Warning: Spoilers throughout the Heroes of Olympus, up to and including the Mark of Athena
Of Fire and Flame
Prologue
It starts with a baby in a fire.
The child is tan, with just the barest shock of dark curly hair on his head. His eyes are shut, sleeping peacefully as the sparks dance around him.
There is an old woman, wrinkled and haggard. She is singing a lullaby. The words are ancient; they might be a blessing or a curse.
They might be both.
The door opens suddenly and a woman rushes in screaming. The baby is snatched from the fire. He stares up at the woman with large brown eyes, curious and unafraid.
The old woman smiles underneath her ragged hood. The mother spins around to face her, eyes blazing with anger. She screams something in Spanish.
The old woman's eyes are cold when they stare back at her - cold and calculating and merciless.
The old woman vanishes and the mother falls onto the floor, crying as she cradles her baby to her chest.
Her poor baby, her little lion… what a fate she has doomed him to.
-0-0-0-
A few weeks later, the mother brings the baby to see his great-grandfather – the near-legendary Sammy Valdez. Her own grandfather, who had jiggled her when she herself was a toddler and taught her the secrets of engineering, now held her child in his frail embrace.
When grandfather locks eyes with her mijo, a strange mist films his eyes. He starts blabbering about a girl, Hazel, and how her baby must keep his promise for him. Esperanza is scared, terrified, because it shows her things about her child's future which she would rather never know. Her lion belongs in another world, she knows, but he is her baby. He belongs with her.
She hopes, guiltily because her grandfather is obviously enamoured with the idea, that her Leo never meets this Hazel girl. A sinking feeling in her gut tells her that it will bring no good to either party.
Eventually, grandfather calms down and hands the baby back to her. For a second, she sees a vision of a diamond in his palm which sinks into Leo's skin. She stumbles back, clutching her child to her chest. She is white in fear.
Her grandfather doesn't notice, just continues to stare vacantly into space.
She runs out of the door.
Later, her sister Rosa calls and tells her that grandfather is dead.
-0-0-0-
Many strange incidents occur throughout her and Leo's life. That woman, Hera or Tia Callida as she would like to be known in that form, visits several more times.
She doesn't like it, wants to throw the goddess out of the door, possibly with aid of a boot, but manages to restrain herself. She wonders what trouble you could get into by kicking the Queen of the Gods. Maybe she would be turned into a peacock, or a cow, or some other animal.
Well, Hephaestus would probably appreciate the idea anyway.
She keeps silent when Tia comes by, usually because she doesn't have the faintest inkling when she does. She usually drops Leo off with a neighbor to be looked after, because a machine shop full of sharp and dangerous machines isn't a place for toddler, not even a child of Hephaestus. When he's older, certainly, but not yet.
But somehow, even when she drops him off at Miguel's, watches him settle down there peacefully, knows that Miguel will keep a proper eye on her little mijo…
She still returns to find Leo back at home with Tia Callida doing… something again.
There were the chilies, which had Leo off jalapeños for weeks…
There were several more instances of the fire crib, although that had managed to become an almost normalcy.
Leo was immune to fire, a gift. It terrified the hell out of her.
Then when he was five, he seared the impression of his hands into a wooden table. He had been on fire – her baby had been on fire.
She had stifled a scream of horror. She rushed up, scooped him into his arms and made him promise not to do that ever again. Fire was a dangerous tool. When he was older. When he was older.
It was her mantra. When he was older he would do so much… but to her, he would never be old enough.
She had taken him to the machine shop the next day.
She had to keep an eye on him, so that Tia would not take him away just yet.
Or never, if she could manage it.
But on the edges of her vision, she sees the possibilities. The Mist twists aside for her, a strange mortal gift. Hephaestus had mused that she may be a mortal seer. A weak one, but the power was there, he had declared.
It was a curse.
She knew she would die in a fire, and that wasn't the worst of it all.
-0-0-0-
Three years pass with almost no incident. She catches sight of monsters, but they seem not to notice her or Leo. Hephaestus had promised his child one more gift, aside from the power of fire. He had said that this one would face too much hardship already – at least he would be masked from monsters.
She had screamed at him for that. What hardships? Why couldn't a god stop it?
Hephaestus had just stared at her sadly and tinkered with some mechanisms - a leaping lion which burst into flames.
She never got her answer.
But yes, three years of peace have managed to lull her into a sense of almost tranquility. She thinks that maybe her future isn't as it seems. Her visions have been wrong before; the future is ever mutable after all.
Her little boy is growing up so fast. He was a wonder with tools, unsurprisingly, but she thinks that he may be the greatest of all- what with being Hephaestus' favored child and everything.
His mind is amazing. The doctors and teachers can say what they like about his ADHD (oh, she knows about that far too well) but her baby is brilliant. He will be the world's greatest engineer one day, she can feel it.
(There is a sphere dancing in her child's palm, a warship flying in flames… a sacrifice for a laughing goddess.)
And the best part about her baby is how he tries to keep things upbeat for her sake. He has so many jokes, both truly funny or funnily lame, and they never fail to make her laugh. He is a character, her boy.
She thinks that maybe they can avoid their future.
She is wrong.
She dies with a sleeping earth goddess taunting her, laughing cruelly and telling her that her baby will fall because of this.
She has slated her child for misery.
Her scream is swallowed up in flames.
She will die in a fire.
The future will come true.
-0-0-0-
Esperanza Valdez dies in a fire at the age of 32, leaving behind an 8 year old child. Mysterious circumstances surround the machine shop fire. The child was found strangely unharmed, although he was unconcious in the center of the wreakage. Arson is a possibilty...
She gets two short paragraphs in the paper, and the life of Esperanza Valdez ends.
Her child's life begins.
-0-0-0-0-0-
A/N
I've just read the Mark of Athena and the sacrifice line wouldn't leave me. I think there's more to it than that.
But seriously, Rick Riordan, you are horrible. That is the worst cliffhanger in the history of the world. Why do you do this to us? A year! A year before we find out what happens next!
I want Percy and Annabeth back now...
Anyway, hopefully you liked this.
The rest of the story will be from Leo's PoV.
Probably.
~FO