Well, as everyone knows the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus fandom is one tight clan of fans clinging on to another for dear life and support through torturous months. So when Rick Riordan, at an event that promoted the Serpent’s Shadow, the last book in the amazing Kane Chronicles which focuses on Egyptian mythology, he slipped out a word or two about The Mark of Athena.
And of course it got put on link. The camera was a phone, the shots were shaky and the kid next to the make-do cameraphoneman was laughing and giggling even when RR wasn’t talking, but still I wanted to hug the child who did this for us.
It eventually got put to paper, even on this very club. But here’s my analysis of it- pretty darn late too.
Bold is what Annabeth says, not bold is what I say.
Until she met the exploding statue, Annabeth thought she was prepared for anything.
Terminus? Come on, I am pretty sure that if he can kill a friggin giant, Terminus can blow up at will. Plus this or that could happen. Such as-
a) Leo crashes the Argo II into the statues
b) Terminus explodes when he sees the Greek and/or their ship (the statue response to a panic attack at the total lack of organisation of the Greeks, or just their appearance in general)
And both of those things give bad stigma to the Greeks, thus making conflict, thus making it harder for them/more interesting for us.
She paced the deck of the Argo II, checking and double checking the ballistas to make sure they were locked in on. She confirmed that the white flag was flying from the mast. She reviewed the plan with the rest of the crew. And the back-up plan, and the back-up plan for the back-up plan.
So. Damn. Typically. Child. Of. Athena. Love it!
A lot of theorising has been going on about the PoV of this book. All seven half-bloods? Seems a little much. All the Greeks? Not sure. A book just about Annabeth? That would be interesting, but in this series so many things happen at once and so much clueing-in and flashbacking has to be done that I’m not sure. Although now that our new heroes are established pretty well, who knows.
Most importantly, she pulled aside their war crazed chaperone, Gleeson Hedge, and encouraged him to take the morning off in his cabin watching reruns of a mixed martial arts championship. The last thing they needed, flying a Greek trireme into a potentially hostile Roman camp, was a middle-aged satyr in gym clothes waving a club and yelling “DIE!”.
More Hedge? :D Oh my gosh, he will kill the Roman fauns.
Don: Yo, Greeks! You have any denarii?
Hedge: What is this? WHAT IS THIS? You call yourself a satyr!
Don: No, I call myself a faun, who the flip are you?
Hedge: Goat up, boy! This is not acceptable! *continue rant*
Everything seemed to be in order. Even that mysterious chill that she’d been feeling since the ship launched seemed to have dissipated. At least for now.
… Oh great. So, I have a couple of guesses for this.
1) Khione (hi Khione, long time no see, couldn’t we leave it at that? Gah.)
2) Which also means Gaia by default, which is gross and doesn’t go well with what Juno was saying about Annabeth being trouble
3) A wind god (Boreas, Aeolus, Eros, Notus, I’m not particularly picky just one. Perhaps a newbie!)
4) Wind DEMIgods (CAL! Is it strange to say that I miss Cal?)
5) Some kind of warning from Athena, or even Juno/Hera
6) Ixion
So who is this Ixion? A baddy in the likes of Midas, Minos, Tantalus and Medea: he wronged the gods, got punished for it, and would probably hug and worship anybody who offered him a chance for revenge.
Story goes that he was king of the Lapithae or Phlegyes. I heard once that he was a child of Ares, which makes sense in our demigod story. Anyways, he refused a bridal gift to a certain Deïoneus, and to get rid of them when they came to his court to demand it, Ixion tricked the poor guy into falling into a pit of fire. Oops.
And he didn’t get purified –forgiven, cleansed of- for his murder, and the gods were all generally outraged. But Zeus –out of all the people- took pity on him, purified him, and invited him to dinner. Maybe he was trying to make it up to some hospitality god, maybe he was in a good mood, I don’t know why this happened, but off Ixion went. Or was it up since he went to Olympus?
Either way at dinner, Ixion kept flirting with Hera. On a scale of 1 to 8, how unimpressed do you think the über-queen of the gods was? Not very. So she proceeded to telling Zeus about it and to see if he was right, he built a fake-Hera (a Hera dummy- HA- My bad) out of clouds, and left it there for Ixion to find. So he did, and he kissed the queen. Zeus got super ticked off, and he had Hermes tie Ixion –who totally had it coming- to a wheel of fire, which was sent spinning in the sky for eternity.
Moral of this story: "Benefactors should be honoured." (Comp. Schol. ad Hom. Od. xxi. 303 ; Hygin. Fab. 33, 62; Serv. ad Virg. Aen. vi. 601, Georg. iii. 38, iv. 484; Schol. Venet. ad Il. i. 266.)
Also, pay attention when you’re kissing someone because seriously, you should be able to tell if they’re cloud or not. I mean, duh.
So why do I think that Ixion might be this guy? Well, for starters, Annabeth is flying in a cloudy area.
Second off, after kissing a cloud and spending the until-this-point of eternity running through the clouds, he must be cold. So a chilly breath makes sense to me.
Third off, if I were Ixion (which I’m not because kissing Hera would be gross and I’m not evil) I’d want revenge. What better way than allying oneself to Gaia and completely bug Annabeth and throw her off track? Well, killing Percy, but aside from that!
The warship descended from the clouds but Annabeth couldn’t stop second guessing herself. What if this was a bad idea? What if the Romans panicked and attacked on sight? The Argo II definitely did not look friendly. Two hundred feet long with a bronze hull, flaming metal dragon for a mast head, mounted repeating crossbows that could fire explosive bolts powerful enough to blast through concrete.
I know what I’m going to ask Santa for… Better get the elves working.
Well, it wasn’t the most appropriate ride for a meet and greet with the neighbours.
Annabeth had tried to give the Romans a heads up.
Okay, so looking at this, it looks like Annabeth’s the one in charge here. Not Jason, or at least not Jason just yet. Why?
a) There are other crew members onboard who respect Annabeth more than Jason [Clarisse, Thalia, Connor, Travis, Chris, Lou Ellen, Clarisse (I kind-of really want her to meet Reyna and the Romans)]
b) Jason did something wrong or is doing something else and has either given up or not taken authority
c) Annabeth is spazzing out and taking charge like she usually does at Camp, and nobody’s doing anything about it because everyone trusts Annabeth (for now)
She’d asked Leo to send one of his special inventions, a holographic scroll,
That’s my Leo, clever boy!
to alert their friends inside their camp. Hopefully the message had gotten through. Leo had wanted to paint a giant message on the bottom of the hull, “Wazzup?” and a smiley face, but Annabeth had vetoed the idea.
Aww c’mon, why not?
She wasn’t sure the Romans had a sense of humour.
Fair enough.
Too late to turn back now. The clouds broke around the hull, revealing the golden green carpet of the Oakland hills below them. Annabeth gripped one of the bronze shields that lined the starboard railing. Her three crewmates took their places.
Okay; three. Screw the idea that all the counsellors are there too. Drop those ideas, kiss those fanfictions goodbye, folks.
On the stern quarterdeck, Leo rushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and levers. Most helmsmen would have been satisfied with a pilot’s wheel or a rudder. Leo had installed a keyboard monitor aviation controls from a leer jet and dubstep soundboard and the motion control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. He could fire the ship by pulling on the throttle or fire the weapons by sampling an album or raise the sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast.
Go big or go home, and ladies and gents, Leo Valdez is NOT coming home!
Also, where the heck did he get that?
Even by demigod standards, Leo was seriously ADHD.
Piper paced back and forth behind the main mast, practicing her lines. “Lower your weapons,” she murmured, “we just want to talk.”
Her Charmspeak was so powerful the words flowed over Annabeth, filling her with the desire to drop her dagger and have a nice long chat. For a child of Aphrodite, Piper tried really hard to play down her beauty. Today she was dressed in tattered jeans, worn out sneakers, and a white tank top with pink Hello Kitty designs. Maybe a joke? vThough Annabeth really could never tell with Piper. Her choppy brown hair was braided down the right side with an eagle’s feather.
She’s being more open with the Cherokee heritage! Good for her!
And then there was Piper’s boyfriend, Jason.
Crud. Crud. Crud… Did all my Jason/Reyna dreams just crash to the ground? ‘Cause Annabeth calls things what they are, so… NO!!!!! I was in serious denial. Now I’m going to have to pump out the oneshots about Jason and Reyna before they become super-duper cannon and everyone stops reading Jason/Reyna.
He stood at the bow on a raised crossbow platform where the Romans could easily spot him. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. Otherwise he was pretty calm for a guy who was making himself a target.
Nah, he’s freaking out on the inside, he’s just Roman. Really Jason is going “Why isn’t purple as flashy as orange? Damn, Reyna better not have given up on me.” (Notice how I didn’t make a Jason-Reyna-Piper joke there? I’m respectful.)
Over his jeans and his orange Camp Half Blood T-shirt, he had donned a toga and a purple cloak, symbols of his old rank as praetor.
Little does he know…
That should be interesting. Jason seems like a level-headed guy, so he’ll probably be okay with Percy being praetor and, you know, realising that the legion couldn’t go without a second praetor for that long and that Reyna couldn’t either and that Percy’s better than Octavian.
If he survives all this; I think that Jason’s going to be praetor again because I have this pretty good feeling that Percy’s going to want to get back to New York and CHB.
With his wind ruffled blond hair and his icy blue eyes, he looked ruggedly handsome
No Annabeth! No, nice thoughts, good thoughts, Percabeth thoughts. Green eyes, blue cupcakes, ruffled black hair, Seaweed, duh moments, bronze swords, PERCY.
Oh well, she’s allowed to look but she can’t touch. Besides, it’s an observation.
and in control, just like son of Jupiter should. He’d grown up at Camp Jupiter, so hopefully his familiar face would make the Romans hesitate to blow them out of the sky.
I’m guessing that if Reyna’s there he’ll be safe since she didn’t give up on him. As a friend at least. (Kay, being respectful just died. I’m so very sorry, the funeral will be held on October 2nd)
Annabeth tried to fight it, but she didn’t completely trust this guy.
Styx. If Annabeth doesn’t completely trust him, what about the other non-Leo-Piper Greeks?
He acted too perfect, always following the rules, always doing the honourable thing.
Annabeth, it’s called being raised like the Roman autobot of perfect behaviour. It’s not his fault.
He even looked too perfect. In the back of her mind, she kept thinking ‘maybe this was a trick and he betrayed us. What if we sail into Camp Jupiter and he says, “Hey, Romans! Check out these prisoners and this cool ship I brought you.”
That would suck and I’d develop that person-into-book technology faster so that I could kill him. At least strangle him. If he betrayed the Greeks and crushed my Jason/Reyna fantasies all in one day…
I think that right now, Annabeth is just anxious and seeing everything as a possible threat.
Or maybe there is something about Jason we should know but that he didn’t know himself during The Lost Hero…
Annabeth didn’t think he would do that, but still. She couldn’t look at him without getting a bitter taste in her mouth. He’d been part of Hera’s forced exchange program between the two camps.
Ah, makes sense. He was like an instrument of murder, except he was the instrument-of-losing-boyfriend-for-eight-months.
Without warning, Hera had plucked up Percy Jackson, Annabeth’s boyfriend, wiped his memory and sent him to this Roman camp. In exchange, the Greeks got Jason. None of that was Jason’s fault, but every time Annabeth looked at him, she remembered how much she missed Percy.
Okay, on my go: one, two, three- AWWW!
Percy, who might be below them right now.
Oh god. Panic welled up inside her.
“I’m a child of Athena,” she said to herself, “I have to stick to my plan and not get distracted.”
Then she felt it again, that familiar shiver, as if an evil snowman had crept up right behind her and was breathing down her neck. She turned but no one was there. It must be her nerves.
Annabeth wished she could pray to her mother for help, but now that was impossible. Not this last month since she’d had a horrible encounter with her mom and had gotten the worst present of her life.
Time out- present? Worst present of her life? I always considered Athena fairly good at giving presents. She gave Perseus a shield to beat the gorgon with and Annabeth’s twelfth birthday present was a baseball cap that turned you invisible! She’s like that awesome aunt of yours that puts the best present under the tree time and time again.
Well, for what it’s worth, I think I know what it is!
Okay; so if you’ve watched the video before the reading, RR talked about some coins. He showed them; coins with Athena’s head on one side and an owl on the other. Well, seeing whose head Annabeth sprung out from and who appears to be the proud/terrified owner of some horrible coins, I don’t doubt where these coins are now.
Let’s start with some history on coins (Yeay, eh?)
Okay, so here’s a copy paste from a site called link. Take a look, well, a read…:
Independent Greek city coinage began to disappear as more and more independent cities fell under the control of the great central power: Macedonia. By the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) the need for coinage in many areas was being filled by the Macedonian royal coinage. Following the death of Alexander the empire was subdivided among Alexander's generals who issued what we call the Hellenistic coinage. Quite different from the city coinage, these issues usually bore a portrait of the ruler on the obverse. Legends became increasingly important with some coins bearing a long legend of royal names and titles. Some issues began to be dated to the year of the king or of the dynasty.
Okay, so the word ‘legends’ I like. But ha ha, it does not mean a legend like a myth or a story. It means the inscription on the coin that tells you who minted it. So, like, ‘United States of America’, ‘1998’ on a penny.
But let’s say Alexander the Great was the one who minted the coin in one of his various city-states. You might have ‘Alexander’ written on it.
Next: coins often had pictures of deities or mythological animals on them. I mean, what Greek would want to carry a coin with Ares, the bringer of bloodshed and violence and anger et cetera, on it? That’s about as bad for karma as kicking puppies. No; only certain things were on coins.
For the Greeks:
GODS
Apollo
Athena (guess the city where these were most commonly minted)
Zeus
DEIFIED HEROES (hero important enough to get turned immortal and have face on coin)
HERAKLES (which is the proper Greek way to spell Hercules. Fun fact in the middle of a fun fact: most of the spellings we know like ‘Hercules’ or ‘Hecate’ or ‘Hector’ were originally spelled with a ‘K’, but the Romans decided they were too good for K’s and put in C’s)
MYTHICAL ANIMALS
Pegasus
For the Romans:
GODS
Fortuna
Genius (unspecific protective spirit, sort-of like Lares. Plural Genii)
Juno
Jupiter
Mars
Minerva
Mercury
Roma (basically the godly personification of Rome)
DEIFIED HEROES
Hercules
Remus and Romulus (A.K.A. the wolf-boys that founded Rome. Well, Romulus founded Rome after he killed Remus).
Now I have theories for everyone.
1) This leads me to believe that maybe the coins Annabeth is talking about. What if she had the coins minted by a famous king? A Hero? Or what if they just belonged to that hero? What kind of magical powers would they have- if any? Are they bad luck? How can a present from Athena be ‘bad’? What would make Athena hate her own daughter and want to disrupt a mission she’s on? Or is this just Annabeth’s interpretation of it?
Okay, so I’m looking at all these coins. There’s a surprisingly wide array of internet forums on coins with mythological background and significance. Most of them are real coins that were minted by the Ancient Greeks. I have found coins relating to Ampilochos the seer, Apollo Smitheus (mouse god- the mouse was thought to be prophetic back then because it was thought that mice came from the exhaling of the earth or something along those lines- either way, it’s Apollo’s sacred animal), to Proserpina (Persephone), to the creation of the gods. I love the Canadian looney but da-yum those would be cool to have in a wallet! Anyways, here’s the link for those interested.
2) So I found this thing called the Coin of Apollo. Elaborate name, eh?
Anyways, what this coin did –and there weren’t twenty million of them floating around Greece here, there were maybe two that were kept together at most- was that whoever had them got wealth. Fortune, riches, spot bargains thanks to instinct, et cetera.
For those who watched the show Grimm, this sounds oddly familiar, does it not?
Anyways, one thing that I can promise is big fights. And of course that can’t keep happening over and over because someone would die and that would be a downer. So the key words for the next book will be ‘consensus’, ‘bargain’, ‘accommodation’ and ‘Reyna I love you’ (Funeral. On. October. 2nd. I repeat.)
So all in all, these coins could be very useful.
Maybe they have a catch that makes Annabeth detest them. Think of the Elder wand in Harry Potter. Most powerful wand in the world, but everyone’s after it so badly, that the owners get killed time and time again so someone new can steal it, then get killed for it.
I can name a certain augur who wouldn’t mind having those coins to pursue his insane sibylline book quest/just have something that belonged to his godly ancestor.
3) The most promising lead I have though is something we’ve already seen.
Charon.
This is what you get if you type ‘coins in Greek mythology’ in Google or ask me about coins in Greek mythology. For those who need a refresher since The Lightning Thief was a long time ago (when Percy was a cute little twelve year old and he and Annabeth still hated each other. Those were the days); Charon is Hades’ ferryman. No, that does not mean he supplies the death god with pixie dust; it means that he drives the boat that leads the souls to the death from life to death.
Traditionally, this guy wants to get paid and he’ll only take the souls who have money. Ancient Greek people were therefore nearly always buried with coins on both their eyes and sometimes in their mouth.
So what if these coins of Athena are just the one thing the goddess has on hand- but they’re not magic. The real reason she gave them to Annabeth was so that she’d burry someone. I mean, even this club has poll questions like ‘who’s gonna die’ ‘who’s going to die’ ‘who’s most likely to die’ everywhere, and this is going to be a long, hard war. So what if Annabeth knows that someone’s going to die? Talk about being nervous to match a name to a face, eh? Even worst; what if she’s meant to kill someone?
Of course none of these are probably the answer, but a girl’s got to G&G (Guess and Google).
Also, the presents could not be the coins. Rick Riordan might have mentioned them just to throw us off track and mess with our gentle minds. (Okay, gentle, well, most of us are rabid when it comes to getting our hands on the newest RR books, but hey).
The cold pressed closer. She thought she heard a voice in the wind, laughing.
Okay, so our BBG (big bad guy/girl: I’m going to try and revive the term :P) can fly/is in the wind. This counts:
a) Khione
b) Ixion
c) Wind deities
Every muscle in her body tensed. She knew something was about to be terribly wrong.
Thank you. Annabeth. We soo totally wanted to hear that…
She almost ordered Leo to reverse course. And then, in the valley below, horns sounded.
The Romans had spotted them.
Oh hi Rick Riordan! I see you’re trolling us again.
The man’s lucky we love his writing and humour so much.
But was I disappointed? Nah. I don’t expect us to see the reunion. He’ll probably give us the right-before-the-reunion and then the right-after-the-reunion on the Internet.
Anyways, that’s it for me today! But stay tuned because as the information seeps out of the Internet like blood out of a dying Gaia-minion, I’m going to keep at the G&G. Reminder that big news is supposed to pop into our lives tomorrow- and I mean a first chapter that is possibly this. The cover is due either tomorrow or Friday from what I hear. Please remember to follow spot rules, be nice to incoming African wildlife and to post your fanfiction in forums if you must, or even better on link where there are nice people and plenty of spotlight for your story to steal. Happy waiting, folks!
Source: link
link
link
And of course it got put on link. The camera was a phone, the shots were shaky and the kid next to the make-do cameraphoneman was laughing and giggling even when RR wasn’t talking, but still I wanted to hug the child who did this for us.
It eventually got put to paper, even on this very club. But here’s my analysis of it- pretty darn late too.
Bold is what Annabeth says, not bold is what I say.
Until she met the exploding statue, Annabeth thought she was prepared for anything.
Terminus? Come on, I am pretty sure that if he can kill a friggin giant, Terminus can blow up at will. Plus this or that could happen. Such as-
a) Leo crashes the Argo II into the statues
b) Terminus explodes when he sees the Greek and/or their ship (the statue response to a panic attack at the total lack of organisation of the Greeks, or just their appearance in general)
And both of those things give bad stigma to the Greeks, thus making conflict, thus making it harder for them/more interesting for us.
She paced the deck of the Argo II, checking and double checking the ballistas to make sure they were locked in on. She confirmed that the white flag was flying from the mast. She reviewed the plan with the rest of the crew. And the back-up plan, and the back-up plan for the back-up plan.
So. Damn. Typically. Child. Of. Athena. Love it!
A lot of theorising has been going on about the PoV of this book. All seven half-bloods? Seems a little much. All the Greeks? Not sure. A book just about Annabeth? That would be interesting, but in this series so many things happen at once and so much clueing-in and flashbacking has to be done that I’m not sure. Although now that our new heroes are established pretty well, who knows.
Most importantly, she pulled aside their war crazed chaperone, Gleeson Hedge, and encouraged him to take the morning off in his cabin watching reruns of a mixed martial arts championship. The last thing they needed, flying a Greek trireme into a potentially hostile Roman camp, was a middle-aged satyr in gym clothes waving a club and yelling “DIE!”.
More Hedge? :D Oh my gosh, he will kill the Roman fauns.
Don: Yo, Greeks! You have any denarii?
Hedge: What is this? WHAT IS THIS? You call yourself a satyr!
Don: No, I call myself a faun, who the flip are you?
Hedge: Goat up, boy! This is not acceptable! *continue rant*
Everything seemed to be in order. Even that mysterious chill that she’d been feeling since the ship launched seemed to have dissipated. At least for now.
… Oh great. So, I have a couple of guesses for this.
1) Khione (hi Khione, long time no see, couldn’t we leave it at that? Gah.)
2) Which also means Gaia by default, which is gross and doesn’t go well with what Juno was saying about Annabeth being trouble
3) A wind god (Boreas, Aeolus, Eros, Notus, I’m not particularly picky just one. Perhaps a newbie!)
4) Wind DEMIgods (CAL! Is it strange to say that I miss Cal?)
5) Some kind of warning from Athena, or even Juno/Hera
6) Ixion
So who is this Ixion? A baddy in the likes of Midas, Minos, Tantalus and Medea: he wronged the gods, got punished for it, and would probably hug and worship anybody who offered him a chance for revenge.
Story goes that he was king of the Lapithae or Phlegyes. I heard once that he was a child of Ares, which makes sense in our demigod story. Anyways, he refused a bridal gift to a certain Deïoneus, and to get rid of them when they came to his court to demand it, Ixion tricked the poor guy into falling into a pit of fire. Oops.
And he didn’t get purified –forgiven, cleansed of- for his murder, and the gods were all generally outraged. But Zeus –out of all the people- took pity on him, purified him, and invited him to dinner. Maybe he was trying to make it up to some hospitality god, maybe he was in a good mood, I don’t know why this happened, but off Ixion went. Or was it up since he went to Olympus?
Either way at dinner, Ixion kept flirting with Hera. On a scale of 1 to 8, how unimpressed do you think the über-queen of the gods was? Not very. So she proceeded to telling Zeus about it and to see if he was right, he built a fake-Hera (a Hera dummy- HA- My bad) out of clouds, and left it there for Ixion to find. So he did, and he kissed the queen. Zeus got super ticked off, and he had Hermes tie Ixion –who totally had it coming- to a wheel of fire, which was sent spinning in the sky for eternity.
Moral of this story: "Benefactors should be honoured." (Comp. Schol. ad Hom. Od. xxi. 303 ; Hygin. Fab. 33, 62; Serv. ad Virg. Aen. vi. 601, Georg. iii. 38, iv. 484; Schol. Venet. ad Il. i. 266.)
Also, pay attention when you’re kissing someone because seriously, you should be able to tell if they’re cloud or not. I mean, duh.
So why do I think that Ixion might be this guy? Well, for starters, Annabeth is flying in a cloudy area.
Second off, after kissing a cloud and spending the until-this-point of eternity running through the clouds, he must be cold. So a chilly breath makes sense to me.
Third off, if I were Ixion (which I’m not because kissing Hera would be gross and I’m not evil) I’d want revenge. What better way than allying oneself to Gaia and completely bug Annabeth and throw her off track? Well, killing Percy, but aside from that!
The warship descended from the clouds but Annabeth couldn’t stop second guessing herself. What if this was a bad idea? What if the Romans panicked and attacked on sight? The Argo II definitely did not look friendly. Two hundred feet long with a bronze hull, flaming metal dragon for a mast head, mounted repeating crossbows that could fire explosive bolts powerful enough to blast through concrete.
I know what I’m going to ask Santa for… Better get the elves working.
Well, it wasn’t the most appropriate ride for a meet and greet with the neighbours.
Annabeth had tried to give the Romans a heads up.
Okay, so looking at this, it looks like Annabeth’s the one in charge here. Not Jason, or at least not Jason just yet. Why?
a) There are other crew members onboard who respect Annabeth more than Jason [Clarisse, Thalia, Connor, Travis, Chris, Lou Ellen, Clarisse (I kind-of really want her to meet Reyna and the Romans)]
b) Jason did something wrong or is doing something else and has either given up or not taken authority
c) Annabeth is spazzing out and taking charge like she usually does at Camp, and nobody’s doing anything about it because everyone trusts Annabeth (for now)
She’d asked Leo to send one of his special inventions, a holographic scroll,
That’s my Leo, clever boy!
to alert their friends inside their camp. Hopefully the message had gotten through. Leo had wanted to paint a giant message on the bottom of the hull, “Wazzup?” and a smiley face, but Annabeth had vetoed the idea.
Aww c’mon, why not?
She wasn’t sure the Romans had a sense of humour.
Fair enough.
Too late to turn back now. The clouds broke around the hull, revealing the golden green carpet of the Oakland hills below them. Annabeth gripped one of the bronze shields that lined the starboard railing. Her three crewmates took their places.
Okay; three. Screw the idea that all the counsellors are there too. Drop those ideas, kiss those fanfictions goodbye, folks.
On the stern quarterdeck, Leo rushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and levers. Most helmsmen would have been satisfied with a pilot’s wheel or a rudder. Leo had installed a keyboard monitor aviation controls from a leer jet and dubstep soundboard and the motion control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. He could fire the ship by pulling on the throttle or fire the weapons by sampling an album or raise the sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast.
Go big or go home, and ladies and gents, Leo Valdez is NOT coming home!
Also, where the heck did he get that?
Even by demigod standards, Leo was seriously ADHD.
Piper paced back and forth behind the main mast, practicing her lines. “Lower your weapons,” she murmured, “we just want to talk.”
Her Charmspeak was so powerful the words flowed over Annabeth, filling her with the desire to drop her dagger and have a nice long chat. For a child of Aphrodite, Piper tried really hard to play down her beauty. Today she was dressed in tattered jeans, worn out sneakers, and a white tank top with pink Hello Kitty designs. Maybe a joke? vThough Annabeth really could never tell with Piper. Her choppy brown hair was braided down the right side with an eagle’s feather.
She’s being more open with the Cherokee heritage! Good for her!
And then there was Piper’s boyfriend, Jason.
Crud. Crud. Crud… Did all my Jason/Reyna dreams just crash to the ground? ‘Cause Annabeth calls things what they are, so… NO!!!!! I was in serious denial. Now I’m going to have to pump out the oneshots about Jason and Reyna before they become super-duper cannon and everyone stops reading Jason/Reyna.
He stood at the bow on a raised crossbow platform where the Romans could easily spot him. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. Otherwise he was pretty calm for a guy who was making himself a target.
Nah, he’s freaking out on the inside, he’s just Roman. Really Jason is going “Why isn’t purple as flashy as orange? Damn, Reyna better not have given up on me.” (Notice how I didn’t make a Jason-Reyna-Piper joke there? I’m respectful.)
Over his jeans and his orange Camp Half Blood T-shirt, he had donned a toga and a purple cloak, symbols of his old rank as praetor.
Little does he know…
That should be interesting. Jason seems like a level-headed guy, so he’ll probably be okay with Percy being praetor and, you know, realising that the legion couldn’t go without a second praetor for that long and that Reyna couldn’t either and that Percy’s better than Octavian.
If he survives all this; I think that Jason’s going to be praetor again because I have this pretty good feeling that Percy’s going to want to get back to New York and CHB.
With his wind ruffled blond hair and his icy blue eyes, he looked ruggedly handsome
No Annabeth! No, nice thoughts, good thoughts, Percabeth thoughts. Green eyes, blue cupcakes, ruffled black hair, Seaweed, duh moments, bronze swords, PERCY.
Oh well, she’s allowed to look but she can’t touch. Besides, it’s an observation.
and in control, just like son of Jupiter should. He’d grown up at Camp Jupiter, so hopefully his familiar face would make the Romans hesitate to blow them out of the sky.
I’m guessing that if Reyna’s there he’ll be safe since she didn’t give up on him. As a friend at least. (Kay, being respectful just died. I’m so very sorry, the funeral will be held on October 2nd)
Annabeth tried to fight it, but she didn’t completely trust this guy.
Styx. If Annabeth doesn’t completely trust him, what about the other non-Leo-Piper Greeks?
He acted too perfect, always following the rules, always doing the honourable thing.
Annabeth, it’s called being raised like the Roman autobot of perfect behaviour. It’s not his fault.
He even looked too perfect. In the back of her mind, she kept thinking ‘maybe this was a trick and he betrayed us. What if we sail into Camp Jupiter and he says, “Hey, Romans! Check out these prisoners and this cool ship I brought you.”
That would suck and I’d develop that person-into-book technology faster so that I could kill him. At least strangle him. If he betrayed the Greeks and crushed my Jason/Reyna fantasies all in one day…
I think that right now, Annabeth is just anxious and seeing everything as a possible threat.
Or maybe there is something about Jason we should know but that he didn’t know himself during The Lost Hero…
Annabeth didn’t think he would do that, but still. She couldn’t look at him without getting a bitter taste in her mouth. He’d been part of Hera’s forced exchange program between the two camps.
Ah, makes sense. He was like an instrument of murder, except he was the instrument-of-losing-boyfriend-for-eight-months.
Without warning, Hera had plucked up Percy Jackson, Annabeth’s boyfriend, wiped his memory and sent him to this Roman camp. In exchange, the Greeks got Jason. None of that was Jason’s fault, but every time Annabeth looked at him, she remembered how much she missed Percy.
Okay, on my go: one, two, three- AWWW!
Percy, who might be below them right now.
Oh god. Panic welled up inside her.
“I’m a child of Athena,” she said to herself, “I have to stick to my plan and not get distracted.”
Then she felt it again, that familiar shiver, as if an evil snowman had crept up right behind her and was breathing down her neck. She turned but no one was there. It must be her nerves.
Annabeth wished she could pray to her mother for help, but now that was impossible. Not this last month since she’d had a horrible encounter with her mom and had gotten the worst present of her life.
Time out- present? Worst present of her life? I always considered Athena fairly good at giving presents. She gave Perseus a shield to beat the gorgon with and Annabeth’s twelfth birthday present was a baseball cap that turned you invisible! She’s like that awesome aunt of yours that puts the best present under the tree time and time again.
Well, for what it’s worth, I think I know what it is!
Okay; so if you’ve watched the video before the reading, RR talked about some coins. He showed them; coins with Athena’s head on one side and an owl on the other. Well, seeing whose head Annabeth sprung out from and who appears to be the proud/terrified owner of some horrible coins, I don’t doubt where these coins are now.
Let’s start with some history on coins (Yeay, eh?)
Okay, so here’s a copy paste from a site called link. Take a look, well, a read…:
Independent Greek city coinage began to disappear as more and more independent cities fell under the control of the great central power: Macedonia. By the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) the need for coinage in many areas was being filled by the Macedonian royal coinage. Following the death of Alexander the empire was subdivided among Alexander's generals who issued what we call the Hellenistic coinage. Quite different from the city coinage, these issues usually bore a portrait of the ruler on the obverse. Legends became increasingly important with some coins bearing a long legend of royal names and titles. Some issues began to be dated to the year of the king or of the dynasty.
Okay, so the word ‘legends’ I like. But ha ha, it does not mean a legend like a myth or a story. It means the inscription on the coin that tells you who minted it. So, like, ‘United States of America’, ‘1998’ on a penny.
But let’s say Alexander the Great was the one who minted the coin in one of his various city-states. You might have ‘Alexander’ written on it.
Next: coins often had pictures of deities or mythological animals on them. I mean, what Greek would want to carry a coin with Ares, the bringer of bloodshed and violence and anger et cetera, on it? That’s about as bad for karma as kicking puppies. No; only certain things were on coins.
For the Greeks:
GODS
Apollo
Athena (guess the city where these were most commonly minted)
Zeus
DEIFIED HEROES (hero important enough to get turned immortal and have face on coin)
HERAKLES (which is the proper Greek way to spell Hercules. Fun fact in the middle of a fun fact: most of the spellings we know like ‘Hercules’ or ‘Hecate’ or ‘Hector’ were originally spelled with a ‘K’, but the Romans decided they were too good for K’s and put in C’s)
MYTHICAL ANIMALS
Pegasus
For the Romans:
GODS
Fortuna
Genius (unspecific protective spirit, sort-of like Lares. Plural Genii)
Juno
Jupiter
Mars
Minerva
Mercury
Roma (basically the godly personification of Rome)
DEIFIED HEROES
Hercules
Remus and Romulus (A.K.A. the wolf-boys that founded Rome. Well, Romulus founded Rome after he killed Remus).
Now I have theories for everyone.
1) This leads me to believe that maybe the coins Annabeth is talking about. What if she had the coins minted by a famous king? A Hero? Or what if they just belonged to that hero? What kind of magical powers would they have- if any? Are they bad luck? How can a present from Athena be ‘bad’? What would make Athena hate her own daughter and want to disrupt a mission she’s on? Or is this just Annabeth’s interpretation of it?
Okay, so I’m looking at all these coins. There’s a surprisingly wide array of internet forums on coins with mythological background and significance. Most of them are real coins that were minted by the Ancient Greeks. I have found coins relating to Ampilochos the seer, Apollo Smitheus (mouse god- the mouse was thought to be prophetic back then because it was thought that mice came from the exhaling of the earth or something along those lines- either way, it’s Apollo’s sacred animal), to Proserpina (Persephone), to the creation of the gods. I love the Canadian looney but da-yum those would be cool to have in a wallet! Anyways, here’s the link for those interested.
2) So I found this thing called the Coin of Apollo. Elaborate name, eh?
Anyways, what this coin did –and there weren’t twenty million of them floating around Greece here, there were maybe two that were kept together at most- was that whoever had them got wealth. Fortune, riches, spot bargains thanks to instinct, et cetera.
For those who watched the show Grimm, this sounds oddly familiar, does it not?
Anyways, one thing that I can promise is big fights. And of course that can’t keep happening over and over because someone would die and that would be a downer. So the key words for the next book will be ‘consensus’, ‘bargain’, ‘accommodation’ and ‘Reyna I love you’ (Funeral. On. October. 2nd. I repeat.)
So all in all, these coins could be very useful.
Maybe they have a catch that makes Annabeth detest them. Think of the Elder wand in Harry Potter. Most powerful wand in the world, but everyone’s after it so badly, that the owners get killed time and time again so someone new can steal it, then get killed for it.
I can name a certain augur who wouldn’t mind having those coins to pursue his insane sibylline book quest/just have something that belonged to his godly ancestor.
3) The most promising lead I have though is something we’ve already seen.
Charon.
This is what you get if you type ‘coins in Greek mythology’ in Google or ask me about coins in Greek mythology. For those who need a refresher since The Lightning Thief was a long time ago (when Percy was a cute little twelve year old and he and Annabeth still hated each other. Those were the days); Charon is Hades’ ferryman. No, that does not mean he supplies the death god with pixie dust; it means that he drives the boat that leads the souls to the death from life to death.
Traditionally, this guy wants to get paid and he’ll only take the souls who have money. Ancient Greek people were therefore nearly always buried with coins on both their eyes and sometimes in their mouth.
So what if these coins of Athena are just the one thing the goddess has on hand- but they’re not magic. The real reason she gave them to Annabeth was so that she’d burry someone. I mean, even this club has poll questions like ‘who’s gonna die’ ‘who’s going to die’ ‘who’s most likely to die’ everywhere, and this is going to be a long, hard war. So what if Annabeth knows that someone’s going to die? Talk about being nervous to match a name to a face, eh? Even worst; what if she’s meant to kill someone?
Of course none of these are probably the answer, but a girl’s got to G&G (Guess and Google).
Also, the presents could not be the coins. Rick Riordan might have mentioned them just to throw us off track and mess with our gentle minds. (Okay, gentle, well, most of us are rabid when it comes to getting our hands on the newest RR books, but hey).
The cold pressed closer. She thought she heard a voice in the wind, laughing.
Okay, so our BBG (big bad guy/girl: I’m going to try and revive the term :P) can fly/is in the wind. This counts:
a) Khione
b) Ixion
c) Wind deities
Every muscle in her body tensed. She knew something was about to be terribly wrong.
Thank you. Annabeth. We soo totally wanted to hear that…
She almost ordered Leo to reverse course. And then, in the valley below, horns sounded.
The Romans had spotted them.
Oh hi Rick Riordan! I see you’re trolling us again.
The man’s lucky we love his writing and humour so much.
But was I disappointed? Nah. I don’t expect us to see the reunion. He’ll probably give us the right-before-the-reunion and then the right-after-the-reunion on the Internet.
Anyways, that’s it for me today! But stay tuned because as the information seeps out of the Internet like blood out of a dying Gaia-minion, I’m going to keep at the G&G. Reminder that big news is supposed to pop into our lives tomorrow- and I mean a first chapter that is possibly this. The cover is due either tomorrow or Friday from what I hear. Please remember to follow spot rules, be nice to incoming African wildlife and to post your fanfiction in forums if you must, or even better on link where there are nice people and plenty of spotlight for your story to steal. Happy waiting, folks!
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Hey guys haven't written a article in months so gotta get the creative juices flowing.
And what if Hera had a child,she always gets mad at Zues but what if like a dude like so handsome she fell off her wagon and he or she was like one of the 7.
And Artemis swore an oath to maidency what if she had a child and it was a BOY. And then like this is the 7.
Jason = Leader
Piper = stratigist
Leo = commander of fire (flame on)
Hera child
minor god child
Artemis child a boy
and a son of neptune/greek ?
And i have this thought that Rick likes put twistes on books so what if he made percy and 2 romies go to camp(roman) and like he acts as son of neptune (hence the title)then and then like after the quest like Rick said the answers of the 2nd prophecy may lie at another camp so wat if dude comes and hes a son of poseidon and shows up when percy remembers stuff.
And what if Hera had a child,she always gets mad at Zues but what if like a dude like so handsome she fell off her wagon and he or she was like one of the 7.
And Artemis swore an oath to maidency what if she had a child and it was a BOY. And then like this is the 7.
Jason = Leader
Piper = stratigist
Leo = commander of fire (flame on)
Hera child
minor god child
Artemis child a boy
and a son of neptune/greek ?
And i have this thought that Rick likes put twistes on books so what if he made percy and 2 romies go to camp(roman) and like he acts as son of neptune (hence the title)then and then like after the quest like Rick said the answers of the 2nd prophecy may lie at another camp so wat if dude comes and hes a son of poseidon and shows up when percy remembers stuff.
King Clovis
Heeeyyy!!! Okay so we all no Percy's Pegasus, Blackjack, right? And I'm guessing everyone that's reading this thinks that Blackjack is a boy, right? Well, when I was rereading the PJO series I came across something interesting.
So when Percy found Blackjack "he" was being kept on Luke's ship. Well what I noticed was that at first, Percy kept referring to Blackjack as a she and her...
Weird, huh? 'cause in all the books after that, Percy refers to Blackjack as a he. So, now, I'm kinda confused to what gender Blackjack is....
Hope yah liked it:)
So when Percy found Blackjack "he" was being kept on Luke's ship. Well what I noticed was that at first, Percy kept referring to Blackjack as a she and her...
Weird, huh? 'cause in all the books after that, Percy refers to Blackjack as a he. So, now, I'm kinda confused to what gender Blackjack is....
Hope yah liked it:)
