Chapter 1
Regulus
His dreams started the same each night, Regulus lying on his roof, staring up at the night sky as his brother Sirius narrated various myths about the stars and constellations. The two brothers had done this almost every night growing up, Sirius doing his best to know every story that he could so that he could teach them to Regulus. Regulus always wanted to acquire as much knowledge as possible, but at five years old at the time, he was a bit limited in what he could read. Sirius, who was at the mature age of seven, took over as much of this responsibility of reading and storytelling.
In this dream specifically, Sirius was telling the myth that happened to be Regulus’ namesake, the story of the Nemean Lion. This story made a frequent appearance in the brother’s nightly story time as it was Regulus’ favorite myth.
“How did Leo end up in the sky?” Regulus would always ask, despite already knowing the answer.
Each time Sirius would smile before replying, “Heracles, a son of Zeus, tried to kill the Nemean Lion, but before he the lion died, Hera saved him and put Leo in the sky where he could live forever.”
Regulus watched the night sky in his dreams, drifting between thoughts of Sirius and the son of Zeus and the Nemean Lion. Tonight, however, the lion above began to run towards Regulus before roaring so loudly that the night sky erupted in a bright light. When Regulus regained sight, Sirius was gone, and instead of the curtain of stars above Regulus, there were miles of ocean water above him. Regulus was drowning. With every move he made to reach the surface, he was only pulled down further and further as hands grabbed onto his arms, legs, and clothes. As Regulus began to lose consciousness, he was dropped onto the dry ground.
He was now in the forest, still shivering in wet clothes. Unlike the ocean before that was only familiar to Regulus from previous dreams, this forest he knew intimately. Regulus stepped tentatively towards the area ahead, unable to help himself as he heard the joyful howls of a wolf. Regulus’ feet guided themselves in the path long known, having had followed it once a month the past five years. He didn’t start running until the howls turned to painful whimpering’s, but it was too late. Despite having memorized every inch of the forest, Regulus found him lost and unable to help the lonely wolf before the whining stopped abruptly, the forest becoming abnormally silent. It was then that Regulus finally arrived to Mars’ clearing, nothing in sight except for a patch of blood in the grass.
Regulus woke up with a start, the feeling of water still burning in his lungs and the sounds of the wolf in pain ringing in his ears. Regulus had always had nightmares as long as he could remember, but this sequence of nightmares specifically had only started about a month ago. Knowing that he would not be able to fall asleep again, Regulus quickly got up and got dressed. Although he was technically supposed to bunk with the rest of his cohort, Regulus got out of it due to the fact that he kind of scared everyone else, and his dad was even scarier. So instead, he stayed in the temple that sat furthest from the rest of the legion. Once dressed, Regulus climbed on top of his dresser and out the window so that he could climb out onto the roof. Once there, Regulus laid down, automatically taking time to find the Canis Major constellation before finding Leo. Sirius was always the easiest to find, being the brightest star in the sky, especially at this point in the winter. It was second nature for Regulus, always looking for Sirius.
Regulus sighed as his thoughts went to his brother, before he became troubled thinking of his dreams from the night before. The beginning of his dream came to no surprise as he had been having variations of the same dream since Sirius ran away all those years before. The last dream, while its contents were unsettling, came to no surprise as Regulus had been in the forest and heard the wolf disappear exactly a month prior. No, it was the dream in which Regulus drowned that troubled him the most, as it was the only part of his nightmare that had not happened yet.
Regulus shook his head, trying to push all thoughts of his dream away and focus back to his problems at hand. His friends had asked him to stay around camp more often, so for the past 6 months or so, Regulus had been spending his days training with the rest of the Legion, only traveling at night. But with his travels lasting a few hours added to his constant nightmares, Regulus was not getting any sleep, and it was starting to catch up to him. His skin had always been ghostly pale, although he now was beginning to resemble the Lares more than the living. His hair was black, curling at the ends, the edges of his face were sharp, leaving his face to resemble a marble statue. All in all, Regulus looked like a Black, only his blue eyes differentiating him from the rest, most of who had the signature stormy grey of a Black. Regulus didn’t like being a Black too much, preferring to remain just Regulus. However, that was hard to do anywhere, but especially in New Rome.
As night began to fade and the sun threatened to break dawn, Regulus ran through his mental list of places he wanted to search the next night as well as the to do list he needed to get done before dusk. The previous night he had explored the northern part of New Mexico, which was fairly uneventful before he ran into some irritated Erymanthian boars at Chicoma Mountain. Luckily Regulus was able to deescalate the situation, but he ended up having to use up the last of his ambrosia after the boar mistook him for a son of Jupiter (apparently boars hold really long grudges and never warmed back up to kids of Jupiter after the whole Hercules thing). As for this upcoming night, Regulus decided that he couldn’t keep avoiding Niagara Falls. He had an instinct feeling the past few weeks that he needed to travel there but had been avoiding it as he had been avoiding all bodies of water since he began having his nightmares this past month. Regulus would just have to stock back up on his supplies today and pray to the gods that he didn’t drown, although that may just be counterintuitive as it always seemed as though it were the gods themselves out to get him.
Regulus had moved onto figuring out how many jumps it would take to reach Niagara Falls when he heard a loud commotion from the tunnel entrance. Regulus sat up just in time see a glimpse of a boy followed by what looked to be the rising of the sun. The boy was tall with dark skin and messy black hair and seemed to be holding an old woman in one arm and a glowing sword with the other. He was being chased by numerous monsters, one being a full-fledged minotaur. Without missing a step, the boy turned, maneuvering his sword and took the head off the minotaur in one swish, diminishing it to dust. He continued to take down monster after monster with such ease that Regulus was sure no demigod was capable. At first Regulus assumed that this must be a minor god, coming to show off his talent However, as the sun followed and bounced off the skin of the mysterious figure, Regulus began to speculate that he may be the sun god, Apollo, himself. The light radiated around him, his sword glimmering in the rising sun before slicing through the air as it caught the harpies attacking from above. Even from his far-off position, Regulus could see the god smirk as his muscles flexed a little. Regulus couldn’t help but give his own smirk as he thought to himself that the rumors were indeed true, Apollo is hot.
Regulus was content to watch from his position but was interrupted the sound of anxious birds chirping around him. Knowing what was likely wrong simply from the stench of death that seeped from the animals, Regulus turned from the ongoing fight at the front of camp and followed the birds down off the roof and towards the nearby forest. As he made his way into the forest and despite his best effort not to, Regulus could not help as his thoughts crept back to the intriguing sun god fighting off the monsters at the front of camp.