Part 1
Aura has been in this new world for 8 hours, not that it can be a new world if she doesn’t have others to compare it to. She knows a few things, her name is Aura Page, the girl named Annabeth who found her on the field said that it was written in her collar. Aura is around 10 years old. She’s a demigod, one of her parents is apparently a god and the other a “mortal.” Annabeth is nice, she took the time to explain the answers to Aura’s questions. Because of that, Aura now knows that somewhere out there, she has someone destined to love her, to care for her, till the end.
She’s sitting in “The Big House” right now, the horse man, no, centaur, and man with the Hawaiian shirt are discussing what to do with her. There’s a desk in front of her with a pen sitting on top. It only takes a minute of hesitation for her to grab it. “Hi” Aura writes, handwriting sloppy, she pauses a moment then adds a question mark at the end. It’s a couple minutes of letting her eyes wander the room when her arm tingles. ‘¡Your back!’ *1* Comes the answer. Aura furrows her eyebrows and picks up the pen, ‘back?’ She asks. ‘¡You been silent for a week! ¿What’s happened?” ‘We talked before?’ ‘¡Si!’ Aura is surprised, but starts to explain to her soulmate what has happened. The person on the other side tells her, in return, what little detail she can. They and Aura never shared important details, but her favorite color had been blue. Sky Blue, not Ocean Blue, her soulmate is quick to specify and that brings a small giggle to her lips. They both struggle with reading and she used to walk by a willow every day till it had been torn down.
—One Year later—
Princess -as Aura had dubbed her after finding out that her name, which she had yet to know meant Queen. Aura had declared that she was too young to be a queen.- had moved to an island, and her English was getting better. That fact and made Aura pout for a minute, she liked the way Princess used Spanish when she couldn’t find the right words. Aura loved talking to Princess and she was the first one to know that Aura had gotten into an elite school in Britain. Princess teased her about her love of learning and declared that her nickname, Book, which she decided on after her last name Page, fit perfectly. Annabeth has been spending her time either doing her job as Head Counselor of Cabin 6 or trailing either Luke or the new kid, Percy.
Aura tried to keep in touch with Princess of course but she had her studies and Princess wasn’t very good at initiating things.
—
They’re 12 when she first feels something more than a paper cut from Princess, she’s at dinner in school when her back starts to burn. A few screams later and all the students are crowded around her, the teachers are trying to hold them back and Luna, the new student that she had been talking to earlier, has grabbed her arm and is saying something. “..linic?” On a gamble Aura nods, hoping that she will be taken to the school nurse. Of course, she was right, Madame Pompfrey takes initiative quickly and brings over some Nectar, then she send Luna out of the infirmary. Aura was never quite sure how Madame Pompfrey knew about Nectar or had a stash but it came in handy a lot.
“Drink it.” She insisted. Stubbornly Aura shook her head.
“Miss Page! Drink the Nectar, now!” Again she shook her head.
“Goodness girl! You tell me you want to study under me then you go and do this. If you really want to be a mediwitch then you have to live to do so. Why won’t you drink?” Hesitantly she lifted her head and answered.
“M-my soulmate, I don’t know if she’s mortal or like me.”
“Even if your soulmate is a muggle, Nectar only interacts with your insides. Your soulmate will be perfectly fine, better in fact because they will no longer be injured. Just write to her and make sure she doesn’t tell people about the healing.”
“O-ok.”
“Good girl. Now, drink and I’ll remove your robes so I can see the injury.” As Aura drank the Nectar -slowly, just in case- she wrote a message to Princess. ‘Hey, are you ok? Listen I’m getting it healed now but you can’t tell anyone about it. Ok?’ As she waited for a response Madame Pompfrey got the last of the robes off.
“My goodness child. The Nectar is already healing it but, it looks like your soulmate was in some kind of explosion!”
“What?!”
“She only seems to have caught a small blast to her back. It shouldn’t scar.” Aura sits in silence. Something had happened to Princess, an explosion of some kind, and now she wasn’t responding to her messages.
—A few months later.—
Reyna was tired. She went from pirates to wolves, at least with the pirates she had Hylla. Now she’s alone. The only comfort was Book. Reyna had managed to get her hands on a pen about a week back and was finally able to write to her. Book had been understandably distressed, ever since leaving CC’s resort, Reyna was constantly getting injured. The most Book got a couple paper cuts, other than some bruises from her self defense class. *2* They wrote to each other as best they could and Book’s words became a comfort in this new world. After waking up from a nightmare she would look at Book’s script writing, tracing the gentle cursive. Lupa’s training was easier with Book’s method of healing, whatever it might be. When she was feeling down she imagined what Book would be like. She was female, Reyna knew that from one of her slip ups. She was around her age, likely. Was she tall? Short? Her hair was long, Reyna remembered at her request, giving Book some hair styles for long hair. She knew it was wavy too, and that it was a darker color after Book had mentioned wanting to dye it but not being willing to bleach her hair first. Her skin was on the lighter side too, Book had written on her hand a note to herself to “go outside more” and after Reyna had inquired Book said that she needed some Sun before her skin went “paper white”. Another hand to do list had revealed that she used reading glasses after a note to buy them. Reyna also knew from her own skin that Book had two piercings on each ear and some kind of cuff on her left ear that has caused Reyna to itch at nothing for a week or two.
—
It’s a couple of weeks into her 4th summer at Camp Half-Blood when Aura feels her forearm burn. She’s in the sword fighting arena, Annabeth was giving her the usual summer training to “get her lazy butt back into proper shape”. Fortunately Percy had arrived and Annabeth took off to “get a proper sparring partner” who could “actually keep up” with her. She’s over by the benches digging around in her bag for some bruise cream when she feels a sudden shock. Aura lets out a yelp and jumps back. Percy and Annabeth, the only two left in the arena, stop and look over.
“Are you ok?” Percy asks, relaxing his stance.
“I just got an electric shock, I think.”
“Probably just static electricity from the metal benches.” Annabeth says. She’s already eyeing Percy ready to jump back into the fight. Aura thinks that it was a lot stronger than some static electricity, feeling more like she’d been burned, but she nods anyway. Percy looks reluctant but Annabeth jabs at a weak spot in his lax posture and he’s quickly absorbed into the match again. She quickly turns and heads to the infirmary, knowing that Cabin 7 has archery so it will be mostly empty. Her guess is right, of course. Penelope glances up at her over the counter.
“I just need to refill my bruise cream.” Aura lies sweetly. Penelope nods and goes back to her book, people are used to her presence here. She heads into the back room and finally checks her forearm. There’s a mark that looks like a tattoo but feels like a burn, it reads SPQR | I with a small black symbol that looks like a sword and a spear making an ‘X’. Underneath it written in Princess’s bold and neat letters is “sorry”. Aura is furious, how dare she mare their skin with this. But.. the tattoo is red and irritated and is hurting more every second, Princess’s apology is messy like she was in a rush. She takes a deep breath and pushes her anger down to attend to later, then, she gets to work. Ice for the burn and a couple other things to help it out then a piece of fabric to keep it in place. A square of Ambrosia for her own bruises and the mark. Next she grabs a pen and writes out instructions, “Apply ice for 15 minutes on and off, it will help with the swelling. DON’T ITCH.”
She glances up at the clock, it’s three hours till lunch. Involuntarily she lets out a yawn, then another before she’s slumping down to the ground. When Aura wakes she’s in a field, it’s on a cliff but the fog and mist around makes it difficult to see. She can’t see the Sun but there are tall stones that remind her of the infamous Stone Circle, at first glance they look like normal stone but when she blink they shimmer. Aura pulls herself up heads over to three of the stones that form an archway. The sides that face in have runes designed to sap energy and the top ones have the same but specifically fitted for light energy.
“It’s a ritual place, so you know which one?” Aura spins around to see the voice. It’s a woman, pale skinned, curly brunette hair twisted back into an elegant bun. A flat nose and forest green eyes, dimples on both sides of her mouth, a gentle chin and sloping jaw line. She almost looks familiar, like Aura has seen those same features on someone else.
*1* Ok so, the time line is pretty much a week after Reyna killed her dad. Reyna grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the official language there is Spanish but English is also spoken there. So my idea is that Reyna speaks both but her English is kinda broken, hence the wrong grammar and odd punctuation, she’ll learn proper English in Circle’s island but for now she knows enough to pass in a conversation.
*2* Otherwise known as Annabeth's intense summer training to get her back in shape from school.