Havoc - Piper McLean

26: Definitely not Snow White

| definitely not snow white |

—Piper woke at a table at a sidewalk café.

For a second, she thought she was still dreaming. It was a sunny morning. The air was brisk but not unpleasant for sitting outside. At the other tables, a mix of bicyclists, business people, and college kids sat chatting and drinking coffee.

She could smell eucalyptus trees. Lots of foot traffic passed in front of quaint little shops. The street was lined with bottle-brush trees and blooming azaleas as if winter was a foreign concept.

In other words: she was in California.

Her friends sat in chairs around her—all of them with their hands calmly folded across their chests, dozing pleasantly. And they all had new clothes on. Piper looked down at her own outfit and gasped. "Mother!"

She yelled louder than she meant. Jason flinched, bumping the table with his knees, and then all of them were awake.

"What?" Hedge demanded. "Fight who? Where?"

"Falling!" Leo grabbed the table. "No—not falling. Where are we?"

"Fuck me, was the Aeolus thing a dream?" Camilla rubbed her eyes.

Jason blinked, trying to get his bearings. He focused on Piper and made a little choking sound. "What are you wearing?"

Piper probably blushed. She was wearing an orange and pink flannel shirt over a white tshirt with black comfortable jeans and black leather boots. She had on her favorite silver charm bracelet, even though she'd left that back home in L.A. She pulled out Katoptris, and judging from the reflection in the blade, she'd gotten her hair done, too.

"It's nothing," she said. "It's my—" She remembered Aphrodite's warning not to mention that they'd talked. "It's nothing."

Leo grinned. "Aphrodite strikes again, huh? Plus you could probably make a trash bag look fashionable, Pipes."

"Hey, Valdez." Camilla nudged his arm. "You look at yourself recently?"

"What... oh."

All of them had been give a makeover. Leo was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat.

"God, Leo." Piper tried not to laugh. "I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt."

"Hey, shut up!"

"I think he looks good," said Coach Hedge. "'Course, I look better."

The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate.

Jason was wearing jeans and a clean purple t-shirt— the one he'd worn at the Grand Canyon. He had new track shoes on and his hair seemed trimmed. But Piper glossed over him to look at Camilla. 

She wore a black t-shirt with three hearts— pink, purple and blue, and her dad's leather jacket that Piper had been wearing, was back on her. She wore baggy jeans cuffed at the bottom and converse shoes. 

Her hair was done down in two dutch braids which made Piper realize she had rarely seen the hair pulled away from Camilla's face. 

After the dream she'd had and the talk with her mom, Camilla staring right back at her was the last thing she needed.