smooth movement, he reared back and planted both feet on Jason’s shoulders and kicked him off the cliff.

Jason’s eyes went wide in shock as he arced backwards through the air, too stunned to even think about flying. Hazel screamed in horror, and she could hear the answering cries from the remaining crew of the Argo II down below, desperately pleading for Jason to save himself. He never got the chance, though, because the giant turtle surged forward and SNAP! swallowed him whole.

Sciron turned to look at Hazel, looking smug and victorious. “Oops.”

“Wh-What did you do?” she sobbed. “You promised you’d let us go! You swore on the Styx!”

“Did I? I don’t remember anything like that,” Sciron questioned. “If you’ll recall, I said I’d send you two down the mountain as soon as you washed my feet. Jason was most certainly sent right down that mountain.”

“You’re a monster,” Hazel accused through her tears.

If anything, Sciron just looked more delighted and lifted his other foot to wiggle his toes at her. “I may be a monster, but I intend to be a monster with clean feet. Now hop to.”

“Y-You can’t expect me to do that!” she stammered. “I just watched you kill Jason.”

He lifted his pistol at her, looking very smug indeed. “Well, if you don’t do it, I can always go back to plan A and shoot you. If you’re a good girl and do as you’re told, I might just let you go. You get to decide your fate.”

Hazel forced her lip to wobble pathetically. “You promise not to kick me?”

His smile was wicked. “One way to find out.”

She did as she was told and knelt at his feet. She told herself that she couldn’t smell anything, that she was focusing too hard to be distracted by something like stinky feet, and it actually worked. Just like it’s supposed to, she reminded herself. She made sure to keep making sad little sniffling noises as she worked, slowly shifting her weight every now and then.

She was apparently taking too long because after a bit of shuffling, Sciron scowled down at her. “Well, you sure are taking your time about this, aren’t you?”

She looked up at him with sad, wet eyes. “I-I’m sorry!” she yelped “I just- I was hoping that if I did a really good job, you’d let me go. I’ll hurry up.”

She shifted one last time and got to work, quicker now, and she noted that he seemed satisfied with her answer. Of course he was. As far as he was concerned, she was nothing but a pitiful little girl, kneeling at a cliff’s edge, ready to be kicked over, just like her friend. He was seeing exactly what he wanted to see.

Within minutes, Hazel had finished her grotesque task, and she looked up at her tormentor, hope shining from her every feature. “Th-There. I’m done. Will you please let me go?”

Sciron lifted his foot and let out a low, impressed whistle. “Well, I’ll be. You really did want your freedom, huh?” Still though, he planted his now clean foot on her shoulder and gave her a smirk. “Unfortunately, wanting simply isn’t enough.”

He shoved, and Hazel casually let herself fall onto her butt a few feet away from him.

Sciron blinked at her, clearly baffled, and now it was her turn to grin. The world around them spun and suddenly Hazel was the one inland, and Sciron was sitting with his back to the ocean. She clucked her tongue in mock sympathy. “You really should learn to keep your promises. Jason kinda holds a grudge.”

Sciron whipped his head around to see Jason hovering behind him, his trusty sword in hand and teeth bared menacingly. Sciron’s eyes widened in horror. “Wait! What did you–”

He never got a chance to finish as Jason’s sword plunged deep into his chest, and he crumbled to dirt. Below them, the turtle let out one final, cut-off shriek.

With the threat gone, Jason tossed his sword in the air and caught it again in its coin form. He walked over to where Hazel was sitting and offered her a hand. “You did it,” he said simply, stating it like it was a remarkably unsurprising fact, like the sun set in the west.

Hazel took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “I did,” she replied in the same matter-of-fact tone. She saw the corners of his mouth twitch.

You did well, Gale squeaked. She was sitting up on her hind legs a few feet away, radiating pride. As I knew you would.

Hazel wanted to complain and say that Gale was no help at all in her discovery, but that wasn’t fair or true. Instead, she offered her hand for her mentor to scurry up her arm to perch on her shoulder. “Thank you, Gale.”

Then the world spun again, and her knees buckled. Jason was frozen in place, Gale was still and silent, and everything was gray. Her heart hammered in her chest. She must have done something wrong. She somehow overdid it with the Mist illusion, or she’d–

“Fear not, you have done no wrong.”

She blinked in shock. She knew that voice. It was deep and dark and quiet as darkness itself. She’d only heard it once, but it had been playing on loop in her head for better than a week now. She looked up from the gravel she was kneeling in. “Dad?”

Pluto was standing before her, dressed in robes as dark as death and lined with the crimson of blood. He looked at her curiously for a moment, then a small smile played across his lips. He looked oddly satisfied, like a project he’d been working on had finally come together. “Rise, my daughter. You have grown strong.”

Suddenly, Hazel felt angry. Her father had ignored her, ignored her mother, left them alone to deal with Hazel’s stupid curse she got from him, and now that she was finally doing something, doing something amazing, all by herself, he wanted to show up and play pretend like he’d done anything to be proud of? She forced herself upright and spat her next words at his feet. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you major gods supposed to be incapacitated? That’s why we’ve been stuck cleaning up your mess.”

“You invoked me,” he said simply, ignoring her pointed jab. “You called upon me so strongly that it unified my two sides and allowed me to appear before you, if only temporarily.”

Hazel wanted to snap and say that she’d done no such thing, but she knew that wasn’t true. She hadn’t really meant to bring Pluto to stand before her, but she had reached out to him. She’d embraced his words to her, grappled with his powers, and lived up to her title as the Risen Child of Pluto. She clenched her fists and looked away from him.

Pluto seemed to understand, because he simply sighed and moved on. “You have done well today, but when you come to my house, there will be a foe waiting for you, and she will not be so easily tricked as a fool-hardy bandit.”

“The woman Hecate warned me about?”

He nodded. “Pacifaë. She intends to her restore domain, which will endanger all demigods. If you do not stop her at the House of Hades–”

Suddenly, his form flickered, and for an instant his robes turned into a sharp pinstriped suit and a golden laurel wreathed his head. Around him, the earth erupted, just like it did when Hazel summoned gems, but instead skeletal hands grasped desperately at the freedom offered by the sky.

Pluto scowled, and his form solidified back to his robes and the hands crumbled to dust. He looked at Hazel, and she could see the pain in his eyes. “Our time is short. I am here to warn you, Hazel Lavesque. You will go to the House of Hades, and at the lowest level you will find the Doors of Death. Guarding it will be Pacifaë, and you will need to best her. You have unlocked the secret of the Mist, but it will not be easy. Once you are in the maze, you will be in her domain, and molding her will will be no easy feat.”

Hazel’s brow furrowed. “The maze? What–”

“There is no time,” Pluto interrupted. “We will meet again, my daughter. Until then, know I am proud of you. You are strong, you are capable, and you are every inch the hero everyone sees you as. I am sorry I was unable to play a bigger role in helping you become that hero.”

Hazel felt tears sting in her eyes. Pluto lifted his hand, and she knew he was about to vanish. “Wait!”

He paused, and looked at her curiously again. “Yes?”

“Why are you letting me go?” she asked. “When I met Thanatos, he said that I wasn’t on his list of escaped souls like I’m supposed to be. He said that maybe that was why you weren’t acknowledging me, and that if you did, you’d have to take me back. Why aren’t you taking me to the Underworld?”

“Is that the future you want to see?”

She reared back. “I– Well, no.”

He smiled at her then, his eyes glittering like gemstones. His form began to fade, like an invisible cloud of fog was slowly engulfing him. “Perhaps that is also not what I want to see, Hazel. Perhaps I was never here at all.”

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