BOSS BITCHES

"one more word and you're dead"

THE SECOND SHE STEPPED ONTO THE DECK, SHE WAS HOUNDED BY ANNABETH. Apparently, Ariadne had promised to talk with her over a few battle plans they had as backup, but she hadn't showed.

Ariadne kept her blush from rising any further than her neck. It wasn't noticeable, at least she hoped so. Her hands were itching to pull the collar of her shirt up higher. She hoped they didn't see the marks on her skin.

Leo docked the ship at a pier in Charleston Harbor, the right next to the sea wall. Along the shore was a historical district with tall mansions, palm trees, and wrought-iron fence. Antique cannons pointed at the water.

Annabeth tapped her foot against the wooden floor while her arms were crossed, eyes raising in question when her best friend glanced away nervously. Piper had seemed to sidle along to the blonde, watching the older girl, as well.

"Are you okay, Ari?" Piper questioned, tilting her head while the brunette cleared her throat awkwardly. "You look a bit red."

"Uh...yeah," Ariadne muttered, scratching the back of her neck, "I'm good."

Hazel, being the naive girl she was, walked over with a worried face. Her hands wrung together. Her gold eyes narrowed in on the much taller girl, eyeing her body while reaching forward, her hand pulling at her collar. "Oh, Ariadne, we need to get you some ambrosia and nectar, you have bruises on you!"

The boys on the deck perked their heads up. They wondered if she had gotten into a fight, but they stopped, eyes locking into Percy who stood frozen with a creeping smile upon his face. He was biting it back as much as he could, but they all noticed the gleam in his eyes.

Leo grinned brightly. His elfish body jumped up and down. "I know what it is, Hazel! They're not bruises, they're—"

"Leo," Ariadne warned.

It didn't deter him. He was already bouncing up and down, shaking the deck so much that Coach Hedge gave him a nasty glare. He held his bat tightly.

"It's not a bruise, young pupil, it's a hickey!"

Annabeth and Piper leaned on each other while hiding their laughs. Jason was glancing at a smirking Percy, while Frank looked uncomfortable. Coach Hedge was ready to throw the couple over board.

Hazel looked around with nervous eyes. "What..."

Ariadne groaned loudly. She slapped a hand over her neck while glaring at her boyfriend, who was trying to contain his smirk. The girl was about throw him overboard. "I'm not explaining anything. It's your fault we're having this conversation."

"You weren't complaining last night," Percy muttered with his arms crossed. He ducked when his girlfriend chucked a random item from the deck at his head. He laughed.

Hazel was able to put the pieces together. Her eyes widened in horror, aghast at the realization she made. It was comical to watch while she spluttered out an answer, fanning her face and gasping for breath at the scandalous thought and idea.

"You didn't..." Hazel gasped. "No. I don't want to know."

It was decided that the girls would leave as soon as possible, with Ariadne slapping her boyfriend in the gut, causing him to double over. She avoided his lips when he attempted to kiss her while she basically jumped overboard out of embarrassment.

Hanging out with Annabeth, Hazel, and Piper after an extremely unnerving moment wasn't exactly her first option. She decided to just pull her shirt collar up higher and focused on their surroundings.

According to the signs, the seaside park was called White Point Gardens. The ocean breeze swept away the muggy heat of the summer afternoon, and it was pleasantly cool under the shade of the palmetto trees. Lining the road were old Civil War cannons and bronze statues of historical figures. She remembered the figures from the Titan War, sequence twenty-three.

Charleston Harbor glittered in the sun. To the north and south, strips of land stretched out like arms enclosing the bay, and digging in the mouth of the harbor, about a mile out, was an island with a stone fort.

Mostly she breathed in the sea air and thought about Percy. He was the most important person to her, and if they ever broke up and lost each other she would never be able to repair herself. She was relieved when they turned away from the seawall and explored the inland side of the gardens.

The park wasn't crowded. They strolled along South Battery Street, which was lined with four story Colonial mansions. The brick walls were blanketed with ivy. The facades had soaring white columns like Roman temples. The front gardens were bursting with rosebushes, honeysuckle, and flowering bougainvillea. It was overflowing with plant life, Ariadne could feel the roots beneath them all with every step she took.

"Kind of reminds me of New Rome," Hazel said. She hadn't made eye contact with the tallest girl, and for good reason, her cheeks and ears were still flushed. "All the big mansions and the gardens. The columns and arches."

Piper kept looking around like she expected an ambush. She had said she'd seen this park in the blade of her knife, but she wouldn't elaborate.

Hazel also seemed preoccupied. Maybe she was taking in their surroundings, or maybe she was worrying about her brother. In less than four days, unless they found him and freed him, Nico would be dead.

Annabeth's shoulders looked heavy. No doubt the deadline was weighing on her, as well as her own mother's words. She tended to dive into herself for long periods of times in distressing situations.

Piper grabbed the blonde's arm.

"There." She pointed across the harbor. A hundred yards out, a shimmering white figure floated on the water. As it got closer, Ariadne could tell it was the figure of a woman.

"The ghost," Ariadne said.

"That's not a ghost," Hazel said. "No kind of spirit glows that brightly."

As if in a trance, Piper walked across the street toward the edge of the seawall, narrowly avoiding a horse-drawn carriage.

"Piper!" Annabeth called.

"We'd better follow her," Hazel said.

By the time Annabeth and Hazel noticed, Ariadne was racing across the street faster than the eye could see. She had made it next to Piper, who glared at the ghostly apparition only a few yards away.

"It is her," Piper grumbled.

The ghost blazed too brightly to make out details. Then the apparition floated up the seawall and stopped in front of them. The glow faded.

The woman was breathtakingly beautiful and strangely familiar. Her face was hard to describe. Her features seemed to shift from those one glamorous movie star to another. Her eyes sparkled playfully—sometimes green or blue or amber. Her hair changed from long, straight blonde to dark chocolatey curls.

Her vision settled on raven hair with sea-green eyes. Her skin grew tanner, without any blemishes appearing in sight. Ariadne recognized her immediately.

The woman was dressed like a Southern belle, just as Jason had described. Her gown had a low cut bodice of pink silk and a three-tiered hoop skirt with white scalloped lace. She wore tall white silk gloves, and held a feathered pink and white fan to her chest.

It reminded Annabeth of how she felt around Ariadne in the first few weeks since she was blessed by the goddess of beauty. It made her feel inadequate: the easy grace they both wore their clothes, the perfect yet understated makeup and natural complexion, the way they radiated feminine charm that bo man could possibly resist.

"Dite," Ariadne said, looking the least bit concerned.

"Venus?" Hazel asked in amazement.

"Mom," Piper said, with no enthusiasm.

"Girls!" The goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug.

The four demigods did not oblige. Hazel Hazel backed into a palmetto tree.

"I'm so glad you're here," Aphrodite said. "War is coming. Bloodshed is inevitable. So there's really only one thing to do."

"Uh...and that is?" Annabeth ventured.

"Why, have tea and chat, obviously. Come with me!"

Aphrodite knew how to do tea.

She led them to the central pavilion in the gardens—a white pillared gazebo, where a table was set with silverware, china cups, and of course a steaming pot of tea, the fragrance shifting as easily as Aphrodite's appearance—sometimes cinnamon, or jasmine, or mint. There were plates of scones, cookies, and muffins, fresh butter and jam.

Aphrodite sat—or held court, rather—in a wicker peacock chair. She poured tea and served cakes without getting a speck on her clothes, her posture always perfect, her smile dazzling.

Ariadne raised an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, my sweet girls," the goddess said. "I do love Charleston! The weddings I've attended in this gazebo—they bring tears to my eyes. And the elegant balls in the days of the Old South. Ah, they were lovely. Many of these mansions still have statues of me in their gardens, though they called me Venus."

"Yeah, bet those old days of slavery were great," Ariadne muttered, gritting her teeth at the goddess's happy voice. It was unnerving and slightly upsetting.

"Which are you?" Annabeth asked. "Venus of Aphrodite?"

The goddess sipped her tea. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. "Annabeth Chase, you've grown into quite a beautiful young lady. You really should do something with your hair, though. And, Hazel Levesque, your clothes—"

"My clothes?" Hazel looked down at her rumpled denim, not self-consciously, but baffled, as if she couldn't imagine what was wrong with them.

"Mother!" Piper said. "You're embarrassing me."

"Well, I don't see why," the goddess said. "Just because you don't appreciate my fashion tips, Piper, doesn't mean the others won't. I could do a quick makeover for Annabeth and Hazel, perhaps Ariadne in a wonderful silk ball gown like mine—"

"Mother!"

"Fine," Aphrodite sighed. "To answer your question, Annabeth, I am both Aphrodite and Venus. Unlike many of my fellow Olympians, I changed hardly at all from one age to the other. In fact, I like to think I haven't changed a bit!" Her fingers fluttered around her face appreciatively. "Love is love, after all, whether you're Greek or Roman. This civil war won't affect me as much as it will the others."

Hazel nibbled a sugar cookie. "We're not in a war yet, my lady."

"Oh, dear Hazel." Aphrodite folded her fan. "Such optimism, yet you have heartrending days ahead of you. Of course war is coming. Love and war always go together. They are the peaks of human emotion! Evil and good, beauty and ugliness."

"What do you mean," Hazel asked, "heartrending days?"

The goddess laughed as if Hazel were a cute puppy. "Well, Ariadne could give you some idea. I promised to make sure the prophecy of her love would become the greatest, I think I've been achieving that quite nicely."

Ariadne looked away. Her eyes glared at the ground. She could almost sense the goddess's smirk while her collar dipped down, revealing the marks along her skin. She pulled them up just as quickly. Ariadne huffed in annoyance while remembering the many turmoils in her relationship; Percy beginning to fall for another girl named Rachel, and then him almost dying, several times. Finally, she got him, but he vanished for six months and lost his memory.

"If you mean the most frustrating," Ariadne said, "you're doing a wonderful job."

"Well, you're happy, are you not?" the goddess said. "But I do love twists in turns in a love story."

She knew what she was hinting at. Their confessions.

"Mother," Piper said, "is there a reason you're here?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean besides tea? I often come here. I love the view, the food, the atmosphere—you can smell the romance and heartbreak in the air, can't you? Centuries of it."

She pointed to a nearby mansion. "Do you see that rooftop balcony? We had a party there the night the American Civil War began. The shelling of Fort Sumter."

"That's it," Annabeth remembered. "The island in the harbor. That's where the first fighting of the Civil War happened. The Confederates shelled the Union troops and took the fort."

"Oh, such a party!" Aphrodite said. "A string quartet, all the men in their elegant new officers' uniforms. The women's dresses—you should've seen them! I danced with Ares—of was he Mars? I'm afraid I was a little giddy. And the beautiful bursts of light across the harbor, the roar of the cannons giving the men an excuse to put their arms around their frightened sweethearts

Annabeth looked sick. "You're talking about the beginning of the bloodiest war in US history. Over six hundred thousand people died—more Americans than in World War One and World War Two combined."

"And the refreshments!" Aphrodite continued. "Ah, they were divine. General Beauregard himself made an appearance. He was such a scoundrel. He was on his second wife, then, but you should have seen the way he looked at Lisbeth Cooper—"

"Mother!" Piper tossed her scone to the pigeons.

"Yes, sorry," the goddess said. "To make the story short, I'm here to help you, girls. I doubt you'll be seeing Hera much. Your little quest has hardly made her welcome in the throne room. And the other gods are rather indisposed, as you know, torn between their Roman and Greek sides. Some more than others." Aphrodite fixed her gaze on Annabeth. "I suppose you've told your friends about your falling out with your mother?"

Hazel and Piper looked at her curiously. Ariadne squeezed her hand beneath the table.

"Falling out?" Hazel asked.

"An argument," Annabeth said. "It's nothing."

"Nothing!" the goddess said. "Well, I don't know about that. Athena was the most Greek of all the goddesses. The patron of Athens, after all. When the Romans took over...oh, they adopted Athena after a fashion. She became Minerva, the goddess of crafts and cleverness. But the Romans had other war gods who were more to their taste, more reliably Roman—like Bellona—"

"Reyna's mom," Piper muttered.

"Yes, indeed," the goddess agreed. "I had a lovely talk with Reyna a while back, right here in the park. And the Romans had Mars? Of course. And later, there was Mithras—not even properly Greek or Roman, but the legionnaires were crazy about his cult. I always found him crass and terribly nouveau dieu, personally. At any rate, the Romans quite sidelined poor Athena. They took away most of her military importance. The Greeks never forgave the Romans for that insult. Neither did Athena."

"The Mark of Athena," Ariadne said. "It leads to a statue, doesn't it? It leads to...to the statue."

Aphrodite smiled. "You are clever "8&3 your mother. Understand, though, your siblings, the children of Athen, have been searching for centuries. None had succeeded in recovering the statue. In the meantime, they've been keeping alive the Greek feud with the Romans. Every civil war...so much bloodshed and heartbreak...has been orchestrated largely by Athena's children."

"That's..."

Ariadne pursed her lips. She knew the feeling of being haunted with a prophecy. Her mind was stuck on the truth of the Fates, her fingers looped together while grazing over the skin. There were scars across her palms and knuckles from the years of fighting.

"Romantic?" Aphrodite offered. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"But..." Annabeth looked confused. "The Mark of Athena, how does it work? Is it a series of clues, or a trail set by Athena—"

"Hmm." Aphrodite looked politely bored. "I couldn't say. I don't believe Athena created the Mark consciously. If she knew where the statue was, she'd simply tell you where to find it. No...I'd guess the Mark is more like a spiritual trail of bread crumbs. It's a connection between the statue and the children of the goddess. The statue wants to be found, you see, but it can only be freed by the most worthy."

"And for thousands of years," Annabeth said, "no one has managed."

"Hold on," Piper said. "What statue are we talking about?"

The goddess laughed. "Oh, I'm sure Annabeth can fill you in. At any rate, the clue you need is close by: a map of sorts, left by the children of Athena in 1862–a remembrance that will start you on your path, once you reach Tome. But as you said, Annabeth Chase, no one has ever succeeded in following the Mark of Athena to its end. There you will face your worst fear—the fear of every child of Athena. And even of you survive, how will you use your reward? For war or for peace?"

Annabeth's legs were trembling under the table. Ariadne fiddled with her necklace, not knowing what to say. It didn't seem right for her to cash in her own thoughts, not yet. Right now, this was for Annabeth, who was facing her own turmoil inside.

"The map," her best friend said, "where is it?"

"Guys!" Hazel pointed to the sky.

Circling above the palmetto trees were two large eagles. Higher up, descending rapidly, was a flying chariot pulled by Pegasi. Apparently Leo's diversion with Buford the end table hadn't worked—at least not for long.

Aphrodite spread butter on a muffin as if she had all the time in the world. "Oh, the map is at Fort Sumter, of course." She pointed her butter knife toward the island across the harbor. "It looks like the Romans have arrived to cut you off. I'd get back to your ship in a hurry if I were you."

Her pretty face drained at the sight of Ariadne standing up. Her eyebrows raised at the goddess.

"Ariadne," Aphrodite began, her voice shaking slightly, erasing her aura of ease. "You mustn't push yourself beyond the point. Lunacy, that sword of yours, was the only thing in this world harnessing your powers. Whether you believe it or not, the Olympians are watching you closely, don't make the wrong moves."

Her voice softened. "For your own sake, my dear, keep watch of what you do. Fate is not kind to those who choose to mess with its power."

Ariadne gulped down her words. She turned, walking away, leaving her friends to follow. Only Annabeth knowing what was happening.

They didn't make it to the ship.

Halfway across the dock, three giant eagles descended in front of them. Each deposited a Toman commando in purple and denim with glittering gold armor, sword, and shield. The eagles flew away, and the Roman in the middle, who was scrawnier than the others, raised his visor.

"Surrender to Rome!" Octavian shrieked.

Hazel drew her cavalry sword and grumbled, "Fat chance, Octavian."

Annabeth cursed under her breath.

Ariadne twisted her sword into her hand. It really got on her nerves she hadn't found a suitable name yet, but there was nothing that stuck so clearly in her mind.

Piper raised her hands in a placating gesture. "Octavian, what happened at camp was a setup. We can explain."

"Can't hear you!" Octavian yelled. "Wax in our ears—standard procedure when battling evil sirens. Now, throw down your weapons and turn around slowly so I can bind your hands."

Ariadne scowled. "Seriously? What part of me being the best fighter do you not get?"

The ship was fifty feet away. The eagles circled overhead, crying out as of to alert their brethren.

"Well?" Octavian demanded. His friends brandished their swords.

Ariadne made a show of moving her sword before launching it into the water, as far out as she could.

Octavian made a squeaking sound. "What was that for? I didn't say toss it! That could've been evidence. Of spoils of war!"

A grin crawled up her face while Annabeth sighed in relief. "Oh, sorry, Octavian. Have you met my secret weapon?"

Before he could speak, a large wave appeared, and in it, her grin grew.

The girl would never let herself be captured. Not if her life depended on it.

authors note:

This is like two weeks late I'm so sorry

I've been so busy and ahhhhhh

Work has been good but ya know I'm tired half the time

I still hate school and my Ap test is on the 6. I'm so scared but ya know, can't have all the confidence.

Also, someone I work with is so attractive it scares me and we joke around and I can't because he has a GIRLFRIEND PLEASE ITS SO BAD FOR ME TO FEEL THIS WAY

Anyways. Hope you all are doing well

Q: so like, the Tartarus situation—who you want in there? I have an idea but I just wanna see what you all think! Also, tell me why you want to happen down there
A: secrets! But I do want you all to see more of Ariadne's powers come to light

Hope you all are okay!

Comment below your favorite parts and what you're excited for

Love you guys!