Happiness is a curse as it leads you astray.

Just ask Reyna. She was happy once when she was younger. Her sister Hylla was her best friend, her sister—almost to the point of a lover, but not quite

And then they left home. Their father died, and mother was sick. She simply did not have money to support them anymore and Reyna couldn't understand why. Only eleven, she watched her home get smaller and smaller until it was a speck of dust on the horizon.

They found the boats tied up on the shore. Hylla called it borrowing. Reyna called it stealing. The expression on the old farmer's face broke her heart she dragged the boat away from the shore.

She promised she would never steal again.

It was good thing she had never known about the River Styx, because a year later they were lost and hungry and utterly alone. She found herself sneaking into an abandoned house and picking out the supplies they needed.

"It's unfair," she complained one night as they were preparing to sleep. The ground was hard and cold against her back and her bones ached from the frost.

"Life isn't fair," Hylla replied, smiling but not quite.

Maybe it was a god blessing them for once in their life or maybe it was just pure luck, but the next day they stumbled upon an island. It was a glorious island with green grass and trees and lovely, lovely buildings that she hadn't seen for such a long time.

"Praise the gods," Hylla cried throwing herself to her knees and the attendant smiled down at her, her face crinkled with amusement but dainty and sweet.

"Oh praise the gods indeed," she laughed. "Come. We have shelter and we have food. Seems like you need it."

Hylla was suspicious, but Reyna couldn't see how this woman could be evil. They followed reluctantly. Immediately they were led to a small room with flowers decorating the corners. Gold was gilded onto the walls, and clothes were draped over the edges of the bed.

It was Elysium.

A bath ran behind a curtain. Water smoothed from the pipe and trickled into a basin, and Reyna smiled for the first time in weeks.

The attendant led them to her mistress, Circe the sorceress. She promised she would teach them the art of magic because to her, magic was the only way a woman could ever be powerful. And in the biased world of Rome? Reyna couldn't help but agree.

Lesson started the next day.

Magic was everything Circe promised. Reyna felt powerful for the first time since she left home. But she never ever she never once thought of what became the men who stumbled upon their home, why she never saw a man the whole of her stay.

She never pondered.

Everything changed when those two arrived. The girl with curly blond hair and stormy Grey eyes she desperately wanted to have—the boy with black hair and sea green eyes that captured her attention immediately. Everything changed.

The way they leaned on each other, the way they supported each other—she wanted that. She wanted them to be safe. She wanted them to never endure what she had. But from the crazed, almost wary look in their eyes, she knew they already had.

Reyna brushed the girl's hair, which was golden like the purest gold. She never knew what happened to the boy. Circe always said that boys deserved for special treatment.

Reyna didn't know what it was, but found she didn't want to find out.

And then there was the clatter, a screaming coming from the hall. She rushed out the door, Hylla at her heels and the instant they burst into the room chaos erupted.

"You stupid, stupid girl," Circe screamed, pointing a finger at the blonde-haired girl. The girl knocked the cap off a bottle and poured it inside the cage of Guinea pigs, and suddenly it exploded. Men streamed out, furious.

"No!" Circe lunged forward, but it was too late. They chased after her, and that was the last sight Reyna ever had of her mistress.

"It's okay," Her sister told her, holding her shivering body close. But Reyna knew nothing would ever be okay. The woman she had looked up to as a mother and her sister was gone, and the only thing she wanted with revenge against the two who destroyed her home.

The pirates came a week later, screaming and yelling with their clubs and swords. She gave herself into them, knowing there was nothing she could do. Her only weapon was her voice and without Circe, that too was gone.

They were brutal.

She watched them slaughter men like they were nothing but pigs beneath their hands. She watched, disgusted, as they flirted with woman and were violent if they didn't get what they wanted.

This life...it was worse than her old life. She found herself wishing that she never ended up at Circe's Island.

She learned to use a weapon by watching the pirates train. Their skills were brutal but they were all she had. A day after she started the Mark of the goddess Bellona appeared over her head. Cautious, she had gone to her sister.

They both had identical marks.

She dismissed it as nothing unusual and continued training. Somehow it was easier for her like some deity was helping them. The Pirates grew to respect her for her sharp tongue and for her knowledge.

The day she was set free was the day she swore she would never again use magic.

Hylla wanted to join the Amazons. Reyna wanted to join camp Jupiter. They argued for days and days, but both knew be a safer option to go their separate ways.

But neither of them could let go of their sibling.

So they stay together. They didn't join either group. But despite Reyna's protests, she wasn't happy. She wanted to be a Roman, a Roman that fought for civilization. Hylla didn't want that.

In the end, they still went their separate ways.

When Reyna arrived at Camp Jupiter, all she could think about was her sister. How was she? Was she doing well? Did the Amazons accept her? The questions dwelled on her mind until they were all she could think about. The Praetor, Casey took her side one dinner and asked her if something was wrong.

"No," she answered, but inside her mind she screamed 'yes.'

She was promoted a year later. Leaping through the ranks was too easy for her, and quickly she accelerated until she was the second Praetor. The day she received her cape, she swelled with pride.

A lingering thought in the back of her mind wished Hylla was here to see it.

The legion flourished. Everything changed for her, and she allowed herself to believe that maybe things weren't always bad. Jason Grace, her fellow praetor, was the best friend she ever had, and she was happy.

She shouldn't have been. A week later, he disappeared. She searched for days and days on end, but came up empty handed every time. It was like he'd mysteriously disappeared from the face of the planet, and she began to wonder if he'd deserted the Legion.

That's impossible, she reassured herself, but the tears kept coming.

Then he showed up. With that familiar sarcastic smile and those stunning green eyes, he stumbled across the border carrying the goddess Juno in his arms. And for a moment, that old fury welled up inside her again.

The only thing that stopped her from killing him on the spot was the confused look on his face.

She brought him into the office, sitting down. Infuriatingly, she still found him attractive, even after all he did. Her face heated embarrassingly and she turned away to shield her cheeks.

His story was common, she supposed, except for one thing—he didn't have memory. "You mean you don't remember how you blew up my home?" she wanted to ask, but he glanced at her as if she was a stranger.

He was even more sarcastic than he looked, but she found it amusing.

'I will not fall for him,' she scolded herself that night. 'Not after what happened with Jason.'

Then he reunited her with Hylla, and she was so happy…

No. No. No. It was too late and it was happening and she couldn't stop it….she was in love with Percy Jackson.

He was Greek.

The boy she loved was Greek. The sworn enemy of the Romans, but Reyna found she didn't care. She liked him all the same. Then she found he had a girlfriend, the same girlfriend that had blown up Reyna's home alongside him, and she was furious.

She wasn't furious at him. She was furious at his girlfriend, who cast her suspicious glances from the corner of her eye.

Annabeth didn't trust her. Reyna knew that, but it was still infuriating, like having an annoying insect clinging to your arm. And she wanted Percy to be hers, especially when Jason climbed off the ship holding hands with the girl named Piper.

What happened to us? She wanted to scream, but instead she clenched her teeth and forced a fake, fake smile. Then he'd come and introduced them, and she hastily excused herself before she pulled a Percy and blew something up.

She liked Annabeth more than Piper in that moment.

Jason wasn't the same. She talked with him, still, but he wasn't the Jason she'd grown to love. In appearances he was identical, but he was more Greek, more laid back. Like he didn't care to follow rules anymore.

On Percy it was tolerable. On Jason, it was a stab in the heart.

He hadn't remembered her.

Percy had remembered Annabeth. The way he described her, the way he smiled at her—he remembered her, all right. So why couldn't Jason remember her?

Because you weren't important enough, the little voice inside her head chirped. That's why. Angrily she shoved it away, but they haunted her. She couldn't stand to look at Jason.

If her life was a movie, the crowd would be weeping.

The Giant war lasted so much longer than she thought it would, but afterwards the tension dissipated. She had been so relaxed that day that she'd dared to slip to the baths, something she hadn't done since Hazel had iris messaged her there.

It was there that she saw him.

Percy was sitting at the edge of the baths, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. The material was perfectly dry, and as she slipped inside, she suddenly felt exposed.

Unconsciously she slid closer to him.

"It isn't the same, is it?"

His voice was hollow and dull, deprived of its usual sarcasm and dry humor. It was like a turtle stripped of its shell, and Reyna found herself missing it.

"No," She admitted. "No, it isn't." He was right. Jason was with Piper, but neither was happy. Hazel was with Frank, but Frank and Leo had developed a sort of jealousy. Annabeth was suspicious of her and her of Annabeth.

The war had left them damaged in more ways than just physical.

"I used to love water."

The 'used' that hung in the air was stifling. "I mean, I still like it," He continued, brushing his fingers across the top of the water. It responded, leaping into peaks at his touch. "But there's this fear, this fear of drowning that shouldn't be there. It's…it's not right."

She didn't know what to say.

"I guess it's the same with you." Her head jerked up. "Look, I know you like me," he continued on, despite the shade of red her face was turning. "And I know you see the way Annabeth looks at you. And I know you like Jason, too, and you see the way Piper looks at you. But I also know that you're strong, and you're a warrior, and you can move on. Am I right?"

She swallowed. He was right. But she didn't want to move on. It was her life, and no matter how badly it turned out, she wanted to keep it.

"Right," the words tasted bitter. "Right."

He smiled, the first real one in weeks. "Don't choose, Reyna. I had to choose between Greek and Roman once upon a time. Jason chose—he chose the Greeks. I chose both. And yet, neither of us are fully content. Don't choose, and maybe you will be happier."

So finally, Reyna allowed herself to be led astray by happiness. She floated away with the tide.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I do not own PJO.

~Johanna