I drifted, flitting from dream to dream through the nights.
Rarely was it something I knew or could remember.
Fragments of shadows and sky, conflict rising, a figure holding up something great and powerful, gold eyes, bird cries, the land asleep.
One night I dreamed of a woman cradling a child who had eyes like hot coals, hair like obsidian, golden-tan skin.
The woman reminded me strikingly of Zeus for some reason.
She smiled at the child and smiled again when the gold-eyed Titan (Kronos-tito, my grandfather) leaned over, smiling down at the child.
Was that Hestia? She looked similar even now.
I blinked, and another night saw a figure of dripping shadows, winged darkness tucked close with shining light and rising sun drifting near.
Words that I didn't understand, spoken in tongues older than the sun, and dripping shadows curled around the light.
It didn't snuff them out, simply cradled.
Another night I stared as oceans raged and lashed out and crashed and I was swept away by the currents.
A presence so old and deep and aching.
Subtle creeping drifted through it, something older, quieter, ancient and deep and powerful and angry .
I gasped awake and feared the comfortable currents that had always guarded me.
The dreams kept on, curling through my mind as I slept.
I stood in a group of beings, old, powerful, glowing, immense in all ways.
My necklace guarded me in part, but it was barely a blanket in a snowstorm. The thinnest of barriers.
Gold eyes looked out, landing on me as if He could see through the thousands of years that separated us.
The child was cradled in the woman's arms, small and delicate and treasured.
Dripping shadows leaned to shifting sands and brilliant light greeted the child, Hestia, warmth and home and light.
I was dazed and awed and surrounded by power .
I looked back to gold-eyes, Kronos, shifting sands and blinked as the shifting shifted.
Brilliant light stood by Him, speaking as His sands shifted more and more.
His gaze tightened, His eyes drifting away, landing on the child and He tensed.
The sky crashed, light flashed, the child was introduced, and He acknowledged Her.
Hestia, named on the seventh day of Her birth.
Hestia, smiling up at Her father who had smiled down at Her moments before.
Hestia, whose light was devoured by the shifting sands that shifted wrong.
I stared as the shifting sands shifted wrong and Tethys reached for Him.
Help Him.
He left Them.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
I carefully set up the Bunsen burner and the beaker before I sat back and watched Tyson who was placing the other ingredients together.
I made notes on what we were doing as Tyson added the liquids.
"Did you guys at 2ml or 2.5ml?" Klara whispered from behind us.
"Uh, of the red one?" I asked.
Tyson squinted at the label on the bottle, too complicated.
"Yeah."
"2.5ml," I said. "And then 5 ml of the blue one."
"How'd you get that measurement?" She wondered while studying the instructions.
"We used the equation on the board," I said. "To get the minimum that we needed. You add the-"
"Oooh, so you had to add that… oops… I subtracted."
I laughed, "Good thing you caught it-"
A boom made me jump out of my seat, and I spun around to find the Beaker shattered and… the bench was on fire.
"Avero!" I cursed, reaching for my shimmery white water bottle from the Lotus Hotel.
A light twist of my fingers and the water covered the fire.
And didn't help at all.
Areo, it was an oil fire.
"Stay calm!" The teacher called rushing over. "No need to panic!"
She dropped the fire blanket on top of the fire and ushered us back.
"What did you do?" She asked with a frown.
"Er… followed the instructions?" I offered.
She stared, glancing back at the remains of the beaker.
"Riigghhhtt…"
"Wow," Klara said. "Maybe I should double check your math."
I flushed as she giggled.
Matt sat dead quiet next to her (he'd been strangely quiet for the last few weeks).
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
I sat with Kymopoleia on the little island in the middle of the ocean. I didn't know where exactly we were but it was nice.
Kymopoleia has taken to bringing me here to practice with the storm guide to try and twist the winds.
I hadn't had much luck yet. It'd been months since she started teaching me and I still wasn't twisting the winds right for the storm.
"Are you sure that this is something I can do?" I asked with a frown.
She took a bite of her banana, "Well sure it is. Or weren't you the one insisting you wanted to learn all the sea magics? And anyways, this is the hardest step, even I took a bit to get it down. The average is about two months to begin to see progress, but it's not unusual for it to take longer."
I chewed my lip, it had been about two months… so maybe I wasn't doing that bad?
I took a deep breath and focused on the top again. It had only done four turns at most so far, only barely starting a curl of wind.
I could do this.
I spun the top and pushed my power into the top, then scowled when it only did three turns.
"Why can't I get it to work? I'm putting my power in it like you said, and spinning it, so why-"
She hummed, leaning over, "Everyone has a different way of doing it, how you guide your power-"
I blinked slowly, guide… storm guide…
"Wait-"
She raised an eyebrow at me.
"It's more than just putting your power into the top?"
She blinked, once, twice, and she laughed.
"Oh, oh Pontus, that's the problem! I should've guessed, I suppose I wasn't very descriptive. Yeah, Perseus, you gotta guide the power to make the top spin. Everyone does it differently, but just shoving raw power in isn't enough."
Oh.
Oops.
I stared at the top in my hand with a frown.
"The biggest problem with this part is finding the way of guiding the storm that works for you," Kymopoleia said. "It takes work to find out how to guide your power."
I nodded distractedly while thinking hard. I tried to ignore the twist in my stomach.
I'd been so dumb for two months, wasted her time and looked like an idiot.
I needed to focus on this.
Controlling a storm required wind and water, but lightning was more fire and air and friction…
So, air, water, and fire were needed for a storm.
I needed to control multiple things simultaneously, like when I guided my ice attacks.
I chewed my lip, it didn't just need to spin, it needed to gather, and mix, and build up.
I slowly fed my power into the top and focused on spinning, building up, pulling in.
I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on the image of Kymopoleia's storm, that she'd shown me. And then I spun the top.
I opened my eyes, and gasped in delight as it spun, once, twice, three, four- eight! Eight times! But then it flopped once more, the small amount of wind and water dissipating.
"Yeah, now you're on the right track!" Kymopoleia cheered. "You have to make the wind and water mix though, not just both be pulled in."
I beamed, "I think I get it now, I just gotta figure out how to do it…"
She grinned, "You'll get it, just keep working at it."
I nodded, focusing back on the storm guide and carefully feeding my power into it, imagining it more like… threading out. Focusing it in a way that spreads and latches and whips it up while spinning. Like octopus legs!
I bit my lip as I focused on the image and rocked back on my heels. Then I spun the top.
I watched as it spun, silently counting the spins and barely daring to twitch as the top spun and spun and spun, 9 spins, 9 spins and wind and water blended into a mist.
It all dissipated as the top stopped though.
"Oh, whatever you did there is an excellent start," Kymopoleia said cheerfully. "You just gotta get better at that method I think."
I nodded, intently studying the top. Why did it stop spinning?
I needed to figure out what was wrong to fix it.
"I'll figure it out," I mumbled. "Not gonna waste another two months."
"You didn't waste two months," Kymopoleia chided. "You might not have figured out the way to guide your power, but you did learn how to keep a steady flow and continuously feed your power into the storm guide."
I peered up at her curiously, I guess I did learn that…
"It's definitely connected to you now, which means it'll work easier for you as time goes on."
I nodded slowly. I was definitely having an easier time feeding my power into it as time went on.
"Learning to make a steady flow and to keep going when low on energy takes a while usually," she grinned. "All of that is something that most figure out while figuring out the way to guide their power… you just split it into two steps is all."
"Oh… that makes sense I guess…"
"I'd give you a few weeks to figure this part out now, since you have the other parts down pretty well."
I straightened, a few weeks. I could do that.
I would do that.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
I swept the water in an arc, letting it flow over me and over the land before wringing all the pollution out of it.
I was getting better at this, bigger movements and fine control.
The water splashed back into the river and I paused to study what all had fallen out (now completely dry because I didn't want gross wet stuff). It was a large pile, I'd been working for a few hours to empty stuff from the river.
There were a few dollars there that I pocketed and ooh a watch.
It looked nice, did it work?
I poked it and decided it might work, at the least it looked high quality so maybe I could sell it.
Or maybe use it as a gift for one of my camp friends.
I grinned, it was so nice having camp friends, but now I had to keep up with birthdays.
They all got me nice stuff for mine, so I asked Drew to remind me of theirs. I now had the dates all marked on my calendar, and circled, with reminders for a week before.
There were a lot of birthdays in December for some reason, at least amongst the Aphrodite kids.
I decided to ask Drew if any of them would like a new watch, I only really knew a few of them well enough to guess.
I hummed and dug through the stuff some more, finding two wallets with almost six hundred dollars between them.
That was a lot of money!
There were also a few bracelets, the metal was all corroded though so I couldn't tell whether they were worth anything. I'd have to clean them.
A few sparkling stones caught my eye and I ended up collecting assorted rings too.
I added my spoils to my backpack and then sighed.
The hardest part was and always would be moving the trash someplace to dispose of it. Otherwise it would just sit on the banks and no one would move it and it would smell awful (not that the river didn't already).
I raised the water once more to gather all the trash up. I froze the water around it, my eyes narrowed as I used my hands to guide it to slide up the hill and out from under the cover of the underpass.
I dropped it casually in the same spot as usual, right by those big trash things that the big companies use.
Okay, that should be enough cleaning for the day.
I blinked when I saw a figure out of the corner of my eye, growth and warmth brushing plants, the first sensation I'd gotten out of camp or the sea since I'd received the necklace.
The woman, with dark brown skin and kinky black hair that was piled up into a puff, wore a deep green dress.
Her eyes were focused on me, dark and intense, before she was gone in a shimmer.
I blinked, who-
That had to have been an immortal…
Her presence… It reminded me of the Demeter cabin.
Was that-
But what did I do to grab Her attention?
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
Euphemia waited patiently as I finished scribbling down the notes on the different lunar dates of importance.
The full moon, with the celebrations I'd already done before, the blue moons, a much bigger celebration, and then the new moon, which was not a good date to do stuff.
"Now then, let's move on to the major holidays of the sea. All the different kingdoms have local holidays, but we'll only be focusing on the ocean wide holidays. First, Moon Fall."
"Moon Fall?" I wondered.
She nodded, "Moon Fall is immediately between the winter solstice, and the spring equinox. It is about honoring the long nights of the moon that passed and mourning the short passes of the moon to come."
"That's interesting," I mused. "On land they would celebrate the longer days."
"The moon is far more important than the sun," Euphemia said firmly. "But the land will speak of the sun all tide long. We honor the moon, for it is the guide of the sea, the sun simply warms the ocean waters."
I nodded, I understood that. For the ocean, the moon was vital. The sun was just extra, and a risk as it could dry mers out if they were on the surface too long.
"For Moon Fall we set out the ponisi pearls and the silver moon mirrors, and we lay out offerings for the moon during the time that the nights are short and the moon is less visible. This is also a time when many honor spirits, for the brighter days mean that the spirits are easier to limit."
I scribbled notes down. That was interesting, I wondered if there were other things to do with spirits.
"Next up is of course the spring equinox, when the moon and the sun are equal. This isn't of much importance in the sea beyond it being a time when the divine and the mortal are able to interact the easiest, but we still honor it by aiding coral growth and taking care of the plants and animals. There is usually a private family meal as well."
I hummed, that made sense. Meals were a big part of holidays in the ocean, almost all of the holidays I knew of had them. It was the same for holidays on land in a way.
"Next is Tempest Eve, when we begin to prepare for the storm season to come. Those in the shallower waters usually migrate to avoid any dangers, and many prepare foods in case the storms are extra rough. It is a time of preparation, and those that aid in making and soothing storms are working extra hard to prepare."
"So mers in the sea help make the storms?"
She nodded, "On occasion. Either to punish land-dwellers causing trouble in the sea, or to aid in the passage of animals. Sometimes even to keep massive storms from forming later, by interrupting the sequences needed for them to form."
"And then the ones who sooth the storms are lessening their effect?"
She smiled, "Indeed. If there are wars occurring in this time, though it has been many years since the last one, then the storm season would be the opening of the most devastating warfare."
I nodded, shifting at that. Storms could cause a lot of problems if unexpected, but those in the sea were usually good at predicting them. At the least there were specialists who could sense the storms. Kymopoleia was telling me about it.
"Now then, next up is the summer solstice."
"We do sun catchers and sundials at camp, along with flower gathering and stuff."
She nodded, "That is the tradition on land. In the sea we set out monisi pearls, and likewise set out sun catchers. Many use sea glass or assorted jewels or metals to make them. We also tend to have a meal. It isn't a major holiday, beyond the same divine and mortal balance and the meeting the Olympians have, but it is also treasured as the days begin to shorten and the moon gets more visibility once more."
I scribbled down those notes, doodling a little sun as she waited for me to finish. So there was the moon, the spring, the storms, then the summer. If the moon was when the moon was being less visible... then now the moon would be more visible so...
"Then what? Another one to do with the moon?"
Euphemia smiled, "It is indeed another one to do with the moon. Moon Rise, is a day honoring the lengthening of the night and thus the extended time that the moon is visible to shine on ocean waters. We have feasts and celebrate. Small gifts are commonly exchanged, and it is viewed as a time of strength and growth."
That was cool, I wish I got to celebrate Moon Rise with them.
"When is Moon Rise?"
"It is in Kalmav," she said. "You arrived in the sea from your camp in Mairomav, the next month."
I nodded as she continued.
"Next up is the Fall Equinox, which you celebrated with us already so I won't go into detail there. You know of the harvest and hunt, and the feast we have."
"Yeah, it was really nice."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it," she murmured. "After that, between the fall equinox and the winter solstice, is the Day of Passing. It is a day to be on guard, and a day of remembrance. The barriers between the living and the dead are weaker on this day, especially in the sea. It is a delicate balance between balance and the darkest night."
"I know the land-dwellers have a similar holiday," I said hesitantly. "I didn't realize that was in the sea too."
She nodded, "Yes, it is an important day. I call it a holiday, but it is more a time of vigil. Especially in the deep sea, where there are, on occasion, cracks that open to the darkest parts of the underworld, Tapohu grows strong on this day. Those of the deep guard the rest of the ocean from those that would seek to slip through those cracks."
I swallowed. Tapohu, the deep pit of the Undersea that went straight to the deepest most dangerous parts of the underworld, "Oh."
"But despite this threat," she continued. "It is also a day of remembrance. Many do family meals, and set aside a portion for any that have passed that drift on that day."
"Do they try to speak to them?"
"Not on that day," she said firmly. "You do not contact them then. You should only contact the dead if you must, or on days to celebrate with them. The dead will seek access to the world, but to greet them on the night when they have the most freedom… it is to open yourself to them and put you at risk of losing yourself."
I nodded quickly, "So don't contact the dead. Got it."
"They can be contacted," she corrected. "But it must be done carefully, and with planning. On the Day of Passing we guard our homes from them. Many kingdoms also have a day of honoring the dead and welcoming them to the world of the living, with limits of course."
I nodded, scribbling that down.
"Now then, there are only two more holidays left. The Winter Solstice, which is a time to eat with your family and celebrate the long night where the moon shines bright. It is for peace and comfort."
"On land we do Heliogenna as well, or at least that's what I learned at camp. It's a newer holiday apparently but the Khiron thinks it's best to adapt with the times and Lord D seems to like it."
"The Greeks have always shifted with the time periods, making new rituals and holidays isn't at all unusual. As long as the Gods are satisfied all is well."
I nodded, "For the solstice itself though... I've just been giving Triton gifts… was that bad?"
"Not at all," she assured. "Many families have their own traditions, and giving gifts isn't an uncommon one. It is the darkest night of the year, and thus celebrated by the sea."
I relaxed, "Oh, that's good. And I guess that makes sense."
She smiled before continuing to the last holiday, "Finally, there is the End of the Year. This celebration is three days long, the last three days of the year. It's time off from work for everyone, well, except the rulers. We clean everything during this time."
"Like spring cleaning on land?"
"I suppose," she agreed. "Cleaning, removing old things that will no longer be used, making donations, and reorganizing gardens is common at this time. Many grow more coral or add to their gardens. Quite a few travel to family."
I scribbled notes down, "That all makes sense."
"Additionally, these are the days that all are equal. From the highest king to the lowest shellfish. You grant aid to all that need it, and to be cruel or unreasonable during the days of the End of Year is looked down on. These days are for peace, to the point that feuds are set aside, and temporary peace will show even in the harshest of wars."
"Wait, the wars have a cease fire?"
Her lips twitched, "They do indeed. Many of the largest treaties were arranged during the End of Year. This time is for peace amongst all. To break that peace is a large taboo that thus far few have dared."
I nodded solemnly, "That's really cool. I wish we had that on land."
"Land-dwellers work differently," Euphemia said drily. "We cannot hope to understand them."
"So then what about the specific kingdom holidays?" I asked, flipping pages.
"We will start with the Atlantean holidays," she declared.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
I gasped for breath as the obnoxious beep went off again.
I hated the pacer test. So much.
I stumbled to a stop on the other side of the line, struggling to breathe.
Zoey was bent over beside me, struggling to draw air, and Acantha and Kai were already out. Klara was in by sheer force of will.
Nikola was doing really well though, calm deep breaths and standing straight.
It was unfair.
Beep
I groaned and took off once more, I would do at least sixty before giving in.
Tyson ran alongside me, not even looking winded.
That was Kyklopes genetics for you, amazing.
At least nowadays I wasn't tripping every five seconds, I'd only stumbled a few times during the test.
It was a huge improvement on the beginning of the year (though every time I returned from the sea I was clumsy for a few days).
I paused for breath once more, sharing a miserable look with Zoey. We were on number forty-eight.
Ugh.
Beep
I started running again.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
The full moon ceremony this time was much like the last time, though this time Triton had other responsibilities, so Herophile came with Fetu, Lagi, and I.
It was a lot of fun, we played word games and tried to sing the waves into shapes (or well, Fetu did, I just gave shape suggestions and hummed along).
Lagi quizzed me on anatomy and I failed horribly because I still had not read the books. I told him I was reading the land ones first, but I'd switch to the sea ones since that was where I'd be learning.
I had not read any land ones either.
There was a decent group of mer at the spot we'd gotten to this time, so there was a lot of trading our ponofa. I even got to meet some new mers who were happy to talk about Thermomancy.
All in all, it was a fun time, even if Triton wasn't there.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
I finally got around to reading the healing books and Pontus were they dry.
They had a lot of charts though, so at least there was that.
I learned a lot about the bones in the mer body, and how they were built. They weren't made of calcium apparently, unlike the human body.
And there are a lot of different kind of mer, some had different bone structures and their bones could be made differently. You had to be able to identify that information for intense treatment.
I frowned, mer bones were interesting, able to handle a lot more pressure than human bones. And mer muscles and lungs could handle larger rapid changes in pressure too.
Some didn't do well in deep water regardless, and some didn't do well in shallow water. Some did badly in light, some in dark. Some did well with rapid changes in pressure, to the point they could dive to the bottom of the ocean and come back up, and some couldn't even handle a hundred feet of sudden change.
It was all very interesting, I couldn't help but wonder where exactly I fell on that scale.
I didn't seem to have trouble with rapid changes in pressure…
Oh well, I'll ask Lagi some time.
Back to studying, ugh.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
Herophile studied the stuffed octopus on my bed (Lyta was adoring it and thought it was made in her likeness).
"What is that?" Herophile asked curiously.
I blinked, "An octopus?"
"No no, the- four letters, plushy-"
I thought for a second, "Soft?"
"Yes! Anyways, the soft thing… it looks kinda like an octopus? I guess? But what is it?"
"Oh, it's a stuffed animal."
She blinked at me, "You… stuff animals?"
"They're made out of cloth, and filled with cotton, they're soft. I got it from the aquarium when Zoey, Tyson, Nikola, and me went last weekend. It was for Nikola's birthday."
She nodded slowly, "Huh, I've never seen that before."
I watched her nudge the soft stuffed animal, a look of delighted curiosity on her face.
"One sec," I said as I hurried out of the room to dig through the hall closet.
I didn't have many stuffed animals as a kid, Gabe said they were childish and tended to get rid of them, but I did have one big lion plushy I'd gotten at a fair mom took me to. I yanked it out of the back of the closet and grinned.
"Herophile," I called coming back into my room. "Here you go."
Her eyes widened as she took the stuffed lion, "For me?"
I nodded, "It's a stuffed lion. I won it at the fair a few years ago."
I jolted when she wrapped her arms around me, and then relaxed.
"I love it!" she said, pulling back with a beaming smile. "Thank you, Perseus."
I grinned, "You're welcome."
"Why don't you have more of these?" She asked as she hugged the lion.
"They can be expensive," I said, shuffling. "And my old stepdad… well he didn't like them."
"I see," she said with a frown before she smiled at me brilliantly. "Well I like them."
I brightened, "I'm glad!"
"It's a shame we don't have something like this in the ocean… I should- three letters for make better-"
"Fix?"
"yeah, fix that… stuffed animals…"
She stared at the stuffed lion in her arms, a gleam in her eyes.
"Well, anyways, can you teach me to make those blue- blue- um… treat, seven letters-"
I paused to mentally count the letters, "The blue cookies I brought?"
"Yeah! The blue cookies."
I blinked, "You wanna learn how to make cookies?"
She nodded, "We don't make cookies in the ocean, but those were really good. I'd like to learn."
"I don't mind teaching you," I said, bouncing on my toes. "They're really fun to make! Mom taught me."
"Wonderful!" Herophile said cheerfully. "Let's bake cookies!"
I let her tug me to the kitchen with a smile.
Spending time with my immortal family was really nice. Kymopoleia was a lot of fun and taught me loads about storms. Triton was of course the best big brother ever. And Herophile was just super sweet and really nice to be around.
"You need to grab the flour," I said. "It's in the pantry there."
Herophile darted over, staring into the pantry.
I pulled out milk and eggs then grabbed the food dye and chocolate chips from the cabinet.
Grabbing the last few ingredients I turned around and blinked at Herophile still staring into the pantry.
"Did you find the flour?"
"I do not see any flowers," Herophile said primely.
I snickered, "Not flowers, flour, here."
I moved over to pull out the large tupperware container of flour, they were easier to use than bags so mom always dumped the flour in them.
"That's weird."
"Land-dwellers are weird in general," I said with a laugh. "But flour is important for a lot of foods."
"So what do we do next?"
I pulled out the bowls and spoons and whisk.
"We mix the ingredients!"
What followed next was a fabulous sequence of disasters, from the flour spilling everywhere to all the chocolate chips being dumped in the batter to accidentally making three times the amount we intended.
By the end we had flour everywhere, water all over the counter, and chocolate chips in our hair.
The cookies turned out fabulous though, even if they had far too many chocolate chips in them.
"We should make cookies again!" Herophile cheered as she ate three of them.
I snorted as I bit into a cookie but couldn't keep the smile from stretching across my lips, "Yeah, this was fun. We should do it again some time."
She beamed, "Can I take some cookies to the ocean to share?"
"Yeah, take like… most of them."
I gathered up a bunch of the cookies, "We made a few extra."
She snapped her fingers and the cookies vanished.
"I should get going, but today was a lot of fun, Perseus. I'll visit again!"
She hugged me, then scooped up her new stuffed lion and disappeared in a swirl of sunlight and sea-mist.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
I grinned as I admired Zoey's costume, "You look like an amazing, the best Katara I've seen."
Zoey posed, dressed up in Katara's dress with little blue streamers on her hands.
"Thank you, and I must say you're a stunning boy-Katara."
I grinned, "Why thank you."
Katara was the best character after all. I saw this really cool art of her as a guy, so now I was boy-Katara. The art called it genderbending.
"Percy!" Tyson called.
He was dressed up as a ghost, with a bloody sheet covering him.
…
I hoped that was fake blood.
"You both look very water-tribey," drawled the familiar voice of Nikola.
I turned around and laughed at the sight of him.
"That's an amazing Triton costume," Zoey snickered.
"Thank you," Nikola said. "Just a shame I can't actually control water, and there's no Ursula for me to fight."
I had to stifle a laugh at his costume, it looked very much like the Triton from the Little Mermaid movie.
"I think it's amazing," I said cheerfully.
"Are you supposed to be a merman?" Acantha wondered as she came over.
"I'm Triton."
Acantha stared blankly.
She was dressed up like a witch, one of the classic store-bought witch costumes.
Kai walked over, dressed like a zombie, "Did you say Triton?"
"The King of the Sea," Nikola said straight faced.
Kai stared blankly.
Zoey and I giggled off to the side as Klara joined the group.
"Nice merman costume," she said cheerfully, looking like a very impressive sea dragon.
"Thanks, I'm Triton."
She stared blankly.
Zoey started cackling, leaning against me.
"Have you- have you- you never seen the- the Little Mermaid?" she managed to get out between giggles.
"The what?" Klara asked.
"We need a movie night," Nikola said with a shake of his head. "This is a travesty."
"The worst," I agreed. "Next thing you're gonna say you haven't seen Avatar."
All three stared at me.
"Oh my Pontus, you haven't seen Avatar."
"Er…" Klara hesitated.
"We must fix that."
The bell rang, making all of us jump.
"Ah, after class," Zoey giggled. "We'll have a movie night later."
"Definitely," I agreed, walking with Tyson and Klara to Science.
OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO
Kai POV
I sighed as I watched Klara turn the harpies to dust.
There hadn't been many monster attacks, below average by my estimate, but that was likely influenced by both our presence and also the Kyklopes'.
I hummed, making a note about the threat level of the harpies, not high, and a reminder to add it to our next report to Triton.
"Kai, did you finish our homework?" Klara called as she finished off the last harpy.
"Almost," I said distractedly. "The science is, as usual, strange."
She dropped next to me, her sword shrinking into a coral hair pin that she tucked into her hair as she watched Acantha check for spoils. Feathers were always useful for spells, and harpy feathers could help with enchanting winds.
"Land-dwellers have the weirdest science," she grumbled. "They don't even have magic."
I snapped my notebook shut, sliding it away.
"Actually, I've done some research and found some magical communities. They call it witchcraft on land and there are a lot of different branches."
She blinked, "Oh, really?"
"Most mortals don't believe in it," I said with a shrug. "But it seems fairly accurate. The mortals usually use it in conjuncture with acting on their own, more using it to improve their luck, or protect themselves, or other similar magics. Nothing flashy."
"Huh, nice," she mused.
"They have still continued divination though," I said. "They use things called tarot cards for the most part. Rune stones, usually Norse, fire scrying, and other methods are also used, with Rune stones and tarot being the next most common."
She nodded, looking thoughtful.
"Well that's better than I thought."
Acantha joined us, "I found a good number of feathers and some claws! Harpy claws usually have lots of disease, right?"
I nodded, "Very unsanitary in general."
"Awesome! I'll sell them when we get back to the ocean."
"Normal split?" Klara asked.
"Yep!" Acantha said.
"Well, we've done good today. One more threat removed from Perseus-aia."
I nodded, smiling faintly.
We got very lucky being assigned such a high ranking mission. I was glad that we can protect the young prince. Triton-re'aia would hopefully be pleased.
After all, there was very little that Klara couldn't handle, and Klara and Acantha together were all but unstoppable.
Nothing would go wrong with us here to guard the prince.